email

Subject:
Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 07:21:05 +0000
dear mom and dad,

hi! things are going great here, the weather is really starting to warm up. i like it, but am being warned by everyone that it'll get hotter and hotter. i say "bring it on!" my lovely apartment has air conditioning, and i am all set.

i have my first encounter with random picture taking last week. everyday after work, the teachers gather outside to chat for a bit. standing with mayma (the sister from new zealand), a couple of korean girls came up with a camera and gestured they wanted to take a picture with her. mayma just said, "sure," and the picture was taken, there as some bowing and thanking and then they left.

me:"did you know those girls?"
her: no
me: so those were random people asking to take a picture with you?
her: yeah.
me: how bizarre.
her: yeah i thought so too the first time it happened.

ive heard about how sometimes random people will want a picture with you, with the foreigners, but i didnt think it happened HERE where i am. one sister i know lives in the sticks and someone shoots a picture of her with their cell phone just about daily, without asking, but i was yet to encounter it here since we're so close to seoul. mayma was hella cool about it, just smiled and was polite and took the picture with them. i guess this goes back to just controlling what you can. people are curious and pictures will be taken with or without your permission, all that you can control is your reaction to it.

parents, remember my graduation from college? and i wore that massai necklace and headress? i think we met half of the families of graduates at sdsu that day, i remember we were stopped a lot to take pictures with people. the first time it happened, i was a little thrown off. yeah, what i was wearing was certainly eye-catching, but all these parents asking i take pictures with them and their kids who are graduating, i thought it was weird b/c it's a day for family, really, and they didnt even know me! but weren't we stopped at least a dozen times after that, every two minutes for someone to take a picture, it really wasnt a big deal anymore, huh?

i was a little jealous that those korean girls asked to take photos with mayma and not me. well, she's taller than me, more eye-catching.

pero anyways, felizidades a senor hector gomez. ~daughter