Competitiveness and All Its Benefits

I'm always amazed at how efficient I can be when crunched for time, and how incredibly lazy I can get when I have all the time in the world. This week was super busy for me, but I still managed to keep my head above water. I went to school in the mornings from 9-1, ate a quick lunch, left for work, got back around 11:30 pm, did my homework, turned in around 2 am, and woke up the next day and repeated the process. I would get to work with no energy, but surprisingly when the students would walk in, it would come from nowhere. I usually ended up leaving work with more energy than I had before. I only have one more week of it, so please keep praying that I'll have the strength/energy to get through.

One thing that has gotten me through this week is the "free" breakfasts. I say "free" because it's just included in my rent. I go upstairs (I live in the basement) and the landlady is making something delicious. I slap some rice on my plate and enjoy whatever else she's making. She usually has some kind of soup and some other main dish. I also get to pilfer all of the incredibly yummy side dishes she has. Every morning I come up, she says, "Ah, Joe. You're here. You better eat a lot!" as she slops a heaping amount of deliciousness on my plate. However, the best part isn't the incredible food, but the fact that I don't even have to do the dishes. She just takes them after I'm done. It's a dream come true, and once I stop working, I'll be able to enjoy the dinners here too!

Tomorrow, I have to give a report on a newspaper article that I found, and lead a class discussion on it... or I have to debate international marriage... I'm not really sure actually. This level is a huge step up from previous ones. The vocabulary is now coming much much faster than before, and the projects are definitely getting more intense. I don't really have sufficient time to study all of the vocabulary that I would like to, and I'm already at a disadvantage to my Chinese and Japanese classmates (everyone but me and another girl). They have a distinct advantage because 80% of Korean is based off of Chinese. Just like English, the more complicated words are either rooted in Latin or Greek. If you speak these languages or have background in them, you can understand what's going on to some extent, but it's just sound to me. The teacher keeps saying, "Think about the Chinese characters, and it will make sense." I don't know if she got the memo, but my last name doesn't qualify me for Asian citizenship.

It's all OK though. The challenge of it is enough to motivate me. If it weren't challenging, I would probably not try. And whoever said being competitive was a bad trait? It's what has kept me in the race thus far. Teachers generally like me because (even though it's not always as good as my other classmates) I do my homework and participate in class. I'm finding more and more that my Asian classmates are either not used to participation or just a little bit shy when it comes to participating. I view it as an opportunity to speak and be corrected in a 'safe and friendly' environment. Being a teacher myself, I know what makes a teacher happy in the classroom. And being a student, I know how my students feel when I ask them open ended questions and lack the motivating energy in my lectures. It's a learning experience both ways really.

I'm gonna get back to doing homework now. Gotta keep pace with the competition, and I never study better than when I'm under pressure. I'll keep you posted on how things are going. Stayed tuned until next time

I Am Now an Olypmian

After I landed in Korea on December 19th, it's been one hurdle after another: pretty much like an Olympian running the hurdle track that never seems to end. Just keep jumping those hurdles... Life just doesn't seem to let up. First, I had to deal with my baggage not arriving with me. It decided to mosey on over a day later and then take another day to be shipped to me. Once I got everything, I realized that my guitar key, which I so wisely used to lock my case before I checked it into baggage, dropped in my dad's truck on the way to the airport. So now I have a pretty good looking guitar case with a temporarily unusable guitar.

After my luggage got sorted out, I decided to try and tackle immigration. My visa was set to expire January 4th, which left me little time consider the Christmas and New Year's holidays. On top of this, I also was dealing with a full schedule at work, which meant waking up extra early in order to be the first one at the immigration office. Once I got there, I was informed that I didn't bring the appropriate documents, even though this was not listed on their website (which I checked, double checked, and tripled checked prior to my visit). But there's no arguing with the greasy wheels of bureaucracy.

