il, e, sam, sa, o

deery-lou.

i've been meaning write ever since tuesday but for some reason never quite did it. perhaps its the muggy heat that reminds me of my youth in florida. the days when one would step out of their house and immediately be drenched in sweat. the goodtimes are here. its probably a good thing that i didn't write because i was a little stressed out this week. at tuesday's taekwondo class my kwanjangnim told me that on saturday there would be a test to determine whether or not i'd be ready to take my black belt test in october. it seems kind of strange since its 3 months away but what do i know. the test saturday would consist of doing kicks and random poomse from 1-5. this meant i really needed to learn the names of these poomses. every since i can remember i've hated having to do things in front of people. speech class always freaked me out and this was no different. especially since my master's master and another man were going to be doing the judging. of course during the week i'm thinking up all of these reasons to stop doing taekwondo: i'm not motivated, i can't kick that high, etc. they're all basically crappy excuses. on thursday we had a practice test i messed up on poomse 3 which really made me mad since i do know it. sometimes i think i psych myself out to mess up. i left class that night feeling mad at myself. came home and made a soju cocktail but that didn't really seem to help too much. friday's class we practiced some more and did lots of kicking too. friday is when they told me we'd get to break boards too on saturday. fun.fun.fun. i kept imagining all the little kids around me breaking theirs while mine stays intact. friday night i met horace for some beer who needed to vent about school. this week they told us we had to plan out our teaching schedule two weeks in advanced. what sucks is that horace and i use to give the students weekly spelling tests. now they're taking the spelling tests away from us and having the korean teachers give it to them. we have to read these stupid decodable books. so things were a bit crazy there because had to come up with a completely new plan.

saturday morning i woke up at 7am. panic struck me. today was the day. i had to take my test in front of these grandmasters. am i going to have to do it myself? what if i mess up? all these questions kept popping up. it was driving me crazy. its amazing how worked up one can get. i watched a little bit of tv. that helped for awhile. tried reading too. i actually stayed in bed until noon. around 1pm i started to exercise and practice my poomses. calling them by the korean cardinal numbers [il, e, sam, sa, o]. nothing like cramming at the last minute. i had to be at school by 3pm. my kwanjangnim wanted me to watch the younger kids do there test. my test group wasn't scheduled until 5pm. the practice space was crammed with children waiting to take their test and parents watching. noone said there'd be parents! i sat in the corner with the students. with so many people in there it was hot, hot, hot. when the tow judges came in one looked really really mean. just like in the tv shows. the tested the kids in groups according to their level. as i sat there the kids around me kept asking me question after question. the main one being how old are you? whats your name. and of course throughout the testing they all kept staring. hey look at me i'm a circus freak!!! after the testing was done they came up in groups again to break the boards. it was actually a cute little ceremony. the kids would line up and then their mom or dad would stand in front of them. they'd hug. then the child would get down and bow. the child would then stand up the parent would grab the board and they'd get in position. the kwangjangnim would give the command and then the child would punch the board. followed by more hugging. all very cute. i should mention that there was one little girl there you had princess lea hair. she was sooo cute. especially watching her do her poomses. kids are great. when that was done we had to listen to the grandmaster give a speech. for me it was like 20 mins of listening to charlie brown's teacher talk. some awards were given and then the two grandmasters stepped out. thats when the kwangjangnim busted out the giant jump rope. it was now time for the parent/child jump roping contest. it was quite funny watching these moms and dads holding their childs hand and jump roping. everyone was getting into it. the whole event lasted 1 hour and 40 mins. and now it was time for my group.

so there i am sitting through this whole process for a second time. the opening exercises, the opening speech, etc. by this time i wasn't really nervous anymore. instead i was tired. i was part of the second group to test. there were three of us. we started off doing punches. the only problem with that was i had no idea what the other two kids were saying so i said nothing. then we did kicking. after that i had to do poomse 5 while the other two did a different number. i think i did all right. afterwards i had to sit while the other two did another poomse. when they were done my kwanjangnim told me to stand. then the mean judge looked at me and told me to sit down. apparently he wanted the two kids to do it again. when they were done for the second time he went off for about 10mins. i have no idea what he said. when he was finished we joined the rest of the kids against the wall. there two more groups after ours. one of the judges had to leave so we skipped the boards and jump rope for the time being. the mean judge who had to leave gave out the awards, said soemthing and then left. the other judge before leaving gave a 20 min. speech which we had to lsten to while standing. when he left the kids who had parents there got to break boards. the rest of us didn't. not fair. noone told me i had to have a parent there to participate in the breaking of boards. when that was done the jump rope was busted out again. our testing lasted under an hour. my the time i left i felt completely exhausted. thats what happens when you get yourself all worked up. looking back it really wasn't as bad as i thought. at least this will prepare me for when i eventually do go for my black belt. i still have no idea how i did. hopefully we'll find out on monday. the sabomnim shook my hand on the way out. not sure if that meant you did a good job or just being friendly. for dinner horace and i went to see madame kalbi [bbq lady] who we haven't seen in forever. as usual it was an awesome meal. she has the best and freshest sidedishes ever! it never fails that every time we are there she gives us something free. last night it was a bottle of coke and some cold noodle soup which was delicious. i so heart her.

its raining today. i spent my morning doing some cleaning. nothing too exciting. i'm going to meet my friend hyun sik later. this is definitely a weekend of no cooking at home. i love that. especailly since its so inexpensive to go out. that's it for now.

be well…