Highlights of my Day... Thursday, December 31

1. Today marked the very last day of 2009 and the start of a great year to come. 2010 is going to be THE year for Snickers and I, mark my words.

2. We started today off with waking up super early and high-tailing it off to the train station. We were off to the Canadian Embassy in Seoul to do step one of the marriage paper work.

3. Turns out we weren’t the only ones with high hopes of doing their marriage paper work today. There were three other engaged couples at the embassy, all of which were foreign guys with Korean fiancées. I got talking to one of them when the guy sitting beside me turned to start up a conversation. “You know you have to come here with your fiancé right?” he asked. “Yes” I answered. “Where’s your fiancé then?” he added. I thought it was pretty obvious that the guy (Snickers) who I was sitting beside and so obviously flirting with was my fiancé. I guess not. Moreover, I’m not too sure whether or not it was because it was still pretty early in the morning or the fact that besides the couple of English words I had spoken, I had talked to the embassy secretary and security in Korean, or what but then that guy turned to his fiancé and she repeated his question but in Korean to me. “My fiancé is him. My fiancé is Korean” I told them, both in English and Korean, and with that responded with confused looks and the conversation died.

4. Yes, my fiancé is Korean. He’s a stunning man who stands at 5ft 10”, weighs in at 73kgs, has all his teeth, two legs, two arms, is perfectly sane (although that’s sometimes questionable), and he is Korean. Why does this continue to shock people?!

5. To say filling out those papers at the embassy were annoying would be an understatement. I had to fill out two forms but three copies of each. The difficulty laid in figuring out what exact address to write down for Snickers and, as it turns out, he gave me the wrong one and so I had to fill out six new forms… dang!

6. After we returned from the embassy, I met up with Buff Boy the Original for coffee and chat time. Buff Boy the Original has officially finished university and has officially scored a job with KB Bank. Although he’s a sport major and his new KB Bank job is clearly not related to his field of major, he took the job because it’s secure and safe. Who am I to judge but today he let me judge away when he blurted out that he’s not happy.

7. Happiness to Buff Boy is directly related to success, so I asked him “What do you define success as?” Is it having that having that job that pays well or makes you feel satisfied? I let him ponder that for a bit and then I offered my answer. To me, happiness is feeling like my existence matters and makes a difference, like if I don’t come home or show up somewhere that it will be felt, noted, and questioned. I think this is why I struggle sometimes with being in Korea and why I bury myself in making Power Point files, emailing students, and updating their homepage. All my close friends are in Canada, I keep to myself here in Korea, and I make myself hard to get a hold of because I fill my schedule up with boxing, training, and work, and I don’t answer my phone calls. But now things are different. Now I am with Snickers, and along with Snickers came a whole second family. Although I don’t regard someone else, in this case Snickers, for being the stem of my happiness, I must note that me letting someone into my life on a personal level is key. I guess I felt that making close friends in Korea meant I was trying to replace my close friends in Canada, so having a boyfriend in Korea was the only person I’d let close to me considering. Look at me now, I have my boxing but no set income, no official job, and yet I am the happiest I have ever been in such a long, long time. I think the last time I was this happy I was heading off to university for my first year. I had led my parents to believe that I was going off to Lakehead University, a university that was willing to pay for my tuition and was bombarding me with scholarships because of my grades and even because I am Polish. I then shocked my parents with the news of me having accepted York University’s offer and so off to Toronto I went to live. At that point, happiness to me was challenging myself and venturing into the uncertain. Happiness to me now is so different. Call me silly but returning to Ggum Guum and seeing Snickers leaning out the balcony window to look for me makes me feel happy.

8. And so on that note, I returned to Ggum Guum to make Snickers happy with a home-cooked New Year’s Eve meal. Tonight’s menu consisted of chicken salad, shrimp, crab, and potato salad for appetizers. Fettuccine Alfredo with a white wine and garlic bread for the main course. And for dessert, I had planned cheese cake with strawberries dipped in chocolate and served with whip cream and a side cup of a sweet blend of secrets I call “Mocha Love”.

9. We never did make it to dessert on account that Snickers brought the wrong kind of cream over. I had to resort to being creative with my Alfredo sauce because he brought over whipping cream as supposed to regular cream. The meal was delish but at about a couple thousand calories per spoonful of that pasta, it was heavy. Through in the fact that there was a lot of wine in that sauce and yup, it was quite the meal… hahaha. Dinner time was at 7pm and by 9:20pm we had snoozed off on the floor.

10. Woke up with five minutes left till midnight. I screamed at the excitement of the year ending and Snickers woke up laughing at me. We had our grand midnight kiss, watched the fireworks on TV and then crashed.

QUESTION OF THE DAY...
What are your new year's resolutions?

QUOTE OF THE DAY...
Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.
-- Oprah Winfrey