My Revelation

Here are the journal entries that I wrote during my trip there.
I put indentations on the entries so it's not too painful for eyes..


June 24
i woke up today still thinking about what happened between me and daye nuna. it seemed to boggle my mind still and I couldn't think straight about the essay. so I left the essay alone until i could work at it during global (which I got wifi from one of the hyungs... yes!) that means i have around 5 more days to write the essay and have a damn good time while doing so. today i woke up always as sweaty as a mug because in songchu its hot as hell and i just check facebook watch some dumb dayz videos (were pretty awesome actually) then washed up. global meeting was at 2:30 and i had to leave at sometime when i thought it took like an hour and thirty minutes to get.

Turns out that i forgot to bring my visa while on the car trip, and checked the email, which said i needed the visa trip, so i told aunt better safe then sorry because she thought i could just get through with a license. luckily when i got to the place the registrar let me know that i needed to use my visa for some of the stuff that we were going to do later. so anyways it took us some time to get back to songchu, pick up my visa, then head over to dobongsan, where it took me just like an hour on the subway, which was really short. i was relatively aware on my sense of direction but i didn't want to risk walking too far and never ending up with a taxi, so i just took a taxi right after i got off the subway station. got to the resort and there were around 400+ students. i was team 9 group 27 and got acquainted with everybody. was exciting but at the same time a little distressful... some spoke chinese. some spoke russian (wow was awesome), and the fact that I couldn't understand what they said disturbed me a little. (maybe im just overthinking these little things that really dont matter). but anyways i got to know some of the people.

So the administrative stuff took way longer than it needed to be. they took a long time because the hotel rooming wasn't assigned yet, and the only way we got to know which room we had was a guy on the front announcing all 400+ students names. took a really long time, and was about 5:00 when i got situated and came down again. we listened to these speakers who talked about the legacy of the global association and some of the history of korea, as well as the burden of this generation and how they have to uphold the honor and dignity that the last generation (our parents) have done for us. blah blah blah it took about two hours and a half until we got the buffet at like 7:30... was okay food i wasn't that hungry honestly I've gotten pretty fat the last three weeks just eating all these food outside. hopefully i can lose a lot of this weight for later...

After we ate we watched three performances. one was the traditional korean dance which had the flower fans and the really nice dresses. it was very elegant and a touch of sadness to see the korean culture go through so much burden in the past afterward we listened to a performance of three women who had instruments like electric something or a korean harp. it was beautiful and i really enjoyed it also. a lot of the people in my group were tired and was just waiting for it to be over, but i loved it, took pictures. but the best of all was the b-boy crew that performed for us. they did exceptionally well and i took video of the entire thing. i loved every moment of that performance. i held my phone at my highest point to see their footwork, for 15 minutes, i was starting to sweat at the end of it. was a good time over all and just having first-time jitters and i guess awkwardness with my group, but expecting a good time to go on tomorrow. thankfully my heads not at all into the daye nuna incident... better start working on my essay, but can't stop kakaotalking with a friend in the group..

11:41pm.

(Blog note: This marks the first day of the Global event, and I was already beginning to like this girl in the group. It has been over 2-3 years since I've actually liked a girl, so when I liked this one, I was completely mind boggled over her, blehh..)





June 25th
10:55pm
exhausted as hell, i only got to sleep around 4-5 hours. slept at 2:00 goofin off and partially working on my essay. got up at like 6:00 then laid in bed really uncomfortably until i have to actually get up at 6:50 and to get to the rally point for our group. i was around 5 minutes early and nobody was there, so i switched my backpack so it was a little more convienient. we first left to some Korea Telecom (KT) presentation, where we spent thirty minutes just wandering around like a small room of the latest products KT had that were compatible with their company, like the s3 and other products. blah. we watched the lecture which i fell asleep 75% for.

