Anyway, SUPERFAST RECAP to catch everybody up:
1) I graduated! I'm a MASTER of PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION now. Whew.
2) My parents came up for graduation, and helped me clean/pack/ship. Yay family!
3) I managed to pack up, throw away, sell, give away, and ship off ALL of my belongings in the two weeks immediately following graduation.
4) Me and the cat spent a looong 18.5 hours in transit from my house to my new apartment (read: shoebox) in Seoul.
So, life is still pretty surreal at present. About twice a day it hits me that I fucking live in Seoul, on the other side of the planet from where I was and where 99% of everyone/thing I know is... Sometimes it's weird, sometimes it's this crazy little fangirl revelation that this place I've been looking at in countless hours of dramas is no longer some fantasy place, but where I actually am. Right now. Like, right now. And that fangirl kind of goes "eeeeeee!" when I realize that I'm in the same city as all these actresses/actors/idols that I'm totes in love with. Which is kind of silly, but I also did the same thing when I first moved to Seattle - because, like, it was a big enough city that there was a distinct possibility of actually seeing someone at least slightly famous. ANYWAY.
I. MY APARTMENT IS BUT A SHOEBOX, BUT IT IS MY SHOEBOX. Well, mine and the cat's. I was expecting small, don't get me wrong. But apparently the majority of people who post videos of their "apartment tours" on Youtube do so because they have awesome apartments. Which I should have realized. But I didn't. I'll probably make a video, but it will be ridiculous because I can literally show you then entire apartment in two photos - actually, just one if I'm sitting in the right spot. Anyway, it's fine, and all my stuff fits, etc. It's clean and pretty, and the electricity bills will actually be pretty small because it's such a tiny amount of space to heat/cool. The only thing I feel bad about is the cat has a pretty limited amount of space now - much much less than he had in my apartment in Seattle. So much so that I'm planning on trying to get him on a leash and see if I can walk him around a bit.
II. KOREAN CHILDREN ARE FUCKING ADORABLE. No really, like super super adorable. And for the most part, incredibly well-behaved. I had 4 days of training with the guy whose classes I'll be taking over, and my first official day was Friday. It went okay, but I've brought home all of the textbooks and files so that I can write up lessons plans, etc., for next week - because while the other native teachers (and the guy I'm replacing) are really good at just improving this stuff as their teaching, I'M A PLANNER. AND IT MAKES ME NERVOUS NOT TO HAVE A PLAN. Also, most of the materials are boring as shit, and some games and activities will undoubtedly be appreciated. The school is seemingly good/chill so far, but only time will tell as far as that goes. The director seems nice, and isn't going to pressure me to drink alcohol (a real possibility in many Korean company outings), which gives him a lot of good points in my book to start out with.
III. I WANT TO LEARN KOREAN, BUT ALL THAT'S COMING OUT IS FRENCH. Because apparently that's my default second language. So even though I've learned some basic Korean phrases, when it comes time to actually say them out loud to a Korean person, instead all I manage to do is barely prevent myself from speaking to them in French. So I point a lot, and try to smile (I have good teeth compared to many Koreans), and at least manage to say thank you and goodbye. I had my first awkward/awesome conversation with a Korean woman in a little street shop today, where she was very kind and patient and interested enough to keep asking me things. Basically it was 'where are you from, is MIT/Yale in Seattle, are you a student, oh then where is the school you teach at, how old are you, do/did you study Korean, do you live around here'. I managed to ask her name, which was Han Chi Won. (It might have been Han Ji Won, I'm not sure.) It helps that I know how to read hangul, and can say a random smattering of words.
IV. MOVING TO A FOREIGN COUNTRY INVOLVES RED TAPE. RED TAPE THAT PREVENTS ME FROM GETTING A CELL PHONE OR BANK ACCOUNT. Yet. You have to have an Alien Registration card to get a bank account, and both the Alien card and the bank account to get a cell phone. Which I thought was going to be a one day thing - but it turns out they have to actually send your paperwork to a different place to verify and print your card, so it takes 2-3 weeks to get to you after you spend 2.5 hours waiting at the immigration office (plus 3 hours driving in the rain to and from said office).
