Today was an incredible day. I don't have the time to write about it now, but rest assured...it was incredible. One of those "faith in humanity" restoring days. The fact of the matter is though, that I'm leaving for China in 40 minutes....except a full update later.
-Reven
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Day 30- Hats and Burgers
So, I woke up later today due to lack of sleep prior and seeing no one else awake, I meandered off towards Wangsimni (which is the hot spot for college kids) and ate lunch at a local burger place called "Lotteteria." Lotte is a giant company in Korea spanning food and department stores (as we'll see later).
I had a burger, fries and a drink, standard attire. The beef tasted different than usual, but whatever. The beef here does taste different overall- not better or worse- just different. This is a shot of the interior of the Lotteteria. It was quiet mostly. I've noticed that kids here are a lot less...bratty? I mean, they may occasionally cry and be annoying to their parents but NOT to the extent in the US. Even though there were quite a few toddlers in the restaurant, they were all very chill and just sitting there quietly. It was quite striking coming from a place where squalling toddlers and children are just assumed to fill a niche in the American Ecosystem.
Deciding to take a rest on a street bench, I sat down and this older gentleman. He was nice, I guess. He started to talking to me in Korean and I didn't understand most of what he said, but I explained (in broken Korean) that I was a student at Hanyang and also from the US. He understood this and started to explain how he goes to Hanyang for medical treatment (to the point of me showing the medicine that he takes as a result). Eventually, I had to leave him, but he was quite pleasant.
I randomly decided to walk into a 7-11 and there I ran into Taylor (aka Fat Albert + Kanye...perhaps Albert West would be a better name? VOTE NOW!) along with two other students from the program. I walked up to him and greeted him. He seemed confused why I went to lunch alone and made the implication that I like going alone to meals and I didn't like people there. Gritting my teeth and almost saying that "Well, gee Taylor. It's not 'people' here, I don't like- just you." I merely smirked and said "No one else was around and I was hungry." He walked away in a huff.
What a joke.
Anyways, I headed back to the dorms and ran into Jim. He was going out to this Konkuk University stop and grabbing dinner there. Not wanting to stay in my room for the day (which led to me not typing up a story), I decided to go. I hoped that Taylor wouldn't end up with our group and thankfully that hope was carried out.
The other people in my group (other than Jim) were Nancy (Jim's girlfriend), Campbell, Libby and Miranda. Incidentally all people from my school. The other two people from my school, Taylor and Jane, were not especially missed by the others...and me.
We grabbed dinner at Valence Burger, a local burger place, which while it is pricey- they have arguably some of the best burgers I have ever had. The picture nearby is the "So Hot" Burger which includes BBQ sauce, tomato, cheese, chili, onion, pickles and the like. To the right are Garlic fries- fries covered in this garlic sauce and hot sauce. That picture was from a previous visit. The current visit, I kept with the So Hot and opted for Chili fries which came with cheese, onions and probably a pound of ground beef on it. Valance..you rock. Just...seriously.
We took the subway to the Konkuk University station and decided to wander about. The first thing we saw was the Lotte Department store (Pictured here). We saw that it was a huge building, but we questioned whether all of it was a department store. Then we got in.
Ten floors of clothes. Yes. Ten. And it wasn't just like Joe Department store. This was top of the line stuff and while I can't remember brands, seeing a pair of jeans for around W110,000 ($110) should give you an idea of what the prices were like. And we only really got to the fourth floor. The prices increased as we ascended the building and personally I'm kinda happy we didn't make it all the way up due to the store closing just so I could not seen stuff I couldn't afford would desire to purchase.
An added bonus was that given our party size (six), we ended up pairing up together quite often. More of a bonus was that 95% of the time, Miranda was chatting me up and or walking around pretty much in step with me. Yes, an ego boost to be certain. Again, I'm still amazed at this change as a month ago, she was pretty cold to me and I was more often than not irritated with her. And here we are a month later grabbing dinner, coffee and wandering the streets of Seoul together. Hopefully we'll end up going to Seoul Tower together (local sight) upon returning from China as the rest of the group (maybe except for Campbell) had already gone there.
Oh, and here's a picture of our group:
Far side of the table: Miranda, Nancy, Jim
Near side of the table: Empty Chair of Yours Truly, Campbell, Libby
Oh, and we all got hats. We randomly stopped by a street vender and the consensus was that all of a sudden we should buy hats. Not having made any rash purchases recently, I joined in (why not?). The end result was me wearing something that looks like a Gatsby hat (or Newsboy hat). Campbell ended up with a similar looking one, Jim had something that looked like a Boater and Libby and Nancy ended up wearing a BFH each (Big Floppy Hat). I'll upload the pictures when they post them to Facebook. Miranda opted out of getting a hat, saying that she's not a hat person and that it'd mess up her hair, but to concede to our goofy headgear, she bought (and wore simultaneously) two headbands that matched her shirt.
Later, we set off fireworks we had bought around Konkuk and drank down by the river. Good times indeed. Things are definitely changing. We'll just see what the next step is. Looking for the Orthodox church here tomorrow. I hope that I can find it.
-Reven
I had a burger, fries and a drink, standard attire. The beef tasted different than usual, but whatever. The beef here does taste different overall- not better or worse- just different. This is a shot of the interior of the Lotteteria. It was quiet mostly. I've noticed that kids here are a lot less...bratty? I mean, they may occasionally cry and be annoying to their parents but NOT to the extent in the US. Even though there were quite a few toddlers in the restaurant, they were all very chill and just sitting there quietly. It was quite striking coming from a place where squalling toddlers and children are just assumed to fill a niche in the American Ecosystem.Deciding to take a rest on a street bench, I sat down and this older gentleman. He was nice, I guess. He started to talking to me in Korean and I didn't understand most of what he said, but I explained (in broken Korean) that I was a student at Hanyang and also from the US. He understood this and started to explain how he goes to Hanyang for medical treatment (to the point of me showing the medicine that he takes as a result). Eventually, I had to leave him, but he was quite pleasant.
I randomly decided to walk into a 7-11 and there I ran into Taylor (aka Fat Albert + Kanye...perhaps Albert West would be a better name? VOTE NOW!) along with two other students from the program. I walked up to him and greeted him. He seemed confused why I went to lunch alone and made the implication that I like going alone to meals and I didn't like people there. Gritting my teeth and almost saying that "Well, gee Taylor. It's not 'people' here, I don't like- just you." I merely smirked and said "No one else was around and I was hungry." He walked away in a huff.
What a joke.
Anyways, I headed back to the dorms and ran into Jim. He was going out to this Konkuk University stop and grabbing dinner there. Not wanting to stay in my room for the day (which led to me not typing up a story), I decided to go. I hoped that Taylor wouldn't end up with our group and thankfully that hope was carried out.
The other people in my group (other than Jim) were Nancy (Jim's girlfriend), Campbell, Libby and Miranda. Incidentally all people from my school. The other two people from my school, Taylor and Jane, were not especially missed by the others...and me.
We grabbed dinner at Valence Burger, a local burger place, which while it is pricey- they have arguably some of the best burgers I have ever had. The picture nearby is the "So Hot" Burger which includes BBQ sauce, tomato, cheese, chili, onion, pickles and the like. To the right are Garlic fries- fries covered in this garlic sauce and hot sauce. That picture was from a previous visit. The current visit, I kept with the So Hot and opted for Chili fries which came with cheese, onions and probably a pound of ground beef on it. Valance..you rock. Just...seriously. 
We took the subway to the Konkuk University station and decided to wander about. The first thing we saw was the Lotte Department store (Pictured here). We saw that it was a huge building, but we questioned whether all of it was a department store. Then we got in. Ten floors of clothes. Yes. Ten. And it wasn't just like Joe Department store. This was top of the line stuff and while I can't remember brands, seeing a pair of jeans for around W110,000 ($110) should give you an idea of what the prices were like. And we only really got to the fourth floor. The prices increased as we ascended the building and personally I'm kinda happy we didn't make it all the way up due to the store closing just so I could not seen stuff I couldn't afford would desire to purchase.
An added bonus was that given our party size (six), we ended up pairing up together quite often. More of a bonus was that 95% of the time, Miranda was chatting me up and or walking around pretty much in step with me. Yes, an ego boost to be certain. Again, I'm still amazed at this change as a month ago, she was pretty cold to me and I was more often than not irritated with her. And here we are a month later grabbing dinner, coffee and wandering the streets of Seoul together. Hopefully we'll end up going to Seoul Tower together (local sight) upon returning from China as the rest of the group (maybe except for Campbell) had already gone there.
Oh, and here's a picture of our group:
Far side of the table: Miranda, Nancy, Jim
Near side of the table: Empty Chair of Yours Truly, Campbell, Libby
Oh, and we all got hats. We randomly stopped by a street vender and the consensus was that all of a sudden we should buy hats. Not having made any rash purchases recently, I joined in (why not?). The end result was me wearing something that looks like a Gatsby hat (or Newsboy hat). Campbell ended up with a similar looking one, Jim had something that looked like a Boater and Libby and Nancy ended up wearing a BFH each (Big Floppy Hat). I'll upload the pictures when they post them to Facebook. Miranda opted out of getting a hat, saying that she's not a hat person and that it'd mess up her hair, but to concede to our goofy headgear, she bought (and wore simultaneously) two headbands that matched her shirt.
Later, we set off fireworks we had bought around Konkuk and drank down by the river. Good times indeed. Things are definitely changing. We'll just see what the next step is. Looking for the Orthodox church here tomorrow. I hope that I can find it.
-Reven
Friday, July 23, 2010
Day 29-" As We Go On..."
"We remember...all the times we....had together..."
Ok, ok. I'm stopping now. Today was graduation day at Hanyang University for us Summer school students (as noted by the song lyrics...which should be familiar to most 90s kids). Interestingly enough, it was also the same day as our finals. So, the question remains: "Why did we graduate before our final grades were known?"
Anyways, the obvious question non-withstanding, the History exam wasn't that bad. Ten questions long, most of them single concept phrases (ie a person, place, idea) like "Who instituted the Kabo Reforms in Korea?" (Answer: Japan). I guess it also wasn't that bad in the case of if you do not know it immediately, you do not know it. Either way, it made for a short test. I think I got most of the answers, but tried to finagle some points here and there.
Campbell exited the exam before I did (though that was honestly because he didn't know the answers) as did Miranda (she may have, I'm not sure). I got done in about thirty to forty minutes, so as far as final exams go, that's not too bad.
I ended up studying for the next few hours before Language for the exam right outside the room. Miranda was seated across the hallway from me. We were basically the only people around. I chatted with her every once in awhile but I would've liked to had a more extensive dialogue. Though, considering that both of us were cramming for an exam that both we had doubts of us being able to pass, silence was probably the better option. We both kind of hopes that it would be not too bad...
So, the history wasn't that bad. As for the language test however...a bit more daunting. It was broken up into two halves- a written portion and a spoken portion, which make up 60% and 20% of our final grade. Thankfully, the remaining 20% is attendance, which I could honestly say I rocked! So, I needed to get a 50% on the exam overall in order to pass the class. *inhales* Hoboy.
So, the written portion was intimidating to say the least. It was nine pages long, with multiple choice dialogue options (ie Reven says something, which of the following should be Miranda's response?) with the last page being a ten sentence essay. Now, that doesn't sound that bad (the essay). However...yikes. I just wrote loosely strung together sentences about how I liked bulgogi (Korean beef dish) and shopping at COEX. So, with the ninty minutes that we had for that exam, I at least put something down for all of the blanks.
As time was drawing close to an end for the written portion, our teacher asked if we needed extra time. I looked up at her and down at my exam, laughed and said "I'm not sure it's going to make a difference." This was the truth, not an emo backlash. I was laughing at several points during the exam because I realized that it was just that difficult. And then came the time for listening. Rut row...
