picture day

deery-lou.
remember back in high school how we had picture day. everyone would get all dressed up for their yearbook photo. it never failed that a zit would pop up or you'd have an all around bad hair day. it was like fate. to make matters worse when you got the actual pictures back you looked at what you were wearing and thought "why did i wear paisleys". well yesterday was picture day at taekwondo. i don't normally go on wednesdays but my master asked me to come to have a picture taken. a group picture as he said. i figured what the hell. it would be cool to have a picture of me with my fellow taekwondo students. hee hee. when i got there a make-shift photo studio was set up. you know the kind with the big stobe lights on either side and a black backdrop. it kind of reminded me of when i use to take portraits of people in the underwear department at k-marts across the new england area. the sahbumnim told me i was going to take two photos: a single and a group. i tried to get out of taking a solo one but it was useless. then he told me to take off my red belt and put on a black belt. thinking ahead, i like that. i wasn't sure how to tie it so he did it for me. the sahbumnim tied it really tight. he kept telling me to suck in my stomach. then i sat down and waited with the others. as i sat there next to the giant mirrors i couldn't help but notice how badly i needed a haircut. while i was sick i've been wearing hats. plus the fact that i'm trying to grow it out doesn't help. especially since its in that inbetween bad stage. anyway so i sat there like a good faux-korean and started to play with my hair. i needed to have it look somewhat decent. then i realized that the taekwondo uniform makes me look fat. well maybe not fat but it doesn't look right on me. perhaps its the whole white on white thing. i don't know. the uniform always looks cooler on others. most of the students who were there weren't from my class. only about three of them were. i wasn't apart of that group photo. while they were having their group photo i sat next to some mom. yes, some of the kids came with their mom and dad and had family portraits taken. it was all so surreal. for my solo photo i was posed in a taekwondo poomsae position. i had to squat down for five minutes. my legs started to shake as i waited for the guy to take the picture. needless to say he didn't speak english so it was a whole lot of me trying to figure out what he wanted me to do. its a good thing i was once trained in this field. i soon realized that no more students were going to show up. which meant no group shot with my fellow students. then it hit me. my group shot was never going to be with the students. it was going to be with my kwanjangnim and the two sahbumnims. so there we stood. two on each side angled and holding onto our belts. i'm sure its going to make for a very interesting photo. the guy made me smile and we all know how i hate to do that. at first i was bummed about not having a group shot with the kids but then i realized that most of the kids there weren't from my class. i was a group shot of my fellow classmates. so one of these days i'll ask someone to take a photo of me with my classmates. hee hee. i'll post the resuluts from picture day as soon as i get them back. the suspense is killing me.

be well...