Read the title. It’s the truth.
Woke up at 1:30PM. Took a shower. Sat down. For a long time. Ate leftover pizza for lunch. Went outside shortly to get kancho cookies. Sat back down. Watched a lot of movies/shows and scrolled tumblr. Ate more pizza and cookies. Arranged plans to go drinking with friends but it fell through. Shot two Youtube videos for my main channel. Uploaded one, edited the other. And now I’m watching another show then going to bed.
Yep.
Well I had two finals today. The first one, Korean, wasn’t bad at all. Like the midterm. Too easy if anything. Afterwards, I went directly back to my room. To study more for that English final. Then I took that English final. Omg. First time since middle school that I knew so little that I resorted to snarky B.S. Like seriously, I so did not know that test. I’m surprisingly not too upset over it though. I had a lot of fun filling in my snarky answers. Hopefully it’ll make the teacher laugh (if she can even read my cursive) and not offend her. But hey it can’t offend her more than blank answers. I knew some stuff anyway. Surprisingly, though, she gave us an extra-credit question at the end. So I was sure to fill that one out.
Afterwards, I got some bowls of rice and dumplings but unfortunately the dumplings were covered in this sauce that made me gag. I also got these potato things that were pretty good. Kayla joined me for lunch. We chatted for a short while, then I went back to my room. I watched some of that movie “Now You See Me”. It turned out to be not what I expected and I’d recommend it if you’re prepared to be confused. Eventually, I met up with Max and we got pizza from PizzaGate. Then we took it to the I-House lounge to eat and we chatted some more. It’s great that I found someone like him. He’s so easy to talk to. Sometimes I feel like I’m talking to the male version of myself. He reminded me of how many crazy people are studying here and we also played some cool intellectual games that no one ever wants to play with me (like I say a word, for example ‘forest’, and you have to say what you immediately think of). We had another semi-deep talk and my favorite part of it was when we were talking about sexuality and identities. We wanted to talk more but we had to cut off because he had to go back to his room to study for a final he has tomorrow.
When I got back to my room, Martina brought me the strawberries that the office gave to everyone. They were literally the prettiest strawberries I’ve ever seen but they didn’t taste so great. I finished the movie and now I’m on call with my English group because we have to finish our essay. Then I’ll be going to bed.
So today was my official last day of Korean class (rest of the classes are just tests lol). So my Korean teacher was sorta sad and wanted to get a group photo of us. We took several but here’s my favorite:
I’m actually going to miss that class the most. I liked the class itself, the students, and the teachers. In class today, it was one of the girl’s birthdays. So we sang “Happy Birthday” to her in a lot of different languages (French, German, Spanish–surprisingly, I was the only one who knew this one–Arabic, Chinese, and Korean of course). Our teacher also got us all bungeoppang which is a Korean pastry that’s shaped like a fish but has creamy chocolate inside. It’s really good! When class ended, I walked up to our teacher and asked her if I could hug her (since I know hugging isn’t really as socially acceptable in Korea as it is in America). She looked really surprised but happy that I asked and gave me a longer hug than I expected. Then she shook my hand and said ‘nice to meet you’ in Korean. What a sweetheart!
Afterwards, I went back to my room for a nice 2-hour nap. When I woke up from that I went to the “Farewell Ceremony”. None of my friends went so it was slightly lonely but not too bad considering I got free pizza haha. The student representative who spoke literally had the same experience I did in Korea so that was fun to listen to. Then I picked up my “Certificate of Completion” and went back to my room. Soon after, I met up with Max to go to Alice House for dinner. I wasn’t actually that hungry (considering I’d just eaten pizza) but I ate most of it. We talked a while, too. We laughed a lot too. We stopped at a convenience store on the way home and I got some kancho cookies and tried a new flavor of gum that looks like it’s flavored “cool soda”.
When I got back to my room, I watched the recent episode of “Supernatural”, then turned on some music while I finally wrote out the cards for the crepe place and the ahjumma I love. My hand is a bit cramped now but it’s worth it. I can’t wait to give it to them! Martina came back and we chatted a little while. Now I’m going to try to get my Korean review sheet done and study for my English final. Wish me luck!
