It was Saturday at noon and I was wearing my iconic J Crew blazer and pants, topped off with my favorite Tsubo shoes. I had decided to start dressing fancy because I had quit my job, and also simply because I'm a Yale graduate and if I'm going to black out on a street corner, I want to look good doing so. Saturday at noon in Korea means that you've likely been going strong since the night before. However, I had been going a couple of days, and was already sleepy.
Then I'm walking up the hill to my house for a nap when I bump into my roommate and her band of military companions. They were dressed like your typical American: flip flops, shorts, and wife-beatersleeveless shirts. They were all going to an amusement park whose name I can no longer remember, and invited me along. I hadn't eaten in a couple of days, and they all wanted to go to a typical American restaurant: McDonald's; but I'm a vegan so I just watched them eat.
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I was sure I was going to throw up, but it turns out that I blacked out during my first ride. We get off the first roller coaster and my army buddies have to carry me off. They carry me to the next line, but I just reach for the first bush and comfortably lay myself down. There I am lying by a bush when one of them wakes me up and informs me that [I can't recall]... but I think we got pushed to the front of the line again.
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I could not believe that someone would be so classless and stoop so low as to call me a fag for crossing my legs and dressing unAmerican at a Korean children's amusement park. Somebody called me a fag in a public forum, I was outraged: children go on there. How can a person be so careless as to promote that kind of vulgar language in a public forum, I don't know, but it makes me lose faith in human beings. I think it's part of the reason why I drink so much: to drown out all the hateful words.