Update on Life | Saturday 24th January 2015

Warning: if you’re an aggressive atheist and/or are offended by the idea of Christianity don’t read this post. Better yet, just don’t come back J

So, it’s Saturday, I’ve completed my first cycle in my second semester in my second year of uni and I finally have time to sit down and write a blog post. And I swore I would write more this year.

This year has had a surprisingly terrible start for me filled with all sorts of horrors and very dark thoughts but, I don’t want to jinx anything but, it looks like things are… going to be okay. You see, I have a dream. My dream is to go to Korea and it looked like that was taken away from me but just two days ago there was a sudden switch and I know that was all down to prayer. Maybe not just prayer from me but I prayed one night, something I’d never said before and it was that night all my inhumane horrifying nightmares stopped and I actually had a really nice dream. It was so nice I probably laughed in my sleep. I woke up that morning feeling more at ease than I had felt in weeks. Then two days ago I got an email (yes, it’s always an email) with the nuance that everything was maybe going to be okay. And just yesterday evening, I had a talk with my mother and it made me realise that things are going to be okay. This desire that I have to go to Korea is so strong and is something I’ve had for so long (even after other opportunities were taken away) that it may be a desire that God has put into my heart. I can’t imagine it being otherwise. This dream won’t do me any harm as long as I stay alive and strive towards it. And when I get there I’m going to have the greatest time. I know it. God promised me. He gave my mother a verse for me when I was just 10 years old: Jeremiah 29v11 

“For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

We’ll see how things go on. I’m still a nervous wreck about life in general but that’s just in my nature.

This first week back at uni wasn’t too bad in terms of the content of my modules. It seems to be a short semester and I’m hoping it’ll feel like one. The faster the semester, the closer I am to Korea, right? And I would have officially completed my second year of university. There is one module in particular which I totally 100% signed up for but now must “endure” for the next 12 weeks or so because it’s something that brings me such nerves I cannot control the shakiness of my entire body, let alone by hands when I get up there and pretend that I have authority over people who are older than me. That’s the thing about teaching adults. These are grown ass people that probably have more education than I do. They certainly are brave to come to a country where they don’t know much of the language (like I will) and then us students have to stand up in front of them and freaking teach them. I knew I would not like to teach adults in my career because it just seems wrong. Thinking of appropriate games, appropriate register to talk to them in without being patronising, because God knows I hate patronisation (is that a word? :/). But I must endure it and try to do as well as I can with help from God until the end of the semester. Because I found out this week that we don’t have to teach in the final year. Which I’m super pleased about. Should I be pleased? I want to be a teacher, right? Well, I want to teach kids (elementary, middle and high school) but I’ve decided that I don’t want to teach in a Korean university anymore even though apparently you"ll get the most money from that. I think that’ll be even more strange living in that culture of speaking a certain way to your elders. Damn.

In terms of my New Years resolution of learning more Korean before I go to Korea. It’s going well. This weeks was not so good because of my new schedule with uni but now that I've completed my first week and know what things are going to be like and have bought some new earphones, I can listen to TTMIK’s podcasts when I’m out too. I’m more determined than ever.

Well, I guess that’s it for this update. I actually have a (sorta controversial) post about EXO (and just the kpop scene in general) coming up very soon, so look out for that.

Will my future goals make me feel like an adult?

I spoke to my friend about the sub-topic of yesterday's topic about how living with your parents makes you feel more like a kid. Turns out, I'm not the only one that feels this way. My friend lives with her parents too and all her siblings and like me, she feels like a kid and knows she wouldn't feel that way if she lived by herself. We both can't wait to graduate and start our careers but it is super super hard in this country to get your own place once you've graduated (it's hard to do anything once you've graduated). I will graduating later than most of my peers since I'm going to Korea for a year next year, so that day of possibly living by myself is even farther away.

