Okay, I haven't posted for a day or two so here goes.
These are the last few days I'm having in Korea so its sort of hard to sum up everything that has happened. But I'll do the best I can.

The other day after a regular Taekwondo workout we had a going away party. We all sat in the middle of the floor, spread out some newspaper and dumped a big pile of food in the center. Thats my kind of party.

Then they brought out a cake and Master Hwang told me that it was for my birthday (aww. :)) So they turned out all the lights and sang happy birthday in horrible horrible broken english (which just seemed to make it better ;) ) and I blew out the candles just like a normal B-day cake. When they turned the lights back on Master Hwang told me to cut the cake. I started to and got the knife about half way through the cake when I asked where the plates were.

He smiled and said: "Korea Birthday don't have plates."
I was confused, so I asked: "How do you eat it then?"
"Like this."
And he grabbed a handful of cake and threw it in my face.

There was a few moments silence where I just sat there with cake on my face and then the room exploded and I grabbed a huge handful of cake and chased down master Hwang and Jude and Choon and 'Headache' until everyone I could get near was smoothered in cake. It was so *awesome*!!!

That was Thursday. Friday we went to De-Dun mountain again. And by we I mean Master Hwang's school and about 3 other schools. A bus full of kids and then some all packed up and went to the camp that was on the side of De-Dun mountain (no scary stairs in sight).

So all of Friday and some of today we stayed there and played with the kids while they went swimming and did obstacle courses and ghost walks at night and camp fires... it was really a good way to remember everyone.

That night when everyone else was in bed I went out to the river and sat on a bridge that ran over it. The moon was out right above me, the sky was beautiful, it was just the right amount of cold in the air to make everything so peaceful and a perfect way to remember Korea. So i sat there... I don't even remember how long, well past 3:30 am, with my legs swinging over the edge of the bridge and just thinking. And in that one night, I feel like I solved so many problems.
Just that one night.

There are so many things about Korea that I'm never going to be able to forget. And though I'm leaving tomorrow morning ( at 4 am to get to the airport on time :O) I still feel like I'm taking a part of Korea with me. Because all of the things I've done have done so much to change me, to make me into more of who I want to be and I know I'm going to be in the future.

As...completely cheesy as that sounds. Its just the way I feel.

Yes, I'm going to miss Korea and all the people in it... but then again, I am going to be back in a year.

I've decided that I'm going to put every effort toward going to college here.

It might be hard living here, especially for four years, but my passion lies in taekwondo. And no matter what I have to go after that.

Well I'm all packed and I guess all thats left now is to say goodbye to everyone here.

This will be my last post as well so goodbye to all of you until I see you when I get home. Thank you for taking the time to read this and check up on me.

Until next time,
Kiersten Baker

I posted another newspaper clip and the flyer that me and Jude are on. Just click on My website --->, go to photos and click on Another Newspaper and Flyer.

If you look really carefully in the newspaper, right between Mr. Smith's and Mr. Yi's head you can see Jude's eye peeking around. And thats all you see of him. Lol.

And in the flyer... we arn't really sure what Jude is doing with his hands they just told him to do that. But I find it funny every time I look at it.

Well I'm done picking on Jude now. hehe...

Right.. so more pictures tonight. Maybe. We'll see. More pictures at some point in time....

Kiersten

Pictures:
Oh it seems that in one of my albums not all the pictures posted. I'll put it up tonight.

Okay... Its 3:30 in the morning and I'm uploading the ATF pictures right now. Its the only time I had to get on Master Hwang's computer and go digging for them. You know how hard it is to dig when everything is in korean? Well when they are up just remember... I didn't take all of them so I'm not responsibile for anything... just remember that. I am mearly the messenger, don't shoot me. :)

The first album is when everone first got to korea (Titled: Atf Arrives) and the 2nd is mainly of ATF taking pictures with everyone that lives in Korea and their mother (Titled: Atf...Picture Time! I think that all of the ATF people that went on the trip will now just what I mean by that too. It was enough to devolp a phobia of cameras)

Apparently before Master hwang went to bed tonight he told me and Jude that we are having a huge party tomorrow. All he said was that we have to get up early and we are probably not going to sleep tomorrow night. And that was all the information I got. I don't know about koreans but that sounds pretty vague to us Americans. But I'm excited.

