Highlights of my Day... Friday, May 30

1. Surprised even myself today when I decided to wear my flat dress shoes to school today. I don’t really care for flat shoes cause, well, I’m short enough as it is and having students tower over me feels kind of strange. I blame their height on all those veggies and kimchi they eat. I blame my shortness on being Polish. Regardless, I wore my new shoes.

2. Seriously considered going home to change shoes in between class after way too many students told me I looked like a Japanese student. Not too sure where they got that idea but with my 3/4 length dress pants, flouncy white blouse and pearly shoes, I went from being 27 to looking like I was more like 16.

3. There’s a particular young Korean professor (or administration staff… not sure) here on campus that keeps on saying hi to me. I usually see him once or twice a week, as I rush off to class across campus. Not too sure what the deal is with him and I’m not too sure if he knows I’m a professor here or thinks I’m a student. Anyways, I saw him, Mr. Smiles as I’ll call him from now on, while in one of the campus stores. I was buying banana milk when he spotted me. He swung into the store to pick up some coffee and then he ended up buying me my milk. “You many banana milk drink!” and then he left. How does he know I like banana milk? Maybe he was just making short conversation, I don’t know. Very strange.

4. My last period class has this ongoing sarcastic joke and they love using this one-liner, “Not funny Michelle” and what’s so funny is that they say it with such a good poker face and so it always causes me to burst out in laughter.

5. Koreans always say “dae” in conversations but about a month or so ago I taught them the English equivalent, “uh-huh”, and it’s like they can’t get enough of it… hehehe. They seem to find it highly amusing and so they try to use it every chance possible, or so it seems.

Me: Did you enjoy festival week?
Class: Uh-huh.
Me: Did you bring your textbooks today?
Class: Uh-huh.
Me: … and your homework?
Class: Uh-huh.

I caught on pretty quick and so I amused myself by asking some fun questions.

Me: Did you miss me last week?
Class: Uh-huh.
Me: Are you going to buy me lunch?
Class: no answer
Me: Uh-huh?!!

6. Have you ever had one of those nights when you just feel so in love with everything, like everything is just so perfect?! The way people say your name, the way your clothes feel, the sights and smells around you, the looks on passer-byers, the incredible good mood that has seemingly taken priority over everything inside your body?!... tonight I had one of these nights.

7. Honestly, I wasn’t too keen on going to the boxing party tonight. I usually end up being the only girl, which, many think is great, but it means the Boxing Commission members at the dinner bombard me with questions, attention and force me to sit at their table. Their table, where none of my other team mates want to join me cause it’s all the top dogs and older men. Thank God Junior Mint sits with them cause he’s my only comfort at the table. Initially, I had wanted to go training instead but Junior Mint had made it impossible for me to train tonight by closing the club extra early. Q swung by to pick me up and as I approached the front doors of my building, there stood a man with his back to me. He was all dressed-up in business clothes, blocking the doors. When I got nearer to him, he turned around. It was Q. Wow. He’s definitely evolving into quite the real life Prince Charming. At work he wears very casual clothes but he said he raced home and changed into something nice for me…. wow. Yup, I’m for sure going to marry this guy. I may not being any kind of fairytale princess by any means but I’d be mental to let this Prince Charming get away! Ya… I am definitely not a princess. God knows even my arms don’t fit into those princess dresses… it’s true… ask my dry cleaners. The other day I ripped the lining in a super expensive silk jacket cause I thought it’d be funny to flex. Ya… not funny!

8. It was nice to see Sae Too Gee at the boxing dinner party tonight. I’ve been trying to encourage the other boxers to extent friendship to him in hopes that when he returns to Japan, he’ll have fond memories of Korea. There were 28 of us, 26 guys and 2 of us girls. I had come late and so I wasn’t able to sit beside Sae Too Gee but I kept a close eye on him, making sure he was having a good time despite the huge language barrier. Tonight he was introduced to soju and, surprisingly enough, he was able to walk away ON HIS OWN after the ordeal… hehehe. What a strong guy!

9. After dinner, we split into two groups: old men and young men (plus me). We ended up going to Khan where I found out that Black Skinny is buddies with all the workers there, including the Khan Hyun Bin. Talk about scattered conversations… hehehe. We talked about everything it seems. From why I dyed my hair black to friends getting married, to summer plans, we talked about numerous things but ALL topics seemed to venture back to boxing. Am convinced that my other friends would hate hanging out with my team mates for the simple fact that all we talk about is boxing.

10. Q is quite the happy-go-lucky kind of guy and so he totally cared less that Moonja-ah Boy (the feisty and flirtatious boxer) was overly chatty with me tonight and that Black Skinny kept on sticking his tongue out at me, squeezing the heck out of my leg, and pretending to be a pervert...sooooo funny! That was the theme of the night apparently, sticking our tongues out and me pretending to punch them… hehehe. Black Skinny is awesome though and is totally harmless… not too sure if I can say the same about Moonja-Ah Boy though. Nonetheless, we had a blast tonight and by the end of the evening, I was totally loving my team mates… they rock!!!

QUESTION OF THE DAY...
What's more crazy, me willingly getting punched in the head (boxing) or ever considering giving it up?

QUOTE OF THE DAY...
Personality can open doors, but only character can keep them open.
-- Elmer G. Letterman