Amanda Takes Off...

Resolved

I met two of last year's resolutions, blew one completely out of the water, and failed at the Korean one. This year I really only have on goal, and that is to read 1,000,000 글자 (syllables) in Korean.

Ringing It In
So last night I stayed up with my Korean family, drinking wine and watching various K-pop acts on the TV, waiting to ring in the new year with 33 bongs on the bell in Seoul. (Mother was the only one who knew the reason for the 33 bongs. Each one represents one of the original signers of the Korean independence document.)

Mother and Father had gone out with Father's seonbae in the evening, so Father was drunk. We hid the wine from him and at one point he was resting his head on his hand on the table, looking around for the wine. He was peering at my through the wine glass as if to say "American Daughter-in-Law, please give me the wine..."

The pop acts were, well, K-poppy. I was horrified by MC Mong's "Indian Boy" video. My in-laws couldn't understand why I was so horrified and Good Man tried to explain, but it was so clear they just didn't get it. (This isn't the actual video, but it fairly close to what he did.)

K-pop band Jewelry sang some song with the words "Jewerly Forever" behind them the whole time and I just about died laughing. Another girl group Kara, sang a song with the lyrics "Rock your body, I say" but when they sing, it becomes "Rock your bahsay."

I should be hired by some entertainment groups in Korea. I would catch every little stupid mistake...especially since they're glaring!

After a phone conversation last night I said to Good Man, "I need to study Korean more so I can talk to your mother more easily. Or...maybe your mother should watch Boys Before Flowers. Then we could talk about the hot Orange Haired Guy."

***

Several weeks ago, Good Man came to school to help chaperon a field trip. Of course he ended up meeting several coworkers and was seen by even more. After he'd left, more than one coworker told me, "He's cute! Wow, he's way cuter than I thought he'd be, for an Asian guy!"

How am I supposed to take that? Scratch that. I know how I take it. The better question is how am I supposed to answer that?

A few weeks ago I was talking about various Korean celebrities with high school senior from taekwondo class. She has a Korean mother and a white American military father. She meant it as a compliment when she said to me, "Yeah, you have yellow fever!"

Based on my reaction, I don't think she'll risk saying that to anyone ever again, compliment or not.

***

Then there are those things I'm not supposed to admit. Those things related to being in an interracial, intercultural, international relationship.

I start posts about them. I keep them in draft mode, because I fear I'll be misunderstood.

I can only say that one of the best thing about being in this particular interracial, intercultural, international relationship is the ways that we're not the same. The ways that he is a 황인 한국 남자 and I am a 백인 미국 여자.

High on the roof,
Thin the blood,
Another one on the waves tonight,
Comin' in, you're home

I have a crush on an orange-haired child (22, he's a child). See him at about the 7:00 mark and again at 9:10.

Boys Before Flowers,
Boys Over Flowers

(Sorry for the screen overflow. I know it's happening...)

I had to cover someone's morning duty so I could leave early this afternoon to go to the foot doctor re: my broken toe. My job was to watch all of the second through sixth graders in the gym with the PE teacher.

A second grade student who didn't know my name walked up to me. "Ms! Ms...um...?" I said my name and nodded for her to continue, "He told another boy that I like him!"

Oh please. Shoot me now. "Do you?" I asked as sweetly as I could.

"No."

"Then he's being stupid. Go sit down."

Her eyes turned into saucers and she gave me a "that's it?" look and ran off.

***

So I went to the foot doctor and the foot doctor said that my fracture is actually worse than it was three weeks ago! How is that possible? I have been wearing that dumb blue orthopedic shoe constantly!

He called for another three weeks off of taekwondo and on the shoe.

Six weeks without taekwondo. Sigh. And it's not even like I can substitute exercise here. I'm stretching and doing pushups (from the knees) and situps, but I can't jump rope, I can't walk to work... Arg!

***

So my new favorite Korean song is 브라운아이즈's 가지마 가지마 (Brown Eye's "Don't Go Don't Go"). Note, this is not the official video, because the official video has some weird donkey fetishization in it.

I can't stop singing, "가지마~ 가지마~ 가지마~!" Kajima, kajima, kajima!

I have not been studying Korean much lately. And I've been rapidly forgetting things. I swore this was not going to happen to me! But it has...

I asked Good Man, "How did you learn to speak English so well?"

"I watched stupid shows."

I've been on a We Got Married kick lately. He teases me about my stupid show. I glared at him, "아니," I whined.

"No, really, I watched a lot of American Idol."