I not so long ago, researched the topic of how one can get themselves a house after they graduate and I came across a thread on The Student Room and the basic answer is that if you want to get yourself a house/flat or rent somewhere, you need to have a lot of savings or you need to stay at home with your parents, get yourself a salary job and save up as much as you can with the money from your salary job and then you can think about getting yourself a place and that's with the way the market is right now. Things will no doubt change and most likely get harder.

Well, looking into the future, my goal is that once I graduate I want to get a English-teaching job in a public school in Korea as soon as possible. The ideal situation would be that it'd be so soon when I manage to get a job that I'd probably be in Korea when it comes to my graduation ceremony (haha too bad ~ but everyone'll know that I've already made it).

I don't know if this'll change by the time it's significant for me but the way it's been in Korea for I don't know how long is that when you get a job at a public school, that school pay's for your house and your furniture. Which is freaking awesome! So that would be my ideal situation: to move to Korea to be a teacher as soon as I'm done with uni and have my own little place high up in Seoul that I can finally call my own, buy my own food, etc. and finally be able to call myself an adult.

Heck, I'll probably never be able to call myself an adult.

Growing up hurts.

Warning: possible controversial opinions
I've been feeling really kind of down lately (lately as in quite a few weeks now) most of the time I can't really find a reason but I do have some reasons, I guess. It's just that those reasons shouldn't make me feel like this 24/7. Yes, 24/7, it's gotten to point that every night I have nightmares. I have to pray diligently every night before I go to sleep that I won't have any nightmares. Since starting uni in October my stress has gradually gotten higher and higher and unbearably higher. It's really taking it's toll and I think that may be the main reason for my nightmares, just the stress and worries of what's going on in my life and what's going on with me.

The problems that I think about the most are:

• The transition from being a child to an adult and
• Day to day talking to people who don't have Christ in their lives and feeling so sad about it.

Yeah, these are actual problems that I have and they are big ones.

The first being the transition is the one I think about the most. Now that I'm in my second year of uni, my course requires me to have quite a huge level of responsibility and to be very honest: it freaks me out. I've never had so much responsibility thrust upon me like this. And you may brush it off and say I'm just a little kid or I'm acting like a kid or whatever but yeah, I'm admitting it. I am a little kid. I don't want to completely blame my parents for how they've raised me but the situation is that that is the situation. There's nothing I can do about it. This is who I am. Most people in my class are older than me, some are younger or the same age but I'm telling you, none of these people seem to be having the slightest problem with this sudden responsibility. I've spoken to my close friend about this who is the same age as me and she doesn't seem to understand how I feel, either. I mean, it's not like I'm running around complaining to everyone who'll listen about this, I am just getting on with and doing what I have to do, so it could be that other's feel the same and are hiding it as I am. But it's hard.

I am basically responsible for someone else's ability to speak English and their experience they have with me and my peers/colleagues will affect them for the rest of their lives. It's a big deal and it's so sudden. But please don't get me wrong because I'm not saying I don't want to do this. That's the whole point. This is life. We all have to grow up at some point. And I want to grow up but it's really surprisingly hard for me. This whole situation is that I can't just think about myself and the conventional student life of getting my own work in on time but I have to think about others that are dependent on me to teach them and give them something that will help them throughout their life if they take it. 

I'm not one to complain, that's why no one in my life knows about this apart from my very close friend. It even feels weird writing it here and telling you and you probably can't even relate to this but...

Just fyi, I live with my parents and it was not long ago that my parents went away for the weekend. They left with my telling them, "I'm just a child." Anyway, when they were gone, I'm telling you I've never felt more like an adult. The adult that I wanted to be. I was left with my two-years-younger sister in the house for two days and while she did nothing, I tidied the house like never before for those two days; I kept it clean and you know, just normal house work and I wasn't asked by parents to do any of it. It felt good. I finally felt like a proper adult for the first time. My parents came home to a clean home and that very same day they did come home they messed everything up and made a lot of noise and my frequent cleaning dwindled down by demotivation. I felt like a child again.

