i have officially completed one whole week in Korea. *APPLAUSE* thank you, thank you. you're all too kind!

last week, Meena told me that my students tried to guess what ethnicity i was. apparently, i'm the darkest thing alive in Korea, so i look very foreign to these people. i've never had anyone think that i was Egyptian before. freakin' Egyptian, man! one of my students knew that i was Asian, but he couldn't make up his mind about what kind of Asian i was. i guess Korean was out of the question. ignornant Koreans!

i finally got to meet up with some of my cousins over the weekend. it was really good meeting up with my cousin, woong-chan...my brother and i get a kick out of calling him "WC" (dub-cee). he's like the only Seventh Day Adventist i've ever met in my life. he would always invite me out to his church on Saturdays in the past, but i "rudely" refused to go with him every time. yesterday, however, i decided to be a little better about it and just see what it was like. there weren't any OBVIOUSLY wrong things about it, but i had a short conversation with one of their American missionaries (from Yorba Linda!) about their differences from other denominations. basically, they believe in a false prophet named Ellen G. White, long "sleep" until Christ's advent, and a hell where souls eventually die and not suffer for an eternity. apart from these, it looks like their doctrine of salvation looks pretty similar to ours. i don't know if they're being hell-worthy heretical or if they're just some whack denomination, but i finally checked out this church that my cousin's been attending.

we did some shopping, eating, visiting, and played ball at night. i freakin' hate the basketball courts in Korea-dirt ground with 9 ft hoops and croweded like a mother. you can't dribble properly or run any fast breaks cause you'll either travel or get hurt real bad. people always have to bow and apologize whenever they disrupt other people's games. nevertheless, basketball is basketball, and it's fun even with these crappy fobs. i even sprained my ankle last night but what can i say? THE GAME MUST GO ON! so i played with a jacked up ankle and still had lots of fun...and regretted it later this morning.

last night, i got 28 mosquito bites. five on my face. nothing else to really say about that. i'm itchy.

i started watching some Korean tv lately. i have to admit that they've got some pretty fun shows on the air. it's like one of those things that you hate to love. quite addicting and mindless material. but since my Korean sucks, i'm always looking up words in my Minjung's Pocket dictionary. you seriously don't realize how poor your Korean is until you come to the motherland. it's pretty humbling when you see 10 year olds use vocabulary that is nonexistant in yours. i get pretty angry whenever one of my girl cousins imitates my bad accent. i just want to chuck a brick at her insensitive face. but yeah, i learned how to order delivery and take a taxi this past week. i always have to rehearse what i'm going to say beforehand, but i'm getting better.

speaking of language, i've been getting mad love from the new people that i meet. you see, if you can speak English, you are crazy 멋있어 by default. i visited Lois' dad's church today and apparently, word had spread that i graduated from UCI. some of these fools compare Irvine to schools like Berkeley or Stanford. lol. i even got one comment like "oh, very prestigious!" ahahhahahaha. but more than that, i get a greater kick when i see how impressed they are when i tell them that i studied Psychology. it is truly Opposite Land. in the states, psychology is usually stigmatized as a cop-out major with no promising future. but in my experience, everyone here thinks i'm some kind of intellect? lol. they totally ignore my mention of minoring in Education. truly Opposite Land!

so if you've been praying for me regarding my search for a good church, pray no more because i've committed to Simin Church (Lois' dad's church). it just so happens that Reverend Cho is looking to start up a bilingual ministry, and he wants me to help him with that ministry. there's only a handful of people who can speak English at his church, so it actually fit my preference to get to know more Korean natives as opposed to meeting just Korean Americans. the church actually happens to be an hour away by subway, so it's quite the inconvenience for me to go out there every week. at the same time, i was also really encouraged by their service today. even though my Korean is lacking, i was still able to praise God with their 찬송가s (goodness, who says that you cannot be passionate when singing hymns?) and even understood the main points of the sermon (which happened to be pretty Christ-centered). i've never heard Romans 8:31-39 being preached so passionately in my life. of course, we cannot forget the major love bombs i experienced too. everyone was anticipating my coming like i was some answer to their prayers (i actually think i was), so they were already assuming that my commitment was set. even the family that drove me today was super kind to me. they took me out to watch "괴물" and bought me my first sweet butter 오징어 thing. haha. i already call him 형 and everything even though he's like 39?

so i recently discovered some pretty crazy things about the cell phones in Korea. i was randomly browsing through my phone's settings when all of a sudden, i ran into an interactive SUBWAY MAP on my phone! even the fobs here were amazed that i had such a function. but you think that's crazy? when i was in the car with the family that picked me up today, i was taken aback by the fact that the driver was using a navigator on his phone!!! it was like speaking to him and everything. you are 5 kilometers from here and there is a 찜질방 over there! he told me that he can use it while he's walking too. absolutely crazy.

ok, one last thing. i don't know if you'll read this, Janet Chong, but it is the FUNNIEST thing when 실장님 imitates you. i'm not going to even bother to explain. you just gotta be there. everyone, thank you praying and writing to me. hurry up, priscilla and jungabung!

Thought of the Day: "Gorgeous."
Song of the Day: How Great Thou Art