Devoted readers, this is the crepe place I frequent.
Chung posing while we wait for coffee and crepes.
As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, Chung and I live in the exciting area of Ewha. Little boutiques and eateries proliferate around the area which is centered around a prestigious women’s university. While having our traditional Friday night date, we decided to head to a new place for dessert. We’d often passed the crepe stand before but had never ventured to try it.
Our first experience with Paris Crêperie blew my mind. As we stepped up to the window, the owner, a Frenchman from Avignon, delighted us with, “Bonjour.” We had seen him speaking Korean, now French and our interaction would be entirely in English. He explained he had been at the location for about a year but business had been doing so well that he would soon open another location.
₩1,000 soft serve ice cream!
Personally, I was amazed by…
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I surprisingly stayed wide awake all throughout Korean today. Afterwards, shock, I went with Kayla to get rice haha. But the rice seemed really good today. I woofed it down. After lunch, I went back to my room and updated my music library (put more music on my iPod that I actually like). Then I took a short nap. When I awoke from that, I went straight to my English class for our group presentation.
It wasn’t anything much. The teacher kept interrupting the group before us (I hate how teachers here in Korea correct students repeatedly DURING their timed presentation…can’t they just wait like American teachers do?). Anyway, it was really annoying. Luckily, she didn’t interrupt us most. Mostly I feel like it’s because we’re mostly foreigners. But also perhaps because she didn’t have anything to add to the presentation (our topic is on the evolution of American internet slang via social media). But it was cool because the class actually seemed pretty interested in our presentation. And she let us finish even though we went past our time limit.
Afterwards, one of our group members from Germany, Mary, offered us all some gummies her parents had sent her. They’re the awesome German gummies that have the white bottom. I haven’t had one since I was four (when I went to Germany for Christmas). So it was a marvelous blast from the past. I told her this and we got into a short discussion about Germany. It was nice. Then I went back to my room and made dinner plans with Kayla. I invited Max but he had to meet with Korean tutor.
Kayla and I went to the bibimbap place I like. The sweet ahjumma helped scoop out the seaweed she forgot to leave out (she had left out the sauce though and put in the yummy root things that for some reason they hadn’t had for a while). She also mixed my bibimbap for me. What a sweetheart, seriously. The meat we had today was mostly fatless so that was nice. After dinner, Kayla and I tried to find the hostel I’ll be moving to. It’s supposed to be in Sinchon but apparently it’s actually like between Sinchon and Hongdae. Lame.
On our way back to the dorm, we stopped in a convenience store. I got some kancho cookies and a kinder bar. Back in the dorm, I took a shower. Apparently some guy from the administration came by (in Martina’s request) and fixed our fridge. So yay we finally have a working fridge. (It broke down in early October and we were too lazy to get it fixed). I watched “What If” which was a decently cute movie. But when Martina got back, I ended up reading her old papers I’d written in middle and high school lol. She’s such a great listener. She also promised to walk me to the hostel when I have to move out. Roommate of the year, seriously!
Yeah well now I’m heading to bed.
Forgot to post this lol. So this was yesterday:
I went to bed late because my English group was working on our paper/powerpoint together until 2:30AM. So I woke up at 7AM but remembered I had to still do my Korean hw so I did that and realized I’d be late to class. So I napped for an hour and just went to the second half of class. Afterwards, I went with Kayla to the Human Ecology Cafeteria for more rice of course. I also got some other dish that I picked at (mostly used the sauce on my rice, but also ate the rice cakes).
I don’t really remember what I did for most of the day. But for dinner I ended up just getting a crepe (Kayla got some street food) and more tiramisu bubble tea. I also tried a different Peggy Pie. I got some chocopie thing. Wasn’t as good as the sour cream apple pie but it wasn’t bad either. I also watched the movie “Boyhood”. It was really good. My English group skype-called again and we worked some more. Then I went to bed.
But I’d forgotten to publish this haha.
I woke up early to go to the pharmacy with Kayla but she never answered me. So I planned to just do my online class then go back to bed, but my mom skype-called me and that woke me up. So instead, I just did my online class then stayed online for a while. I ended up skipping lunch because I just never hungered for it…but Laura invited me to dinner (strange) so I went with her to Alice House.
