KU Tigress

Phew, that was a short little two year break from writing. For a while now I haven’t really felt the urge to put down words on paper, not quite like last week when the need to talk about how much our words matter hit me in the middle of my dinner the day before my graduation studio midterm. I need to ride this writing inspiration wave while it’s here so here goes nothing.

I think a lot of what I’m about to write might seem absurd, extreme and unrelatable to most, especially those who have never seen the inside of an architecture department in Korea (I cannot speak for other countries, though I assume there might be similarities). I know this because of the reactions I get when I talk about this with my friends, expecting astonishment and praise and receiving concern and raised eyebrows.

To begin, I think it is fair to say that architecture is not a field particularly known for its work-life balance (and neither is Korea, which all but mitigates this problem). A short scroll down the architecture side of TikTok or Instagram will show you many a variation of the same ‘joke’ – students working through the night to develop their projects and finish their models and panels for an upcoming review. I, myself, am guilty of having spent many long nights with my projects, cursing my computer for crashing halfway through the render and gluing together my models with shaky hands. This is not only not uncommon, but a lot of the time seen as normal and even required, especially (and this is not meant as a brag, I swear) for people with GPAs like mine. For a long time I, too, believed that my two options were living well and struggling with school (and I use struggling loosely here) and doing well in school but struggling with having a healthy and fulfilling life outside of it. I now realize that, while I wasn’t necessarily wrong, I was definitely not prioritizing correctly.

About a little over a year ago, I started feeling really uncomfortable with this schedule, noticing that I’m not feeling rested even after long stretches of sleep during the weekend, noticing my stress levels were too high and that I had long periods of depressive moods – not really thriving per se. I condense this into a short paragraph, but the truth is it took me a while to approach this problem genuinely and seriously, like a project – the way I do everything. As annoying as it sounds, it really is true. Everyone and their mom can give you advice, you can know perfectly well what you have to do, but you will not make the change until you’re ready and strong enough for that step.

And so, for the sake of my physical and mental health and for the first time in my certified night owl life, I decided to conduct an experiment on myself. It was during the summer when I was at home, without many other responsibilities and enjoying my first smart watch (which, truth be told, was purchased with the intention of monitoring my body) that I decided to wake up at 9am every morning. It may not seem like much, but the idea of waking up with an alarm and at least 2 hours before I usually did was about as far from summer fun as I could imagine. I started sleeping before midnight and sticking to this schedule like my life depended on it, despite starting every morning with a loug ughhhh and a forceful drag of my body out of bed.

Having lectures in the morning anyways, I continued this schedule into the fall semester, I started going to the pool twice a week and though I am not perfect (no one is) and relapsed at certain points, I am quite proud that I managed to somewhat shift the balance of how much energy I was pouring into which aspect of my life. However, as with everything else in life, nothing is as easy as it seems. Sorry, did I say easy? I meant everything is much much harder than it already seems.

When you change, especially with respect to something that was considered one of your core personality traits, you have to battle with other people’s expectations, explaining that you no longer do that, no longer think that and are no longer available for a group meeting starting at 11pm. And god forbid your change goes against the normalized exhaustion that is an architecture student’s life. Not dedicating every single waking moment to work and taking care of your basic physical and psychologial needs is a rebelion against the system and apparently makes you not hardworking if not lazy. At least that is the feedback I have been more or less implicitly getting since having made this transformation. What I can only hope to have been jokes, still revealing the general mindset that peers as well as professors hold about the appropriate student’s lifestyle.

Soon enough, being consistent and reaping the rewards of your long and continuous efforts becomes more important and more difficult to give up than a score on your midterm (can you believe it?). For the first time in the entirety of my architecture education I showed up to the midterm with an incomplete model but guess what? I also achieved the full trifecta that many of my classmates can’t brag about – I got six hours of sleep, I didn’t skip my meals and even exercised after. The world didn’t end after my professors spent a whole 5 seconds looking at the model and I sure as hell felt a whole lot better presenting with my body somewhat charged.

If I mention this to any of my friends (except those who know how it be and you know who you are), I am not met with amazement and a high five but rather a skeptical “is that not the bare minimum?” Turns out not everyone spends 12 hours at school every day, thinking they’re still doing too little. Who knew?

