We peed on our own parade, I know this now. So, what now?

I guess all I can do now is just wait for the rainbow to show.

Highlights of my Day... Thursday, April 30

1. I spy with my little eye a match making in the process… hahaha. My Tuesday student Ladybug continually comes up with these excuses why to switch from her regular Tuesday class to my Thursday morning class. Her number is officially on my phone’s quick list and although I think some of her excuses are kind of shady, I’m just happy to see that she’s showing up for class, regardless of whether it’s hers or not. Mind ya, I’m starting to think her weekly class switch is because of a particular male student in my class (the student who goes to my fitness gym). I really don’t mind and, if anything, I think it’s super adorable. Today Ladybug showed up late for class, looking particularly pretty today and my male student looked particularly handsome today.

2. I thought I’d be quite the sweetie and help Ladybug out by pairing her up with that particular male student for partner work. They sat together for the whole class despite pairing work being long over and with every little giggle she gave, I couldn’t help but smile. Oh to be in that stage again, when everything’s so fresh and interesting, and the crush is just blooming.

3. In between classes I got quite the strange phone call from some guy.

Guy: Amy, where are you?
Me: I’m at work, in my office. Who is this?
Guy: Where is your next class?
Me: Humanities building, room 214.
Guy: OK, I go there for you.

4. At first I thought it might be Mr. Not-So-Nice Guy.. who’ve I’ve temporarily been juggling renaming him Wonder Bread, as in something you thought was a great idea from the start but then realized there’s so many things so much better than simple sliced bread. Anyways, it wasn’t him. I could tell by his voice. So off I went to class but no mystery caller was there.

5. Class continued on as usual and I forgot all about my mystery caller but then it happened… my classroom door swung open and in dashed one of my Tuesday morning students holding a coffee and a letter. He nervously placed down the coffee on my desk and handed me the letter. “What… what are you doing?” I asked. “Please, I’m so sorry. Please.. please read letter” he mumbled out and then out the classroom he scooted, leaving me speechless and in front of 30-some students all eagerly watching.

6. I guess I should correct myself and tell you that he’s actually not one of my students, he attends my class but is on my coworker’s attendance list. He’s attended all my classes, has done my quizzes, homework and even did my midterm, convinced that he was my student. So now the problem is that he’s failing my coworker’s class, obviously because he’s been coming to mine, but he’s a very much appreciated humorous addition to my blah Tuesday morning class with his “free hug” jokes and I’ve nicknamed him “Strange Boy” and he likes it… hahaha. However, it’s too late for him to be officially switched on the register. I was already hoping to talk to my coworker and sort this all out but he’s totally brave attempt at attacking the situation was awesome. No sooner had he left the class but I told the class we’d have a break and off I went to talk to my coworker. Mission accomplished.

7. My last class today, which is also my last class of the week, is my reading class that’s packed with numerous returning students of mine. They kicked major butt on their exams and so today I joked around with them and told them I was convinced (sarcastically that is) that they all cheated on my exam… hahaha. “I love you but you’re all a bunch of cheaters!” I blurted out. Of course they didn’t cheat, I was only joking, but wow… they’re not only super adorable and super sweet but they’re also super intelligent. They are ALL that!!!

8. I had my weekly meeting in Seoul at KBC to attend and so off to Seoul I raced for that. “I have good news and bad news for you” KBC Kim told me when I arrived. Turns out the bad news included the fact that the May 22nd tournament has been changed to May 29th but the good news is that I’ve scored a fight at it! Sweet!!! Mind ya, they still haven’t officially appointed me an opponent yet but there’s still 4 weeks till game day. The game is set to take place in Seoul and will be broad casted by SBS.

9. I didn’t stick around after the meeting to have dinner with them because I had another dinner to race off to. This Saturday two of my friends are getting married, not to each other but in two separate weddings, meaning that I’m double-booked. Both brides aren’t close to me but regardless, it’s their special day and so I want to celebrate both. Tonight I met up with one of the brides for dinner in Seoul. Her nerves are already shot although the wedding is still a couple of days away. She’s convinced the rain is going to kill her day, just like the other bride mentioned. “Rain is good luck” I told her. “Ya, thanks… this coming from someone who doesn’t believe in luck” she told me. “That’s true. I don’t believe in luck but some do… you do. Don’t worry. Rain or sunshine, it doesn’t really matter. You’ll still be the happiest of girls on Saturday.”

10. As for me, I much rather have the literal rain from the skies than the rain that belted down on my shoulders tonight in the wee hours. It was funny, not funny as in ha-ha funny but funny as in how I consider myself to be very stubborn with my thinking and whatnot but I repeatedly seem to make exceptions to my rules, if you’d like to call them that, with regards to matters of the heart. Well, tonight I reached my limit, my breaking point. I reached it at exactly 4:14am and so I picked up the phone and called Q. The call lasted only a measly 2 minutes and 55 seconds. He didn’t say anything until I told him good-bye, in which he then blurted out “I love you”. When I hung up I knew he wouldn’t call back. We’ve exhausted this and neither him nor I fight for each other anymore. I don’t want to be with someone who doesn’t see I’m worth fighting for and I sure as hell don’t want to fight to try to convince some guy that I am worth the fight, that’s just embarrassing and frankly not necessary. I may have my faults but I also know my worth. He just doesn’t get me and I’m so done feeling like I’m fighting for his attention. I didn’t cry like I thought I would but instead laid my head down and went back to sleep.

QUESTION OF THE DAY...
How did we get this far off the path?

QUOTE OF THE DAY...
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
-- Victor Frank

Turns out my foot injury is effecting more than just my patience and so my coach made me film me training to prove it. Looks like I'll be taking the doctor's advice after all and nursing my foot cause it's slowing me down in the ring.

There's a cool action shot for ya ;)

Highlights of my Day... Wednesday, April 29

1. Got a wicked hook-up today and now apparently next Tuesday I have a meeting with the Chicken Kaibab Man. This all came about when I asked the Chicken Kaibab Lady where she bought her tortillas. She told me the Chicken Kaibab Man buys them online.

2. Last night while marking student reports, I came across a reading report done by a particular student who hasn’t even so much said “boo” in my class. Am convinced his English vocabulary level and understand of the numerous grammar rules could kick most native English speaker’s butts… mine included…. Yikes!!!

