the last

an update of bad-ness:

LEAVING

LAPTOP, IPOD, and CAMERA ALL BROKEN

SUITCASES 100000000 LBS. EACH (SO $100000 EXTRA)

BLAH ABOUT GOING BACK

THE PHRASE "BACK TO REALITY"

alcohol, donuts, mud

oh my god, i am about to burst with emotion. i start to cry when i think about how much i have digested within this little corner of the world, and how much greater everything is than i've imagined. it's all too easy to whine and kick and scream about going back to american mickey mouse culture when there's still so much to learn here. i have met so many wonderful people that i will refuse to give up until the very last second possible.

if i were to stay here for another month or so, there's no doubt in my mind that i would become an alcoholic. today we started drinking at 3 o'clock in the afternoon at a school-sponsored event with school-sponsored alcohol. it's difficult to explain, but Korean ideas about drinking and smoking are pretty different from in the states. no matter how conservative they are (very), koreans just tend to drink a lot, all the time.

and just for the record, i realize that although i tend to make mad generalizations about an entire culture based on one extremely sheltered 6-week study abroad program, it is wrong.

hey, we have just figured out that the FRESH light in all the krispy kreme stores is always on. i mean, that's insane! i have had way too many free donuts (as in, one every single time i step outside of campus). this is such a mystery- how do they make money? how is everybody stick-thin when they eat krispy kreme donuts all the time? how are they always so fresh and so wonderfully delicious?!

hm, i was gearing up to write a lot, but to tell you the truth, my eyes are getting too heavy. okay whatevs, i have a good playlist going: the stars, panic! at the disco (new guilty pleasure), metric, and the new guster.

korea is amazing. korea is amazing. how many times can i say that? so much hidden history that is nonexistent in america, globalization taking place right before my eyes, skewed traditional gender roles in the 21st century, and a more or less connected country physically and emotionally.

today i went to the boryeong mud festival at the beach. it was: awesome. we left mid-morning, all on 3 hours of sleep or less, and after a rough two hour bus ride with karaoke (of course), we got there. the basic appeal of the festival, besides the fact that you get to play in mud, is that the mud is really rich in minerals and it is great for your skin. we wrestled in the mud and sat in the mud pool and went through a mud obstacle course and swam in the huge ocean waves. sigh. i have a new crush on mud.

and i can't stay sitting upright any longer. good night, good morning!

대... 한미국!

okay, i think i am finally over the deal of feeling like i have to make important statements about the world while i am abroad. enough. i just talked to my mum and sister on the phone, updating them on my week with way too many details. about a minute into the conversation, i couldn't seem to shut up. it is a rare occassion that only happens when i am EXTREMELY excited about something. so that's my excuse for staying up so late when my sleep debt is already so large. this afternoon i went to library and promptly fell asleep for TWO WHOLE HOURS. it was the typical scene of a korean college girl studying at the library: books sprawled all over the place, cell phone (with cutesy charm) nearby, cutesy korean pen in hand, fast asleep. mmm, wooden desktops.

it was raining cats and dogs all day today, more so than usual. to wake up this morning to a dreary-ass sky and hearing the downpour (sounds exactly like those "rainstick" toys) just made me grumble outloud and cling onto my covers tighter. waking up to rain is only good on lazy saturdays if you have belgain waffles, a boy next to you, and a good book. i have however grown accustomed to feeling fungus start to grow on my toes and smelling of wet dog, which are two of the most unattractive feelings in the world.

i really need to write more! but for now, i really need to collapse into my bed! here's a poem for you, thanks to erin:

i envy those
who live in two places:
new york, say, and london,
wales and spain,
l.a. and paris,
hawaii and switzerland.

there is always the anticipation
of the change, the chance that what is wrong
is the result of where you are. i have
always loved both the freshness of
arriving and the relief of leaving. with
two homes every move would be a homecoming.
i am not even considering the weather, hot
or cold, dry or wet: i am talking about hope.

