anything but static

Everything in America changed so slow. I've had the petal to the metal ever since I came to Korea. But perhaps that metaphor is a little erroneous, as it implies that I have some control. But everything in Korea changes faster than I can understand it. Really, the best way to live is just to follow your heart and do what feels right. If you have a good heart, and a good head, regardless of the speed that you are going at, regardless of how badly you screw up, it won't be so bad that someday in the future you won't be able to get back on your feet and exclaim "whew, that was fun!" and take the lift back up to the top of the hill. It's hard to imagine that all of these blog entries have been written by the same person, and its safe to say that these journals only scratch the surface of my daily life and daily thoughts in Korea. I think I really have changed alot, and I suppose that will be tested when I travel back to the states next month. What changed -- me, or my environment?

I took the midterm test last week. My listening and reading results were 91% and 95%. They are respectable scores, but fell short of my idealism. I am really proud of my class, as we all did quite well. Lets just say if this were softball, and it was my class against the other level 2 classes, this game would've been called early due to the 10-run rule. I suspected that we were much better at Korean than the other classes, and i'm glad to have this confirmation. Especially Junya, 100 and 99?! I'm proud of you!! But I guess I chose the wrong person to make a bet with. Let's just say breakfast is on me this week. Tomorrow we get the writing and speaking results back. I think I am pretty good at both of those, especially writing, so I'm eagerly awaiting those results.

Today I was informed by my teacher that they want to take a few photos for some school-related purposes. He was pretty vague... which I now know was due to the fact that he really didn't know anything about it. If he were right, it only would have taken a minute. But instead, I spent a good 2 and a half hours there with about 10 other students. The korean classes are 95% asians. So I think it was a little odd that the 3 young, handsome white guys and the 1 black guy among the 200 students all got selected to this group of 11 students. But when they chose the girls, they didn't pick girls that were young or pretty. What are these pictures for, and who are they marketing them to? I knew it was serious stuff when I saw that I had to get my hair and makeup done before we started shooting. They really went a little overboard and made me look like 구중표 but its okay. I think they didn't really have the right makeup tones for white people, but that would be implying that i have some knowledge in the field of cosmetics, which is definitely not true. It was hot and dragged on forever, but I got to be the lead role and I got to spend some time with old and new friends such as 소신.

This weekend is going to be great, as I'm taking a road trip with 민애 and her friends (1 italian and 4 koreans). I don't know much more beyond that. It's a three day weekend thanks to Buddha Day. Looking forward to another great week, one day at a time ^^