Stressss+Complaining

I think this is just gonna be one of those stressful weeks.
1. I have to sign up for classes for next semester at Beloit and that's annoying. Hard to figure out which classes I need to take. UGHHH.
2. My phone here had run out of minutes and I had trouble recharging it. Problem is mostly solved now, but I still need to puzzle out a few things, since I still can't reload it myself over the phone. grrr...
3. I'm afraid because my card suddenly isn't working. I tried it at the ATM and it said it wasn't valid. Extra worried cos friend here had her card stop working too, and someone had been using the number over in New York. We think it got skimmed at a subway atm, but I haven't used any of those. Sooo I have to call the card peeps and make them figure out what the heck is going on.
4. The gentleman from the weekend still hasn't contacted me. I'm a worrier. I'm worried. I don't know what to do. crap. I'm assuming he might be waiting til the weekend, cos maybe that's his free time? i dunno? Or maybe he wasn't as interested as he honestly, legitimately seemed. >__< GRR
5. I need more sleep. I'm getting enough but I want more.

That's me complaining then. Um. Nothing else to say except that the weather is getting warmer bit by bit.

I don't know. I don't know. I've eaten like 6 cookies cos I need dat comfort food. I'm just gonna go to bed after I do this Beloit stuff...

Tired...

maaannnn....waking up for 8am korean class was a struggle, lemme tell ya. And to top things off..i'll have to do the same thing tomorrow. In fact, we have 8am-10:45am Korean classes every week, monday through thursday.
I don't really mind though, if it means I'm learning and improving my Korean :) I just really like learning languages I guess.
OH but story time. So, I"m realizing that while Seoul is amazing and great and interesting and damn cool, Ewha university....is a bit overrated. The make this big deal about how great the school is, and I'm sure it is great...if you're Korean, maybe.
The administration and school system seems really inflexible and unaccommodating for exchange students. I've heard stories already of people not being able to take classes they NEED for their major because the professor let Ewha students sign up first. They're also really slow and inefficient at organizing things and running things efficiently. Like, they ALWAYS take days to reply to emails, and sometimes don't reply at all. They're also scarily late at putting up important things like CLASS SCHEDULES and info for HOUSING?! Like...why?! grrrr.....
Another example....I went to my Korean class this morning, and it soon became apparent that something wasn't right. The classes are supposed to have maybe 10-15 people, and soon about 30 people were trying to fit into the classroom, and standing at the back. The teacher was really nervous and did a pretty good job of handling it, but she called the office to get someone to figure out what the scheduling conflict had been, and they never sent anyone. We wasted like an hour filling time with introductions, and then learning the alphabet (which half of us already knew) until she decided to look online at everyone's level, and confirmed who was supposed to be in that beginning class. Then the rest of us finally went to the hallway and met another teacher and walked to a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT BUILDING and finally started our actual class, appropriate to our level. Ha, great job Ewha....great job at organizing your students...
Ah well, it was all good, I like our class, and the most difficult thing I've got to do so far is memorize vocab I don't already know.
Another good thing was that I talked to my parents, checked my email correspondence with Beloit, and then talked to the Global Affairs Office and it looks like my tuition is being sorted out *phew!*
Still a bit of a stressor, but I'm pretty sure Ewha and Beloit will figure out how to get their money sorted out...

Ah, another bit of sad news...Me and some friends were trying to get tickets to GD's One Of A Kind concert here, which went on sale today and tomorrow, but since the concert tour is sponsored by Gmarket, we couldn't buy tickets without an account--and when we tried to make an account, it needed our Alien Registration number, which we won't be getting for another few weeks! :( 
We were Heartbroken

But I figure 1. we might be able to try again tomorrow...2. There will be other concerts during the time we're here that we'll hopefully be able to go to 3. As my friends pointed out, its sponsored by Gmarket, and an 8 and up concert sooo...it has to be family-friendly which sadly means probably no cussing in That XX and No GD taking off his shirt ;__;

Heheh in all seriousness though, it's a bit sad, but we're having a great time anyway :) and we'll find fun stuff to do and maybe run into our favorite celebrities at any time...It IS Seoul after all ^_^

Love you all!

Grrr

I went to the Shinhan bank at Ewha today to try to figure out how I'm supposed to pay them the tuition...They're not flexible or accommodating at all. For one thing, they only want to have the tuition paid in cash or through a personal transfer, which isn't gonna happen unless I can get Beloit to wire me the money... Also for a school with a pretty big international student population, there were no good english speakers there. They had to put me on a phone with a teller at another branch who spoke better english. I can understand that not everyone is gonna know english here, but for a bank branch INSIDE a campus with hundreds of english speakers coming in each semester? It's just annoying.... :/
So I had to email Beloit, and now I'm waitingggggg for a reply... I hate the time difference at times like these.

