my friend bill

deery-lou.
i made a new friend in my tae kwon do class. his name is bill. he is 8 years-old. he has a shaved head and his uniform is always messed up. i don't remember him from before. it could be that he was in another class. during class on monday he walked by me and i smiled. well, that was all it took. within seconds he came over to me and started talking english. he actually spoke very well. he was telling me that he was korean and that i am in korea now. which was good to know because i wasn't quite sure where i was. hehe. he then told me how this other kid in class was bad. it seems like a lot of kids pick on my friend bill. he's a tough one though. he keeps giving it back. bill started asking me all kinds of questions: age, am i married, can i speak korean, etc. on two different occasions i told him how he spoke english very well. the second time i mentioned it he called me on it by saying, "you told me that already." what a cutey! we spent the rest of class chatting here and there. while we were chatting about 6 other students circled around us. they wanted to be a part of it too. my friend bill played interpreter. it was actuall quite amazing. after class he asked me to wait for him so i did. he ran back to get his shoes then he and i made our way down the stairs. he paused at the poster for beauty and beast and asked if i had seen it. i told him no. he saw it though. he said that he enjoyed it. when we got to the ground level there were a couple of bubblegum toy machines. bill preceded to tell me which toys he got out of each of them. he opened his hands to show me the two toys. i pointed to the green one and asked him what it was. he told me it was a robot. it was. as we passed the two video games he pointed to the one and said, "it has monsters." once outside we said our goodbyes and parted ways.

on tuesday as i approached the top of the stairs to tae kwon do there was my friend bill. he turned to look at me and said, "i met you yesterday. it's nice to see you again." i told him it was nice to see him too and we headed for the gym. i spent a majority of the class watching my friend bill. he's a bit out there, but good for him. in a country where everyone seems to be a carbon copy of each other its nice to see someone stand out. watching him jump rope was a trip. the boy was all over the place. he made me laugh. he came up to me today and again told me that the same boy from monday was being bad. i just want to put him in my pocket. it's too bad i only have a few more days of the morning class. bill definitely makes it interesting. here's to bill, my new friend.

be well...