I should be a negotiator

Seriously, I feel clever as of right now.

So here's the thing, my trip to Korea in April is just not going happen. Just simply put, not going happen. I'll now explain what the crap is going on:

Well, as several people now know, I got employed by CallTech, a company that handles telecommunications for companies. In short, I'm tech support now.

Now, that's all good, but that still was going to put me on a very tight budget on my trip. I really needed a second job.

In January, Meijer called me, and after looking over my application, they wanted to interview me. Well, I went in, and all they did was have me sign a background check form. That's all I heard. I wound up calling back soon after, and the department that wanted me had its funding cut, and therefore my application was put back at the top of the pile.

Again, that's all I hear.

I kid you not, THE Friday of the week I got on with Calltech, I was getting ready to leave, and got a phone call from Meijer wanted me for a job as a stockboy on their morning shift. Since I work nights at Calltech, that sounds great. I'm gonna be hurting for sleep until the weekend, but whatever.

That night, after I got home from work, I call Hyunsil to lay on the good news. And man, is she happy. She gushed over this info for quite a lot of the phone call. And...so was I. It was big news. I was finally going to get to go to Korea to see her.

Saturday. I'm online at about 9PM, and she jumps online, and tells me she's filling out her visa application to come over here to visit (forgot to say this, and it's important: she told me on the phone Friday night that she wants to come here in July). Well, that's dandy! Then comes the shocker. "My place may be too small, I don't know if you can come in April....blah blah blah...I'm going to go meet some friends, I have to go."

WTF?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Seriously, she has known about this place for one month. And all last night, she was ecstatic about me coming. Now she's not so sure that I can come?

Well, working two jobs, I'm going to be safe on money. So I write her off an e-mail later saying, "Look, if you still want me to come in April, I should have enough money to stay in a hotel if I have to. Just let me know."

MONDAY: I get home from work, and she's online. So we start talking, she asks me how work was, then hits me with this: "You can't come in April. My place is definitely too small. All my friends agree. Call me Saturday afternoon (her time, not mine)."

Now granted, I'm talking too, but WHAT IN THE WORLD?! In 72 hours, she's gone from not being able to wait for me to be there, to now she doesn't want me to come? This makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever.

So I had of course chalked this up into the whatever file and put it away, moved on, and just thought, "whatever happens, happens." I also quit Meijer, because, quite frankly, what's the point? If I'm not going to get to go to Korea, which was the reason I needed that job in the first place, why should I exhaust myself at both these jobs?

So then last night I write up that blog about the bass to cheer me up (which, considering I'm not going in April, is going to be purchased). Also that night, I was talking to a friend, who has heard the whole scenario since the beginning of last summer, and told her the entire thing. And she couldn't make any sense out of, either. Thank God I wasn't the only one.

But I said this to her, and this is very memorable: "I guarantee you, she'll have changed her mind when I call her."

I shut down my computer and go to bed. I wake up to find that she didn't even wait until Saturday to tell me so.

I log into my Gmail, and there sits an e-mail from her, telling me to come in April, only a shorter period of time, and I'm staying somewhere else, like a motel or something. Where have I heard this before?

NOW I'm frustrated! This is worse than Ross Perot's 1992 Presidential Campaign! So I'm frustrated, and my mind thinks up all these messed up scenarios like:

1. What if I book the ticket, and then the week before I'm supposed to get there, she cancels again, and I'm now stuck with a worthless $1200 ticket?
2. What if I make it there, and she never shows up to pick me up from the airport, and I'm then stuck in a country where I know very little of the language, know really no one other than her, and am just miserable the whole trip because what I've waited for 5 years for got flushed down the toilet?
3. What if she just wants me there to see "what it's like to be with a white guy," and then shafts me afterward? (Yes, my mind thinks this stuff up, and other people say "this is a valid reasoning.")

Oh, but don't worry. I wasn't planning on actually doing it. I mean, come on, man! First off, I had already said it would be a pinch if I was going on just one job's salary STAYING WITH HER. So there's no possible way I could book even a cheapo motel for 15 days.

But, I'm supposed to call her Saturday. I told her I would. So at midnight here, I pick up the phone and call, knowing it'd be around 2PM there. First thing out of her mouth was, "Did you get my e-mail?" I fibbed and said no. So then she explained the whole thing to me. So I dropped the bomb about quitting Meijer.

"Why?"

Um...duh? You told me not to come. What's the point of working two jobs for the sole purpose of guaranteeing I'd be there if I'm not going to, you know, be there?

So then she asks about my passport, which is the money I'm going to be using to buy my bass. So I told her I bought a bass with it. Yeah, still fibbing, but hey, I'm still buying it, so what's the point?

Again, she asks why. So I explain it again. And then I make mention of how confusing she's made it, since sometimes she wants me there, sometimes she doesn't.

So then I asked, "Do you really want me to come?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Well....um, I really want to see you, and try to figure us out."

So then I thought of something. The visa.

So I bring up the fact that as far as I remembered, she was still planning on coming here this summer. Which she confirms. So I bring up a new idea:

She comes here, then after her trip is done, we can go back together. Which she thinks is a wonderful idea.

So thus ends the problem. This is open-ended. Do I, at the present moment, believe that she will seriously come here? No, I don't. Am I prepared to keep up my end of the bargain if she does? Yeah. If she proves this, then yeah, I'm ready to do it.

But right, now, I have no clue what's going on with her. I just know I defused this entire situation.