-where we are, gerald locklin

apples to apples

i just finished a weeks worth of homework tonight because i did maybe 5 whole minutes of it over the course of this entire week/weekend. ah! my mind is numb and my fingers are cramped, but i will press on. today has been a fairly bad day: enormous rainstorm with million mph winds that broke my umbrella + being caked in street grit and mud ALL DAY + traveling far by subway and some by taxi to see the asia erotic museum with mandy, only to find that it is nonexistent. monday is definitely over.

lately i've been contemplating how in the world to explain everything that's here to my family and friends not here. it is so easy to skim over the rough times when describing abroad adventures, even though they shape the experience just as much as the good. most people forget that being in a foreign country does not make life instantly great, but in fact, it makes it much more difficult. a lot of the time here, i feel exhausted and fed up with the weather and frustrated when i cannot communicate with people, but for now, it's just extremely fulfilling to continue absorbing my surroundings and to be myself without it depending on external factors, such as location or other people.

so far, being in korea has made me appreciate history so much more, or rather, appreciate it period. slowly but surely, i am collecting tidbits of information from all over and piecing them together in order to try to understand this country, and i love it. history major here i come! ha, just kidding. based on its contemporary history, korea seems to have invented the saying that things are never black & white.

anyway. those north koreans had better keep the rest of their missiles to themselves. it would be TRAGIC to have to go home early for "safety" reasons. even if there are missiles going off right above me, i can honestly say that i feel much safer here in this city than any other city in the US. i am already dreading going back to the US a bit, for a few good reasons. however, i am excited to get home (aka: within a 10-mile radius of a Hollywood Video), because i will immediately tackle the rest of Sight & Sound's top world cinema for 2005:

brokeback mountain(ang lee)
a history of violence (david cronenberg)
the holy girl (lucretia martel)
2046(wong kar wai)
mysterious skin (gregg araki)
the consequences of love (paolo sorrentino)
the descent (neil marshall)
moolaadé (ousmane sembene)
tropical malady (apichatpong weerasethakul)
the beat that my heart skipped (jaques audiard)
head-on (fatih akin)
howl's moving castle (hayao miyazaki)
last days (gus van sant)
the sun (aleksandr sokurov)

alright. what i just wrote sounds much more serious than i actually feel right now. yesterday i couldn't go to sleep for the longest time because i was daydreaming about the weekend. i hope that i remember the details of this place, such as: people walk on the left side of the sidewalk, if you go to hongik on the weekends they hand out phone #s for ecstacy every block, and how some taxi drivers are sweet enough to pull over and ask policemen for directions because their idiot passengers can't speak korean without an american accent.

hello, monsoon season

whew. i think that if i sit here long enough, if i stop going and coming and planning and learning, something will creep up inside of me that desperately shouts: "run home as fast as you can!" everything foreign that is exciting will seem terrifying and i will look down from the universe and see myself alone as a speck on the surface of the earth, a pinpoint in east asia, one person in a sea of millions.

with that said, i think i have adjusted pretty well to this side of the world. besides organic food, my key people, and liberalism, there really isn't anything else about america that i miss. in fact, korea kicks ass at simply "making sense" in comparison with the US (such as, reusing burger king cups).

there are so many noteworthy things to put down in writing, it's impossible. ah, i might as well try. writing is so therapeutic. i just received a very sweet, lengthy e-mail from my older girl cousin, dotty, and a facebook friend confirmation request from my sister. these two e-mails from "home" have made me very happy and even alright with starting another 5-day week of school.

so know what's funny? initially, i was attempting to type everything in korean, so that in the future i would be able to have hard evidence that i could at one point utter random korean words in my terrible midwestern accent (which apparently, the east coasties tell me is thick). it was so pathetic in an every-100th-word-was-actually-in-korean way that i had to end it. grr. i am constantly amazed by the little korean toddlers walking around because they speak better korean than i do, and that's just sad.

LAST WEEK'S TOP 5 (briefly):
1. my very first korean movie theater experience!
(it was so cute. we had assigned seats and popcorn with dried squid. mandy and i went after class and saw "superman" accidentally on opening day. there was obviously a bit of a culture gap between us and the rest of the audience, as we never laughed with everyone else and always laughed when the rest of the theater was silent.)

2. national museum of contemporary art
(one of my favorite places in seoul so far)

3. stumbling upon the most delicious gelato (see above picture) in a hidden alleyway

4. "club night" on friday
(this happens once a month in sinchon (the area by ewha university and its three nearby colleges), and included staying out way too late, dancing like mad to american 90s pop (um, heaven) in a room with weird sprinklers, and getting hit on by 36 year old korean men and teenage gangsta korean boys. i felt very immersed in the culture that night.)

5. hanging out in a korean burger king with friends at 9:00pm after 6:00pm bar-hopping with a perfectly buzzed mood and 10 orders of french fries


the one and only reason to be excited about monsoon season: cute umbrellas.