Life has been pretty great lately, I have to say!
Last weekend Araya, Ashley, and Jia came to visit from California and that was awesome. We ate barbecue, went to the jimjilbang, went shopping in Edae (but I didn’t buy anything because I’m back on my “not spending money” thing), ate dakgalbi and fried chicken, went to the Banpo Bridge show, and drank in Hongdae. It was a lot of fun and of course amazing to see people from home! 
Also last weekend, I had the first day of CLS Korean class! It was really the 2nd class, but I missed the 1st class because we were in Daegu so it was the first one for me. We learned jobs which I already know for the most part and weather which I didn’t know, so that was cool. I made a lot of new friends in class so I was excited! But then this week we had class again and none of the people I made friends with last week showed up 
So maybe they dropped the class but idk we’ll see. The teacher actually didn’t show up either so we had a sub-teacher. We went over big numbers (like millions and billions) as well as how to say from _____ to _____, all of which I’ve learned before but haven’t really practiced so it was good review. I’m in the level 3 class, I asked to be moved down because I thought level 4 would be too hard.
On Tuesday, I took the level test for the weekday KCE Korean class I also take. I was in level 2 last semester, and after the test my Korean teacher said I could skip level 3 and take level 4 if I wanted! But I don’t want to do that so I’m taking level 3 on Tuesdays now. We haven’t had the first class yet, but we will this week. Hopefully taking 2 classes a week will help me improve faster!
Other than that, last week wasn’t that exciting. I’m going to Malaysia I think for winter break, but my school still hasn’t told us our final vacation days so I can’t book anything or really plan it. But still I’m excited.
On Friday I went out to dinner with a guy and he did something that was so adorable and would never happen in America. He went to go get salad from the salad bar thing and then he came back and was pointing to the salad he got me and saying “ohhh what’s this?” and he’s Korean so I thought he didn’t know the word for dressing. I kept saying it was dressing and he was like no no no no WHAT’S THIS? And I was like OMG IT’S DRESSING and he was like “No, it’s a heart…” and then I realized he’d drawn the salad dressing in the shape of a heart hehe Korea uses green dressing so it was hard to see. I’m actually a really big softie so I thought it was super cute. A little cheesy but sometimes Korea-style romance tugs at my heartstrings.
Then after that I met up with Erika and Kailyn and we went to Dragon Hill jimjilbang! It was wonderful. We got there at like almost midnight and got ajumma scrubs and sat in these hot tubs that were outside and just relaxed and chatted until like 4am. Then we went downstairs and slept in the jimjilbang with all these Korean people haha it was a little bit funny because some of the older men kept snoring and all this.
Then yeah, yesterday was Halloweekend! I’m super broke right now because I don’t get paid until Thursday, so I reallyyyy didn’t want to buy a costume. My friend was dressed up as Mario, so I borrowed a dress from her and she made me a crown (she pretty much made my entire costume haha I love you Erika!) and I was princess Peach! It was fun, mostly people didn’t know who I was unless I was standing next to Mario haha but that’s ok. I spent a grand total of $20 on it because I bought blue contacts. Money well spent! It was a fun Halloween. We were in Hongdae park for maybe like 90 minutes and then went to a bar called Thursday Party and then Monster Pizza and then I went home because I’ve become a grandma. I’m still pretty into going out one night a week, but I used to stay out all hours of the night whereas now between the hours of 2-4 I usually end up going home because I’d rather sleep haha. I’m growing up I guess!
Then today I stayed in bed all day because I was hungover. I tried one of the Korean hangover drinks. It was $4 and it was called Morning Care and it had a picture of a smiling stretchy Korean guy on it. It tasted like ass and made me throw up twice, but I did feel a little bit better afterwards. I have to try another one when I have a different kind of hangover to decide if I actually like them or not. $4 is a little steep though, and I got one of the cheaper ones!
Then tonight I felt better so I went to Gangnam station with Erika and Kailyn and ate jiggae and dessert from Twosome Place and talked about life.
I know this is a total flip-flop from the last few months, but I’m now strongly leaning towards staying in Korea for another year. Mostly because of learning Korean. There is an organization that I’d really love to work with someday, and it would be advantageous for me to speak Korean because the organization works with North Korean refugees. I’ve been studying Korean for a little less than a year pretty casually, and I’ve been able to go from barely knowing the alphabet to lower intermediate level. And during that year, there was maybe a 3-4 months period where I wasn’t taking classes or studying. So if I stay another year and stay focused on studying Korean and practicing as much as I can, I’m pretty sure I could be conversationally fluent when I leave.
I also think the main reason why I don’t want to stay another year is because I always feel like I’m running out of time to travel. I feel like I maybe have just a few years to live the life I’ve always wanted before I’m going to end up getting married and settling down and giving it all up. But both of my new coworkers are in their 30′s, and they’re both still doing exactly what I’m doing and are happy. I even have a couple of married friends in their 30′s who live in my neighborhood and are doing exactly what I’m doing! In fact most people I know outside of my immediate friend circle are older than I am. I don’t know why I feel like I don’t have time. I have all the time in the world! But it’s hard to remember that sometimes. It’s hard to remember that staying another year in Korea doesn’t necessarily mean I have to give up a year of living somewhere else.
But I’m still not sure. I’m also not sure if I do stay if I’ll stay at my current school or not. I’m happy there, but I do want to make a little bit more money because I’m making a first year teacher’s salary. If I get a 100,000 won raise I’ll still be making a first year teachers salary and idk if I can get a bigger raise than that, so we’ll see. But I don’t want to move and I like that my school ends at 5pm because it enables me to do things like attend weeknight Korean classes and language exchanges and all that kind of stuff.
Still undecided. But that’s how life is going these days!
Source:
http://littlekatebigworld.wordpress.com/2013/10/27/halloweekend-etc/
The News from http://funyhalloween.blogspot.com