The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Fresher than ever.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 2,500 times in 2010. That’s about 6 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 16 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 28 posts. There were 37 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 100mb. That’s about 3 pictures per month.

The busiest day of the year was March 24th with 83 views. The most popular post that day was frengee!.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were facebook.com, WordPress Dashboard, en.wordpress.com, sydneymeredith.wordpress.com, and meganlamoon.wordpress.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for samgyeopsal, ponytail chop, long ponytail, korean hair, and public nudity.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

frengee! March 2010
1 comment

Oops, Daegu? Love Jeju. April 2010
2 comments

AN epik WEEKEND – (quite) a bit of a chronicle. September 2009
1 comment

While You Were Sleeping… August 2009
2 comments

strange fruit file: a seemingly average tuesday. March 2010
1 comment

That is all.

Today on Larry I’m learning that I and many other people have been paranoid about for five or more years is probably true: cell phones are killing us.

The peeps at good ol’ Pitt are talking with Larry about studies that contradict the  latest one out by the IARC.

My layman’s summary of what the four people on Larry are saying:

The antenna of a cell phone OR a cordless phone should be kept away from your body. Talking with it next to your head, carrying it in your breast pocket, and holding it in your lap while driving-which is distracting anyway-are all BAD IDEAS.

A study of teenagers who used cell phones daily and often showed that they were FOUR TIMES (yes, a 400% increase in probability) as likely to get a brain tumor. Of course my generation was the first one to get ”cellys” as gifts for Christmas in high school. I still remember getting our first “car phone” in mom’s explorer as a kid, and getting my first cell phone freshman year of high school. Ashley and I were the first in our grade (only now do I realize how spoiled everyone must have thought we were)…she got a red Nokia and I got a silver LG, I believe.  Our dads were worried about keeping track of their babies. We were both boy-crazy and in a million after-school activities. Can you blame them?

But now I am regretting all those long calls home from the quad at Colgate and on the road to and from here, there, and everywhere. On the one-mile journeys to and from the Columbia Heights metro. Every day after school to coordinate plans with John.

They showed a model of the effects of radio waves on a child’s brain and on an adult’s brain. The child’s brain was almost entirely bright blue, where the blue represented ill effects from radio waves. It was creepy.

Larry’s scientist guests also pointed out that the study only looked at two types of tumors. It did NOT track cheek cancers or cancers of the auditory canal or nerves.

So the point is not that the study is wrong or mal-intented. But just taking the “results” without digesting the method by which they were achieved would be…misleading.

Meg, I’ve never had a better reason to not answer my phone.

What a trashy scumbag this guy has been. Maybe if you get your head out of your ass and straighten up a bit, you won’t get sacked so much. I hope this is the last chance Rooney gives you, Ben. If you don’t grow up after this suspension, you should be tossed to the wolves where you can self-destruct without ruining my team. How many of us would trade anything to have enough talent to make it as an NFL QB? You’ve got it-enough of it-and you spoil it by acting like an imbecile, time and again. Now go sit in your room and think about what you did. 

Now that I’ve gotten that rant off my chest, I want to ask a kind of strange question. Does anyone know why my lamp flickers? Is it some kind of surge of electricity? 

Let me explain. You know how when a lightbulb dies, there’s like a big flash and a small “crack” sound? You know, it sounds almost like the lightbulb actually broke? I’m sure the filament is doing something to cause that sound. I guess it breaks? Anyway, then the light goes out and that’s it. Burnt-out bulb. 

Well, my lamp does the burn-out dance every day, throughout the day. I’m not exactly sure how often, but I’ve personally witnessed it at least ten times. And the bulb still works. So what is happening there? 

To further elucidate the situation: this popping thing happens when the light is off. This is a very small bedside touch-lamp with a three-way bulb.  All three light levels continue to work–so I don’t think it’s like one of the filaments broke or something. Perhaps just faulty wiring? Considering the way Koreans slap these apartments together, I wouldn’t be surprised. 

And now that I’ve babbled about something mundane but queer that has been bothering me for quite some time, I’ll tell you about the end of our Jeju trip that now seems like it was ages ago. Maybe if you’re lucky I’ll tell you more about Thailand at some point. 

So after our night of post-hike relaxation, I kinda quit referring to the lava tube as a wormhole, but when you see the thing it really does look like a hole made by a giant earthworm. And if you filled it with light and groovy Hollywood special effects, it would also look like an honest-to-goodness wormhole. 

