That's what she said

How four words changed my seemingly simple life.

Many things can make you change the way you look at the world around you. 

You can be a traveller of many lands and come back home with a different outlook on culture, language, and lifestyle.
You can witness a traumatic scene of human suffering and have it change the way you feel compassion.
Perhaps you have had your heart torpedoed into a trillion bits and it has changed the way you feel love.
Maybe you adopt a pathetic, tortured animal and it has changed the way you perceive living creatures outside yourself.
Maybe you have never seen an ocean more blue and beautiful than when you were on vacation down south and it has made you want to change the way you impact this planet.

Or, maybe you've heard four simple words in an American sitcom show and somehow it has changed ordinary conversation of day to day things into sexually suggestive dialogue.

RM: "How was your lunch?"
Me: "It was really good. But it left a nasty taste in my mouth after though. I had to brush for like ten minutes."
Me: "That's what she said!"

Yes, it is annoying. Yes, everyone says it and you wonder when it will eventually fizzle out.  Like the obnoxious "WAZZZZZZZZZZZUP!" expression that came before it, you just have to sit back and let it run its course.

Student: (reading script from text) "Why are you wearing big pants?" "I like them big."
Teacher Na: (quickly under her breath) "Thats what she said!"

No matter the situation, I cannot let a potential 'she said' comment go undeclared.  As soon as you jump on the bandwagon, as soon as you utter those four words for the first time, it will change you.  You won't think much about it, you'll try to go with the tasks of your daily life, but then, out of nowhere, you'll pick up on a conversation on the subway or in the shopping mall, or you'll witness a car wreck and someone near you says "oh its a big one" and your mind instantly returns to those four words: "Thats what she said."

Thats when you realize you're hooked.
Everyday, after the first time those four words escape your lips, you are no longer the same person.  Those four words are stamped forever in your brain, waiting patiently, ever so quietly, beneath the surface of regular thought, waiting and waiting, for that perfect moment to shout out again. 

TD: "I need to go to Forever 21 to exchange something. It will be real quick."
IP: "Yeah, right, like it'll be quick."
Me: "It will be. In and out, in and out."
(In the silence hovering between us): Thats what she said!

And that is how four seemingly innocent words changed forever my not so innocent existence.

Ca-Na-Duh!

"It feels like home to me...it feels like I'm all the way back from where I come from."

There are a few holidays that I like.
Traditions are an odd thing. Between childhood and adult, you are stuck in that wandering phase where you can carry on the traditions of your childhood, or make your own. So you are lost in a sense.  Afterall, you can never go home again.

Christmas will always be associated with soft white welcomed snow, with romance, loud screaming, last minute shopping, violent outbursts, hectic schedules, drunk dads, brightly lit houses, traffic congestion, freezing toes and numb fingers, thick knitted sweaters, random acts of generosity, the end of exams and start of winter break, of shopping with sisters, turkey brunches, and gravy.

Thanksgiving brings about the feeling of settling.  Settling into new changes, schedules, and work loads.  New cities, houses, roommates, and relationships.

Birthdays denote a feeling of irretrievable loss, of sweet surprises, frosty cake and pungent booze.

Canada Day. Those two words simply mean heat, the unofficial start of summer, of cold caesars with crispy celery, of eating outdoors, of backyard BBQs, beach picnics, cottage decks, or bar and restuarant patios.  Canada Day is burning rays of sun, of iced cold beers, of friends storming the downtown streets of Ottawa cramming into Parliament Hill and Major's Hill, and the BOOM BOOM BOOM of fireworks.

This Canada Day, I spent it with a friend at a dark, rather lame Canadian bar in Gangnam.  A couple of girls at the table near us lit sparklers.

I have already made a list indicating the reasons why I like Korea, but like most things, you don't realize how great something is until you've stepped outside of it. So in tribute to the best country in the world, the second biggest, and the hand's down most beautiful, here is why I miss Canada:

1. Four distinct seasons: If I gather anything from living abroad, its that Canada has seasons worth mentioning.  Fall is crisp, nippy, and vibrant.  Winter is dry, windy, cold, and unforgiving.  Spring is simply perfect. Warm, bright, and fresh. Summer is hot and sunny. You definitely need four distinct wardrobes to satisfy the four very different seasons. 

2. Mr. Sun: I miss the way it shines down on you as bright as fire, as intimate as a kiss. The sun here is obstructed by this misty fog that never goes away.

3. Grassy backyards: I just love grass, walking barefoot in the backyard or frontyard  Grass in suburbia, grass under picnic tables at beaches, grass in parks, and on campus grounds.  Grass in school yards and in big open fields. (I asked one of my kids last year what they would do if they were principal of the school. She answered "more grassy areas.""

4. Patios: Self-explannatory.

5. Cottages: Friend's cottages where you shoot rifles, jump off cliffs into crispy cold lake water, go canoeing, build fires, drink, think, talk, laugh, play.

6. Maple trees: thick massive trunks and an umbrella covering of clustered maple leaves.

7. Big dogs: not lap dogs or purse dogs with dyed yellow tails and purple flapping ears, but big dogs. Golden retrievers, huskies, labradors, and bull dogs with saggy faces in public parks where you can wrap your arms around their muscular necks and wrestle them to the ground.

8. Diversity: attidude, appearance, cars, religion, emotions, food, fashion, hair styles, understanding, beliefs.

9. Tim Horton's iced cappuchinos: because nothing cools just like it.

10. My family. Yeah, I miss home.

"While the astronauts, heroes forever, spent mere hours on the moon, I have remained in this new world for nearly thirty years. I know that my achievement is quite ordinary.  I am not the only man to seek his fortune far from home and certainly I am not the first.  Still, there are times I am bewildered by each mile I have traveled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept. As ordinary as it all appears, there are times when it is beyond my imagination."

Photos courtesy of my sister's boyfriend, CT.