What I mean to say is, I know I am hardworking, I don’t need people to affirm that because they saw me crumble having given everything I have for those few hours of my life. If anything, I am still too far in the extreme of working too hard. Suffering is not a measure of how hard you’re working and if spending that much time on it wasn’t enough, then I’m sorry but I guess it just wasn’t all meant to be done and I refuse to compete under the assumption that my health is worth less than my graduation project. 🙂

*A book that has recently inspired me to keep making good choices is The Perfectionist’s Guide to Losing Control by Katherine Morgan Schafler and I strongly recommend it to any of my lovely lady readers.

Another Granite Tower issue is out! On the topic of ‘Embracing Diversity at KU’ – you can check out my article on the official website (here) or below. As per usual, a physical copy of the magazine is also available on campus.

Speaking of diversity as an international student is interesting. I have, at the same time, entered an environment much more diverse than what I’d be experiencing had I stayed in my hometown for university, while also bringing more diversity to KU with my presence. I am, simultaneously, a spectator of as well as a contributor to diversity. So, when we speak of embracing diversity, am I the one doing the embracing? Or am I the one being embraced? How do I navigate this concept that is so vague yet so tangible?

Quickly after coming to Korea, I became scared. Scared that I will try to embrace this newfound diversity but that I won’t feel embraced by the Korean students in return. Scared of the embarrassment of rejection. The fact is that I am still a minority here, and no matter how you look at it, that’s intimidating. Especially for someone who is experiencing this dynamic for the first time – I didn’t know how to cope with feeling and looking so different from everyone else.

For the longest time, the first year or so of my life at KU, I had a really hard time fitting in, feeling like I belonged to my major, making friends and not feeling like an imposter every time I visited the Engineering building. Eventually, it became easier to find excuses than to fix this situation. “Oh, it’s because of COVID-19, I never got to meet my classmates in person,” “They’re probably too shy to speak English with me,” and “It’s okay, I have many international friends, I don’t necessarily need to get close with them, either” became my mantra when I was asked about it. Soon, I noticed that I was just as scared of them, as I assumed they, too, were scared of me, and jealous of my other international friends who seemed to get along with the Korean students better. But, deep down, I did feel the need to have people say hi to me before class, to be invited to eat dinner together, to feel not only tolerated, but accepted. To be embraced. Yet, at the same time, I was also the one who didn’t approach them as I was too shy to talk to them in Korean and kept telling myself that it’s fine as it is. I was so busy feeling different that I isolated myself from them before they could reject me, so busy being stuck in my own head that I didn’t realize that they never gave me a reason to be scared.

My mom says that I shouldn’t deprive people of the opportunity to prove me wrong. I suppose she’s right, as usual. Not everyone will, of course, but surely the world is less bleak than what our insecure brain makes us believe. You have to let yourself be embraced to be embraced. Facile à dire, as my professor would say, but it is true. Once you let go of those fears and give people a chance to show you instead of assuming you already know, you quickly figure out that people are generally super nice and all looking for human connection. More often than not they’re relieved if you say something first and break the awkwardness. They are likely thinking of how to do the same thing. The world is full of people too scared to talk to each other, too anxious to make the first move. But once you embrace your differences and those of the people around you, they are just as fast to embrace you back as you are. Someone just has to break the standstill. Don’t wait.

Aaaand the new issue is out again~ This time on the topic of ‘Memorable movie’ – check out my article on the official website (here) or below. A physical copy of the magazine is, as always, available on campus.

There’s movies that you watch and think, “Huh, not bad.” You maybe post about it on your social media because it’s popular at the moment, you mention it to your friends the day after and then it quickly becomes one of those oh-yeah-I-watched-that-a-forever-ago-but-I-don’t-really-remember-it-that-well movies. Once a decent way to spend your time but now nothing but a distant memory.

And then there are movies that make you sit and think in silence while the credits roll, movies that live with us, within us, movies you swear by and recommend any time the opportunity presents itself. A movie that you’ve watched more times than you can count, a movie that still makes you notice something new every time, a movie that opens discussions.

The Children Act is that movie for me. There are few really strong favorites I have in my life, but there is nothing I preach quite like that masterpiece. Based on an equally brilliant book by Ian McEwan, it is a beautiful story that encompasses everything that’s great about movies.

Isn’t it boring to be able to predict who the good guy is and who’s the villain? Or know exactly how the story plays out not even halfway into the movie? To be told whose side to take and be comfortable knowing that the guy gets the girl and the superhero saves the world? Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I don’t enjoy those movies or think people shouldn’t like them or consume them, not at all. I am also not always in the mood for a heavy and depressing drama and prefer to just laugh and distract myself with a good comedy at times. But if I was to name a movie that made an impact on me, that made me think long after it finished, a memorable movie? None of those would come to mind.

