Temples, Bibimbap, and Motel Tea Ceremonies

Disclosure: I contracted a nasty cold on Thursday and have been suffering ever since, so I'm a little doozy on cold medicine as I write this. You'll have to excuse me for not being able to string words together the way I normally can. 

As you may have gathered, I'm back from my weekend trip to Jeonju. Aside from a really nasty head cold, I had a lovely time. The Pagoda Temple and Stone Pagodas of Mount Mai were absolutely incredible. Looking at it gave me one of those moments where I just think, "Wow. I live in Korea."

This sentiment was reinforced by the ajummas and ajosshis who turned out en masse in their high tech, coordinated hiking gear to schlep the half hour "hike" (read: stroll along a paved road) up to the temple. I managed to snap a few pictures of some of them. Oh, Korea.

So I went on this little trip with my friend Regan, and we met some very nice people in our tour. One woman is a yoga instructor just outside of Seoul, and held a little tea ceremony with us in our motel room.

We also learned how to make Jeonju bibimbap, which apparently is different from regular bibimbap. I will say this: It was DELICIOUS. I got to show off my secret culinary skills, which mostly consist of being able to slice things quickly. Oh, the skill sets earned from years in the food service industry...

Anyway, enough writing. I'm on too much medicine to be able to put sentences together. Enjoy the pictures!

Also, can we talk about how this is my THIRD post today? You're welcome.

Crazy Awesome Korean Drumming Girls

I took this video at Maisan Temple. These girls were incredible! Watch and enjoy.

Also, be sure to check out my pictures from this trip.

Springtime Nights

They are just lovely, especially when you get to walk around an old palace at night. When I go to places like this I like to pretend I've gone back in time to when it was being used. This is Changdeokgung palace.

A Whole New World... of Allergies

Guys. I'm dying.

Ok, not really. My body is just throwing a temper tantrum. Holy allergies, Batman.

I was kind of a sickly child. I was the kid who always had to carry her inhaler around in case of an asthma attack (spoiler alert: still do). I was the kid who got allergy shots.

In case you don't know, the idea behind allergy shots (and other forms of allergy treatment) is that your body slowly gets acclimated to the thing(s) you are allergic to, so it doesn't freak out and throw a hissy fit every time it encounters the allergen in nature.

It's my understanding that this happens to a certain extent naturally if you are frequently exposed to an allergen... like the ones that occur in the environment you live in.

One thing you don't think about when you up and move to a different continent is that you are immersing yourself in a completely different ecosystem from the one you left. That means there are a WHOLE BUNCH OF NEW THINGS for your body to be allergic to!

My god, my allergies are going absolutely bonkers. It's not even just the normal "watery eyes and sneezes." One day I'll be fine, the next day I'll have a full-on allergy attack, completed with stuffed sinuses, a repulsive cough, and a faucet nose. Oh, and because I have asthma, that adds an extra level of fun to the occasion. Yeah, I'm real treat to be around.

So I'll feel on the brink of death for about 3 days, then suddenly, POOF! I'll snap out of it. Wait 2 weeks, wash, rinse, repeat.  I'm calling them allergy tantrums.

I'm in the middle of an allergy tantrum now. I almost called in sick to work today because I'd barely slept and my asthma was so bad.  But then I took a bunch of medicine, started trembling and bouncing off the walls (a fun side effect of combining asthma meds with Korean decongestants containing caffeine), and thought, "HEY, I HAVE A GREAT IDEA! I'M GOING TO GO TEACH SOME CHILDREN SOME ENGLISH!"

Bright side: Coteacher convinced school to give me the afternoon off so I could go home and pull myself together. Hello, early weekend.

Don't do drugs, kids.

Seoul Subway at Rush Hour

Taken at Seoul Station (서울 역)

Eight Months, Future Plans, and Other Difficult Things

Saturday marked my eighth month in Korea. Let's just stop for a minute to consider the ramifications of that. I have been living in Korea for two thirds of a year. I only have 4 months left here. That realization came with a double-edged fear:

A: OH GOD. I only have 4 months left here. I still have so much to do!
B: OH GOD. I only have 4 months left here. What ON EARTH am I going to do when I get back?

I've started working on mitigating part A by planning trips around Korea and making a point to participate in as many shenanigans with my friends as possible.

Part B is proving a bit more tricky. I have an idea of what I want to do with my life, and I guess now is as good a time as any to share it.

When I was little, I wanted to be a pediatrician (well, first I wanted to be a mommy with a baby. Then I found my inner 5-year-old feminist). Then I changed my mind: I wanted to be a memoirist (despite lacking the word “memoirist” in my child-sized vocabulary). Then I wanted to be a marine mammal biologist. Journalist, asthma researcher, screenwriter, psychologist, cellist, news anchor... until I finally got to college and had to make a decision. I went with a dual degree in journalism and linguistics, but I never forgot my deep, abiding, nerdy love for all things science-y. So I've decided that I want to combine my love for journalism and my love for science... and pursue a career in science journalism. At Old Job (hi, nightteam!), I loved writing the science stories. I loved the challenge of taking something as complicated as the discovery of potentially arsenic-based life forms and explaining it in a way that not only made it simple, but made it sound really, really cool (which, obviously, it was).

So now my next step is to decide how to pursue that. There are a few graduate programs that offer a masters in science journalism, notably MIT's Science Writing program.

However, I'll have a long road ahead of me if I decide to pursue grad school, so I have to figure out what to do in the meantime. I'm toying with a few different options right now, which I may or may not disclose at a later time.

One problem I've started running into is that my writing style is not exactly cover letter material. I keep telling myself, "Tone down the snark, Meg. Lock it down."  It's tough going.  Job hunts are the worst.

On a happier note, I'm off to Jeonju this weekend! Gonna see some temples, cherry blossoms, and an international film festival. Will report back at a later date. 

A Question for Dzhokhar

Sometimes, words just don't quite cut it.

To that effect, I have one question for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the captured suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings who led police and SWAT teams on a grueling manhunt and caused my journalist friends to have an extremely long day:

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, do you like apples?



Do you?



Oh, you do?



Well...