Amanda Takes Off...

Tonight's class was awesome, exhausting, and informative.

We jump roped for 15 minutes and Master had me practice that awesome jumping thing I don't get with the rope. That helped it make sense, but I'm still screwing up when I have to alternate legs. Then we did some jump rope games in teams. I was with Ghost, Studious, and one of the kids that I haven't nicknamed. We had to run into the jump rope, one-by-one, and then jump together for as many jumps as we could. My team made it the least—26 jumps—because of me.

Then we did something where we all jumped together. We counted to ten, sang some Korean jump roping song that involved turning around then singing and touching the ground, then singing and 만세ing. Nobody made it past the touching the ground. My team turned around and then tripped on the rope.

Since, over the course of both events, we were second place, we were supposed to do 50 squats. The third place team was supposed to do 50 squats and 30 pushups. For whatever reason (probably because the third place team was so because of the smallest, youngest kid in the studio and they had five team members instead of four) he didn't make any of us do squats. Thank goodness.

During out break, Master taught me how to combine sentences. "오늘 통일가서 태권도해요." That little 서 means "and." In other words, today I am going to Tongil and I'm practicing taekwondo. Oooh, hooo, boy I am going to go crazy with that little marker.

After our breaks we did some insane target practice work. Pretty standard stuff at first. I was hooked up with this new girl. I can't tell her age, maybe 14? 15? She came yesterday and just watched. She showed up today with a uniform complete with her leg on her name and a black belt. I have no idea who she is or where she came but she bugged me yesterday when she was listening to her MP3 in class and she bugged me today when she was just babbling away on her handphone during the 20 mins before class. Granted, it's Master's responsibility to tell her to stop if he wants, but it just drove me crazy.

Then we broke into groups of three and did double, triple and quadruple target practice. For example, a round house kick to the guy in front of you, turn, reverse stance and round house kick to the guy that was behind you. Or, double round house kick alternating legs, turn, reverse stance, and hatch kick the guy behind you. Or, left-right double round house kick, turn, reverse stance, right-left double round house kick. Our final (마지막) set of kicks was 20 alternating round house kicks, turn, repeat.

I was sore. My toes hurt from missing the target a few times. My toenails had black streaks on them from the targets. My dobok was soaked. In other words, it was awesome.

After class, Master asked if I was sick. My throat has been a little hoarse. I said no, but that my throat hurt. I managed to get him to understand I had been in a smoky coffee-house Sunday night and the smoke had made my throat sore. Coffee-houses are super popular with twenty-something couples here, so he asked whom I'd been with. I said it was a date. "Amanda, you have boyfriend?"

"Aniyo, aniyo! Just one date!"

"Hanguk, Miguk?"

"Kyopo," I said, using the word that describes Koreans raised abroad.

"Oh! Good, good."

"Eh, I don't know," I said in Korean.

"Don't know?"

"Eh...nice guy but I don't know," I shrugged. He laughed.

"It's OK, you want boyfriend? We find boyfriend."

I said, "I want a black belt." He grinned at me. I don't think I've ever said those exact words to him.

Before class, I learned "놀라요 (놀라다)." To be surprised, amazed, astounded. Thanks be to Studious for that.

I asked Master about some words at the bottom of our sign, 최우수. It means "the most excellent, superior, first-rate" choice. Years ago our studio was ranked the best by one of the organizations. Now I can't recall if it was city or province-wide.

I also learned blister (물집) from one of the kids. 물 is water and 집 is house, so much like my homesick "house hurts" moment, he kept screaming "water house!" in English. He wouldn't stop until I told him he was saying "bathroom." OK, OK, so he wasn't saying "water closet," but dang, it was annoying.

After class, I ran into the college student woman that doesn't make it too much (she's studying taekwondo in Suwon). She was coming back from work, we chatted for a few minutes. It was nice.

I did my Korean homework on the subway ride home. While I still haven't memorized this set of vocab, I'm feeling more excited to get back to studying after tonight.