3. After school while marking more student reports (yes, I still wasn’t done marking yet), I ended up falling asleep. I guess cozying up to Mi Nam on the couch with a blanket around you would do that to a person… hahaha. Anyways, I ended up having the freakiest dream. I woke up sweating and, like most times after a dream, I like to lay in the memory of it all and try to digest what the heck I had just dreamt about.

4. I dreamt that I was in the middle of some room with all these big dudes walking around me. I was drawing a map of something when all of a sudden I jumped on the back of some guy and bit his neck. Upon seeing the chunk of flesh I ripped from his neck, I stopped. I continued to make my map but then two guys in opposing corners of the room started to call out my name. I didn’t know who to answer to but then something strange happened, almost in slow motion. I watched as the one guy approached me. He looked all sweaty and as he pressed a short blade into my side I saw started to fall backwards. That’s when I woke up. So strange… definitely strange.

5. It was so detailed and so no sooner had I woke up but I grabbed my notebook and wrote down my dream. I’m use to have quite the crazy and elaborate dreams but I’ve never really had one like this. Usually my dreams revolve around animals or seem like spin-offs of real life situations I’ve had. I mean, I’ve been stabbed before but never by a friend… well, not literally.

6. Kicked my own butt for sleeping on the job when I really couldn’t afford to waste away the hours sleeping so I headed off to boxing to score a second wind for the late night hours of marking I anticipated.

7. At boxing tonight Junior Mint once again managed to drill me like a mad man and get me frustrated. We were focusing on my foot work tonight and he kept on insisting that I was doing it wrong and so we got Q to film me training cause I just didn’t believe him. My right foot is still not up to par and is still painful to train on but I guess I didn't realize just how much it's effected my boxing... dang. Needless to say though, it made for a frustrating work-out but it was definitely very productive.

8. Did six straight rounds with Junior Mint in the ring and felt quite proud of myself for that… hahaha.

9. Got back to marking reports and with every report I completed, the more eager I got with anticipation of finally finishing.

10. Finish is exactly what I did and it felt good…. real good. It felt great actually.

QUESTION OF THE DAY...
Do you think dreams tell us anything and if so, what?

QUOTE OF THE DAY...
Dreams are answers to questions we haven't yet figured out how to ask.
-- X-Files

Strange things I came across today included a book where I was the leading character who apparently couldn't handle the stairs.

Am convinced Mi Nam slept with one eye open to make sure I didn't do anything fun without him.

And for some reason I ended up having to carry this carton of eggs around for half a day... long stupid story there that involved this hot pink wallet, an ex boyfriend comment, and me forgetting to strain what I say.... oops.

Highlights of my Day... Tuesday, April 28

1. Myyyy…eyyyyyyesssss….are….sooooooooooooooooo….dammnnnnnnnnnnn…. ITCHY!!!

2. As the yellow sand continues to blow in from China, my throat continues to feel incredibly scratchy, my eyes itch like there’s no tomorrow, my nose is running like it’s doing a marathon and trips to the pharmacist are getting ridiculous. And what’s worse is that none of my Korean friends are having problems with it. Isn’t that brutal, that they’re so immune to it?! What I would give for the clean blue skies of Canada at this point!!!

3. Ended my second period class a bit early and took my time walking to the bus with one of my students. Him walking me to the bus is now officially our “thing” we do. He left the class and I stuck around to clean up but when I walked out, there he was, waiting for me. Out of the four days a week that I work, three of these work days end with a “traditional walk” with one of my students… hahaha.. and I love it too cause it gives me the chance to really bond with some of them.

4. They say grocery shopping on an empty stomach is never a good thing, I guess they’ve never been to Home Plus (or any other Korean major grocery store for that matter) where they bombard you with free food samples. Today Q and I went grocery shopping but while doing so, I ate my fourth meal of the day thanks to of Home Plus… hahaha. I must have tried all that they were offering. I ate some grapes, a piece of banana, a kiwi, some chicken, beef, a piece of a pastry, some tofu cooked in eggs, kimchi, and then I washed it all down with a shot glass worth of chestnut milk, green tea, and some other funky mixture that I had no idea of what it was.

5. Junior Mint killed me at training… and he TOTALLY knew it, too. He made me do extra rounds of various exercises and instead of him using the usual 4-foot-beat-stick, he used the hand pad to whack me around. He’s lucky he’s my coach and I love him or else I’d be laying the beating on him!!!

6. With the exception of the pad work I did with him, the rest of my training was done while he was training. Junior Mint usually heads off to weight training after work but occasionally he train beside me. Tonight we both trained. I always feel like I’m competing with him when he trains beside me. I always try to push myself to do whatever exercise he’s doing longer or whatnot and I think he senses it too.

7. I’ve mastered the double-skip (when your skipping rope spins twice for every one jump) but trying to work on the triple-skip tonight proved almost dangerous after I successfully did it but in doing so, I got so excited and ended up losing my balance. A couple of inches no less, that’s about that distanced me from smacking my head on one of the corner ring poles… yikes!!!

8. I’m a slave… minus the pretty pay check that rolls into my bank account each month that is. I feel like a slave to my marking. Instead of giving myself extra time like I’m sure most would, I’ve given myself one week to mark and record the marks for about 110 quizzes, 200 reading reports and 310 midterm exams. Quizzes and exams aren’t the problem, it’s the reading reports that my students submitted.

9. One report takes about 5 minutes to read, grade and comment on. 5 minutes times 200 reports… yikes. I’m feeling it, too. Tonight I marked 83 reports.

10. Three more days… three more days and I’ll be back to getting a good night’s sleep and won’t be feeling like I’m eat, sleep and breathing student marks.

QUESTION OF THE DAY...
Is anyone else dying from this yellow sand?

QUOTE OF THE DAY...
Don't knock the weather; nine-tenths of the people couldn't start a conversation if it didn't change once in a while.
-- Kin Hubbard

Gotta show some love on my page to the downtown Cheonan Kimbab Chunkuk and all the lovely ladies who continually bombard me with smiles and "love" in my tuna kimbabs.

And of course much love to my boxing club. I don't train on Sundays but that doesn't mean I don't drop by to say hi... "Hi UP Boxing Club!"... hahaha.

