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Feb 18, 2018

Final Days: Last Farewell

It's been about a week since I've written. Life has been busy, but I have time now. I am back in Europe, after 25 hours of traveling. Tired, I admit, but back. But let's rewind a week. Because a lot has happened. The last you heard, my wonderful Hong Kong roommate arrived and three roommates spent time together. It was a great present and we had a lot of fun. We mainly hung around and talked and laughed. But we also went out to eat, and went bowling. The last time my old room

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Feb 8, 2018

Days 72-74: Exams and Awesome Roommates

Yes, you read that correctly. Awesome roommateS. As in more than one. But first things first. My final exams are finished! Wednesday and Thursday I had my final exams. The Wednesday started with a 80 min essay writing exam. Before our midterms I had asked my teacher how much we were supposed to write. Our exam paper is four pages long, and he said that usually people write three pages and he had never received more than four pages. Naturally, I took it as a challenge. So duri

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Feb 4, 2018

Days 69-71: Traditional Korean Archery

It’s still dark outside. I’m writing this on the Monday morning after waking up at 4am and being unable to fall back asleep. It seemed like a good time to catch up. My abs ache this morning, more on why in a little bit. First let’s rewind the clock. With only a few days left until our exam I spend my Friday afternoon going to a Karaoke room again. This time it was just two of us and for two hours we sang and rapped our hearts out. We are both fans of the korean pop group BT

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Feb 1, 2018

Days 60-68: Completing the bucket list

It has been a week since I last wrote... I know, I said I would write every few days and a week is a little longer than that, but there have been circumstances. So let's take it from the top. Thursday last week, I ate lunch with two classmates at the cafeteria at Yonsei University. Yonsei is a big and famous University located right next to ours. It was quite an experience to walk around the campus. The atmosphere was so very different from Ewha, a lot more sombre, but the fo

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Jan 24, 2018

Days 58-59: Ice cold Namsan

The weather these past two days has been very cold. And I mean very cold. But, on the bright side, there is no pollution whatsoever, and it feels great to breathe in fresh air. Yesterday it was officially minus 17 degrees celsius, but real feel was minus 20 degrees celsius. So naturally, with weather like that, my roommate and I decided that today would be the day for a three hour walk out in the cold.... No really that is what we decided. Because despite the cold, the sky w

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Jan 22, 2018

Day 57: My Roommate's Amazing Idea

Everyone was sort of dozing off in class today. Not to mention that the people who usually arrive early arrived just before class started. They all say that it's the weather today. It's cloudy. It hasn't often been cloudy here. Just sometimes you can't see the sky for the pollution (yea I know... "just"... It's amazing how quickly we human beings adjust). But today was a regular cloudy day which meant that it was likely either going to rain or snow depending on the temperatu

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Jan 21, 2018

Days 53-56: Skiing in Korea

About a week into my time here in SK, I was invited skiing by a classmate, but the weekend she suggested was one where I went to the Reseffect Korean Hip Hop concert with my roommate and hence a day that it couldn't go. She has been back in her hometown for a few weeks but is back now and suggested it again. While she had been away I made friends with lots of other classmates some of whom mentioned that they wanted to try skiing so I asked if we could invite others and it end

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Jan 18, 2018

Days 52-53: Exploring

You'd think that having been here over 50 days, I would already have explored everything there is to explore, but there is always more to discover here. So on Tuesday evening, I met up with classmates of mine and together we walked to Hongdae (two districts down) because another classmate of ours is working part-time at a Japanese restaurant there. I have wanted to go for a long time now so it was awesome to finally be able to go. I think I shall have to drag my roommate he

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Jan 15, 2018

Days 48-51: Teacher for an Hour

It has been a few days since I posted because I've been pretty stressed this weekend. "But why?" You may ask. "Aren't the midterms over?" Yes... Yes, that's true. But life does not suddenly stop after the midterms. I did not have days off after the midterms, so I had a lot of homework to catch up on last week, but that is not what stressed me this weekend. I managed to do all of my homework early in the weekend. No, it was stress of a different sort. You see, at the beginning

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Jan 11, 2018

Day 46-47: Exam Results and Tattoo

This week has been a long week. Not only did I have exams on Monday and Tuesday. I also had homework due for the day after my exam and essay for today along with other homework too.. Yesterday after school I went out to meet a friend that I met through blogging, and we had an absolute blast. We met up in the evening, went for dinner and then deserts and stayed at this coffee shop for hours and hours. It was eleven in the evening by the time I came home again, and then I had t

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Jan 9, 2018

Day 45: Freedom after exams!