The document I needed was my housing contract, so I went to my landlord to obtain it. (I didn't have one before this because it isn't really needed in Korea. People usually just shake hands and that's that.) My landlord must have been feeling particularly lazy, because he came up with a million excuses of why he didn't want to write me a housing contract. He even tried to get me to move out a few days early so he wouldn't have to do it. After many meetings, text messages, and phone calls, I finally had my contract which I then took to immigration on New Year's Eve.

After arriving, I realized that I was number 24 in line. (Time for those greasy wheels to start spinning.) And then I looked and saw that only one person was working, and the people currently being "served" were arguing about something. (Side note, I think all immigration workers should end with each customer by saying, "You got served." It would make for a more humorous work environment as well as happier immigration workers. And that pretty much makes everyone else there happy as well.) Anyway, I was pretty discouraged because doing the math, I figured that there was no way I was going to make it before I had to go to work.

Needing to cool off, I went outside and took a walk around the area. After getting bored and thinking enough time had passed, I looked at my watch and realized that this was not the case. Only 20 minutes had gone by. I went back in to see my progress, hoping that maybe I had advanced to number 23. To my surprised, I was only 4 away from "being served." This soon changed to 0 because everyone else was waiting outside and didn't respond when their number was called. God really was looking out for me (maybe at the expense of everyone else though).

My next task in the list was moving. Probably the most loathed task of all, which is surprising considering how much I loved dealing with the kind, friendly bureaucrats at immigration. Nothing more depressing than throwing everything you own into bags and carrying them 15 minutes to another place, and then having to take everything out of those bags again. Talk about a symbol for the monotony of life. I'm still in the process of emptying everything from my bags. I think I'll take this one slow. Just take things out as I need them. After all, what's the rush? It's not like I'm moving in 2 months... Oh wait...

Pictures to follow once I have put the room in some semblance of order.

Revolutionized Compliments... Complements

Well, this is officially my last week in Korea before I visit home. I took 2 finals on Friday, and I have 2 more tomorrow. I'm really excited to finish this term, probably mostly because I that just around the corner are all sorts of American goodies waiting for me.

I went to an event last night. A group called "B-LINK" approached me and my classmates at school and invited us to an event a while back. I believe I wrote a blog post about it. (The B stands for bilingual. Don't ask me what the other ones stand for.) They had a "Thanksgiving Potluck" yesterday. I went with a friend dreaming about turkey and apple pie. Instead, I got Turkish food and no pie. But hey, other than the Turks, who can say that they ate Turkish food for Thanksgiving? I consider myself lucky. Even though the entire event was in Korean, I still had Koreans coming up to me acting like I had no idea what was going on. I'm beginning to get more and more annoyed at how astonished Koreans are that I can speak English. Here's a sample of a conversation I had last night:

Korean: WHAT... IS... YOUR... NAME?
[Koreans aren't the only ones who yell and speak slower for foreigners fyi]
Me: Hi, my name is Joe.
Korean: WOW, YOU SPEAK KOREAN SO WELL!
Me: Not really, I'm just studying.
Korean: So, I'm curious about something. When you came to Korea, what stood out to you?
[At this point, I was thankful that I had graduated from the yelling/talking slow treatment]
Me: Well, I was really surprised by the-
Korean: WOW!!!! (To another Korean) He really speaks Korean well. His accent and intonation are really good too!

I realize that they are trying to compliment me... complement?... They are trying to say something nice, but it kind of comes across like I'm the student with the dunce cap in the corner who finds picking his nose a bit more interesting than the ABCs. They then started introducing me to other foreigners (who are actually at a lower level of Korean than I am) by saying, "Hey, even though this guy's an American, he can speak Korean really well! Try speaking Korean to him!" Thankfully, the other foreigners don't treat me with the same regard. We're all in the same boat when it comes to Korean, so me speaking Korean isn't really anything special to them since they are going through the same learning process that I am.

