my so called surreal life…

deery-lou.
sometimes i wonder if my life could get any stranger and it does. when i arrived at taekwondo class tonight, i'm still going early because i'm never sure if i'm supose to be teaching my sabom-nim english or not, the class before mine was still going on. the third instructor [i still can't remember his name or what they call him but i think its kyosahnim or training instructor] told me to come into the dojang [practice space] to watch. the students were all lined up waiting to begin. all of the sudden the sabom-nim hit play on the cassette player the music started and the students began to perform. yes, they were doing a taekwondo routine to music. "we will rock you" to be precise. as if life couldn't get any better. they did three different routines to different music. i didn't recognize the other songs although one definitely sounded like a korean pop song. it was as if i was watching "bring it on". the only thing missing was kirsten dunst and eliza dusku. after the routines the students would wrong to the side regroup and come back out. it was fantastic. after alll the movement routines were done they grabbed foamboards and started doing kicks. one student jumped over 4 other students to kick the board. then there was a move where one student got on the shoulders of other held the board and other came running down to kick it. the whole time i'm thinking, "am i going to have to do this?" it lasted for about 20 mins. or so. it was so great to watch. these students are so graceful. a couple of times some of the kids lost their grip of the board and it went flying into the air. all i could do was sit there in amazement and wish that i was that young and agile. around 9pm the sabom-nim called me and the other 3 students over to begin our class. the 3 kids left with the kyosahnim while i stayed behind. the sabom-nim called me over to talk about something. even now i'm kind of unsure as to what he was trying to say but i think it comes down to this. on june 4 the students have a taekwondo contest so we won't be studying english until after that. at least thats what i think he said. i'm going to see if i can go with them to the contest to watch. it would definitely be interesting. after that i once again practiced my poomses 1-4. the sabom-nim told me that i'm getting better. that was good to hear. i had a little difficulty with poomse 4. for some reason i can't get the knife hand attack down. i keep wanting to bend my arm and not keep it straight. the kwan-jang-nim came in to watch and i could they were talking about me. oh well. whats a boy to do. after doing the poomses several times i had a 3 min. break. during the break they were trying to ask me questions about friends and taekwondo. i think they wanted to know if i had any friends who wanted to join. i told them no. as i told them the one guy i know from my other class "is going bye-bye." yes those were my exact words. strangely enough they understood. that prompted them to ask me "when bye-bye to america". i replied by telling them i'd most likely be here until september 2006. yes i'm 95% sure i'll stay another year. the kyosahnim came back with the other students and we did poomse 4 and then ended class. can i just tell you how cute the kyosahnim is…very. he kind of looks like the korean guy from lost daniel dae kim. the kwanjangnim came in with some kimbab and the four of us sat on the floor eating it. they were asking me questions about if i can speak korean or not. very little i told them but i'm trying to motivate myself. sadly i haven't been that motivated but now i'm starting to feel the urge to learn. then they started to ask me about my other instructor. i tried to explain to them the best i could. they asked his name so i told them. i don't think they know him. they wanted to know the level i thought of him and i said very low. i tried to explain that i feel like i've learned more in the last three weeks than i did in my 7 months there. it was cool to hang out with them. even though i only understood a fourth of the conversation. this further comfirms that its going to be a good class.

at school today one of my students mother brought in snacks for my class so i got to have a party with them. these kids went to town on the snacks. it was like a group of sharks circling. every time i looked over they were stuffing something in their mouths. jordan took a long potato stick stuck a circle snack through it and kept saying its candy. then he added a corn chip to the top of the circle snack and called it a cowboy. kids are so great. another parent brought in homemade sushi, miso soup, and some kind of sweet potato thing with corn and raisins. it was like feast day. sometimes teaching has its rewards. especially when food is involved.

be well…

countdown to magic straight:
1 day, 11 hours