Gulping, we each picked a number out of a hat for the speaking portion. I got six (out of nine) which was where I wanted to be (preferably four or so, but six was ok) as I did not want to go first nor did I want to be sitting around nervously for the next half hour, waiting.
Though, as it turned out the spoken was not that bad. The teacher guided me through the dialogue and helped me out when I needed it. I think I did well, all things considered.
Since we were such a small class, we kinda bonded well. Here's a picture of those in our class:
So, Front row (L to R)- Kendra, Miranda, Naru, Mizuki, Krizia
Second row (L to R)- Benji, Nadia, Yours Truly
Third row- Brian
So, yeah. A stunning group, aren't we? After the final, most of the people left, save for the teacher, Brian, Miranda and me. So, the four of us played a traditional Korean game called Yut. The idea is that you throw four sticks, (that are flat on one end, curved on the other) and depending on which way the sticks fall (flat is good, curved is bad), you move your token a number of spaces on a board. Now, it's also like the game Sorry (which is the most insincere title of a game EVER, ahem...) where if you land on the same board space as your opponent you can replace your token with theirs. I'm over simplifying but that's the basic gist.
Now, the thing that makes it unique are the existence of penalty spaces on the board. At the start of the game, each player writes a few penalties for the game. These can range from tame to not so tame. For example, common ones were "do the monkey" (the dance) and sing.
I thought I was a bit more clever and put ones like "stand on your chair for the rest of the game" and "cough every time the opposing team rolls three or above." This picture is an example of the former, with Brian standing. This wouldn't be too bad except Brian soon got a "Dance" penalty and had to dance on the precariously leaning chair. Poor Bryan. Miranda later got the same punishment as well. Tee hee.
Anyways, the teacher also bought us ice cream as we played along. I really liked her and she seem really nice. I felt somewhat bad for her that more people did not stay, but less bad when I remember that that got me more ice cream.
After that, we had the graduation ceremony where we wore black caps and gowns (yes, just like US high school graduation style) and "graduated." There was no official reading of the names; we basically just picked up our certificates and took off. My kind of graduation!
They had a few special awards for students and showed the camp promotional video for next year that was a recap of this years events. I was (to my dismay/horror) was featured in a good number of shots. I look spaced out whenever I'm on screen to say the least. Also, in an ironic twist of me not posting the bandanna picture on here and in fact not even wanting it to surface in any way shape or form, I'm wearing the damn bandanna in the promotional video at two different point. I almost laughed out loud, which greatly confused the people sitting next to me. I'm going to try to get a copy of that video, almost solely for that reason.
While I found that little piece of irony delicious, I realized that it could have been much worse. Case in point, Jane, one of the girls from my school, is featured predominantly during the Baseball game portion and it is obvious that she's had a few too many sips of soju, if you know what I mean.
After the graduation, the broadcasting class groups showed their documentaries, which had been driving anyone in the broadcasting class insane for the past week and a half for a ten minute documentary. There were four altogether and they were all excellent- one was on Arirang (Korean folk song and what it means to different generations), one on the underground music scene in Korea, one on foreigners living in Korea and one about pedophiles in Seoul (basically Seoul has a HUGE problem with pedos and the documentary focused on the facts and what people think should be done about it- chemical castration was the most popular answer followed by execution). Again, these were all top notch and worth the time.
I went out that evening with people from my college and Miranda seemed very buddy-buddy, which I was over-the-moon about (have I used enough hyphens yet?). It is odd. Ever since that night with the Jaggerbombs, she's been walking up to me and starting conversations which hadn't happened prior. Let's contrast that with her icy attitude towards me when we came over on the plane. Big differences.
I hung out with that group for awhile and headed back around 1 (found out they got in around 6 or so "and that was the early group!), so I'm alright with that.
It's kind of weird. I do feel more optimistic. I find myself listening to Cheap Trick (any guesses as to the song?) and the song Reflections from Mass Effect 2's soundtrack. Life is good. :)
Today, I'll write one of the six short stories I've thought of since I came here (but lacked the time to actually write it). So...be prepared to review, Kat!
-Reven
Ok, ok. I'm stopping now. Today was graduation day at Hanyang University for us Summer school students (as noted by the song lyrics...which should be familiar to most 90s kids). Interestingly enough, it was also the same day as our finals. So, the question remains: "Why did we graduate before our final grades were known?"Anyways, the obvious question non-withstanding, the History exam wasn't that bad. Ten questions long, most of them single concept phrases (ie a person, place, idea) like "Who instituted the Kabo Reforms in Korea?" (Answer: Japan). I guess it also wasn't that bad in the case of if you do not know it immediately, you do not know it. Either way, it made for a short test. I think I got most of the answers, but tried to finagle some points here and there.
Campbell exited the exam before I did (though that was honestly because he didn't know the answers) as did Miranda (she may have, I'm not sure). I got done in about thirty to forty minutes, so as far as final exams go, that's not too bad.
I ended up studying for the next few hours before Language for the exam right outside the room. Miranda was seated across the hallway from me. We were basically the only people around. I chatted with her every once in awhile but I would've liked to had a more extensive dialogue. Though, considering that both of us were cramming for an exam that both we had doubts of us being able to pass, silence was probably the better option. We both kind of hopes that it would be not too bad...
So, the history wasn't that bad. As for the language test however...a bit more daunting. It was broken up into two halves- a written portion and a spoken portion, which make up 60% and 20% of our final grade. Thankfully, the remaining 20% is attendance, which I could honestly say I rocked! So, I needed to get a 50% on the exam overall in order to pass the class. *inhales* Hoboy.
So, the written portion was intimidating to say the least. It was nine pages long, with multiple choice dialogue options (ie Reven says something, which of the following should be Miranda's response?) with the last page being a ten sentence essay. Now, that doesn't sound that bad (the essay). However...yikes. I just wrote loosely strung together sentences about how I liked bulgogi (Korean beef dish) and shopping at COEX. So, with the ninty minutes that we had for that exam, I at least put something down for all of the blanks.
As time was drawing close to an end for the written portion, our teacher asked if we needed extra time. I looked up at her and down at my exam, laughed and said "I'm not sure it's going to make a difference." This was the truth, not an emo backlash. I was laughing at several points during the exam because I realized that it was just that difficult. And then came the time for listening. Rut row...
Gulping, we each picked a number out of a hat for the speaking portion. I got six (out of nine) which was where I wanted to be (preferably four or so, but six was ok) as I did not want to go first nor did I want to be sitting around nervously for the next half hour, waiting.
Though, as it turned out the spoken was not that bad. The teacher guided me through the dialogue and helped me out when I needed it. I think I did well, all things considered.
Since we were such a small class, we kinda bonded well. Here's a picture of those in our class:
So, Front row (L to R)- Kendra, Miranda, Naru, Mizuki, Krizia
Second row (L to R)- Benji, Nadia, Yours Truly
Third row- Brian
So, yeah. A stunning group, aren't we? After the final, most of the people left, save for the teacher, Brian, Miranda and me. So, the four of us played a traditional Korean game called Yut. The idea is that you throw four sticks, (that are flat on one end, curved on the other) and depending on which way the sticks fall (flat is good, curved is bad), you move your token a number of spaces on a board. Now, it's also like the game Sorry (which is the most insincere title of a game EVER, ahem...) where if you land on the same board space as your opponent you can replace your token with theirs. I'm over simplifying but that's the basic gist. Now, the thing that makes it unique are the existence of penalty spaces on the board. At the start of the game, each player writes a few penalties for the game. These can range from tame to not so tame. For example, common ones were "do the monkey" (the dance) and sing.
I thought I was a bit more clever and put ones like "stand on your chair for the rest of the game" and "cough every time the opposing team rolls three or above." This picture is an example of the former, with Brian standing. This wouldn't be too bad except Brian soon got a "Dance" penalty and had to dance on the precariously leaning chair. Poor Bryan. Miranda later got the same punishment as well. Tee hee.Anyways, the teacher also bought us ice cream as we played along. I really liked her and she seem really nice. I felt somewhat bad for her that more people did not stay, but less bad when I remember that that got me more ice cream.
After that, we had the graduation ceremony where we wore black caps and gowns (yes, just like US high school graduation style) and "graduated." There was no official reading of the names; we basically just picked up our certificates and took off. My kind of graduation!
They had a few special awards for students and showed the camp promotional video for next year that was a recap of this years events. I was (to my dismay/horror) was featured in a good number of shots. I look spaced out whenever I'm on screen to say the least. Also, in an ironic twist of me not posting the bandanna picture on here and in fact not even wanting it to surface in any way shape or form, I'm wearing the damn bandanna in the promotional video at two different point. I almost laughed out loud, which greatly confused the people sitting next to me. I'm going to try to get a copy of that video, almost solely for that reason. While I found that little piece of irony delicious, I realized that it could have been much worse. Case in point, Jane, one of the girls from my school, is featured predominantly during the Baseball game portion and it is obvious that she's had a few too many sips of soju, if you know what I mean.
After the graduation, the broadcasting class groups showed their documentaries, which had been driving anyone in the broadcasting class insane for the past week and a half for a ten minute documentary. There were four altogether and they were all excellent- one was on Arirang (Korean folk song and what it means to different generations), one on the underground music scene in Korea, one on foreigners living in Korea and one about pedophiles in Seoul (basically Seoul has a HUGE problem with pedos and the documentary focused on the facts and what people think should be done about it- chemical castration was the most popular answer followed by execution). Again, these were all top notch and worth the time.
I went out that evening with people from my college and Miranda seemed very buddy-buddy, which I was over-the-moon about (have I used enough hyphens yet?). It is odd. Ever since that night with the Jaggerbombs, she's been walking up to me and starting conversations which hadn't happened prior. Let's contrast that with her icy attitude towards me when we came over on the plane. Big differences.
I hung out with that group for awhile and headed back around 1 (found out they got in around 6 or so "and that was the early group!), so I'm alright with that.
It's kind of weird. I do feel more optimistic. I find myself listening to Cheap Trick (any guesses as to the song?) and the song Reflections from Mass Effect 2's soundtrack. Life is good. :)
Today, I'll write one of the six short stories I've thought of since I came here (but lacked the time to actually write it). So...be prepared to review, Kat!
-Reven
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Day 28- Epiphanies
So, classes went normally today for the most part. History was about North Korea which seems to have an easier history (as in easier to remember, the history of the country has been rather difficult) and remembering the leaders wasn't quite that difficult as there have only been a couple- Kim Jong Il and his father. The final for that is tomorrow and when we asked the teacher about the exam, she basically admitted that she lowered the difficulty of the exam from the midterm level. Why did you do that, asked the class, did we screw up the midterm that badly?
Err, she said, and abruptly changed the subject.
Yikes. And she never gave us the exams back either so...yikes.
As for language, final in there tomorrow as well, though I am not especially too worried about the exam even though the class is much harder than history for me. The teacher just seems so nice that I doubt she'd fail any of us even if we really screwed up. Now, I'm not going to slack off in the slightest (rather, I'll work harder) but I'm not concerned about failing it.
So, as I alluded to the other day, I had a few epiphanies- three to be exact and I'll probably go over them in order of impact from arguably least to greatest.
First up, I've sorta come to the conclusion that I like Miranda. This little discovery occurred a few days ago while drinking a Jaggerbomb with her and a few other people and looking across the table at her and realizing "Hey...she's cute, really intelligent and interesting. I like her." I'm not sure if this is a recent development or just me *realizing* it is recent. The ironic thing is that I can think that it was only two or so weeks ago that I was grumbling about her snarkiness and whatnot and here I find myself fully realizing that I like her.
Anyways, I've been talking to her more over the course of this trip and she seems to have warmed up to me a great deal since her terse responses at the airport 27 days ago. Maybe it's mutual? In any event, at least I know where I mentally stand with her and who knows? Maybe something will come of it. I haven't asked any girls out since Aerith (NOT the fictional character, a girl from the last school year) burned me really bad spring quarter. Perhaps this needs to change soon.
