Highlights of my Day... Saturday, July 25

1. Started my day off by waking up from a terrible dream by which my own sobbing and tears were what woke me up… so strange. Sometimes I have dreams like this, thankfully not often, but I do have strange dreams where the sound of me crying or me screaming wakes me up. I had dreamt that I had quit my job but I had been teaching back at my own high school out in Canada. I had just quit my job but they had insisted I finished the day. I remember writing on the board and all the students nervously awaiting me to crack and burst out in tears. It wasn’t until the chalk broke that I started to cry… and then I woke up.

2. Needless to say that wasn’t exactly the way I wanted to start the day but it definitely gave my day a brutal kick start. It was about 7am and I was full awake. I didn’t have to be at the bus terminal till 9am and so I killed time by repacking my bag and taking Mi Nam for a light jog.

3. 8:55am arrived and Snickers arrived shortly there after and together we, along with Junior Mint, took the 9:10am bus out to Bo Chun. Shortly after us arriving at the arena, Jodi, the main game fighter from America, showed up with her coach and the IFBA President. And no sooner had I greeted them and started up a conversation with them but then I was being asked by the MBC ESPN people (TV people) to pose as a kind of translator. For anyone else I probably would have been bothered by this request but Jodi and I clicked and I already had gained a lot of admiration and respect for her. So MBC and I took her around the arena and gave her the low down on how the show was going to go down. MBC had arranged for quite the elaborate entrance for all us fighters, having us come down some 20 flights of stairs, pause at three places to shadow box for the camera, and then we were to continue onto the ramp that would shoot out fire and smoke as we made our way to the ring. It was quite the majestic entrance but it only added to my already active butterflies.

4. Outside my changing room there played a small orchestra.. and then they called my name. It was game time. I made my way up to the top of the arena and then made my way down, all the time while the cameras were zoomed on me and people cheered for me in the crowd. Upon entering the ring I looked over at Snickers and there behind him were some unexpected visitors, three of my friends… Loren, a professor out in Seoul, Joe, a fellow foreigner and professional boxer here in Korea, and his wife. Loren and Joe are on the planning team with me for the Jeju Island boxing convention but I hadn’t anticipated them coming and so I was so happy to see them. My friend Penny had also traveled out to Bo Chun with her boyfriend to catch my game. The only one who had come from my club was Little Miss Sunshine.

5. In the first round I took a brutal hit and got knocked down, but I picked myself up and continued. Later on Snickers told me that when that happened, he knew for a fact that I had the heart of a lion and was a true Pollack. I’m always telling him how Polish people tend to be stubborn in their ways and in their thinking, “pride is the Pollack’s strength and weakness” I had told him. Today I showed my pride in the ring but I was defeated and so with that defeat down came my pride.

6. You know it’s funny, everyone is so quick to be in your face and wants to be all buddy-buddy with you when you’re on top of the world, on top of your game, but where are they when you need picking up… when you really need them?! Exactly. I had fallen in the ring but my pride had taken quite the beating and so again I fell in the bathroom. I locked myself in one of the stalls and fell to the floor crying with embarrassment. Embarrassed to show my face, embarrassed to admit I had failed, and afraid that Snickers would tell me to quit… that they all would. I hadn’t gone there for a loss but instead for a win and I definitely hadn’t gone there to step out of boxing and let others have the last laugh.

7. I let Snickers into the bathroom stall with me, only after I allowed him to get numerous dirty looks from the other girls who were shocked to see him in the girl’s bathroom. Anyways, it was there in the stall that he cupped my face with his hands and told me that he was proud of me. That’s all I needed to hear to get my butt out of that dirty bathroom.

Even I felt sick looking at myself in the mirror.

After my fight I threw on my hooded sweater and kept my face pretty much hidden with the help of my hat. I've never felt so shy in my life. I felt so shy that when Snickers' sister passed by me I instantly looked down and crossed my fingers, hoping she hadn't spotted me in the crowd.

8. Jodie’s coach had asked me earlier to help be his ring corner man during Jodie’s fight and so after suffering a defeat it was exactly what I needed to save myself from the self-pity party I was about to attend. In between the rounds my job was to prop-up the stool for her to sit on, place a wet towel on her head and give her water. Honestly, helping her really helped me a lot. Not only did it take my mind off my own stress but it was so awesome to experience this other aspect of boxing. I’ve never been a corner man before and so it was pretty cool. Watching Jodie I felt so proud and eagerly cheered her on. I stood by her coach and watched as with every command and word he yelled she would react. They were quite the team and I envied that. When the fight ended and they announced that the Korean champion had won, I too felt so disappointed. It was a close fight but I’m not too sure if it was a fair one. The IFBA President asked for the tapes and so it’ll be renewed but I felt terrible for Jodie. She had traveled so long and had trained so hard for something that so many of us in the arena thought should have been hers, a win.

9. I let Jodie cool down a bit in the change room before I entered. I greeted her with a huge hug and she said thank you to me for all the help. I thanked her too. I really wished I could have helped her more and so we exchanged emails. Later on after our fights, numerous fans in the crowd approached us. Jodie ended up signing the back of some male fan and, when I was leaving, I too got asked to sign the body part of another guy, his chest… hahaha. In total, today I had posed for numerous photos with fans and had done a couple of handfuls of signatures. I had lost my fight but somehow had maintained my popularity with the crowd.

10. Traveling home on the bus with Snickers wasn’t so comfortable as the adrenaline of the day had worn off, my eyes had puffed up and I was pretty sure I had discovered that I had broken my nose for the very first time. I take it the clicking of any bone isn’t a good thing and well, that’s exactly what my nose was doing, clicking. I had bit down too hard on my mouth guard during the fight and so opening it to chew any kind of food was out of the question. I arrived in Cheonan a bruised, super shy boxer with a clicking nose and a butchered pride. I looked like a battered woman making my way to a shelter as supposed to my house. Snickers took my braids out for me and thank God too, cause I was way too shy to head over to Park Jun and announce that I had lost. I can deal with the bruises and even the broken nose, I don’t care about that. What I do care about is my pride and losing today killed it, so I rather remain MIA for now.

QUESTION OF THE DAY...
Where are those so-called "supporters"?

QUOTE OF THE DAY...
It ain't what they call you, it's what you answer to.
-- W.C. Fields