What Has Been Happening
I went back to taekwondo on Tuesday after having two wisdom teeth removed on Sunday. My mouth was a little swollen, but not badly. I went again yesterday and it was fun. I do need to work on some things like the side splits. I was helped again with stretching, but after a while it gets very painful. I kept shrieking.
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I went to Bible Camp last weekend. It was run by the SDA Language Institute, where I worked a few years ago. I saw many people I remembered. It was nice to see them. Unfortunately, I didn't get to talk to most of them for very long. That's the way it is, people just make their rounds at these things. I will have to meet up with some people later.
The speaker was OK, but he spoke too loudly. He had a microphone and was shouting into it. Many people were covering their ears. I didn't like how he told a disturbing story of a boy who was hit by a car and died there. I felt very anxious. I was hit by a car once and I do wish that more preachers would be sensitive when it comes to the stories they want to tell at the pulpit.
I do miss the old company because of the sense of community I had. I also miss doing things with my students. Yet there are some things I don't miss.
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I finally got to talk to one of the other foreigners in my apartment building. I have met some of them briefly before. It turns out that the woman upstairs grew up in Kenya. She is the child of missionaries. Her parents were also raised in Kenya because their parents were missionaries as well. I don't know which denomination she is, but she says she goes to a church in Kangnam. She said we should hang out sometime. When I was a kid I dreamed of being a missionary in Africa, or else southeast Asia. I never thought I would be in Korea, yet I like it.
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I was talking to two friends on Tuesday. The first conversation was with an online friend. This friend and I were both the outsiders in school. We were among the better students, yet we were labeled as "different". My friend said that we should just embrace our uniqueness and not let other people get us down. I do agree. It's not worth it to have low self-esteem just because of what others think. I do have lots of people that I know like me.
After taekwondo I went to McDonald's with a friend. He said that I shouldn't call myself a "nerd". I had thought of it as something to be proud of, yet it is a stereotype. He said that I am very intelligent, and maybe because of that I wasn't working on my social skills in school. I was busy doing other things. It's true that I didn't care to talk about clothes, sitcoms, sports, the dating scene, and the other regular topics teenagers talk about. I wanted to talk about more interesting things, and I didn't get to do that often.
I don't follow the crowd, and I don't need to do so. I do need to just be myself and be happy being myself. I can be confident in just being Christine.
***
I went to Bible Camp last weekend. It was run by the SDA Language Institute, where I worked a few years ago. I saw many people I remembered. It was nice to see them. Unfortunately, I didn't get to talk to most of them for very long. That's the way it is, people just make their rounds at these things. I will have to meet up with some people later.
The speaker was OK, but he spoke too loudly. He had a microphone and was shouting into it. Many people were covering their ears. I didn't like how he told a disturbing story of a boy who was hit by a car and died there. I felt very anxious. I was hit by a car once and I do wish that more preachers would be sensitive when it comes to the stories they want to tell at the pulpit.
I do miss the old company because of the sense of community I had. I also miss doing things with my students. Yet there are some things I don't miss.
***
I finally got to talk to one of the other foreigners in my apartment building. I have met some of them briefly before. It turns out that the woman upstairs grew up in Kenya. She is the child of missionaries. Her parents were also raised in Kenya because their parents were missionaries as well. I don't know which denomination she is, but she says she goes to a church in Kangnam. She said we should hang out sometime. When I was a kid I dreamed of being a missionary in Africa, or else southeast Asia. I never thought I would be in Korea, yet I like it.
***
I was talking to two friends on Tuesday. The first conversation was with an online friend. This friend and I were both the outsiders in school. We were among the better students, yet we were labeled as "different". My friend said that we should just embrace our uniqueness and not let other people get us down. I do agree. It's not worth it to have low self-esteem just because of what others think. I do have lots of people that I know like me.
After taekwondo I went to McDonald's with a friend. He said that I shouldn't call myself a "nerd". I had thought of it as something to be proud of, yet it is a stereotype. He said that I am very intelligent, and maybe because of that I wasn't working on my social skills in school. I was busy doing other things. It's true that I didn't care to talk about clothes, sitcoms, sports, the dating scene, and the other regular topics teenagers talk about. I wanted to talk about more interesting things, and I didn't get to do that often.
I don't follow the crowd, and I don't need to do so. I do need to just be myself and be happy being myself. I can be confident in just being Christine.
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