Highlights of the Day... Monday, April 27

1. Handing back midterm and student reading log report answers proved to be quite stressful for both my students and for me. I didn’t think it would but it definitely was. A lot of my students, I know, have amazing potential and are quite intelligent but I think many of them froze up on the exam. My exam was hard, I know that. It was almost impossible to pass my exam unless you followed along in class and studied my Power Point files from the homepage I have set up for them. I’m hoping their final exam, which will be a presentation, will help bounce them back from the slump many of them put them in with this midterm.

2. I’m a huge fan of Facebook, or so I use to be. While glancing through some up my friend’s updates and whatnot, I couldn’t help but notice that a huge percent of my childhood friends are either married and already on their way with pumping out kids or are getting married… or pumping out kids minus the marriage step. Wow… is it me or is everyone I know seem to be getting married?! Sometimes I think to myself that I wish I were one of those many who dreamed of a white-picket fence with the dog and kids in the yard and the hubby mowing it. Key word being “sometimes”.

3. In my perfect dream, I have the dog, the downtown posh loft over looking the city, the wicked job, and the only man consistent in my dream is my boxing coach and my father. I don’t have A.D.D. or anything but I find my attention span with men and my willingness to let them become anything set in stone or long term is right up there with my attention span with my hair. I find a hair colour or style I like but no sooner do I get comfortable with it, I start to get annoyed with it and start to crave change.

4. The common question I’ve asked my friends when I find out that they’re getting married is “How did you know they were the one?” They usually give me their cheesey, overly-used answer “I just knew”. “Just knew what?!” I always myself.

5. I tell ya, I may never get married but may God have mercy on any man who does pin me down for life and get me down the aisle…. Hahaha. He’s definitely got a very, very hard task ahead of him.

6. Enough marriage talk… it’s so overrated.

7. Weighted in at 52.80kgs before training, how’s that for a change of topic?! … hahaha. No beats for me today because of my weigh-in, sweet.

8. Turns out I was quite the hit at Kick’s birthday party… oh gosh… hahaha.

Heard the funniest story...heard that my teammate Terri put her hand on your leg
in an effort to pick you up...!!! hahaha! She was very drunk and has no memory of it but one of the other girls reminded her of it on Sunday!!...Yes she is gay and you are sooo her type (girlie but sporty)...just a straight version! Hahaha.
Sorry about that...I think it’s hilarious but I am not sure you would as well. I am sorry I wasn't there to save you!! Sorry!!I am also guessing given that she knew all the others were straight she had to hit on the one she hoped wasn't??? haha...

-- from Kicks

9. On Saturday my much beloved Kimbab Chunkuk was totally flooded as a result of a neighbouring shop doing renovations. I stopped in today to talk to the manager and ask if everything was ok. Offering my “professional services”, and by professional I mean me being a professional boxer and offering to punch whomever in the head (as a joke) scored me some free tuna kimbab…. Awesome! The Kimbab ladies are always showing me love and putting extra love into my kimbabs but free kimbabs?! That’s a whole lotta love… hahaha.

10. Slaved away at more marking tonight and then planned my listening class Power Point… noooooo fun!!!

QUESTION OF THE DAY...
How do you make a difference?

QUOTE OF THE DAY...
Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.
-- William James

Just because... sometimes you get so busy and forget to see what's beautiful around you.

Highlights of my Day... Sunday, April 26

1. Apparently I’ve turned into quite the senior citizen and late nights are now a thing of the past for me. I say this because last night I arrived home close to 1am too pooped to party. Today I woke up to discover that not only was I still wearing my shoes and coat but I was also lying near the front door of my apartment. I vaguely remember coming home and sitting down to pet Mi Nam but I don’t recall totally zoning out. Do I drink, you ask, no and thank goodness too. Apparently I can’t even handle the late hours, I can’t imagine what a late night of drinking would do to me… yikes.

2. After I peeled myself off the floor, I turned on my computer and pumped my house full of music to wake myself up. Lately I’ve been listening a lot to a bunch of artists that I’ve never paid attention to before, like the Ting Tings and Lily Allen.

3. Made my Power Point lecture file for my reading class.

4. Marked more student reports… yuck.

5. Marked more exams…. yucky-yuck.

6. Yesterdays “Operation Blue Balls” (Italiano, you know what I’m talking about here) was put on hold but popped up today (no, not literally). Mr. Not-So-Nice Guy continues to play out his version of the cheesiest Korean drama known to mankind and keeps pushing me to play the role of his leading lady. I, on the other hand, have my own plan in which I’m more or less the unexpected villain… Italiano is my director/evil side-kick… … hahaha.

7. Q was away for most of the day which meant I didn’t have to deal with the usual temptations involved with him bringing cookies and bread biscuits into my house… and shame on him for that, too. How dare he load my shelf up with biscuits that I can’t touch. I usually allow myself one or two but end up forcing myself to serve them all to Mi Nam cause of the simple fact that I can never just eat one, hence why I never buy bread or ice cream.

8. Do you know, last weekend Q brought some bread to my house and I ate the whole thing in one sitting?! Yes, as embarrassed as I am and as disgusting as that sounds, I did it. And I didn’t like it either. It left my mouth and throat so dry and left me feeling so bloated… nasty.

9. Officially labeled Q my cheap-child-labor after I somehow convinced him to count up the test marks for over a hundred student midterm exams and then record them on a piece of paper. I guess I really shouldn’t call him cheap-child-labor. He’s not exactly a child, physically that is, and I didn’t exactly pay him unless you consider the comforts of my warm sauna-like-style house as any kind of reinforcement. He definitely worked though.

10. Ended my evening off with some Korean studies…. Ahhh, there’s no rest from the wicked. Between my marking a million things and racing off to Seoul, I seriously felt like I need a weekend from my weekend!

QUESTION OF THE DAY...
What did you do this weekend?

QUOTE OF THE DAY...
How long a minute is, depends on which side of the bathroom door you're on.
-- Zall's Second Law

I titled this video "Kick Drop". It's suppose to be "drop kick" but tell that to Angel though who apparently got swept off her feet when practicing with her boyfriend... hahaha. Talk about a cute couple!!!!

Not your average Saturday cause well, we're not your average chicks... we're athletes.