"Compliments" or no, I was still very pleased with myself by the end of the night. I had held down a table conversation with native Koreans for roughly 4 hours. I also revolutionized my view on speaking Korean. Before last night, I was (still kind of am) shaky when it comes to speaking Korean. I'm so worried about making a mistake that I often just find an easier way of saying something or don't say anything at all. The fool who keeps his mouth shut is considered wise kind of a thing. But last night when I told one of the Koreans that speaking was my hardest area when it came to learning the language, he said, "Why? Writing is by far the hardest. If you speak to me, even though you may have some mistakes, pronounce a word wrong, etc. I still know what you're saying. I have your face and gestures to go off of as well as your voice. However, if you're writing, I would have no idea if you misspell a word etc."

It got me to thinking that no matter how stupid I sound, I am definitely proficient enough to get my point across. For example, let's say I don't know the word "compliment." I do know how to say, "Say something good to someone else." Sounds a bit awkward, but there is at no point something a native speaker wouldn't understand. Unfortunately, this strategy doesn't work very well for the speaking test that I'm taking tomorrow. Go figure, but they would rather me use the correct vocabulary word.

I also taught a class of 14 geniuses on Friday. It was purely a listening class for the students, so they can't read the text at all. And the topic was on stem cell research. Keep in mind that these students are 4-6th grade. Not only did they follow along, but they totally got the information too. I was super impressed. Most importantly though, they are all very well behaved and respectful, which makes both of our lives so much easier. Luckily, I will be teaching this class every week when I get back from America. It's classes and students like these that make teaching worth every second.

This week I plan on scouting out a place to live starting in January, buying Christmas presents for the family, singing karaoke, having one last group meal with all of my awesome classmates, and boarding a plane bound for America on Friday at 10 pm Korean time.

The Aftermath

I'm not even sure anymore if aftermath is one word or two... But I would think that if I split it into 2, then it would be something like, "after math, you have to go to history." I'm just gonna stick to one word because I'm too lazy to type it into Google and check. This is what my English has become.

This week was fairly eventful. I was the MC for the play contest at my school. Everything turned out fine more or less. Since I basically wrote the whole script by myself, I got to pepper it with a lot of my humor, which was surprisingly appreciated by the audience and teachers. I'll translate part of our dialogue for you as an example of what my humor has degraded to:

Co-MC: Hey Joe, have you ever performed in front of people on a stage?
Me: Of course! Ever since I was a little boy, the crowds loved me. When you look at my face, don't you immediately think "ACTOR!" Brad Pitt has nothing on my looks.
[Insert whatever hand/facial gestures you find make the dialogue funnier, and that's what I did] ;)

My classes play went pretty well. I thought we would win a prize, because (since I also wrote our play) the script was witty, my classmates made some amazing props, and we all acted fairly well. I had a bunch of fun doing it though. I always enjoy events like that. I think it's a great bonding experience for the class unless they take it too seriously and start fighting... which happened. Luckily, things smoothed over, at least on the surface, and we were able to push through it.

After the play contest was over, I was hanging out with some classmates. I decided to drop by the police station to find out if they could fingerprint me there. I went with a German girl and an Indonesian girl. When we walked into the police station, everyone stopped what they were doing and just stared at us. I walked up to the desk, and the officer at the desk panicked and said in Korean,"It's a foreigner. Hey you! Come talk to him." Another nervous officer approached me, but before he said anything, I just started speaking to him in Korean.

"Hi, I need to get fingerprinted because I need to change my visa. Can I do that here?" Needless to say, he was a little bit surprised. All he could get out was, "Why?" Seeing as we haven't studied criminology in my classroom yet, I do not yet know how to say "an FBI criminal background check is required" so I just answered, "I just need it to change my visa." The Indonesian girl chimed in, "He has to send it back to America." Because she was the only one that looked Asian out of us, the police then ignored me and started talking to her. "We don't have the fingerprint cards here, but if you bring your own, then we can do them for you blah blah blah." What's the lesson I learn from this? No matter how proficient I get at this language, they will always prefer speaking to someone they believe is a native speaker.

