An Early Friday Night!

Friday was a good day at school. I didn't have class until third period, so I had the first two periods of the day free. Plus, I was teaching the grade 6's all day and they are my second favorite grade to teach. It was one of the grade 6 teachers birthday's, so we got to enjoy some cake and sing her Happy Birthday, Korean style. After lunch I only I had two classes and then teachers class at 3:00 p.m. It was another hot day in Korea, so the attention span of the students was barely there, plus with it being Friday and all that seems to make everyone careless about learning. When I was done teaching my classes for the day Jiny let me sneak off to the bank, so I could transfer money into the account necessary for my Big Bang concert tickets. It's still hard to believe that I'm going to a concert in Korea of the most popular boy band. Think Backstreet Boys circa 1995. I managed to get the money transferred all on my own, which made me feel really proud. Most times I go to the bank I try to get the same guy because he speaks to me in English and we are patient with each other, so I was nervous going to a different bank to do the transfer. It turned out that one of the higher up guys spoke relatively good English, well enough for me to get by, so he helped me out with the transfer. After I was done at the bank I decided to stop and buy Jiny and myself a juice to cool us off because it was so hot out. When I got back from the bank Jiny handed me 7 (that's how many grade 6 classes there are) English speech contest papers. She told me that since I'm judging the contest I need to read each speech and come up with two interview questions about each speech to ask the students afterwards. Only one of the speeches was written in perfect English, that means with words in the right places and sentences that make sense. It was hard to make it through the other speeches, but since the contest is based on who has the best pronunciation, I can't pre-judge based on what is written. After school I headed to the gym as per-usual. I was using one of the ab machines and I wasn't doing it properly, so this buff older Korean man decided he wanted to show me the proper technique. I was appreciative of his help. I don't want to do the machine wrong because that won't help me. Well, he kept showing me like five or six times until I was a pro at it. He would even watch me while he was on his own machine. It got annoyed at him and this other 'white' girl watching me, but it was nice of him to help me do it correctly. After the gym I headed over to Tracy's and her, Nick and I went for some Shabu Shabu. Nick had to take off earaly because he was heading to North Korea for the weekend and Tracy was meeting with Holly at 9:00 p.m. so they could head into Seoul for their North Korea day trip Saturday morning. I decided to just go home and get to bed early because I had to be up early. Before I went to bed though I decided to go to the market to buy some milk, juice, nacho chips, etc. While I was at the supermarket there were these black men there as well. They kept staring at me and making me feel really uncomfortable. They left the market about 5 minutes before I did, so plenty of time to disappear, but instead they decided to lurk around outside the market and were still watching me. I was getting a bit freaked out, but I kept my cool...Never show fear! I decided to linger around some shops and pretend I wanted to buy stuff hoping this would give them time to walk far ahead of me. Well, turns out they were taking the same route home as me. I followed behind them, but kept at a fair distance. They kept turning around and looking at me and I was thinking, just go away already. Then they come to a stop on the road and I was like, f***, but both my hands were full and the load was heavy, so I walked past them. As soon as I passed them they started to walk again. Well, just when I thought things couldn't get worse or more uncomfortable they decided to cross the same street as me and the "do not cross" light was on. DAMN! One of them come up to me and decided to make conversation, oh great. Here is how it went down: Creeper: Hello Me: Hi Creeper: How are you? Me: Fine, thank you. Creeper: Where are you from? Me: Canada Creeper: What is your name? Me: (should of lied, but I was caught in the moment) Julia. Creeper: Where do you live? Me: (as if I'm going to fall for that) I live in Yeonsu (BIG area). Creeper: Are you Christian? Me: No Creeper: (makes a disappointed face) Oh! I am from Ghana. Me: Cool. Creeper: What are you doing here? Me: Teaching Creeper: Oh! Finally, the walk light turns to "cross". Creeper: Hopefully, we will meet again. Me: (I sure as hell hope not) Bye Then, my mom would be so proud of me for this. I knew they were watching my every move, so I decided to walk past my apartment and hide in this mechanic shop parking lot right behind my building. I waited for about 5 minutes before I peeked my head around the corner and saw that the coast was clear. I picked up my groceries and ran to my building a decided to take the stairs instead of the elevator because one whole side of the elevator is a window, so the people outside can see in. I knew they wouldn't see me if I took the stairs, but I ran the risk of them seeing me if I took the elevator. Once, I was safely back in my apartment I locked the door and put the deadbolt on. Once my heart stopped racing I headed to bed because I had a 5:45 a.m. wake-up call. P.S. I don't feel at all uncomfortable or unsafe around Koreans, but some of the foreigners here working are creepy and unsettleing. Don't worry mom I'm fine and I won't let my guard down. You can stop panicking right now.