Everyone one of my peers that are doing the exact same work I do are living away from their parents, far away. Multiple 10s of miles away and then there's me. I knew living at home while going to uni would have an affect on me like this but  I never realised how much until now. Until I looked at my younger peers that seem older than me and I see crystal clear the affects of living with your parents. From that weekend, I know that if I was living by myself I would morph into the adult I want to be straight away. The responsibility at uni would not be fun but at least I would fee like I have the right to that responsibility. Teaching people older than me is just... really weird. I have this fear that they'd find out my (and my peer's) real positions and they'd lose their respect. 

I think about living by myself a lot (no roommates, no one). I know it'll be really hard to be able to afford that opportunity and I won't be able to do that until 2016 but I look forward to it. I really do.

All I know is that I am a child inside and I need to grow up fast. I want to. But it's hard when no one understands what I'm going through. It might be smooth sailing for some people but for me, growing up hurts.

In terms of my other problem. I think I'll leave that one for another post...

Shall I start blogging again?

I really want to start blogging again. I remember when I started uni, I was so excited to just blog about my time there and all my experiences and stuff and my blog eventually became of more mixed content (like drama reviews etc.) and I eventually just stopped.

It's not like I didn't have ideas on what to blog about, it's just sometimes I wonder if I really should put my thoughts out on the internet like this. I have these thoughts that my readers might think I'm depressed or my opinions might be controversial or... whatever but I think it's good to have a place you can share your thoughts especially as I feel a lot that I do have quite a bit to say but I don't have the right people in my life to say it to.

It's hard for me to keep a blog up but... I guess I'll try because I want to.

Well, here's my first post I guess. :)

Update on life! (Studying Korean, Japanese, Uni, The Heirs...)

Arrogance level: 3.8 out of 5

It's been just over a week since I last updated and I left you with a negativity post as well! lol. I'm OK. I didn't get depressed and kill myself. I actually feel quite happy these days. I feel a certain level of security that is rare for me to reach because of the scar left from my high school days. I wrote a post explaining about that scar so maybe you could understand me better but I'm not sure if I want to upload it or not. It might make me look like a loser or will be too sad. I think it's more sad that what you hear in those 'Draw My Life' videos on YouTube. Speaking of YouTube videos, I've been working on doing the '50 Things About Me' tag but as a post on this blog. I think it might me interesting for you to get to know me better by reading some random facts about me. Unless you don't want to know about me. But how could you not. I'm so mysterious. lol
미안...

So, moving swiftly on... I've made great progress in my studying of Korean. Basically, weeks and weeks ago, my Dad contacted our connections to some Koreans to find me a Korean tutor (that sounds weird but I don't know how else to describe it really) and an old friend got back to us saying there was a girl who wanted to tutor me (yay!). When I finally got through to her and spoke to her (because that took a while) we set up lessons straight away and now I have a personal Korean tutor that I meet once a week. Which is awesome!! I'm so happy with this. I mean, we only had our first lesson last week, my next one is tomorrow. We mostly talked. Well, she did most of the talking ...in Korean. I had to really use my listening skills. But it was all good because she's super genuinely nice and we talked about ma boys EXO and watched two EXO videos. It was awesome.
I've been really motivated to study Korean like everyday this week. I've been using talktomeinkorean.com I've known the site for years and watched a few videos from their youtube channel, but I never used it religiously to study Korean, now I do. It's awesome, I really recommend it if you want to start learning Korean or if you already are and want a useful website to help you learn in a fun way. By no means am I affiliated with this website, I just like using it a lot now. I even followed them on twitter, tumblr and facebook as well as subscribed to their youtube channels. With this I believe I can learn much faster (because I genuinely find studying Korean fun) and be able to talk to my Korean tutor better and understand her more.

