Why does a number make such a difference?

Okay, as most of you know, I lost weight while I was in Korea. I look good. I know it. At least I thought I did. For some stupid reason I decided to weigh myself so I could see how much I had lost. Apparently I didn't lose very much. What is it about that number on the scale that seems so important? Before I saw that number I felt great. I knew I looked great, and I was happy with myself. Then I saw the number. All I could think was that number was too high. I was no longer happy with the way I looked because of that stupid number. Before I looked good. Now I'm just fat. All because of a number. Why does a number dictate how I feel about myself? It's stupid.
I think that as a society, we would be better off if we stopped being weight obsessed. Stop going by numbers. The numbers really don't matter. What matters is how we feel about ourselves. The number makes us feel bad about ourselves. So why do we look at it? Why do we have to know what that number is? The number will never be what we think it should be. Knowing it will only make us hate ourselves.
From now on I will refuse to let a number control me. I don't want to know what it is. I will not give a number control. I will go by how good my ass looks in these jeans. It looks good you know.

Come on people!

Okay, how has the message not gotten out? I'm sure there has been a memo or something. Just in case some people missed it, I will reiterate; sweat pants are not to be worn in public. Ever.

I saw this guy today. He was wearing sweat pants. Going comando. Not only that, the elastic in the waist, or the drawstring, was not tight enough, so the pants were low riding. Lots of hairy butt crack was visible. Ewww. Oh, and his hands were full so he couldn't pull his pants up. Why? Why did he think it was acceptable to go out like that? Because it isn't! Sweat pants are only to be worn in your house when there is no posibility that anyone will see you. Okay, you can also wear them when you are sick, but you should still be in your house. There is nothing attractive about sweat pants. Especially on guys. Get real clothes. Comfort is no excuse for ugly.

That is my rant for today.

Oh ya. I'm back in Canada. It's cold. But the food is good.

Coming home

My plane arrives Monday, at 6:58 pm. I expect to eat hamburgers soon after. Well, maybe a shower first, and then hamburgers.

See you all soon.

Black Belt

It's official. I can beat you up. All of you. I won't though. That wouldn't be nice. I wouldn't want to hurt you. I found out last week that I passed the test. I actually got the belt the week before, but found out the results of the test after that. Isn't that weird? Korea doesn't always make sense. Anyway, after we got our belts, but before the official results, we had a photo shoot in our uniforms. The Korean guy is our master. He was very nervous before our test, but we did him proud, and he wasn't so nervous after. We all did really well.

This is my name on my black belt. We wanted them to write our names in Korean. They put Craig's in English and spelled it wrong. We figured they couldn't get it wrong in Korean, and it's cooler that way.

Think happy thoughts

Okay, I had my moment. Now I will think happy thoughts. I want to go home. I'm tired of Korea. On Saturday I yelled at a little girl for staring at me. I think it's time to leave now.

So, happy thoughts. I will get to see all you guys soon. 21 days. I will get to go shopping and find clothes that actually fit. I will get to play with those kids that are doing all of their growing up without me. I suppose I could even babysit Xavier and Niles just for old times' sake. I'm sure they would appreciate it. I can go to a Rider game. Play my trumpet. At the same time even. I can go to a restaurant and not have to sit on the floor, and not have the wait staff be afraid to speak to me. They might have to speak English you know. I still want a good hamburger. I can have one in three weeks.

I am excited to go home. I really am. I just don't want to leave. Oh well. I can always come back.

Mixed feelings

I have four weeks left in Korea. That's 28 days. That's not very many. It's scary. I want to leave. I'm tired of living here right now. I'm tired of people looking at me, I'm tired of being a freak. I can't go anywhere without people staring at me, or trying to practice their English. I want to go home and see everyone. I want to go to church and have a church family again. I want to know what is going on. I want to drive. I want a hamburger. (Diane, I expect to have those yummy hamburgers. You know, the ones that have all that cheese on the inside so when you take a bite you get a mouthfull of cheese. Ya, those ones.) Yes, I am looking forward to going home. I do want to be there, but at the same time, I don't want to leave. I have changed since I came to Korea, and I like who I am. I'm scared that I will change back. I'm scared that I won't let myself be who I am. I'm scared about my internship. We all know how well it worked last time, and I'm scared that it will be the same this time. I want to go home. I really do. I don't want to leave. I don't want to go months without seeing Samuel. I know lots of people did the whole long distance relationship thing, but I don't want to. I like seeing him. I don't want to leave. I want to go home. I can't have both.

Black Belt Test!!!!!

Yes, it deserves multiple exclamation marks. It was so cool! Sunday was my black belt test, and I DID AWSOME!!!!!!!!! (Don't comment on the grammar of that sentence. I know it's wrong, but I'm saying it anyway.) After waiting around for hours for it to finally be our turn, there was a group of 300 kids infront of our age group, it went by so quickly. It literally took ten minutes from when we walked into the gym until we were finished. It was the fastest ten minutes ever. I didn't have time to be nervous. First, we showed the judges three poomses (forms), and then we demonstrated some kicks, and then we had to spar twice.



Here we had just finished the first form and were waiting to move on to the next one. The judge was writing down our numbers, that's why we are all facing the side.
Demonstrating one of the forms. The uniform is not all that flattering, but it is surprisingly comfortable. I actually just got the red belt on Saturday because we don't actually have to wear them in class, so the master never bothered to give us belts. We needed them for the test, so we got them the day before. I didn't know how to tie it properly, so Master had to dress me.
Getting ready to spar. The equipment is not very comfortable and it makes it harder to move, but you can kick people and it doesn't hurt. Unfortunately, I kicked Sara in the elbow, where there is no padding, and really hurt my foot. Oh well. It was fun anyway.

After our test. We were all giddy with excitement.

This is one of the forms we had to show. There are eight forms required to get your black belt. We had to show three of them. We knew that we would have to do number eight, but the other two we found out just before we had to show them. I wanted to do numbers six and seven. I really didn't want to do numbers four and five. We got out there and found out that we were doing four, five, and eight. I was not very happy about that. I think I did okay, even if those ones were not my best.

I was going to put on more, but it won't work right now. I will put on more later.