hi.

so it's been 2 days since i've been back.

yup, i'm planning on updating this thing a little more until i get settled completely.

things that made me super happy:
-mom came to the airport with balloons and a pink rose
-grandparents had a whole bunch of my favorite food prepared for me right when i came over

just look at that mound of kongnamul.

-saw some of my sd friends (+ fob) at night in LA in such a long timeee

and then....
thing that made me angry:
mom knew i was waiting to get a car for forever, knew i wanted it right when i got back, test drove the prius with me before i left for korea.... told me to research for good deals and call her whenever i find some (literally a week before i came back), told me my uncle would put his name on the contract since he has really good credit.... blah blah blah.

right when i was on the phone talking to a friend about how i was gonna get a car the next day, she whispered to me in korean, "samchon says he has to sell his old camry first. it's probably gonna take a few months."

.... wuhhh....ttt?
I KNEW IT. KNEW IT WASN'T GONNA HAPPEN.
it's really the story of my life. mom promises something exciting -- 94% never happens at the time it's supposed to. she knows it, which is why she didn't get mad at me when my smiles and laughter turned into the 똥십은 face. and not just for that moment, too. i mean... why couldn't she tell me this when i was calling her nonstop from korea about all this???

hanging out with friends made me forget, but later when it hit me, i was just NOT in any kind of positive mood -- you know those feelings you have where you KNOW you're just being stupid and stubborn but you can't help it?

i guess being sooooo set on the prius -- especially believing that i was gonna get it the day after i come back -- got to me and i seemed like a stubborn, spoiled little child.

did i REALLY need my uncle in order to get a car?
my mom and i felt a little doubtful. mom's credit isn't that great. i didn't know if i had good credit or not (i don't have a credit card, but a year ago, mom put something under my name, paid for it late, ruined my credit, which i didn't know i even had, and blah blah you get the story).
whatever. i really wanted my freaking prius.
i looked up dealers on google and came across a dealership in marina del rey, who affirmed on their website that they work with every type of credit. called and went in after a few hours at 7:30 pm.

"umma, i feel like we're just gonna go back home empty-handed."

long story short, i prayed to God to forgive me for acting so childish and difficult and asked Him to open myself up to other options. in the end, after test driving 3 different camry's, i gave in and agreed that camry was a pretty good car, too.

so, with the college grad program, hookups, etc. i got myself my first car. under my name. with my mom co-signed. it's kinda way over my budget, but i know God will provide, knowing how much he's shown  my family such unfailing grace and mercy our whole lives, and of course to me the past 8 months in korea. seriously, my 5 hours at the dealership was a miracle. all glory to God.

it isn't new -- it's a 2009 black camry with minor scratches -- but i'm getting a touch-up paint job on wednesday for free. God is so good.

it is done

it is 1:23 am - now sunday.

just came back from shinchon with 7 other people.
had an almost perfecttt last hurrah.
so thankful for the friends i made here.

going to church at 10 am tomorrow.
don't know if i could wake up. but i have to.

it is done, guys. for those who read from the verryyyyy beginning,
PROPS TO YOU!
thanks for being a loyal reader and partaking in this wonderful, once-in-a-lifetime, life-changing journey of growth with me.

more updates later :)

-sku [taken on the 1st day of korea - august 2, 2010]
*apgujung, seoul -- in my tiny@$$ room

"let's pray hard & live hard"

yesterday was the first time in 8 months that my cousin suri unni and i got to hang out. she's been so busy -- classes, applying for real jobs, going to interviews, taking all these written/oral english proficiency tests, blah blah blah.
sad because i saw her at least 3 times a week since i slept over a lot because of tutoring and stuff.

anyway, my uncle took some time off from work to buy her and me some TODAI. we were super excited -- especially my cousin, since it was her first time.

sad sad day. right after my first plate, i felt like i was going to puke. i felt that way the day before yesterday too, as i was finishing up my week-old chestnut bread. unfortunately, i ate a small plate of salad and some other weaksauce stuff after spitting up some saliva (pre-barf) in the bathroom, and finished off my weaksauce meal with some fruit and mini-desserts.

soon after, my uncle handed over a shiny gold envelope with a 200,000 (won) gift certificate to lotte department store. 은행안에 돈 (money in the bank).

