Yongseo Pokpo

I am one of the least outdoorsy people who likes outdoorsy kind of stuff.

I should probably be more clear with that. If you took ALL the people that I've been rock climbing with over the past few months - heck, maybe 80-90% of the people I've been hanging out with for the last year - and left us all out in the woods, I'm the least likely to survive. (okay, I'd probably SURVIVE, but it wouldn't be pretty).

It isn't that I don't LIKE being outdoors - I do - but I also really like indoor plumbing, my bed, and coffee makers.

So today was a significant nod to a greater commitment to doing outdoorsy kind of stuff: I bought a sleeping bag. To most, this sounds silly. But with both the harness (which isn't here yet, so it isn't real) and the sleeping bag, I've now invested in STUFF, and so when it seems like I am actually getting WORSE (another Saturday of inch,fall,inch,fall,inch,fall,inch,fall,inch,fall,inch,fall,DAMNIT, and never really actually getting on the damn wall) I have all the basics except shoes, so quitting now would be dumb. And I wouldn't get a chance to use my new sleeping bag.

On the up side, I think that at least I'm decent on belay, in part because I feel like it is such a huge responsibility that it sort of scares the crap out of me and therefore I'm super-duper, please-triple-check-me contentious about the whole thing.

Okay, I'm stewing about this. I really am pretty frustrated about struggling as much as I am right now. And while people are nice and point out some logic (beginner, hard part, blah), it still bugs me.

One of the nice things was that a couple folks from the Korean climbing club in my town were at the site and they remember me - as in, remembered my name - from the couple times I took the bus over to the climbing wall (about 30-40 minutes away) and were very, very nice.