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Lately I've been really self conscious about being a foreigner. Some reasons are extremely stupid yet still get to me, others are legitimate things.

For starters, old Korean ladies always call me handsome. Then again, so does my grandma, so I guess it may just be an old lady thing. But they love my hair. Whenever I shop anywhere they always point at my hair and go "So handsome," or "Handsome guy!" This may be a direct translation for how they say "Nice haircut" in Korean, but I'm much happier than I am weirded out. At least someone's calling me good looking.

Then there's the matter of my Sasquatch feet. Some of my Korean friends notice them in passing, they usually laugh and sometimes have taken pictures for comparison. Others comment about how I dress kinda Korean, then I tell them that I can't because of my feet. I'm fine with this, I have roughly the same conversations with Americans. 14 feet aren't too common in the USA either. But then there are strangers who notice, primarily children. I've been on the subway alone and seen groups of children, usually girls, pointing at my feet and whispering and giggling. It's kinda funny, but also kinda weird. Interacting with children is entering that weird stage where I'm paranoid that people will think I'm a kidnapper. Being foreign doesn't help too much either in the whole "not wanting to look suspicious" department.

Also, I'm terrifying. Let's start with a preface: I know two female electrical engineers here at KU. One is in my circuits class, the other is coming to GW in the fall. Both girls are friends. Circuits girl got the courage to talk to me after GW girl got lunch with all the GW kids. Circuits girl and I have gotten dinner so she could practice English and so I could make a Korean friend. Win-Win. Now to me being horrifying. GW girl told me that there's another friend of hers in my circuits class who really wants to talk to me, but is too scared to do so. I told her to show me a picture and I'd say hey to her. GW girl then said that if I spoke to her friend that she would, "Run and cry she would be so scared." Jesus Christ. Who am I, Joseph Merrick? (look him up). Speaking a new language is scary, I won't deny that. But that's to strangers. This girl has not one but two points of contact to show that I'm not judgmental, really like helping people with English, and love to learn new practical Korean restaurant phrases. When I learned how to say "waiter" and "pay separate," I was PUMPED. I also like the expressions on their faces when I order in Korean without pointing. But yeah, I really don't like being scary to strangers. And being told that I make women want to run away and cry in terror is just a really big kick in the ol' self esteem. Mind you, this is just one of 5 girls that I have been told are horrified of me. Yeah, it kinda sucks. Whatever, they're missing out on a free dinner and a place to crash if they ever visit America. Their loss.

Little kids (infants-5) also LOVE to stare at me. Trains, buses, in those little baby papooses. They can't take their eyes off of me. It's strange. I make eye contact with the babies, and then they lock on I'm Sarah Connor and they're some new kind of baby Terminator. No blinking, just unbroken staring. I can deal with that, that's kinda fun. But the little kids stares are usually one way: them staring at me like children of the corn. I see it in my peripherals a lot, and try not to look back. Most recently this happened at a baseball game. Two kids would always look at me whenever I sang the cheers or yelled at a bad call the umpire made. I gave one of them a stare right back and they stopped. I felt kind of bad intimidating a child, but I guess I'll have to get used to that if I'm going to be a parent, which seems a whole lot harder than I previously  thought.

In other news, I'm much calmer now than I was last week. Things are starting to look up a little bit.