Highlights of my Day... Saturday, April 25

1. Happy Roberto Duran Day!!! “Who and what’s that?” you ask, well WBC has officially labeled April 25th as Roberto Duran Day to commemorate a great former fight who was “champion in four divisions (Light, Welter, Super welter and Middle, and he fought in 17 title bouts, even accomplishing the extraordinary feat of moving from Lightweight up to Middleweight, which is not common”, as quoted from WBC Press Release. Not too sure on how we’re suppose to celebrate this day… hmmm… maybe go out and punch someone on his behalf… hahah.. just joking.

2. Q and I headed into boxing today to do a “squash session”, and by that we mean we do our usual training (minus the pad work cause Junior Mint isn’t in on Saturdays) but kick it up a notch, eliminating any kind of rest period in between our sets and exercises. We set a time limit of one hour for our squash sessions and trust me, after the hour you can’t go on but instead are left exhausted and risking drowning in your own sweat… I love it… hahaha.

3. Got treated out to a sweet tucked away restaurant in downtown Cheonan that’s actually an old house. My fight is still not a for sure situation and so I have to definitely watch my weight but dining on fish and veggies is exactly what the coach (and my tummy) ordered.

4. Did some more marking before I headed off to Seoul. Kicks had invited me out to her birthday party and so I did my Korean diary writing while on the bus.

5. Note to self: bring more than just diary writing if you’re going to take a Saturday afternoon bus to Seoul. Usual bus time: 1 hour and 5 minutes. Today’s bus time: 1 hour and 55 minutes.

6. One text message from Panty Boy turned into quite the length text message conversation while I was on the bus and ended with him showing up at the bus terminal in Seoul with a gift, a black rose ring that he had bought at my favorite jewelery shop in Seoul. It’s super chunky, super awesome!

7. Getting lost in the rain wasn’t exactly fun but showing up at Kick’s place for her birthday party was definitely worth the two and a half hour adventure. Her house was packed with all her female rugby buddies, plus me the boxer and another girl who’s teaches Mauy Thai and is looking to get into K1 fighting here in Korea. Kicks house full of all foreign women (plus two dudes) was a bit of a sensory overload with the English but it was wicked to be among so many passionate athletes.

8. While the others all dined on homemade pizza, Kicks cooked me a special dish of chicken and asparagus (because of having to trim down for my anticipated fight). Yah for her for that!!! Kicks kicks. I really wanted to try the pizza, especially the traditional South African one with the bananas but I’m on game diet now… no fun.

9. Kicks traveled to Thailand during the summer vacation where she there trained at a Mauy Thai kickboxing club and so her house is full of training gear she picked up from her trip. We thought it’d be awesome to get two volunteers geared up and go at it. Props to Angel and her boyfriend Aaron for being our entertainment, although I think Angel and her bruised butt might be regretting it right now.

10. Some of the girls from tonight’s party I had met the other weekend when I was visited and so I got chatting with them. There was however this one particular girl who wanted to excessively chat with me… and place her icy hand on my leg. I thought nothing of it actually. After all, many of my female Korean friends and I hold hands. But this girl’s hands were so bone chilly, she was drunk and she eagerly tried the whole night to get me to randomly punch people (which I didn’t). Needless to say though, it made for an interesting night, definitely filled with good times and good people but like all good things, everything has to end and so off I raced to get my bus. Score a seat on the last bus and arrived in Cheonan at 12:40am.

QUESTION OF THE DAY...
Did you eat a breakfast for champions today?

QUOTE OF THE DAY...
If only Hitler and Mussolini could have a good game of bowls once a week at Geneva, I feel that Europe would not be as troubled as it is.
-- R.G. Briscow

Two songs that stores, shops and even the boxing gym, have been bombarding Korea's air with. They're quite catchy tunes.

This particular song is from Girls' Generation and I must admit, I liked it way more before when I didn't know the full translation. "You're so pretty.. your heart is so pretty... your glittering eyes" Oh come on... you're like one step away from describing a woman!!! Sometimes I seriously question Koreans and they're continual "pretty boy" imagines. To each their own, I know, but dang. I really don't care to meet a man than fits their description of what a guy should be like.

I love this song by Big Bang. It's catchy, not infested with cheesy lines and I love the flashiness and funky bright colours in the video.

Highlights of my Day... Friday, April 24

1. For the sake of the fact that it’s Sunday and I’m writing about my Friday (and because there’s no real drama for anyone to harass me about today) I’ll keep today’s highlights short and sweet.

2. Spent the morning marking student reports.

3. Spent the afternoon marking student midterm exams.

4. In between the morning and the afternoon was noon, a break from the marking and time for me to bust out some Michael Jackson moves as I made meal #3 for the day.

5. Finding chicken in my fridge (left there by Q) scored him bonus points.

6. Having Mi Nam almost eat my chicken scored him some minus bonus points.

7. Scored myself some minus points at boxing (which meant I got the beats with that stupid stick) after I stepped on the scale and my weight wasn’t up to par with Junior Mint’s expectations.

8. Weighed in a 53.3kgs before training.

9. Weighed in at 52.6kgs after training (it’s just body water weight loss).

10. After training came the shower, followed by chowing down on some chicken and veggies, an hour of Korean studies and then I passed out on the couch. Q’s attempt at getting me to go to bed involved flicking me in the head… not really nice.

QUESTION OF THE DAY...
Two weeks?

QUOTE OF THE DAY...
Every day may not be good, but there's something good in every day.
-- Author Unknown

Hottie #27 (Son) proved to be tough competition for more than just those muscle hotties he was competiting against once Q caught glimpse of these photos. Some of you have been reading my homepage for awhile know Son as my Soilder Friend who once secretly smuggled his cell phone on the boat back when he was doing his military service so that he could text message me and his other friends.

Stay tuned for more on Son. He'll be competiting in another bodybuilding competition in June/July and so I'm hoping to make the trip down to Busan to meet up with him again and cheer him on.

Highlights of my Day... Thursday, April 23

1. Day 4 (and the last day too) of midterm exams and I think I was happier than my students to see it come and go.

2. While numerous students bombarded their exam papers with novel-like answers, some barely made a mark on their exam. Regardless, all will be marked by me and all exams will not be fun marking.

