About This Blog

To quote John Steinbeck:

” The direction of a big act will warp history, but probably all acts do the same in their degree, down to a stone stepped over in the path, or a breath caught at sight of a pretty girl, or a fingernail nicked in the garden soil.”

I want to say that this is the blog, essentially. To catch these moments and to write about them in our own unique perspectives. Foster and I both have our own, which is the inspiration for our blog name: Idealist and Realist.

Foster and I have decided to begin this blog now, as we are newly weds beginning a new adventure. We are transitioning our life from the States to South Korea. This is in hopes of paying our (my) student debt, while also traveling, discovering, and falling in love with people, stories and all-in-all experience, again. We shall see. Before this, we were working as Mentor Instructors at a Wilderness Program. Full-time backpackers and what we like to call specialized and highly glorified “baby-sitters” for a teenage high-risk population. 24 hours, 8 days a week therapy assistants, every other week. It was intense. It was hard. It was at times rewarding. At the end of it, we were better people, by far. We were also suffering exhaustion of hearing life story, of giving advice, of building deep relationship.

This is our time to rekindle. We will do so in the province of Nowon, a suburb of Seoul. We will be 2 of Nowon’s 600,000 people, and of the greater Seoul’s 10.5 million. We will be adrift in a sea of story, sink or swim.

Highest hopes,

Ashley