Next, I came to the realization that I have a bad self image of myself. Ok, possibly I'm overstating the obvious, however I really do. While I view myself as an anti-social nerd with bad people skills, maybe that isn't the impression that everyone else is getting. I was talking to Brian the other day and I basically described myself as a huge nerd. He disagreed saying that he never got that impression from me. Confused, I didn't press him any further on the issue. But, me? Not a dorky nerd? How could *that* be? It's been my archetype for years!
At around the same time, I was talking to another friend, Riley (female) online and describing my relationship issues (this was pre-Miranda) and I made the joke that I'm only popular with the ladies when I'm a foreigner. Riley laughed at that, but said that I don't nearly give myself enough credit and that I really don't know how much I have going for me. Confused, but not willing to pursue the matter any further, I dropped it and pondered it.
So, perhaps I'm more than a nerd after all. Maybe I have people skills and more assets than I really realize. As Riley said "I've seen how you pack and I know that there is more than enough room for some confidence." This is perhaps true. Maybe if I finally unlocked some confidence, I'd see a lot of things change. Or, maybe not so much see things change, but have my outlook change and realize how things really are. That's probably a sentence fragment or something, but the point stands.
The last thing is linked to the one above it in that I've realized that the depression that I've experienced for a long time is really baseless. Yes, that's right. Totally and completely baseless. Without a point, without a reason.
Talking to CE Roman, he told me flat out (which I agree with) that my life has been mostly one positive experience. I really had not thought too much about it prior to that point but he's right. I've had a stable family, good schooling, a mostly stable group of friends in high school and somewhat of a clear path of my future. What do I honestly have to complain about?
Ok, there's the obligatory angst about not having someone that I could closely mentally bond with that could lead to a long term relationship when roughly half of my friends seem to be in close relationships with someone else or engaged to be married. But, really, that's par for the course. Why let that still bother me now when I've been angstily processing that for years?
Why do I listen to mostly depressing music (as my sister and roommate both point out)? Why do I find myself drawn to depressing movies/TV shows/book series? Looking back at my favorite books/TV series/movies/video games in recent history a good number of them have tragic ending for quite a few of the characters. Let's take a look at just a few:
SPOILERS!SPOILERS!SPOILERS!
-The Dark Knight- mostly depressing ending as the Joker arguably wins
-Animorphs- In addition to having a "war is hell" theme for the entirety of the series, Rachel dies in the penultimate book and the remainder of the team pilots a Bug Fighter into the Blade Ship
-Angel (the series)- Similar ending to Animorphs with the majority of the main cast either dead or physically weak and bravely staring down a massive army of demons, dragons and assorted baddies
-Final Fantasy X- Just...so much sad stuff. Yuna's reason for her pilgrimage, Yuna's faith shattering, Tidus discovering the true nature of his existence and who (rather *what*) his father has become, Auron's backstory...man.
-God of War- Opens with the suicide of Kratos...and with decent reason as you find out later.
-Martin the Warrior (Redwall)- My arguably favorite book of the Redwall series (tied with Redwall itself) ends with the death of Laterose which disturbed me for days afterwards. Come to think of it, Redwall (the novel) also had the deaths of Brother Methuselah and Abbot Mortimer, both of which were rough.
-Macbeth- Man...everything after Act I is depressing. I've memorized the "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" speech...nihlism at its best!
-Hamlet- Yeah....out of a cast of about eight or so main characters, pretty much everyone dies in the end. Save for Horatio.
-Beast Wars- By the end, most of the cast has been killed off. However, the deaths of Dinobot ("Code of Hero" is probably one of the best episodes of television I have ever watched) and Transmutate stick out.
Kingdom Hearts- Of all things...of course I have to like Roxas and Namine more than their counterparts...what the heck? Why? Why do I have Roxas's theme as roughly 10 on iTunes?
END SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Is this me appreciating good drama or actively seeking out what is depressing? You be the judge. Now, there is stuff that I enjoy that *IS NOT* depressing or emo in the slightest such as most episodes of Scrubs and Psych as well as Jeopardy (yes, the game show). I play lighthearted games such as Team Fortress 2, Pokemon Heart Gold and Super Smash Bros. Brawl. I read humorous books and enjoy them. So, why then do I end up being excessively snarky and cynical at times?
The answer: I honestly don't know.
But, I don't think I really matters. I guess what I've learned as a result is that I need to just move on mentally and stop being such an emo wuss because I honestly don't have that much to complain about in the grand scale of things and should go into situations with a much more positive outlook. I'm a Orthodox Christian, fourth year pharmacy student with decent creative writing skill (or so I've been told) and know (roughly) where I'm going. So there are going to be bumps in the road- I'm going to screw tests up, I'm going to fail at a few relationships. Whatever. Par for the course. Things always work out in the end anyways, so why worry?
Anyways, I guess I'll wrap this up with an open apology for any of you (probably all of you at some point) who have had to listen to my whining at one point or another. I've seen the stupidity of my complaints and am moving on. If I start going off on some "oh, poor me" rant, tell me to shut up and wake up. Life's too short to agonize over petty things. But, to quote a famous zombie slayer and his certain set of rules: Enjoy the little things!
And so I shall.
-Reven
Err, she said, and abruptly changed the subject.
Yikes. And she never gave us the exams back either so...yikes.
As for language, final in there tomorrow as well, though I am not especially too worried about the exam even though the class is much harder than history for me. The teacher just seems so nice that I doubt she'd fail any of us even if we really screwed up. Now, I'm not going to slack off in the slightest (rather, I'll work harder) but I'm not concerned about failing it.
So, as I alluded to the other day, I had a few epiphanies- three to be exact and I'll probably go over them in order of impact from arguably least to greatest.
First up, I've sorta come to the conclusion that I like Miranda. This little discovery occurred a few days ago while drinking a Jaggerbomb with her and a few other people and looking across the table at her and realizing "Hey...she's cute, really intelligent and interesting. I like her." I'm not sure if this is a recent development or just me *realizing* it is recent. The ironic thing is that I can think that it was only two or so weeks ago that I was grumbling about her snarkiness and whatnot and here I find myself fully realizing that I like her.
Anyways, I've been talking to her more over the course of this trip and she seems to have warmed up to me a great deal since her terse responses at the airport 27 days ago. Maybe it's mutual? In any event, at least I know where I mentally stand with her and who knows? Maybe something will come of it. I haven't asked any girls out since Aerith (NOT the fictional character, a girl from the last school year) burned me really bad spring quarter. Perhaps this needs to change soon.
Next, I came to the realization that I have a bad self image of myself. Ok, possibly I'm overstating the obvious, however I really do. While I view myself as an anti-social nerd with bad people skills, maybe that isn't the impression that everyone else is getting. I was talking to Brian the other day and I basically described myself as a huge nerd. He disagreed saying that he never got that impression from me. Confused, I didn't press him any further on the issue. But, me? Not a dorky nerd? How could *that* be? It's been my archetype for years! 
At around the same time, I was talking to another friend, Riley (female) online and describing my relationship issues (this was pre-Miranda) and I made the joke that I'm only popular with the ladies when I'm a foreigner. Riley laughed at that, but said that I don't nearly give myself enough credit and that I really don't know how much I have going for me. Confused, but not willing to pursue the matter any further, I dropped it and pondered it. So, perhaps I'm more than a nerd after all. Maybe I have people skills and more assets than I really realize. As Riley said "I've seen how you pack and I know that there is more than enough room for some confidence." This is perhaps true. Maybe if I finally unlocked some confidence, I'd see a lot of things change. Or, maybe not so much see things change, but have my outlook change and realize how things really are. That's probably a sentence fragment or something, but the point stands.
The last thing is linked to the one above it in that I've realized that the depression that I've experienced for a long time is really baseless. Yes, that's right. Totally and completely baseless. Without a point, without a reason.
Talking to CE Roman, he told me flat out (which I agree with) that my life has been mostly one positive experience. I really had not thought too much about it prior to that point but he's right. I've had a stable family, good schooling, a mostly stable group of friends in high school and somewhat of a clear path of my future. What do I honestly have to complain about?
Ok, there's the obligatory angst about not having someone that I could closely mentally bond with that could lead to a long term relationship when roughly half of my friends seem to be in close relationships with someone else or engaged to be married. But, really, that's par for the course. Why let that still bother me now when I've been angstily processing that for years?
Why do I listen to mostly depressing music (as my sister and roommate both point out)? Why do I find myself drawn to depressing movies/TV shows/book series? Looking back at my favorite books/TV series/movies/video games in recent history a good number of them have tragic ending for quite a few of the characters. Let's take a look at just a few:
SPOILERS!SPOILERS!SPOILERS!
-The Dark Knight- mostly depressing ending as the Joker arguably wins
-Animorphs- In addition to having a "war is hell" theme for the entirety of the series, Rachel dies in the penultimate book and the remainder of the team pilots a Bug Fighter into the Blade Ship
-Angel (the series)- Similar ending to Animorphs with the majority of the main cast either dead or physically weak and bravely staring down a massive army of demons, dragons and assorted baddies
-Final Fantasy X- Just...so much sad stuff. Yuna's reason for her pilgrimage, Yuna's faith shattering, Tidus discovering the true nature of his existence and who (rather *what*) his father has become, Auron's backstory...man.
-God of War- Opens with the suicide of Kratos...and with decent reason as you find out later.
-Martin the Warrior (Redwall)- My arguably favorite book of the Redwall series (tied with Redwall itself) ends with the death of Laterose which disturbed me for days afterwards. Come to think of it, Redwall (the novel) also had the deaths of Brother Methuselah and Abbot Mortimer, both of which were rough.
-Macbeth- Man...everything after Act I is depressing. I've memorized the "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" speech...nihlism at its best!
-Hamlet- Yeah....out of a cast of about eight or so main characters, pretty much everyone dies in the end. Save for Horatio.
-Beast Wars- By the end, most of the cast has been killed off. However, the deaths of Dinobot ("Code of Hero" is probably one of the best episodes of television I have ever watched) and Transmutate stick out.
Kingdom Hearts- Of all things...of course I have to like Roxas and Namine more than their counterparts...what the heck? Why? Why do I have Roxas's theme as roughly 10 on iTunes?
END SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Is this me appreciating good drama or actively seeking out what is depressing? You be the judge. Now, there is stuff that I enjoy that *IS NOT* depressing or emo in the slightest such as most episodes of Scrubs and Psych as well as Jeopardy (yes, the game show). I play lighthearted games such as Team Fortress 2, Pokemon Heart Gold and Super Smash Bros. Brawl. I read humorous books and enjoy them. So, why then do I end up being excessively snarky and cynical at times?
The answer: I honestly don't know. But, I don't think I really matters. I guess what I've learned as a result is that I need to just move on mentally and stop being such an emo wuss because I honestly don't have that much to complain about in the grand scale of things and should go into situations with a much more positive outlook. I'm a Orthodox Christian, fourth year pharmacy student with decent creative writing skill (or so I've been told) and know (roughly) where I'm going. So there are going to be bumps in the road- I'm going to screw tests up, I'm going to fail at a few relationships. Whatever. Par for the course. Things always work out in the end anyways, so why worry?
Anyways, I guess I'll wrap this up with an open apology for any of you (probably all of you at some point) who have had to listen to my whining at one point or another. I've seen the stupidity of my complaints and am moving on. If I start going off on some "oh, poor me" rant, tell me to shut up and wake up. Life's too short to agonize over petty things. But, to quote a famous zombie slayer and his certain set of rules: Enjoy the little things!
And so I shall.
-Reven
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Day 27- Jaggerbombs and Webcams
Slept off the party from last night but then just sorta bummed around the room for the next few hours. Luckily I got some studying done, a paper done and was able to chat with my sister via her webcam.
Just to clear things up, we were chatting through AIM (or AOL instant messenger) and she wanted to do videochat. Ok, thought I, that's all fine and good except for the fact that I don't have one. Nevertheless, we opened the chat and she was able to talk to me and I could just respond back via text.