We got out and started to walk around, it was really hot and i was glad i had an umbrella with me. We got to shi-chong to check out the really nice water places, and we went to chun-gyae-chun to take some pictures. my group leader trolled me making me almost drink the water, but we just put our feet in there for a really cool refreshing break. we took some spazzy pictures (lol) and went to lunch. was not very good. the mul-nang meun i got was completely tasteless (it had no taste), and they doused it in sesame seeds. it was a little ridiculous. afterward we walked again for miles to in-sa-dong where we walked up the stairs and bought pat-bing-su. was chill time we just talked about whatever and then afterward we took the subway station all the way to geo-dae tranfer over to the jong-hap recreation center. there we watched the baseball game for over 2 and a half hours. we waited 45 minutes just eating ice-cream and talking about whatever, trolled the girl leader lol was funny, then was given us OUTBACK-STEAK HOUSE do-shi-lak. guess what, it was just rice grilled chicken and like kimchi. it was absolutely nothing compared to the outback steakhouse in the states (gina agrees). but anyways we walked up to the base-ball stadium and it was really nice, was really similar to the one in st.louis. we sat down, and it was still hot as hell. the whole day was so hot. my pants were sweating like crazy, it was ridiculous. we ate and watched the game.

I was really tired and out of my mind in the first 5 innings, but when our team that we rooted for went up 5 points making the game 5-2 in just one inning, i got a lot of energy and started to being social again. i started standing up because my pants were so soaked in sweat that i just wanted to stand up and let them dry haha the kiss cam was in korea also and i was really afraid they might get to the girl next to me but we did have a sign that we wanted the cameras to show on us. but we were at the end of the first base seats, which the camera was really not very angled at us (revise how to word this). we started to leave at like the 7-8 inning and thats when it just got to be really exciting because it was then 7-3 and crowd was going intense. wow korea has some of the most amazing fans that just shout and scream so much. i got really into it and started shouting
to one of the players who kept throwing the baseball away into a different part of the crowd after practicing it for a new inning. we got on the bus to go home, and i socialized a lot with the girls about language and blah blah blah hahaha hyun-geyung says good effort in substitute for su-go zz. but im exhausted i need sleep and to get some energy for tomorrow. i really need to get working on the essay but this trip is too damn awesome.


Outside of the ballpark after the game

11:07 PM
(Blog note: What I didn't mention in this entry was that in the beginning I didn't talk to the girl much at all, and I got really jealous when she was just hanging out with other people. I don't know why I felt that way, I just did.)

mul-nang-meun

I absolutely love 물냉면, but the place we ate wasn't that very good

do-shi-lak

How the hell do you ever compare this with outback steakhouse?





July 26
9:31PM
I should really be working on the paper right now, my mom just slapped the deadline up by around 4 days, so I have to finish it by tonight, and i'm making progress, so I thought it'd have a little break and work on the journal. So what we did today was just pack up and leave the hotel. We drove three hours, consisting of talking with friends, listening to music, and partially sleeping, until we get to the DMZ in the parallel. (damn forgot the number). I looked over to north korea and really thought why we couldn't just get along. However, i knew it wasn't that easy to really ask. Too many political impacts and events of the past that just don't make us friends anymore. i wish one day that it would all turn out to be okay. afterward we picked up lunch by eating some bibimbap at the place we were now staying, which is the kimchi ma-eul. lol but anyways afterward we went swimming for around 2 and a half hours. I was having fun until my nose started to bleed and come the continuation of laughs and trolls. Break times over, i'll update this a bit later.
9:36PM

9:47PM
i'm in an office room now since the room i was in had a bunch of nerds who wanted to get drunk. sad. but anyways i got out of the room and talked to jae-min hyung who knew that i had to work on the paper, so basically he let me go into the office which seemed that nobody was going to go in here. lol its hot as hell in here and i have limited battery life, so i better get working on this essay quick. sorry mom i'm not a very good son right now not doing it as soon as you told me i had work
to do, i would get f'ed up in korea.. just came back from getting all my stuff and moving to another room to sleep. god this paper is really hard to write because my vacation mode is still kind of activated, while at the same time the paper in itself is very difficult to answer. it is a college undergraduate's worst nightmare: your motivation for your degree. damn.
10:17pm

bibimbap






July 27
12:25AM
Today was another real busy day. Work up and got working on eating breakfast. It was pretty much CPK and i ate a little. my stomach wasn't really responding well to me much so i didn't eat much at all. we then got started working on slicing cabbage in which we took turns slicing the cabbage in half with our hands real carefully, washing it with salted water, then letting it sit in the refrigerated area battered in salt again for a while. afterward we did painting with washclothes, where we made patterns and tied rubber bands and then what we did lol, was batter it in pure squeezed MILK, all from the cow. then patting it dry, then putting a bunch of mud like crap on it. then letting it dry again. then we took out the tied rubber bands and anything that was attached and we washed it. it turned out to be a pretty nice pattern. we then reverted back to the building to work on the tofu creating process. where we pressed a bunch of beans and we cooked it dry. i got my washcloth and claudia made me a turban, which ended up to be real ugly.

