::A Geek in Korea::

You are late to school. You run into the building straight to your class. In your haste you throw open the door to the room where you are about to take a test. Everyone in the classroom laughs at you. Only then do you realize, you are naked.

You wake up. It’s only a dream!

Who hasn’t had this sort of experience? I remember a particularly vivid dream where I was incorrectly registered for a class, and I only found out about it on the day of the final. I had to show up and pass the test, otherwise I would fail the course and wouldn’t be able to graduate. This was months after I was out of college and was living in Korea. Even after I got my degree I was having the “can’t graduate” nightmare.  I think this is a normal sort of experience.

Today, my upper level students were answering questions about clothing and style. One of the questions was, “Have you ever had a dream about being in a public place without clothes.”

None of my students would admit they ever had any sort of dream that involved their clothing in any way. I told them I had the “naked to a test” dream before. Even with that sort of, “It’s okay” sort of coaxing, no one would admit to anything of the sort.

I’m not surprised. It was hard enough for most of them to admit where they shopped for clothes, or what they liked to wear. Middle school students are particularly vicious about fellow students lack of confidence. I’m sure if they started to talk about clothes they liked to wear, or styles they enjoyed, someone would mock them for it. It’s much easier to keep a distance from the subject and just laugh at the silly foreign teacher.

I loathe middle school students.

Today happens to be my wife’s birthday. We don’t make a big deal out of birthdays most of the time. A simple dinner, possibly a gift negotiated for in advance, and some time together is all we do to celebrate. Still, we need to recognize we’re doing something for the day.

Yesterday, my wife came home from a dinner party with coworkers. She had a cake and a small pendant they bought for her. She asked me, “Do you know why I got the cake?”  She thought I had forgotten her birthday, and it wasn’t even her birthday yet! A preemptive accusation of forgetfulness?

I could understand why she would have gotten that impression. We had both worked out beforehand that she was going to get her present while on vacation. She would get to choose something nice while we were visiting Europe instead of making me try to find something nice for her here. As such, she didn’t want me to go buy her something now. She wanted to pick it later.

Today we woke up to rain. I had to go into work extra early to help choose the books they’d be teaching while I was on vacation. I had to leave in a hurry, and it was raining, so my plan to purchase flowers while walking the dog was ruined.

We agreed to meet after work and go to our favorite downtown restaurant. Can it still be a romantic dinner choice if we have a point card with the restaurant? I had some handmade pizza, while she had crab risotto. Seafood is served “in shell” here, so much of the conversation during dinner was stunted while she tried to suck the crab meat out of the shell. Her opinion: “It’s delicious, but I’m never ordering this again!”

We left the restaurant, and were going to walk around for a little while, but got hit by a huge downpour. We both had umbrellas, but were getting soaked. We ran into a sticker photo boot to snap a few shots. We’ve gone to this same place three times to have pictures taken. Eventually I’ll remember to contort myself so that the camera can catch all of me in a frame. We got the pictures cut, and by the time the process was finished, the rain had died down well enough to walk around.

We headed back home via subway. My family never did anything more than a dinner and a gift for birthdays. Even though I know I’ll be getting something expensive for her in a few weeks, I wish I had the opportunity today to get her flowers or some small “thinking of you, no I didn’t forget your birthday” gift.