Highlights of my Day... Friday, March 20

1. Had my meeting at the Canadian Embassy to get my Police background record check notarized and so they asked me to crack open the sealed envelop from my hometown police. I don’t know what I was expecting but I held my breath when I did so. I got a clean slate from the police.

2. During Korean tutoring class my teacher’s cell phone went off. Usually she doesn’t accept phone calls when she’s teaching me but today she got a most important call. It was from her credit card company. Here in Korea you can set it up so that when your credit card is used a text message is sent to your phone. Today she got one of those text messages, one problem though, it wasn’t her who had used her credit card. You can imagine her and my shock when she called the credit company. I frantically searched through her purse while she talked to the company. “We just got word of a purchase of over two thousand dollars that has been made on your card” is what they told her. TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS!!! And with that her hands started to shake and memories of my wallet getting stolen while visiting Canada resurfaced. I felt terrible for her and my immediate reaction was to inquire about the surveillance cameras in Coffee Bean. I remember the coffee shop in Canada where my brutal situation went down. They had cameras but informed me later that they don’t actually tape what the camera catches… it’s just for looks.

3. In between my teacher waiting for me and me arriving, she only stepped away from her purse once, to put something in the garbage. Once is all it takes but what you don’t understand is this is not Canada, this is not America. This is Korea. The sense of safety and security in Korea is incredible and I’ve never heard of anything remotely like this going down. I’ve lost plenty of things here and have left things on chairs and what not but I’ve always had them returned or I’ve gone back and it’s either still there or someone’s turned it into an employee.

4. Needless to say, tutoring ended early and for the rest of the day I felt so bad for my teacher. I would never wish this situation on anyone but my teacher is such a hard worker and I really like her.

5. What I thought was going to be a second photo shoot turned into an interview today with that university student. Buff Boy the Original grace our presence with fabulousness by graciously coming along to help me with translating and so the three of us headed to a coffee shop for the interview. For the most part the questions were pretty general; why did I come to Korea, what obstacles have I had in Korea, etc. At one point he asked Buff Boy the Original what he thought about me, his close friend, boxing and that’s when Buff Boy the Original turned to me and asked, “Do you want me to be honest?” “Yes” I answered. His voiced lowered a bit and so I couldn’t catch all he said but from what I caught and what Korean I understood, I take it Buff Boy the Original isn’t quite the fan of me boxing but I’m pretty sure he understands what it means to me and he respects that.

6. After the interview, Buff Boy the Original and I hit up a local Kimbab Chunkuk. I’m not one to eat Korean fast food so I tried to stick to the tuna kimbab. Tasting a bit of the ramin noodles in some kind of spicy hot sauce with fish left my stomach turning later on at boxing.

7. Leave it to Buff Boy the Original to ask me something like “If you were in a lesbian couple, would you be the man or the woman?”… hahaha. Now I consider him to be incredibly intelligent and completely adorable but some of the things that comes out his mouth, I tell ya, I don’t know whether to laugh or stick a bar of soap in it to wash it out… hahaha. “You’d be the man… I know it!” he added. I tried my best at avoiding the question and instead through a totally of-the-wall, totally not me question at him. I can’t even bring myself to write the question here but I’ll tell you this, it was pretty much the same question but with the word gay as a substitute and I was a bit more “colorful” with how I posed my question. I was hoping it’d throw him completely off guard and my bluntness about it would make him to shy to question… apparently not… hahaha. Conversation ended with him saying, “So if you’re the man and I’m the man, we can be a gay couple”... Hahaha. Oh gosh. It was an interestingly awkward but refreshingly funny dinner chat.

8. As if today wasn’t eventful enough with all these unexpected turn of events, tonight I saw a little too much of Panty Boy Jr. At boxing he had shown me some tattoo designs on the computer that he was pondering over and then he stood up. I seriously thought he was going to show me a secret tattoo on his hip and so I watched with curiosity. Turns out he was just “itching a scratch” but I had seen more than just a scratch… oh gosh. And just when I stepped back in shock, Milk Dud reached out to shake my hand so I yelled out, stepped back again, and crashed into the change room door. Upon realizing what had just happened, everyone burst into laughter but I still felt a bit off. The first time I met Panty Boy Jr. he was weighing-in and it was then that I learned that weighing-in meant dropping your pants and stripping down to your barely-there necessities… Hence why Panty Boy Jr. has his nickname… hahaha.

9. Sat around with Junior Mint watching K-1 fighting on TV after training and so a brutally vicious fight that involved one too many knees to the head for my stomach to handle. I think I’ll just stick to punches to the head and body thanks. No knees or legs for me, please.

10. Ended the evening off with some late night grocery shopping at Home Plus which, I must note, I’m losing my interest in. Not only have my whole wheat bread hook-ups dead and gone but now they don’t even sell my favourite pineapple and cheese yogurt, chestnut milk, or my favourite granola with strawberries cereal. I had to get the runner-up cereal… $12 a box, yikes!!!

QUESTION OF THE DAY...
When is honest too honest?

QUOTE OF THE DAY...
Always tell the truth. Even if you have to make it up.
-- Author Unknown