Lunch came by, and I didn't have any feeling to eat, so I just skipped and took a real nice break sleeping in our room which was nice and cool. outside the past week has been ridiculously hot and not very human friendly. We then got working on the kimchi which was pretty cool to see the thought process. Afterward we started making bracelets from pearls and beads. I gave mine to Minji and Sujin nuna because i knew i wasn't going to have much of it at all, do i didn't bother keeping it. I also gave my kimchi to Sujin cuz I didn't really want to have the burden of keeping it with me. We went to the interview where a TV reporter brought us to the kimchi presentation room to do a really big interview consisting of 30 students. I got to know a little bit about a girl who was going to attend washu next semester. small world. but anyways the interview lasted around 45 to an hour, and it was so nerve-wrecking. so many thoughts were running through my mind, and I was lightening up the mood while the camera wasn't rolling, but i kept my mouth shut when it was. I didn't know why I was so scared to have a simple camera focus at me, it shouldn't have mattered to me at all.

Afterward we had break time to chill a little bit then we got to eat dinner, setting up for barbeque, which was basically sam-geop-sal and I was cooking it really well, until i needed a shower to get ready for a interview later on. because i didn't speak at all during the first one, they wanted me and like 5 kids to do a personal interview to just speak your mind about this trip. I waited in the cooling room for the interview, but didn't realize until real late. we did chinese lantern or something like that which we wrote our wishes during the previous time i forgot to add in the journal. what was written stayed in my heart and isn't really worth mentioning. I hope it really did come true though. I had the interview, which I spoke my mind about it as well, and then it was time for mafia, where we spent over 3 hours having a lot of fun and just being a group.

I swear we have the best group possible, we have the most fun and we have the best looking kids. haha but thats for me to digress during this time. the sway of emotions that i'm feeling for one of the group seems to be more of a learning time than a commitment time: her environment is too much different and distanced for me to ever become a candidate for something more, if you know what i mean. I better head to sleep to get more of this stuff down, and i'm having so much fun that writing this journal is becoming to be a chore for me, so i better go to bed, no blanket on the ground for me tonight, ganna grow taller and hit 175cm so i can maybe have a chance.

12:49am.
(Blog note: What I meant by that last sentence was that the girl that I liked said that she hopes her husband in the future was just 175cm. What I didn't mention in this entry was that in the morning and afternoon, Jane [made up name] started spending a lot more time with this other guy, interested [bullshit] in learning a lot of Russian words. Again, jealousy raged in my mind, as I just swallowed it and did nothing. In the night though she was very touchy with me while we were playing mafia, and like a fool I absolutely loved it.)

