So when I attended this party here at work a few days ago, I mentioned how I couldn’t get into the campus fitness center, and it was explained to my just why. They lock up the place, and to get in, you need to borrow a key from the security guard. Nico, who lives upstairs, told me that he went with his son a fair number of times last semester, and that they were almost always alone while there. It’s accessible all week long, apparently, though Nico said it’s locked on the weekend. Showers, lockers, a lot of great gear… it sounds like a great place to me. I think I’ll start going this Wednesday.

Today, I’m going to do some cooking. Whenever I cook a really big meal, I’m usually too tired to do anything else but sleep afterward, so I told Lime I would prepare some of the meal ahead of time, like sane Korean housewives sometimes do. (Once you start adding side dishes to the mix, cooking takes more time.) Lime finishes late this evening, and we’ll be having our pseudo-Chuseok dinner tomorrow evening. It’s pseudo-Chuseok because I’m not making traditional Chuseok food.

When I told her I was planning to make a little kimchi-jeon or nokdu bindaetok, a pa-jeon, and some dalk dori tang, she said, “But those are your favorites!”

“Yes,” I said, “And they’re the only Korean dishes I know I can prepare well, so that’s what I’m cooking, unless you have a better idea.” I suppose a better idea, long term, would be to master a couple of her favorites. Hmmm.