My mom is the one who introduced me to the world of good cinema and so the first time I watched The Children Act was with her. I remember staying in our seats and talking after the movie was over, talking on our way to the car and all the way back home, talking about it even days after, until we eventually rewatched it and repeated the cycle a year later. I was completely taken aback by some of her opinions. How could we have watched the same film and yet have such differing experiences? I was conflicted and I didn’t trust myself. Did I miss something? Did I not understand something? I knew how I felt and yet my mom’s opinions didn’t seem wrong. What was this confusion that I felt? Was I wrong in the way I judged the characters’ actions?

A good movie, I realized, will make you feel this way. It reflects reality in the complexity of its characters and relationships it portrays. It makes you reflect on your values as you watch it through the lens of your own experiences and relationships you’ve formed. And that’s why it’s so interesting to watch and discuss good movies with others. Humans aren’t all good or all bad; we are everything in between. We have all done things right and we have all done things we wish we could change; we are all unpredictable and a little bit broken. It’s hard to judge someone’s actions not knowing what they’ve been through and why they reacted a certain way, but it’s even harder to judge them if you do.

In the end, it’s not about right or wrong, it’s about learning about yourself. And so, as I grow older and wiser and I notice my mindset and reactions to The Children Act change, I realize that a good movie doesn’t tell. It asks.

Shout out to The Granite Tower for making this blog more consistent than it’s ever been. This time the topic was ‘Practice makes perfect’. You can check out my article on the official website (here) or below. As per usual, those in Korea can also pick up a physical copy of the magazine on campus.

“Practice makes perfect.” What a famous phrase. How many times have we all heard this growing up? How many times have we said this to others, meant as words of encouragement, meant to help them not give up on what they are trying to achieve? How many times have we searched for motivation in these three simple but powerful words? Countless times. And yet, how many times have we ended up disappointed when the said perfect escaped our grasp and mocked us from just beyond our fingertips? We practiced so diligently, so hard… then where is this promised perfection as a reward for our efforts? And how ironic is it that we console ourselves with the equally hurtful and soothing “Nobody’s perfect.” Why do we torture ourselves with striving for perfection, when we know it is unachievable?

What if we changed the narrative? What if we didn’t base our motivation on perfection? What if we didn’t put pressure on ourselves to achieve the impossible? What if we stopped glorifying the results and started appreciating the process? The sooner we stop focusing on the goal and start enjoying the progress, the better we will be – not just at the particular skill that we want to improve, but also at motivating ourselves to practice it in the first place. Practicing to become better is much easier than practicing to become perfect.

“Practice makes perfect.” Don’t I wish. How many things would I have already perfected if that was the case? And yet even professionals, experts in specific fields, masters of their craft have to continuously practice their skills. Saying that practice makes perfect sort of implies an end to the practice. Like there is a point at which you are just good enough at a skill that you can stop refining it, stop practicing it; a point where you cannot improve yourself anymore. As if learning is not a journey, a lifelong process. As if skills, once acquired, just stick around forever.

Regardless, results are more uncertain, more temporary, and less satisfying than improvement. You can put a lot of effort towards achieving a goal and it may still not give you the results you want. Or if it does, who is to say that it will bring you long-term happiness? Most likely, you will fondly remember it from time to time when the conversation steers to that topic, but it is hard to imagine it being a constant source of happiness in your life. Improvement, however, is an almost guaranteed side product of practice, one that you become aware of every time you work on refining your skill. And noticing the ease, the level of proficiency with which you are able to do it sparks joy every time you pick up the activity. Rewarding the effort you put into improving is a much more worthwhile investment, if you ask me. Wouldn’t you rather tell yourself, “Wow, I am so much better than when I started.” than “Ugh, still not perfect…”?

Our work is not worth any less just for the fact that we are not perfect. If the sole driver of your motivation to keep practicing and to keep trying is achieving perfection, then all you will ever feel when looking at your results is disappointment and frustration. No matter how hard you try, no matter how much you practice, you will not be satisfied, for you are measuring yourself up against the unattainable. We need to make room for mistakes and imperfection, else we are destroying the room for improvement and progress. So, no. Practice doesn’t make perfect. And that’s okay. Practice makes improvement.

Once again an article I wrote for my school’s magazine The Granite Tower. This time the topic was ‘Learn from mistakes, but never regret the past’. You can check it out on the official website (here) or below. Those in Korea can pick up a physical copy of the magazine on campus.

