Day 56: Now Taking Appointments...

So I think I've made peace with my hair. I've stopped crying myself to sleep every night, and I think the daily group therapy sessions have been really helpful. I've made great progress in just 7 days and am only 5 more steps away from being Non-Hair-Traumatized! Wish me luck with those final 5 steps - I don't wanna fall off the bandwagon again, I've been doing so well this week. Your support through these tough times really gives me strength and inspires me to be a more resilient man. Together we can get through these horrible hair lows - we just gotta keep the faith that my hair *is* growing back, and someday, in the not too distant future, we can both look at my hair, and smile once again.

Haha! Gotta love sarcasm, eh?

But I have come to terms with my hair for real - it's not all that bad I guess. All of my female students have complimented me on it this week, so if 16 12-year old girls like it, how bad can it be? ;-)

I was gonna head into the city tonight for some dinner like I usually do at the end of the week, but tonight I just didn't feel like it. Even though I've stayed home every night this week I just wasn't in the mood for going out anywhere tonight. So, I decided to stay in and have my own little pizza party! I ordered a pizza (well, technically Steven ordered it for me cause I don't speak Korean, but whatever) and sat and ate on my bed while watching way too much reality TV. I ate SO MUCH food though - I feel like I'm going to explode! Good times! Lazy nights like this are really nice actually, and everyone deserves a night of gluttony once in a while. (One of the 7 deadly sins? Who cares! It tastes great! haha!)

So most of the cultural differences between Canadians and Koreans, I find, are either really amusing or interesting or even outright entertaining at times, but there are a few differences that frustrate me. And one of these is the tendency of Koreans to announce/make/change plans at the LAST MINUTE! This probably wouldn't annoy a normal, regular, sane person, but I must admit that I'm near obsessive-compulsive when it comes to my day planner. I'm all about making plans *well* in advance, and love to have an entire week's worth of plans already set out by the time Monday or Tuesday rolls around. Yes I do love my spontanaeity as well, and I don't plan *every single minute*, but generally I do like to know what I'm going to be doing on what nights. Mostly it's just cause my weekends are so short and I love 'em so much that I always try to make the most of those short 2 days off.

Well anyways, a prime example of this frustrating Korean habit arose tonight. I just got off the phone about 15 minutes ago with Hye-Young (you'd remember her as the woman I found in my apartment when I came home on the night of the snowstorm.) Anyways we had our usual little small talk where I speak and she understands about 22% of what I say, and she says random comments that only make sense in the context of the conversation about 22% of the time. Well she invited me out with her friends to go out clubbing tonight in this are of town called Hondai, but I politely turned the offer down. I had already sorta settled in for the night and wasn't in the mood for a night of clubbing. Besides, even if I had wanted to go, I wouldn't have been able to meet up with them in time!!! The subways stop running around 11:30pm, and it would probably take at least 1.5 - 2 hours to get there on transit. And that's assuming that I was dressed and groomed up and ready to leave AT THAT INSTANT. It seems totally illogical to me to phone someone up and invite them out that late, knowing full well exactly where I live and how long it takes to get places in this city! If she wanted me to come out with her and her friends, why not call me EARLIER tonight or even a day or two in advance? Well, most likely the plans just sorta 'came together' at the last minute with her and her buddies. Ahhh well. I don't mean to sound judgemental - I'm not meaning to criticize her polite offer to invite me out - it's just that the delivery is just not what I'm used to. It goes against every well-organized, agenda-book-lovin', obsessive-planner gene in my body.

(Better start adjusting Scotty, you're the *weird* one in these parts of the world! haha!)