My stomach, my hands, and my language skills

I love food! Some people view eating as a chore - just something you have to get out of the way to survive - but for me it's a pleasure. The problem is that lately my tastebuds have been craving more food than my digestive system can handle. For example, right now I'm full, bordering on uncomfortably full, but my tastebuds are demanding French onion soup. I have no room for soup, but my tastebuds won't shut up about it. It's quite annoying.

A couple of weeks ago, I had a tragicomic accident where I fell off my yoga ball whilst doing something stupid, and got rugburn all over the back of my hand. Initially, I had a number of ugly scabs - something that you'd expect to see on a Dickensian orphan with a particularly unhealthy-sounding cough like that sickly kid who sometimes shows up on the Simpson. Now it is starting to heal, but there's a section that looks like a healing cigarette burn. I don't know which is worse. Before, I looked like I had some kind of freaky skin disease. Now, I look like I'm either being abused or self-mutilating. In reality, it's just a symptom of not having the common sense to braid or bun my hair before doing upside-down yoga ball things!

The other day I was working at a conference that was being held in a hotel. In the hotel elevator, these three ladies started talking to me in some language I don't know. If I had to guess, I'd say it was Korean, although I could be way wrong. (But I'm going to continue to call it Korean for simplicity's sake.) This was very odd, because there is nothing to indicate that I might understand Korean. I don't like using racial descriptions, but frankly I'm a tall, green-eyed white girl. If I don't look white, I look Mediterranean. If you spoke to me in any European language, I'd understand. If you spoke to me in Hebrew or Arabic or Pashto, I could see why you might think that's worth a try. There is nothing in my superficial appearance to suggest I understand Korean - I wasn't even wearing my ID badge that identified me as a translator. It was most bizarre! Then when I got home that night, I got a phone call where the person on the other end was also talking in Korean. It might have been a prank call (do people still make prank calls?) At any rate, it was the same language as the elevator ladies, which was quite odd. In retrospect, I should have replied to the phone call in Polish.