I also went to a language exchange event this week. Some guy came up to me and my classmates in our school and asked us if we wanted to participate. It sounded pretty lame to me, but I figured that if I went with my classmates, it would at least be a little bit fun. Normally these events just turn into Koreans trying to practice their English. And if you want to practice your Korean, the conversation usually doesn't progress past "What did you eat yesterday? Was it good? What is your favorite food? WOW YOU SPEAK KOREAN SO WELL!" However, this event was all in Korean. It was really nice. I made some friends there, and I hope to back and do it again sometime soon. They had us doing some weird activities though...

(Forgive me if my English breaks down in this section. What was said doesn't translate very well.)

 They asked us to pick a paper color that represented our spirit/mood/heart that day. Me, being the artistically minded person that I am looked at the colors very carefully. I saw blue and thought, "Hey, I like blue" and picked it. We then sat at a table where they told us to "draw anything we want, but it has to represent our what we were feeling." Although artistically minded, I seemed to be struggling in this area for a while. What is representative of anger? Draw a picture of someone punching another person? What is representative of happy-go-lucky? A smiley face? What is representative of depression? One guy standing alone while everyone else has a date? I guess I should have paid more attention to my feelings growing up. After staring at my blank blue sheet of paper for a while, I had an idea. "Hey, I like music!" (My mind usually only speaks to me in 4 word sentences that consist of "Hey, I like [insert noun]") So I drew music... sheet music.

After this exercise was done, they evaluated our artwork. My Indonesian classmate had drawn a tree with all different colors of leaves next to a park bench on a sunny day. They told her, "Oh, this is a beautiful picture! You have a very bright personality because you used all these different colors blah blah blah. Normally, people who only pick one color are a little bit dull. They are usually under a lot of stress, especially if they choose black." It was then that I looked at mine; I had drawn the whole thing in black. When they asked for my paper, I lifted it up like a 5 year old boy holding up the cookie that he was caught stealing. I disguised my apparent stressful/dull personality with my award winning copy-written Joseph Lee signature smile.

The next activity we did involved looking at different pictures of objects, picking 2, and making a story involving those 2 pictures. A pretty good language practicing exercise I guess. Involves creating and presentation in a different language. I was determined to do better this time. I would show them just how creative I was. There were 2 animals among the pictures we could select: a cat and a snake. I chose them thinking that I could come up with a decent fable. Unfortunately, we were then supposed to draw the 2 items we chose. Drawing animals: my worst nightmare. I thought the story I came up with was decent though. I created a fable of a cat and snake playing together one day when they saw a mouse. The then started fighting each other because both of them wanted to eat the mouse. In the end, the mouse got away because they worked against each other. Moral of the story: it is better to work together to achieve your goals.

After I told this to the person inspecting our work, I was rather proud of myself. Not only did I say it in Korean, I also made it up on the spot. After I patted myself on the back for a job well done, the Korean "inspector" followed up with "Joe, are you under a lot of stress right now? Normally stories involving fighting are caused by people under stress. You should probably go back home and rest a little bit blah blah blah." I guess I just come off as a stressed dude. Maybe next time, I'll write a story about a stressed guy that came to a language event, was told too many times he was stressed out, snapped, and wreaked havoc on the event. I can only imagine what they would say to that.

On a final note, I went over to my cousin's house last night and made real American brownies. Like from the Betty Crocker box mix kind of brownies. (Not sure what brand it was, but I remember seeing the box and recognizing it as an American brand name.) I currently am in possession of these brownies cause my cousin happens to be awesome and sent most of them home with me. This is literally the first American dessert I've had in almost a year! I'm so excited, so I'm gonna stop writing now and start enjoying this delicious chocolaty goodness with some ice cold milk! You now have permission to be jealous. If you want to, also feel free to grab a piece of blue paper and draw in only black to let your subconscious express itself.