So yeah, uni. We recently (well, more like 2 weeks ago) did a test in my Japanese class and we found out the results for the test and guess what.... I came first place out of the entire class! Ye-ah. No seriously, it's a big class as well. I didn't even think my %-age was that high. Ya'll should've done better. Maybe I should make a post about how frustrating my fellow Japanese class students are; maybe not. I already put all my pent up annoyances in my journal. I still enjoy my Japanese classes though, just 'cause I love learning Japanese and the teacher likes me because I'm the best. lol.
You don't understand, I'm never #1 in anything (well, apart from my Korean class two years ago).

In other news, the student union STILL hasn't gotten back to me on withdrawing my membership from the Hip Hop classes. It's ridiculous, it must have been like 6 weeks already since I first contacted them. I'm getting tired of their attitude towards this. They obviously just want my money - my entire £20 smh -__-
Oh well.
I'm just laughing at them really. How a group of people that are supposed to be professional operate so unprofessionally.

Well, I could tell you some other things but I might be the only one who finds them interesting. lol. Things are calming down workload wise, so I will be able to upload more often. If I get ideas. I might put up that '50 Facts About Me' post and I'm watching 'The Heirs' right now and plan to do a review of that once it's all over. I swear it's sooo interesting now. With *spoiler alert* Young Do pushing Eun Sang against the wall. I'm sorry (not sorry) but that was so so sexy! I actually like Young Do's character ever since last week. I was forcing myself not to like him (it wasn't that hard) because although Kim Woobin is one of my top favourite Korean actors, Young Do was such an immature bully; I wanted to put a bucket over his head and push him down the stairs (I want to do that Kim Woobin anyway..). But now things have changed: I now accept Eun Sang and Kim Tan as a couple ever since they were staring at each other with tears flowing from their eyes. But I feel so so bad for Young Do. He's kept Eun Sang and Tan's secret (just about) and he's just heart broken because Eun Sang doesn't want him, she wants his worst enemy. Poor baby. He's just such an unlucky little kid, really. I just want his mother to come back and give him a big hug while he cries into her shoulder. It'll be such a touching scene that someone finally loves him. I also want him to get together with Rachael. Seriously, they were made for each other; both troubled, both abandoned by the ones they love, they need each other and they look so good together. In fact, I ship them in real life. Forget that Yoo Ji Ahn.

Anyway, life's good. How long will this last? When will it get better?

Yo, you should follow me on google+ I post some really interesting stuff on there. :D

Negativity post: The dark world of kpop + uni workload

The k-pop world is messed up seriously.
Sometimes I just want to escape it but EXO.
I've been feeling negativity these past two days from k-pop.

• In recent news: Ailee's naked pics from when she was young were revealed online by allkpop. Her ex-boyfriend who was her boyfriend at the time of her taking those photos is the vice-president of allkpop.
• A guard at an airport in Hong Kong forcibly pushed Jessica (my Jessica /sobs/) into a railing where she hurt her head and slumped to the floor. It is believed the guard thought she was a fan.
• T.O.P.'s comeback is in like 3 days. It's very sudden (this isn't negative news but I'm just worried that I won't like his music and that's bad because I'm his fan and have been since the very start of my kpop days).
• Minzy got a nose job. Her nose is visibly thinner. Her reps are denying the allegations of plastic surgery, claiming that she "just became prettier". :3
• Our beloved Boom has a gambling scandal.
• So does Andy from Shinhwa.
• Shinhwa are beating EXO in MAMA votes.

hmm, what else...

I don't know, maybe I'm just feeling negative because I'm running on such little sleep because I have so much uni work to do and it's only my first year. The prospects of having much more work in the second year is looming over me. If I can't even sleep because of the workload now, how will I survive next year?


To leave this on a happy note:
I'm not even sad about EXO not winning the Worldwide Act at the MTV EMAs. The whole ordeal was although tiring, a lot of fun and unified k-pop fans from different fandoms together. The fact that EXO got that far to represent Japan and Korea is a huge achievement in itself. And it's something that no other k-pop idol has ever done. I think one of the greatest thing's we as EXO-stans got out of this was Directioners converting to EXO fans :) Welcome to the fandom!
I'd like to take this opportunity to say congratulations to Chris Lee. She deserved it as much as EXO.

