Highlights of my Day... Friday, April 10

1. The Cheonan Trump is planning a huge cultural festival thing-a-maj and when I asked him “Why didn’t you ask me for any advice or help. I am a foreigner”, “You’re not a real foreigner” was his answer. Great… hahaha.

2. Just like I predicted, stupid is as stupid does and that greedy fool of a man who stole my Korean teacher’s wallet some weeks ago got caught today. She texted me the news and I responded by telling her “be sure to kick him in the head”… hahaha.

3. Spent a good chunk of my day planning my reading midterm review Power Point lecture file and the actually midterm and let me tell you, if you think it’s stressful for the students who’ll be writing my midterm, you should see the stress it causes me. It’s one thing to contemplate the format and what to put on it but marking it’s a killer, too.

4. Last week was the official boxing club dinner party and tonight we had another boxing dinner party but tonight’s one was for the junior members only. I’m kind of expected to go to both because of my professional status and because of my age. The junior dinner party is always more interesting though. Tonight one of my boxing buddies that I haven’t seen for awhile came out. He had just broke up with his girlfriend the day before and so instead of throwing him a pity party, I congratulated him on his freedom… hahaha.

5. Our dinner party was held at an expensive Japanese restaurant where we were given a private room and where I had to shill out $30 for the $10 worth of food I’d probably only eat, but anyways. I’m a huge fan of sushi (it goes along perfectly with my raw kick) and so it was nice to be actually able to indulge, as supposed to when we go out to the regular fatty-greasy meat restaurants.

6. Motor Cross, Panty Boy Jr. and me made up a rather stupid-looking handshake that ends with us grabbing each other’s ankle and throwing it downwards… hahaha. I gotta get it on video… hahaha.

7. Strange things make me sad, I know. Even stranger things make me homesick, I know that too. It wasn’t until last September that I ever honestly felt down-in-my-gut homesickness but sitting at the junior’s boxing party tonight, watching them all laugh and knowing that even though I understood a bit, I will never know why they all are on the verge of crying cause something’s so funny made me homesick. And that thought, that I’m continually out of the loop and that my friends back home are sharing these on-the-verge-of-crying moments with other people is what I hate and what makes me homesick. I really wish it were as simple as holidays making me homesick but it’s not. For the most part holidays are OK with me. It’s situations like tonight that get to me and so my time limit with these kind of functions is about an hour and a half, two hours max. After about two hours of my language skills being tried and tested, I fell somewhat mentally exhausted and, throw in the fact that I’m out of the loop of non-stop jokes, I also start approaching homesickness.

8. I played it off that I had homework to do so that I could make a quick escape and get the heck out of there. I was already getting a bit homesick when I mispronounced the Korean word for house and then suddenly became the laughing stock of some no-name girl an amateur boxer had brought along. The rest of the table ignored her joke but she continued to laugh at me. She thought my simple slip-up was funny and so I was very tempted to question her about her English and why after years of elementary school, middle school, high school and university she probably couldn’t even so much as spit out the English alphabet. However, I didn’t bother to throw a slapstick comment at her but instead said bye to everyone s and left. Mind you, in my mind, I did make a pretty cool speed bag out of her head… hahaha.

9. Q let me go and that only added insult to injury. I know he couldn’t have really understood what was going on in my mind but I was pretty sure he saw my eyes swell up with tears when I approached the taxi outside. It wasn’t that the girl’s pathetic joke had got to me but instead it was the fact that it acted as a reminder that I will always be different here no matter how hard I improve my language skills or whatnot. My boxing buddies don’t treat me like I’m different though. I am not a foreigner in their eyes but instead am one of their teammates and that’s why I love totally adore them all and it's what continually draws me out to boxing even when I’m super busy with other things. The boxing club has become like a safe haven for me but even it on occasion is temporarily disturbed when new people join or come to visit. Tonight I felt different yet again and I craved to be on Canadian soil.

10. On my way home I searched my phone for a friend to call, that’s when it hit me. I don’t think I have anyone in this country that’s close to me that I’d willingly show the vulnerable side of me to… and that felt rotten. To think I’ve lived here for over four years and at that very moment I felt like I had no one. Q and Junior Mint are the closet people to me here in Korea but it’s still not the same. My Korean language may be good but I can’t fully explain myself in great detail and there’s still the cultural difference that separate’s us. They’ve never been a foreigner in another country. Moreover, they will never understand what it feels like to be a foreigner here in Korea. I live in a country buzzing to the brim with people and yet I felt so isolated, so alone… like I was the only one around for miles.

QUESTION OF THE DAY...
How do others do it?

QUOTE OF THE DAY...
Home is not where you live but where they understand you.
-- Christian Morgenstern