It sounds like a bit of an odd prospect only typing back to a person and hearing them as well as seeing them, though it didn't feel that weird to me. I'm not sure why that is. Maybe I can type more organized than I can talk (don't all agree with me at once on this) or since I'm really used to typing and I didn't feel like physically talking this morning/afternoon, it was alright.
After about 6pm or so, I decided that having been in my room for hours on end was probably not a good thing and decided to wander around the city. I had quite a few revelations, though I'll share them tomorrow morning when I wake up as it's almost 1 here and I really don't feel like I should type them unless I am completely mentally there. Though some may suggest that may not happen for awhile! Yuk yuk yuk....
Also, I was going to post pictures of the Mud festival, however, upon reviewing the pictures, I am surprised I didn't break the camera upon first taking them. Anyways, to make good on my promise, I decided to actually post one of the least worst pictures.
This was after I had been painted with mud and such. I'm not too sure what the deal with the women in the fairy costumes was. I could make some reference to Absinthe (anyone else get the reference?) but that only counts for one of the the two fairies. Anyways, I think the mud painting turned out alright, though the quality of the picture was very low. The other ones were just bad quality- though to be fair the camera was sealed in a Ziploc bag for the majority of the day to prevent water damage and as such the pictures were taken through said bag. Anyways, at least I have some pictures. The other guy in the picture is Elbol- it's his camera and I got these pictures from him the other night. Just didn't upload them due to last night- I went out.
Speaking of, I did a couple of firsts last night- first Jaggerbomb and first A.M.F. I preferred the Jaggerbomb to the A.M.F. (the latter was just...ugh). A Jaggerbomb, is formed by emptying a can of Red Bull into a pub glass and dropping a shot of Jagger (in a shot glass) into the pub glass and simultaneously shotgunning the combination. This being said, I have heard stories of overzealous shotgunners chipping their teeth on the shot glass by inverting the pub glass too quickly. That wasn't me though I finished the drink the second fastest out of the group of nine of us. Unlike most alcohol, the Jaggerbomb actually woke me up and made me feel energized- probably due to the fact that it was...well...Red Bull. Tasted nice, even though I don't especially like Red Bull- the combination worked quite well.
As for the A.M.F...that was a doozy. A.M.F. is an acronym for "Adios M****F*****". Vulgar to be sure, but nevertheless, quite accurate as the drink is basically the bartender putting pretty much everything from the bar into one drink. I couldn't finish the drink on my own as it felt like drinking cleaning supplies. The fact that the drink itself was a familiar Windex Blue did not help. My stomach wasn't happy with me after that, so I abstained for the rest of the evening and got back to my room around midnight (and the other events of last night are recounted at yesterday's post).
So, yeah, my latest adventures in drinking and mud. More class tomorrow, with exams on Friday. DUN DUN DUUUUNNNNN!
-Reven
Just to clear things up, we were chatting through AIM (or AOL instant messenger) and she wanted to do videochat. Ok, thought I, that's all fine and good except for the fact that I don't have one. Nevertheless, we opened the chat and she was able to talk to me and I could just respond back via text.
It sounds like a bit of an odd prospect only typing back to a person and hearing them as well as seeing them, though it didn't feel that weird to me. I'm not sure why that is. Maybe I can type more organized than I can talk (don't all agree with me at once on this) or since I'm really used to typing and I didn't feel like physically talking this morning/afternoon, it was alright.
After about 6pm or so, I decided that having been in my room for hours on end was probably not a good thing and decided to wander around the city. I had quite a few revelations, though I'll share them tomorrow morning when I wake up as it's almost 1 here and I really don't feel like I should type them unless I am completely mentally there. Though some may suggest that may not happen for awhile! Yuk yuk yuk....
Also, I was going to post pictures of the Mud festival, however, upon reviewing the pictures, I am surprised I didn't break the camera upon first taking them. Anyways, to make good on my promise, I decided to actually post one of the least worst pictures.
This was after I had been painted with mud and such. I'm not too sure what the deal with the women in the fairy costumes was. I could make some reference to Absinthe (anyone else get the reference?) but that only counts for one of the the two fairies. Anyways, I think the mud painting turned out alright, though the quality of the picture was very low. The other ones were just bad quality- though to be fair the camera was sealed in a Ziploc bag for the majority of the day to prevent water damage and as such the pictures were taken through said bag. Anyways, at least I have some pictures. The other guy in the picture is Elbol- it's his camera and I got these pictures from him the other night. Just didn't upload them due to last night- I went out.Speaking of, I did a couple of firsts last night- first Jaggerbomb and first A.M.F. I preferred the Jaggerbomb to the A.M.F. (the latter was just...ugh). A Jaggerbomb, is formed by emptying a can of Red Bull into a pub glass and dropping a shot of Jagger (in a shot glass) into the pub glass and simultaneously shotgunning the combination. This being said, I have heard stories of overzealous shotgunners chipping their teeth on the shot glass by inverting the pub glass too quickly. That wasn't me though I finished the drink the second fastest out of the group of nine of us. Unlike most alcohol, the Jaggerbomb actually woke me up and made me feel energized- probably due to the fact that it was...well...Red Bull. Tasted nice, even though I don't especially like Red Bull- the combination worked quite well.
As for the A.M.F...that was a doozy. A.M.F. is an acronym for "Adios M****F*****". Vulgar to be sure, but nevertheless, quite accurate as the drink is basically the bartender putting pretty much everything from the bar into one drink. I couldn't finish the drink on my own as it felt like drinking cleaning supplies. The fact that the drink itself was a familiar Windex Blue did not help. My stomach wasn't happy with me after that, so I abstained for the rest of the evening and got back to my room around midnight (and the other events of last night are recounted at yesterday's post).
So, yeah, my latest adventures in drinking and mud. More class tomorrow, with exams on Friday. DUN DUN DUUUUNNNNN!
-Reven
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Day 26- Interlude
So, today was pretty much a middling day amidst all the rest. History class went on through the 1950s and 1990s. I'll sum up the basic plot: Some military jerk decides to take over, the people put up with him for awhile, but then he's taken out by another military dictator jerk and eventually the people overthrow him for the idea of presidents/PMs and the presidents all promise returning more power to people and keep on screwing over the people in some way/shape/form. Yes, two and a half hours of that. Korean politics suck, I've decided. Naturally, most Koreans (according to our teacher) are fairly cynical when it comes to politics and for good reason as shown above.
Language was just reviewing the ego crushing test from the other day and finding out that our final counts for 80% of our grade. Thankfully attendance is 20% so I've got that down. That being said, I'm going to spend a lot of time on it tomorrow.
As for this evening, I went out with some people, had a few drinks and went back with a few girls because I didn't want to be out until 3 in the morning or so (that seems mostly to be the plan for them). Chatted with Brian for a few hours afterwords. Sorry, not that interesting of a day. Studying tomorrow!
-Reven
Language was just reviewing the ego crushing test from the other day and finding out that our final counts for 80% of our grade. Thankfully attendance is 20% so I've got that down. That being said, I'm going to spend a lot of time on it tomorrow.
As for this evening, I went out with some people, had a few drinks and went back with a few girls because I didn't want to be out until 3 in the morning or so (that seems mostly to be the plan for them). Chatted with Brian for a few hours afterwords. Sorry, not that interesting of a day. Studying tomorrow!
-Reven
Monday, July 19, 2010
Day 25- The Other Shoe Drops...
So, my weekend off and the Boryeong Mud Festival left me in an interesting place today. I hadn't done any of the reading for history, hadn't really reviewed for language class. Naturally, due to the law of things inevitably going wrong, I would going to pay for this in some way. Thankfully, I was only half right and even then it was nothing *that* horrible...well...kind of.
Let me back up: History class was pretty much the usual "mind in neutral"/"sleep with eyes open" for two hours. Even though the time frame is closer to the present (1950s to 1997 was today), I still find the older dynasties more interesting. Not sure why that is, whether it is a genuine interest in ye olde emperors and such or the fact that the class was newer back then and held my attention better. Either way, the sort-of present is not exactly thrilling. Take me back to the 1300s, please.
Moving on to language, our teacher informed us that we had a practice exam today. Oh joy upon joy. With all ten of us people in the class looking at the teacher like a deer look at an oncoming SUV, we grasped our writing implements in quaking hands.
The result wasn't that pretty. We basically stratified ourselves into three groups: those that got it (about two or three people), those that sort of get it (me along with a few others) and those that don't try/care (two people). And those in that meaty middle tier...it wasn't exactly a happy medium. I had problems with the listening exercises, but that's always been the case for me- even in German. I fared better on the writing, but it was still rough.
After none of us (save for one person who made us all look bad) actually finished the test, the teacher took the pages that we did get for her to look over and told us to finish the rest for tomorrow. There was a general groan of despair from across the classroom. This sucked. It's not like the work by its own merit was difficult- we just needed to really review and look over the stuff. Though, my progress over the course of the evening on the test was similar to tunneling through a concrete wall using only a metal paperclip. It was slow but steady.
I don't think the teacher will actually grade our tests, just check them for correctness (I told her she may need a new red pen for mine, yuk yuk yuk) and hand them back to the students whose egos have been steamrolled over the past day.
Aside from the test, my evening was pretty relaxed. I got a chance to go running, which was nice, though due to my inability to mentally convert kilometers to miles, I'm not quite sure how far I ran. Anyways, it was nice. Upon looking it up, 1 km= 0.62 miles.
I also said that I would post pictures of the mud festival today- I was wrong. I've been up too late and it'll have to be delayed until tomorrow. Oh, and in case you haven't, check out my somewhat humorous feature below for the fifty-first post.
-Reven
Let me back up: History class was pretty much the usual "mind in neutral"/"sleep with eyes open" for two hours. Even though the time frame is closer to the present (1950s to 1997 was today), I still find the older dynasties more interesting. Not sure why that is, whether it is a genuine interest in ye olde emperors and such or the fact that the class was newer back then and held my attention better. Either way, the sort-of present is not exactly thrilling. Take me back to the 1300s, please. 
Moving on to language, our teacher informed us that we had a practice exam today. Oh joy upon joy. With all ten of us people in the class looking at the teacher like a deer look at an oncoming SUV, we grasped our writing implements in quaking hands. The result wasn't that pretty. We basically stratified ourselves into three groups: those that got it (about two or three people), those that sort of get it (me along with a few others) and those that don't try/care (two people). And those in that meaty middle tier...it wasn't exactly a happy medium. I had problems with the listening exercises, but that's always been the case for me- even in German. I fared better on the writing, but it was still rough.
After none of us (save for one person who made us all look bad) actually finished the test, the teacher took the pages that we did get for her to look over and told us to finish the rest for tomorrow. There was a general groan of despair from across the classroom. This sucked. It's not like the work by its own merit was difficult- we just needed to really review and look over the stuff. Though, my progress over the course of the evening on the test was similar to tunneling through a concrete wall using only a metal paperclip. It was slow but steady.
I don't think the teacher will actually grade our tests, just check them for correctness (I told her she may need a new red pen for mine, yuk yuk yuk) and hand them back to the students whose egos have been steamrolled over the past day.
Aside from the test, my evening was pretty relaxed. I got a chance to go running, which was nice, though due to my inability to mentally convert kilometers to miles, I'm not quite sure how far I ran. Anyways, it was nice. Upon looking it up, 1 km= 0.62 miles.
I also said that I would post pictures of the mud festival today- I was wrong. I've been up too late and it'll have to be delayed until tomorrow. Oh, and in case you haven't, check out my somewhat humorous feature below for the fifty-first post.
-Reven
Fifty-first Post Extravaganza !
So, I promised something for fifty posts and being lazy, I waited until my fifty-first to do it. So, here it is. My special presentation of an integral part of Korean, nay, any society- bathrooms.
