let your insanity grow wild!

i've only flown a kite once in my life. and during that one time, i managed to get it caught in electric lines because i lost sight of it when it flew over a building.

lately, i've been browsing for some fun clubs/socials to join while i'm at UCL. my browsing adventures led me to a kite flying club! i think i'll give it a try :)

when i went to korea last summer, i went with the mindset that being in a new country will give me a chance to explore and reinvent myself. but i found it to be a slightly different experience when i got there. what really happens, in my opinion, is that you discover extra features about yourself that you wouldn't have been able to realize at home, for whatever reasons (expectations, intimidation, responsibilities etc). with this in mind, i want to be a little more experimental when in london. some of you know that i like to collect hobbies. (in fact...collecting hobbies is my hobby.) this doesn't mean i want to go crazy and only look for new hobbies to pick up while studying at UCL. hobbies need time to cultivate and perfect, so i like to choose my hobbies selectively and wisely. that being said, here are a few other clubs i've been eying. by the end of this process, i only want to join two clubs when i arrive at UCL.

similar to my interests in kite flying, there's also a Gliding Club. according to their club description, 'no prior flying experience needed.' i'm not sure if i can afford to go gliding every other weekend. but it's FLYING, dude.

i'm also having thoughts about joining the British Sign Language Club. since i'm going as a linguistics major, i was hoping to take a sign language course at UCL, but alas, they only offer the course during fall term. so why not join a club instead? less stress, more fun, more interaction with actual people who are fluent in BSL. i think this one has potential. i've always been fascinated by the deaf community.

then you have Christian Union, and music, and other typical clubs that i've tried and experienced, but still want to keep up with while i'm away.

i'm stumped by these choices!

(i think kite flying is a top priority though...)

productivity and sanity

after getting back to campus on friday, my mind has been battling itself. i can't tell how busy i'm going to be for the next three weeks. i know i have a shit load of papers to write, but i also feel like i'm ahead of the game, relative to my peers.

to keep my mind sane, i like to make lists and schedules in my wonderful list and schedule notebook. it has a picture of The Little Prince on the cover. every weekend, i take pride into filling up each box for each day of the upcoming week, marvel at how much i have to do, admire my lists inked in by my .5 pen, and then sigh with depression and panic on how i'm going to survive the week. and every week never turns out to be as ghastly as i fear it to be.

but the next three weeks look fairly empty. there are lots of big due dates spaced out, so there isn't as much filled out in my boxes. how deceiving! the less i write down, the busier i am...

what bothers me most is that cramming my calendar leaves no room for creativity, lately. i've neglected my mini art projects this semester. i've neglected making music. i've been sadly limited to cleaning my room and making neat stacks of paper and notecards as my mode of creativity.

going with the theme of lists, i present the final list of things that stand between me and my winter break. this is why i won't be writing an entry until christmas time.

a syntactic analysis of Zulu (20~25 pg paper + presentation)

a phonetic analysis of Pinyin Mandarin Chinese (10~15 pg paper + presentation)

final 15 pg report on the integration of North Korean refugees in South Korea

a 15 pg public policy analysis on Philadelphia's abysmal high school dropout rate

please share in my disgust.

London is happening

wow. Going to London was just something I was dreaming about, and somehow I've arrived at this point. This point being that I will officially be going to London in the spring. Technically winter, seeing that my semester starts on Jan 10, 2011...

01.10.11

Does anyone know what that translates into from binary code?

The journey starts now--I only have two more months before the following sequence happens:

US >> Canada >> UK

Before the journey, I should map out what could potentially happen. Such as visiting this adorable library in a phonebooth.

Please share in my excitement :)

today i am an angry bear. tomorrow i hope to be a busy ant. after that i want to be just me.

today is one of those days when everyone's voice at haverford college is annoying every particle in my body. every single voice. especially the voice of freshmen. i exaggerate not. i have never experienced so much disgust toward human voices.

gummere is the house of shutting doors. a minute does not pass by without a door slamming. and when a door slams, echos vibrate through all its paper thin cinder block walls.

i'd rather stand in a thunder storm than take a nap in gummere.

i'd very much like to go climb a mountain right now.

