Extras
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Birthday Thoughts
There are things we, especially women, are made to fear as we near thirty. As if the privilege to age should be shameful instead of joyful.
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An Ear for Accents
ㄲ is my only love.
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Just Half – Translation Fun
Another soul destroying ballad? Yes, please.
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March 17, Madness
Why didn't I see this coming?
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Getting Dressed in Korean
Feel my pain: these are the ways you say “put on” in Korean. The verb changes to match the type of clothing/accessory/makeup. For example, you put on clothes, fasten a watch, pull on shoes, fit rings and gloves, spread, lotion, do makeup, tie a necktie but wrap a scarf, pick up a bag but strap on a purse. My tutor asked what kind of man I like, “fashionable”? I said any is okay as long as there is some effort. But “If he takes more time getting ready than me, I really don’t like it.” For language corner, we can see how different Korean is in sentence structure which really…
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Five Year Plans
The real reason I never made a five year plan is not because I am a flake but because I was never happy enough where I was to imagine continuing that situation for another five years. At the time I was supposed to tell you, “In five years I will have invented X and married Y and received Z promotion or award. I’m going to become CEO and change the world.” That’s the point of a five year plan, after all, right? To show others what magnificent goals you plan to achieve. That seemed to be the reason that my employers and parents asked for it. For me that’s too…
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Seollal Pyeongchang Trout Festival
*For context: I joined a four day foreigner ski trip to the home of the 2018 Winter Olympics, Pyeongchang. A good trip overall but I’ve learned that going forward tour groups are not and have never been my forte. I had a few odd moments this weekend where I was thrust back into my early college days when not socially drinking amongst strangers marked me as a weirdo. “Am I still an extrovert? Am I bad at making friends now? Why isn’t this fun?” I thought to myself, watching strangers get cozy playing drinking games. Today I said good morning to two of the men and they looked at me…
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Seollal Pyeongchang Ski Trip
Happy new year!
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Sokcho’s Bad Boy
At first I thought this resistant boy was a stray but then I saw his owner, an older man in a jumpsuit and hunting cap, squatting in the road saying 들어가 들어가 “go in, go in” and gesturing to the open warehouse where another man was working. The pupper sat stubbornly in place so his owner could only laugh helplessly.
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To Sokcho
I woke up this morning and said to myself, what shall we do today? But when I checked the pollution air quality, as I do every day, I decided to NOPE straight out of Seoul. Seoul AQI PM2.5 was 163 and Sokcho was… 25. Most small US cities are between 20 and 50. I immediately booked a hostel for the same day in Sokcho. Then I did laundry, went to the gym, and headed directly to the bus terminal where I was able to book a ticket for the bus coming in 30 minutes. The bus terminal has changed much since 2016 when my friend and I visited: The floor…