A Degrading Cycle of Destruction

Honestly not much to write about this week. Life has been normal if not just a little bit more busy than normal. As my Korean improves, my English degrades. As my English degrades, I am constantly at a loss of words. As I'm constantly at a loss for words, I begin resorting to speaking like a 5 year old. As I begin to speak like a 5 year old, I realize that life becomes much more simple. As life becomes much more simple, I realize that it actually isn't, and so I resort to thinking about things as a 5 year old. And the cycle repeats. Or the circle... Or the big round thing...

This coming week, I will be the MC for a 'play contest' that my school is doing. Each class has to write a play and perform it for my level (level 3). My co-mc has graciously not done much and left a lot of the script writing to me. It involves writing an introduction for each play, and then a few other random interview questions. There are a total of 21 classes in level 3 which means introducing 21 plays. Anytime you feel like bursting into tears while reading this and thinking of the horrible plight I've been put in, feel free. I will even take condolences in the form of lighting candles or even holding a moment of silence. Honestly though, it hasn't been that bad. Truth be told, I would rather do it myself. It takes less time not having to bounce ideas off of someone else. I've also gotten quite a bit better at typing with a Korean keyboard. I do still have trouble when I'm typing Korean because when I think of the 'm' sound, my finger moves towards the 'm' key. However, the 'm' sound in Korean is actually where the 'a' key is. It begins to mess with your mind when you start switching back and forth.

I'm really beginning to miss the lack of instruments that I can play here: none. Thankfully, there's an actually piano at the church I go to, and they are more than happy to let me use it after the service. I've been a bit occupied these past few weeks, but I definitely plan on using it a lot in the future. I'm also really considering bringing my guitar back to Korea with me when I go home. I'm sure my neighbors won't really appreciate it, but hey, what's life in a paper-thin walled apartment if not interesting.

Occasionally, I keep you up to date on the music scene here in Korea. Anytime there's a super popular song, I try to include it in my blog post. Just in case, like 'Gangnam Style', a song becomes popular in the States, you heard it from me first. This particular song has been playing for about 3 months now, and it is rare to walk down the street and not hear this song playing at least from every other store front. This particular band is fairly new to the music scene. Minus the hair coloring, what they are wearing is pretty much the current suave style in Korea right now for the 20s age group... minus the tank top and the bow-tie. Tank top suits have a better chance of coming in style than bow-ties. Interesting plug: one of the band members is actually Chinese and graduated from the language program that I am a part of now. Who knows, today it's his turn. Next year, I'll be on the cover of a pop song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3dezFzsNss

The Leaves are Changing!

It's fall here in Korea... FINALLY. A break from the constant heat and humidity and an introduction to the harsh cold of winter. As a result, the leaves are starting to change. This year, since I'm not working full time, I can appreciate them a little bit more with... MOUNTAIN CLIMBING! Korea has a lot of really cool hiking trails that I'm just now discovering. My classmate and I are going to attempt a pretty difficult climb later on this week. We are going to leave right after class at 1 and try to make it up and down the mountain before the sun sets. We're going to have to book it, but it's going to be sooo worth it. I'm really excited about it actually if the tone is not coming across in the writing.

We took midterms this past week. I've definitely had better scores, but I console myself with the knowledge that for most of them I just had some major brain farts. I just wish brain farts could be smelled, because in that case I would know when they're happening. My scores were as follows: Speaking 80.5, Listening 78, Reading 91, Writing 95.9. As usual, writing is my strongest point. And yes, the running joke that my listening needs improvement in every language blah blah blah. When my teacher gave my listening and speaking test back to me, she gave me a face like I had failed. She almost had me for a second. It doesn't cross the Korean mind that maybe a B or a high C is... I don't know, average and therefore acceptable? She kept saying, "Joe, I don't understand why your score was so low because you do so well in class." I'll add 'brain fart' to my list of Korean vocab words I need to know. Put it right in between 'stop staring at me' and 'why on earth are you walking so slow?'

