Amanda Takes Off...

Today we went to the Smithsonian American Art Museum. We were looking at portraits and paintings, and writing poetry based on a pre-chosen painting. I thought the museum would be a bit boring, but it was truly fun. The students—when we walked into the hallway with the paintings they'd seen, their arms went wild. "Oh my gosh, we've seen that! And that! And that!"

A girl who was in my group is tall and lanky, like a model. She's sassy and she set off two alarms today. She talks with her hands and uses her whole body and all of the space around her when she moves.

Another girl who was in my group is short, moves more slowly, doesn't know what "sassy" means, and is very cautious about her surroundings.

We were walking through part of the gallery and Sassy was walking, looking backwards, chatting with her friends, nearly running into things. After setting off two alarms already.

I started scolding her. "[Sassy!] Be more careful! Look forward instead of walking all twisted up so—so—you don't run into things. Stop chit-chatting with your girlfriends!"

Everyone around could hear us, though I wasn't yelling or anything.

Suddenly Cautious, who was far ahead of us, turned around and shrieked, "You have girlfriends?"

Oh. My. Kimchi.

All of my students burst out laughing. I couldn't help myself. I doubled over with laugher. "Girlfriends?" she repeated. Everyone else around us broke into smiles. Even the docent laughed.

Her timing and voice were just perfect.

Tin Woman
I can't remember the name of this piece.

"Why are you late?" Special Forces Instructor asks me, in Korean.

"Um, my boyfriend wanted to watch Obama, but we don't have a TV, so I had to drive him to a friend's house."

Two of my classmates look at each other. One says, "I understood 'Obama'" and the other, "I got 'television.'"

Special Forces, who I assume wasn't expecting such an answer laughs, "OK, warm-up."

We drill, kick after kick in class. He speaks to me in English and slips into Korean. I say nothing, responding in Korean. I like it when we speak Korean.

After class I ask the instructor if he likes soju, and where I can find it since the Korean market doesn't carry it. He says we should go out for drinks together.

"Yes," I say, "We will drink, and become friends."

After more than two hours at the DMV, I have corrected the registration address of my truck, and I have a new license.

Why is took the woman 45 mins to enter the information in her computer is beyond me.

Why they asked for hair color, eye color, and weight when it's nowhere to be found on the card is beyond me.

Why the card expires in 2015 when I paid for eight years? That's beyond me.*

Why the RESTRICTIONS part of my card is blank when I checked "yes" to "do you wear glasses" and said, "I must wear glasses while I drive, to not do so would be homicidal and suicidal" is beyond me, too.**

But I must say, the photo is good!

* Actually, I suspect the less-than-one-month-until-my-birthday part counts as one year. Good Man said, "We won't be here in seven years anyways, so don't try to fix it."

** If you checked "yes" to any of the health questions, you had to explain them in a box. I thought that was rather stupid, since it's obvious I wear glasses. So a drew a stick figure girl with glasses on her stick round head.

Last night I went to taekwondo. It was a tiny class of only five people, all of us black belts. (I think; I still can't figure out why some people have red, orange, and blue belts and others have green and black belts. In case, everyone there was wearing a regular-looking black belt.)

We did a lot of kicking drills, and though I mentally didn't want to go to class, it was exactly the sort of class I needed.

At one point in the class, a young guy (high-school aged) said to Special Forces Instructor, "하지마!"

I have no idea where he learned that, but we all stared at him. Half of the students asked me what he said, the other half asked a Korean-American classmate. "'Don't do that,'" I looked at him and said, "You can't say that!"

"Why not?"

"That's how you speak to lovers, family, children, and animals, not your instructor."

He blushed and bowed to Special Forces Instructor, "Sorry."

My partner said, "How should he say it?"

"Hajimasayo."

The rest of class, the teenager kept using -세요.

I ended up being partnered with a young, cute guy. Looked like he was half-Asian, but could've been Latino or something else. I figured he was in his late teens, early twenties. Nice, friendly, nearly gave me a bloody nose with a firm, not too well-placed kick.

While we were doing sit-ups, he was very nervous to sit on my feet. I said, "I need you to sit on my feet."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

When we switched, I sat on his feet and hugged his knees to keep him steady. Something about working with all of those boys in Korea made me lose any worries about modesty in taekwondo. If I need you to sit on my feet, sit on them. I'm not attracted to you, but I do need stronger abs.

Interestingly, while you need proof of residency (not with a lease!) to get a license, you don't need it to register to vote here. A few weeks ago, I registered to vote with some people from the Obama campaign. Since that got me on their list, they called to let me know about a new office opening near us.

Good Man really wanted to go.

After that DMV experience, I didn't want to go. But he did, and I'd promised him we'd go.

We did go—walking to the office, because it's only 1.2 miles straight down the street—and I'm so glad we did. After dealing with Queen of the DMV, it was nice to be around nice, like-minded people. We got to see our local representative give a speech, and we got to chat with a lot of people.

Plus, we got a picnic lunch for free and the weather was great.

Good Man and Obama

Cantaloupe, Seasoned Red Potatoes, Spicy Roasted Chick Peas, Peanut Butter and Lignon Berry Jam Sandwiches, and Carrot Sticks

Sunday afternoon, Good Man and I headed into DC with a picnic lunch. After enjoying our lunch (he decided, very firmly, that he doesn't like cantaloupe), we went to the Holocaust Museum to see an exhibit about the 1936 Berlin Olympics and the politics involved in it. It was rather odd seeing some photos of Dachau since I've been there. (I had that experience watching Dark Knight, too. I unintentionally whispered, "I've been there!" when Hong Kong popped up on the screen.)

The exhibit itself was rather interesting. I didn't know that Berlin is when the torch relay started. How the Nazis "cleaned up" to appear friendly, and how the international community reacted, in hindsight makes me wonder how idiotic people were. (I wonder how idiotic people are now to moan about China and human rights violations while ignoring Gitmo. Or Darfur.) The way that African Americans were treated by the German press... It was a really good exhibit and had a lot of photography, so I enjoyed it, as much as you can enjoy anything about the systematic, mass extermination of millions of people.

We had tickets to see the main part of the museum, but after the Berlin exhibit, we were both a bit spent, emotionally, so we decided to just wander around DC a bit. I will go back to the Holocaust Museum. I remember when it opened, I was in seventh or eighth grade, and reading about the Holocaust was a pet interest. When I read an article in Newsweek about the display of shoes, I swore I'd go there one day. Well, I did, but the shoes will wait until another day, because just the Nazi Olympics exhibit wore me out.

After that emotional morning, Good Man and I went way out on the subway line to meet Diana! She was in town and her lovely family invited us over for dinner. We have no photos, but what a lovely dinner and what a nice family. She was in town an extremely short time, and I was flattered that she wanted to hang out with us considering she'd seen us more recently than her non-Korean friends.

(Oh, and Diana gave us her vacuum as a housewarming gift! Diana made the mistake of telling me this beforehand, and I was rather excited. I love vacuuming.)