Amanda Takes Off...

Yesterday at work, one of my coworkers asked me if men in America help with housework. "They do more than they do here, but women still do most of the work," I said.

"Does your boyfriend clean anything?"

"Yes, he does the dishes, and he's good at cleaning." I nodded.

The women all gasped. One said, "And he is Korean?"

I nodded, "Yes. If he doesn't do the dishes, I don't cook. I can't! No clean dishes..."

One woman laughed, "But we have children. They must eat..."

I was trying to be polite. Rather than explain that I had chores as a kid (chores which included doing the dishes), rather than saying a man is not a child and he doesn't need to eat, I winked. "I don't have kids."

I went to bed around midnight last night. I ran through my black belt form, pal jang, and chil jang mentally before falling asleep. This should've given me a good seven hours of sleep.

At 5:23 am my phone rang. 따르릉 따르릉. It was Good Man. "I'm outside your house. I'm going to open the door." He didn't sound drunk. What the...?

I opened the bar bolt and let him in. "What in the world are you doing? Did you have a wayshik? Or were you working?"

"No, not a wayshik. At 10 my job made me go down to Ansan. I just got back."

This means he worked a 20 hour day. Oh, but after 10 pm he sort of gets overtime. Overtime at a rate which is less than his normal salary. And only for the 7 hours after 10 pm. Although I'm sure they'll claim that the transportation time to and from Ansan wasn't work, so let's cut that down to 5 hours. Wait, but these are Koreans in the accounting office, so let's make it 4 hours. And the overtime he worked before 10 pm? No. Nothing.

Had he actually gone home (at 5:23 the subways may have just started running), he would've changed clothes, turned right back around, and still been late for work.

As it is, the lucky man got about 3 hours of sleep last night.

He showered and crawled into bed. "I hate your job," I said. "Let's go to America."

"OK," he said sleepily.

"Now."

"OK, I will become a refugee."

He started snoring and I was stuck awake. I started mentally doing form. Chil jang, yuk jang... and I was asleep.

Tonight I got to taekwondo and saw...Cocky! I was so excited I couldn't even speak Korean. "오래만이예요! 많아요. 음! 뭐 하고 있었어?" He laughed. He's been working a part-time job. He's not going to college this year. He's going into the military. I suspect he's starting his military service early (in May) because his grades were not fantastic in school. However, a while ago he wanted to be a security guard for rich and famous people, so maybe that's changed to some sort of military career.

Officer taught half of class. While I was warming up, we chatted. She didn't know that I know she's leaving. She told me Friday is her last day, and she's a bit nervous about starting her police officer classes. I told her I was nervous about Friday.

We did running drills and I had a contest with an elementary school aged boy next to me. He's fairly new to our class period, but sweet. I think he has a little crush on me and we were racing while I yelled 이기겠어! I will win! I let him win by one or two steps. Most of the time.

Master came for the second half of class. "관장님...금요일...조금 긴장해요." Master...Friday...I'm a little nervous.

"좋아요." Good.

I laughed and asked why. He said that he wants us to be a little nervous because it makes us practice more. I decided to try using a grammar pattern I hate using, and a grammar pattern I just learned this week. "작년 이년보다 긴장했어요. 하지만...지금 긴자해요!" I was more nervous last year than this year. Then, to reassure him that I wasn't getting cocky, But I'm a little nervous!

He laughed and asked why I was more nervous last year. "어떻게 하는지 몰랐어요. 하지만 이년 어떻게 하는지 알아요." I didn't know what would happen. But this year, I know.* Master nodded and said we would have a test one day this week. "Maybe today," he said.

While Master did kicking drills with the non-testing students, I did poomse with the drilling students. Master told me to count off, which I did. I don't know why it's hard to do the forms well and keep count in Korean, but it is. I think I repeated "8...9...10..." a few times.

Crybaby usually counts off, and she seemed pissed that I was doing it. But Crybaby is lazy and wants to rest too often and counts in a quiet, whiny, "I don't want to be here" voice. She is great at taekwondo, but she doesn't always want to be there. I know the feeling, but I'm an adult, so I am better able to hide it, especially when put in charge of children. When Amanda Eonni started wandering off and her little brother started getting ants in his pants, a hissed, "don't do that!" and they stopped. Crybaby is too close to their age to do that.

A little over halfway through, Crush Boy had to leave. He told Master then came back to me and said, "Bye, Amanda," with a little wave. Then he sort of looked confused and started to bow. Then he looked perplexed and started to salute out like we do for Officer and Master. I could see him thinking, "She's older...but she's foreign...and she's teaching, but she's not a teacher and we don't usually salute out higher belts, but she really is a teacher and..." To end his confusion, I patted him on the back and nodded a little bow to him.

I have a feeling that little "Amanda, count, OK?" bit from Master was part of my pre-test pre-test...

*Good Man says "이번 년" is better than "이년" but it is even better to say "올해 because 이번 년 is sort of weird" and sounds like a swear word.