the sisterhood of ansan

deery-lou.

this week has been pretty uneventful. its been hot and i've been tired. on wednesday i met my friend heather and her boyfriend chris for dinner. since leaving taekwondo class i don't get to see them as much. they're leaving in july so i went down to the oido station to meet up with them. after dinner we went for a pitcher of beer. which in turn ended of being 3 pitchers. it was great to sit outside in the nice weather and kick back with cold beer. i ended up taking a cab home which i barely remember. needless to say the next at school i was worthless. i even skipped my taekwondo class. oops. when i showed up on friday my kwanjangnim asked where i was. he thought that i had gotten hurt. i lied and said i had to work late. i have a new favortie in my class. its this chubby boy with a mullet. he's always saying hi to me and smiling. he makes me laugh cuz he's always getting in trouble. he's told me his name twice but i can never remember it. i'll have to ask him again on monday. i was up early on friday because i have a meeting to go to. i signed up for the ansan sisterhood program which is about establishing friendly relationships with foreigners in ansan. i figured why not. what could it hurt. so i had to be at the healthcare center at 9:30. when i got there it was quite empty. i went in and they gave me my name tag and showed me to my table. i was at english team 1 and according to the sign there was going to be one other foreigner at my table and 8 korean city workers. this was definitely going to be interesting. as the time went on more people started coming in but they were all mostly the city workers. there were maybe 10 foreigners tops. the other foreigner at my table never showed. so it was me and my new found city worker friends. they were asking questions and vice versa. at one point we were all passing out our "name cards" [business cards] as they call them. it was quite comical. i did get a map of ansan which is a lot bigger than i thought. there's even a little island about an hour or so away. my new friends were pointing out different things to me and one even said he'd take me to daebudo, the island. how nice is that. they've also recently built a race track in ansan. in october they're having their first event there…champansan. i just might check it out. it seems like the city is really pushing it. they're hoping it will bring lots of tourists. seeing that i never made to the daytona 500 i should definitely check out the racing in korea. goodtimes. during the meeting we had to listening to some several speakers, get pictures taken, and watch a movie on ansan. i did get to meet the mayor you gave all the foreigners a certificate and a present. then we all had our pictures taken with him. hee hee. then i found out that my team would have to meet up a couple a times a month. what? yeah. they're taking this pretty seriously. so we had to come up with a team name. the leader kim chang-ma decided to call our group team duran-duran. once that was decided they all yelled out "team duran-duran" and clapped. they get very excited. our first meeting is next wednesday at 8:30pm. here are the events we have planned for future meetings: talking, conversation, eating, drinking, sightseeing, playing sports, etc. one of the guys on my team is a member of the basketball team. they actually all seem pretty cool. they have a sense of humor especially kim chang-ma who kept making fun of how koreans always have to have so many speakers at events. once we turned in our form listing our plans we had to have a team photo taken. they certainly love taking pictures. that was when they all noticed the big shoes. "oh what big shoes", they said. i told them i needed them to be taller. they laughed. before we left for the day they all told me to call if i had any problems or questions. people hear are so nice. i can't wait to see what happens on wednesday. at home i opened up my present which was a clock with korean painting on it. very grandmaish and kitschy. i like it. today i'm planning to meet a friend of a friend. my friend jane who i worked with at the jewish times went to grad school with a girl from korea and thats who i'm meeting. we've tried to get together for the last 6 months and now finally we both have time. its always cool to meet new peeps. thats about it for now.

be well…