Alice House two days in a row but meh who cares. It was good. Then we went to get a crepe but it was closed (usually closed early on Sundays). So instead we got bubble tea. I tried tiramisu hot bubble tea. It tasted good but it took me a while to really figure out what the flavor reminded me of. Halfway to the dorm I realized it reminded me of coffee creamer. Really good Christmas treat though. Oh! And we finally stopped at this pie place at Edae that I always walk by and wonder about. It’s seriously like the tiniest place I’ve ever seen but OMG they have delicious-looking desserts! I ended up getting a sour cream apple pie that tasted delicious and was well worth the $5. I want to try all the others now!
Then I went back to my room and worked on some homework until my English group managed a group skype call so we could all work on and edit our paper/powerpoint (since our presentation is on Tuesday). We got is mostly finished and now I’m turning my computer off. I still have to do my Korean hw and it’s 2AM. >.<
EDIT: Oh, I also started to watch that new movie “Boyhood” today. It’s really cool. As the description goes, “Filmed over 12 years with the same cast, Richard Linklater’s BOYHOOD is a groundbreaking story of growing up as seen through the eyes of a child named Mason (a breakthrough performance by Ellar Coltrane), who literally grows up on screen before our eyes.”
Sorry this is late. You’ll see why at the end of this blog.
So I woke up late (around 2PM). I eventually went to eat late lunch with Kayla. She accompanied me to Alice House. Afterwards, we got crepes. Since it was cold, the girl let us inside. It was the other girl, the smiley one. I finally asked her name and I bet I’m spelling it wrong but it was something like Letitia. We all chatted shortly. Kayla asked for more nutella on her crepe and omg hers was spilling in nutella haha. We ate the crepes in the park but omg what a bad idea because it’s TOO COLD. So on our way back to the dorm, we’d stop in stores to warm up.
In my room I just watched a lot of movies. Then way later I went with Kayla to Sinchon to go to Burger King. I wasn’t that hungry but I ordered three orders of fries because why not. Gotta love the stares though haha. Eventually we left, though, to find a pharmacy because Kayla’s friend needed some prescription thingy (not entirely sure to be honest) so we went on a wild goose chase trying to find an open pharmacy at midnight. We walked back to Edae and still no luck. I thought there would be at least one 24h pharmacy but I guess I was wrong.
In Edae, Kayla stopped inside a convenience store to ask the worker there if he knew of one. In Korean she said “I don’t speak Korean very well but anyway is there a 24h pharmacy around here?”. It was great because he seemed wary when she started talking, but he obviously understood her. He scratched his head and said “well I don’t really know” (all in Korean of course) and then a woman walked into the convenience store and he asked if she knew English. She said no but asked him what the problem was. He asked her Kayla’s question and she said she didn’t know of any. Kayla asked her when they open. She asked if Kayla knew of the one down the street, Kayla nodded, she said that one opened at 10AM. Then she and Kayla had a conversation about what Kayla needed and I was just sitting there really amazed by the fact that I knew all these conversations and the fact that Kayla and this woman could have a conversation in Korean despite the fact that we’re sure we aren’t that good in Korean. It was just nice to realize how much Korean I can understand effortlessly. =)
We went to another convenience store, the one by the main gate, and the guy that had talked to us in English not too long ago was working. So Kayla asked him the same question but this time the conversation was in Konglish (Korean and English). He eventually called someone to find out and we overheard/understood the phone conversation (of course in Korean) and apparently the only 24h pharmacies are in Gangnam and that’s quite a trip from where we are (and the subway is closed so we’d have to take a taxi). So we just gave up.
But wow that was fun to realize how much we understand and can be understood. Back in my room, I skype-called my sister, because we hadn’t talked in a while. I also ate these weird Mentos that had really unique/gross flavors. But then my roommate got upset because I was up so late, despite the fact that I had all the lights off, wasn’t talking out loud, and turned WAY DOWN my computer’s brightness. Not to mention it’s a Saturday night. But whatevs. We equally pissed each other off, I guess.
So I went to sleep.
I didn’t really do much today.