We got to this pretty area out toward the crater we hiked the first day on the east end of the island and jumped out of the little Awesome-car. There were gorgeous cherry blossoms all over the parking lot, so we helped a Japanese(?) couple get their picture under one of the trees and then got our own taken by them. The ground had lots of lava rock poking up through the grass, giving it a really rustic feel. We paid our two bucks and marched to the entrance. It was a steep set of stairs so long that I couldn’t see the bottom. “EEEE!” my calves bleated. My legs nearly gave out with the first step. Luckily, there were big sturdy railings to hang onto, and I DID. The stairs get increasingly wet as you get into the tube itself (the first part of the stair isn’t covered, as this particular entrance is through a hole in the ground where the ceiling of the tube had collapsed. 

I don't think I've ever prayed so much for my calves. Or ever. At all.

The air was immediately wet and cool. Almost downright cold. And it smelled not of mildew or dirt or darkened dampness of any kind, but of the air after a cold spring rain. It was fabulous, that smell. It didn’t smell like we were underground at all, or like any cave I’d ever been in before. It was glorious! But dark…very dark. And dripping. And the smooth-rough ground was covered in water, which meant you had to tread carefully or risk slipping. The wet stone steps were the worst. But the tube floor was really interesting, because it was a frozen lava river. So it was smooth, but wavy. 

We surfed on a few lava rafts and we photographed the Manjanggul lava pillar. 

These happen when lava from the tube upstairs burns through the ceiling of the lava tube you're in. And then cools. Quickly. So it looks less like a pillar and more like a pile o' poo.

This guy’s one of the biggest lava poos in existence. 

[I also got a decent shot of a lava TURTLE! ("teutah" is how my students pronounce it...so I exaggerate whatever western PA accent I can muster and insist on "TURD-ul")] 

On the way back from the tubes, we stopped to see some other worm…holes.

We checked out the super-famous Jeju Love Land.  Korea’s funny about sex: we don’t talk about it here, but the damned country is covered in love motels. Prostitution seems prevalent, though under wraps. The Pill is a taboo topic. 

Some Korean college students, presumably tired of these inconsistencies, created a monument to love and love-making. If you want to see more, just google-image “Jeju Love Land”. You’ll get a taste of some of the really fantastic pieces in this park. It’s a shame that they aren’t better maintained, however: I noticed the paint is beginning to wear thin on a number of sculptures. 

This is one of the more tame pieces. Please take notice of the bottom right corner.

My advice: Don’t talk about foreigners right in front of their faces.

Even the most 한국말-challenged of us can pick our names out of a conversation. We all know the word for foreigner, and we all know the Korean names for the biggest English-speaking nations represented here (Canada, USA, England, Australia, New Zealand…). So even if you refer to me as an Australian when I’m not, I’m going to pick up on it. We aren’t dumb; we notice right away when an entire group of Koreans bursts into laughter upon our entrance into the room. This may be a shock to you, but some of us even know some basic Korean vocabulary. So sometimes we can even pick up the gist of what you’re saying about us.

Talking about us in front of our faces without bothering to offer any explanation, even in the most broken of English, sends only ONE message to a foreigner: “we’re either making fun of you, gossiping about you, or both.”

This is considered very rude.

Even if you don’t care about hurting our feelings (which this behavior most certainly DOES–after all, even the least interested of us came here to learn something about Koreans and to hopefully make friends with a few), please do not engage in this behavior. You will only cause us to A) mistrust Koreans, B) become defensive, or C) retreat to Facebook or our fellow expatriates. The least reasonable of us might even resort to behaving maliciously in kind, lumping all Koreans together into one giant unfair stereotype, giving up on teaching, high tailing it home, or reacting in any other number of more extreme manners.

In short, in gossiping about a foreigner when he can see and hear you, you are driving a wedge between you and another human being. What practical purpose can this serve, especially if you have to teach classes with this person? Especially if you have the same goal–educating children?

I’m sure you’ve never thought about this. Or you have, but you are simply acting on group-think when it happens. You rationalize that we can’t possibly understand what’s being said, and so ‘what’s the harm?’ Or maybe you’ve heard this a thousand times, and you think foreigners whine too much.

All I can say is that it hurts MY feelings. And that it’s really confusing when I’m not let in on the joke and the joke’s obviously on me.

