Saturday Plans

A couple weeks ago in a moment of insanity weakness, I gave in to a group of girls who have been bugging me for months to come over to my house. Then I fretted about it because the thing is I don't WANT them to come over to my house. I'd actually prefer if NOBODY came to my house EVER.

Of course, people have come over to my place, and probably others will come in the future - but I don't usually feel like playing hostess and I pretty much never feel like tidying up enough for guests - and certainly not for a group of loud giggling girls who are going to sift through my belongings and freak Kamikaze out. I've been here quite long enough to get used to my apartment, but it still feels strange to have company come over and have nowhere to go, except for the bathroom, to escape their view.

I have had students over only once before. It was for the first birthday I celebrated here, and I'd only been living in my apartment for about three months at that time. It was still clutter free then. (Even still, back then after we hung out awhile and ate pizza, the students started to clean my place - which I protested briefly and then settled on supervising. "Hey. Come on! You missed a spot!") I've been here three years and three months more - and let me tell you, my place is absolutely lived in by now. Also, I've turned into Hugh Hefner, and only wear pajamas at home. It feels weird to be wearing "outside" clothes inside my apartment. So the idea of hosting these curious outgoing girls wasn't sitting well with me. I also risk every other student hearing about it and demanding to swing by my place for an afternoon of shouting and snooping. Um, no thanks.

So I offered, instead, to take the girls out on Saturday, telling them that hanging out at my apartment was "chamie-opseyo" (no fun) which is a total lie. My place is super fun! Cozy PJs, piles of books, satellite TV, computer, comfy bed. Cupboards full of ramen. Furry cat. My place rocks. I was thinking maybe I could get away with lunch at Lotteria with the girls and, uh, I don't know,...a walk around town? There's nothing fun to do here. I can't take twelve year olds to a soju ban,...can I? No, that would be wrong. (Though many parents do have their kids running around in the bars here.)

"Can we go to a movie?" the girls asked after excitedly conferring with one another.
"Sure!" I, Mayor of the County of "Sucker!" replied.
So I gave them homework to look up what's playing downtown at the cinemas. English movies, please. They came back the next day and spelt out our choices: Cloverfield, Alien vs Predator - Requiem, or Stephen King's The Mist. Christ. Monsters, monsters, or - uhhhhh - monsters. We settled on "The Mist," which I have really no interest in seeing. I'm not a big fan of the horror movie - and really knew nothing much about this film. I looked it up online today, though, and told my boss maybe it's a bad idea to take the girls to see it. It's rated R for "violence, terror and gore, and language." She told me it's fiiiiine. (It's only got a "15" rating here, and the girls are 13 in Korea.) "If we abide by the movie rules," my boss explained, "no one would go."
"Yah," I said, "But I don't want them to have psychological damage from a movie I took them to see."
"It's fiiiiiiiine," Karen assured me.

By the way, why would a movie theater have these three films on offer on a Saturday afternoon, and save screening the far more girl-friendly movie Enchanted for the 9 o'clock and 11 o'clock slots?

So anyhow, I'm going to switch the plan to Cloverfield. Better yet, I'm hoping the show will be sold-out because we didn't make reservations which you're supposed to do here. (And sit your ass down in your pre-assigned seats! You can't be trusted to choose where you'd like to park yourself. That would be chaotic.)

So then I'll treat the girls to lunch and maybe we could find a DVD room - though I don't know if that's strange - I think they're usually frequented by couples - if you know what I mean. We'll see how it goes.