Update on things...

Still so ill. It's been just over a week now. This is bad. It's because when I got ill in the past, I usually take over a week off of school to get better and get my immune system up, but I've been going to uni, walking in the rain and cold for long periods of time; getting on germ infested public transport. It's all because I cannot afford to miss any lectures or seminars. You don't know which ones are important and which ones are not until you go there and sit through the whole thing. Seriously. It's Thursday today, so I have the next three days to rest at home. I hope I get better so I'll be fine by Monday.

Today, I planned to work on an essay that I have to do for uni (that I haven't even started) but I spent most of my day when I got home watching loads of episodes of High Kick 3. I watched 10 episodes! That's the most I've ever watched at once. It was only because I was inspired by my friend telling me today that she once watched 180 episodes of a drama in one night. I wouldn't do that, but it's nice to just sit down and watch loads of episodes of drama/sitcom at once, especially if it's as awesome as High Kick 3.

Talking of dramas; I watched The Heirs episode 3 today. I tried to watch it last night on Viki (because I was that desperate to see it) but the subs weren't complete, so I came home from uni today and watched it on gooddrama. That scene with half naked Kim Woo Bin though. I saw it on tumblr before hand and I almost died! No, I died. I definitely did die.

Oh right, about that hip hop dance class that I joined. After doing it, I started to feel that I shouldn't carry on with it because it's not nice walking around last at night/ or early in the morning when it's dark by myself - around this time of year. For that same reason I won't be going to the Christian Union either which is on the same day and time. I asked my parents for advice on whether I should do it or not but they weren't any help; I ended up paying my membership to the sport and then I regretted it a lot. I emailed the students union asking if I could withdraw my membership and get my money back but they still haven't replied. I'm a bit scared because it looks like I just missed practice today without saying anything. Oh well.
They better email me back tomorrow.

Well, other than that, life at uni is going well. I have been gifted with awesome people on my course so...
I have so much to do tomorrow, I better get round to doing it. Should I wake up early and go to the library?

Guys, I absolutely love learning Japanese. I feel so cognitively sharp and accomplished when I'm learning it and I can remember everything. I swear learning a language is the most encouraging thing. It's like: I'm not stupid after all.
I can't wait until my next lesson. It's not like I love my lessons (because I haven't actually bonded with anyone in my class as yet - it's a big class)
Currently, I've learnt a few phrases and I've completely memorised all the hiragana with the additional sounds. I just need to practice everyday (like I've been doing) and practice reading hiragana sentences so I can recognise the characters faster.
It's very important that I do well in Japanese because it's as important as my other university modules and my teacher was saying: if I fail, I can't graduate. Yikes!

You CAN do it.

If there's one thing I've learnt since starting uni three weeks ago, it's that, you have to be prepared for what's inevitably going to happen. Even if you think you're not going to like it, just think you can endure it and maybe when it actually happens it won't be anywhere near as bad you thought it would be. And hey, it won't kill you.
Just in the same way I was wary that if I chose to do Japanese I'll probably be in a class full of crazy anime fans (no offence) that I couldn't relate to and if I started attending hip hop classes by myself I'll probably find it hard to make friends. I don't know if my negative thinking made those things happen just the way I thought they would be (especially the hip hop class) but I survived. I enjoy learning Japanese and I enjoy dancing, especially hip hop dancing.