I'm really enjoying the new church I'm going to too. It's very internationally focused. Trying to combine all of the cultures of the world under Christianity. It's a cool and exciting experience to see, and it's really giving me a heart for the people of the world. God has done a lot this year to show me how the rest of the world functions, and I will never forget all of the lessons I've learned and hope still to learn. I wouldn't trade this experience for anything else. I get to study a new language while learning about other world cultures and habits, and I also get to make friends with a lot of them. I like to think it has changed me for the better, but I guess I always like to think I'm changing for the better.

At church this week, we had a potluck. The idea of it was a combination of all of the different countries' harvest festivals: Thanksgiving... and all those other ones. (I'm so internationally savvy.) It was awesome! I got sooooo much free food that I didn't know what to do with it. So I quickly put it in my stomach and got more. I was going to take a picture of my plate as a representation of all the different food that was there, but my appetite shoved that thought aside a bit too quickly. I got to play a bit of piano after church today and fount out that I pretty much have nothing memorized anymore and have lost my ability to play by ear :( Oh well, nothing like starting from square one, right?

I was in Seoul with a friend and came across this temple with some kind of flower festival going on. I'm not much of one to stop and smell the roses, but this was something else. The way the had them arranged was just really cool to me. So now you get to at least pretend to enjoy the pictures. Actually, you don't even really have to pretend since I'm not there. Feel free to guffaw and cajole me all you like as you look at these pictures and experience complete and utter disappointment at both my writing and picture taking ability.

There and a While in Coming Back Again

I feel like I start too many of these with the word so, so I changed it to I to switch things up a bit. I'm going to go through things in an opposite time order as well. Or maybe just a mixed up time order... Pretty much whatever order I feel like recounting my escapades I guess. I'll start with yesterday.

I found out there was a fireworks show on the Han River yesterday, so I invited a bunch of my classmates to come with me so we could all watch it together. (A lot of my classmates are very new to Korea, so they don't have many friends yet. Otherwise, why would they hang out with me, right?) Ended up not being the night I expected, but definitely a night to remember. 

Since the show was going to start at 7:30, I thought we should get there by 6:45 so we could get a good view. Or rather my Asian female classmates. I tend to tower over people, so it really makes no difference to me. Had we known the trains were going to be tricky, we would have left sooner. Since the event was centered around one train station, I guess the city of Seoul thought it best that trains not stop there... We got on the train going there, and it skipped the station. "Odd" we thought, and got on the train going back the other way. Right before the doors closed, we heard over the announcement that this train was going to skip the station as well. (I think they were just messing with people who couldn't speak Korean. The announcement was probably something like, "Hey everyone, this train isn't going to get off at the next station, so why don't you all just step off and laugh at the foreigners with confused looks on their faces.") We were just fortunate enough to hear the "this train is not stopping at the next station" announcement. Unfortunately, however, not all of us were fortunate enough to hear that in time. Which then resulted in our group being split. 10 to 4.

Oh well, right? I didn't need 8 friends to watch it with anyway. 4 will do. So we asked the station master, just to be sure, and he said that the next train was in fact going where we wanted. After literally squishing into the train comforting ourselves with the one thought that it was only one station away, we finally arrived at our stop. By this time, it was 7:20. The Bob Jones inside of me was flipping out at this point, but I played it cool... as always. After 4 years of having to be a good 24 hours early to everything you do, being late makes you feel like you'll be hung at the gallows. If they are feeling benevolent, maybe they'll just use the guillotine. 

We were then met with the biggest crowd of people I've ever seen in my life. We couldn't even get out of the subway because it was so packed. The heat and stench were unbearable. Even though it was a good 60 degrees outside, it was probably closer to 85~90 degrees in the subway station. I now know that not only does heat rise, but stench does as well. I had a good view and smell of the whole thing. Luckily though, we picked up two more of our group while waiting in the subway. We spent a total of 12 minutes waiting in line to get out of the subway, which then put the time to 7:32

Finally, out of the subway and into... the real crowds. I wish it were light enough for me to get a good picture of just how many people were there. I now know exactly what it means to be "swept away by the crowd."  A good Calvinist would say that all things are predetermined/predestined, and that there is no straying from that which has already been set in stone. I think Calvin was stuck in one too many crowds and lashed out doctrinally. It didn't really matter where you wanted to go. You were just pushed a certain direction. However, we finally made it to the park.