If you’re just commenting on my new glasses, or talking about what time I have class, why don’t you just let me know when I look up, ears perked at the sound of “waegukin”?

I get that I’m “from away”. I don’t have a problem being one small part of the 98% of the world who will ‘live and die a foreigner’. I’m not even asking for your respect. As a ‘venerated’ teacher of your children, I’m just asking you to consider using a little more tact to spare my feelings. Maybe you can start by sparing the feelings of those of us who’ve chosen Korea as our permanent home. At the very least, please save it for when we’re more than out of earshot.

There are a few old elevation markers scattered along the G-trail.

One of my favorite parts of Mount Halla were these areas where there were as-yet-leafless birch tree forests growing in the midst of the ground cover you see above. The bright green leaves of this ground plant are trimmed in a thick whitish color. The combination of the tall, slender, white and gray birch trees with these little guys gave these areas of the mountain a surreal look and feel–as if I were standing in one of those black-and-white photos that the photographer had touched up with only one splash of color, a bright green for these ubiquitous ground plants. 

 Now it’s been exactly two weeks since I hiked the Gwaneumsa Trail and I’m completely back to my lazy self (Since then I attempted to play squash for the first time, only to find that there is only one racquet available at the Hyundai foreigner’s compound gym John joined. He and a few expats proceeded to get me drunk at the compound pub instead). 

I want you to click on that link for the trail and pay particular attention to the opening of the trail’s description: “This trail is very popular for professional mountaineers…” 

John and I read three things in the ol’ guidebook: that this was the most scenic trail, that it was one of only two that reached the summit, and that it was difficult, but doable. Five hours. 

The signpost on the left should read: "Really bitchin' trail, Korean mountain people only."

John also checked with the info booth at the Jeju airport while I waited for the car rental people to copy my passport and int’l license. She concurred with the first two points, and added that it would be an 8 hour journey, round-trip (the two of them were sharp enough to realize that with the car, we would have to double back on whichever trail we chose–good for them. It didn’t even occur to me that we might want to go back down a different path than the one we would ascend). 

I don’t know if you know this, but John and I are ambitious people. We are ambitious, stubborn people. 

We didn’t check any websites, of all this one at least would have been useful. 

We started much later than we meant to, because I insisted on 1. showering, and 2. stopping at the Mysterious Road to 1. check it out and 2. eat hot dogs and fish-dogs (not their name but what they are). 

We started off at around 10:38, after having only briefly glanced at the trailhead map. We did not notice any closing times or anything similar. 

After about an hour and a half or so, we made our first stop. We’d gotten pretty far and were making good time, so we sat down on a sort of community-resting-platform to have a little water. I felt suddenly very chilly, and it was at this time that I first ran a hand over my hair. It was at this time that I first noticed that my hair was completely soaked through with sweat. It was actually dripping all over my hoodie’s hood (hood). 

I was “leaking” a lot, but had an ample supply of tissues. No, not Sally Solomon leaking, just allergies-left-over-from-dust-storm-leaking. 

Further on up the trail, probably ten markers or so, I ran to get out of the way for a Korean man who’d patiently stepped aside the trail while we passed. There was no reason for this; I’m simply the kind of person who’s afraid of making strangers wait (friends and boyfriends are quite a different story). So I sprinted along this narrow portion of path and leaped for the high rocky steps where he stood and…missed. Well, not missed, so much as tripped. I landed on my left elbow, right knee, and tiny ego. John tried to check for blood; I swatted and blinked back those nasty pain-tears that burst onto the scene out of nowhere, as if they’ve been waiting in the wings on the balls of their wet little feet, even though you thought you’d locked the stage doors. It wasn’t until another hour or so later, when we stopped for more a-gwa, that John realized I’d shredded my jeans. When I say shredded, I mean shredded. Oroku Saki style. 

These jeans were at least four years old, and I am almost positive they were older. We'd been through a lot together. Had to say auf wiedersehen in Jeju-si.

In spite of bad knees, being out of shape, a hard fall, and swiss cheese jeans, you know what the only discomfort I felt was? Constricted airways. 

Sometime in college, my allergist decided to test me for asthma. I made her retest me multiple times because I thought she was nuts. Turns out she knows more about health and airways than me. Go figure. Anyway I never took to the whole inhaler thing, probably because I’d lived up until that point without it, and probably also because I was too proud or some shit. Little a Column A, little a Column B. As I haven’t touched one since that time (maybe…five years ago?), it never occurred to me that hiking that damn san (mt. in Korean) might be hard ’cause I couldn’t breathe. 