*note: when you buy something with the certificate and you get change back, they give it to you in cash. how awesome is that. i got about 60,000 won left over in cash. 올라왔어 (came up).

went to DDM (dongdaemun), bought some last-minute bracelet/necklace material...

and slept over for the last time EVER. 

fast forward to right before i left -- at around 9:45 am. 

my aunt hands me an envelope and says "it's not much and i wanted to give you more, but...."

all the complaints i made on this blog / in my head / to my friends about my overprotective aunt just came rushing back and i felt like the dumbest girl in the world. she's not rich at all. she's not even comfortable. but she sacrificed so much for me, even with the new baby (her first grandchild) at home. she's the one who provided me with 3 students who i became super close with/will miss forever. she's the one who provided me with food and shelter when i needed it -- i.e. when i was just down to 20,000 won -- and even when i didn't need it. i can go on and on. i broke down as i put my envelope away and she gave me this life lesson -- typical and cliche, but so true: always have hope, even when things are down in the dump. never give up. 열심히 기도하면서 열심히 살자. (let's pray hard and live hard. *sounds a little awkward but whatevs.) 

she told me how proud of me she was and that she always knew that it was pretty tough for me here, living on my own and supporting myself in a foreign country, which is why she always wanted to do whatever she could to make me comfortable and well-cared for. 

"even when our family is going through the roughest times, i never give up hope. i have faith in God and our family that we will pull through and live a great life. so don't give up either. always pray, always hope, and study hard so you can be successful in life. i know you can do it."

i love how God shows himself to me through people like my aunt. He always reminds me that He is sovereign and that i am blessed beyond blessed. i'm just too stupid to notice it on the spot sometimes. 

4 days left. and then back to reality. freak.

... but i'm so excited.

(i think i need to prepare for a "sku, how was korea??" blog entry. i cannott waittt for that question to be asked -___-)

my days are winding down

i have less than a week left here.
SAD??

yes and no!
so excited to go home and be surrounded by familiar faces/places.

yesterday night, i started packing. i'm in big trouble.

every day this week is JAM PACKED. except friday.
i hate the friday song.

monday (right now):
-dongdaemun for the last time (hopefully)
-hakwon 3-6
-tutor mr. kang 7-8:30
tuesday:
-maybeee lunch with my youngest aunt/oldest-scary aunt [mom's side]. they're in town.
-hakwon 2-5:30
-dinner/dessert my 2 girl students 6-8
wednesday:
-buffet lunch with cousins&uncle
-shopping/going around seoul with cousin (she's been tooooo busy for me the past 8 months. it's our first time hanging out, even though i saw her 3x/week at my aunt's.)
-dinner with her family (her parents: read this or this. i love them <3)
thursday:
-last tutor with mr. kang 12:30-1:30
-hang out with helen youn <3
friday:
*shrug*
saturday:
-only plan -- ride ferry on the han river and celebrate with yummy fruit soju (not the nasty kinds, but the slushy/i-can't-taste-the-alcohol kinds)
sunday:
-last minute packing
-church
-blah blah blah :)

yeah!
ok i'm really lagging right now. gotta shower and dongdaemun it before hakwon.

what upppp

ok i wrote this whole rant about my student mr. kim, but it sounded a little mean and immature, so i erased it. blahhhhh but to wrap it up, here is how i feel about tomorrow:

ALKJWER AHH!! what -- UHHHPPPPP!

you have to hear the "what up" in a certain tone of voice and intonation. it's something i picked up from brian fury song (if you're reading this, brian: what -- uhhhhhhpppp???)

ok the reason i'm happy is because it's my last day of tutoring mr. kim tomorrow. i can't wait to walk out of there and never walk down that 15-min alleyway of shadiness EVER. AGAIN.

yeehhhhhh, binchessss!


no really, i'm really eating binches right now.

moving on, 

my week is winding down. helen youn is coming to korea tomorrow! but i only get to spend a day with her here soooo that will be for next week. but that's besides the point. the point is, my week is winding down -- meaning i only have about a week left. it's not hitting me! 

just 2 hours ago, stella and i met up with a new friend of ours, an African-American girl named jazzmin from virginia, who we randomly met at red mango (through a girl named casey who approached us after hearing us talk in english). we were talking and i suggested that we eat at all these cheap restaurants in our neighborhood, as if i was staying here for another month. 

i'm definitely going to regret it if i don't eat all the things i love/crave/couldn't eat yet, so the next week will be dedicated to eating. there goes my pre-America diet. 

oh, and i can't wait to start selling my bracelets. i've already gotten so many pre-orders! 

so in light of japan's tsunami devastation, i'm going to donate half of my pre-order profit to japan, and half of what i make back at home to missions. if you want to get some, tell me!

i'm out. it's 11:43 pm. 

lotte world this weekend? hmm.. mehbeh. 

dos semanas

today i spent wayyy too much money.

it's weird getting ready to go home -- buying all this last minute stuff and stuff.
i'm scared, but excited. i feel like i'm going to feel culture shock or withdrawal or like a... "who am i??" type of deal. please keep me in check!

anyway, yesterday from 4-10 pm, stella, jeanne, and i went to a huuuugeeee jjimjilbang. i swear it used to be a night club because it was 2 stories (like those clubs where you hang on the rail with a cocktail glass in your hand and nod your head to the music trying to be cool and all and hope some lame guy comes up to you and says, "this is my songgg! so what's your name?") and had a stage with 20398404 colorful lights around it.

