There's something about Sarah... Pt. 1: The Interview

I situate myself across from her at a wooden table on the patio at the Starbuck’s on 24th. I try to get comfortable inside the metal chairs as I pull my stack of papers and recorder out of my backpack. The Austin wind continues to blow with gusto and forces my friend’s kiwi Danish to transform itself into a paper weight for all my notes. Just as I attempt to feign some seriousness for the start of the “interview”, a burst of laughter erupts from both halves of the round table. Who do I think I am? Barbara Walters? Diane Sawyer? Sitting across from Sarah Ryu with my hard-hitting questions and a digital recorder pointed in her direction feels completely ridiculous. I push the glazed Danish towards her strawberry frappachino and shove my interview questionnaire back into my bag. She tears off a piece of pastry as I sip my second cup of coffee of the day, and our conversation begins. Man, it’s really loud out here, but I want to ask you about living in a single-parent family…

The legs that make up for her 5 ft. 8 frame dangle casually off one metal arm rest of the chair and swing back and forth as she answers my first question about how long her parents have been divorced. Her gestures are very animated and slightly awkward because her arms are unusually long for an Asian female. I’m surprised that she’s giving me such a vivid response since I am treading on a touchy subject, even though we’ve known each other for about five years now. She states that her parents have been divorced ever since she was three years old and at the time, she obviously couldn’t wrap her little head around the concept of divorce. However, she began asking her mom where her dad was a few years after the divorce because she was missing out on all the father-daughter activities at her church. All of this is said at an ease that raises a green flag for me to delve deeper into her relationship with her dad and the details of the divorce. She answers my questions (ones asked and even ones unasked) with childhood stories and a sporadic sprinkling of corny jokes, just like our countless other conversations.

We don't stay on the subject of her parents or of being a part of a single-parent family for long as she recounted all the basics of the divorce and several private aspects of her life. For the rest of the time spent on that noisy Starbuck's patio, we talk about food (we both love Korean food), different aspects of Korean culture (I'm such a wannabe Korean), and recent Korean dramas that are worth watching (dramas with the hottest guys).

The interview was a success even though I didn't exactly follow a roadmap or get the opportunity to ask all my "tough" questions. The 10 minutes that we spent on Sarah's family and growing up with her mom confirmed my previous impressions of the kind of person she is, someone who is honest, upfront and an eternal optimist. There's definitely something about Sarah...