I had heard prior to coming over here that the bathrooms were quite different than those in the good ol' US of A and going over to Korea, I was uncertain how I felt about this. I mean, bathrooms are one of the few things you just don't mess with.
I walked into the bathroom and saw a familiar mainstay of bathrooms in general: the sink. Ah, yes, the familiar faucet, the sink itself and the drain. But...wait. Aren't we forgetting something? Ah, yes. Soap, right? Oh, but it is there!
I can hear you already: "Reven, you jerk. There is no soap in that picture! There's just that suspiciously flower-esque thing over on the left where the soap would normally be." To which I would answer: "Why, that is the soap." Right there:
"Wait, it is?" Yes. Indeed that is the soap. It is merely a bar of soap, impaled upon a metal rod attached to the wall. How it is used is by getting your hands damp with water and rubbing your hands in an oscillating manner up and down. As you could imagine, it has gotten quite a few rude nicknames and special sarcasm from the guys utilizing it. If you have to think about it, don't worry about it.
The urinals were a bit more familiar, though there was a conspicuous lack of dividers between the urinals which felt a little odd, personally. Also, coupled with that is the fact that there is a sensor which flushes the urinal with water. This is, by no means, unusual in and of itself. However, the fact that it flushes *before* and *after* you start to...err...eliminate, was a bit different. Nevertheless, it was not that weird.
The stalls themselves looked also quite familiar from the outside, except for the fact that the doors seemed lower to the ground than in the US (not a bad thing in my mind) and the locks on the inside seemed much sturdier than the ones I have been accustomed to (which again, is not a bad thing).
The bowl itself looked the same, though can you imagine the one thing that did catch my eye? What doesn't look exactly right:
You find it? Ah, the wastebasket right by the bowl. Now, I asked one of my Korean friends what that's used for. His response was simple: that's where you put the toilet paper after you are finished using it.
My expression was blank. "Excuse me?"
"Yes. That's what you do."
"Really?"
Dead silent, I resolved to always break that cultural norm. I don't care if that's the culture- that's just wrong and unsanitary. Yikes. The rationale for that according to my Korean friend is that the sewage pipes get clogged up from excess paper being flushed, therefore, paper shouldn't be flushed. That's all well and good, but...seriously?
Anyways, this little cultural feature took place in the fourth floor men's room in the Business Building of Hanyang University. I've hoped you've enjoyed this little feature and continue reading along!
-Reven
I had heard prior to coming over here that the bathrooms were quite different than those in the good ol' US of A and going over to Korea, I was uncertain how I felt about this. I mean, bathrooms are one of the few things you just don't mess with.
I walked into the bathroom and saw a familiar mainstay of bathrooms in general: the sink. Ah, yes, the familiar faucet, the sink itself and the drain. But...wait. Aren't we forgetting something? Ah, yes. Soap, right? Oh, but it is there! I can hear you already: "Reven, you jerk. There is no soap in that picture! There's just that suspiciously flower-esque thing over on the left where the soap would normally be." To which I would answer: "Why, that is the soap." Right there:
"Wait, it is?" Yes. Indeed that is the soap. It is merely a bar of soap, impaled upon a metal rod attached to the wall. How it is used is by getting your hands damp with water and rubbing your hands in an oscillating manner up and down. As you could imagine, it has gotten quite a few rude nicknames and special sarcasm from the guys utilizing it. If you have to think about it, don't worry about it.
The urinals were a bit more familiar, though there was a conspicuous lack of dividers between the urinals which felt a little odd, personally. Also, coupled with that is the fact that there is a sensor which flushes the urinal with water. This is, by no means, unusual in and of itself. However, the fact that it flushes *before* and *after* you start to...err...eliminate, was a bit different. Nevertheless, it was not that weird. 
The stalls themselves looked also quite familiar from the outside, except for the fact that the doors seemed lower to the ground than in the US (not a bad thing in my mind) and the locks on the inside seemed much sturdier than the ones I have been accustomed to (which again, is not a bad thing).
The bowl itself looked the same, though can you imagine the one thing that did catch my eye? What doesn't look exactly right:
You find it? Ah, the wastebasket right by the bowl. Now, I asked one of my Korean friends what that's used for. His response was simple: that's where you put the toilet paper after you are finished using it.
My expression was blank. "Excuse me?"
"Yes. That's what you do."
"Really?"
Dead silent, I resolved to always break that cultural norm. I don't care if that's the culture- that's just wrong and unsanitary. Yikes. The rationale for that according to my Korean friend is that the sewage pipes get clogged up from excess paper being flushed, therefore, paper shouldn't be flushed. That's all well and good, but...seriously?
Anyways, this little cultural feature took place in the fourth floor men's room in the Business Building of Hanyang University. I've hoped you've enjoyed this little feature and continue reading along!
-Reven
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Day 23 and Day 24- Weather, Ego boosts and Noise
So, as I was without a computer for the past day and a bit, I was forced to wait until now to post about the events of the days. The event on Saturday (23) was this event called the Boryeong Mud Festival, which is probably one of the larger tourism draws that Korea has. Now, said mud festival is located in (you guessed it!) Boryeong, which is located in the province of Chungcheongnam-do, which is located in the red part of the map on the side bordering the Yellow Sea (the western side of the map) and towards the southern part of the province. Here's a map showing the area.
Now, what does one do a a mud festival? There were a number of things to do there, namely obstacle courses, mud wrestling and chilling out by the Yellow Sea. However, I haven't described the conditions of how we got there.
We hopped into a tour bus very early in the morning (for college kids): 8:00 AM. This is a time that most college kids don't know exist on Saturdays (and occasionally Sundays as well). It took us three hours or so to get from Seoul. Here's the map for a comparison:
Which shouldn't have taken the full three hours to get there and back, but then again we were on a tour bus with a tour guide who didn't have very good English who felt compelled to tell us about Seoul as we blew out of there, so the time felt like three hours if it wasn't that.
Oh, also, I forgot to mention: it was raining- quite hard. That doesn't sounds that bad, especially considering that I was going to get wet anyways in the mud (alright that is true, I suppose) but when gale force winds and not the warmest temperature are added to the equation, it feels a lot less like a mud festival and a bit more like torture by mud. When we arrived at the festival with the aforementioned wind, heavy rain and temperature, the guide and our program head tried to be enthusiastic "C'mon guys! You are just going to get muddy and wet anyways!" to be met with grumbles and growls from all parts of our tour bus. Now, you may accuse me of being a poor sport, however, I'd like to see anyone accusing me of that actually there first.
So, we disembarked the bus to the pouring rain and I had a bit of a tag-along after me- this guy from Kazakhstan named Elbol (pronounced like Elbow- yes, really). I got separated from the rest of the group who I hung out with (NOT people from my college, I will add) but other various people (Jin, Brian, June, etc.). Anyways, I shrugged and figured "Why not?"
Elbol had never seen the ocean or any sort of sea before, so we went around there. I was stunned to see a couple tide pools complete with living starfish and a few anemones. It was amazing. The rain lightened up as we explored the beach and we headed back towards the festival.
Festival is sort of a loose term as it was just a couple different things to do (a few slides, a few obstacle courses, a place to mud-wrestle and the ocean itself) but I was surprised to see so many foreigners (read: Americans) there as well. I just found myself wondering why on earth anyone would travel halfway around the globe for this? Sure it was a deal more fun when the rain let up (it was, I'll be honest), but why visit Korea just for this?
So, feeling adventurous and not having gotten any mud yet, I walked with Elbol as well as Jin, Brian and Jihoon (he's studying at my university next year) towards a place where we heard to go to get muddy. We got there and it's people throwing mud all over the place, either balls of mud or just chunks. Now, this may sound rather tame at first, however, there was some poor guy who was trying to drive by this crowd of people and his car got slammed with mud. He got out to try to protest and was met with some mud to the face. The mud wasn't lightly tossed either; it was pelted. This felt quickly less like a friendly mud fight and more like something out of everyone's favorite William Golding novel.
After hightailing it out of there, I decided I'd try out the whole (their exact phrasing) "mud coloring." Basically you walk up to the stand and whomever is working by the mud paint paints your skin with varying different colors. Now, I was thinking, perhaps, that by some odd chance I'd end up looking like a certain ghost of Sparta or perhaps like a certain Scotsman.
However, this did not appear to be as it was clear that the people working the booths wouldn't be taking requests and also that there was no white paint (only red, green, blue and yellow). I had a few pictures taken, though I do not have access to them right now as they are on Elbol's camera. Rest assured that they will be up by the end of the week. I honestly don't even know what I looked like, except for my head was yellow and at least half of my torso was red. We'll find out soon.
Right, so I jumped in the Yellow Sea when it was time to leave to wash off all of the mud. It worked surprisingly well, so all is well that ends well.
Our group trekked over to a hotel..no, excuse me, motel that was somewhat nearby Boryeong. The motel was possibly..not the best. But hey, it was free, though I do have to make some...comments about our living accommodations. For one- our room was roughly fifteen feet by fifteen feet and contained no beds but rather one mattress. Apparently this was what the college had decided as appropriate living space for four guys to squash for the night. Not cool. Especially when a few rooms had only one person inside of them. Thankfully, due to the good nature of a few people and random shuffling of others, I ended up with only Jim (from my college) in my room, which I was alright with. Jim is probably the only guy from my school who doesn't irk me and I actually find him to be a nice guy. Campbell (as mentioned before) is rude and was the guy in the aforementioned post (though I don't believe explicitly named) and Taylor is a guy with the physique of Fat Albert and the ego of Kanye West. Not a pretty combination. He has this believe that he is always the most clever person in the room and gets especially loud when talking to the ladies. It's...annoying.
Anyways, neither Taylor nor Campell were in my room that night, so it was all good.
Dinner that evening was Korean BBQ which basically was Korean people grilling slabs of pork, chopping it up with scissors and us eating it. It was fantastic and after a long day in the rain, it was needed.
I ended up talking to the German prof again and strangely enough a Korean girl in German. NO, I was not inebriated. The fact of the matter was that my Korean is poor and her English was not incredible, so we both were able to switch to German which we both knew reasonably well. If you would've told me that people in Korea spoke German before I came here, I would've laughed at you. Oh, but they do...on a huge ego boosting note, the German prof said my German was excellent, except for my slight American accent (which...well...one would expect, no?). Huge ego boost there, especially considering I haven't taken the language courses in years and have only refreshed by watching American movies and TV shows dubbed in German.
Anyways, the rain continued to pour and it appeared as though everyone had vanished for the evening. Not really wanting to go out (being tired and sick of rain), I took my room key from Jim (who was comforting his girlfriend who was sick) and chilled out in my room watching American media in Korean. The cartoons weren't so bad (Courage the Cowardly Dog was alright, but I couldn't stand the voices for Fairly Oddparents) but I couldn't stand the movies. Having already watched Transformers once, I can't watch it again. The movie that was on after it was Taken (which is basically 90 minutes of Liam Neeson beating the crap out of people and taking numbers). While I enjoy Taken, I didn't have the energy for it and conked out.
I awoke some time later to Jim coming in the room, us exchanging pleasantries (his girlfriend, Nancy was doing alright though she was still sick) and me taking the floor (I don't like hotel beds- though it was but a mattress) and Jim taking the bed. We switched out the lights at around 12:30ish. And then Taylor and his ladies came back. Ho boy.
The noises blasted from his side of the room (he was in the room right next to ours) and his very distinct voice could be heard over the four or so other people. This wouldn't be bad if it was only for a few minutes. Unfortunately a 'few minutes' lasted until three or so in the morning.
Now, I'm a passive person by nature and don't like to be confrontational, but there was no one happier than me when Jim stood up, walked out of our room yelled at Taylor to "shut the ****" up and slammed Taylor's door. Yes, the door to the room had been open the whole time. The room, predictably, quieted down.
I awoke around 7 to the sound of roosters outside. Yes, roosters. The motel had roosters. Looking on the bright side, I had to be up by 8 or so anyhow, I took a quick shower and staggered downstairs.
