"Tennis! You're Alive!"

4/4/2012

Wednesday. Today I had a very relaxed morning. I actually took time to blowdry my hair AND straighten it. This rarely happens here. Went to school with Carly and we deciced that crossing the street to get to school is quite akin to “Frogger”. I take that back. It's EXACTLY like Frogger. You have to cross one half of the street to a median and then wait for a break in traffic to cross the other half. I mean, there is a crosswalk a half a block away. But I remain steady that it is faster the Frogger way.

 I made my way into school for the gathering.

After the Gathering, I ran into my second year friends. Peter’s first words to me were “Tennis! You’re alive!”

“Of course I am, why wouldn’t I be?”

Peter proceeded to tell me how Ella was sure she had killed me off by sending me in the wrong direction. You see, when Ella gave me her number last night, I called her immediately after she gave it to me so that she would have my number. She didn’t know that and later, saw that she had a missed call and thought that I had died. She thought that I had been kidnapped and since her number was the last one I put in my phone, that she was the person I called.

 She had called me when I was on the train, but I didn’t answer because I didn’t want to be that loud American talking on the phone on the train. I thought about calling her when I got home, but then I didn’t want to seem clingy, so I didn’t.

But apparently, she had gotten to school the next day and searched all over campus (meaning the student centre and the design lab) and saw that I wasn’t there and only further assumed that I had died. When I ran into Richard and Casey, who also exclaimed “You’re alive!” when seeing me.

I ended up lingering on campus for several hours. Some if that time I was using the internet, but a lot of the time I was just sitting on the grass with people. I had a project due the next day, but I justified my procrastination by saying how important it is to build relationships…

After I left school, I met up with my friend Julliane who I met at church last week. He is from Korea and is working on learning English. We went for coffee in strathfeild and just chatted for a few hours. He doesn’t give himself enough credit for the English that he does know. I think he feels bad that he can’t communicate everything that he would like to. But I remind him that he does way better in English than I could ever do in Korean.

He asked me if I knew any Korean words. I said no, thinking that I didn’t. But then, he told me hello. Anyone who watches Arrested Development will know why I found what he told me so funny.

“Annyong”

This a general greeting. From what I gathered, it’s kind of like aloha. It’s hello, it’s good bye, it’s good morning, it’s goodnight.

But I had a hard time saying it without laughing. Oh Arrested Development. Always bringing people together.