Trollin’

Hey people with too much time on their hands,

Please don’t troll my blog. I really can’t be bothered to respond to your bullshit anymore after this. If you don’t like what I say on here, guess what? FUCKING DON’T READ IT.

Peace, love and kiss my happy fat ass,

Kaylin

Buddha’s birthday weekend

Last weekend was a three-day weekend in Korea, just like in the US, but while the US holiday is Memorial Day, to celebrate war veterans apparently (wait, isn’t that what Veteran’s Day is for?) the holiday in Korea is all about Buddha. Since a significant portion of the country is Buddha, we get a nice long weekend to celebrate the Enlightened One’s birthday. All good with me, I love extra days off school, especially after a particularly ridiculous 2nd grade class Friday afternoon. (Short version: a kid licked a glue stick, his own foot, and ate his boogers, while several of the other kids alternated between cheering him on and running around the class screaming and chasing each other.)

So Saturday, I got up, had a tasty breakfast, convinced myself not to go see Men in Black 3 by myself at 10 in the morning (even though I changed my mind later and went back at 6 by myself to watch it), and then went grocery shopping. My friends and I had planned a picnic on the beach for Sunday so I had to get food to prepare a dish. I decided to make a pasta salad I had had a few weeks before. I got the recipe from the girl who made it previously, and bought the ingredients. 1) Grocery shopping is expensive! This is why I normally eat out. 2) I’m a horrible cook so I ended up calling my mom about 15 minutes in asking her how long I should boil eggs for, among other things. In the end though, it turned out quite tasty. I did some laundry, cleaned my apartment, and as I said earlier, ended up going back out to see Men in Black 3 that evening. It was pretty good. Not as good as the first one, of course, but waaaaay better than the hideously bad second one.

Sunday was picnic day, so I picked up my friends Keflyn and Mike (and their Korean friend Scott) from Daegu at the Busan train station near my place at 11:45 and we headed to the beach. Hannah planned to meet us there, because she was coming in at a different train station. We met up with Hannah, and my friend Ashley at the subway station nearest Gwangalli beach at 12:30 and headed down to the beach. We had an awesome picnic and some other friends turned up throughout the day.

That evening we had some tasty food at Sharky’s, and the out-of-towners went back to their respective cities. I ended up hanging out with my friends Dan and Julia on the beach until about 11:30 that night.

Monday, it was lovely not to have to wake up TOO early, but my body/brain seems to have adjusted to teacher schedule finally (after 9 months? thanks brain. jerk.) so I can rarely sleep past 8 anyway. But I spent most of the day in my apartment just watching youtube and being on facebook and twitter. It was a nice relaxing day and I was glad to have a 4-day work week this week.

It’s already Wednesday! Only two more days and the weekend again… hooray! Then next week, we have Wednesday off for the Korean Memorial day, so yet another 4-day work week awaits. Thank you very much Korea!

However, after that my next holiday won’t be until August. *Sad face* But at least I’m going to Japan around Aug 12-19, and then a week later I’m going home! Can’t wait for those!!

Keep it breezy peeps,

Kaylin

Body Image

OK, so this is not a normal topic for my blog but it’s something I’ve been thinking about alot lately so I thought I would talk about it.

So I just want to say, first thing: I am 5’10”, I weigh about 165-170 lbs (75-77kg) and wear a US size 10 in most clothes. I wear a size 11 women’s shoes (American shoe scale). I have been at largest a size 14 and at smallest a size 8. I have my hang-ups about cellulite and bad skin and muffin tops like most people. I get frustrated at my inability to buy many of the clothes I want in Korea because of my distinctly non-Korean body size.

But after a lot of soul-searching, I’m mostly happy with how I look. 

The reason for this is, recently I’ve kinda had a revelation. I stopped basing how I feel about myself on what other people think of me. Or, rather, what I think other people (particularly men) think of me. Some men like very slender, small women. Some men like big women. Some men like women kinda in the middle. Some like tall women, some like short women. Some like hairy women, some like completely hairless women, some could care less either way or prefer a medium amount of hair. And it goes on and on.

There is always going to be someone you fancy that doesn’t fancy you back, for whatever reason. Don’t take it personally.

And this revelation I had came about in kind of a funny way. After having more than one one-night-stand since being in Korea, I decided a few weeks ago that I was tired of that and was just going to stay out of that scene for the rest of my 3-ish months in Korea. I’m not looking for a boyfriend or even a casual lay, at the moment. A voluntary celibacy, if you will. And all of a sudden, when I wasn’t trying so hard to impress anyone, I started to like myself more.

I have never been that fond of how I looked. I was too pale, too tall, feet too big, ass too cellulite-y, boobs too saggy, thighs too fat, nose too turned up, ears too small, too many stretchmarks, too much love handle area, calves too big, teeth not white enough or straight enough. You name it, I probably had a problem with it at some point in my life. The only thing I’ve ever really taken pride in of myself were my eyes and my hair. And even then, in the past, I’ve wished my hair would at least try to hold a curl, or that my eyes were blue like my mom’s.

Some of these things, like the paleness, I came to terms with a while back. I’m mostly Irish and English descent. I don’t tan in the sun. I burn then I turn back white with more freckles, and there’s not a whole lot I can do about that. I can’t make my ears bigger. (Yes, it’s a thing; I get told frequently how tiny they are.) The issue I have with my nose stems from being teased about it as a child/teen, and my feet/calves were because I actually have problems finding shoes/boots/pants that fit them sometimes. I’ve gotten over those too, because well, no one’s said anything about my nose since I was about 15, and if I can’t find shoes/boots/pants then oh well, I’ll just go look somewhere else.

But some of the other things, I’ve continued to have a problem with. My issue was being too lazy to do anything about it. Now, though, since my revelation I’ve decided to myself, “Look. If I’ve been lazy about losing weight/working out in the past, then obviously I don’t care enough about these issues to change them. So I may as well embrace it.”

So, as beach season comes up, I have one thing to say to people. I will be at the beach, in my two-piece swimsuit. ALOT. All summer, pretty much. I LOVE the beach; I love playing in the water, playing frisbee or volleyball in the sand, laying in the sun (covered in my SPF 45), etc. And if you don’t like it, if you think I look fat in my bikini, or I need to get a tan before I wear so little clothing, or how dare I come to the beach without shaving my legs in the last week, or whatever, then I say… You can kiss my big fat lumpy pale white ass.

Also, because I feel hypocritical if I talk about not caring what other people think and hiding behind the interwebs, see the next post for a nice shiny picture of me a black bikini-style outfit.

Au revoir mes amis,

Kaylin

ETA: A tumblr I’ve recently found and greatly enjoy reading is Stop Hating Your Body. Be forewarned it is sometimes NSFW, but it has a lot of great stories from lots of people, thin, fat, male, female, LGBT, etc. who have had/are working through their body issues, as well as links to articles about weight, BMI (and why it’s bullshit), etc. I highly recommend it!