From there, our somewhat zombifyed group (apparently, Jim and I weren't the only ones kept up by Taylor and his gang) groaned our way onto the bus to a trip to an aboretum. When the somewhat grumpy bus diplomatically stated that Taylor had been a mite too loud the night before, he said, with much confusion in his voice "I was?" The bus sighed.
Anyways, the arboretum was nice and it was good to walk around. The atmosphere was fantastic, especially getting out of the polluted air of Seoul. It was just nice to breathe and see plants one wouldn't normally see. Pictures will be up with the mud festival ones as well at some point this week.
Now for lunch, the tour guide said we'd be going to a buffet. Nice, we thought. That's something up our alley. Korean buffet. However, we did not realize that the buffet was not prepared for our arrival. There was a mixture of joy and fear in the eyes of the proprietors of the buffet restaurant as not one, but three tour buses pulled up.
The food was decent but we were just happy to eat. A three hour bus ride back and I'm ready just to work on projects for my classes or write.
Long story short- eventful weekend. Enjoyable? Yeah, parts of it. But, would I do it again? Not with the same weather.
Reven
Now, what does one do a a mud festival? There were a number of things to do there, namely obstacle courses, mud wrestling and chilling out by the Yellow Sea. However, I haven't described the conditions of how we got there. We hopped into a tour bus very early in the morning (for college kids): 8:00 AM. This is a time that most college kids don't know exist on Saturdays (and occasionally Sundays as well). It took us three hours or so to get from Seoul. Here's the map for a comparison:
Which shouldn't have taken the full three hours to get there and back, but then again we were on a tour bus with a tour guide who didn't have very good English who felt compelled to tell us about Seoul as we blew out of there, so the time felt like three hours if it wasn't that.Oh, also, I forgot to mention: it was raining- quite hard. That doesn't sounds that bad, especially considering that I was going to get wet anyways in the mud (alright that is true, I suppose) but when gale force winds and not the warmest temperature are added to the equation, it feels a lot less like a mud festival and a bit more like torture by mud. When we arrived at the festival with the aforementioned wind, heavy rain and temperature, the guide and our program head tried to be enthusiastic "C'mon guys! You are just going to get muddy and wet anyways!" to be met with grumbles and growls from all parts of our tour bus. Now, you may accuse me of being a poor sport, however, I'd like to see anyone accusing me of that actually there first.
So, we disembarked the bus to the pouring rain and I had a bit of a tag-along after me- this guy from Kazakhstan named Elbol (pronounced like Elbow- yes, really). I got separated from the rest of the group who I hung out with (NOT people from my college, I will add) but other various people (Jin, Brian, June, etc.). Anyways, I shrugged and figured "Why not?"
Elbol had never seen the ocean or any sort of sea before, so we went around there. I was stunned to see a couple tide pools complete with living starfish and a few anemones. It was amazing. The rain lightened up as we explored the beach and we headed back towards the festival.
Festival is sort of a loose term as it was just a couple different things to do (a few slides, a few obstacle courses, a place to mud-wrestle and the ocean itself) but I was surprised to see so many foreigners (read: Americans) there as well. I just found myself wondering why on earth anyone would travel halfway around the globe for this? Sure it was a deal more fun when the rain let up (it was, I'll be honest), but why visit Korea just for this?
So, feeling adventurous and not having gotten any mud yet, I walked with Elbol as well as Jin, Brian and Jihoon (he's studying at my university next year) towards a place where we heard to go to get muddy. We got there and it's people throwing mud all over the place, either balls of mud or just chunks. Now, this may sound rather tame at first, however, there was some poor guy who was trying to drive by this crowd of people and his car got slammed with mud. He got out to try to protest and was met with some mud to the face. The mud wasn't lightly tossed either; it was pelted. This felt quickly less like a friendly mud fight and more like something out of everyone's favorite William Golding novel. 
After hightailing it out of there, I decided I'd try out the whole (their exact phrasing) "mud coloring." Basically you walk up to the stand and whomever is working by the mud paint paints your skin with varying different colors. Now, I was thinking, perhaps, that by some odd chance I'd end up looking like a certain ghost of Sparta or perhaps like a certain Scotsman.
However, this did not appear to be as it was clear that the people working the booths wouldn't be taking requests and also that there was no white paint (only red, green, blue and yellow). I had a few pictures taken, though I do not have access to them right now as they are on Elbol's camera. Rest assured that they will be up by the end of the week. I honestly don't even know what I looked like, except for my head was yellow and at least half of my torso was red. We'll find out soon. Right, so I jumped in the Yellow Sea when it was time to leave to wash off all of the mud. It worked surprisingly well, so all is well that ends well.
Our group trekked over to a hotel..no, excuse me, motel that was somewhat nearby Boryeong. The motel was possibly..not the best. But hey, it was free, though I do have to make some...comments about our living accommodations. For one- our room was roughly fifteen feet by fifteen feet and contained no beds but rather one mattress. Apparently this was what the college had decided as appropriate living space for four guys to squash for the night. Not cool. Especially when a few rooms had only one person inside of them. Thankfully, due to the good nature of a few people and random shuffling of others, I ended up with only Jim (from my college) in my room, which I was alright with. Jim is probably the only guy from my school who doesn't irk me and I actually find him to be a nice guy. Campbell (as mentioned before) is rude and was the guy in the aforementioned post (though I don't believe explicitly named) and Taylor is a guy with the physique of Fat Albert and the ego of Kanye West. Not a pretty combination. He has this believe that he is always the most clever person in the room and gets especially loud when talking to the ladies. It's...annoying.
Anyways, neither Taylor nor Campell were in my room that night, so it was all good.
Dinner that evening was Korean BBQ which basically was Korean people grilling slabs of pork, chopping it up with scissors and us eating it. It was fantastic and after a long day in the rain, it was needed.
I ended up talking to the German prof again and strangely enough a Korean girl in German. NO, I was not inebriated. The fact of the matter was that my Korean is poor and her English was not incredible, so we both were able to switch to German which we both knew reasonably well. If you would've told me that people in Korea spoke German before I came here, I would've laughed at you. Oh, but they do...on a huge ego boosting note, the German prof said my German was excellent, except for my slight American accent (which...well...one would expect, no?). Huge ego boost there, especially considering I haven't taken the language courses in years and have only refreshed by watching American movies and TV shows dubbed in German.
Anyways, the rain continued to pour and it appeared as though everyone had vanished for the evening. Not really wanting to go out (being tired and sick of rain), I took my room key from Jim (who was comforting his girlfriend who was sick) and chilled out in my room watching American media in Korean. The cartoons weren't so bad (Courage the Cowardly Dog was alright, but I couldn't stand the voices for Fairly Oddparents) but I couldn't stand the movies. Having already watched Transformers once, I can't watch it again. The movie that was on after it was Taken (which is basically 90 minutes of Liam Neeson beating the crap out of people and taking numbers). While I enjoy Taken, I didn't have the energy for it and conked out.
I awoke some time later to Jim coming in the room, us exchanging pleasantries (his girlfriend, Nancy was doing alright though she was still sick) and me taking the floor (I don't like hotel beds- though it was but a mattress) and Jim taking the bed. We switched out the lights at around 12:30ish. And then Taylor and his ladies came back. Ho boy.
The noises blasted from his side of the room (he was in the room right next to ours) and his very distinct voice could be heard over the four or so other people. This wouldn't be bad if it was only for a few minutes. Unfortunately a 'few minutes' lasted until three or so in the morning.
Now, I'm a passive person by nature and don't like to be confrontational, but there was no one happier than me when Jim stood up, walked out of our room yelled at Taylor to "shut the ****" up and slammed Taylor's door. Yes, the door to the room had been open the whole time. The room, predictably, quieted down.
I awoke around 7 to the sound of roosters outside. Yes, roosters. The motel had roosters. Looking on the bright side, I had to be up by 8 or so anyhow, I took a quick shower and staggered downstairs.
From there, our somewhat zombifyed group (apparently, Jim and I weren't the only ones kept up by Taylor and his gang) groaned our way onto the bus to a trip to an aboretum. When the somewhat grumpy bus diplomatically stated that Taylor had been a mite too loud the night before, he said, with much confusion in his voice "I was?" The bus sighed.
Anyways, the arboretum was nice and it was good to walk around. The atmosphere was fantastic, especially getting out of the polluted air of Seoul. It was just nice to breathe and see plants one wouldn't normally see. Pictures will be up with the mud festival ones as well at some point this week.
Now for lunch, the tour guide said we'd be going to a buffet. Nice, we thought. That's something up our alley. Korean buffet. However, we did not realize that the buffet was not prepared for our arrival. There was a mixture of joy and fear in the eyes of the proprietors of the buffet restaurant as not one, but three tour buses pulled up.
The food was decent but we were just happy to eat. A three hour bus ride back and I'm ready just to work on projects for my classes or write.
Long story short- eventful weekend. Enjoyable? Yeah, parts of it. But, would I do it again? Not with the same weather.
Reven
Friday, July 16, 2010
Day 22- Singularities and Sighs
Today wasn't that interesting but was mostly alright. Korean history continued on with the conclusion of World War II and the subsequent division of Korea and the war following. It was interesting to finally hear some names that sounded familiar (MacArthur, Truman, Roosevelt, etc) as the only American name that I had recognized over the last few weeks was Woodrow Wilson (from a few days ago, his Fourteen Points came up). Though, as is par for the course for history, the presentation of material by students was far more interesting than what the teacher had to say in that it was pretty much the same material just said twice.
Lunch was par for the course and nothing necessarily to write home about. Though, I returned to my room from my lunch group of people from my school (wasn't sad to leave them) to find US dollars to convert as I believe I was out of money only to find, lo and behold- I still had a deal of won that I had already converted and didn't need to convert more money at this point in time. WIN! To quote "Zombieland"'s rule 32: Enjoy the little things.
Anyways, not being ambushed by any more people trying to convert me (to the best of my knowledge) I made it back in time for Korean Language class. Thankfully, I seem to be close to reaching some kind of singularity that I'll hopefully be able to keep with me at all time. I'm not screwing up as often though I still have a far way to go.
I was supposed to go out tonight, but it appears that group of people I was supposed to leave with left without me. Oh well. They probably just knocked on my door and I didn't hear them. So, I ran off on my own and grabbed some food. It's probably just as well- people were going off clubbing tonight even though we have to be at the Business Building at 8AM (bus leaves at 8:10) for the Boryeong Mud Festival. I'll have to post more on that after I get back (it's an overnight trip and I'll probably not have access to a computer for most of tomorrow and also most of Sunday).
So, I spent the evening chillaxing and talking to one of my acquaintances from here, Benji. Basically, we decided to have a trash talking fest about the people here who irk us. Oddly enough, we had quite a few common disliked people and funnily enough they were from my university. A common complaint we both seemed to have was against the people with too big of an ego and general lack of respect. For example, one of the people we discussed doesn't really seem to show much respect for Korea, not even making an effort to pronounce words correctly. He's a smart guy, the one we were discussing, but he just doesn't care enough to put forth the effort. I realize (and know from experience) that Korean pronunciation can be difficult at first, but with time it isn't that bad. Just...no effort seems to be put into it.
Also, another comment he had on my university mates (not on me myself) is that they go out every night drinking. Sure, drinking is a part of Korean culture, but every night? And coming back at 3 to possibly go to class at 9? It just is a waste.
Which brought up the question that Benji placed before me (indirectly): why did the people from my university come here? They mostly seem to just get drunk every night and buy random crap like materialism was going out of style.
What is the point of coming here? Not knowing the people from my university that well, I could not respond. But, I saw his point. Why would you go to a foreign country? Is it to learn something? I mean, I'd hope so. But the aforementioned guy doesn't even seem to be making an effort to pronounce even simple greeting phrases so...ugh. It's frustrating and I realize this is a somewhat common complain from me, but why do the people from my university have to be so superficial? I wish I could defend them, but I have trouble doing it and their general lack of trying to appreciate the culture honestly make it hard to do it.