I have a tendency to start out all my entries with an apology. I'm going to break that tendency now.

After I say this: I really meant to be consistent with blogging in Korea, but after spending most of my days in the office in front of a computer screen, I was never in the mood to touch my laptop after work, or the weekends. Plus, my laptop didn't have access to the internet while I was there anyway. So there. That is my justification for never writing here.

Also--I read my previous entry and couldn't help but notice how EMO I sounded. You all probably got a very wrong idea of my time in Korea. Korea was a hell of a time. I literally felt like I was in the furnace of hell, with all that heat and humidity. Aside from the heat of death, I loved every moment, every person, every experience I had while I was there. Thanks to Korea, I feel so much more relaxed about life, which is a little ironic because I spent most of my time working/researching/thinking about the dire, grave issue of North Korea. I feel more comfortable meeting people, talking to people, and just being with people. It's nice. I'm kind of almost sort of a people person now. thanks!

Korea--I will miss speaking your beautiful, fun-filled, humorous yet serious language. I will miss eating icecream every night. I will miss riding your flawless transportation system. I will miss your bustling, careless ways. I will miss the subtle bluntness in every social interaction I had.

So I noticed many of you are blogging. I didn't realize this until this morning when I was teaching my sister the wonders of Gmail. I was amazed to see how some of you actually blog more than once a month. I think I might consider this blogging thing more seriously.

This consideration made me start thinking about what the purpose of blogging is. Is it just to tell people, "This is what my life looks like."

If that is the case, this is what my life looks like now, folks: I'm dragging through life in Canada, not understanding how I could possibly have lived to diligently in Korea---waking up at 8am, eating breakfast, watching the news, getting to work by 9:30am, staying busy till 6pm, going out to dinner with friends at night, coming home at 12am, taking a shower, and going to bed to start all over again. How?? In Canada, time seems to be inconsistent, sometimes its slow, other times, it goes by like lightening. My sleeping schedule is wack. My clothes don't have a home. I don't have a bed. I don't have a place to mark my presence. It's dull. I'm bored out of my mind. I need to get summer reading done. The only humorous thing that happened to me was when basically all the kids at my church tried to get me to be interested in a guy that is a little too old for me. It's nearly 3pm and I haven't washed my face or brushed my teeth.

After reading this small glimpse of what my life looks like right now, you probably don't want to continue following this blog. I know most people like to jot down some thoughts their having in their blogs. But I'm not too interested in doing that either. I mean, I'll do it occasionally, but I don't trust the internet enough to pour my mind's thoughts into it. Plus, my thoughts are more like formless clay spinning on a cold stainless steel plate.

So help me out. Help me get this blog thing get re-jump started. What do YOU want me to write about? An inquiring mind wants to know.

It's been about a month since I've been in Korea and I realized today that for the first time in my life I am loving every moment being away from home. It's a thrilling feeling and I actually don't feel the urge to have to frame it in an expression so others can know about it--I'm content with just holding the formless rush of happiness within the borders of my own understanding.

I failed to write about my internship in my last entry. I've already told some of you this via email or chat: working with PSCORE is everything I dreamed that it would be--a small but ambitious NGO, in a small stuffy office space, with endless things that need to get done but of course, not enough people for all of it, requiring all of us to be flexible and creative. I've met some of the most unique and passionate people along the way (both Korean students and foreigners living in Korea) who've helped me become more certain about things I've always been hesitant about.

I know I'm being a little vague right now, and not being clear about what exactly I've been doing at my internship. But I hope you'll be understanding because I just returned from an exhaustingly surreal weekend. Everything I've been working on for the past three weeks with PSCORE was all for the sake making the past three days actually happen, and I can't believe it already...well...happened. To simply summarize how I've been doing so far: I've never worked so hard, played so hard, thought so hard, and fought so hard with myself to listen to everything and everyone around me ever in my life. I've been trying to figure out how to digest my weekend all day and I found my thoughts resembling chords rather than words. And I have this fear right now that if I try to write out everything I've been doing up to this point, my readers might make it out to be much less than how much I cherish the experience. Everyone has their collection of surreal moments, and often times people taint the value of it by trying to articulate everything, only ending up failing to do it justice. I'd like to leave mine unexposed and sheltered from the judgement of others for now.