3. No sooner did my last class of the day finish their exam but I was rushing out of class. It was 2:45pm and I had a meeting at KBC for 4:30pm. I had asked them for extra time considering I’d be traveling in from Cheonan during rush hour. Due time bumped up to 4:50pm.

4. My new pet peeve with Koreans: Koreans who think speaking English at an inappropriate time is cute. English isn’t a cute language, if anything, it’s a silly, silly language filled with even sillier rules like “I before e, except after c”, or something like that. Moreover, I'm not cool with people trying to act all cute to get out of a situation. Students pull this all the time but today it was a cab driver who pulled this stunt.

5. In Korea it’s illegal for taxi drivers to pick up extra customers because what ends up happening is instead of the customers splitting the cab fair, like expected, they both end up having to pay the fair. This means that the cabbie gets twice the fair for the price of one, thus pocketing free cash. And this is exactly what happened to me after school when I had such limited time to get to the Cheonan Express Bus Terminal. The cabbie picked up some random student who wanted to go to the Cheonan Bus Terminal (down the street from the Express Terminal). I ended up getting into quite the stupid argument with him but when he started to act all cute by speaking English I was about to lose it. The more and more I have these silly run-ins with various people the more and more I’m thinking that Buff Boy the Original words are correct, maybe I am a bit of a trouble maker. I don’t really think so. I’d like to think it’s more of me sticking up for myself and not taking people’s trash like so many other people do. That’s fine if people want to accept and shovel up other people’s trash but not me thanks.

Cabbie: [in English] Do you speak Korean?
Me: [in Korean] I’ve been speaking to you in Korea for 5 minutes now, you didn’t hear me?
Cabbie: [in English] I know English.
Me: [in Korean] Good, then you should know the word “illegal”?
Cabbie: [in English] What?

6. The poor student who he had picked up sat in the front and knew to keep quiet, but when the cabbie stopped and told us to get out the student peeped up. “This isn’t her or my stop” he noted, and it wasn’t. He had dropped us in the middle of the two stops downtown. The student paid the full fare but I refused to pay, insisted that the fair was $4 and the student had just paid it, and moreover, he hadn’t even dropped me off where I had asked to be dropped off. “Illegal” I blurted out. “Look that up in your English dictionary sweetie” and on that note I gave $4 to the student, apologized for him having to be involved there, thanked him, and then I ran off to the Express Bus Terminal.

7. Seoul traffic always reminds me why I love Cheonan so much more than Seoul. It’s always so overly crowded and super polluted in Seoul. Sure it has a lot of places to go to and yes, I'll admit that it's definitely packed with plenty of places to go, things to do and people to see but oh the pollution! My health is more important to me than some trendy hot spot... so is my patience and sanity. Seoul is like the last hour of shopping on Christmas Eve in Toronto but all day, every day and so day trips out to Seoul always leave me with a sore throat, headache and yearning for Cheonan.

8. Made it to KBC by 4:55pm. At the meeting I was introduced to another fellow Canadian boxer, Joe, whom of which knows many of my boxing friends back in Canada and so that was awesome to chat with him about them. It made them seem so much closer to me, as supposed to miles upon miles away.

9. Talk continues about a possible upcoming fight for me on May 22nd. Turns out it’ll be in Osan, which is about 30 minutes away from Cheonan. Talks of signing me with a promoter were also discussed. Right now I have a couple of sponsors and a manager/coach but KBC Kim is convinced that I really need a promoter. I’ve been approached by a couple of people with regards to fights and whatnot but I really didn’t think too much of it. I was unaware of the whole needing a promoter issue. KBC Kim is hoping to introduce me to a promoter very soon.

10. Upon returning back in Cheonan after a very long day, I opened the door and what greeted me was two Korean cuties cooking me fish stew… Q and Mi Nam… hahaha.

QUESTION OF THE DAY...
Korea may have Seoul, but do you know what Cheonan has?

QUOTE OF THE DAY...
Patience is the ability to count down before you blast off.
-- Author Unknown

"They are your rice" said KBC Kim when he talked to me about my opponents, "Eat up".

Highlights of my Day... Wednesday, April 22

1. Got a call from KBC today, asking me if I’d be willing to fight in one or two weight classes lighter, bringing my required flyweight weight of 50kgs (110lbs) down to 49kgs (107.8lbs) or 47.6kgs (104.6lbs). I agreed.

2. With a little over four weeks till the fight I’m hoping to score, game nerves and butterflies have already started to kick in. I love the anticipation of the fight and, if anything, it’s more interesting to me than the actual fight. Sounds strange, I know, but I love the whole anticipation of stepping in the ring… the intense 7-days a week training, the hardcore dieting that keeps me up late at night dreaming of bread and ice cream, and all the peps talks my teammates give me that are filled with their secret moves and tips.

3. I may not be Korea’s female flyweight champion yet but I am a champion marker, or so I felt today… hahaha. “Time management is key” a former coworker once told me and so today I totally tried to use my time as effectively as possible. And so while my first class quietly wrote their exams, I did my Korean diary writing while monitoring them and answering random student questions. Then in my second class, when I had yet another exam to monitor, I marked the first classes’ exams.

4. Time well spent during school hours didn’t quite work out to time well spent after class.

5. No sooner had I returned home but then I crashed on the couch for a couple of hours.

6. Before I had even started training tonight I was already exhausted. My mad marking mixed with a spontaneous cat-nap made me slow in the ring today and sent my head spinning.

7. “Two weeks… just two weeks” is what I constantly remind myself of. In two weeks all this exam stuff and marking will be over with and it’ll be back to normal... whatever "normal" is.

8. I have officially killed yet another pair of Adidas gloves and another set of hand wraps. The padding on the gloves now flakes out and so I had to train with my old skool Ring Side gloves that I bought some 7 years ago.

9. Split open my thumb while boxing, both of them actually. Don’t ask me how cause I have no idea but now I’m sporting some pretty silly bandages.

10. By the time 11pm rolled around I was all rolly-eyed and too tired to make my way from the couch to bed and so Q tried to amuse himself by carrying me upstairs. What ended up getting me upstairs though was my cell phone going off. Two students texted me at 11:35pm with questions about tomorrow’s exam and if it weren’t for the fact that I was so brutally tired, I would have called them out for having the nerve to text me so late.

QUESTION OF THE DAY...
How come there's never enough time when you need it but too much time when you can't afford to wait?

