Vanity Affair

I drank a lot of coffee today.

I think someone spiked my 3/4 cup of coffee with sugar. I have a very odd buzz yet I still can't shake off the yawning. I'm not a coffee drinker so I am still not used to the shaking.

Lately I've been weirded out a lot by the number of mirrors I run into during the day. This starts in my bathroom, my vanity, and my shoe foyer area where a mirror hangs. Then there's one in the elevator. Then I sit on the long grueling bus ride to work and watch as half of the bus passengers (half being high school students) pull out little compacts to check themselves out. Then this persists all day because every single classroom has a mirror hanging in the middle of the room and there are mirrors all throughout the halls. And if there aren't any around, there's plenty of glass to use to check one's reflection. I'm almost jealous of these mirrors because they get more attention from people than I do. Thankfully the children are still young and refrain from checking out their beautiful faces often, unlike all of the adults...and as of late, including me...



I remember my first experience in a Korean elevator at our hotel during orientation and the entire inside of it was mirrors! How awkward it was to be cramped into a tiny elevator with 8 other people you barely know and not able to look up anywhere without looking directly at someone else's reflection. The elevator mirror thing is still very common around other parts of the country. I find myself just staring at the buttons as a way to avoid any sort of eye contact. Even then I can sometimes accidentally connect eyes with someone else.

Appearance is huge here. Ladies dress up for any occasion, such as taking out the garbage. The whiter your skin, the more beautiful you are (guess I'm almost there!). Women typically wear 18 layers of foundation to achieve this effect. There's even skin whitening cream! From far away they all look like beautiful porcelain dolls...but oh man, up close it's like Hurricane Katrina reincarnated. Within 3 feet of a Korean woman's face, you can see this map of the Amazon. It's not pretty. But I think this is mostly due to the layers and layers of foundation, not the natural skin. Maybe.

Women can't not wear heels anywhere within the country. Apparently heels are quite versatile...a single pair can carry you through a 5 mile rigorous hike, across the trenches during a war battle, or even across the Atlantic Ocean. I was unaware of how resourceful heels can be. I feel I must buy a pair right now and engage in anything I want to because I'm wearing heels!

I think I'll go run a marathon with mine to break them in.