Now its 3:45 and the pictures still arn't done. Hopefully when they are done loading they will be up automatically. Guess we'll just have to see cause I'm going to bed.
Good night!
Kiersten

I have one of the newspapers that the ATF was in up on my photos page. Just click on my website (Over there---> ) and then click on photos. Its in an album called Muju Newspaper.
There is another newspaper that all of us were in but I haven't gotten the chance to put it up yet. This one I got because one of my korean friends emailed it to me while I was with ATF and said "did you know you were in the paper?" and then started telling me that the only way he can keep track of where I am in korea is by reading the newspaper.

Oh and I was on TV the other day. Apparently Jude and I both got on TV when we went to that form competition last weekend.

And I'm going to be in a magazine. Jeong-Ju city's magazine and I'm going to be on the cover. I'm going to have to get a copy of that.

I saw something really interesting this morning. Whenever we arrived at the TKD school the door was already open. When we went inside we found out that Choon, Choon's cousin, and his friend were all there. It looked like they had all just woken up and Choon was even still asleep.
When I asked Master Hwang why he said that he lets some of the teenagers stay in the school sometimes. He said that if they ever have problems with their parents of school or just need a place to stay he lets them sleep in the Tae Kwon Do center and in return they clean the school in the morning.

I was really impressed. I was impressed with Master Hwang for letting them do that and I was impressed with the three boys that they were responsible about it and everyone handled it in such a calm way. Like it was all no big deal. Its just hard for me to imagine that happening in America. At least not that smoothly.

By the way, I've had a few people ask me, I'm coming home on the 24th which is this Sunday. But I won't be in Athens for a week because I'll be in Florida. Got to run
Kiersten

Today we went back to the directors school and taught for two classes again. They absolutely adore us there. The instructors gave us coffee and cake when we were looking tired and we watched some movie with Tom Cruise in it between classes. After the second class they gave us a slushie and then they ordered pizza for us. When we left they gave us t-shirts and postcards and the director's wife gave me a hat she knitted. Plus all the kids wanted our autographs. We were SO *spoiled*. We are really like celebrities here.

After that we came back to the Tae Kwon Do Center and I walked around town trying to find gifts for people back home. I don't get a whole lot of time to do that so I try to do it atleast once a day in 15 minutes intervals. Even then I can only go to places in walking distance. Where is E-mart when you need it.

By the way, for any of you planning to go to korea (Maybe again for some of you) don't have acne while you are here. Not a lot of people have it over here so when I have it everyone has this odd desire to poke it. Just warning you guys.

I think I realized today just how much I'm going to miss the kids here. I feel like I've gotten close to all of them and they all mean a lot to me. There is this one little boy, he is about 10 or so, and he is so smart. He's picked up on a lot of English and when the TKD school was watching a movie the other day he would try to explain the movie to me in english. He would stay stuff like:
"Bird... evil bird!" Or "Run away, run away -swoosh-!" or "Scary! Like this: Ahhh!" He is so funny. And all the kids are like that, very interactive and animated and really willing to automatically love you.


Then we will play this game called "Ring of the kings" (Its what they call Lord of the rings over here) and I say "My precious" (A line from the movie) and they all shriek and start running around. Its so cute... I'm going to miss them and miss teaching them and miss playing with them. I think because of them, over the past 2 months, I've realized how much I want to be an instructor. I think that the responsibility of it all used to really scare me. But.. its worth it. They're worth it.

Speaking of teaching.. I have a class coming up.
Got to run
Kiersten

ps. Mr. Carter, if you're reading this I just wanted to let you know that I tried to buy you an Astroboy T-shirt the other day. But all the sizes they had were small and medium. I'm sorry :( I tried.