Finally my midterms are finished. My midterms account for half of my total grade at the end of the semester. I think I did well on today's exams. Today was a normal school day, except that instead of classes it was all exams. This morning started with an essay writing exam that lasted 80 minutes. I had to write two essays within this time. One was an essay that I had written for class and another a new essay. I turned out to be a little difficult, but I did fill out the paper

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Jan 8, 2018

Days 41-44: Studying

I have midterms today and tomorrow, so these past few days, since Friday, have all been studying focused. But hey, at this point I feel like I can ace these midterms, or at least pass without worrying too much. Well at least what is left of my midterms. I had two exams today and I have three more tomorrow, but let's roll back a few days and take my days from the beginning. On the Friday, I went to eat lunch with a classmate and friend after class. Since it's holidays for norm

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Jan 4, 2018

Days 38, 39, 40: Gimmicks

My last few days have mostly been spent doing nothing special other than weird gimmicks with my roommate, which in itself it pretty special. I may come home with abs, because we spent our entire days laughing, and mostly because I joke a lot.... A lot! Our biggest problem is that by 10pm we're supposed to be quiet, but we laugh SO much, and often forget this. So it's ends up like this: "HAHAHAH" "Oh wait, it's midnight, we're supposed to be quiet...." "Hahah.... Shh..... Puha

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Jan 1, 2018

Day 36-37: New Year in Seoul

Happy New Year, everyone. Wherever you may be, I hope that the upcoming year will be kind to you and that it will be a year that you will cease for all its opportunities and make your own fortune. Being in a foreign country, my roommate and I decided to do something special for New Years, even if the solar New Year isn't quite as big a deal here. We decided that the best way to spend the end of this year and the beginning of next year would be to play like little kids, so our

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Dec 30, 2017

Day 35: Big Bang Concert

This is the third time I see Big Bang in concert. It was a very different experience from the last time I saw them, back in 2012. Back then, I saw them in a smaller venue in London. I saw them on two consecutive nights, had the privilege of being sung to by Daesung, getting a huge smile, having G-Dragon try to make me laugh by making faces at me, and having a dance contest with Taeyang and making him laugh with my non existent dance skills (yep, it was an epic concert). This

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Dec 29, 2017

Day 34: Talent Show

I feel like a lot has happened today. It was a special day at school. All high level students (levels 3-6) gathered in the assembly room to watch a Korean Speaking competition held at our language school. Ten students were holding speeches with one common theme of "Korean culture". Apart from the speaking contest, there were also dance and singing performances. A total of four and the performers had gone through a longer audition process and preparation too. Two of my classm

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Dec 28, 2017

Day 31, 32, 33: New Teacher

As I sat down to write, I thought: nothing much has happened, but actually a lot has happened. First off, I've now had two days with my new teacher, which had been interesting, but I will get to that in a bit, first let me tell you about what else has been happening. We've been out shopping in Dongdaemun, and I actually bought three soft sweaters. But that's without much consequence. Well there is a direct consequence, which means that I'm not quite as pressed to wash clothes

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Dec 25, 2017

Day 30: Christmas feast

After a long trip to Busan yesterday, we got up pretty late this morning. This is our one day off for the holidays, and so our day only started after noon with coarse voices. Thankfully we don't appear to have caught ill but we got home very late last night. Not only was the train supposed to take five hours, but it got delayed and ended up taking five and a half hours. At which point, the subways had stopped running so we were in need of an emergency plan. The taxi line outs

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Dec 24, 2017

Day 29: Train to Busan

Exactly like the horror film by the same name, our "Train to Busan" day started out like an apocalypse. Yesterday I explained the basics of pollution and that a level of hazardous pollution was when the numbers on my phone go over 300... Well yesterday morning at 5:30 when he headed outside, the number was at 282. Even in the dark, you could see the pollution. We wore masks and I also covered my mouth with a scarf, real movie apocalypse style and then we headed out. We went

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Dec 23, 2017

Day 27-28: Air Pollution

There is one thing, I have to talk about, especially since it's winter. Air pollution. Some days, the sky looks dark and grey, and the European inside me says that it looks like it'll rain, but it's winter, and it won't rain. It's just air pollution, my phone tells me. Just pollution. Well, actually my phone buzzes in the morning and tells me: don't go outside, or be careful, because the air pollution is at this or that level today. The reason it gets so bad, is both because

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Publishers Weekly

Final Days: Last Farewell

Days 72-74: Exams and Awesome Roommates

Days 69-71: Traditional Korean Archery

Days 60-68: Completing the bucket list

Days 58-59: Ice cold Namsan

Day 57: My Roommate's Amazing Idea

Days 53-56: Skiing in Korea

Days 52-53: Exploring

Days 48-51: Teacher for an Hour

Day 46-47: Exam Results and Tattoo

Day 45: Freedom after exams!

Days 41-44: Studying

Days 38, 39, 40: Gimmicks

Day 36-37: New Year in Seoul

Day 35: Big Bang Concert

Day 34: Talent Show

Day 31, 32, 33: New Teacher

Day 30: Christmas feast

Day 29: Train to Busan

Day 27-28: Air Pollution

Thilde Kold Holdt