I'm ditching school and work (don't worry, teacher and boss alike know) this weekend to go to Busan, a city in the south. Mia, the Korean Canadian, and Aimee, the Korean American, invited me to come, and at first I declined because I had aforementioned school and work, but then I thought about it and said to myself, dang it, hk, there's more to Korea (and life!) than the classroom and office.

Also, I just need to get out (of town, of the daily grind, of my head) for a while. (How easily did I fall into a routine of school, commute, work, commute, homework, restart? Wherever you go, there you are, my friend. Maybe you should just accept that this is the way you are. Wait, whaddya meeeeaaaan?)

It's the first time for me to go off to a part of Korea with just friends, no dad. I expect it'll be a bit different without Mr. Kim. Whoo? Hm. I like traveling with my dad, actually. He's very easy-going, finds similar things interesting or funny, buys me things, and tries to accommodate my wishes. What's there not to love?

I like Mia and Aimee, but sometimes I get a little nervous around them. I last hung out with them last Friday, when I got drunk and sang 4 Non-Blondes and wrote an excruxiatingly slobbery and self-pitying blog entry. Mia is a self-said verbally emotive person; she told me two weeks ago that she wrote an email to a friend in which she said that she'd met two people, who, if she could have them in her life, would make her happy, and that one of them, Helen, was trying to decide whether to go to law school and was probably brilliant. I think I may have blushed at this. So, like, great and wonderful, yeah? Except that Mia, who just turned 27, is also a bit like a butterfly, socially fearless and charming and kooky and witty, and besides making me feel slow, she scares me.

Aimee graduated last spring, and is a fast-talking California girl with great taste in clothes and confidence by the gallon (liter?), who majored in Ethnic Studies and is going to medical school, and she too scares me, because she speaks Korean really really well and is, like, all savvy about Korean American culture... yadda blah blah. I really need to shut up about my neuroses, 'cause they are BO-RING! Yeah, you, hk.

It's a long weekend (sorry, don't know the reason for the holiday), so we'll set out by bus tomorrow morning (Friday) and return on Sunday by train. So no new blogs until Monday, probably. Here's a handkerchief to dry those tears.

In the meanwhile, I leave you with what people say about the men of various colleges in Seoul. There are a TON of colleges here, and they all have their own personality, of course. So the measurement stick as related below is a college girl who tells her boyfriend that she is cold.

Girl: I'm cold!
Seoul University Boyfriend: Yeah, so am I.
(Seoul University is widely considered the most prestigious college in Korea. Seoul University students have a rep of studying very hard, which apparently translates into lack of social skills/warmth. [Who will testifaaaye with me, now? Yalie brethren, stand alive! Whoops, sorry, the smarm just came spilling outta me...])

Girl: I'm cold!
Korea University Boyfriend: Here, take my jacket.
(Korea University apparently attracts a lot of students from the countryside, and you know how tough and manly those country boys are. [Unless they're John Denver. Oops, shouldn't speak smarmily about the dead -- damnit, hk!] Thus, the giving up of the jacket.)

Girl: I'm cold!
Yonsei University Boyfriend: Come here, I'll warm you up.
(My parents' alma mater is Yonsei and I grew up thinking it was the most prestigious school in Korea, so either I was lied to or things have changed. In any case, these days Yonsei boys are considered on the attractive side, with a dash of playboy added in.)

Girl: I'm cold!
Korean West Point Equivalent School Boyfriend: Then run!
(Aha. Ahahahaha.)

Sorry if the above has not made much sense; had a couple of beers with dinner and afterwards, so feeling drowsy and nonsensical. Also tubby. Hey, did I just write that out loud? D'oh!