Monday morning. We had to get up earlier than usual and drive out to the director's school. I'm not really sure what he is the director of but Master Hwang says he's the director. So I believe him. :)

We went there and not to long after we walked in, the german team from Saturday's competition walked in.

They did a demo for the kids, which was just punching, and left. After that Jude and I taught two of their classes.

Jude did most of the work though. He stretched them and did basics and such. I'm not really sure why I didn't get to, Master Hwang just told me to sit down. But we did pad work with them and whatnot.

Whats really cool is that after every class the kids get a slushie because the TKD center has its own slushie machine. Come on, thats just cool! If I had a tkd school I'd definately put one in. I'd be drinking them all the time but thats ok.

Then we came back to the TKD center and I, shortly there after, fell asleep in Master Hwang's office again while Jude taught the first kids classes. Then I woke up and we swapped. He fell asleep and I taught the last class.

One last thing: I would like to say Happy Birthday to my step-mother, Trelle.
I'm sorry I can't be there but I'll try to call you (if I haven't already) sometime today.
Happy Birthday!

Kiersten

Saturday was fun. I actually got to go ice skating for a little while before we went to the tournement. Mr. and Mrs. Hwang took all their students ice skating and we got to tag along for a little while.

I was horrible. I had to get the kids to help me. It was SO funny. All these little kids were holding my hand and keeping me on my feet and the whole time I was yelling "scary" in korean or "help me". By the time I started to get used to it we had to leave.

When we showed up for the tournement no one was there. Except the masters. So we talked with them for a little while and did our ATF forms for them- just to show off.

But when people finally did show up they all showed up at once. There was about 20 germans there to compete and the rest were Korean kids. There were about 25 or so men and women that were all over 85 that were there to do a demonstration. I've never seen anything like that before but it was pretty cool.

Me, Jude, and the one other woman were there representing America. There was one girl representing Canada. We did Taebeck (jude and I were in the same ring) and Jude got 1st place and I got 2nd. Kind of stinks that out of all those people there we had to compete against each other.

Today, Sunday, we went to church and then shopping. We went to this one store called Bang Bang were Jude bought two bag fulls of clothing. I bought a shirt... lol.

Oh I forgot to mention: we didn't go to the Korean Disney World. Master Hwang cancelled because he said he had to go to a tournement. So Jude and I spent most of the time walking around JeongJu.

Next week is that last full week. I come home on Sunday.
Kiersten

Well I found out that I'll be coming home early.
I'm not sure why. I think there was a misunderstanding with Master Hwang. Basically He said he didn't want me to stay if Jude wasn't staying. So I'm coming home July 24th.
I was a little angry at first but now I'm cool with it. It means I can go on vacation with my family and go to the TKD picnic, so I'm really happy about that. Plus it will give me time to get over jet lag before I have to start school. And I can spend my B-day with my family.
Looks like i have a week left.

Date:	2005-07-14 13:34
Subject:
Security:	Public
Mood:	energetic
Music:	Rocket science- The Pimps

Today was our last workout with WooSuk university. I was actually kind of sad because there was a lot of people in there I really liked.

But we did get the chance to spar again. Oh god. They played with me *so* badly. I was a white belt to them. But if anything training with them has shown me how to be humble. And I'll always remember, anytime I feel like I'm getting good or to full of myself... these guys can always kick my butt. lol.

But at the end of class one of the girls came up to me and gave me her WooSuk University Adidas jacket. It is -awesome-. I'm wearing it right now thats how excited I got. Its in the middle of summer and the humidity is killer and I'm wearing a jacket. Its just that cool :D

My knee is still acting up on me. Every once in a while it will feel rusty and I'll have this sharp pain that travels down to my ankle. But its doing a little better. I held on the entire class and I didn't really hold back. I'm going to the doctor when I get home though. I think all this has something to do with my hips. (Bad hips-thus my flexiblity)

But anyway...
I have a form competition on Saturday- Wish me luck. I've never done this form in a competition before (Its a WTF form- Taebeck). Then on Sunday Master Hwang said he was going to take us to the Korean disney world in Seoul.