1st floor

anyway, we milked that place GOOD. we laid in 4 different 230498-degree rooms, listened to a presentation about blueberries for like... 30 minutes just to get free blueberry juice, blueberry facemasks, blueberry "pas", and blueberry honey:

 used the blueberry mask:

ate lapokki and some spicy kimchi/galchi soup, fried potatoes and misoogaru drink...

laid around in hot rooms some more, and then FINALLY decided to go inside the sauna at around 8 PM. we were all hesitant to see each other bare at first... (jeanne: "ok we'll go in separately and just blend in with the crowd, ok??") but later we were having so much fun in the 7 different-temperatured pools among 20394823 other little girls, young women, ahjoommas, and saggy grandmas. 

the best part was the 때미리 (scrubbing dead skin off). we paid 20,000 won to get it + shampoo service done. ok i would go into detail, but since i shouldn't, i will just say this: 

i went to a sauna the moment i got back to my neighborhood from cambodia (i might have written about this, i don't remember) but got out in 30 minutes because i felt like a leper among all the ahjoommas (remember my disgusting bug bites?). i tried scrubbing myself that time and nothing came off. i guess i was just so embarrassed about my bug bites that i just wanted to shower and get out of there, but MAN OH MAN!!! all the ddeh from sweating in cambodia + the almost-4 weeks worth of whatever afterwards built up and i....

ok you know how when you ddeh miruh and your dead skin looks like thin little eraser crumbs? 

mine looked like straight up ERASERS, no exaggeration. i was getting sooo embarrassed, i had to explain to the ahjoomma scrubbing me that i went to cambodia and that it was sooo hoott~~.

don't judge. 

at least now, my skin feels like a baby's bottom. i can touch my hands all day! i feel soooo clean and refreshed. 

funny: i just thought of how this relates to our relationship with God and i cracked up a little.

(if you don't get it, God's the pama-ed ddehmiri ahjoomma, we're the nakey, durrrty sauna-goers. hahhaha...haha... ok sorry)

real?

i don't know why, but ever since i moved into stella's apt, i've been getting very lazy to update this blog.

ok but updates:
-i went on a 2-day trip with my amigos to sokcho (where korea wants to hold the olympics in 8 years? i don't know). too bad we stayed at the resort the whole time.

kensington resort - for free, thanks to our friend, hannah :)

<3

doesn't it look like she's sitting? hahaha

buffet yeeyee

group peekcha

sorry, brb i'm gonna go cook some spam and eggs (not that anyone's waiting).

man, see? i'm chatting, eating, leaving video comments on my sg girls' walls.... 

when did i become a such a procrastinator?? (since forever...)

anyway, i'm pretty excited to go home. i'm coming in less than 3 weeks! 

my bracelets are selling pretty nicely too :) i already raised ~$60 for missions! 

ok so while i was on the subway an hour ago, i sat next to this young woman on the phone -- mmm... maybe around 25? either way, she was talking like any korean fob lady does (i do a really good impression. ask me to imitate them in person.) and then i noticed that she was randomly mixing english words in her conversation. at first i was like, "what word did she just say? sounded like english but..."

and then she confirmed it right after. here's what it was: "리얼?? 리얼?? ........ 진짜??" 

.......

really? 

come on. didn't she go to english hakwon like 80% of her fellow citizens? 

then later she goes... 

"리얼 갈거야?" (real you're gonna go?)

sorry, that annoyed the crap out of me. when she first said it, i did those breathe-out-through-the-nose-once laughter, but later, i just wanted to tap her and correct her, while she's on the phone. 

"excuse me, it's really, by the way." *awkward-train-ride-for-another-15-minutes*

i'm really anal when it comes to spelling/grammatical errors. maybe that's why i enjoy teaching english to fobs so much. well not all the time but... 

for instance, brian song just IMed me, ranting about how angry he is that our church butchered his favorite song during february 6th's praise (LOL praise is recorded and uploaded onto our church's website and he found it randomly). he told me to start at 7:45 and the lyrics were "Lord your worthy of all the glory" (guess what song~). 

