Saturday, October 9, 2010

Wha Happen?

Today started out normal enough. I took Louie on a walk, Jake and I saw a movie, relaxed, and went out to dinner. I had plans to spend the rest of the evening snuggling and reading my Agatha Christie....but none of that came to pass. One of my korean co-teachers is actually the vice president of the company I work for. The boss is her best friend, so her English is really bad compared to the other hired teachers. Anyway, she calls me and said, "I want to meet you right now. I want to talk about our company." Immediately I thought she was going to fire me or something because of what happened with two of the schools recently ( I hadn't done anything wrong, but I had to switch schools because the parents complained I was Korean). So I go downtown to meet her. She sounded strange, but I figured it was just because she was out with friends and having a good time. Her English is terrible, just terrible, and I had quite a time figuring out where she wanted to meet, but finally we found each other. She had two friends from high school with her, but as soon as we meet up they left. For about 10-15 minutes we walked around downtown trying to understand what the other was saying, usually ending in one of us exclaiming, "I don't understand." Finally she finds a bar she wants to go to and we take a seat. It suddenly occurs to me...she is wasted. Now, for those who know me personally know that when I have a few sips of alcohol my body turns a bright red tomato color. I guess I assumed this happened to most Asians, at least a slight pinking of the cheeks, but this girl was as pale as ever so I didn't even think about it when we met. We order a pitcher of beer and she starts talking. After quite a bit of convoluted and confusing conversation I realize a few things.
1.) Her English is even more terrible than usual.
2.) I can only understand about 5% of what she is trying to tell me.
3.) Of what I did understand, her fiance/boyfriend broke up with her yesterday. Thus the drinking and carrying on.
She kept asking about my boyfriend which gave me the impression she wanted to meet him. He was with his workout friend at another bar so I called him and asked if he'd stop by and say hi, thinking it might cheer her up. This led to even more awkwardness. She started saying he was bad and she hated him. At one point she even stuck her tongue out at him. It was all very odd. I felt really bad for roping them into the situation so finally they left and we didn't stay much longer. All of a sudden she was only speaking Korean to me, previously she was using English, and rushed out. I grabbed the check and went to look for her. Fortunately she had only made it to the bathroom where she proceeded to get sick. I ran down to a store and got her a bottle of water and some mints. I made sure to tell her where I was going and what I was doing, but when I got back she was really confused and asked where I was. I told here where I went and her reply- No excuses Kari, no excuses. She said this as she was eating one of the mints I bought her and after she wiped off the water she had dumped down her front. I have never been in this situation before. My employers, alcohol, and myself usually stay firmly and decidedly apart for good reason. I got her outside and kept trying to maneuver her towards a cab to take her home. She didn't want to go home and so we sat on a bench. I think she might have fallen asleep for a few minutes so again I urged her to go home and we were up and at 'em! I thought we were going towards the cabs when strangely enough we were outside the club Jake said he was going. She kept telling me he was a liar and she wanted me to call him to find out where he was. Finally she wanted to go home so I said I'd take her to a taxi, but she insisted that I needed to stay with my boyfriend and she wanted to call her boyfriend and go by herself. And that's how it ended. Except instead of going to the club, I went home after seeing her talking on the phone and walking towards the taxis. I felt totally out of my element and now I feel really weird, like something unnatural has just happened.

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