The Last Meeting of Jae Ho

Today was my last meeting with Jae Ho.  And surprisingly, I am at a loss for words.  Granted, this rarely happens.  I always have words: to write or to say.  Admittedly, I am not one who readily appreciates silence, so I am even surprising myself that I have nothing to write about.  I blame this loss on the fact that neither Jae Ho nor I had anything particularly interesting to say this afternoon.  We have exhausted almost all topics relevant to either of our lives.  Football, sleep, pop music, chapstick, pastries, whore houses, and Christmas have all been prevalent conversation topics about which I have blogged.  However, I do have two more Christmas traditions worth mentioning that Jae Ho asked me about this afternoon.

Christmas Tradition #1: Eggnog.  Jae Ho asked me about Eggnog.  Yes, it is a Christmas tradition, but I could not for the life of me figure out how to describe it.  Eventually, I told him it tasted like a thick, flavored coffee creamer that had eggs in it and could be alcoholic if desired.  That description may be totally off the wall, but once again, this post is about my loss for words, and in this case, my loss for words was manifested in a description of eggnog.  Seriously though, how the heck do you describe eggnog!? Especially to someone who doesn't even speak English very well.  So, I ended this description with a quick laugh and a suggestion to walk to Kroger and pick some up.  If anything, it's worth it to try a taste.

Christmas Tradition #2: In Korea, families hang wishes on their Christmas trees.  They each write down dreams or aspirations on slips of paper and then hang them as a family on the tree.  I think this is a beautiful tradition.  It's a way to combine the practicality of New Years resolutions (all my respect to you if you kept yours even for a few months) with the magic of the Christmas season.  I love this tradition so much that I might just suggest it for my family this year too. I find it rather inspiring and sentimental.

So that was it, folks.  My last conversation with Jae Ho.  Probably my last blog post (as long as I double check the requirements).  In conclusion, (cue cheesy wrap-up paragraph) I really do think I learned a lot from Jae Ho.  We had some awkward times and we had some funny times.  I learned a lot about his traditions in Korea, and he learned a lot about our traditions in America.  Overall, I enjoyed my time with him, but I honestly think blogging about our conversations was sometimes more entertaining than actually having them in the first place.  That sounds bad, but I mean it in the best way possible.  I mean to say that I enjoyed taking the time to reflect on our conversations and convey them to my classmates through stories.  So thank you Jae Ho for being the protagonist in all my blogging epics. And thank you to the class and to Dr. Williams for actually reading (some of) them.  Happy Thanksgiving everybody! 

And that's all she wrote.

P.S. I received this text from one of my friends while sitting in Union Grounds with Jae Ho.  I hope you find it as funny as I did :)