Mon, Dec 30

Korea is certainly having its share of issues – this time, the terrible tragedy of the airplane crashing and killing over 170 people. Those poor families 🙁

The (3rd) president (in the past month) declared a period of mourning in Korea through January 4. New Year’s celebrations have been cancelled or significantly down-sized. End-of-year award shows have been cancelled. I think this is only the 3rd time that Korea has ever called for a period of national mourning.

Also, President Jimmy Carter passed away, but y’all probably already heard that. I don’t honestly know about his politics (I was still living under a rock) but he always seemed like a good man.

In other news, it was a very mild day and I went for a walk.

Tuesday, Dec 31

School. New Year’s Eve. Didn’t go out, just stayed home, quiet. Gave myself the evening off from studying.

Wed, Jan 1, 2025

It’s here! It’s here! 2025 is here!

Wow.

Spent the morning working on some things I’m…well, working on, ha ha. It’s all part of my New Year’s Resolution(s), but that’s for an upcoming post so the 2025 cat has to stay in the bag for now.

I did get out of the house and took about a 30-minute bus ride to get hotteok which is YUM. Fried doughy pancake filled with cinnamon and honey and seeds and nuts. You get them fresh out of the fryer, so hot you burn your tongue and are uncomfortable for days, but it’s worth it. Hotteok is a very popular winter-time street food, but it’s quite hard to find.

Well. That was the PLAN. As so often happens, the afternoon was a comedy of errors. The first bus just never came. There are digital boards that show which busses are coming when…and I watched it countdown from 12 minutes away, to 10, to 8…down to 3…and then it went back up to 12…and it had just never come. So I waited the 12 minutes again…and the same thing happened. So I found another bus I could get from that stop…it just left me off further from my destination, so more walking. Okay whatever. I followed the walking directions when I got off the bus…but when I turned off the main road into the little warren of alleyways going every direction, I got…confused. I walked in several circles looking for the place…by Naver maps, it should have been Right THERE. I walked past a line of people outside one restaurant like 4 times. I walked up a little dead end road three times cuz it seemed like the way to go. Nope. UGH. FINALLY I realized that the little messy food stand up against the side of the building with the line of people was it. And it was very much closed. In the pictures online it looked…not BIG, but bigger than THIS…

Sigh.

So I had to just head back to the bus. Fortunately I passed a Starbucks so I stopped in for a grapefruit honey black ice tea and a bagel and got to sit for a bit before I continued on to the bus home…and the trip home went without flaws.

A friend asked how 2025 was going so far. Seems pretty much like 2024.

Thur, Jan 2

Annnnd…I hit the wall on my productive period, ha ha. Maybe cuz I was physically tired from yesterday? But I just couldn’t get up at 7am as I have been for about the past 10 days (except for weekends).

Anyway, I walked over to the main language building to drop off my last (#sadface) visa extension application. Sigh. That makes “the end is near” feel very real. I have 8 more months, give or take a few days, depending on what date immigration sends back to me.

Eight. More. Months.

🙁

Fri, Jan 3

Argh, I couldn’t understand most of what she was saying, cuz…Korean…but essentially the teacher said starting Monday we were going to be in the language building at the top of the hill. The mile walk one. With the hill. The long hill. The HILL. I’m so aggravated! I’m HOPING it’s just while they’re doing construction around our current building – they’ve been regrading and re-doing the parking lot and road…and maybe they just don’t want people walking through while they’re working. HOPEFULLY we can go back there when they’re done. So now next week is the stress of TESTS EVERY DAY and now also the long walk and the hill and the sweating and plus it’s supposed to get colder next week DAMMIT.

Sat, Jan 4

Study Study Study. Fight with TikTok. Go for a quick walk after dark just so I can feel the air.

Sun, Jan 5

Snow! Snow Surprise! It was pretty and I went for a quick walk…til the slushy wet started to reach my feet. I STILL do not have winter shoes/boots.

Well, that was a pretty uneventful week. The next four days are tests and more tests. So stressful. Plus, of course THIS is the week it’s finally getting winter-cold, down into the single digits a couple times – now that I have to trek across campus and up the hill. I don’t recognize the room #, so I also have to have the “is it going to be one of the tiny rooms with the attached student desks that I don’t fit into so I just have to stand there then tell the teacher I don’t fit and she has to go search for a chair for me” stress.

It’s too much.

See ya later luv ya bye.