wish i didn't have this heart, then i wouldn't know the sting of the rain

my mind is seriously all over the place right now, so this blog post is definitely going to be extremely random and have no significant order at all. we'll call it chaotic, which i feel like this is what my life has become. 

so my sleep schedule is completely screwed up right now. with as much as i was stressing about my gigantic homework assignment last week, i was up until god awful hours in the middle of the night plugging away on my computer. while i have slept a significant amount from thursday through last night, i don't think my body is fully caught up with what i lost during the stress. 

BUT.... i am officially done with class number 3 for grad school. which means i am 6 classes away from being done with my master's degree! :) which is extremely exciting. and also a little scary. i can't believe how fast time is going by. i am almost a month into my 2nd contract here in korea as well. crazy stuff. 

my itunes is being really shitty lately... it's seriously playing all the music that i could seriously do without. some of it i am not entirely sure why or even how it got into my itunes in the first place. and if my itunes or my ipod plays one more damn garth brooks song i am going to scream. it's like they are taunting me. good god. 

i actually had a social life this weekend... as opposed to not seeing anyone and spending a good portion of my saturday in the hospital like i did last weekend. yeesh! but saturday was spent sleeping in, or at least as much as my body would let me. for some god awful reason my body naturally wakes up at 7am on the weekend. it's 5:45am during the week, even though i don't have to be up till like 6:30 or so. so after i got up and got ready for the day, i did some necessary retail therapy with roooooooommate. forever21 and H&M like always. scored a cute polka dot tank, a really pretty teal cardigan, 4 pairs of earrings and a set of bangles from forever21. i found an adorable pink lace dress and a teal shirt from H&M. i wish more of the dresses that i tried on fit me, but because i have curves, a butt and boobs, this was not the case this time around. after heading back home, i grabbed dinner and drinks with laura and company. today was spent in itaewon for brunch. as usual. an excellent tradition that has been started. i could get used to it. after brunch we went to what the book and went book hunting... and i actually walked out of there with nothing. shocking i know. then was the adventure to get tony a phone... oh good lord it took so long and the place was sooooooooooo hot. laura and i were dying. 

so i didn't do any homework this weekend, or the prep stuff i brought home from work to do either. and you know what... i'm perfectly okay with that. because i had a social life and it was wonderful. i feel like lately i have become somewhat of a hermit, which is understandable considering most of the time i am swamped with homework and/or work stuff. it helps in the saving of money area of things. cause i'm not going out on the weekend for drinks and staying out all night and i haven't gone shopping all that much lately cause i just don't have the free time. 

so my trip to the hospital last weekend was initiated by my doctor who did my health check a couple months ago. he noticed that my iron levels were low, which i have always known. i'm anemic, so much so that i can't give blood. well he wanted to check to see if my levels had evened out at all. so this required me to have copious amounts of blood drawn and get multiple tests ran. i hate needles. and nurses who don't know how to use them. and hospitals. blech! well turns out i got my results back and my iron levels have gotten even lower. lovely... just lovely. so he informed me i need to start taking iron supplements (which btw are extremely hard to find in korea) and i need to start eating food that is high in iron. which means more red meet and leafy dark greens. guess that means i will have to actually start buying meat here. which is hard when you cook for one person and don't have a working freezer. stupid landlord won't fix my current problem and won't replace it either. 

i also went to the dermatologist cause this stupid korea weather is screwing with my complexion. the stress probably doesn't help either, but i wish i could get it under control. i'm almost 25 freaking years old. i shouldn't have this crap anymore dammit! on the plus side, after my scaling of my face, i get a nice facial treatment. 

my parents sent out my packages on saturday my time. so hopefully i will have them in a week or so. which means i will get my new shoes i ordered from nordstrom, my jeans from AE and my other clothes from LOFT that i ordered online what feels like ages ago. and other things i requested from my parents. i'm excited. :)

we have gone 3 weeks without speaking now. which when i think about it, still upsets me. because this is me and for some ungodly reason i care about you. but i have moved into a stage of anger about it as well. i just don't understand it. so i'm going to continue not to say anything cause i know it's the right thing to do. even though my insides are screaming at me to say something. and i know that i can write this with full knowledge that you aren't actually going to read it.