QUOTE OF THE DAY...
Men talk of killing time, while time quietly kills them.
-- Dion Boucicault

I train abs a little bit everyday after I finish my boxing training. Here are my three favourite exercises I use to really get at those abs. I should warn you they ARE hard, but then again nothing worth it comes easy!

Declined weighted sit-up. I find it more effective than the common sit-up because of the fact that it's on a decline and so you have the added pressure of gravity and with the weight it makes for a challenging exercise.

Side bends (with weight). It targets the obliques (side abs). Note here though that you should really try to bend more than this girl. When you bend, reach down low, as if you're trying to touch the floor.

And this one is a killer but it REALLY targets the lower abs; it's the hanging leg raise.

Highlights of my Day... Tuesday, April 21

1. After telling my students over and over for the past seven weeks “No student profile = no exam. No exam = automatic fail”, you’d think that they’d get the drift… most did, some didn’t. Today I had to deal with a couple of those “some”, one of which was that particular girl I’ve written about before. I’d really hate to fail her, or any other student for that matter, because of a simple missing piece of paper but it’s a rule I have in place. Take it or leave it but the rule isn’t going anywhere.

2. One student had the nerve to call me on my cell phone and ask if he could change his exam time after I had already given him a super lucky break by letting him come to another classes’ exam. Wow, I thought. The nerve of some of people, seriously. He practically begged me and the conversation got quite annoying when he refused to accept my no. Finally I ended the conversation by saying “If you don’t like my no, that’s OK. Don’t come to the exam, fail the course and then you can argue with the professor who’ll be teaching the course next semester!”

3. I’m not a brute of a teacher, if anything, I think I make it really easy for my students. They all know my email address, cell phone number, I have office hours, I allow them to switch classes as long as they give me a day’s notice, and I’ve even made two homepages for the two different courses I am teaching where they can download my lecture Power Point files and leave questions or comments on a tag board.

4. Yesterday’s staff meeting came as a result of one of my coworkers quitting. I had mentioned his situation briefly in a previous day’s highlights. Anyways, he’s gone and I feel sorry for him but am happy for him too, it’s strange. I know him leaving Korea was a hard decision but I really respect why he’s leaving. He’s leaving because his wife in Canada really needs him by her side right now. His desk is besides mine in the office, well it was. Today I moved my stuff and took over his desk. Now I sit at the back of the office in a big corner desk… by myself :(

5. The yellow sand blowing in from China continues to annoy the heck out of me and I don’t even know why I bother to wear any eye make-up because by the end of the day I’ve rubbed the heck out of my eyes so much, leaving me bare-eyed.

6. Heading over to boxing and training at the club with the windows cranked open definitely didn’t help my situation and so I had several sneezing fits.

7. Junior Mint told me to ask this guy, a doctor whom Junior Mint is always so proud to say he trains. I didn’t really care to talk to Doctor-Dude considering he’s probably still sporting baby teeth and I highly doubt his words could solve my current problem. I needed drugs (meds), an immediate solution from my face-itching, nose-drooling, overly-agitated dry eye-rubbing, and sneeze-fit situation. Anyways, to amuse Junior Mint I asked him for advice. “Eat kimchi” is what he told me. I thought it was a joke but he continued on by asking me, “Do you eat kimchi?” I really wanted to snap back with “Are you really a doctor?” but I stopped myself. I tried to tell him that not only will kimchi add excess bongu (tooting acting) to my list of problems but that I highly doubted pickled radish solves anything. “I want to get rid of my itchy eyes” I told him, “Not my friends”… hahaha.

8. Yesterday I was totally drilled by Milk Dud on pad work and so it was nice to take a bit of a breather and have a bit of a lighter train tonight. I’m happy to write that my foot injury is doing much better and that my “daily beats” with that silly four-foot stick have become weekly beats.

9. Did my usual training but then added on various weight training exercises. I’d love to be able to program myself to wake up early and hit the weights and then hit the boxing club later in the evening but that my friend has proven to be but just a fantasy. I don’t really do mornings and well, when you got a beautiful four-legged little boy (Mi Nam) snoring beside you, it’s so incredibly hard to resist snuggling up to him and zone out again as he snores. So my daily workouts at boxing have become quite lengthy.

10. Drugs saved my life, well, maybe not my life but definitely my sanity. Q showing up with lots of pills for me to pop sure beat Doctor-Dude’s “eat kimchi” advice.

QUESTION OF THE DAY...
How is kimchi going to solve anything?

QUOTE OF THE DAY...
Sickness is the vengeance of nature for the violation of her laws.
-- Charles Simmons

Congrats to my friend Son in Busan for placing 3rd in the 2009 Mr. Busan Competition... and for the fact that this means he can eat kimchi now. He's overly excited about that... hahaha. If you ask me, his charm and smile alone are enough to make him number one.

Highlights of the Day... Monday, April 20

1. No sooner did I wake up but it hit me, this is midterm exam week, and that thought alone sent me crawling under my sheets for another good twenty minutes. There’s a certain satisfaction I get with exam week and I must admit, part of it has to do with the fact that I’m no longer on the receiving end of it all. Mind ya, marking exams is brutal. But what I love about exam week is seeing students get all serious and prepping in the classrooms. Numerous students have printed off my lecture files and that always thrills me. I love it how some of them are so dedicated, so eager to prove themselves on my exam. It’s awesome and, quite honestly, it makes me feel proud.

2. Oh gosh, have you ever experienced one of those “did you just hear what you said?” moments where something so obvious is not so obvious to those around you?! I definitely had one of those today and it came as a result of a staff meeting. Oh the things I’d love to say if there were no repercussions, I tell you. “Great joke guys,… too bad you don’t realize you’re your own punch line!”

3. Talk about not thinking, turns out my midterm reading exam is missing question 5 in Part C (multiple choice section)… oops.

4. While students eagerly slaved away at my exam in the second period, I just as eagerly slaved away at marking the first classes’ set of exams. Some of the students blew me away with their novel-like answers for Part E… wow!!!

5. I’m still in the process of marking the reading logs that I received last week and so a big chunk of my evening was spent marking those.