There are many things in life that I don’t believe in. Horoscopes, ghosts, the idea that the moon landing was faked. The list goes on. But one of my core beliefs that has helped me deal with all of life’s ups and downs is that you shouldn’t regret your decisions. We all make mistakes. It’s unavoidable. What you think is the right thing to do might just be the worst plan anyone has ever come up with. Or it might turn out to be exactly what you needed. You won’t know unless you commit to it and come out of the experience unharmed, wiser, or something in between. 

“But if only I had known better…” But you didn’t. You didn’t know better because you couldn’t. No one makes bad decisions on purpose. No one just wakes up one day and says: “You know what, I think I’m gonna make some mistakes today.” No. Every decision you make is based on the information you have about the situation and your feelings about it. When you decide to do or not do something, it’s what the you in that moment, with the knowledge you had, judged to be the best course of action. Even if spontaneous or a little stupid, you make the decision that you’d rather regret the consequences than not trying at all. Or maybe you panicked and made some wrong calls, because your brain blanked on you. Maybe it was dangerous to do what you wanted to or maybe it was just easier not to and wait for the situation to resolve itself. It’s easy for other people to discuss what a better, smarter way to go would have been, how you should have reacted, what you should have done. Maybe you’re like me and you tell these things to yourself. After the situation has played out and you know just what you did wrong, of course. It’s so hard to get out of your own head sometimes. So hard not to blame, not to regret. 

That is why I hold this belief so dear to my heart. I believe in not regretting my past because I trust that I’m keeping my interests in mind when making decisions. I trust that I know myself better than anyone and I trust that, while not everyone in that situation would have reacted the same way, I would act the same if presented with the same scenario again. I trust that I know best. Of course I, too, like anyone, have made decisions I’m not proud of, have messed up and wished I had known how to handle situations better. But I would be lying if I said I’d do things differently the second time around. Chances are I’d do my best with the information and experience I had in the moment, which, you know, is what I did. 

The way I see it, you have a choice about how you want to remember events in your life. You can either regret them and feel guilt and resentment every time the memories come up, or you can embrace them as a part of your journey and character development arc. You can either hate even being reminded of those moments, or you can own them and keep them as a learning experience so that you do know better next time. I know that I’d trust someone who has made mistakes but learned from them over someone who has seemingly always made perfect decisions in a heartbeat. So I try to give the same respect to myself. And you should, too. After all, you know best.

This is an article I wrote for my school’s magazine The Granite Tower on the topic of ‘What was the most pivotal moment of your life?’. You can check it out on their website (here) or below. Alternatively, you can pick up a physical copy of the magazine on campus from December 8th.

How pivotal can a moment be for your life when you’re barely over 20 years old, not even halfway through college and feeling like you still have so much to figure out? Not much, it sounds like. And yet, we make a series of life-changing decisions before we even reach adulthood, all of which come together to shape us into the person we are today. Good or bad, each moment contributes to our set of unique experiences. But can we isolate these moments into individual experiences when they are simultaneously causes and consequences and only part of the reason why we are the way we are? How do we measure their importance? By how much they’ve changed the course of one’s life? By how much they’ve defined someone as a person? By how many areas of someone’s life they’ve impacted? How can we choose one that was the most pivotal of them all?

I think most pivotal moments are decisions. Moments when you’re forced to listen to yourself and choose to be brave. If not, you are choosing to continue being unhappy or stuck in an environment that doesn’t allow you to grow. One of such moments for me was transferring schools after the 5th grade. And I didn’t realize this until later, but it turned out to be quite a crucial moment in the course of my life. At the time, it seemed like the most intuitive decision, if not the only option. And although it didn’t change much at a first glance – the school I transferred to was a 10-minute walk from the old one, I still finished the same program and entered high school at the same time as I would have had I stayed in the other school and I don’t keep in touch with almost any of my old classmates from either. Yet this seemingly insignificant moment brought me to a few realizations and they taught me some valuable life lessons.

At a tender age of 11, I knew what I wanted and I knew what was best for me. I was ready to prioritize and make sacrifices for my learning environment. I didn’t want to settle for suffering through school. I wanted to flourish and I knew it wasn’t going to happen if I didn’t do something about it. I transferred schools because I wanted to and for that, I have to thank my mom, for her trust in me and her unconditional support. She tells me the moment she knew my relationship with school was beyond repair was when I came home from school one day. She asked me about how my day was, and I, apparently, replied with: “That is the first nice thing that’s happened today.” Little me was dramatic, but obviously unhappy with her situation. And the fact that my parents didn’t react with “you only have a few years left, just try to get through it” or “how bad could it be, anyway,” but were rather affirming and helpful, gave me much confidence, not only in that moment, but also later on, when I had to decide about which high school or university I wanted to attend. Not for a moment did I doubt that they would have my back, no matter my decision. And I ended up in Korea, so you know I was right.

