it's 3am on a school night.

I haven't slept yet/probably won't at all/am currently preparing dumplings for dinner/breakfast. I didn't mean to stay up this late, it's just that I started trying to plan out a pattern for a knitted wool sleeved cloak to make myself this winter, and I couldn't stop. I've never designed a pattern before, though (aside from the boobs). So I guess I'd have confidence making myself a coat out of knitted boobs, but that's not really what I'm looking for in life right now.

It wouldn't have come to this if any of the expert knitters out there designing coat patterns made things that don't look like environmentally-friendly grocery bags with sleeves.

Normally, I'd post a picture of something-like-what-I-want next, but I'm a little too embarrassed. The thing is, Korea will definitely think it's cute. But Korea's fashion sense is sometimes questionable.

SG Wanna Be - Sunflower MV [english subs + romanization + hangul]

Wait for it. WAIT FOR IT. Okay?

HE'S FUCKING THAT CAT.

korean gay movie profile #1:

성균관 스캔들 (SungGyunGwan Scandal), currently airing 재미있는 drama.

As with most mainstream Korean dramas, the appeal lies not in the actual gayness, but in the gay potential. The main character is a poor girl who dresses as a male scholar to earn money (illegally) and eventually gets coerced into attending a royal all-male academy (also illegally). Her nickname becomes 대물=Big Thing=a euphemism for a big penis, and both of her male roommates (one of which she is in love with) fall in love with her and develop an obsession with her "feminine" appearance, even while disguised as a male. Inner struggles and secret gay longing ensue. See video for the gay kiss.

I may or may not be obsessed with this, the drama's theme song.

Co-Ed School - Bbiribbom Bbaeribbom MV [english subs + romanization + ha...

pictures i found on my overpriced phone:

in busan, Young-Gyung said I looked really American that day

busan's most famous harbor

I Young-Gyung 샘

gossip girl #1/ Im Kyung-Hwa 샘

left: Shin-Jung 샘, right: Yena 샘

This is Yena's "I disapprove of bureaucracy" face.

occasional pop music profile #2

The new 2PM song sounds pretty much like every other "Look at me! I'm angsty about my heterosexual breakup!" Kpop song ever, though the lyrics are possibly more clingy and creepy than most ("I will be standing silently like a dead man far behind you," for example). BUT LOOK AT THEIR FUCKING (SILLY) DANCE MOVES.

Let me point out a few:

0:48 epic chest-thrust action
0:51, 0:59, ... wtf power treadmill walk?
1:22 backwards monkey walk?
4:17 ROBOT SURPRISE

Then YouTube tried to tell me that this was the number one related video, which I have taken to mean that YouTube finds obsessive monogamy just as clingy and stalker-ish as I do.

then i climbed another mountain:

have you ever noticed how grunge my hiking outfits look compared to everyone else's? but my hiking boots can rock with the best of them.

foggy and windy and cold that day, mountain slippery with rain from the day before

fucking cold at the fucking peak

the ribbons are essentially the equivalent of writing "PAMELA WAS HERE" on a tree, except they're made of easily-degradable cloth to be environmentally friendly, and are more likely to say "Seoul Public High School Teachers' Hiking Club was here" because come on, guys, let's focus on the group.

the way i experience korea now is different from the way i experienced it a year ago

It suddenly occurs to me sometimes that I have been in Korea for a long time (but a year isn't that long, is it?) and it makes me feel strange. It's turning cold in Seoul, the huge maple leaves are starting to fall again, and everything brings back memories of last fall, when I was first trying to adjust to being in Korea. (Not that I'm not still trying to adjust to being in Korea, but hopefully you know what I mean.)

My stress level was so high back then, I don't know how I managed it. Remember my weekly breakdowns? Remember I used to be afraid of my students, prayed every day for class to be canceled? I used to sometimes call in sick to work on Mondays because I had no lesson plan ready (not for lack of trying) and my mental state was not sufficiently stable to confront 600 essentially unknown students (because back then they were all a blur to me [which is not to say that they look the same because ASIANS DON'T ALL LOOK THE SAME AND THEY NEVER WILL, but more to say that there were 600 of them, and I was dealing with so many things at the same time and stressed out about so many things at the same time that it was impossible, for a while, for me to learn my students names and personalities like I know them now]) with any semblance of confidence (sorry, that was a really obnoxious parenthetical).

I don't do that now. I've only called in sick once since last winter vacation, and it was because I had heatstroke or mono or both, not because I was breaking down for lack of a lesson plan. I have more confidence in my teaching, now. I still usually spend a lot of time on lesson plans- brainstorming ideas and making worksheets and games and powerpoints -and I still usually prepare lessons a few days in advance, but if I go to school an hour before my first class (sometimes feasible, sometimes not) with nothing prepared, not even an idea, I know that in that hour I will be able to produce a fully functional lesson, with new vocab, easy sentence structures to practice, at least one dialogue activity, at least one game, and usually some optional and flexible activities as well, in case things don't go as planned. That's not that much, but it's way more than I was capable of before, and that I am capable of it makes my life a lot less stressful.

It's strange though, to be experiencing fall in Korea again with this lens of not-stress while at the same time remembering (and having nostalgia for?) crunching the same big leaves, drinking the same yuja tea, climbing different mountains with the same 단풍, all with a huge wad of anxiety sitting heavy in my stomach. I kind of miss my breakdowns. They were reliable, you know? and a good release of pent up emotions too. I kind of miss my anxiety, huge motivator that it was. I felt as though I was in a constant state of producing and developing and learning, which was stressful, but also felt good. (I am still producing and developing and learning now, just at a slower rate [I guess] and also with periods of lethargy that were completely absent a year ago.)

All I really wanted to tell you was how strange it is to remember my anxiety with fondness, sorry it took so long. For nostalgia's sake, watch these:

climbing a mountain by myself was overall not a good experience but i'll ignore the bad parts and tell you it was beautiful anyway:

not-Seoul

seoul, gwanak-san. I live somewhere down there.

the fog moved in when I reached the peak and then all I could see was the peak in front of me

this is what it looked like when I climbed down

today I bound off the owl sweater:

owl sweater, messy desk, poem, implied presence of the absent candy bag

I Yong-Gyung (이용경)-- head teacher in the department next to mine, not to be confused with I Young-Gyung (이영경), biffle co-teacher --was impressed.

this came up on a google search for "yuja fruit" and i do not really understand why: