Where are you now karmie?

The semester finally ended on the 8th and on the 9th I went back to my parents place. There my aunt and uncle from Indonesia were also there. It's nice to have the family full as it is the Xmas season. Just recently snow made its appearance but only to be washed away by rain the next day, unfortunately. Ever since I came home, I've been lasting around and enjoying my time without stress of the academics I must say. Although I admit there's a different type of stress with the family being annoyed at how lazy I am these days. However I think I am resting up for next semester and next year where I have 6 courses! 6!!! I'm going to die but I will work hard next semester because I want to maintain my average and not drop like this semester... Actually the course that made my gpa drop was political science... Sighs I guess that won't be my minor I guess. I need a minor but I don't know what to do... Anyways 3 more days till Xmas! Also next year, I wonder how it&#

This week has been all about writing papers, papers and more papers. Right now, as I am typing out this blog post, I am procrastinating from writing a paper that's unfortunately due on Wednesday... I should get on it but I realized that the ideas in my head are all so jumbled up that I feel like, maybe I should write a blog post about it and feel intelligent and scholarly academic on a blog post for once instead of complaining about my daily life. Wow! That was a run-on sentence. I guess I need a place where I can write badly and not be criticized for it... badly. I hope. Please don't. I'm not even sure if I even have readers for this blog. The theme has been all over the place. Well, there you go another tangent. Anyways, let's get back to the topic. Ah! Before I start... things might get confusing.. using this blog post to sort out my thoughts in a way. Take whatever you can from it... I guess.  What I wanted to talk about really is this idea of identity

I have reached the middle of the semester already. All the mid-terms have been written. My grades are not as up to par as I would like them to be unfortunately. It's relatively sad. I realized my writing and essay organizational skills has really deteriorated. It is very frustrating! It is really weird because when I was in Korea I had to write essays in English as well. But I guess it doesn't really matter for them as long as my concepts and ideas were expressed properly. Although it was written in English I felt as if I was writing with a Korean thought process if that makes sense? I don't know how to explain it. However, it also doesn't help if I'm procrastinating writing these essays. It's like a double disadvantage right now. Sighs... Too much to do this week. Everything is all due this week and in a way I could've lessen the load a week before but at the same time I couldn't because some of the material taught only happened and ended last week. Can

Every day I walk to school and it takes me about 20 minutes to get to school. Every time I go to school, I pass by this road and not long ago I just had to take a picture of it. The fall in Victoria makes the trees so beautiful. I love the color of the leaves on this tree. There is more behind me and it keeps getting better as I keep walking underneath it. Looking at this view everyday... I never fail to stop and wonder about how beautiful these trees are. I bet during the spring, this is even more prettier. The trees cheer me up is essentially what I'm trying to say. Coming back from Korea, I have to readjust my way of thinking and even think back in English again. Although that's hard because I am taking a Japanese language class, on top of that, I have a Korean language partner on campus as well. So my head is filled with many different languages... but I guess this is not really a new complaint and YET, why is it this year I'm having a hard time? I guess more than th

After a fun summer filled with working with either Japanese students or catering, I am back in Victoria for university, It has been a long time since I've written mainly because I was moving out and studying for midterms and all university related stuff. Also at times I was also lazy to write. But anyways I'm doing the buddy program on campus yesterday I went to my buddy's friend's place to have dinner. They are from China so I got to eat delicious homemade Chinese food! It was sooooo good! I also enjoyed the spiciness of the food! I wish I could tell you the name of the dish but I can't remember it now. See the picture! Lol Yesterday's dinner gathering was a nice getaway from stresses of school and life. To hang out and talk to each other, was really fun! But I have to get back to reality soon... Today... And study...

These days I have been busy with Japanese students. Unlike catering when it is all tiring for the body, this is tiring for the mind. Although soon it'll be tiring for the body as well. The Hallyu Wave is truly amazing I should say because this year, again, just like last year, we are preparing a kpop dance cover thing for the farewell party for the girls. We decided that all the guys would do the girl group dances and all the girls would do the guy group dances. To make it easier to remember as the farewell party is this friday! Gggah! Let's do this Canadian buddies! They have been going everywhere here near my town. The trip to Vancouver could have been so much more fun but it was very limited. The UBC campus is beautiful though. However, I think we spent a little too much time there. They did some volunteering as well at a senior's home. That was interesting. I think both the girls and the seniors had a hard time understanding each other. Yet, I do admit it is good pract

So ever since I went came back from Victoria (I was there to look or houses) I have been busy with work! It is a really good thing and it keeps me busy during the summer but at the same time I get really tired at the end of the day. Let me start with my house searching adventures in Victoria. I wanted a place where it is cheap an close to campus. Yeah it is quite an idealistic approach but hey it's better than having no expectations I guess. However after going to look at places for three days straight, my future roommate and I got a little down from not finding anything and I almost compromised my requirements in order to have something. However, on the last house we looked at, we found something that both of us liked and that my friend liked as well. So that was good. Now all I got to do is to send some paperwork and the place is ours! Yes! I still cant believe we got that place.. All inclusive AND it is furnished AND it is close to campus! Ggah! I am soo happy. I had to go hom

