Insignificant Jewels

Everyone has little things in their life that they cannot live without. It might be an old T-Shirt or a teddy bear, everyone has things. It turns out, i have lots. The first thing i can’t live without is my Mr Happy T-shirt. It was my aunts, then my mums, then my sisters and now it’s mine. My sister gave it to me before i came to Korea, she told me whenever i wore that T-shirt, i wasn’t allowed to be unhappy. So now, whenever i am sad, i put on the T-Shirt and i feel better.

The next thing i can’t live without are my DVDs of The Mighty Boosh. I went to see them live at Christmas but i’ve been in love with the Boosh Boys for years now. They rock your socks. And if i ever meet them properly, i may die of excitement. 

What else can’t i live without? Gavin and Stacey! I live off gavin and Stacey. Nessa and Smithy are, ironically, the best characters. I love them.. both… equally. I would die if someone took my DVDs. DIE!

My Geoffrey Giraffe is also INCREDIBLY important to me. If anyone touches Geoffrey, i will kill them. He is my mascot. My mum got him for me from America. He is named after my Granddad, not because my granddad looks like a giraffe but just because it is a very british name. 

My cowboy boots, although they are old and kind of falling apart, i love them. They are brown with white stitching. I got them about two years ago and they still fit. I think i’ll cry when they officially ruin. 

Now, that isn’t it. I have more. And i’m sure you all do too. Insignificant jewels are things that we love but that others would disregard in a heartbeat. What are your insignificant jewels?

Brawling Brit

I don’t know if any of you have ever experienced living in a completely foreign country like me, but if you have, you might know what i’m talking about. I live in South Korea. Yet its not the Korean-ness or American-ness (for lack of a better word) of the country that makes me feel foreign, its not the fact that i am one of the only white faces in the corridor, no. It is the fact that i am the only true Brit. Once you have explained the meaning of “bugger” for the upteenth time, you start to realise that these people will never really understand you.

Although its handy occasionally to have this difference, you never get in trouble at school when you use a british swear word because no one knows what the hell you’re talking about, it’s still annoying to have to repeat yourself a million times a day because you call it an optician not an optometrist or you ask to go to the loo not the bathroom. The biggest difficulty i had was when i tripped on the stairs and said loudly, “Bollocks!” The session of explination that had to go on after that was uncomfortable.

It’s frustrating to see, the red marks accross your page after you hand in your english essay. The teacher has kindly marked out your “spelling mistakes” which aren’t really spelling mistakes. The times when you write a “u” in colour, or in neighbour. The music is different, the sense of humour is different. My use if sarcasm was definitly odd to the others at first.

Even our tempers are different. The very basis of our personality is different to the American personality. I’m not going to lie, i can’t wait to get back to England. I miss it so much, the people, the places, the food, the accent, even the bloody Queen, but it has been nice to be a minority. And i know that as soon as i go back, i won’t be able to get away with saying “bloody hell” or “bollocks” without a teacher being annoyed.