At 1:00 we made it to the checkpoint that’s about 2/3 or 3/4 of the way up the hill. And by hill I mean volcano. This checkpoint is just a shelter where you can go in and sit to rest or eat or hide from inclement weather. John and I paused to snap off a shot, and as we stepped off to continue on our way, a small Korean man stuck his head out of a window. He was eating something. Seemed like a fellow hiker. 

But he began pointing to  a sign just below the window that clearly said something about yowldool shi baniyo (12:30). Sternly, he insisted that we not continue and that we turn back now. This was not welcome news. Although my lungs screamed a relief-filled “YEEEES!”, I screwed up my best indignant face. I pointed to my non-existent watch. “But it’s one o’clock!” He pointed to the big red “12:30″. Some food flew out of his mouth to the ground below. I stamped my foot and rolled my eyes. He yelled a bunch of stuff in Korean. We acquired an audience. I turned around in a circle, edging closer to the trail. “Let’s just go. Let’s just GO,” I repeatedly murmured to John. I gave it one last stand. 

“Umshik issoyo?” Yes, we did have food: “Nay, umshik issoyo.” I patted my hardy little Colgate tote. He sputtered a defeated father’s stern instructions. He pointed toward the summit, pointed back to our current location. “Bali.” “Yogi, sashigan.” Translation: “Okay, fine, go. Hurry up. Go straight up, and come straight back. No stopping for pictures, lunch on the summit, or any of that crap. Be back here by 4:00.” 

Meddling children with a green light to go, we thanked him profusely and assured him we’d be back here by 4:00 in our best Korean. And we were off for what looked to be about a half hour’s walk up a gentler-sloping portion of the hike. An hour and fifteen minutes, one cracker break, a photo op, some icy patches, and many many lava rock steps later, we mounted mount Hallasan. The view was AWESOME. And cold. And there were this big beautiful black crows everywhere. And a big beautiful crater lake. And in all our summit pictures, you can clearly see my black spandex covered crotch through the nice big hole I made in my pants. What a fantastic adventure. 

백록담 (White Deer Lake) on top of the tallest mountain in South Korea, Mount Halla. Hallasan peaks out at 1,950 m (6,398 ft).

We could see the whole island from there, including the crater we’d hiked the evening previously. This island is 1,845.5 km². How big is that? Well, Manhattan is only 59 km².  Rhode Island is 4,002  km². 

Please notice two things: 1. the extreme Lack of Gear. 2. That is not my camera case hanging from a belt loop, but my spandex shining brightly through the gaping hole in my crotch.

We were immediately shooed off the summit by another apparent park worker or concerned citizen. There was one other group of people–some Koreans that had come up the ‘easier’ trail and who were kind enough to take our picture. We met a lot of people who were nice enough to take our picture on this trip…and they always take a few shots, from different angles, to make sure we get a good shot. We met one family on the first crater made up of two children who’d been born in PA because their father went to Penn State to study engineering. Cool stuff. But I digress. 다시. 

The group on top of Hallasan were NOT shooed off, from what I could tell. But we moved. A few minutes down there was a popular (and less chilly) spot for hikers’ lunching, so we stopped to have the snack we’d brought. Since we’d made it from the checkpoint to the top in an hour and fifteen, we figured we could take a fifteen minute break to snack. As we ate our peanuts, beef jerky, and water, the ‘easy trail’ hiking pack came down to lunch. They took pity on us and our poor choice of lunch food, and invited us over for some pigs’ feet, cherry tomatoes, oranges, kimbap, and cookies. John told them all about where we live and what we do and I nodded along happily. When we got up to leave, we realized it was already 3:00. Oops. 

We made it to the checkpoint in time, but there was no angry little Korean man. Instead we sat with a group of hikers who appeared to be feeding the already large Hallasan crows. They fed us, too: raw chestnuts. Yum! We sat around for awhile, hoping to see our lunch friends, but they never showed. In fact, we never saw them again that day. We’re pretty sure they were ghosts. 

These guys were HEALTHY-lookin'. They had shiny feathers and big, strong bodies. They had to, to survive the nasty winds at the top!