6. “Only two weeks… only two weeks” I continually had to tell myself today in order to keep myself from sinking and drowning in the already high mound of things to mark for school. In two weeks this marking will be over and then it’ll be back to preparing Power Point lecture files as being my biggest stress of the week.

7. Fitting boxing into my day is no problem as it is a much needed escape from the massive pile of exams and reports haunting me at my house. Finding energy to box after hours on end of marking however, now that’s a whole different issue.

8. Junior Mint was much under the weather today and so I agreed to manage the boxing club so that he could go home. I really didn’t have the time to spare but considering he’s no good to me if he’s not up to par at training, I figured it was the least I could do and his health is just as important to me as my health.

9. From 7:30pm to closing (10:30pm) I managed the club. One problem however, my training never goes on for three hours and so I tried to kill time by cleaning the club and testing out new training techniques. Only one other member was at the club and so I did an ab workout with him and then we played catch with the heavy medicine ball (which I note is awesome for the wrists!).

10. By the time I got home, showered, and downed a super ghetto protein shake, it was 11pm and I was wondering in the minus energy levels. I was KO by 11:05pm.

QUESTION OF THE DAY...
Did you ever stop to think, and forget to start again?

QUOTE OF THE DAY...
Never be afraid to sit awhile and think.
-- Lorraine Hansberry

I'm so late (a week) in wishing everyone a happy Easter.... so, HAPPY EASTER.

Isabelle wishes everyone a happy Easter as well. "Have a happy Easter, or else"... hahaha

Highlights of my Day... Sunday, April 19

1. After whining and dinning me last night with his words and me practically pulling an all-nighter at his office to hear him out, he lost all points possible when he couldn’t even park his car and walk me to the ticket booth at the bus terminal. That’s fine. I’ve never been one to need a guy, or anyone for that matter, to hold my hand and be there for me. I thought it was the least he could do though considering he’s on this whole “I love you” kick.

2. Returned home and was instantly reminded that I don’t need a guy cause I already have the perfect guy… Mi Nam. Ah Mi Nam, a guy who regardless of how stupid I act or how silly I get, always greets me by jumping all over me and with an eagerly wagging tail. He is love… real love.

3. Met up with Buff Boy the Original at Coffee Bean and the topic of discussion today was his current crush. “I have a problem” he said, “I have a crush.” According to his “girlfriend rules” his crush goes against all his rules, his rules being that she can’t be a student in his major, she has to live in Cheonan and she can’t be a “church girl”.

4. Our conversation got me thinking about my own situation. I don’t know what Q’s “girlfriend rules” are but I’m pretty sure I creamed them all… hahaha. So, I started thinking, “I wonder what his rules are” and so this is the list I thought up:

1. Must be Korean.
I’m Polish/Canadian but I speak Korean, studied the culture and have somewhat
Koreanized… does that count?!
2. Has to know how to cook.
The term “cook” needs to be better defined here… hahaha.
3. Must want children.
I have Mi Nam… does he count?
4. Must desire to be a stay-at-home mom.
H-E-double-hockey-sticks N-O is what I say to that. I don’t want to be a mom so who am I going to stay home to watch and it’s quite obvious the pay check I rake in is much sweeter than Q’s; not giving that up!

5. After my first Korean boyfriend here in Korea, I didn’t lose my interest in Korean guys but instead developed my own “boyfriend rules” with regards to Korean guys…. All of which Q doesn’t match up to.

1. Must speak English.
Q spoke “minus English” when I first met him and his English pretty much consists
of strange words he picked up from “Sex and the City”.
2. Must have traveled &/or lived outside of Korea.
Q traveled once to The Philippines but a week vacation doesn’t count.
3. Doesn’t want kids.
Q definitely wants a son… that’s so Korean.
4. Can’t be the oldest or the eldest son.
Q is the oldest son and thus expected to get married soon.

6. Of course there’s other factors at play here but dating a Korean guy in Korea isn’t as easy as dating some Western dude in Canada. It's can't just be as simple as "I like you, you like me". Dating involves more than just you and him and sure as heck involves more than the simple "I like you, you like me" when it gets serious. I found that out the hard way after learning my first boyfriend kept the fact that I was a foreigner secret to his family for so long.

7. Well, it WAS Easter Sunday last week and I missed it!!! In previous years (with my family) Easter always consisted of waking up early to find my fluorescent Easter basket on the main floor of my parents’ house. Of course I haven’t done that for many years now, but the memory is still there. Remembering the actual day however, not quite there and it wasn’t until I browsed Isabelle’s homepage that I found out Easter was today…. Oops.

8. Treated Q out for a beautiful lunch at a local hot spot where they bombard with a massive cooking pot full of veggies and beef. Mind you, our beautiful lunch was rudely interrupted by China… China’s yellow sand that is. Every year the arrival of spring is joined with the yellow sand from China and as the spring breeze enters into Korea, so does the yellow sand. It’s everywhere… including my nose, eyes, throat and lungs, all of which are now sore because of it.

9. By the time the afternoon was done and over with, my eyes were bloodshot from me rubbing them and I was sporting a pink bunny nose from rubbing it excessively, too. Q thought me sneezing like a million times was funny but it was quite annoying to me.

10. Spent my evening studying Korea and preparing my midterm exam stuff. Tomorrow marks the start of midterm week at Dankook and so Q and I dropped by the school to do lots of photocopying and stapling.

QUESTION OF THE DAY...
Why do we always have to complicate things?

QUOTE OF THE DAY...
If Heaven made him - earth can find some use for him.
-- Chinese Proverb

Myoung-Dong is always infested with shoppers like ants on an ant hill!!!

And they have the Adidas of all Adidas' here... it's wicked!

Kicks and Sunny were more interested in the knock-off "free-size" CK undies... hahaha.

Us rockin' our new shades... how posh.
Note how I've dropped the "kimchi fingers" for a puckered look... hahaha.

Street Cocktails selling, well, street cocktails. They're cocktails in little baggies for your convenience. Now you can drink AND shop... yikes.

Highlights of my Day... Saturday, April 18

1. Raced off to Seoul for my three hour Korean language tutoring.

2. Plan was to meet up with Mr. Not-So-Nice-Guy before heading out to see Kicks after her rugby game but plans were put on hold when both he and she hadn’t answered my calls. Waited it out in the sun but, while doing so, I ended up falling asleep for a bit only then to wake up and catch some silly pigeon eating my tuna sandwich!!!

