Amanda Takes Off...

Tae kwon do was, as usual, exciting. Class was tiny, something like twelve people.

During the first half of class, we ran around the studio for twelve minutes. Twelve minutes is not a long time, but for this former distance runner, it's just about the point that I actually start to enjoy the run. The studio is small enough that approximately 32 steps of mine are one whole lap. At one point Master pulled a few people out of line and I ran faster to close the gap. He was very excited that I understood that I should do that. I just laughed.

As we were running around in circles, the studio's calendar was flapping about. I was briefly reminded of scenes in movies where someone is physically training for something and the passing of time is shown by marking Xs on a calendar or tearing off pages, weeks flying by, as shots of the person training in various settings are shown on the screen.

I may be a former distance runner, but my mind still wanders like a distance runner.

Then he did the ball thing. We were in small groups and competing against each other. I either got the same number or one more than White Belt Woman and so I got to sit out with Ghost and Powerful (the winners of their groups) while everyone else did a second set. Thus I learned 파란색 (blue) and 노란색 (yellow).

While we were watching everyone else run after the pink balls, Ghost taught me a new word. 방귀. Fart. I asked what it meant and he pointed at Powerful's butt. (방귀 should not be confused with 방구, which is, according to a friend, the informal form of "fart." According to the dictionary, it also means "a trip to Europe" and "a guard.")

During break, Master teased Ghost about the words he's teaching me.

Most exciting is that I managed to correctly conjugate two whole sentences off-the-cuff tonight! The exciting thing about one of them is that I just used what (little) I know to guess that "free sparring" as a noun (겨루기) could be changed to "free sparring" as a verb by adding (하다). It worked.

I also managed to say, "태권도 안 해요?" (We don't do tae kwon do?) about the first week of October (holiday, no class). He said I was right and I said, "Right? OK sentence?" He said yes, and I cheered for myself. Powerful and a few other boys got why I was cheering right away. Master took a minute before saying (in Korean), "Oh, Korean? Yes, good, good."

Stupidly simple Korean, I know, but very exciting.

I was right—I won't be able to test with the regional Kukkiwon office till I've lived here six months. He looked very apologetic about it, but it's not his fault. He didn't make the rules and regulations, and since he's never had a foreign student before, I wouldn't expect him to know the rules and regs.