The way down was much easier on the lungs, and also on my mental state. John refused to talk on the way up, and he also insisted on going up in spurts and then waiting for me to catch up. I’m a slow-and-steady type. I don’t like to stop, and I don’t like to sprint. I also don’t like not talking for almost four hours. “It’s a beautiful day! Aren’t you enjoying it?” were some of my favorite phrases to repeat. But the way down was filled with much more banter and joking. Also, we both pretty much jogged our way down dozens of stairs. We also tried to calculate the distance between the emergency markers… 

There are a lot of nice things about Koreans and their love of hiking. Not only do they maintain the paths pretty well and try to make them accessible for more than just the twenty-somethings, oh no. On this particular path, at least, they put up ropes that function in two ways: they give you something to grab onto on the really rough or steep patches, and they gently discourage people from venturing off the path where they will assuredly ruin the precious fauna and geologically significant formations all over the mountain. They also put up markers that John and I decided were about 425 footsteps apart which had an emergency number to call and a location number. There were about 34 of them (perhaps about 55 m apart?). If these facts are both true, or at least trueish, then we can assume that we took at least 29,000 steps each that day. 

It was during this time that our calves began bleating. I don’t remember the last time I had a good hill to run, or too many stairs to climb on a regular basis. Same goes for Johnny. So our calves were sorely out of shape for such exertions. We started chanting “JIM JIL BANG!” somewhere around step 20,000. 

One last thing before we leave (and before we left) the mountain: we exited the trail, passing the main park office on the way out. I was headed for the hwa jang shil (bathroom) I’d used when we’d first arrived; John was headed for a convenience store across the road. A man jumped out and waved us down. He wanted to know where the heck I was going. After our previous experiences with the maybe-park-officials, I was wary. “Hwa jang shil!” I shouted, hoping this was not going to take long. I was a bit antsy. 

The concern dropped from his face. He was suddenly cordial. He assured me that there was a bathroom just inside his building. “Oh. Cool.” So I ran in as John jogged off to find beverages. I was greeted by an empty old building. Empty except for a giant stuffed bird of prey in a giant glass case lined on the bottom with bright green turf. “That’s weird.” 

It's not like I've never seen a stuffed animal in the entrance of a park office before. It was simply unexpected. And strangely alone.

I made it past the big scary bird monster to the ladies’ room. Two stalls. Squatters. 

#$@%! 

No TP, but I had plenty of hway ji (tissues/tp). I was leaking, remember? 

I consider leaving and going to the other bathroom, which had been much nicer. Very clean for a public restroom in Asia (in fact, most of the public restrooms in Jeju are very clean, stocked, and impressive…I assume because it’s the most touristy destination in Korea, and maybe because it’s a self-governing province. the soap in all the bathrooms smells of the local oranges). Welcoming. Especially with its western commodes and my bleating calves. 

But I sucked it up. I was here, wasn’t I? 

Then there wasn’t any soap. And nothing to dry my hands with. F you, “helpful”-park-ranger-man. Let people pee where they want. 

We got ourselves back to the guest house, where we rested our calves long enough to watch a few minutes of a bad movie on TV. I put on my best Korean stilettos and we hit the town for grub. We ran into the first place we saw…some tourist-friendly joint right across from E-Mart. Turned out not to be a trap. I think it was called Jeju Sea Dragon, but there are so many restaurants that I’m sure one couldn’t go too wrong. 

Mmmmm.

Some yummy seafood (성게국 for me and 전복죽 for John) and side dishes later, we found ourselves a standard 24-hour jimjilbang. There we washed up and treated our weary muscles to hot tubs and salt rock saunas. I made J bury me in salt rocks…this is a wonderful experience and I highly suggest it. They had little shovels in this particular one so that you can bury yourself if necessary. 

It was during this time that we began plotting our third day’s adventure: a trip to the Wormhole and to Jeju Love Land. John did not like my pet name for the lava tube, but I find it quite appropriate. I took too many pictures at Love Land.  More details later. CAN’T WAIT to return to Jeju for the beaches, other sights, and the foods we missed (island specialties include black pig and a fish called okdom). 

In case you’re a foreign teacher who ends up in Jeju before I get the third installment in: DEF. go to Manjanggul and Love Land, please DON’T waste your time at El Paso restaurant in Jeju-si. Their nachos and tacos were surprisingly yummy but also very much the same and very overpriced. And their enchiladas were Guh-ROSS. 