I woke up and went lazily to lunch with Kayla. We went to the cafeteria. I just got two bowls of rice and some tofu soup (which I got primarily to pour the soup broth on my rice). I honestly just love rice. Plain rice. It’s great. It’s a perfect meal to me. Some people don’t seem to get that I honestly 100% enjoy rice as a meal. Whatevs.
Anyway, after lunch, I hung out with Kayla in the laundry room while she did her laundry. We played like 20 questions but it was more like unlimited-questions-until-you-guess it with animal species and movie titles. It was fun. Then I went back to my room and stayed there the rest of the night. Too lazy and it was too cold to go back outside. So I just ate ramen for dinner and lots of cookies lol.
I also dropped off the crackers/drink I had bought for Max since he’s sick. Poor thing. 😦 He looks so very sick. I hope he gets better soon. I wanted to hug him but not that much because I didn’t want to get sick too lol.
But yeah. Then I just watched movies and now I’m off to bed. It’s 3:30AM lol.
Well, I don’t know why, but I COULD NOT stay awake in Korean class today. It’s just too early to learn a language. So afterwards, I skipped lunch and went directly back to my room to sleep. I happened to (accidentally) sleep through my next class (English). But I wasn’t too upset about it because I knew we weren’t doing anything important in that class today. But I made sure to wake up for my next class because I had to present part of the powerpoint presentation.
It’s the last class for my Religion course. My group was the second to last group to present. Surprisingly, despite the fact that it’s a large class, I felt no qualms presenting. I think it was because everyone in the room was staring at me with bored expressions, even the professor. Everyone was totally bored and uninterested so it really wasn’t that intimidating lol. No one wanted to be there haha. Afterwards, I went with Kayla to get a crepe. Either they saw me coming, are psychic, or happened to be making one for themselves, but when I got to the crepe place they already had a small nutella banana one finished (which is what I wanted) so they gave it to me and laughed. lol Awesomesauce. I ate it in the park with Kayla. Then I got some hot chai bubble tea. It tasted strange though. At first it had an earl grey tea taste to it but then it just had this curious flavor.
We hung out in the I-House lounge for a little while, chatting. Until I noticed that my bubble tea was purple. You know what flavor of bubble tea is purple? Taro. I’m allergic to taro. Oh dear. I tried to convince myself it wasn’t taro but it did start giving me the headache and backache that taro gives me. I told myself it was psychological and made Kayla distract me. Eventually, I went back to my room to charge my iPod for a while before going out for dinner. I must have been well distracted, because I didn’t feel as horrible as I usually do after drinking taro. Kayla must be my good-luck charm.
She got a crepe first then we went to Sinchon for Burger King (since she was craving it). But it was SO COLD. SO COLD! Every person we passed by said “chua!” (‘cold’ in Korean). lol We were all freezing!
We hung out in Burger King for a while (as always) and chatted about a lot of things. At some point, this Korean guy and girl came up to us and asked if they could ask us some questions. We said yeah sure and invited them to sit down with us. I guess they’re part of some musical group and doing some survey that needs answers from foreigners. Not totally sure, actually, but they asked us a lot of questions about Christmas and stuff. It was funny because the woman kept switching to Korean when she didn’t know how to say it in English. And she did that for a while until she finally said “Wait! Do you know Korean?” lol it was adorable. Funny thing though, I’m glad she was speaking Konglish (Korean and English). Her English was pretty good but she had a very thick Korean accent so I understood her better when she said things in Korean. The guy had a really unique (and cute) face. He also seemed very sweet. Nice people. We exchanged KakaoTalk contacts and she said she’d ask more questions via there. =P
I messaged Max to see what he was up to, and it turned out he’s been sick all day! Poor thing! So on our way home, I stopped in the convenience store to get him some saltine crackers and ginger ale since he told me he was really hungry but shouldn’t eat because he’s been throwing up. But I couldn’t get a hold of him when I got back to my room to figure out his room number. So hopefully I’ll be able to deliver the goods tomorrow. And hopefully he’ll feel better by then. ^^
Well, now I’m going to bed. I’m not actually tired but I feel like I’m keeping my roommate up with my computer shining light into the room.
coyotalia 