"ohhh hahaha you're angry at the your" 

"no, dude this is the worst i've ever seen. they took my favorite song and added crap all over it!"

-- he was actually angry about the musicality/pronunciation of words. 

it's been 40 minutes and he's still angry about it hahahaha.

anyway, in light of what i just talked about, watch this [credits to sones for sending me this video]. MY WORST NIGHTMARE and freaking hilarioussssss.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBHOL1PcPR8&feature=player_embedded

buy my bracelets!

so i'm making adjustable bracelets. why?

1. it's fun

2. it's so cute

3. dongdaemun is crazy and i could spend the whole day there 

4. i want to support missions!

colors (so far): salmon, teal [see picture], light gray, gray [see picture], dark gray, baby pink [see picture], dark pink, dark purple, light blue [see picture], blue-gray, navy blue-ish gray [see picture] 
(hahaha i suck at describing colors)

price: $4 ($2 will go to missions)

i can get more colors/charms toooo :)
there's an ENDLESS variety of charms. describe it, and i will find it. or try. 

SUPPORT!
(men's bracelets maybe coming soon.)
if you want it, IM me at sku504 or email me at sku504@gmail.com!!

oh haaailll no, ahjoomma

subway rides are the worst when it's 퇴근 (going-home-from-work) time.
let me give you a short list of reasons:
1. you're pressed against at least 3 other people. pretty much the meat in a sandwich.
2. when you are, it's super awkward and you don't know where to look
3. pushing and shoving pisses the sdklfjlwer out of me, especially when ahjoommas and halmuhnees do it. it makes me wanna cut off their pama.
4. you feel people breathing on you and you feel your hair move. orrr you hear people cough or sniffle right behind you. it's freaking gross. i don't want no foot-and-mouth disease.


... and let me tell you what i HATE.
today, i experienced it and it genuinely made me wanna go home.
home home.
usually, when i think about home, i always have a "buttt~~ i'm gonna miss korea so much~~"
but no. this time, i was like, "oh haaaaaiiiiillll no. i can't wait to get out of here."

i was going back home from tutor...

-click photo to enlarge-

yeoksam to suyu (~50 minutes w/o "human traffic")

*arrows = transfer points

okay, let me tell you something.

in seoul, the busiest subway lines are the green, orange, and blue lines. i was on all 3 DURING GOING-HOME HOURS. 

1. from yeoksam to gyodae (transfer point), i was pressed against the sliding doors. i was finally liberated and walked among the slowly-moving crowd to the orange line. "i better be able to sit down," i thought, although i doubted i would. 

2. i was right. i got in and it was expectedly freaking packed. i stood in front of someone sitting on the edge of the row (which is right next to the doors), hoping she'd get off soon. some young woman then squeezed in next to me and i was like, "oh hail no. she better not get my seat." 

after 5 minutes, the person sitting got up and i was ready to sit down, until SOME FREAKING WOMAN STANDING FROM 5 SEATS OVER COMES TO SWOOP IN! oh haaaaaillll freaking NO. she ended up being the mother of the girl standing next to me. 

3. i got off the orange line subway and waited for the blue line. there are usually 2 lines behind every subway door, and i was 3rd. good, i might not be vertically doggy-piled this time. suddenly i felt a presence next to me and it's a snooty, pama-ed ahjoomma with a shawl and a fur coat, trying to inch before me and cut in line. oh haiiiillll no. i KNOW i look young, but come on!!!! it was like a race trying to get on the subway before her. 

anyway, did i even get to sit down during my hour-something trip home? 

yeah, the last 8 minutes of it. 

i highly dislike it when ahjoommas (halmuhnees a little less because i GUESS their legs suck) think they deserve the seat you're waiting for and just swoop in outa nowhere. it happens to me a lot, probably because they think i'm some little middle schooler who can stand for days. 

in korea, the unspoken rule is to get up from your seat if an elderly person is standing in front of/near your seat. i'd gladly get up for the kind ones who initially say "nooo it's ok~ (even though they're really expecting it)" and "thank you~", but not the ones who clear their throat, glare, or even have the guts to give someone an attitude and ask them to give up their seat (i experienced that once).


-break-
(stella asked me to show her high school pictures and we spent an hour laughing and reminiscing)
anyway.... man. i don't enjoy telling these kinda stories because it's a total "sarah, remember God's love" situation, which is also why i hate experiencing them in the first place. subway rides = an easy way for me to sin. i turn into an angry little girl.

bleh, no excuses. WWJD x 23085 right??
sigh. time to repent.