Korean and Chuseok

Well, first off, I am taking one month off of Facebook. I started it about 4 days ago, so I'll be back on October 20th, or so.

I decided to take a break after I realized that I haven't been working hard enough at learning how to read/write Korean. I can read it al-right now, it just takes me a second it process the letters and such. Tomorrow when I go into school (It's Monday for me right now), I'm going to start reading The Great Gatsby in Korean. With my Korean dictionary in hand, I think that this will be a good start and I'm going to start working through other books I read before, in Korean, once I've completed this one. It will, hopefully, teach me a bit about Korean sentence structure, as well as teaching me new words and making my reading more fluent.



I've been out and about a lot lately, and one of the things I most enjoyed was going to a hiking park. It was absolutely breathtaking, and it felt nice to breathe some fresh air again. The smog has been really thick lately, and it was nice to escape it for a while.

Unfortunately, the fabulous day of climbing and hiking and fresh air was tarnished by my knack for losing things. My ipod is gone. I was, and still am, really upset with myself for not noticing its absence sooner, and since we went all over this really popular shopping district, as well as hiked the mountains I highly doubt I will ever see it again. My host parents have been in contact with the subway and bus lines, but they haven't found anything, and it's only a hope that I even lost it in one of those. it could've easily fallen out at the mountain, or on the street in the shopping district when I was rifling through my purse.

I cannot be more disappointed with myself for losing it, especially because I will not only have to feel terrible, I'm literally paying the consequences of being scatter-brained by having to buy a new music player with my limited allowance. Let's just say I'll probably be the poorest exchange student in the world for the month of October.

At least I know the lower I go, I higher the highs are going to seem. I have an amazing city, and an amazing trip to China to look forward to, and if I can't listen to music, I guess I'll have to talk more, and that means more learning.    

I know it will all work out and be amazing in the end.

Another bright spot on the near horizon is Chuseok, or the Korean Thanksgiving that is coming up this weekend. I get some school off, and I get to eat the most traditional foods for a weekend. Excited doesn't even describe it. I'm hoping I get to wear my hanbok again, too, because it is so pretty.