I guess in more positive news, I somehow successfully was able to scan and upload a form using a computer that was only in korean... That was quite a puzzle :P

And I attended my first class today: Understanding Korean Cultural Diversity

It seems like it'll be fun and interesting. My next class is tomorrow morning: Korean language. Still waiting for update as to where the class will actually be held. This whole week is registration week so everything's a bit sketchy and nerve-wracking...
My other class is an online course, and I still need to figure out exactly how that's gonna work, but I'll snoop around and see what info I can find.

... i'm just really tired and have no energy left and i think i might just chill for the rest of the night if i can...
Love youse!

First Kpop album and more engrish

Went to another mall today to get school supplies. It was too crowded, though, so I instead bought some things for my room and for fun...
We went into Hot Tracks and holy crap I was flipping out at finally seeing kpop being sold and advertised openly ^__^ I wanted to buy everything! There was not only kpop, also jpop as well as drama OSTs and music you'd find in a shop in America, like soundtracks and pop. I couldn't choose what to buy at first, since the cd's are so much cheaper here than in the US. I nearly bought the BigBang ALIVE cd set, but then I found GD's One of a Kind album for only 20,000 won ($20) and I hadn't downloaded the songs yet so obvi I HAD to get it :P dunno if i'm a fan of the bible-y album design tho....

maybe a bit pretentious, GD...

I'm listening to the album as I write this :P

 Even though we weren't supposed to take pictures inside the store...I was super stealthy and snapped a few pics of SHINee and Jae Joong! Shinee's Dream Girl was also playing on a tv in the store

So that was fun! There was also an Art Box store there, so I shopped around there and bought adorable slippers and some other cute stuff. ALMOST bought a magazine with Kim Bum and band like Beast and Teen Top in it...but I didn't know the price and figured I'd be able to buy another mag later...
BTW Kim Bum's new movie Psychometry looks really cool and I want to see it....

Uh..here's some more food pics, cos I love all the food here...

Crabmeat cream Omelet (omelet with rice, with salad and kimchi on side)

Street food! More heodokk

deep fried with cinnamon and nuts inside

a friend's bibimbap

After shopping we headed back to campus, and recharged until dinner, which was delicious. Didn't take pics cos it was just fried rice and bibimbap and stuff. Then we just walked around the street shops some more since we still wanted to check out a few things to get before classes tomorrow. We found some nice cheap shirts and a few had AWESOME Engrish! 

What is this I don't even....

"Just only good things are going to heaven"

 Sooo yeah.....I bought a sweater that I HOPE fits me...it should, its super big but....hmm... Also getting good ideas for souvenirs, from looking at all the shops around here... :D

Well, gotta go sleep now, have to get up early tomorrow to register for classes online...then GO to my first classes! Eek! I'm actually a bit nervous...I really really hope I can work everything out with the bank here to get tuition paid, since I only have a week to pay it. Then I need to decide if I want to take 3, 4, or 5 classes...Three is required, and I don't wanna overburden myself with work since 1. I think Korean class is gonna take a LOT of my time, since its pretty intensive study, and 2. I want to enjoy my time here and not have to spend hours doing work for too many classes... :/ Yeah, so my plan is just to visit the two extra classes I'm thinking about and keep them if I think I REALLY like them. Otherwise...I'll just drop em.
Phew....keep me and my friends here in your prayers! We need it! ALSO my friends abroad! They need prayers too! You know I'm always thinkin' bout y'all!
Love you all!
<3

 

Day One-ish

Ok. It's currently 9:11 am in Seoul, Wednesday Feb. 27. I'm a bit out of it, because I need proper food and i'm still catching up on missed sleep. The flight from O'hare was 13 hours long, and I didn't get to bed last night until around 11. Then my body decided to wake me up at 6:30 am. ANYWAY about the flight first.
I sat next to this adorable old couple who didn't speak much or any english. They were really excited to see me studying Korean, though. I also got to eat Bibimbap, and it was pretty decent, for airline-quality bibimbap.

This is not the bibimbap that i ate. this is from google.

So we landed in Incheon, and I found a few other girls who were going to Ewha, and we sort of made our way through the complications of a foreign airport together. Met up with my ewha buddy who took a bus with me to Seoul and we walked to Ewha from there. OH man. So...let me tell you, the WHOLE walk to Ewha, the street was just lined with shop after shop of street food. It seduced me. But of course I was honestly too thirsty and dehydrated at that point to care much about food.
Oh, point of interest. The first official Kpop song that I heard here was SHINee's Lucifer (which honestly I wasn't expecting since it's a bit of an older song) but hey, still cool!
 Link to Lucifer video for whoever wants to listen to it......