P.S. We couldn’t get the Mysterious Road to work. Your car is supposed to roll uphill on this road and on “Ghost Road”. We tried putting the car in neutral on every part of the road, the car’s nose pointed in every direction. I realized later that this happened because we can’t follow directions.  In the guidebook, it clearly says to turn your car off. This we never tried. Still, if you go to the MR or the GR, don’t expect much. MR was just a short strip of road with cracked pavement and two combination souvenir/food stalls.

Weirder still: On my walk home from school yesterday, I passed the Gottbawi IPark apartment block. This is not weird; I do this every day. But this day, an attractive Korean boy was standing just behind the fence at the corner of the compound. He was only about eight or so, and he was wearing a bright red track jacket like the ones in Royal Tenenbaums. He straddled a bicycle. He said “HELLO.” He startled me. I quickly looked up from my thoughts and my feet and said “Hi! How are you?” A pause. “How-” “What?” “How ARE you?” “WHAT?” Both ‘whats’ were delivered in an unsettlingly monotone, baritone pitch, and his face did not seem to change. His dark but glittery eyes were boring right through me. His mouth was set in a firm, flat line. I started to laugh, when he interrupted me to say (in that same strangely deep, strangely flat voice),

“GIVE ME YOU.”

…

Here my interrupted laugh forced its way out in a soprano’s nervous giggle. I turned on a dime and gtfo. Fast.

I had finally grown my hair out from a horribly mom-ish cut I had done senior year of college. It was way over 10 inches-long enough to donate! I’ve been longing to get a body wave or something for forever, and the length was also finally appropriate for some really good braids and buns and all manners of other unstylish ’dos that I like to…do. But it was hot. And heavy. And tangly. And I never bothered styling it. It was all I could do to blowdry the mess. It took forever to wash, and it took loads of products to maintain. 

Good riddance. 

Just two days before the chop, my long ponytail in a typical cutsie Korean hair accessory.

Photos courtesy John, via my camera. 

How I usually wore my hair, and how most of my students/coworkers saw me. T minus one hour before the chop.

Can you tell I’m excited? In the two weeks leading up to the appointment (from the time of consultation), I had moments of doubt and despair. But every time, I realized that this was only sentimentality talking, and that I COULDN’T WAIT to feel the breeze on my neck. I think the last time my hair was even close to this short was in 1994, when I was still wearing timberlands with sundresses and playing with pogs. 

And here I am, with my new "frenzied" cut, pouting with the fashion model who bears the same hairstyle. The stylists wanted to dye my hair like hers, and also to shave the nape of my neck, but I had to draw the line at a radically short cut.

The experience was great. All the stylists wear funky clothes and fun cuts, which reminded me of Bang back in DC. The girl with the best English had long, curled, dyed hair, and faux eyelashes. The manager with slightly more broken English had a severe blunt cut, lensless horn-rimmed glasses, and wore a spandex minidress and suspenders in bright colors. All of the stylists wore platforms or shape-ups. They serve coffee in English teacups and I drank water from a large crystal goblet. 필립 (“PILL-up” aka Phillip) knew enough English to pose in the mirror and say “I’m sorry!” as he grinned and began hacking at my inch-plus-thick ponytail. He was a spiky-haired cutie in a purple cardigan and gray skinny jeans. After the initial hack and a relaxing shampoo, he spent at least an hour shaping, or should I say: whittling, my hair down to its present thinness (pausing once more to smile and apologize). To aid in the styling stages, he used a spray mousse and a sea salt spray that I LOVED. I smelled like the beach. Suspender lady kept coming over to play with my hair and encourage me with assurances of “FRENZY! you know, FRENZY!” Except it sounded more like “frengee” when spoken in her Korean accent. 

Students and teachers were shocked, of course, but all seem to really like it. A bunch of my once-innocent first grade boys (now big bad second-graders) even adjusted their pants upon complimenting my new style. Maybe they were still adjusting their clothes from PE class. One group of girls thought I’d broken up with John, and another excitedly informed me that I now look like Nicole from 카라 (KARA). I google-imaged her and didn’t quite agree, but they showed me a more recent photo today that I can safely say augments their argument. Her haircut IS similar, though a bit longer, but I still don’t look much like a K-Pop star. 

Or, I should say, she doesn’t look like me. When I first ran my search, I was horrified to find that she was born in the 90s and that so were two other girls in the popular band…I was relieved to find a few girls in their twenties, only to read that they’re not at the start of their careers. They were child actresses and VJs during their teens. So. Yeah. Hullo again, quarter-life crisis. How ya been.