V. THE WEATHER CAN ONLY GET BETTER. No really, I came at what is sure to be my least favorite time of year - because I actually am looking forward to the cold and snowy winters here. Right now, however, its a constant ~80+ degrees (at night as well), with humidity at 85% or higher, and rainstorms every 6-7 hours. And the only thing I managed to forget when I left were my flip flops, which I left in Haley's car when she drove me to the airport. I can't believe it's taken me 7 days to go out and buy better rain shoes (i.e. plastic sandals), but I'm glad I waiting because it meant I got the most awesome yellow boat shoes ever. There's this huge fad in Korea right now for crocs and croc-like shoes, so ridiculous plastic shoes are everywhere - but they're actually really perfect for monsoon season since they're all like water shoes.
VI. CROSSFIT HERE IS HARDER THAN CROSSFIT AT HOME. Like for real, the WODs are legit harder. And then they make us do a second, faux-WOD after the WOD. At least that's what happened during the only class I've been to so far. (I was going to go again today, but apparently I still had some jet lag that I'd been putting off for work, which hit me at 11am this morning and knocked me out till 2pm.) And the box I've signed up at (a 1-month membership, I may try another box after this month to compare) coaches all in Korean. Which I've decided I like, since hopefully it will help me with learning Korean.
VII. FYI KOREANS ARE TALL AND ALL THE WOMEN HERE HAVE INCREDIBLE LEGS. I was hoping I'd be less noticeably short here, but I'm still a midget. But there are lots of other midgets - they're just all 35 or older. Because while the older generation is still Asian-stereotypically short, the younger generations are HUUUGE. There are tons of tall guys here. Well, tall for Asians? Lot's of dudes at close to 6 feet, but they probably all look taller because they're all so skinny. (And they all dress well. I love looking at all the clothes here, on girls and guys.) And Korean women have amazing legs. Amazing. (Which they all like to show off, perhaps especially now when it's so hot.) Even when they're legs are as big as mine are, they're just muscle and tight skin and really beautiful and make me jealous. It's pretty crazy. BUT, when you look up the legs, you reach their ass-less ass-less torsos. HA.
VIII. ASIANS ARE SO PRETTY, YOU GUYS. It's like constant eye-candy for me, 24/7, everywhere I look. And I want an adorable/cuddly Asian boy/girlfriend. Because couples here are adorable, and I see them everywhere since I live in a college neighborhood where everyone is at their prime dating age here.
IX. MY TEXTURE SENSITIVITY IS GONE. Or at least on hiatus - suspended at the enormity of change my life is going through. I've eaten shit here you could never have gotten me to try in the states. And it was fine. Seafood still isn't my favorite, but I didn't gag on the textures like I thought I was going to. And I just put the vegetables in my mouth and chew them up and swallow them like it was nothing. It's pretty weird and kind of wonderful - not the vegetables themselves, but the fact that I can just eat them. I can feel the part of myself that wants to revolt, but the bigger part of it that really wants to just open myself up to all the new things here just tells the old part to shut the fuck up and sit down, this is not the time nor place.
X. THAT'S NOT REALLY A CORNDOG. So they have these things here. They look like corndogs. They even put ketchup on them. They have what may be considered a "hot dog" on the inside. What it is, my friends, is a bit of actual meat (hence the quotations around hot dog) on a stick, deep fried in a DONUT, coated with sugar, and then garnished with ketchup. Not a corndog, but not terrible, either. It's actually better with the extra sugar coating than without, because that really kills any association my brain wants to make with a corndog. Then it's just a donut with meat in the middle - which is weird, but still a donut and so is delicious by default.
P.S. SPEAKING OF DONUTS: wtf, man. The thing that has shocked me the most since I've been here was walking through the bottom of Lotte World and practically into a Krispy Kreme. Not, like, "pretending" to be a Krispy Kreme - a LEGIT Krispy Kreme franchise. They're all over the place. They took so long to make it up to Seattle that I would never have guessed they had also crossed oceans.
