It's been two weeks since I have moved into my new apartment in Seoul, South Korea, and I am already prepared to slap a bitch. Moving from my own country to Korea was a big enough step as it is, but now I'm also experiencing withdrawals from my mothers' home cooked food.
I am continuously suffering sad-looking, mushy meals that have never ended up the way they looked on the picture. In short, I am a cooking disaster. I mean, I do make rad pancakes, if I do say so myself, but I can't even make them without instant mix. I also can cook spaghetti and hot dogs very well, but if I have to choose my signature dish, it'd have to be ramen.
I am not kidding. I take my ramen very seriously. Don't think making ramen is easy or anything. It is an intricate harmony between boiling water, the right soaking time and the perfect amount of seasoning. Ever had ramen that's so salty you're sure you just inhaled a life-supply of salt?
Exactly.
Making ramen is an art and I have perfected it. But even though I am a master chef, I am getting sick of eating my own ramen every day for two weeks. I understand students that live alone probably have eaten it for longer periods of time due to its cheapness, but I just can't handle this sudden change from delicious momma-cooked food.
As you may or may not have noticed, food is important to me. I am being completely honest when I say that the highlight of my day is food. You know those lazy days where you can't bother to do anything and you just physically can't be productive? On those days I am not prepared to drag myself downstairs to pick up the phone, but I will fucking skip down the stairs singing loudly when food time arrives. Yeah.
So now that you understand why I am so pissed off at the moment, please also understand my reasoning behind kneeing my innocent neighbor in the crown jewels.
I have bad days.
I just went out to the small convenience store on the ground floor of my apartment building to find some ingredients for tonight's dinner (cough, instant ramen packets, cough) when I bumped into the boy that lives next door.
I have seen him around a few times before, but we never actually spoke until yesterday, when we were stuck together in the escalator and politeness demanded me to introduce myself. His name is apparently Jisoos, which would be very funny if he was a tattooed gang member. Sadly he does really look like a church boy, so the name isn't ironic at all, which makes it decidedly non-funny for me.
I was grumpy because my lunch had failed miserably after I spent a whopping half an hour on it and I was momentarily done with life. So when church-boy crossed my path I just walked into him.
I saw him exiting his apartment, but for some reason I thought I could just bulldoze him in my anger. Hence why I walked straight ahead and tried to walk over him. It did not work. Disappointed.
I don't remember how I ended up on the ground with church-boy's elbow in my stomach, but I did not like it. He lay on top of me, his long thin spidery limbs sprawled out awkwardly. I looked up, ready to give him an earful, when I noticed his dumbfounded face right over mine. His almost feline eyes were wide open. He looked scared.
That was when I stumbled across my voice again and proceeded to curse him out.
'You pabo, get off me! I don't have time for this, I swear to God...'
I stopped, looking at him expectantly, waiting for him to get up and scram really fast, but he didn't. He just stayed on top of me, staring at me.
I didn't know what to do, so I curiously stared back into his hazelnut-colored eyes. Normally people would have fled already, afraid of my explosive temper, but Jisoos clearly did not plan to leave any time soon. It became quite awkward to have him lying in top of me, drooling over me (obviously).
So I pushed him away myself, got up and grabbed as much as was left of my dignity off the floor and winked at him.