I can't even put up pictures from the weekend because no one was allowed to bring cameras, for the safety of the North Korean defectors.

I promise I'll put up some exciting pictures in my next entry :)

Love,

Rachel

Today was my first official day at work and I feel so professional already. haHAA.

I guess I should quickly go over my first week, before I talk about my first day at my internship, right?

I arrived in the evening at Incheon Airport, where I met up with my grandparents, whom I haven't seen in about 10 years. They were worried that they wouldn't recognize me, so I told them I would wear a bright yellow dress. As soon as I walked through the exit doors, I saw my grandmother perk up when she saw me, but even still, I don't think she really recognized me...she kept giving me shifty looks, so I had to walk straight up to her and act really perky and give her a hug. We met up with my grandpa and headed to their place.

At first, their apartment felt so...Korean. Bare wooden floors. Bathroom slippers. No proper beds. Removable shower handles. Big closets full of blankets and sleeping mats. A veranda. Dusty elevators. And an epic view of their town. It felt a little out of date at first, but I've come to appreciate the way apartments function in Korea--especially because nearly EVERYONE lives in one. Living in apartments save so much energy (because of the veranda, everyone dries their clothes. i'm guessing, during the winter time, since everyone's stacked on top of each other, if the top and the bottom floors are well heated, the middle floors don't have to use as much heat. and i'm sure there are other reasons, but i don't want this entry to become a lecture on energy efficiency), makes recycling easy and efficient, and life more convenient (you don't have to worry about mowing the lawn, shoveling snow, tending your garden etc).

Living with my grandparents was like living in a blunt, caricatured sit-com. They say the most extreme things, and can go on and on about so many random things! Especially my grandpa. He likes to show off about his in deep knowledge of history, science, and statistics. It's just numbers and dates and percentages rolling out of his tongue and not exactly reaching my ears. And I smile, nod my head, and give the most generic response and clueless Korean student can say-- "네..." But rather than being annoyed, I like to think that everything they're saying--and believe me, they talk as if time will never end--is everything they wanted to say to me during the 10 years I haven't been with them. It's overwhelming, but it's fair.

Anyway--here are a few pictures from my adventures with my grandpa. He took me to three of Korea's old royal palaces, a royal burial ground, Namsan tower (which overlooks Seoul), City Hall (with my adorable 14 year old cousin), and a very lovely lake park full of roses and a singing fountain! Everywhere we went, he had a detailed itinerary and a concentrated lecture the entire time. I think I grasped about 40% of what he was saying. It's a shame really--he's pretty darn brilliant and it would be terrifically useful if I understood everthing he was saying. Maybe by the end of the summer I will!

with Grandpa

cousins! one emo, the other a perky flash of sunshine

palace ceilings are mesmerizing

my grandpa told me to find the meanest looking guard

the singing fountain! basically a water show with great music

i look like i'm in middle school.
we're in front of the city bell.


the bell "tower"

i forget which palace this was--it's the main hall where
the king sat and made decisions with his counselors

in the empress's quarters

love lockets on some fences outside the Namsan Tower

that place where cars and trucks blew up
in one of the scenes from IRIS


the creek/stream that runs through seoul.
not the river. it's just a stream that used to smell
really bad, but they fixed it up a few years ago.
kids play and couples coo over each other.




my cousin, me, and my ridiculously tacky aunt


pillars holding up a building in front of a burial

i'm in love with these trees. they're beautifully crooked.

I don't feel like talking about my first day now. I'm too tired.

Send me some love, and I'll send you a postcard :)

love,

Rachel

new summer. new adventures. new country.