By the way... can someone find out what day Cedar Shoals starts school. My mom told me it was the fourth of August been then someone else told me it was the 1st of August. :o The 1st is when I'm supposed to get home! Ah! Jet lag is going to murder me.

Got to run,
Kiersten

Well I had acupucture today.
Lets just say mine was a LOT different that Jude's. What Master Hwang forgot to tell me was that they send electric currents through you. Well, that was fun. Also they put these things on me that I liked to call at the time "Mechanical leeches". They looked just like them and had the exact same function. Even made this wonderful sucking noises.
I'm going to go test out my knee though. So far its feeling pretty good. Yay, lets see if I can keep it.
More later
Kiersten

So a small update of today:
We all woke up around 9 oclock. It was beautiful. I never knew sleeping late could feel that good. I think that out of every day last week the night I got the most sleep totaled to about 4 hours. All the others were less or none.

I think I got about 15 hours last night. Master Hwang slept a total of 20 hours yesterday. You know how tired he must have been. I'm really glad he got the chance to rest though.

We went out to eat lunch this morning with a korean master and a newspaper reporter. The korean master was really cool. He was nice to me and talked to me a lot which can be kind of rare. He even ended up giving me a picture of this one guy in the korean tigers demonstration team who is doing an awesome side kick.
The newspaper reporter talked to us for a while and Master Hwang told me about how Jude and I were going to be in the paper again this week because we're going to be in a tournement this weekend. First I heard about that. :o

Then we headed back to the TKD center. I taught my classes then decided to wander around town a little. I'm trying to see if I can get used to living here in my mind. Like I'm trying it on to see if its comfortable. I guess WooSuk University has been on my mind a lot lately. What I'm going to do.. how I would work it out... what do I really want to do? For a question that sounds so easy thats been the hardest one.

I thought, before ATF came, that I would go to college here after graduating from a junior college in the states. But then during one rather lengthy bus trip I got into a discussion with Jude, Mr. Smith, Mr. Baker, Kon, and some others about how it would be in my best interest to go ASAP. Then Mr. Yi told me how I probably wouldn't be accepted if I waited two years. I'd have to go right out of high school.

In one year. Korea. Living here?
Can I do that?

So it took a lot of sleepness nights (And talking to ATF people. Thank you to those of you that talked to me about this on that last night. It really meant a lot) to boil it down to whats holding me back. There are a lot of little things like just how hard its going to be. The culture is going to be really hard to get used to. But Am I mature enough? Strong enough? Devoted enough?

I'm going to be homesick and I'll miss my family and friends to death but what hurts me the most is when I think of my little sister. I'm going to miss everyone else but I know that they will be there and unchanging but my sister... she turns two this month. And I love her to death.

If I leave I'll be gone for four years. Thats fours years I'll miss of her getting older and growing up. Fours years I can't get back of her turning into the person she's going to be. If I go to WooSuk I'll miss four years of her that I'll never be able to get back... If I stay home I'll miss four years of WooSuk that I'll never be able to get again because after next year I can never go again.

Not to mention I'll miss home. All three of them. (Mom's house. Dad's house. Athens Tae Kwon Do Center [a big family in that house].)

How can I decide? How can I follow my heart when its in two places?

I'll move away from that for now. But like I was saying, thats what I was thinking about while I was walking. When one of Master Hwang's students who is the same age as me saw me and caught up to me. He offered to take me out to lunch but I declined because I had to get back to the TKD center and teach again soon. So he took me to get ice cream instead.

I get acupucture tomorrow. On my wrist and knee. Lets see if it works.

Well, thats all for now. I'm getting ready to workout soon. I want to make up for all the lost workout time and see if I can't get all that stress out. No, I won't go to hard- I promised I wouldn't until I was better.

I'll just do a lot of situps.

Its the only part of me that isn't falling apart. ;)

Kiersten

Can the ATF people let me know that they all got home okay? I'm really worried about them with the hurricane and all.

Well it looks like I'm going to be in a form competition this weekend. And we met with another newpaper reporter this morning.