Ker-sigh.
Benji mentioned that he feels bad that he has a negative view from people of Ohio as a result (to which I folded my arms and cleared my throat, much to his amusement), though he has a point. The majority of the people here from my college really aren't putting forth an effort to fit in or understand. What a waste. To think the trip may have gone to people who would appreciate the cultural aspects of it.
-Reven
Lunch was par for the course and nothing necessarily to write home about. Though, I returned to my room from my lunch group of people from my school (wasn't sad to leave them) to find US dollars to convert as I believe I was out of money only to find, lo and behold- I still had a deal of won that I had already converted and didn't need to convert more money at this point in time. WIN! To quote "Zombieland"'s rule 32: Enjoy the little things.
Anyways, not being ambushed by any more people trying to convert me (to the best of my knowledge) I made it back in time for Korean Language class. Thankfully, I seem to be close to reaching some kind of singularity that I'll hopefully be able to keep with me at all time. I'm not screwing up as often though I still have a far way to go. I was supposed to go out tonight, but it appears that group of people I was supposed to leave with left without me. Oh well. They probably just knocked on my door and I didn't hear them. So, I ran off on my own and grabbed some food. It's probably just as well- people were going off clubbing tonight even though we have to be at the Business Building at 8AM (bus leaves at 8:10) for the Boryeong Mud Festival. I'll have to post more on that after I get back (it's an overnight trip and I'll probably not have access to a computer for most of tomorrow and also most of Sunday).
So, I spent the evening chillaxing and talking to one of my acquaintances from here, Benji. Basically, we decided to have a trash talking fest about the people here who irk us. Oddly enough, we had quite a few common disliked people and funnily enough they were from my university. A common complaint we both seemed to have was against the people with too big of an ego and general lack of respect. For example, one of the people we discussed doesn't really seem to show much respect for Korea, not even making an effort to pronounce words correctly. He's a smart guy, the one we were discussing, but he just doesn't care enough to put forth the effort. I realize (and know from experience) that Korean pronunciation can be difficult at first, but with time it isn't that bad. Just...no effort seems to be put into it.
Also, another comment he had on my university mates (not on me myself) is that they go out every night drinking. Sure, drinking is a part of Korean culture, but every night? And coming back at 3 to possibly go to class at 9? It just is a waste. Which brought up the question that Benji placed before me (indirectly): why did the people from my university come here? They mostly seem to just get drunk every night and buy random crap like materialism was going out of style.
What is the point of coming here? Not knowing the people from my university that well, I could not respond. But, I saw his point. Why would you go to a foreign country? Is it to learn something? I mean, I'd hope so. But the aforementioned guy doesn't even seem to be making an effort to pronounce even simple greeting phrases so...ugh. It's frustrating and I realize this is a somewhat common complain from me, but why do the people from my university have to be so superficial? I wish I could defend them, but I have trouble doing it and their general lack of trying to appreciate the culture honestly make it hard to do it. Ker-sigh.
Benji mentioned that he feels bad that he has a negative view from people of Ohio as a result (to which I folded my arms and cleared my throat, much to his amusement), though he has a point. The majority of the people here from my college really aren't putting forth an effort to fit in or understand. What a waste. To think the trip may have gone to people who would appreciate the cultural aspects of it.
-Reven
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Day 21- No such thing as a free lunch
The title of this blog post seems a bit random, I'm sure. But it'll make sense about halfway through.
So, today's history class was really boring. I've found that the more I read the material in advance for class the more concupiscent I am that what the teacher says is merely repetition. Nevertheless, it was interesting enough stuff. Japan takes over Korea and basically treats the people like crap. Not too much different than Tuesday's lecture. Next up tomorrow is the Korean war. Should be fun, no?
Things that weren't fun were paying for my China visa. Now, us group of university students that are going were told that it would be around W130,000. Sure, fine, ok. No big deal. However, we all received an email earlier this week saying that the real cost would be around W208,000, much to the ire of other students. I merely shrugged it off- I knew it was going to be expensive, so why complain about it being a bit more than I thought? I remember DIC (Doofus in Charge, remember her?) telling us that it would be around $200 for the China visa, so whatever. Though it appears as though I was the only one. :/ Anyways, such is life and occasionally one must do things that are uncomforatable.
I went down to the office, W208,000 in hand, ready to get my passport back (the office took our passports for the visa) only to learn, to my dismay, that we can't get them back. Excuse me, said I, but my passport is very important to me.
Ah, replied the director here, but we need to keep all the passports together for the trip.
And why may that be? I asked.
Because you are all going over together in a group, she explained to my blank face.
Horrible enough of an excuse as that was, I made sure I got a receipt from those jokers and left the office fairly bummed out. Then, I met Abraham. Abraham is a Korean/Swiss student who was studying at Hanyang full time. He was roughly my age, maybe a little younger. To be honest, he didn't look Korean, but rather somewhere from the Middle East.
We began chatting amicably and he seemed like a nice enough guy. I said that I didn't have any plans for lunch and asked him if he wanted to grab something at the cafeteria. He wholehearted accepted and proclaimed we should not go the cafeteria, but rather McDonald's across the street from the college. Alright! Once we got inside, he offered to pay, claiming that it was a welcome to Korea present. Now we're talking. I shrugged and said sure. The guy seemed nice enough and hey, I had gone out to lunch with Alexis the other day and she was good enough company as well.
We get there, and the place is busy. I mean...busy. Though, I do have to say, for all of the business, it was no sooner than Abraham finished ordering our respective meals (Big Mac meal for me, McChicken meal for him) than our food was served to us. My jaw almost hit the floor. Impressed? Yes, sir. Not even Americans can do it that fast. I suppose at this point, I should point out that there are scooters where one can order McDonald's and they deliver it to you (pictured to the right). Amazing idea, but I fear that if it every caught on in the US, we'd never leave our houses. Or may I wouldn't.
The food was good. Standard- but because I picked up said meal between the hours of 11 and 2, the normally $5 meal was a mere W3000 (under $3). Good service, no? The drink was a little smaller than American drinks but it was good to have some familiar products in front of me.
So, I said a silent prayer and blessed myself as we sat down to eat. He asked me if I was Christian, to which I responded that I am. He revealed himself as a Muslim, to which I was interested. I asked a few questions of him, just standard stuff (not necessarily theology) and expressed my respect for Muslims (ie not drinking, prostrating to God- which the Orthodox do as well and I find it surprising that more do not). He then started to say that Christians and Muslims are somewhat similar theologically, to which I said I mostly agreed. Then came the issue of Jesus.
Ho boy.
To those of you unfamiliar with the religions discussed here, most Christians adhere to the idea that Jesus was both completely God and completely man and as such makes up part of the Trinity. By comparison, Islam does revere Jesus as a very important prophet and view him as important, but does not recognize him as the Son of God, an idea viewed as blasphemous. After all, how could God die?Naturally there were going to be some disagreements in theology. He started with saying that while he reveres Jesus, Jesus never said he was the Son of God directly (which is admittedly true) and that Jesus was created, that God can never be split or divided and so forth and so on. I tried to defend my own personal viewpoints as best as possible, but he wasn't listening. That's probably what annoyed me the most. He continued plowing onwards even though I tried to say "That's fine what you believe but I don't believe the same things you do." He continued to proselytize me (or attempt to) for the next while.
I like a good theological/spiritual debate as much as the next guy, but there comes a point where the two people arguing basically have to agree to disagree or end up squabbling for the next hour/day/week/month. I was set with doing that- he wasn't. To be honest, I wasn't trying to convert him either and saw no reason to (he seemed perfectly happy enough as is). I enjoyed the talk and the company, though he was getting a bit overbearing. He wasn't confrontational, but rather zealous, if that makes sense. He said that he hoped that he wasn't offending me (he hadn't) but he just wanted to share the most important thing in the world to him with me. Fine, that's good that you have your faith. However, I have mine already and if I was looking for another one I would have been asking you questions rather than you telling me why my religion isn't correct- please leave me alone.
Thankfully I shook him off as I entered my language class but the somewhat constant barrage of him telling me that I was wrong left me somewhat weary. Even my classmates noticed it and asked me what happened. "Ran into a proselyte. Wasn't pleasant."
My encounter having worn me out, even the bubbly teacher for Korean language couldn't rouse me from my slow movement. I made it through class though and that's what is important.
I guess in the end, I am a rather horrible Christian. I don't actively proselytize or tell people about my faith unless it comes up in conversation. My priest at college tells our congregation that we should all have a testimonial about how we came to the Faith and a story about it. I guess, I really don't have one. I was born into Orthodox Christianity, was baptized at forty days, had Communion right after, First Confession before ten and went through the whole Sunday School thing, more often than not being the only one awake in class and stirring up some kind of debate or dialogue just to let the teacher know that someone, anyone was listening. Though, I'm not sure if any of them realized that. Well, maybe one or two.It's not like I haven't considered other religions or schools of thought. Orthodox Christianity works for me, even with my many questions and concerns. It's where I belong.
Perhaps my respecting of other people's boundaries and believe that if I was a really good Christian then they would as me about what makes me different or whatnot and then I could tell them. Though, that has never happened, so whatever. Maybe some day. It wasn't today, apparently.
I guess, I want to leave off today with a quote from Neil Gaimen's Novel "American Gods." It's a fantastic book and anyone who likely mythology (of ANY sort) will love it and even those who don't will as well. The quote goes: "There's never been a true war that wasn't fought between two sets of people who were certain they were in the right. The really dangerous people believe they are doing whatever they are doing solely and only because it is without question the right thing to do. And that is what makes them dangerous."
No such thing as a free lunch, Ladies and Gents. No such thing.
-Reven
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Day 20- Soccer...and more Soccer...
So, today was a field day of sorts. The problem was that the majority of people were hung over from the night before and attendance was at a low for the most part. That aside, it went somewhat well.
It was run by the Korean volunteer students and it was nice to run around and do stuff. However, the activities were...alright.
We started out playing soccer. Now, to clarify, I've never had a good experience with soccer. I sucked at it as a kid, due to being asthmatic and overweight and as a result never got good ballhandling/passing skills. I can run up and down the field just fine (even better now) but don't rely on me for anything other than minor passes and getting in the way of the other team (though that's come in handy more than once). SO, we played a game of soccer- 20 minutes or so.
Then as we were about to transition to some other sport, this broadcasting teacher, a prick by the name of Prof. Chang shows up and tries to run the show. I sigh as he decides that he wants to do another game of soccer- International students Vs. Korean. Fine, sure. But sir, we just finished playing a 20 minute game on our own.
The guy has the nerve to ref the game and act all pompous. Thankfully, I was not alone in my frustration of this turn of events. More than one person grumbled about Chang showing up and whatnot. The point should be made: Chang isn't even a Hanyang full time prof (he's a visiting prof from Ithaca). Not that this makes him any more or less of a jerk for taking control- it just seems less justified in my eyes though.
Thankfully, after the first twenty minute half (gah) and the internationals being down 3-1, the elementary school kids come out on the field. Yes! thinks I to myself, we'll have a reprieve. Oh and we do after Chang and the gym instructor lock horns for a bit, and there was more than one person internally cheering, I could tell.
The highlight of this afternoon was the free (yes, free!) lunch. Fried chicken, noodles and pop for all. And did I mention that it was free? Amazing. Though, I do have to protest- Chang wanted us back out on the field RIGHT after eating (of which I had much). Whereupon a few other students and I looked at him with a "You've gotta be kidding" expression on our respective faces as our bodies were preoccupied with digestion rather than running around. Reluctantly, we wandered back onto the field.
International still lost though, but whatever. Life goes on.
After a little dodge ball, I wandered back to my dorm room and listened to music for the next while. I really didn't feel the urge to socialize, give my somewhat awkward encounters with people here.
