Monday, Oct 14

Ahh. Today were the writing and listening portions of the midterm. I MIGHT have passed writing. I MIGHT have done okay. But I think maybe I just passed. Listening?? HA HA HA HA HA. No. The dialogues are SO FAST. I can’t keep up At All.

But at least we were done early…3:30 vs 5:30, and that was nice. I went out to eat locally with a friend and had a nice relaxing bottle of soju.

Then I went home and slightly-drunk studied. Which for me, is about as effective as sober-studying.

Tuesday, Oct 15

ice cream = happiness

Did I think I did poorly on the reading, writing, and listening midterm tests?? Ohhhh…I’ve surpassed even myself today with speaking. Well, the SPEAKING I could have done, if only I could have understood the test-giver (not our usual teacher). But she spoke SO fast…and was muffled behind a mask…I couldn’t understand any one complete sentence.

There was a part where she showed me pictures of people wearing clothes (ha ha thank goodness) and I had to say like “the man is wearing a light blue buttondown shirt with a green necktie, glasses, a watch, and a brown briefcase.” There are different verbs for each category of wearing – like wearing something on your head is a different than wearing something around your neck, over your shoulder, around your waist, on your wrist, fingers, feet, in your hand, etc. THOSE I knew. But not like any of the rest of it. And she was one of those teachers who, if you don’t answer right away, or don’t answer correctly, she immediately starts repeating the question over and over again…and (in my head) I’m like PLEASE STOP TALKING!!! Just let me have a moment of silence so I can focus on my own thoughts! But you can’t say that…so the correct answer just gets further and further away.

Sigh.

But again, got home really early – my test time was 2-2:10…and I was home by 2:20. I went to the kitchen to make ramen in peanut sauce…and got scolded by one of the cleaning ladies when she came in and saw I was using the rice cooker pot to boil the water. I didn’t know! It was in the dish drain with other pots! I was so happy for once there was a larger pot. Most of the pots are so small, even just for ramen…it’s like there’s not enough room for the noodles to move around in the boiling water. Anyway. After she grabbed it off the stove and rewashed it (it only had water in it), then she stayed in there cleaning the rest of the time I was making my food and I felt like she was judging watching everything I did. Sigh.

It’s not my day.

I think I’m going to to take tomorrow off. I need a mental health day…plus, time is passing Very Fast and there are so many “fall” things I want to do! I hate only going places on the weekends cuz Everyone Does All the Things and EVERYWHERE is So Crowded on the weekends!

So, I’m planning a trip out of Seoul to FINALLY see the pink muhly grass. It’s a big farm about 90 minutes north of Seoul…the bus looks relatively easy to navigate (knock on wood).

I just keep going back and forth…if I miss class tomorrow, Thursday will be that much harder for me. I have to weigh the pleasure:humiliation ratio. I know if I go, it will be good. But I will pay for it. If I DON’T go, and go to class tomorrow instead…I will definitely have FOMO…but will the humiliation level necassarily be lower??

Wednesday, Oct 16

On weeks when not much is going on, food takes on a lot of importance. This is a corn dog with mozzarella AND cheddar cheese…sprinkled with…are you ready? SUGAR. It sounds so wrong, but it’s so so right.

I did take the day off. Did I go to muhly grass land? I did not. I talked myself out of it. I don’t WANT to go on a far journey by myself when I have to transfer 3 times and who knows if there’s ubers up there in the boonies and what if I get far away and my phone decides to stop working again? I am really not cut out fo traveling.

Instead, I stayed home and STUDIED. I did the grammar and vocab I was missing in class that day. It’s actually better when I do it that way because I have TIME to understand things and practice and memorize.

I was punished for playing hooky by getting stabbed repeatedly in the left ear with an ice pick. Do people still have ice picks? We always had several ice picks. This was long before automatic ice makers. You had to take the trays out and run them under warm water for JUST a second, long enough to loosen them so they’d come out. We had metal trays with a crank thing  that made the section dividers move and sort of push the cubes out. But that second of warm water was just enough to melt the ice the teensiest bit, so when you’d dump the cubes into the ice bin and put it back in the freezer, they cubes would refreeze and stick together. Hence, ice pick!