BTW when we went to Muju last week we got in the paper. I'll put a copy up on the internet soon. I have to run for now.

Kiersten

ATF left today. We woke up (I say "we" like I actually woke up. But you have to be asleep to wake up.) around 5:15 and left for the airport around 7. It didn't really hit me how homesick I was until I saw them leaving for the plane and I was staying. I was fine until they had passed security and Master Hwang turned to me and said in korean that my korean father was leaving, refering to Mr. Yi. I'm such a baby because I actually teared up. So I'm a little emotional...so what? :P ;)

But anyway, I'm glad that I get more time here. And things are a lot less stressful now that ATF is heading back to America. Not that I didn't love having them there. It was just busy 24/7. I'm actually finding out what it means to relax now.

Plus, right after ATF left the monk from the temple we went to last week took me and Jude to Mcdonanlds. Now tell me... how many people in the world have a monk take them to Mcdonalds. Not only that but he kept playing with his french fries. He would stick them in his ears or in his mouth. Then he made them into fangs and called me dracula. Then made them into horns and called Jude, satan. He's so cool. Everyone in ATF loved him. Its sort of hard to explain why... its just his energy. That feeling you get from him that just makes you, well, comfortable. ATF knows what I mean.

Oh and a big thanks to Mr. Smith for initiating Karaoke night last night. We all had karaoke in the bus on the way back to the hotel. Yes... its on camera. :D

Got to run. More later.

Kiersten

Sorry I haven't replied in a while!
I have only just now been able to get near a computer. We are in Seoul right now and it is so COOL here. Its so big and energetic and I love it.
Everyone is doing great BTW. We are all hanging in there even though we have next to no down time.
I don't even know how to summarize the past few days. So much has happened.
We've been to several different mountains and trained with many different martial arts masters. We went to a buddhist temple and trained with this awesome monk who everyone loves (And I injuried my knee even more and had to be passed around on people's backs for the rest of the night.) We climbed to the top of a mountain where this head monk was buried.(No, he didn't die on the way up. He's been there for a while. Thanks daddy. :P)
Then we went to the airforce academy of Korea. Some more mountains. Then Seoul. We are in Seoul right now and its about 3:00 in the morning and the only reason I'm still awake is to type up a little blurb of whats been happening before I crash. (I was nodding off during a hapkido class today. Not a good thing. Masters glared at me. I couldn't help it :( ) Tomorrow is the last full day before they leave. I'm going to miss them. Okay, I need to go. I'm sorry I haven't bee able to email anyone, I'm going to eventually, I promise.
Kiersten

More photoes are up! We have ATF photos and we have The carter's photos. Go to my website (The link is over there--->_) And go to links and photos.

I love this hotel!
Last night I actually experienced heaven. The pillow and comforter were so soft... I mean, theey were sort of normal but in comparision to my bed at the apartment- lighter than air. And there is air conditioning. In my room! Air conditioning! I'm still excited. Although I did wake up in the morning and couldn't talk because I was so un-used to the AC. And I had a warm shower! Not skin-boiling hot and not freezing cold but warm and nice... okay, I'm going to move on now.

We woke up around 6:30 this morning (Well, Marsha did and I work up when she did.) and met everyone in the lobby where we caught the bus to get breakfast. After that we headed to WooSuk University. Atf was pretty amazed at their skill. Now they know I wasn't exagerating. We actually got to spar them. I loved it. I mean, they kicked my butt but I loved it (I also got kicked in the checkbone again. Gr.. Oh and I had a tiny black eye this morning. Wonderful. :P). Something about watching them fight is so.. beautiful. The way they move... its hard to describe. They are almost like dancers. Lethal dancers :O...

We had a korean lunch where a few people tried squid. Lol, they all said they liked it. I think they are lying though. Oh, and for people at home worried about people over here let me assure you that everyone is in great health. Maybe a little tired but everyone is eating well (We eat -all- the time so don't worry about that).

