The other week I did a photo shoot for the Toronto Public Library, a project they were working on that showcased various Torontonians who used their facilities and services. I was honoured to be asked to be one of them, to be a "Torontonian" showcased, but I've been so delinquent in writing my story for them. Here's the draft I finally submitted. I think it needs some work -- it's too wordy and too much about my lead-up to how and why I'm at the library. None the less, it's what I submitted to them. I attached a note telling them I could totally revise it, chop it down and chop it up if they wanted me to, so let's see what becomes of it. Here's what I submitted though, enjoy.
My Story of the Toronto Public Library and Me
Originally from Toronto, Canada, as soon as I graduated from York University I left Canada and headed to Korea with the hopes of living overseas for a year, to expand upon my university studies of the Korean culture and really expand myself. However, one year turned into two, then two turned into three, and then next thing I knew it she was on year eleven.
I started off as one of many ESL teachers living in Cheonan, South Korea, a small city about an hour south of Seoul. I worked during the day and boxed at night for exercise. The boxing club I was a member of quickly became like a second home to me and my boxing soon became a huge passion and top priority. I think it was when I turned professional with my boxing in Korea though that life for me really began. I didn’t really fit in in Korea to start off with and my boxing made me stick out even more but because of that doors started to open, opportunities started to present themselves, and through my boxing I started a female-only fitness social club, Flipside Fitness. The success of this club, which was really an additional side hobby for me, then launched me into a whole new world -- the wonderful world of entrepreneurship and business. In 2013, because of the success of Flipside Fitness, I then opened up my own boxing club, Hulk's Boxing (now known as Hulk's Club), and at 11,000 square feet it's the largest club in Korea. It was wild, being a female in a foreign country, in a male-dominated society and in a male-dominated sport, but it wasn’t enough for me. I had reached my potential in Korea and had missed out too much on the lives of close friends and family in Canada. So I came back. Now I’m starting all over again from the bottom up in Toronto, Canada, and it’s as exciting as it is scary. I’m optimistic about what's next but now I face a whole new struggle -- reverse culture and wanting to start a business in what has become a foreign land to me. And that's where the Toronto library comes in and plays a vital life line role in my new life.
I’m a budding entrepreneur but I’m still a professional athlete so I juggle between training and studying for my next big dream, my “Second Dream” as I call it. I train twice a day, six days a week, and when I’m not training I’m either eating, sleeping or at the library. I’m always at the Toronto Reference Library, researching Canadian business or using their computers to email my business partner and sponsors in Korea or responding to international boxing fan mail. My favourite floor is the third floor, that's where all the business books with how to write the perfect business proposal and whatnot can be found. I know I could get the library to order books in for me so that I can sign them out and read at home but I favor studying at the library. It’s a lonely life -- the life of a professional athlete -- and the library is a very comforting place for me. It’s no longer that cold, quiet place I used to be forced to go to for school assignments but instead has evolved into this happening place where I can use a computer, watch a bit of the news on TV, and even enjoy a coffee at. Love, love, LOVE the fact I can enjoy a coffee here on the first floor; it helps me get a jump start on my studying. Moreover, studying at the library gets me out of bed on those days when the training from the night before at the gym or boxing club was extra rough and has left me with sore muscles and aching bones.
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