Starry Night

one

Spontaneity is overrated. Movies and TV shows would like us to believe that life is better for partygoers who dare to jump into pools with their clothes on. But behind the scenes, it's all carefully scripted. The water is the right temperature. Lighting and angles are carefully considered. Dialogue is memorized. And that's why it looks so appealing - because someone carefully planned it all. Once you realize this, life gets a whole lot simpler. Mine did.

I am a hard-core planner, and I don't care who knows it.

I believe in schedules, routines, calendars, bullet lists in graph-paper journals, and best-laid plans. The kind of  plans that don't go away, because they're made with careful consideration of all possibilities and outcomes. No winging it, no playing things by ear. That's how disasters happen.

But not for me. I make blueprints for my life and stick to them. Take, for example, summer break. School starts back in three weeks, and before I turn eighteen and embark on my senior year, this is my blueprint for the rest of the summer:

Plan one: Two morning each week, work at my parents' business, WYWS Clinic. I fill in at the front desk for their normal receptionist, who's taking a summer course at Kirin College in Daejeon. Eomma's an acupuncturist and appa is a massage therapist, and they own the clinic together. This means that instead of flipping burgers and being yelled at by random strangers outside a drive-through window, I get to work in a Zen-like reception area, where  can keep everything perfectly organized and know exactly which clients are scheduled to walk through the door. No surprises, no drama. Predictable, just the way I like it.

Plan two: Take pictures of the upcoming Perseid meteor shower with my astronomy club. Astronomy is my life. Stars, planets, moons, and all things space. Future NASA astrophysicist, right here.

Plan three: Avoid any and all contact with our neighbors, the Jeon family.

These three things all seemed perfectly possible until five minutes ago. Now my summer plans are standing on shaky grounds, because eomma is trying to talk me into going camping.

Camping. Me.

Look, I know nothing about the Great Outdoors. I'm not even sure I like being outside. Seems to me, society has progressed far enough that we should be able to avoid things like fresh air and sunlight. If I want to see wild animals, I'll watch a documentary on TV.

Eomma knows this. But right now she's trying really hard to sell me on some sort of nature-is-good idealism while I'm sitting behind our clinic's front desk. And sure, she's always preaching about the benefits of natural health and vegetarianism, but now she's waxing poetic about the beauty of the great country of South Korea, and what a "singular opportunity" it would be for me to experience the wilderness before schools starts.

"Be honest. "Can you really picture me camping?" I ask her, tucking dark locks behind my ears.

"No camping, Suzy," she says. "Mrs. Kim is inviting you to go glamping." Dressed in tunic scrubs embroidered with the clinic's logo, she leans across the front desk and talks in an excited, hushed voice about the wealthy client who's currently relaxing on an acupuncture table in the back rooms, enjoying the dated yet healing sounds of Ina, patron saint of alternative health clinics around the world.

"Glamping," I repeat, skeptical.

"Mrs. Kim says they have reservations for these luxury tents in the Highlands, somewhere between Queen's Forest and Apsan National Park," Eomma explains. "Glamorous camping. Get it? Glamping."

"You keep saying that, but I still don't know what it means," I tell her. "How can a tent be luxurious? Aren't you sleeping on rocks?"

Eomma leans closer to explain. "Mrs. Kim and her husband got a last-minute invitation to a colleague's wedding, and they have to cancel their camping trip. They have a reservation for a fancy tent. This glamping compound -"