Amanda Takes Off...

Last night's taekwondo class was fantastic, and it left me hopeful.

It started late because Special Forces was running the class before us. I talked to New Master (who I'm going to start calling Kwanjangnim) about what we'd talked about last week. Then I got in 350 turns of the jump rope before class finally started.

When classes started we only had three students. During warm ups a fourth student showed up. We did lots of partner stretching work. I love partner stretching because I can't force myself to stretch as far as my partner can.

Special Forces kept tickling my feet when they were on my partner's shoulder, while doing a side kick stretch. He kept giggling, "간지러워!" Ticklish!

When my partner was supposed to push my knees down during the butterfly stretch, he just let go. He looked at Special Forces. "Um...her knees. Do I need to push?" No, buddy, you don't. The butterfly stretch is one thing I'm very good at.

We did some self-defense moves. During one of them, Special Forces said "[굿 맨] 치면—" If Good Man hit—

I interrupted him. "치지 않아요." He doesn't hit me.

"뭐?" What?

I knew I having a hard time pronouncing the ㅊ/ㅈ sounds in succession. I also knew Special Forces didn't really think Good Man hits me. I didn't care. Domestic violence is far too common in Korea, and I wanted to make it clear Good Man isn't a stereotypical Korean man. I repeated myself. "치지 않아요."

"오케이, 나쁜 남자 치면..." OK, if a bad man hits you... He raised his arm. I took him to the floor.

He gave me a high five and I said "아줌마 파워!"

He nodded his head and bowed to me. "네, 아줌마 파워." Yes, ajumma power.

At the end of class Special Forces and I sat on the floor, chatting in Korean for about ten minutes. I found out a little about his family left behind in Korea. Why he came to America. How he learned English.

It was a nice chat, and it made me wonder if maybe, over time, Special Forces and I could actually develop a friendship like Master and I developed in South Korea.

나: [네 오빠]와 결혼했으니까 지금 우리는 언니/여동생이야! *^^*

시누이: ~~~~ 언니! 우린 이제 진짜 가족!

나: 어머니, 아줌마인 것 같아요...

시어머니: 난 할머니야!

Good Man and I went for a "short walk" today. It ended up being a nearly two-hour long, ~5 km stroll where we got very, very lost in some windy, twisty, "no through road" neighborhood.

Blossoms I

Blossoms II

Blossoms III

The walk was pretty standard, until I found a "park" and decided that it must be connected to another park we found on a Sunday walk a few months ago.

A Walk in the Woods

The park was mostly a dirt path through some undeveloped land. Many of the trees had been cut down and were marked with various ties. I'm not sure if the trees are diseased, if they're thinning out the park, or if they're putting an asphalt path through the park. I found a tree stump and made Good Man pose. (You can see one of the red flags off to the left in the photo he took of me.)

Hunched Over Good Man

Inspector Gadget? Spy? Science Person?
Students at my school and/or friends have called me all of the above in this coat.

At what appeared to be the end of the trail, we found multiple large puddles. Using the Lens Baby (at an f/stop of 2.8) combined with the wind gave the surface of the puddles a very soft look.

Reflections I

Reflections II

Good Man, Being a Good Sport

Bark

And this...is the point where we found ourselves on some no-through streets. We could see a building that we knew in the distance. We just couldn't get to it!

We ended up wandering around, making good guesses about the direction home. We ended up finding a bus stop (completely weird that it was that far from a main street) and using the map of the route to find our way out.

Good Man was enjoying himself. I was not enjoying myself. I was worrying. Good Man teased me. "아즘마야!" You're an ajumma!

Eventually we found our way out, just as it started lightly raining.

Playing with these photos in Lightroom was interesting. I was going to leave the photo in color, but I experimented with black and white.

When the photo is in color, I am drawn to the green plants, the blue sky, and the line of the tree branches being reflected.

Color vs Texture I

Yet in black and white, I suddenly saw the texture of the brown leaves under the water.

Color vs Texture II

(You can click on each image to get a larger copy of the image.)

I said I was going to post these directions a long time ago but didn't. Ramsey asked for the directions, so here they (mostly) are in pictures.

Fold diagonally both ways.

Fold horizontally and vertically.

You are left with this, flower color side down.

Fold one point to the center.

Repeat until all points are folded to the center.

Pick up and push ends together.

It should be squashed like this.

(This is the point where I took my wire and poked a hole in the pointed end. I didn't show that step here. I then put the wire aside until later.)

Put on table and lift up one "flap."

Open the flap and...

...squash it flat.

Repeat on all the flaps until you're left with something that looks like this.

Pull open the points in various configurations to make flowers. For this part, you basically need to experiment.

One version.

For another version I flattened some of the smaller side flaps down.

My mom made a version where she pinched two sides.

It sort of looked like this.

Or you can just pull it wide open.

After the flower looked the way I wanted it to, I poked the wire back down into it. I kept the wire looped at one end to keep it from slipping through the hole. I then wrapped the wire around the very bottom of the flower and the stick. I squeezed some craft glue around it to keep everything in place, and I squeezed some yellow puff paint inside each flower to make it look more flower-like.

I don't have photos of those steps, but you can see the wedding flowers Mom and I made. I think the wrapping part just takes some experimentation and practice! WedLog has some more detailed instructions, as well.

"You make me feel rich."

오늘은 예전보다 새 관장님을 조금 더 좋아한 것 같아요.

집중 (集中)
중심 (中心)
연심 (戀心)
이해 (理解)
남편 (男便)