I’m late! Sorry, sorry everyone! It’s been a really great week, busy with wrapping up midterms and presentations and things like that.

So this past week I gave a presentation in my film class over “How to Marry a Millionaire”. It went really well and my professor said the conversations were great. We are now writing our midterm papers, an analysis over the movie “Get Out” I watched it once and was cringing the entire time. Don’t know how I’m gonna write an analysis when I can barely get through the movie.

My studio class has been going well also. We finished the last of our midterm reviews today and were able to talk to our professor (the one who speaks English) about some of our problems communicating with the korean members of our group. He was really understanding and had some different ideas on how to help us work around it and become more involved in the project through the rest of the semester. I’m hoping to get more officially involved and continue to learn even more than I have already this semester.

My global issues class is also going great, learning lots of things about international culture that I haven’t gotten the chance to be exposed to in Texas all the time. My Korean language class is unfortunately, another matter altogether. The class is pretty rough and I’m having a hard time understanding my professor when she speaks during our diction tests. I’m beginning to memorize more words and how they are spelled, just getting hung up on the pronunciation part still. But I’ve got some great friends in the class that make it all more tolerable at 9am in the morning.

This past Friday I went on a cultural trip to Tongyeong with the International College. We went on a cable car ride to the top of the summit, where we did some hiking towards the top. Despite the dust in the air, the views were still incredible and it was amazing to be that high up in the air. We also got to go to an old town part of Tongyeong. This neighborhood has become a cultural space home to art murals, cafes, and little shops. It was nice to spend time with my new friend HannaMarie, from Finland, and just explore the little area on our own. We also went to the traditional market and fish market that was down from the neighborhood. I tried octopus. I was not really a fan, but I was brave and I tried it. I won’t be having it again. It was really a great trip and I’m incredibly thankful for DSU’s international programs they offer and how they helped me to experience Korea so much more on this trip.

This past Saturday was also the International Firework Festival. It was at Gwangli Beach. There were so many people, so, so many people. We got there around 4:30 and the beach was already completely packed with people sitting out eating, drinking, and some even napping, holding a spot on the beach to watch the fireworks. We sat back on the sidewalk, towards the back, because there were so many people. And there were still people sitting behind us and standing up behind those people in the street as well. We stayed long enough to watch the first show before we decided to try and make our way towards the streets to watch the second one so we could leave early, but the streets were packed so we ended up just pushing our way through and leaving. It definitely was an experience and a good time with friends that I won’t forget.

I miss home and I miss my family, but I’m having an absolutely incredible Tim here in South Korea. It’s been going by incredibly fast and I know I’m gonna be sad when it’s time to leave and I leave my friends here as well. Looking forward to these next weeks and soaking up as much of Korea as I possibly can while I’m here.