Anyway, I had a fierce ear/gum/left side of face ache. I endured it for about 24 hours until…

Thursday, Oct 17

…on Thursday I discovered I had some decongestants and I read somewhere they might help. So, Tylenol + Sudafed helped enough that I went to class. It was a beautiful clear day…and there was supposed to be a super moon.

I went up on the roof at sunset and waited and waited and waited…I finally saw a little glow of light from behind the tall dormitory next to my goshiwon…and in a few minutes the teeny little dot moon brought itself into view. I missed the whole thing. Stupid tall dormitory.

Friday, Oct 18

I can’t remember what happened, but something set me off enough that I skipped class again. Honestly, the meds weren’t working so well and I hadn’t slept much. So I stayed home and continued learning stuff on my own.

I got the notification late in the day that the DMZ tour was still on YAY so I packed up for that. I THOUGHT it was a much longer trip. I packed my bag like I was going away for the weekend. Turns out the DMZ is less than an hour from Seoul. Good (??) to know.

Sat, Oct 19

Not North Korea. You’re not allowed to take pictures towards North Korea, nor in many spots within the DMZ. This is from outside the observatory (from which you could see into North Korea), but facing south. South Korea.

Got up bright and…well, dark and early to get to the bus meeting spot by 7am. Up at 5, uber at 6, tour bus at 7. I was the first one on the bus (having arrived ridiculously early, but you know what I say…better to have an umbrella and not need it, than to need it and not have it) so I got the primo seat. It ended up being a full tour, so someone did sit next to me. A South African man with his daughter – she sat in the row just ahead of us. But he was chatty and interesting. They recently moved to New Zealand. The daughter has been obsessed with Korea her whole life, so…here they were for a week together in Seoul.

The funny (not funny) part was…I was thinking he was…a little younger than I am. We had to put our passpaort names and dates of birth on a sign-in sheet that got passed around the bus. He did it first then handed it to me. I was born in 1960. He was born in 1978! I was graduating from high school the year he was BORN…and here I was thinking we were not that far apart in age. Ha. This is why people that are actually my age look/seem So Old to me!!!

During the out-of-the-bus portions of the tour I ended up chatting a lot with a young Singaporean man who just recently moved to Austin, Texas, but was on a work trip in Seoul and had some time to explore. It was nice being surrounded by ENGLISH all day, and nice to be able to speak with people from other countries.

Anyway, I’m going to write a separate blog post about the DMZ tour, but suffice it to say it was a nice day, in spite of some disappointments. It was nice being shepherded around by a knowledgable person, not having to worry about transfering three times and maybe never making it home again. I think I will book more tours. They have their shortcomings, you sort of hurry through everything so you can see All The Things…but it’s a day out of Dodge, new people, new scenery, with none of the stress of traveling alone.

I was exhausted by the time I got home, and a little crippled from a lot of walking and the HILLS, one was literally a mountain. I think I was in bed by 7:30pm!

Sun, Oct 20

A Sunday picture. I’ve been at least trying to get up on the roof on days that I don’t leave the building. Just to see sky and feel air.

Just stayed home and took it easy today. My knee was a little tweaked from yesterday so I thought I should give my body a rest day. I did some studying and remote work, read for a bit…and tried to mentally prepare myself for a full week ahead of classes. Oh, my ear/face ache has subsided…as it always does. People are like GO TO THE DOCTOR. The dr will give me antibiotics and say take these and the pain should be gone in a few days. Well, WITHOUT the antibiotics the pain is gone in a few days. If they’d give me something to relieve the pain,  I would go, but that’s not what they do. Take my money and time for the same result I get on my own. Pheh.

Okay. See ya later love ya bye.