The Frenchman isn’t French. Sorry.

Today is Election Day, and I have the day off. Things I plan to do:
1) Cut my hair, because I've been wearing it in a ponytail for the past two months.
2) Clean the apartment, because it smells.
3) Shop for Taekwondo stuff, because I'm staying at Wonderland for one more month than expected, because I have [...]

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Exile

Remaining too long in one place our attraction
To loved ones upsets us, we’re tossed in its wake.
The flames of our anger towards those who annoy us
Consume what good merit we’ve gained in the past.
The darkness of closed-minded thought dims our outlook,
We lose vivid sight of what’s right and what’s wrong.
We must give up our home [...]

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Extension

“Hey, Mom, it’s me. My supervisor asked me if I could stay until the end of August.
“A Korean teacher is leaving, and she was only here for two months before she quit. So if I go at the same time, it’s going to look bad and we could lose a lot of students.
“They said if [...]

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Canada’s Finest

I have a new Internet crush.

And this was the image that done me in. (Not work safe, and currently the wallpaper on my laptop.)
Jesus, if I could make myself look that erotic, I don't think I could tear myself away from the bathroom mirror.

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Graduate

My sister Jo (the photogenic cutie on the right) and me with our Easter loot. Dyess Air Force Base, Texas.
She's graduating from CSU Longbeach later this week. Congratulations, Jo–I'm grateful you're more grounded than I was before I left college.
You're hardworking, gregarious and beautiful. You've managed to work through college and pay for a large [...]

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Romance! (With a side of kimchi.)

The Lake House, starring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock, comes out this summer.
While there may be shamed individuals like myself who are thrilled about seeing these two actors together again (I've watched the trailer multiple times, in spite of Keanu's awful acting), most of you may not know that the plot for this film was [...]

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Instructors

As I sat in the lobby, lacing up my sneakers–I never wore my shoes in the dojang, although I had a nasty habit of letting my toenails grow out–The Instructor joined me. He crouched near my knees, watching my dry, cuticle-ridden fingers.
"Sabunim?" I asked, uneasy.
He held his hand up for silence, his eyes low. Deep in [...]

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Empty

"Moving to Korea is the best thing I've done for myself," a young woman from Washington D.C. told me three weeks ago.
A monk was escorting our ragtag team of female expats to a few Buddhist sites in Gyeongju. As usual, I'd dove for the window seat and was staring out at the open markets and mountains, [...]

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Tangled Hair

Pale handsome priest
Can you not see
The girl lost in dreams
By the tree of pink blossoms
This spring evening?
                             –Yosano Akiko

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Accent

"Have you noticed you lost your accent?" M asks me, turning on the lights.
"I had one?" I place the movie in its case and wonder what impression the speech of a simple girl from Northern California would leave in a foreign ear.
I ask her, "What do I sound like now?"
"Oh, I don't know. Really can't place you [...]

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