Friday 10 February 2012

Re: The List – Making friends with the shy, quiet co-worker and getting unexpected Adventures!

Because I move slower than the second coming, the following events took place in like… November. Sometimes I like to sleep.
Anyway.
Not long after starting at my school, I noticed that one of my coworkers arrived later than the rest of us and departed before us. I knew her only as “The Assistant”.
She was very quiet, clearly a hard worker—and not knowing her name was driving me batshit insane. This was of course after I had settled in and had the energy to obsess over such things. So, one particular day, I decided to remedy the issue.
One minute I was sitting at my desk, and the next minute I got up and walked over to explain my plight:
“Hi. It’s bothering me that I don’t know your name. I’m Megan.”
Then I stuck my hand out for her to shake.
There was a second of silence, wherein she just blinked in surprise at me, and then shook my hand, smiled, and told me her name.
And that was that. Or so I thought.
Work resumed, and for at least a week or two, there were no words between us, other than an occasional hello or a wave.
Then this one night I was, dunno, marking essays or putting together some handouts, when I felt a tap on my shoulder.
There was H sitting in the chair next to mine, and she said she wanted to ask me a favour: she has a younger sister (S-H) who is studying English and Literature, and would I mind meeting up with her and her sister on the weekend to give some outside the classroom speaking practice?
I think I agreed to it before H had even finished the sentence. Weekend adventures and the chance to make friends? ABSOLUTELY OF COURSE YES.
We met up at AK Plaza for lunch (I was kinda nervous about the meetup and could hardly eat as a result) and spent the day just talking, wandering around, and asking each other all kinds of questions about life in Korea, life in Canada, and I think they had fun showing me around Pyeongtaek as well. We also decided afterwards that it should definitely happen again sometime! (edit: and it has! A couple of times!)
The lesson, boys and girls, is say hi! It can lead to incredible amounts of awesome! These women have since become two of my best friends here, and I already know I am going to miss them heaps and heaps when I go back to Canada. I’ve already said they should come visit me. And they’ve already said I should come back again.
I hope so.

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