Today... Was a freakin loooong day! I started pretty early around 8ish? Well I woke up around 7ish to get ready and my whole family along with my mom's friend went to the blueberry farm. It is an organic farm so everything is natural. Well it is a good thing for the customers but it is quite a challenge for the pickers. Since it rained last night, early in the morning the bushes were still wet. It was slightly chilly too. In a way it made work a lot more tolerable because it was so cool and I thrive on the cool weather. There was one summer where all I did was raspberry picking. From then on I never wanted to eat raspberries again. However that has been slowly changing. This time if I continue to pick blueberries I might I won't want to eat blueberries for a long time. That is a little sad but sadly it might come true. We worked for a long time until around 4ish and I didn't do well. However it was also the first day or everyone. I don't know. I only managed 2 bucket

Right now it feels like I have gotten over jet lag I have just become slightly lazy for the past couple of days... Its going to be hard when I have to start my part-time job I have to wake up pretty early. Actually more than that I have to wake up early for my first semester as three times a week I have a class that starts at 8:30 in the morning. Now why I chose that class? It's because it was a requirement course so I kinda had to take that one. Of course they offered other times but it would interfere with another class I wanted to take. Anyways my new roommate are still trying to find a place in Victoria to rent. However we have made some slight progress a we have arrange for viewings at a couple different places already. I hope one of the houses we see next week follows through or nor its going to be hectic until august. Well worst come to worst school doesn't start until September so we have a little over a month left. I may be starting up catering again next week so I

I have been back home for 3 days already. It feels more like a week already because this stupid jetlag is not helping me at all. Today is the 11th already. It doesn't feel like it. Today? Yesterday? well on the 10th, I meant to wake up earlier... like 10 in the morning but instead, I woke at around 4 in the evening. Just in time for the dinner gathering my family had with my aunt and uncle that came by from the other side of Canada. It was nice to see them again but the whole time I was kicking myself in my head because I didn't wake up earlier. Now I am suffering from the consequences... It sucks because outside... there is light already.  I should go to bed because there is another family gathering I have to go to at 9:30am and I have an orientation thing that I have to go to with the volunteering thing I am doing this summer at 1pm... and I think I might have to drive for it. But here's the thing... I can't sleep.  Sleep~ please come to me now... at least for

I'm currently waiting to board and thought I would update a bit before the 2 hr flight to Shanghai and then the 11 hr flight back to Canada. Before I came to this sitting and chilling time, I had a lot of worries. Most of them consisted and involved my suitcase if it was too heavy or not. Turns out it was perfectly 23kg and I don't have to worry about rechecking in my baggage in Shanghai. Something I had to do when I came to Korea from Canada.  So I was really happy to get two boarding passes. On top of that I was worried if I could bring my suitcase in as a carryon and turns out... it's okay. well at least I hope so and they do let it on at the boarding. It's small and light... It just has my blanket in it and my precious signed CDs.  Gosh I am so tired right now because I only had 2 hours of sleep last night. I can't sleep on the flight to Shanghai because what am I going to do on my 11 hr flight? Oh well I have a 2 hour layover so maybe I'll do som

Wednesday was an interesting day. It started off REALLY early in the morning. My friend and roommate for this semester had to leave to go back to her country and we had to get up early around 5:30ish? We went to the airport and met my other friend to see her off at the airport. It was a miracle actually I didn't cry when she went through the security point. There has just been too many memories and maybe having it written down in a book that I gave to her at the very end was a good way to prevent my tears. I miss her greatly. T_T Afterwards, I had to go back to the hostel to check out of the room that we shared and move into the dorm room. After major Korean communication fail I managed to move into the room and the 4 bedroom dorm is actually slightly bigger than I thought but it is still small. I caught up some sleep for a bit before I headed towards Arirang for my last recording of Simply Kpop. Unfortunately, this time, I had an unpleasant beginning to it. Let me begin my ran

It's official a week and 3 days until I have to go back to Canada. I already moved out of the dorms and moved into a hostel. The hostel I am staying is relatively close to downtown Seoul and it is relatively convenient to go to places. Especially with the bus. I just got my grades today and it's relatively high for the amount of work I did. I'm surprised and quite relieved. ^^ With school out of the way and worry, I can explore Seoul a bit more. My friend from last semester has decided to come back to Seoul for the summer but too bad I can't stay here as long as she can. We have decided to go around places together along with my roommate. (Yes my roommate in the dorms has also become my hostel roommate.) Today we are looking around Insadong a little more. Every time I come here, there's always a new thing that we discover because I tend to skim around places and every time I highlight different points. Right now, we are in a cute cafe that have delicious tea and it

So here it is... the end of the semester. Today I just finished my last exam and I am officially free from all school work... until the next semester. We are kicked out of the dorms on thursday so my friend and I are moving into a hostel. The days leading up to the last day of the semester for me consisted of me looking around for souvenirs (which I am still unsuccessful of) and going to more kpop events. In fact I went to another Dalmatian fan signing just recently and went to another episode of Arirang TV's Simply Kpop. That filming started from 12 in the morning all the way to 10 at night. It was a really long day but it was so worth it because we got to see JJ Project in the morning, and then Dalmation, Dal Shabet, 7942, AJAX and for the very first time I saw Heo Young Saeng's performance and I was very much floored and impressed by him. The second Dalmatian fan signing I went to was in Ilsan and it was absolutely wonderful because they remembered me from Simply Kpop. (Re