Though, while I don't necessarily try to let people in here, sometimes they barge in- literally. One of the nicer guys from my college, Campbell, is truly a nice guy. He's chatty, maybe a little superficial, but energetic and enthusiastic. He's one of the bar people, but decent conversation on a walk from Points A to B. However, I must fault him on one thing: he opens up my room door randomly.
Much like in any college setting, I believe proper etiquette for one requesting permission to enter another's room by knocking on the door and waiting for a reply. This is common courtesy as it gives the room person time to mentally recognize the sound and get the door to invite the knocker in. This social norm seems lost on Campbell. He knocks on the door, waits until about "one Missi..." and tries the doorknob. Silly me, I have yet to lock the door thinking that most people would understand the convention of society and not open the door on their own, but by golly one of these days I will learn. Sarcasm ends here, by the by.
He wanted to check his email and chat, both of which I was more than willing to do. As I said, he's relatively nice to talk to- though he is not very deep and not having attempted sarcasm on him, I am concerned if I did he would not get it. Though, aside from randomly entering my room he's not a bad guy at all- rather the opposite is true. He's quite pleasant, but again not too deep or concerned with learning (openly admitting that he doesn't remember the last book he read and lives off of other students explaining the teacher and textbook to him), so he's a nice distraction here.
In other news, read 37 pages for tomorrow's history class. Hopefully I can prevent another incident like what happened on Tuesday (check it, if you don't remember) and it'll all be good. My fingers, after I type this will be crossed. Here's to hoping the week will finish out well...and possibly that I'll finish one of two short stories that are basically in the "writing phase" (their dialogue being finished).
-Reven
EDIT: I'm planning something special for my fiftieth post. Be prepared!
It was run by the Korean volunteer students and it was nice to run around and do stuff. However, the activities were...alright.
We started out playing soccer. Now, to clarify, I've never had a good experience with soccer. I sucked at it as a kid, due to being asthmatic and overweight and as a result never got good ballhandling/passing skills. I can run up and down the field just fine (even better now) but don't rely on me for anything other than minor passes and getting in the way of the other team (though that's come in handy more than once). SO, we played a game of soccer- 20 minutes or so.
Then as we were about to transition to some other sport, this broadcasting teacher, a prick by the name of Prof. Chang shows up and tries to run the show. I sigh as he decides that he wants to do another game of soccer- International students Vs. Korean. Fine, sure. But sir, we just finished playing a 20 minute game on our own.
The guy has the nerve to ref the game and act all pompous. Thankfully, I was not alone in my frustration of this turn of events. More than one person grumbled about Chang showing up and whatnot. The point should be made: Chang isn't even a Hanyang full time prof (he's a visiting prof from Ithaca). Not that this makes him any more or less of a jerk for taking control- it just seems less justified in my eyes though.
Thankfully, after the first twenty minute half (gah) and the internationals being down 3-1, the elementary school kids come out on the field. Yes! thinks I to myself, we'll have a reprieve. Oh and we do after Chang and the gym instructor lock horns for a bit, and there was more than one person internally cheering, I could tell.
The highlight of this afternoon was the free (yes, free!) lunch. Fried chicken, noodles and pop for all. And did I mention that it was free? Amazing. Though, I do have to protest- Chang wanted us back out on the field RIGHT after eating (of which I had much). Whereupon a few other students and I looked at him with a "You've gotta be kidding" expression on our respective faces as our bodies were preoccupied with digestion rather than running around. Reluctantly, we wandered back onto the field.
International still lost though, but whatever. Life goes on.
After a little dodge ball, I wandered back to my dorm room and listened to music for the next while. I really didn't feel the urge to socialize, give my somewhat awkward encounters with people here.
Though, while I don't necessarily try to let people in here, sometimes they barge in- literally. One of the nicer guys from my college, Campbell, is truly a nice guy. He's chatty, maybe a little superficial, but energetic and enthusiastic. He's one of the bar people, but decent conversation on a walk from Points A to B. However, I must fault him on one thing: he opens up my room door randomly.
Much like in any college setting, I believe proper etiquette for one requesting permission to enter another's room by knocking on the door and waiting for a reply. This is common courtesy as it gives the room person time to mentally recognize the sound and get the door to invite the knocker in. This social norm seems lost on Campbell. He knocks on the door, waits until about "one Missi..." and tries the doorknob. Silly me, I have yet to lock the door thinking that most people would understand the convention of society and not open the door on their own, but by golly one of these days I will learn. Sarcasm ends here, by the by.
He wanted to check his email and chat, both of which I was more than willing to do. As I said, he's relatively nice to talk to- though he is not very deep and not having attempted sarcasm on him, I am concerned if I did he would not get it. Though, aside from randomly entering my room he's not a bad guy at all- rather the opposite is true. He's quite pleasant, but again not too deep or concerned with learning (openly admitting that he doesn't remember the last book he read and lives off of other students explaining the teacher and textbook to him), so he's a nice distraction here.
In other news, read 37 pages for tomorrow's history class. Hopefully I can prevent another incident like what happened on Tuesday (check it, if you don't remember) and it'll all be good. My fingers, after I type this will be crossed. Here's to hoping the week will finish out well...and possibly that I'll finish one of two short stories that are basically in the "writing phase" (their dialogue being finished).
-Reven
EDIT: I'm planning something special for my fiftieth post. Be prepared!
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Day 19- Imperialism and Lamb
So, today's history class was awkward to say the least. It was the period in history when Japan, Russia, China and basically all of Europe start vying for colonies in Asia and the Pacific. From what I gathered, it appears as though after Korea was forced open by American and other nations, it was on relatively good terms. Though, like most of American history, we did ignore Korea's pleas for help when they were repeatedly attacked by the local imperialist Japan and finally colonized by them. The cartoon shown above here is humorous sure, but darkly accurate about the relationship between Japan and Korea. Now one can truly realize why some Korean people may get a little upset about being called Japanese. Or for that matter why some Koreans may harbor some anti-Japanese sentiment even today.
Though that wasn't the rough part. Like I had to do, two students had to present on the material- both of them were female, Korean and did not have the best presentation skills. The latter is due in large part to the class being in English and also the fact that Korean schooling doesn't focus as much on presenting as much as American education. Thank you, US of A.
Basically what happened was that Girl A presented her part of the period of history, which didn't go very smoothly and then before Alexis (or Girl B) started, the teacher stood up and basicalyl said that Girl A's presentation was bad due to Girl A basically just reading her Powerpoint slides and missing several major world events (such as the Russo-Japanese War, the Opium War, etc.). Though these omissions are due in part to the teacher herself who proclaims that students who present should only present on "the important things" (though she doesn't quite explain what said important things are).
So, this sets a rather uncomfortable stage for Alexis (whom I had become faintly acquainted with prior to her presentation) and her half of the presentation. As I mentioned before, her English isn't fantastic and with her partner having gone down in flames it must have been nerve wracking. Her presentation was a little shaky but much better than her partner's half. Unfortunately, the teacher had decided that given the former partner's poor performance that she (the teacher) should interrupt Alexis at any point during her presentation to insert whatever she deemed necessary rather than wait until the end to add in stuff (as she had done in the past). It was really uncomfortable.
I wished I had done the reading so that when the teacher asked questions of Alexis and her half of the presentation that I could have answered as to make it seem that she had taught us. Alas, I couldn't do it.
After the rocky presentation, Alexis basically came up to me and sighed. I told her that it went alright (which was more or less accurate- it wasn't good, but I'd hesitate to call it bad) and not to worry. She seemed worn out from the whole ordeal. After the teacher had finished eviscerating Alexis' partner, Alexis said that her mind basically went into shutdown mode-that she was having trouble pronouncing words and remembering the reading material. Also, as I mentioned before, Korean schooling doesn't involve presentations and this was the second presentation that she had given in school. Ever.
To make matters worse, there was not very good communication between her and her partner about the presentation and material, leaving a last minute scramble to figure out what to do (mostly on the side of the partner).
I couldn't imagine being in her shoes: having to do a presentation in a foreign language when I'm not used to presenting, not sure if what I'm covering is the right material and living in fear of the teacher interrupting and telling me that I forgot some major event of history. Oy. Headache.
Anyways, we got to talking afterward and ended up hitting lunch. 'Twas a pleasant experience. Had some soup/noodle dish along with a beef/rice dish. For a little over W3000, it was a steal. Worth more than that was the company. Though there are a few people I can carry a conversation with here (Brian, June Bae, Benji and a few others in program- note this doesn't include the people from Sunday), the overwhelming majority give me a few syllables of response and let our conversations end with that.
However, Alexis and I had an actual conversation about different cultural differences between the US and Korea. She asked me what Americans thought of Korea and I admitted while some people realize Korea is a fully developed nation, that a number of Americans still believe Korea to look no different than it did when the 4077 was still in business. She smiled at that and to my surprise, it's not Americans that think that Korea is backwater.
Who then, I asked of her, would have such a distorted view as well? Apparently some Japanese don't understand that Korea is a developed nation as well. Here's a dialogue that she described having with a Japanese guy:
Him: So you are from Korea?
Her: Yep.
Him: So...do you have to worry about getting shot every day?
Her: Um...no...?
Him: I know things are really bad over there and...wait is that a cell phone you have?
Her: Yeah (confused).
Him: Whoa...that's a nice cell phone.
Her: (nods) Thanks...
Him: I know not too many people have cell phones in Korea...Where did you get the money to get the phone? Did you steal it?
Her: Wait, what? No, I didn't steal money for it!
Him: But that's a really nice cell phone...you must be really rich.
Her: I'm middle class...really, I am.
Him: Really? Wow...that's so strange. I heard you guys don't even have that many TVs over there...
Her: (realizing that he's thinking of North Korea, not South) We have FOUR TVs in our house! (at which point, I whistled)
So, yeah. Point for Team USA for not being the only ignorant ones in the world! WHOO! Or not.
Bottom line is, I'm just finding it interesting that people from other countries are a LOT easier to talk to than Americans whom one would imagine that I would have more in common with just coming from the same country. Wonder why that is. Speculation?
Next up was language class which was basically just watching a movie. I didn't know the title, but upon a little research it is titled "Take off." Think "Cool Runnings" except for with Korean guys, the Winter Olympics and the Ski Jump event. Holy crap. It was bad. The characters all had some kind of tragic or angsty back story- all of which were admittedly justified, but it seemed over done. For example, the four teammates have as their back stories this: a junkie, a guy who was sold from Korea to an adoptive American family and has returned to Korea to find his mother, a guy who is aiming to win the gold in order to not have to do military service and care for his very old grandmother and mentally handicapped brother and lastly a guy who not only has the obligatory hardass father figure, but has a pregnant girlfriend who also happens to be an illegal alien from China. I mean, seriously? If you kept two of those stories, it'd be plausible, but otherwise it's just overload. Man. It got so overly tragic that I had to laugh at times. Thankfully, I wasn't alone. But man...the movie was little under three hours and felt all of it. The next time I'm watching a movie of that length, it had better be amazing quality. Ugh.
I didn't go out tonight as it was one girl from here's birthday (she's from Ithaca) and decided to have everyone go out to this really fancy restaurant. Not knowing her well in the first place and being frugal (in that order), I bowed out. I later found a seriously ticked off Little Jay after the dinner (the rest of the group opted for going to the bar after wards and he wanted to return) fuming about having to pay W17000 for very little food and still feeling hungry after.So...yeah...glad I skipped out.
No, my evening was spent with reading for class and watching old Alfred Hitchcock Presents. I recently discovered it for myself on a whim and am hooked. The writing is fantastic and the acting is (mostly) quite good. The most interesting one was titled "Lamb to the Slaughter" which I recognized as a title or a Rohld Dahl short story and found (much to my excitement) that it was the same story and actually screen-written by Mr. Dahl himself. In case you haven't read the short story (which I would recommend over the episode actually) and would rather allocate time to other things, here's the link to the episode. I highly recommend. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmpY9cpe6g8&feature=related-Reven
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