We then took a good portion of the day traveling around Jeong-Ju to see Korean masters and have our pictures taken with them. :P

I also found that an old knee-injury is coming back to bother me again (The reason I had to stop running cross country- some sort of arthritis problem with my knee. Thats what you get when you have hyper-flexive joints. A gift that doubles as a curse.). But thats okay cause I just hitched a ride on Mr. Yi's back.

We had dinner at a really nice Korean restraunt... I can't really explain what we had to eat. It was a big bowl of everything. Rice, sprouts, beef, vegetables... even stuff I'm not quite sure about. But those who couldn't really fill up on it went to KFC afterwards.

Then we went to Master Hwang's school to workout out with him for an hour and then work with some of the korean masters. Man that place was packed with people. It was Master Hwang's students, ATF, Jeong-Ju University boys (The ones I met a week or two ago and they liked to feed me when we went out to eat with Master Kim. Lol.), and some Americans that were in another school. I thought that was cool because apparently they were visting to, for the same reasons as us. Even a canadian. Yeah, I worked out even though my knee was killing me. There was no way I was missing that workout.

Right now its 2 in the morning and everyone is asleep. This probably isn't one of my more descriptive posts but I'm exhausted and sleepy and my brain is about 3 minutes away from automatic shut-down.

We leave in the morning to start traveling across more of Korea, into cities I haven't been in yet. (I'm going to miss Jeong-Ju. :( ) I want to be semi awake for that. I hope there are computers in those hotels to.

Well I'm going to go to bed now.
More tomorrow,
Oh and Master Hwang stole the camera again. He's tricky. But I'm catching on to his game. That camera is staying in my possession at all times tomorrow... I must get those pictures up. Tricky koreans...

Bye,
Kiersten
ps. Jude isn't staying that extra week that I am (July 24-August 1st). I guess I'll be alone for that time.

Man, I'm exhausted.

We started off today by waking up really early and grabbing breakfast at a bakery (The ATF people are getting spoiled. I don't ever remember having breakfast before. Lol. That was mainly because I never wanted breakfast though.) Then we all got in our huge charter bus and drove to the tournement.

Four people competed, Jude, Kon, Karthik Sola, and myself. It was a little different than I thought it was going to be. It was more of an exhibition fight than a real competition. People just wanted to see how the Americans would do.

Basically the people we were fighting against played with us. It was humbling. To say the least :) But I've realized, and rather harshly, that I'm going to need a lot more than just a month to improve. I can see all my flaws much better than before, like they are staring me in the face waiting for me to do something. Rather than getting angry about it, by getting torn up in this fight I'm all the sudden really excited because I'm ready to train harder. Get better. Funny, Thats not a reaction I expected to have. But I like it.

Regardless, I think we all did really well. I mean, there were a few times when each of us got laughed at by the entire gym (We all fought one at a time and we were the only match going on so everyone could watch us individually) and trust me, its not exactly a good feeling to get laughed at while you're sparring but then again all four of us have never been trained with WTF style at much as they had. And we all got medals in the end. How many Americans get to do that? Plus, we are official considered pro-players now (So says Master Hwang).

Besides, everytime I loose I get a little better idea of what I need to work on.
Other than not getting kicked in the face. Why does that always happen? My checkbone is swollen right now. :P I'm so proud of it though... its my korean injury. :D

We have pictures of everyone and I'll be putting it up on the internet soon. I was going to put it up tonight but Master Hwang stole the camera :(. I'll steal it back tomorrow.

After the tournement we headed to a buddhist temple in the mountains. Beautiful. It was a crazy hike but it was worth it. It was a path that followed a river and the trees were so thick that all the humidity was trapped in the woods. It was foggy enough to remind someone of a suana and we were all sweating within minutes.

All the ATF people are really exhausted. They did a lot today and they haven't even gotten over jet lag yet. Poor guys.

Its kind of funny because I feel like I'm getting to show everyone my home. I know, I know, I've only been here a month but I just feel so attached to this place. As silly as it sounds I feel like its apart of me and I'm apart of it, just like I do with Athens. I'm just... comfortable.