sam-geop-sal






5:17pm.
twirl twirl. think words. think. express. create. i dont understand whats happening
right now. it doesnt make much sense to me. i feel like im red. like im embarassed
for something. whats going on? i dont know what it means anymore. as if the very
realities of my mind has been blasted through nothingness. it doesn't make
sense to me right now. why am i
so upset? im not upset, i feel.. depressed
sad. as if i dont want to ever experience this thing again.
this emotion. this feeling of wanting to be with somebody. i hate this feeling.
being aware of their every single action, their every single move.
whether good or bad. one night can turn out
to be the most fun in a long time, and another can be the worst experience ever.
i hated the way some people live. it disgusts me.
why is this happening to me now?
something is terribly wrong, something unbalanced.
my stomach hasn't been working at all. my thought process has been off in so many
other ways.
how incomplete i am, not being able to express these things.
cant make coherant sentences, cant make sense of anything thats happened.
its as if im having a mental breakdown, but im not really. something is
terribly wrong, what makes me so different than other people. Why am i being like
this??
Why cant i just be like the other kids who just live their lives every day?
why do I have to think so much and og throguh so much of this?
It just doesn't make sense to me..
something is terribly wrong, something unbalanced
something thats not right, like the wrong piece of block for the given shape.
am i in the right place? am i supposed to be here?
im being a little more calm now, being more thoughtful.
now looking at my laptop going to talk about whats going on in my life.
it's been a really long time since i've fell for somebody, and the way i thought and
perceived the cause and effect has made me to think that i should maybe stay
single forever. i have to talk to mom about this. i cant explain this kind of thing.
this life. i feel a chain bounded to me, tugging at me. tugging to follow the binds
of society, the status quo. this is now mentioned because of how being a korean
means theres a lot of binds toward me. the placing of episodes and plates of events
on the mosaic of my life is not turning for a good ending. i am very uncomfortable
right now. i dont want to be here at all. i better stop doing what im doing right
now. i better be careful what i do in the future. i better be more aware of my
actions. is my sense of that emotion skewed? is that sense of wanting, giving,
feeling.. not right? what is this?
it wont go away. this uneasiness. this.... jealousy.. jealousy.
jealousy. jealousy. i am jealous. and its dso right. i feel it.
i feel this jealousy
pulsing through my head, mind.
im so jealous. i hate it.
i dont know whats going on.
all i know is that im jealous. jealous. jealous. jealous.
why... why am i so jealous... what the hell is this...
why is this jealousy going on. why
this is why im embarassed. why im red
because im jealous, im so jealous, and its been so long.
so long since what
since i've ever fallen in that emotion. jealousy.
im so jealous. so hateful. i hated that this happened.
im so jealous. im a freak. im writing this
paper thinking im so jealous. im not a regular human
im a freak, a hopeless nerd. some
loser who doesnt deserve anything. just a worthless
nothing.
i realize this.
im a dumbass.
i feel for it.
i didnt feel, i fell into it
i fell inthat thing.
i fell into that feeling. that feeling
that feeling.
and i fell for it
like a lamb to the slaughter
like a complete
naive
idiot.
and i fell to it.
so easily.
so easily fell for it.
and i hate myself for it.
because it shows how weak i am
how incomplete i am
how worthless i am.
i hate it. i hate falling into this.
sigh.
life is hard.
its not easy easy at all.
mind my words, i can't see what im writing right now.
i cant write anymore.


(Blog Note: This was after dinner, and Jane kept spending more time with the Russian guy. I don't know why I felt so upset, or what made me think this way. Looking back at it I think when it's been so long since I like somebody, I would act as if I am their actual boyfriend and such..... haha pathetic of me in the past. But yup thats a journal entry of how jealous and upset I am with her and myself. Imagine what intense emotions I went through to take the time to type that down without even looking at my laptop.)


bbejuh (mixture of bitter, upset, and sad)





7/29
I realize that this trip has been a pivotal point of my life. Cultural identity, societal conformity, relational development. There are so many things that happened in such 6 days. I can't believe it's actually over... A rollarcoaster, a slump, a defeat. Some things just can't express what happened at this trip. I've learned so many things, so many truths, so many pains, so many things.. I should update since the last point..

Here we go. We woke up at the hotel, washed up and did the usual, skip breakfast. We went to Kyunghee University to tour around the really nice campus and take pictures along the way. We went to a crown building, where there was a musical performance that included a woman who looked a lot like su-jun nuna. I think she got a little bbejuh because she ignored what I told her and started sleeping. hahaha girls. but anyways durin the performance something clicked in my mind. I had no right to have prejudices against Hyun-geung: it was her life, and her life alone. Who was I to tell her how she should live and act. Music really cleared my mind a lot, which made me really determined to keep practicing my piano and start more bass and guitar with Eric. After the performance I told everybody about how the music made my day a lot better and just made things a lot easier. Had lunch in the campus cafeteria, which was pretty much CKF but was good because there was me-mil- guk-su.


The time of my relational revelation


Just had a brighter personality I felt when I was talking to the rest of the guys. We had some free-time during the tour so our team got some actual pot-bing-su at some shop. Was a good time, and Jae-min hyung told practically everybody about the tournament that the guys did with selecting the girls. Hyun-Geung got all touchy and feely with me after she was told that I chose her as my #1. Funny shit going down, dont you think? Anyways, got to classrooms mostly respective to our countries, to debate about how K-Pop is either helping/ruining Korean identity, culture, and development. There was a lot of talk, and the group decided to choose a girl who talked well to speak up for the entire group, which there was 10. Hyun-Geung was chosen for the chinese section of it. It was ultra boring, everybody just babbled a bunch of junk that probably everybody didn't give a crap about. Afterward we went back to the hotel to sit down in where we first met. It was really hot, even if the air-conditioner was on.