Finally, a place where we can just stand and watch the fireworks... which by the way have now been going on for a good 15 minutes. After looking behind me, I realized that the "we" I referred had dwindled down to a me and one other person. Apparently the crowd had predetermined that one as well. I was fortunate enough to have the last member of our ill-fated party be someone from Hong Kong. She was able to explain a lot to me about all of the fireworks we were seeing. I had really never seen anything like it. I had no idea fireworks could actually make shapes like flowers, faces, and even letters. Apparently, the government of Hong Kong puts on an event like this 3 times a year, and the fireworks there make Chinese characters in the sky. 

There were a total of 5 different countries that put on firework displays with only a 5 minute break inbetween each display. The whole event lasted about 2 hours. The lamest one was definitely France. I'm sorry, but you American doesn't go to Germany and make schnitzel. The French fireworks were very... ordinary. Impressive, but ordinary. My Hong Kongese friend? Hong Kongan friend? (I seriously don't know how to say that.) Anyway, my friend from Hong Kong was not too impressed, so I took cue and waited for the big guns from Japan and Korea. 

I have to say that I really enjoyed the show, but getting out was another matter. The city of Seoul, once again, decided to play games and close down the subway station so that no one could go in. The police were even there to block the entrance. So, since we were on an island in the middle of the river, we walked to a bridge, walked across the Han river, and walked to the closest subway station there and took the train. For those of you who don't know, the Han river is HUGE. 

Once we got back, we met up with most of the members of our ill-fated party and went to eat Korean BBQ, and just talked. Since the most ill-fated portion of our group came much later at the expense of the city of Seoul's humor, they weren't able to really see anything because the crowd pushed them into a bunch of trees. Needless to say, the fireworks show was not the topic of our conversation last night. Rather, I tried to explain why US lawmakers shut down the government and why they fight over nothing. If I knew the answers, I might have been successful.

OK, let's go back a little bit more. Now rewind your brains back to September 19th. What were you doing that day? Maybe working? Nothing? Getting the booger that'd been bugging you? That day in Korea is known as Chuseok, which is their version of Thanksgiving. It follows a lunar calendar, so just incase you remember to pick your nose on September 19th next year, it's just like every other day. Sorry. Anyway, my friends and I decided that we would go to an amusement park, cause who would go to an amusement park on Thanksgiving day, right? 

Wrong. Whereas there were very few Koreans there, it seemed that we weren't the only foreigners with that idea. I had no idea there were sooooo many Southeast Asians in Korea. I saw maybe 10 other white people the whole day. Everyone else was from Southeast Asia or China. So, we spent our holiday walking around a park too packed to wait in any lines. "Hmmm... should we wait 2 hours for the little spinny ride? Nah, let's keep walking around and pretend like we're having fun." I went on a total of 3 rides that day. "Are we having fun yet?"

Luckily, they had a zoo there, which is hard to form lines for, so we mostly just hung out in that section and watched monkeys fling poo around. They even had exhibits for dogs. No joke. "The extremely rare Chihuahua is considered a pet in some countries. Notice how the teeth come back to reveal a mouth and tongue. These dogs also make delectable snacks if stewed properly." 

Now, fast forward to today. I played soccer with the Koreans like normal, but after we were done playing, one of the 30 year-olds in the group came up to me and wants me to meet with him every week so that I can practice speaking Korean to him/he's going to teach me how to speak better/hopefully I will suck less as time goes on kind of a thing. It's really really nice of him to take time out of his day like that to help me with this. I'm really grateful for the friends I've made there. Even though I can't communicate that much with them yet, I can tell that they are really kind and want to help me.