After the crazy hike we went out to eat with a bunch of korean masters and Master Hwang's master who I've met a couple times before. Everyone was out of it though. Food and bed were the only things on the mind.

I'm staying at the hotel tonight, I'm rooming with Marsha. Man, these hotels are nice. Wide screen TV, computers, and I can actually spread out both my arms and not touch the walls. Thats so cool :).

Tomorrow we are getting up early again to go train with WooSuk University. I'm excited. I'm ready to workout and get completely exhausted and get better and just train...Man, that tournement really did it for me. I'm ready to work.

I better go to bed before I wake up Marsha. Don't want her to beat me up :(.
Yes, I promise photos of everyone will be up soon!
Kiersten

Well everyone is here, safe and exhausted. We drove four hours to pick them up and four hours back in a huge charter bus. Man, they looked so tired. Did I look that tired? This one lady from ATF got off the plane first and walked out and when she saw me she said she thought she was the first one off the plane and asked how long I had been there, apparently thinking I flew in with them. I told her about a month. She just stared.
Lol. Man, I was so excited to see everyone. I don't think I stopped talking- they must think Korea made me nuts.
Everyone slept on the way back except Mr. Yi who me and Jude talked to the whole time about... well... Korea ( I was so happy to see Mr. Yi. I didn't realize how much I missed him). Then we got to the hotel where we had a meeting about what we are going to be doing for the next ten days (crazy busy).
I'm at the apartment now and I'm really tired but I can't fall asleep because I'm nervous about tomorrow. I'll be competing in my first tournement in Korea. Eek.
I don't know how much I'll be able to post now because I'm going to be traveling alot. But I do know that some of the hotels have computers so I'll try to be on as much as I can.
I'm going to try to get some sleep.
Good night.

Hey, for those of you not going on the trip to korea and you're interested, you can track their flight by going here :
http://www.atlanta-airport.com/applications/trakaflight/flightinfo_frames.htm
The flight number is KE0036.
It shows the progress of the plane, its pretty cool. Thought parents might like that.
Later,
Kiersten

Date:	2005-06-30 14:07
Subject:
Security:	Public
Mood:	happy
Music:	Bridge Over Troubled Waters- Johnny Cash

To bad. The program has been cancelled. The producer called again yesterday and said they were going to have to cancel it. Not really sure why. Then again I'm not really sure about a lot of things when I'm in a place where I don't speak anyone's language. Lol. I'm bummed but its cool. I'm on a banner. :)

Well yesterday was fun. Apparently an open house, to Koreans, is testing. Jude and I led the beginning of testing last night which was fun. Part of the kid's testing was to understand us in English. Kind of a test for us in the process because we had to make them understand what we wanted them to do.

I think the parents really liked us though. At the end of the testing all the kids got their belts right then which was kind of interesting. Not only did they get their belts but their mothers all tied it on them for them. Also they did this really neat thing when the kids would break boards. All the other kids, sort of in a chanting way, would count to three, and on three the kid would break the board. I liked that. Its like it let the kids know that the rest of their class was routing for them.

After testing we sat in the workout room and ate all the left over food. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that here the instructors go out and by food and drinks for all the parents attending. Not to expensive for Master hwang's school but I bet it would be pricy at Mr. Yi's school.

Then until about 11:30pm or so I started working on my WTF form. I -love- that form. It has the certain flow to it. I only know to the first kiyap but I've been practicing it over and over hoping to get it decent if I'm going to be competing in the form competition next month.

WTF, ITF, and ATF are all different styles of Tae Kwon Do, for those of you unfamilar. ATF is the American Tae Kwon Do Foundation, The WTF is the World Tae Kwon Do Federation, and the ITF is the International Tae Kwon Do Federation. I'm used to ATF style forms. Going into a WTF style form you realize how different things are. Different stances, chambers, moves, everything. Its like I'm a white belt again. But I like that because I'm really intrigued by the different styles and I really want to learn as much as I can about them.

