Shame by Badminton

The first week I was in Korea my co-teacher invited me to the indoor gym. She showed up at my apartment at about eight o'clock in her awesome track suit and woke me up from a sound sleep with what I like to call the-cleaning-lady-knock. This particular ype of knock is very loud and persistent. You are either opening the door or they are comin' in, damn it! I answered the door in shorts and a tank top, bleary eyed. Oh, Sunny said in surprise, were you sleeping? There was no denying it and I nodded. Do you want to go to the gym? she asked, brandishing a sporty-looking bag with racquets sticking out of it. I would love to, I told her, let me just grab my shoes. I threw on a sports bra, socks, and my sneakers, threw my hair up in a pony and jabbed in some bobby pins. Let's do this, I thought as I left the santuary of my apartment.

They tell you at orientation to participate. Don't say no. Take every invitation you're offered. Don't know how to play table tennis? Too bad. Don't want to get naked and swim around at the gymjilbang? Double too bad. Don't want to sing karoake at the noreabang? Well, that's happening. And if you don't drink, start.

I was excited to get invited anywhere, so still groggy, we started walking in the rain to gym. There was one badminton court open and a lot of people playing table tennis. I was handed a racquet and pointed to one side of the court. Sunny served and I smacked the birdie back at her. Immediately I thanked my father for buying a badminton net when I was little. I remember playing on a camping trip and again at home in the yard. Also, I'm naturally athletic, thank god. I was thinking about some of the girls at orientation as I ran around. Some of them might have been struggling...

I mean, I'm athletic. I'm tall and while not in incredible shape, I get by. I've been playing sports since I was six. Soccer two seasons a year from six years old to eighteen.  Seven years of basketball, five of track, a short stint in t-ball when I was seven (spent two seasons picking dandelions in the outfield while the coach's kid played first base), four years of varsity lacrosse in college. My hand eye coordination is actually pretty decent (especially from playing goalie in lacrosee) and I've got a good reach if terrible hops.

I'm not used to getting my ass handed to me by a woman in her forties with three kids.

I couldn't help but think of my sister telling me not to bring shame to my people. I didn't have my tennis shoes, only my clunky sneaks and they weigh exactly one pound, eight ounces. Being my heaviest pair of shoes, I wore them on the plane, and now they were loud and heavy on the hardwood as I skidded around to volley and return. I did fine, but when we played later with her husband, I realized she'd been holding back. I was reminded of Brian Regan talking about playing racquetball--You ever play against someone who knows how to land the serve where you never touch it? I mean, is that fun for them? BAM! 1, nothing. Bam! 2, nothing. Bam! 64, nothing.

It was August when I arrived in Korea and though it was raining out, it was still like 90 degrees. It was also a 100 percent humidity. I was sweating on the walk over. Running around in the enclosed gym, the sweat began to drip. In a very literal fashion, I was dripping. Koreans don't have deodrant. That should explain that. While I was soaked, Sunny had a healthy, glistening sheen of sweat on her face, fresh as a spring daisy.

When we finally took a break, Sunny asked, "What's the expression in English? Sweating like a...?"
"That would be 'pig,'" I told her. "The expression is 'sweating like a pig.'"

You Don't Look Like a Dick

Hanging out in Seoul with my new buddy Zach, we went inside this kitschy little Halloween/party store and I bought wings and cat ears ('cause you never know) and the guy who owned the place clearly wanted to use his English. And this is what he came up with, looking directly at me and saying, very serious, "I no think he looks like a dick." Now, this might have made since if I had just called Zach a dick. Or an asshole, or any name at all, but seeing as how I had just handed him my purchases and was digging in my pocketbook for the appropriate amount of won, it kind of threw me. What? I asked him. So he repeated himself, insisting that Zach didn't look like a dick. So I start laughing uncomfortably and Zach just says, thank you, sincerely. He figured he'd take it as a compliment, since it came out of nowhere. The owner asked if we were boyfriend and girlfriend (every Korean man knows the word boyfriend because he wants to ask you--pretty, young American girl-- if you have one) and we say no, just friends. The man doesn't believe us, insists that Zach doesn't look like a dick one more time for good measure ((as if the only reason I wasn't dating him was because I thought he was a dick) and gave us heart shaped sparklers. At least, it looks like a sparkler in the shape of a heart, but I don't want to light it up in case it's not. And it's the Busan Fireworks Festival this weekend and if it IS a sparkler, I don't want to waste it. So, I guess what I'm saying is, whatever it is, this weekend I'm lighting it on fire.

1...2...3...BAIL!

Bailing on my last blog attempt. I was never happy with it. I was bored writing it, you were bored reading it. I've moved on.

Chatting with my mother today on The Facebook, she commented on the pictures of me all dressed up for school. You look nice, she told me, but you don't really look like you. Which is about the same as the last blog. It looked nice, but it wasn't really me. All the David Copperfield crap. I'm slightly more Holden.

There's a lot of pressure to write well when you hold a degree in Creative Writing. Suddenly every little spelling error or wrong verb tense or misused semi-colon is an affront to your competence. Also, I have the added pressure of being considered a funny person. Unfortunately, I find that the more humorous I try to make my writing, the less funny it actually is. The funniest thing I ever brought into a writing class in college was a heart wrenching retelling of a childhood trauma. One girl claimed to have literally cried laughing while reading it aloud to her roommate. I was horrified. Apparently the embarrassing, scarring moments of my youth were hilarious. And they are.

Since people who strive to be funny rarely ever are, I will not try to be funny. I will not try to imbue the events here with any needless additional humor. I will tell things as they are and as they happened. Therefore I will not be held responsible if they are or are not comical.

Now that the pressure is placed anywhere but on my too broad shoulders...let's do this.