Highlights of my Day... Thursday, March 26

1. If I walk to work it takes me 40 minutes, 15 minutes by bus, and 7 if I take a taxi. My point here being that walking is the slowest, taxi is the fastest. Well, today a walker beat me to school. It took me 43 minutes to get to school today by taxi because of the brutal morning traffic mixed with the continual construction scene that’s creating pure traffic mayhem.

2. Blazed if off to class and was greeted by only 4 students, the rest of the class was on MT… great. My little Hongik buddy, who’s now my student and let me tell you it’s a tad uncomfortable standing in front of him teaching, knowing full well that he’s seen me pretty much half naked sweating it out at Hongik fitness… showed up today. (Talk about a grammatically incorrect strange and deranged English sentence there… hahaha)

3. One of my coworkers is a mini project for me in the making after he questioned me about my boxing, training and dieting. He’s looking to get buffed-up and so he eagerly picked my brain about it today. I ended up printing off a copy of the fitness book I wrote and so he told me he’ll come back on Monday with questions… cool. I’m all for people taking control of their health and stepping up to the responsibility of it. I am definitely not the fittest person by any means but there’s a continual satisfaction I feel with knowing I’m doing my body good.

4. Had some annoying “peepers” outside one of my classrooms today who insisted that it was funny to continually jump up and peek into the classroom windows. Needless to say it was quite distracting and so I whipped open the classroom door and yelled at them in Korean. The looks on their face was priceless. I got a somewhat standing ovation from my students for it, too… hahaha.

5. Just as God brought life into this world with Black Skinny’s baby boy, today he took life. Today my coworker got word that his wife in Canada lost their unborn baby. I don’t know what to say except that this is terrible and watching my coworker, a full-grown man, struggle to fight off the emotions as he sat beside me, made me feel helpless and frustrated. I can’t even being to imagine, nor do I want to, the pain and frustration he’s feeling with being more than a plane ride away from her. My prayers and deepest condolences go to them.

6. With exactly a week and two days till one of my brother’s birthday, tonight I went looking for a gift. His birthday is April 4 which, if you haven’t already heard, is the exact day North Korea will be testing a long-range Taepodong-2 missile. A missile that is reportedly able to reach the States. Japan has warned North Korea, telling them that if needs be they will use interceptor missiles to shoot it down if any North Korean missiles threatened its’ territory. I take it next weekend I’ll be staying in.

7. But seriously, all jokes aside, after visiting the DMZ some couple of years ago where my every moment was controlled, restricted, and intensely watched by heavily armed soldiers, I have a whole new perspective on North Korea; a fear of it. There is no other country quite like North Korea. A country that so unconsciously and so easily starves it’s people so that they can put up another government monument, that brainwashes it’s population and has absolutely no care for its’ population except for the gain of its’ government as a means of strength and power.

8. The other day Buff Boy the Original said something along the lines of me having to wear more lace, flowers and pink, to “be more like a girl” and what he said has kind of stuck with me these past couple days. Today I found myself buying a long dress unlike anything I’d normally wear but because it had flowers on it and screamed “I am a girl”.

9. Almost everyone from my boxing K-crew was out at boxing tonight: Panty Boy Jr., S-line-Wanna-Be-Girl, Daejon-D, Little Miss Sunshine, Motor Cross, Black Skinny, and of course Junior Mint and Milk Dud. It’s nights like this at training that I live for here in Korea, when everyone I love at my boxing club comes out and trains together. It makes for a very distracting time however because we’re all a bunch of jokers. In between Little Miss Sunshine acting like a paparazzi with my camera, Panty Boy Jr. trying to steal my focus away by breaking out into random rap sessions while Milk Dud added some strange dance moves to the equation, and Motor Cross trying to kick my skipping robe while I skipped, I did manage to get in a good training session… hahaha.

10. Almost convinced myself that on the weekend, when the club is closed, I’m going to steal that 4-foot-beating stick that Junior Mint has been using on me in training. That thing definitely hurts and leaves my skin stinging for way too long… and I have quite the bruised butt to prove it (not that you want to see it… hahaha.)

QUESTION OF THE DAY...
What is tough love to you?

QUOTE OF THE DAY...
Love is much like a wild rose, beautiful and calm, but willing to draw blood in its defense.
-- Mark Overby