I realized yesterday how much respect I hold for Master Hwang though. When I started learning the form he began to tell me how he believed there was no right or wrong style. There were different ways to train and do certain moves but in Tae Kwon Do, he said, the physical aspect matters very little. To him its about the mental training and the capacity to grow and learn inside more than outside. He said it didn't matter that there were different ways to throw a round kick, what matters is whats in the heart of the person throwing the round kick. And I completely agree with him. Its about the person training's spirit, not the right or wrong or different way to perform a move. I think a lot of people tend to forget that, even myself. But like I said, he gained a lot of respect form me when he told me that and I was suddenly really proud to be able to learn from him.

After class we went out to eat with one of Master Hwang's old students. He was only going to be in town for three days before he had to leave to go back to the military where he had another year to serve. In Korea, all men have to serve time in the military, its just a rule. From what I could tell, the guy really didn't want to go.

Over dinner Master Hwang was explaining to me about how difficult the military was. When i said I understood, the comment was made by someone that I couldn't understand because i was a girl and girls don't go into the military. To which we then got into a discussion about how things were different in America and girls could go into the military and I actually considered the Air Force when I'm out of high school next year. I told them about how I used to work out with the ROTC at my high school and was born on an Air Force base because my father was in it. Of course I said it all in a polite way, because I knew this was a sensitive subject in Korea.

The male-female relations are a lot different than in America. I'm sure if some of the stuff thats happened here, happened at home I'd be pretty frustrated. But I knew things were going to be different when I came so I respect it. I don't always like it but I respect it. (Just a funny story: We were in McDonalds this morning and Master Hwang made the comment that I sort of sit like a boy. He said that girls in Korea don't sit that way. Then Jude said, "Girls in America don't sit that way either. Kiersten just doesn't care." Lol.)

Anyway, I took a little longer to explain how, just like Tae Kwon Do was a dream, another dream of mine was to fly airplanes. Then the military guy spoke up (He spoke english?! :O I had to quickly try to remember if I said anything infront of him, thinking he didn't understand me. Lol! I didn't of course, its just one of the first things that comes to mind when you realize some one actually understands you.) and said that he was born on an air base too and we talked about traveling and what not. Ah! A conversation! I was so happy.

Can you believe I actually ate squid. A lot of squid, not just a tiny little bite. But tentacles and all. Several bites of squid. And you know whats wierd? It wasn't bad. I almost liked it. Almost. :)

After that we went back to the car but stopped at this little machine game. The kind you see at carnivals or in front of stores that have the claw-like thing and you drop it down into a pile of stuffed animals and try to pick it up. Well Mrs. Sohe tried first... over and over again we tried trying to win this one little green bear they kept calling a "marshmellow". Must be a Korean thing. Well the military dude tried and got it on the first time ( so thats what they teach them in the military). He gave it to me. (Aww.) So now I have a marshmellow on my bookbag.

So I'm going to try to get more pictures up soon but there is an issue with the USB port on this computer. There is a problem but no one wants to mention it because they don't want to be the "first one" to find it. Because if they are the first one to find it then it means they broke it. Everyone is waiting for someone else to find it because no one wants it to be their fault. I love how some things are universal.

But I'm going to use another computer soon and get some pictures up. And yes, I'll try to get one of that banner. Lol. Koreans and their Advertising... they are actually really good at it. Mainly because they put it -everywhere-. Not only is it on buildings.. its also on the ground. On sidewalks, you walk on advertising. When you get out of the shower you dry off with advertising because its on the towels. I feel like I'd be persuaded to buy more things but its all in Korean. Kudos to ignorance!

They also do this trick I've noticed where on a building or a bus they will put a huge picture of a really nice building or a really nice bus that looks much better than whatever its on. But whoever is looking at it is so impressed with the picture they don't really notice that that building or bus isn't exactly the same thing. Lol. It actually got me the first few times.

I'm thinking I'll learn from this and get a T-shirt with a -really- pretty girl on the front to see if it will fool anyone. Lol. Yes, I'm learning from Korea. :)

Kiersten