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.