Today, I got an email from the Canadian Embassy reminding me that I leave Korea soon and if I were to change my stay, I was to inform them. It was an expected yet unexpected e-mail but at the same time it kind of made me sad. I am leaving for Canada in about a little more than 3 weeks. (Oh just in case you were wondering why the embassy e-mailed me and knew about my time, when I arrived in Korea, I registered with the embassy here just in case something happened.) The things I have to do before I go back are piling up and because of finals and kpop, I have been procrastinating. Not good. In a way I am excited to go back to Canada, get homemade cooking, have waffles and eggs for breakfast, and everything is in English! Sad thing is, I made all these friends, the convenient public transportation of seoul, the delicious cheap korean food, the kpop, the connections and relationships made here are priceless. However, this always happens whenever I go somewhere. I felt this way before when

Today, I went to a fan signing. A JJ project one. JJ project's fan signings are lottery for 100 people and my friend and I got into it. We were so ecstatic the day before when we saw our names on the list! The fan signing we got into is the Ilsan one and it was inside Lotte Department Stores. I thought since it was in Lotte Department, the location of the fan signing would kind of cool or it would be in some sort of hall but no... it was very tacky. They TAPED a JJ project fan signing poster to the glass wall of the book store and then they had a table and two chairs. There wasn't even a table cloth over the table. Usually they play the music of the artist during the fan signing but first they played it through a very tacky small portable speakers attached to a small laptop before they switched to better quality portable speakers. A slight improvement I guess. I got number 9 and when 7:30 rolled in, JB and Jr. walked in and they are absolutely really adorable in person. E

Last week was a relatively chill week. On wednesday I went to Arirang TV's simply kpop again. It was a long day of being an audience for the whole day but it was fun. I got to see Dalmatian, U-Kiss and a variety of other celebrities perform. I did some shopping at the end of the week and also (at the same time) packed some things into boxes to get it ready to be shipped back to Canada. I have one box packed and I am packing a second box. Not looking forward to bringing it to the post office though. sighs. However, last weekend was my birthday weekend and I had such an amazing time. On Saturday, I went to MBC's Music Core all the way in Ilsan to watch a comeback stage for a relatively new group that I started to really like. They are called M.I.B which stands for Most Incredible Busters. 3 rappers and a singer and a 4 male group. The swag on them is unbelievable and I was glad I had the chance to go see them for a comeback. They had to record several times for their prerecordi

This weekend was very much another K-pop related one. Let's start from FRIDAY! I decided to skip that one class on Friday and go see JJ project at Music Bank. Yes. It was completely worth it because we got tickets to the live show. I have never been to the live show for Music Bank before so it was a new experience for me and another chance to compare it with other music shows in Korea. Anyways, first I went to Music Bank to see JJ Project's prerecording and I wasn't even planning to even get tickets to the live show. The meeting time was at 12 but I came like around 11:30 and unlike at M!Countdown where I was number 11, this time I was number 12! Yay! only one off though. sighs. JJ project was supposed to start prerecording at 2:00 but it was delayed (as usual) [NOTE: if you ever plan to go to a music show in a future, be prepared for delays! ALWAYS unless you are the first one]. Actually it was delayed for more than an hour before we were allowed in. Even then we got ins

So... today. I decided to not go to class at all because I needed to see JJ Project's debut stage in person. Yes. I went to see this performance in person. It was completely worth it! JJ Project had a pre-recording, so it was nice to have their debut stage with only their fans. The time that was indicated on their fan cafe was at 9:30 but my friend and I came at around 8:30am. We got our numbers after sending in our names to the fan manager and I was originally number 15 but when it was time to line up again at 11:00, I was pushed up to number 11! We were given blue JYP wrist bands and the fan managers wrote our numbers on it. They also handed out the fan chants, a temporary large JJ Project banner AND they handed out a stamp card. The stamp card is really motivating me to go and see them for every performance. I brought my own and good thing we were allowed to use them. (Since some fan clubs are more anal about it then others.)    We got inside around 11:30 but we were

This is a review. A very laid back open personal review on the concert... maybe I should actually call it a fan-account... but I am going to be critical about it so... I shall call it a review. A review on Kim Junsu or Xia Junsu's solo concert. Yes. Anyways we arrived at around 2:30 at the venue and there were a lot of people already. Never underestimate Junsu fans. First thing first, we decided to get our fan goods. There was a total of 9 goods that you could buy but to be honest most of them look tacky and the only thing I wanted was a light stick and possibly a slogan because they looked classy. The line up to buy the goods was very long. So they tried to make it shorter by lining up everyone with 4 people per row. The weather was hot and it was a good thing those who were part of the Junsu's fan club started handing out small Junsu fans. I am so glad because although they were small, it helped quite a bit with the heat. Fan goods! The concert didn't start until