The first performance we saw was tae-kwon-do: discipline, practice, and commitment. Their hits against the board were all impressive. Sometimes they would hit the boards with such force that remains of wood would be steam and just residue around the area. They would go up to three meters to hit these things, even apples. Apples burst in their force. It was a great performance. Then came the magic show. It was awesome as well. Some of the tricks I actually want to learn myself. Just to impress some girls... hahahaha but thats time for another day. Then came the rap. Rap was alright, then it transitioned into everybody just getting up to dance. It was a rave party, except I felt disgusting because I was already really sweaty hot. I still danced, but later stopped. I still couldn't get her off my mind. hahaha sounds pretty pathetic, right? We then were given note capsules to write to everybody. I had so many things I wanted to tell everybody, so
I actually took the next day to write it all down. Min-ji nuna started crying about how she'll miss every single one of us.. hahahaha emotional noobie.

Believe it or not, the day wasn't even over for our team. Showered up, and headed to Jae-min hyung's room for Kuk-jin's surprise birthday party bash. Funny thing is that Jae-min kakao talked the entire team to get into the mood (The birthday party bash). We went frantic about how Kuk-Jin will figure it all out, but thankfully his battery was dead. haha there was an elaborate plan where kuk-jin had to go downstairs because people thought he was drinking, so we could prepare the room for him to come in. It was a huge success. Everybody was having an amazing time. We got complaints from the next room for being so loud. haha we moved to Su-chung and hyun-geung's room to play mafia. It was fun until gina and carol had to go sleep. We ended on that note and realized that tomorrow was the last day that the program would be going on for. Tired as hell, yet there was a lot to do tomorrow.

CPK (Classic Korean Food)
Pot-bing-Su

Me-Mil-Guk-Su






7/30
Woke up the latest, everybody else got ready to left. I showered and gave my card to the group leader in our room, he was checking us all out. Headed down to get my certificate for completing the program: it was really nice. Su-Chung, then Tanya, then Gina left... At long last our team managed to break off to our different lives. I really wanted to get in contact with Su-Chung about her voyage to the states, and Tanya because shes just too adorable to let loose. Gina.. whatever... hahahahaha Ji-eun had to go somewhere, but I was going to meet with her in the group later time anyways. Me, Jae-min, He-jin, hyun-geung, and sung-hyun went to coex to walk around and go eat mr.pizza. They all ate with forks and knives, while I ate with my hands... silly silly. Slava said he couldn't make the movies but would meet with us later. Kuk-Jin had to drop off his luggage then meet with us at the movies. We saw Theives together, Hyun-geung kept talking about how she would never marry a chinese guy because of how dirty they just hang-dong. I slept a little bit during the movie, then saw toward the end of it. I couldn't make sense of the hard language they were talking, so I just followed the cinema and made my story based off that. meh. Afterward slava showed up with another girl and wanted to hang out with us, but the rest of us wanted to go home. I felt kind of bad but if I had a girl with me I would just hang out with the two of us, and thats what the rest of us did. Me and Jae-min hyung went case shopping real quick then decided we were tired as hell also and would just meet 8/1 to say our goodbyes then. We all went home then I took a shower and then started talking to Hyun-Geung. I told her that I really liked her and fell jealous because of all the people that she was talking to. She asked me why I didn't tell her sooner, because she said she was single. Bullshit, no you weren't. I just told her it was because I was from the states and she lives in China, so it would have never worked out. We kept talking about how we would meet together in the future, and how she was thankful for me giving her a good time during the week of the program. I don't know why I cried that night. Puppy hopeless love probably. I cried when she said that she was so glad to meet me in the program. Whatever, i'm over it. I did sweet-talking again because I didn't know any better, and went to sleep.

(Blog note: As you might have realized by now if you've been reading, Hyun-Geung was the person that I was talking about)

Hang-Dong : habit

We ended up meeting one more time as 8 people, four of our group-members already had went to other places across Korea. It was there that I realized a lot more about the girl than I did. Right after everybody dispersed, we saw her boyfriend go up to her and talk to her. We left and ignored it, but obviously to me she was just too playful for me to have any kind of serious relationship with her.




This trip gave me tremendous experience over how I handle with women, and analyzing women in general, but not only that. Me and my group leader were seriously two peas in a pod

like seriously
We talked about everything. God, life, suffering. I learned so much advice from him, and gave a lot to him also.

I miss my group. We had too much fun

I am not in this picture, I was the one taking it