listening to "cold as stone" by lady antebellum on repeat as i turn out the lights and call it a night. 

yeah it was perfect and i hold it in my mind

as i sit in the back of my classroom at my make-shift desk (because my actual office is freezing and the computer decides it doesn't want to work half the time) the cleaning girls come into the empty classroom and take it over cleaning. first with opening all the windows, sweeping the floors, mopping the floors, wiping down tables, cleaning the whiteboards and wiping down both my desk and my co-teacher, jungwha's desk. all while this is happening i sit here and still can't believe i decided to stay a second year in korea. 

i remember during my first year about half way through... i was talking to my friend jennie. she was getting excited to go back home to america after being in korea for almost a year. she asked me if i was staying another year and i remember telling her a definite "NO". i was so sure that i was going to leave korea at the end of my first contract and go back to america and be done with my experience of living abroad. but somewhere between august and december something changed. i don't know if it was that i was scared to go back to america when it's in such an economic crisis and with the presidential election looming over the countries heads. or if i was nervous to go back to america with no place to really call my own, no car, no job or income to pay my loans, and no real plan in mind. either way i told myself that i couldn't go back to the states. i wasn't ready to go back. 

after going through the hassle of moving my life from daewha to hwajeong, preparing all my documents for my new school i have situated myself into somewhat of a routine. my new apartment is set up differently from my other place. it's probably a tiny bit smaller, i have a smaller bed, but i have a couch now, i have less closet space which is actually fine cause it's just what i need, and i have a ton of storage space, like way more than i would ever need. *if i find the time, i will maybe make another video to show my new apartment* i take the bus to and from work everyday. i'm teaching 3rd, 5th and 6th grade, with two kindergarten classes on monday and two after school classes on tuesdays as well. this means the only grade i am not involved with at this school is the 4th grade. they keep me pretty busy.

on top of teaching i still have my grad school classes going on. as of now i am on my final week of my 3rd class. this means i only have 6 classes left until i am officially done with my program. which means 6 classes till i have my master's degree. so far it's been good, i've had a good time with it. and i've actually learned a few things along the way. my current class, Child and Young Adult Literature has actually been a lot of fun, except for the fact that i became the tech guru for my class. how I became the tech person i am not entirely sure, but i guess i'm not half bad when it comes to technology. on top of grad school i also have some extra stuff i have been working on. so between all of it, i keep myself pretty busy. and since i decided that this second year, i was going to be saving money/paying off some of my student loan debt, the extra workload comes with a nice extra pay increase that is helpful. i just hope i don't spread myself too thin or run myself into the ground in the process... 

as of now i have my trip home in august for a visit to look forward to. i had two other trips to look forward to as well; a long weekend trip to DC to visit a friend, but since we aren't really speaking as of now it looks as though that's out of the question.  and then there was the trip that my sister was supposed to take in june to come and see me. but she refuses to save her money and would rather visit her so called "boyfriend" than come and visit me. so after two failed attempts and planning things, i'm refusing to plan anything else, cause the way i see it, they aren't going to work out even if i want them too. 


as of now i'm just keeping myself busy. i'm looking forward to what this year is going to bring me.

 

one year ago...

the 28th of february marked my one-year anniversary of living here in korea. it feels like time has flown by. it doesn't feel like it's been a year. some mornings i wake up and it feels like the first day, other days it feels like i have been here for ages. no matter how long i have been here, i have enjoyed my time here. sure there have been ups and downs, hard times and easy times, times where i have been homesick for friends and family and familiarity, and other times where i don't want to go home. below are some of the things this past year has brought me. these aren't in any date or specific order... 

zip-lining. for someone who hates heights i have now done this and bungee-jumping while in korea

jennie and i completed ziplining!

we spent a weekend playing in the mud at mudfest 2011!

dani and i at the north seoul tower near the wall of locks.

our first weekend as rooooooommates in korea!

st. patrick's/dani's birthday weekend out in seoul.

school hikes with my co-teachers

a long weekend trip to jeju island!

iain visited and we headed to the DMZ

at the freedom bridge in between north and south korea

got to see sara bareilles live in concert in seoul!

adventured to thailand with stephanie for summer vacation!

water balloon fights!

jennie and i went to her co-teachers family reunion. this is supposed to be the yellow sea.

i've eaten plenty of traditional korean food...

plenty of girl's nights out in seoul!

winter camp meant plenty of time to play with my kids!

spent chuseok (korean thanksgiving) in busan at the beach!

