wouldja look at that

sometimes i have the experience of resisting something even though i know i will like it. like it against my will? especially if i'm resisting it because it's been hyped up. and so many things are hyped up these days. tonite i watched garden state with kevin and lisa and it was really good and i enjoyed it a lot! primarily i think my problem is that i don't like/am really jealous of natalie portman because boys often tell me that they are or were obsessed with her. jealous! tch tch i know. but anyway, she's really cute in this movie, although i didn't know her voice was the way it is. and maybe now i can watch closer. but NOT star wars III! i don't think. unless she says "blah blah blaah" in it.

umm. and i've ordered lots of things from online these days and it's insane to be waiting so anxiously for them. but i love it. and i went for day 1 of wedding dress shopping with lisa.

home makes me so happy. that was part of the garden state fun, listening to someone in a movie talk about home. i love zach braff!

but it's interesting to me how movie critics often call movies "self-conscious" but do they really mean ... a little clumsily handled? lacking in subtlety? overly reliant on dreamy hottub convos? i don't know. when i think of "self-conscious" i think of someone squinting at the other people they're talking to.

TV, TV, TV!

watching "project runway" on bravo. i think i was watching lots of bravo before i left but nothing could have prepared me for this show where fashion designers compete against each other to win something. well, maybe watching "america's top model" at the emerald this past weekend in seoul was a good warmup. but there were definitely not any corn husks on "america's top model". is it okay to love bravo as much as i do? maybe it's cause i'm really shallow pretending to be really intelligent. hiding teenvogue inside the economists...

so i am back in the states and it's actually lots colder than it was in either jeonju or seoul. actually, it's snowed here! so it really feels like christmas :^) my mom bought me these boots from j. crew that would be really "in" in korea but i'm not really sure whether i want to sport them here. trends make me sad. these days i feel like i don't really even want to live in new york. and i want to divest myself of the tiresome and burdensome possessions that confronted me when i came back to my room and opened my closet. is that silly? will i change my mind when i go to new york sometime? definitely maybe!

being in poughkeepsie and at the mall was really surprising because i'd been expecting it for awhile and it really was just exactly as i'd remembered it. everyone dresses the same way as they have for years and years. the stores have changed a little bit and walking around there feels like going back 5 years. last night i went out with anand and mike to the beech tree grill, saw two people with long hair, then slept for 12 hours.

talking or thinking about the korea experience has been difficult but i think being in seoul for the last couple of days (and the prospect of being there for january) is helping me to be positive about it. the great thing about seoul (any big city?) is that it's kind of built to be entertaining and full of explorable days.

thinking about having becoming more patient, thinking more about helping people, having more clearcut goals for my future and how idealistic/realistic they need to be, the differences between life in korea and the us, my relationships with people aka being a less selfish and self-absorbed person...whether i can do this remains to be seen! i'm working hard.

keeping up appearances

i hated british shows like keeping up appearances where the main humor derives from the insanity of the main character and you're supposed to be glued to the set because you have no idea what crazy idea she'll come up with next! mrs. bucket right?

but anyway. so i think i've gained back all the weight i've lost since being in korea. maybe not ALL, because my marc jacobs jeans still fit. but you know, most. but now i know that it IS possible for me to lose weight, and that not eating is a really good way to go about it. haha! in other news i had more "appearances" related trauma this weekend. my dad's cousin and her husband took me out for a drive on sunday, after church. we had a lot of fun actually, going to this farmers' rebellion museum and then to this old reservoir/water lock site thingie where we saw a mill and stuff. but the un-fun part was when the cousin and husband...and then my GRANDMA (who's not even my real grandma, as my mom pointed out to me) were all like "oh you should get eyelid surgery just like our daughter". okay, so i'm not the kind of girl who gets really bothered about shit like this because i have been dealing with it all my life, and at this point my mom and i have a pretty healthily joke-y relationship about me and all the different ways that my body is imperfect, but they just would not stop and it was a little annoying.

in other news, i'm leaving korea on tuesday but not before i do a mountain of xmas shopping w/ eileen and sarah in seoul. which will be great, i hope!

reflection

reflection is something we're supposed to be doing from time to time.

vijay singh is now the world's number one golfer.

but back to me...these past two days have been very telling in terms of reflection. this week's lesson is not really a lesson so much as me showing a movie (drumline) and bringing in drinks. on the kids' behalf, they have the option to fill out a video scavenger hunt and to bring snacks. pretty challenging, no? this is an "awesome" lesson. my 2-1 class went so far as to draw hearts and cute little messages on the board to say goodbye! (2-1 class not usually a stellar one: only 3/8 possible pizza points). which inculcated in me that familiar old sense of invincibility. which precluded me really worrying about my club class. which led to another shitty club class, at least for the 2nd graders. why do i assume that these kids want to learn from me? emphasis on both "learn" and "me".

kids are very hard to satisfy.

winter break plans include: going home, coming back and maybe interning/volunteering in seoul, traveling around thailand and cambodia. and that's exciting. but do i deserve it?

the guy was so nice to us!

rachel and me at jeonju tea shop