I'm Still Alive

So as you all might have seem, I have not updated in a while. I just have been really busy with midterms and group projects that I have not really had all that much time to update on here and in my personal journal that I have here with me (ohh, don't you all want to know what I write in there! So much stuff that I don't post on here!!! jk). But I am going to be updating in a format that my friend uses on her blog and it seems to work for her. I promise better posts in the future!!

• I am really loving the street food here. So far my favorite is the waffles (warm waffles with flavored cream and sugar!!). But we also have dumplings, chicken, hoddok (fried dough disk with nuts and spices inside), ddokbokki (chewy rice cakes in a chili sauce), and french fried covered hotdogs (yes they exist and I had one--so good!!!)

• I have been to a total of 3 Simply Kpop recordings (was interviewed by Eli for ep 88, adn introduced ep.82) , have been on an Arirang radio show for an interview, one live recording for After School Club, the Seoul Concert for the YouTube Music Awards, and two showcases--> Block B and VIXX!!

• School is going really well and I have group projects in all of my classes except for Korean. For my Traditional Korean Society and Modernization class I had to do a group project on Korean Dating Culture; for my Pacific Alliance class we are talking about the US-Australian Alliance and how Australia's growing economic dependence on China may interfere with the strategic alliance they have with the US; for my North Korean class we are going to be presenting on the Inter Korean Relations (past and present).

• Korean is going great. I am able to respond to my teacher and answer her questions, but have yet to really use it all that much out side of class (other than restaurant/ordering Korean). I am really able to read and write more so than speak at the moment. I have been getting frustrated because since I am conversational in French, I feel like I should be so much farther ahead, but I have to keep reminding myself that I have only been studying it for about 4 months now (vs 7 years).

• The weather here in Seoul is starting to look like winter. There is still lots of color around, but ti is really really cold here. You need to dress in layers and always have a sweater/coat on. I actually ended up getting a face mask to wear over my mouth/chin area and after one day of wearing it in the cold I think it was a good buy. When I am out int he cold, it is my chin that freezes over first, so with this, I am really warm because the warm air that I breath out warms up my chin! Plus it looks really cool!
  
  
  
  
  
  

• The semester is coming to an end and all my friends are starting to think about packing and heading back home. Since I am staying here over the break and not flying back to Charlotte, I am thinking of visiting a friend of mine in Hong Kong for Christmas and then later in January, going to stay with my cousin in Japan for a week. Other than that I am going to be here in Seoul for the whole 2.5 months that we have off ( I plan on bugging all of my Korean friends to hang out with me/all of my fellow foreigners that are staying here). Maybe I will do more kpop shows...

• I have really started missing American food and also my mom's cooking. Because we do not have an oven in the dorms, I am not really able to cook all that much. I have really been abusing my cooking board on Pinterest looking at all the foods that I am not able to eat over here and pinning the recipes for when I get back to the states. And now that Thanksgiving is right around the corner, I am really starting to miss home and my mommy's cooking. I would give anything to have Uncle Chuck's gooey mac and cheese with a huge bowl of my mom's cornbread dressing. Ahh I am making myself hungry right now.  We are having a Thanksgiving dinner with my program, but I am not really sure how authentic the "fixins" are going to be here, but I am intrigued about what a Korean Thanksgiving is going to be like.

I will be putting up a longer post about the Seoul Lantern Festival later. Hope the new format is ok for you all to read and understand. I might be doing this again if I get anymore behind on my posts since it helps me talk about a lot in a short amount of time.

Later!
SPF