Santa-con 2011 out in Hongdae!

adventured to indonesia for winter vacation. anything to get out of the freezing cold winter that is korea.

 i'm starting year number two working at a new school, living in a new apartment in a new city, and i'm ready for new adventures. this second year is all about saving though. i didn't do so well with that the 1st year. i have added to my debt with doing grad school instead of making it go down. in the end though it will be worth it cause i will have my master's degree and be done with school. 

so this year's goals: 
- save as much as i can
- pay down my loans at least a little 
- continue with grad school 
- actually work on my speaking/reading korean

here's to another year of amazingness... 

indonesia... part two

so it's been a few days, instead of hours, since i posted my first part about indonesia. so much has happened in those few days, but that's for another blog post to come later. er... i think it's been a week at least. oops... 

so we left off with dani and i in kuta and getting the hell out of there as fast as possible! we took a bus inland to ubud, which was my favorite part of bali definitely! once we finally got off the bus and actually to ubud we walked around for 30 mins or so looking for a room that was reasonably priced for a few nights. after going off the beaten path, i finally found a place for a us to stay. 

where we stayed for a few nights :) 

 while we were in ubud we were able to relax as we didn't have to be anywhere at anytime. pretty much perfect! there were a ton of little shops all around that were selling all these wonderful batik fabrics, little trinkets and so many other things. there was a giant market where the shop owners harassed us over and over to buy something from them. and let's not forget the food.... oh the food! 

while we were there, we finally got to enjoy some LEGIT mexican food. after living in korea for a year and not having access to mexican food on a regular basis. and what we do have access to is not the greatest mexican food at all. you can barely call it mexican food. so to have mexican food was very exciting! 

rooooommate at mojo's! 

MEXICAN FOOOOOOOD!

such a good burrito!

i could eat this everyday and be perfectly content

while we were in ubud we went to the monkey forest. let me start this off by saying... these monkey's are assholes! they steal peoples things; including sunglasses, camera, shoes, backpacks, etc. so you have to be pretty careful. we met up with nick and jessica and headed to the forest... 

he refused to let me take his picture...

it was so pretty here

 also while in ubud, dani and i went and saw some traditional balinese dancing. their outfits were absolutely amazing, their make up was over the top. when they were dancing their eyes were so intense... it was crazy! 

from ubud we flew down to java and stayed in surabaya. this is the area where dani lived while she was on fulbright in indonesia. we were able to go to her old school and see the teachers and some of her students there. we were also able to see the areas where she explored while she lived there.

one of the teachers. seriously reminded me of sharone

 while we were there we went to the taman safari. it is exactly what it sounds like... a safari with a ton of animals. these animals pretty much roam free around the land. so we had random animals coming up to our car ALLLL the time. zebras, camels, antelope, monkeys, emus... there is a part where you can walk around too and see the animals as well. we had an orangutan consistently throw rocks at us while we were walking around that area. i was also able to play with a baby tiger. and dani was able to play with an owl. 

just a zebra coming to say hello

just me playing with a baby tiger

he really wanted the carrots

these birds are sooooo ugly!

he would not stop throwing rocks at us

 after a few days in surabaya i bid indonesia farewell and headed back to the freezing land that is korea. i was on the plane in shorts, a t-shirt and flip flops. needless to say i was freezing when i got to korea and it was SNOWING! but i did capture this awesome sunset. 

 

now that i'm back, i have moved and started at my new school. so far so good... we will see how things go.