So we walked to the Graduate Student dorms, building B, where I'm living, and found my room. I went in, and expected to find my roommate, my mysterious roommate, but alas, only her suitcase and some clothes were evident of her recent occupation of the room. Said goodbye to Ewha buddy, promised to meet up with here again on Thursday (along with the other exchange students she's helping) and dropped my stuff on the bed. Went to explore the room and the dorm.
The Bathroom...had no toilet paper.... D: Looks like that's on my shopping list. Found a dorm bathroom two floors below. Next priority: my immense need to rehydrate. Luckily I wasn't so out of it that I was stupid enough to drink straight from the tap. I knew there was a water station in the lounges on each floor, but I, regrettably, had no cup or other drinking container, nor were there any already in the lounge. CRAP. Dejected, I went back to my room. Lo and behold....My roommate was back...
Note: by this time I was really really nervous about meeting my roommate. I was already high-strung from lack of sleep as well as dehydration, and a bit overwhelmed by the language barrier. I just wanted to be alone and quiet and recover, at that moment. In addition, I'm not really a roommate person, I like living by myself, but I figured for this situation, it would be better to have a roommate, someone to explore Ewha with, and talk with about classes or whatnot. However, I was worried that maybe my roommate would be hard to get along with, wouldn't like me, etc etc. So...coming into my room to meet her, I was worried.
I came in and sat on the bed, because she was skypeing or talking with someone in Korean on her laptop.  When she ended and turned around, she seemed surprised and instantly started mumbling a little to herself in Korean.
I was like..."Uh-oh..." but I was curious too
So...she asked me in really broken english if I was from America, which I was...and at that she started panicking and even more, giggling nervously. So we tried to converse in Korean, which she had waaay better knowledge of, since i"m just a beginner. Then I stopped, and asked what else she spoke, and LUCKILY she spoke Korean AND Japanese!
THANK GOD I DECIDED TO TAKE JAPANESE CLASSES OH MY GOD
so we introduced ourselves and talked a little in japanese, and I"m surprised how well I got by, considering I was dead tired and desperately needed something to drink. But everything is great, and I"m actually really excited because this will give me a chance to keep using my Japanese and improve, and she'll get a little better at her English too.
OK so after that I really really really needed something to drink, so told the roomie I was going out, and went to look for a convenience store to buy some water or a cup or something. I was definitely in a bit of a daze, and I took this little video... I hope it works and is not too embarrassing haha...

 (Yeah that was really embarrassing. Btw the plug I mention at the end refers to the wall adapters for like my laptop and stuff. And luckily turns out I didn't actually need to buy one cos I'm just dumb and the adapter I have works fine...)
So then, I walked to the shops around the campus entrance, couldn't find a convenience store, turned around and followed some other path and found a busy street with no shops, walked back towards the dorm, went BACK to the shops, turned left and found a little shop AT LAST but it really was just me being dumb cos I saw it and was just like "eh, I don't think that's a convenience store" but then it actually was. So I went in and bought a humongous water bottle, grabbed a smaller bottle of apple juice, and a little frappuccino for the morning. Went out, went to drink the apple juice first, and found out I'd made a huge mistake. See, the thing is, the apple juice didn't have pictures of apples on the front. Sure, it was a golden delicious looking liquid, but instead there was a picture of wheat or grain on the front and I was like..."The hell is this...?" soooo took a sniff and thank god I didn't take a swig straight off in my disorientation because it smelled disgusting, no offense to anyone who actually knows what I was about to drink and likes it. Sooo...I'm gonna pour that down the drain.
Instead opened the water bottle and drank its sweet sweet nectar of life. Slightly mineral-y nectar of life.
Went back home, finished unpacking, climbed into bed, and eventually fell asleep and had really weird vivid dreams that made me question reality when I woke up.
Took a shower in the weird bathroom, pictures of which will eventually be up, and set up internet on my computah, skyped with the parents, and made this crazy crazy post.
And I'm still a little weird in the head cos I'm hungry and all I have is brownies and oreos and so I'm about to go find a starbucks or dunkin donuts and eat me some breakfast.
I have my Korean Language placement test today too, so hopefully that'll go well.
This post was really long and a struggle and I'm gonna go now and explore a bit.
I LOVE YOU ALL OMG WHAT IS LIFE I'M IN FREAKING KOREA