3. It was like instant sensory overload when I reached the roof top patio where Kicks was. There were foreigners as far as my eyes could see. Now given the fact that I was meeting up with her in Itaewon (American Army base located there), foreigners galore are expected but wow, I felt like such a foreigner to the foreigners…. Hahaha.

4. Kicks, me and Kick’s former roommate Sunny skipped out on the foreigner-infested patio and checked out Myoung-Dong for some girl talk and shopping. Am now officially in love with the store Forever 21 and thank goodness I live no where near Myoung-Dong… hahaha.

5. Yesterday Homegirl, totally out-of-the-blue, called me from Canada (and much love to you for that, too) and so today I brought the issue of our phone conversation to Kick’s ears while shopping.

6. Myoung-Dong is the place to shop in Korea; it’s awesome. I always get so hyper when I go there and so I end up doing “stupid shopping”, as I call it. Despite my already growing collection of sunglasses (which I never wear I should note), Kicks helped me to pick up a perfect pair. I bought a couple of shirts, a dangerously delicious pencil skirt that I’m already obsessed with it’s side pockets, and a pair of glasses (which I have absolutely no need for but I now that I no longer need to wear glasses I love wearing them… hahaha).

7. Next on our agenda was Sunny’s going-away dinner party. She’s moving to Thailand with her foreign boyfriend on Tuesday and so they had arranged for friends to meet up. But before we all met up, we headed back to Kicks’ place to get dolled up for the evening. We all eagerly tried on the clothes we had just bought and so that was fun. Kicks’ place was buzzing with girls, as always is apparently. She lives with two other girls but while I scooted from the bathroom to the kitchen I counted a grand total of 9 of us girls in the house. Talk about a social hot spot!

8. For the most part, all the girls at dinner are rugby teammates and well, I’ll be the first to say that I know nothing of rugby beyond the fact it’s similar to football and the table full of female rugby players in front of me there could easily cream me… hahaha. Great girls but I couldn’t really follow their stories… maybe I should study English… hahaha. Anyways, so I sat beside the two only Koreans and joked to them in Korean and sat across from Kicks so that we could continue our girl chat.

9. Mr. Not-So-Nice-Guy continually checked up on me through out the day and had asked me to let me see him tonight. I agreed to see him because I knew we kind of needed to finish what we had started to talk about on Thursday night. Like Thursday however, tonight we again had a time limit on our talk. We didn’t meet up till about 10pm and the last bus for Cheonan was leaving Seoul an hour later.

10. 11pm came, 11pm left and the bus left without me. I totally blame Mr. Not-So-Nice-Guy and his overly dramatized grab-me-by-my wrist scene that he played out. I don’t doubt that I could have taken him on if I had really tried. One straight jab to his nose from me would have had him crying like a little girl but I chose to stay and talk, despite being embarrassed by his grab-me-by-my-wrist scene that I thought was really too much. It was important that we talk tonight and not drag it out to another night like Thursday but tonight's talk really didn't solve anything and with the arrival of the wee hours came frustration and more questions in my head. He really doesn't get it... he doesn't get it at all and tonight it was made all too clear to me. He thinks it's all right for him to text me and call me at random times to blurt into my ear sweet nothings but he's messing everything up for me. Before him, I somewhat knew certain things were lacking in my life but I didn't really care because they were comfortable and I had learned to either adapt, not think about them, or had distracted myself so that I didn't have time to face them. But then he came along with his persistence and charm, and selfishly tried to feed his own desires and needs. He really doesn't care about my needs, hence why he's continued on his whole "I love you" charade for well over a year now and, if I don't deal with it now, he's only bound to pop back up in another couple of months, just like he always does. Nothing got solved tonight and I thought that I could handle tonight's situation but, if anything, I ended the night feeling like I wanted nothing more than to punk him at his own game. And the moreI deal with dudes in my life, the idea of growing old in a house infested with cats is looking more and more attractive to me. I am so not interested in this scene... all of it. Life was so much simpler before guys.

QUESTION OF THE DAY...
Where's your favourite shopping hot spot?

QUOTE OF THE DAY...
Whoever said money can't buy happiness simply didn't know where to go shopping.
-- Bo Derek

I definitely wouldn't want to step in the ring with him!!!

Highlights of my Day... Friday, April 17

1. The whole point of today being my day off is to have a day off work but, like the past “days off”, today was filled with a lot of work. With about 200 reading log student reports sitting on my floor, haunting me and weighing heavy on my mind, I sat down and started to mark them.
2. Marked 40… and trust me, you really don’t want to know how long it took me to mark them. Mind ya, I will say that a lot of distractions occurred today and so I’m sure I could have done more.

3. My biggest distraction of the day was the Internet. I checked out my usual homepagers, of which is a limited short list, but that proved quite pointless. Am I one of the rare people who updates their homepage daily?! I can’t help but feel somewhat like a stalker checking out various homepages daily, hoping that they’d update more.

4. Getting back to marking proved to be quite unproductive, yet again. This time it was Mi Nam who distracted me. Off we went for a light jog together.

5. Junior Mint was all questions today at boxing with regards to my meeting at KBC yesterday. He’s convinced I’ve just won the lottery… hahaha.

6. Watched Milk Dud spar with some random amateur boxer. And despite no one else in the club knowing who Milk Dud’s opponent was, he was quite cocky when he got in the ring. I looked over to Little Miss Sunshine and mouthed the words “He’s going to die” to her. Sure enough, I was right. He started off really strong and full of energy but apparently had forgotten a very important fact, the fact being that a fight is more than one round.

7. In the third round Milk Dud gave his opponent a wicked body shot and down went his opponent. It was only a simple sparring practice but I think even Milk Dud was sick of the dude’s cockiness. Way to put that dude in his place though, wow. I almost felt embarrassed for him… almost.

8. Panty Boy Jr. has a game on the 25th of May and so tonight I stuck around after training to watch him get drilled by Junior Mint.

9. No sign yet of Black Skinny.

10. Ended my evening with going over my Korean language studies for tomorrow’s tutoring class.

QUESTION OF THE DAY...
Is this where Black Skinny's story ends?

QUOTE OF THE DAY...
What doesn't break you makes you stronger.
-- Anonymous