One Bad Apple

When you are a blogger who shares the ins and outs of your life, you have to be prepared for both the positive, supportive responses and also the negative, demeaning ones. You learn to take one with the other and grow thick skin. For me, the fact that I have a blog being paired with the fact that Brian is a professional athlete only adds further judgement.

I’m a sports fan so I understand getting fed up with losing seasons (I went through over a decade of them being an Orioles fan!) and with wanting to blame the easiest target or the worst performing player but some people truly are ruthless.

Since we have been here in Korea, a multitude of Eagles fans have come across my blog and for all of the positive feedback there has been the fair share of awful, criticizing feedback as well.  I’ve done my best to respond in the most mature manner possible, ignore some of the rude, childish my-baseball-team-is-losing-because-of-Brian and ignorant comments but they definitely have affected my time here in Korea.

Like take this mornings charmer of a comment….

From…

At first I planned to delete the comment and move past it like the majority of the other unnecessarily rude ones but that wouldn’t make me 100% honest about my overall time and experience here and I’m not one to just sugar-coat the truth, smile and nod and pretend life is one big bowl of cherries.  That being said, I wanted to share the bread-winning comment so that this lovely human being got the credit they are so badly yearning for and so that others could see the intended hurtful words being slung at us.

I know not everyone has these feelings or the audacity to actually comment on a public blog citing them and we definitely have felt the support from many other Eagles fans, employees and team members however, I cannot lie and say that waking up to this comment today hasn’t made me wish that our last days here in Daejeon go by in a hurry.

You know what they say…

….one bad apple can ruin a bunch

And So It Goes

If you have been following LoveEatRun for at least a few months now, you know that back in January, Brian signed a contract with a professional baseball team in Daejeon, Korea. Together we made the decision that I would quit my job and make the move around the world with him. He started his Korean career off with spring training in Arizona that continued in Japan and then made his way to South Korea where I met him here in Daejeon.

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Unfortunately, the season did not start off on a good note for him and after a bad start in his first outing, he was sent to the minor leagues to get acclimated to Asian baseball. Throughout his stint with the minor leagues, he started 4 games, threw 27 innings and had a win/loss record of 2-1 with one no decision.

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After over a month of playing in the minor leagues, with no other big league chance, the Eagles decided yesterday to release him. We are currently waiting out the seven day waiver timeline (in which another Korean team has the opportunity to claim him) before closing this chapter of our baseball life and heading back home to our family and friends.

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When a professional sport is your career, you always know that situations can change in the blink of an eye. A designation, a release, a trade, an injury…it only takes one instant decision and you could be on a new path in your career.

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We are thankful for the opportunity that we were given for Brian to play baseball here in Korea and we are walking away from these few months with a life experience not many others can say they had and for that we will always be grateful.  We had some ups and downs while here in Korea but met some great people along the way that we will always remember.

We are looking forward to the next chapter in our life and are hopeful that this crazy game of baseball that we call life still has more in store for us ahead.

A Glimpse of Camden

My parents, sister and brother-in-law all went to the Orioles game last night (or this morning for those of you in the same time zone as me!) and Katie actually video chatted me from the game.

Yes, my sister was that girl holding her iPhone up while I watched a couple pitches of the game with them.

It was so nice to chat with my whole family together, to catch a glimpse of my old stomping ground (not to mention my favorite baseball stadium) and to see some of the familiar faces of past employees and co-workers.

Not to mention, I would have killed for a bite of Katie’s soft pretzel!

I’m already excited for June 9th – my first game back at the Yard!! 🙂

And since chatting with them and watching the rest of the game via MLB Gameday took up my morning…I’m off to actually focus on studying now!

Lotte with the Win

Yesterday afternoon we decided to take a little cab ride to Lotte Department Store to see if we could find black beans. Oh you know, checking out the local mall for black beans – nothing my day hadn’t already started out revolving around! 🙂

I had a feeling we were going to get successful there and that feeling was right. Lotte Department Store with the win!

They are now sold out of black beans! 😉

However, I sent this guy off to his game this morning about as happy as a clam with his burrito bowl packed in his new lunch cooler.

Go get ’em, Tiger! Er, I mean Eagle!!

Breakfast

I started my day off with a big, clean bowl of oats topped with banana slices, cinnamon, honey and raisins.

Since B will be gone for the majority of the day, it’s a full-out study day for me which means I’m heading off to hit the books early. I plan to fit in a workout break along the way to restart my energy after a few hours of reading and writing!

Question:

Is it easier for you study with no one else around or can you study with background noise?