speaking kong-lish

oh so let's see. i went to the korean gym i joined. it was the first day i could go and so i went with my friend padraig so he could show me about. my wrists still hurt from lifting the most minor objects, such as a laptop, some books, or a child...i must post pictures of the cutest little girl i've ever seen. her name is irene and she runs to me in the mornings and i get to carry her around for a bit. effing adorable. either way, i can only do the treadmill right now, which sucks because they don't seem to have an adjustable incline. also, everything's metric over here (and everywhere but america) so kilometers don't mean much to me, nor do kilos. i did find out my weight tonight at the gym though and i've lost 12 lbs since i've been here which means that i've lost 42 lbs since last summer. that sounds crazy. i don't feel like i look any different...maybe i've just lost 42 lbs of water weight...i think the fact that i live on the fourth floor of the school and have to walk flights of steps to do anything or the fact that i walk a few miles a day doesn't hurt anything...

i went to the cherry blossom festival on sunday. it was great. i saw a lot of...cherry blossoms! it was a fun day overall...went to yeouido for that, then went to itaewon to have a burger. it seems crazy i know, but there's NOWHERE you can get a burger except mcdonald's (which i have boycotted)...even outback steakhouse does not have burgers...it's not a great loss, all the beef is from australia, and is not as good as american...at least not to me. me and padraig have made a tradition of going to outback every 3 weeks or so. it's about as expensive as it is in the states, but that's still MUCH more expensive than everything else we could get. one of the waiters at outback said he had seen us at the bar we go to and was really nice. he gave us each 3 loaves of outback bread! he told us a few days later when we saw him at the bar that there were girls asking about us who thought we were cute because, get this, GIRLS IN KOREA SUPPOSEDLY GO TO OUTBACK (and other western restaurants, i imagine) TO PICK UP WESTERN GUYS. i thought that it was hilarious. for one thing, i don't think much of myself in terms of the looks department, but certainly i think most of the asian girls are terribly attractive...so maybe the combination of my insecurities and their insecurities will make for a great time in korea.

i'm getting my alien registration card soon, which means i can get a cell phone and video store membership. homeplus has dvd sales all the time...this week i bought akira kurosawa's "seven samurai," queen's "we will rock you," and a john lennon tribute concert for 2,800w each, or, a little less than 2$ each. i found out after buying "seven samurai" that the dvd's work on my laptop. i'm excited about "seven samurai" because i've never seen it all the way through.

well, i don't have time to post pictures right now...it's 12:30am, but i will tomorrow. have a good day.