Just last night, I just went to the hip hop class that the Cheerleaders at my uni hold late in the evening (when it's dark and scary for a young pretty girl with no martial arts experience to be taking the bus home alone) and like I assumed the Cheerleaders are crazy. lol. But it's alright, I was kind of alone... but once I got warming up and dancing it was good. I really liked the choreography and that beats my fear that the choreo was going to be lame because I haven't seen much good hip hop dancing in this country - as opposed to the US.
Because of the fact that I went there on my own and was there alone I was heavily thinking that I should not go again because I HATE being alone. It's one of the things I hate the most. Of course I prefer doing certain things alone like shopping and running errands or something but things that are supposed to be done with friends I hate doing alone and that was one of those things. It's just scary to me, it's one of my fears, along with heights and paedophiles.
There was a fitness session the very next morning that started at 7:30am. I didn't even know about this before I went to the hip hop class in the evening and I was like: 7:30am! Hell no!
Seriously, I was very ill. Going out in the cold night wasn't a wise decision but it was something I had to do in as my last chance to do the hip hop class, but I getting to my uni for 7:30am the next morning would definitely not be a wise decision because it would mean I would have to get up at 4 in the morning which would mean I would have only 4 hours asleep. I'm sorry but I'm not a kpop idol, I'm a student. I need time to rest and recuperate because I am very ill. When you're ill, you need to sleep, not wake up after barely 4 hours and go out in the cold and then do some intense physical exercise. I saw on facebook, that the secretary was not happy that people did not show up that morning. That kind of scared me off going again even more, but I do plan to show up next week when I'm all better if they'll allow me.

Well... I wish I could 've found someone to do this whole dancing thing with me but... we'll see for now. I'm not saying I'm making a commitment to this especially as I feel like I don't fit in with these people. I just wish I could start a kpop dance cover crew. Message me if you live in the West Midlands, UK and you're interested. *gets no messages*

lol. The message of this post is: Take the opportunities that are offered to you, take them wholeheartedly and make the most of them. You don't have to write your name in blood and don't let anyone make you think that you do. Do as I say, as I'm trying to live by my own advice.

I'll never let you be alone.

I can't say that I've had one bad day since I started uni.
Of course, things have not always gone well. Negative things have occurred, mostly down to my own thinking I guess. Like how you think you've made friends with someone and then you realise... you just, haven't. But today ended well.

I met girls who are obsessed with Chinese and Korean guys (*sigh* they remind me of when I was young lol) I personally think that's a little insane and naive to be obsessed over some people like that but hey ...I'm insane too.
I have hope that there might be lots of kpop fans around our campus and we could possibly start a society if we figure out what to do when we meet.
I got some shopping done in my break as well. Of course I ended up going over my budget, but that's a given. I got my Dad a good birthday present after much struggle. And I bumped into a good friend from college that I haven't spoken to since we finished college. We had a nice conversation. I hope I see him around again. It would be nice if I could keep in touch with people from college but keeping-in-touch is really something I'm not good at...

I'm looking forward to meeting even more new people like I did today. That's something I love about uni; you can always meet new people and speak to people you've never spoken to before and they might have similar interests to you.

Well, I'm happy God will never let me be alone at uni. I seriously do like people, God knows that lol :)

9:46pm
Finishing my day with some Hiragana revision for my Japanese lesson tomorrow. I basically know everything. I revised so well in the week.

I can't believe I found you!

You know when something good happens in your day (it doesn't even necessarily happen to you) and you just can't help but smile to yourself about it for the rest of the day or rest of the night because it keeps coming back into your head.
I love that.
It's happened twice in the past 2 weeks.

Today... I found a kpop fan! In my uni. I have been talking to this girl for the past two weeks on some days whenever I've seen her because she was a mutual friend but a conversation we had today just kind of ended up along the lines of "cute korean guy" and then "I can speak some Korean" and then "Do you like kpop?" HELL YES! I can't believe it. Just the idea that I've been talking to this girl and she likes kpop! Not only that but she is a huge fan of EXO. EXO are my soul reason for living. Ok, not so much haha, but I do love them a loooot and to find another kpop fan in a sea of what looks to be non-kpop fans, was amazing. It was a God-send really. I now have someone to talk about my 12 boys with in my uni... I could just cry...

Well, that's what I couldn't stop smiling about today.
There are more kpop lovers on my campus I'm sure. I just have to find some, subtly.