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Taylor



Last Updated: 12/6/2009

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Gender: Male
Status: Single
Age: 24
Sign: Cancer

City: Modesto
State: California
Country: US
Signup Date: 3/25/2004
Thursday, March 27, 2008 

Current mood:  confused
so, this weekend was pretty cool.  i had originally planned to go mountain climbing on sunday with my friend Koosy and some other people from the english cafe. well, mountain climbing is what koreans call hiking, so it wasn’t going to be any crazy slope or difficulty. but, the forecast called for rain, so the trip was scratched.

on saturday morning i was going to go biking along the han river with eric and sophia, so koosy decided to come too since the sunday plans died. it’s a good thing he came too, because i would have been lonely by myself. see, it became clear as soon as we rented bikes that eric and sophia have had a lot of experience biking... within five minutes, they were almost out of sight. neither koosy or i had been on a bike in years, so we were constantly trying to catch up.  we rode a good 20km that day... that’s about 13.5 miles.  the scenery was great, and there were a bunch of events going on near the river. we even stopped at some playground for a few minutes. also, the weather was perfect... overcast and breezy, but not rainy yet. i’ve posted some pictures too.

sunday was rain all day. that, and i didn’t even realize it was easter. i think i ended up having burger king that night... a nice traditional easter meal!

and now, on to the part you were waiting for. so, at the risk of generalization, my experiences have led me to notice that koreans are a fairly proud people. on some occasions, this leads to certain stereotypes about foreigners. so, i was only slightly shocked to see a comic in the textbook with a gone with the wind style white woman talking to a large black woman, complete with towel wrapped on head, who was obviously a maid or other type of (hired?) help. the conversation went as follows, with the white woman asking:

"Can you cook?"
    "No, I can’t."
"Then can you walk?"
    "Sure I can."
"Then just walk out this door."

(i’d post the picture i took of it, but myspace wouldn’t like it...)

so yeah... i still really don’t know what to say about this. being only 3 weeks in, i’d feel a little strange bringing this up to my superiors. plus, what can i do? the whole thing is just awkward.

and, if that weren’t bad enough, in one of my classes we’re reading american folk tales. one of the three included in the book is ’brer rabbit and the tar baby’... jeez, where do they get these books? the description of southern plantation life is completely devoid of any mention of slavery, and the book talks about plantation children playing in the fields. like i said, the whole thing is really strange.

well, that’s about it. i’m still trying to figure out how i’ll address this when i reach that part of the book. hopefully i don’t just become a part of the problem...
1:26 AM
 
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