I'm flying out to Korea tomorrow at 2pm. At one point, while packing, the only thought in my head was "Really? Already? It's actually happening?" But now, I'm feeling blank and neutral, which is very unusual since I usually have strong emotions about everything and anything I do. The timing for this departure is also unusual. For one thing, I'm leaving on my sister's birthday.

[Happy Birthday to my fierce sister, Debbie! 18 and ready for college at University of Washington! I feel terrible that I'm leaving on your birthday, and I won't see you at your graduation, or prom, or give you tips about college before you leave. I'm never home, so you're probably used to it, but I am very sad about this.]

The other reason is a little ironic. I was homesick almost all year during school; it was to the point where I'd be depressed for days when homesickness hit me. But the past two weeks since I got home, I never really felt like I came back home. Spending time with my family and seeing everyone here in Canada was great and all, but I don't have my own space at home (literally...I have a drawer. outside. in the hallway. that is the extent of my "space" at home). I've been feeling restless and after all this time longing to go home, I'm longing to head out again. Now, I find it almost romantic, this new stage in my life where I don't have a specific place that I really feel rooted to. So I'm off! This is going to be a very short and rare stage where I'm not too attached to one place. I might as well embrace it and make it as exciting as possible.

For those of you who don't know, I'll be in Korea until Aug. 16th, interning with an organization called People for Successful Corean REUnification (PSCORE). I'm not certain about all the responsibilities I'll have when I get there, but I definitely know I'll be teaching English to North Korean refugees studying in Korea, and writing grants proposals.

A few days ago, I started reading "Eat Pray Love." So far its lame, and I would only recommend it to those who are bored out of their minds. I'm still at the beginning where the author is in Italy, learning how to indulge herself in the art of eating. Its inspiring me to be nice to my body this summer. After all those painful days at Haverford, hovering over books and damaging my neck and back, typing madly in front of the computer and damaging my posture, eating terrible food or not eating at all and damaging my health, its time I let my body feel alive and not like a dorky nerdy zombie. Aside from interning and having solemn thoughts about the political state Korea is in, I think it would be nice to finally let myself indulge in food, nature, music, and God.

I'm going to eat all sorts of food--I plan on going hiking pretty frequently. And just enjoying the city landscape in general--I decided a few weeks ago that I want to learn how to play the harmonica this summer. Plus I'm taking my ukulele with me. Maybe I'll find some buddies to play with--I have a lot of spiritual matters I need to solidify and figure out this summer.

Hopefully I can write at least once a week! I don't want to promise because I'm terrible with blogging, but I'll try! (It's only fair if you all start blogs too.)

To wrap up, I'm just going to list a bunch of things that are on my mind, mostly fears and things I'm nervous about:

-What if I end up thinking "every Korean looks the same to me" when I get there? Epic Ethnic Fail.

-All the girls there are going to be skinnier than I am. I need to get over this. I'm not even there yet and I'm already jealous.

-How am I supposed to dress? Is it ok to wear shorts on the streets?

-please please please...I hope I don't get Traveler's Diarrhea...

-I can hardly talk about politics in English. How on earth am I supposed to do it in Korean?

-I'm gonna end up being a loner.

-I better not end up looking like a FOB when I get back! That would be a nightmare. No offense to my fob friends. Its just not me, I do hope you understand.

-people better not make fun of my terrible Korean skills..

-I hope my relatives like me. I hope I end up loving them.

-I want to eat a lot. But I don't want to gain weight. what to doooo?

-Things are tense in Korea right now. I hope the North Korean refugees and I will get along...

-If you and I are close friends, then you know that I never really fit in with Koreans and I feel awfully uncomfortable when there are a lot of Koreans around me. It sounds stupid, I know. But its a problem I've been working on and I'm going overcome it this summer. watch.

so that was a waste of words. what nonsense and vomit! I promise my next entry will be carefully thought out and thoroughly edited. And there'll be pictures! My grandpa is planning on taking me to all sorts of places before I start my internship next week. Palaces, museums, mountains, temples, monuments, cities, schools etc!

Hope all your summers are off to a great start! If you're in Korea, give me a holler and I'll give you my temporary cell number while I'm in Korea!

Love,

Rachel