study overload already - week 6

Tonight I was pretty productive considering recent bouts of distraction. I took another nap today before my International Relations between North East Asia countries class. One thing that hasn't changed since my freshman year is my affinity for naps.

My IR (international relations) class is pretty interesting. It's right around lunch time however and my professor always brings up food, and how he just crave a simple American cheeseburger or plain cheese pizza. (He taught in the US for a couple years.) It's true, pizza here has potatoes, seafood, and much more on it, and burgers are bulgogi burgers usually (with a sweet marinade). Although I'm a fan of a good bulgogi burger, I think McDonalds should move it worldwide. So I was hungry...but i just ate a convenience store sandwich and chips. I'm trying to save some money.

I was going to eat dinner in my room but my roommate ("Ella" from Beijing for future reference) was going out so I joined her. We went to one of my favorite 24 hour places. We had kimbap (looks like a sushi roll, but it's filled with lots of things like sausage, egg, veggies --not raw fish! We also had fish cake soup and teokbokkgi, or spicy rice cakes, all for 7,500won. Lots of good food, cheap. Around 11 Colin (for those who don't know Colin goes to Waynesburg too and is also exchanging to Ewha -- read his blog!) instant messaged me & we went out to get him some street food. It was a welcome break from the 12 Korean language workbook pages I had to do.

So, how about a throwback story?
The dancing I told you about at the Mask Dance Festival in my last blog wasn't the only time I've done something like that. During orientation week the Peace Buddies* organized a party for the international students. We went to a place called Osama (weird I know) and people were dancing. Well I decided to make some friends by teaching them an old-school move some friends and I made up. Just to give you an idea it involves pretending to throw and run with a football, and I'm dramatic. It worked well for breaking the ice and meeting people. Before the party was over I got invited to my first Norebang (Karaoke, literally "sing-room") with a few Japanese girls. It was a fun night. The next day I met my Peace Buddy, YeongMi to go to the Seoul Food Festival and she showed me a video she secretly took of me dancing ***i know now how ridiculous i look*** Somehow that didn't stop me.

(*Peace Buddies are Ewha students that volunteer to help international students. They organize events and every day we have the option of meeting for Buddy Lunch where we all eat off campus together. YeongMi is my buddy, and she's amazing.)

Another from the first week:
I went on a trip hiking to the Mt. Samgak festival. It was a race, but it was my first time hiking a mountain so I stayed with the rest of the group and was lazy. It's a big festival for the neighboring town and the Mayor was there for introductions and photo opportunities, but he also climbed with us. He kept coming around us and talking with us, with his photographer in tow. He sign-languaged asked me about my nose ring, with a look of shock. It was funny. I don't care if he used me just for photo ops he was a sweet man. The festival sent a representative from the town to pick us up from school and hike with our group that day. I got to talk to her quite a bit and was kind of sad to say goodbye. When we said goodbye I said Gomapsmnida (thank you) and she said "ah!" and hugged me like I made her really happy. I'm still not sure, but maybe it's because gomapsmnida is more personal than Kamsahamnida (also thank you). Anyway I started out my trip meeting lots of people and I'm still meeting more ^^ I love people.