Korean friends

Apparently if you're an underage girl in Korea, you'll want to be my best friend. I don't know how I feel about this. It's not that I'm not making friends in Yeongju, I'm just not making KOREAN friends. At first I come off as uninteresting, just like any other Korean woman around town. This is especially the case when I'm hanging around other "white" foreigners (oOoO the exotic white person!). But once my charming and hilarious personality comes out, they cling to me like brown on brown rice.

Today I was asked by a student who my best friend is. I said I have many friends, but no one best friend. She asked if her and her friends could be my best friends. Sure, why not!

I had taken a few cute pictures with my students at my favorite school (it's very tiny so I get to know the kids better). I was very excited to show them to the world. They're some of the most innocent and enthusiastic kids I've ever met and they absolutely ADORE me.

I've also been quite popular with a few of the young girls at my Taekwondo school (all in middle or high school). 2 days ago, I pointed out to one of the middle school girls the building I live in. So the next day as I'm heading down the stairs to meet my Taekwondo master (who picks me up for class), she and another middle school girl were running up my stairs to see my apartment. We have 2 minutes to spare so I show them my dinky shoebox. One of them sees my thawing tater tots and invites herself over to come eat them some time. So today I invited them over after school and cooked them burgers and tater tots.

Then one of them was looking through my camera photos and deleted ALL of my pictures on accident. Was I angry? A bit. I took some cute photos earlier in the day! But she was mortified and they were both silent, thinking I was very angry. But they were so innocent about it I couldn't be angry. They're just pictures.

It's a bit weird to be inviting little girls over to my place to "hang out." But I figure, they adore and love me, so why not relish in it while I can? It's nice to feel that special every once in a while, almost like having little sisters. It's also a good feeling to know that when I met these girls, they absolutely hated English, and now all they want to do is practice their English with me. They have already invited themselves to my future wedding. And they're pretty friggin' hilarious.

And when I think about it, some of my closest friends are way older than me. A friend is a friend. Age ain't nuthin but a number. The only drawback is that I can't go drinking with them. But that's okay, because I don't drink, Mom...

So, with an empty memory card, we took new photos: