You Oughta Be Havin Fun

  Bonjourno!


        Last blog post I had vented out how much I missed home, being sick does that to you. But, after a long skype conversation with my mom, and her reminding me how annoying complaining is, I decided to switch attitudes. Attitude is everything, and like Tower of Power so eloquently states with the help of the horn section, You Oughta Be Havin' Fun! So, I switched my mind set, and decided to have a blast for my next 5 months and 1 week in Korea.

         I have been here for 3 weeks, officially. I have bonded with various other foreigners, gotten lost on the subway quite often, and have eaten more rice than I have in my entire life. I have gotten very comfortable on my couch as a bed, and probably will never actually get used to having 5 other roommates. The cultural differences in my own living area is absurd. Well, maybe not absurd, just hard to get used to. They say salsa wrong, all of them, and pasta. I know, I'm the only one who says it correctly, so maybe I'm saying it wrong? Well let me just ask you this, which sounds more appetizing, sahlsa, or sAYlsa? that's right, sahlsa. Same pronunciation with pasta.

        I've still been sick, I hope that today is my last day fighting off this bug. Yesterday I had no voice, and a really cute coworker of mine decided to say hi to me for the first time, but I couldn't speak and just ended up coughing. Oops. My boss man just kinda laughed at me. Work is still ridiculously slow, and I hope it picks up. It's supposed to in March. I hope to learn more Korean before I start working, unfortunately, my mind is having a hard time learning Korean, and I keep going to French instead. I've discussed this already.

         Yesterday on the subway I took an unintentional adventure. Always fun when you take the wrong direction of the subway, but maybe that just happens to me. I decided to now look at every directional mistake as just a way to explore the city more. Also, some older man looked at me and called me cute, but I didn't understand him at first, so I just said yes, bowed and smiled, and then walked away. It wasn't until later that I realized what he had said. Oops, again.

        I went out with Loren, Lauren, and Kristian on Saturday. I really enjoy Kristian's company, he's Danish and has showed me around Seoul a fair amount. He leaves in 2 weeks, and I'm probably going to be rather sad that the first person I really consider a friend that isn't a roommate, is leaving. Loren and Lauren are both great as well, and I've really connected with Uk Loren. Hannah's still amazing. Aurelie has been taking care of me while sick, and Vivi keeps making me tea. And it's really hard NOT to like Claire. She's really sweet. Aside from the loud noises of sleeping next to the living room, and the weird food separations that is apparently "necessary", living with these girls has been getting easier and easier as the time goes on. Poor Aurelie keeps getting parts of the house flying down and hitting her on the head. First the clothes line, now the shower head. Poor girl, the apartment is out to get her.

         Mr. Kim has made us food twice, now. And bought us Mandu ( dumplings). I went out and bought my own Rooibus tea. I can't stand the rice water tea that they drink, here. Itaewon is my savior for little pieces of home in the form of food. I don't know if I have informed you all, yet but the Disney movie Frozen is out of control popular here. I kind of wish I would have seen the movie before going to Korea so that I could sing the songs with just about everyone else here. But I probably wont see it, because that's money, and all my money is going to Noribang and food.

         Hannah's been staying with us for the last week, all the girls are going out on Friday and maybe Saturday as a girls night kinda situation. Karaoke! I'm glad that these girls all wish to form friendships with each other. Lauren (US) has been able to visit us just about every weekend, which is really cool.

        Something just switched yesterday as I was walking home from work. My attitude of "it will get better" changed almost instantly into "make the best of it". I have a few of the other volunteers, previous volunteers, family, and friends to thank for the continued support. But, I do love America. More so, I love Oregon. West coast best coast has never rang more true in my mind. Glad to be a Pacific Northwestern-er.

     All my love to family and friends, and anyone else who is reading this. I'm going to go back to bed and sleep off this cold. Hopefully tomorrow I'll feel good, again. Here are some pictures:

 Myeongdong Twister chips, or what I like to call, Tornado fries. Looks good, right? Think again, they're terrible. But they're a cool idea.

                                                 My favorite Lauren/Loren's! Saturday night!

 Mr. Kim, cooking us some food! Mr. Kim photos go too strong with this group of girls.

                                                    My roommate Vivi, making some fried rice

 Jesus Hannah. I have a Last Supper wall poster/picture in my room, made it more personal.

 Found this in Itaewon and had a good giggle, Hannah didn't understand why I was laughing. Again, no one finds me funny here. It's a sad thing.

 Random dancing street performer. Really common here, and a lot of fun to watch.

                                          I bought a horse mask. We've all had some fun with it.

                                       Andy in a horse mask. Andy's the only boy of the new arrivals.