That one, seemingly inconsequential, moment caused a shift in me. The positive experience I had with transferring schools taught me early on to listen to and trust myself, take risks and be the one to initiate change, make things happen, and take control of my life. It’s okay to change your environment if you think something else would suit you better or if it simply doesn’t let you grow and develop in ways you want to. It is important to honor your inner voice, or else you’re not living for yourself.

This is an article I wrote for my school’s magazine The Granite Tower about the expectations vs. reality of living in Korea as an international student. You can check it out on their website (here) or below.

It’s hard to talk about your expectations of living in Korea before ever having been to Korea, or even Asia for that matter. Everything I knew or imagined about what my life would be like I got from the internet. And not even reliable sources at that. Random snippets of information, like scattered jigsaw puzzle pieces, that formed a vague dream of me strutting around campus with notebooks in my arms and hair blowing in the wind, casually chatting with my classmates.

A quick Google search will tell you that Korea is well known for its modern skyscrapers, high-tech cities, fashion, and skincare, as well as its increasingly popular music industry. You can read all about the DDP and the food, maybe watch a few K-Dramas to prepare yourself, you can even make an entire presentation about Korea for your clueless relatives (can’t be only me, I’m sure), but in the end, Korea is not all Hongdae and Gangnam, not all skyscrapers and traditional markets – not all picture-perfect, like you’d imagine from your extensive research. In fact, living in Korea is kind of like dating. It’s a relationship where no one except for you two really knows or understands how you’ve found each other or how it’s possible for you to click so well, but a relationship where that doesn’t really matter because everyone can see that you are just so good for each other. And you can’t really answer the ‘why?’ question, but why would you want to? It’s not that simple when it comes to matters of the heart and your relationship, though bizarre to some, makes you happy. So at that point, does it really matter if you were obsessed with K-Pop, into learning the language or if your study abroad started as a prank on your mom? You’re here and you’re here with no regrets.

And so you can embrace living in Korea as a less shiny but more loveable experience. In fact, it is the imperfectness of it all, the disillusionment after having spent more than a month here, that highlights the truly important moments and makes it all about the small things that bring you happiness. The novelty eventually wears off, but the warmth of finding a home away from home stays.

Living in Korea is being a regular at restaurants to the point where they recognize you and remember your order. It’s finally seeing your professors and classmates in person, if only for the exam. It’s struggling through your first Gong Cha order in full Korean and not chickening out by using a kiosk. It’s taking a walk down the stream, wasting your time and not really worrying about having to leave the country next week. It’s going from ‘I get that kimchi is healthy, but why is it cold? I think I’ll pass’ to buying your first bag at the market in front of your house. It’s getting a total of five credits on your first-course registration. It’s bumping your head on the door when exiting the subway. It’s buying the last umbrella from a convenience store when caught in a storm downtown. It’s a learning experience where everything goes wrong, but it’s still so worth it, for you meet the best people along the way.

All in all, living in Korea was definitely not the college experience I expected. In fact, I don’t think any amount of preplanning could have prepared me for it. And yet, it was a college experience that I wouldn’t change. It’s the ‘flaws’ that made it special and that continue to make it wholesome every day.

Between traveling outside of Seoul, completely abandoning my workout routine, grieving not being able to visit home, studying Korean, getting my hair cut by a Korean for the first time, significantly improving my make up skills and, behold, drawing a set of emoticons for a popular Korean messaging app, it’s been a busy summer, no doubt. So what I’m doing in the middle of the night, while awaiting my first day of class (after announcing to the world that I will, in fact, be going to bed early tonight), is, of course, coming back to my dry blog, my absence on which was kindly pointed out by my aunt (I melted) and providing you lovely lot with another short proof that I am still alive.

I have recently passed my one year mark with Korea and I almost cannot believe that so much time has already passed. Lots is still new and exciting, academics keep me busy most of the time and I can either do exciting stuff or write about it, there’s simply no time for both. My brother once asked me just how I think I’m going to have any readers if I post so irregularly. No one tell him that, but he’s probably right. Even I continuously tell myself: “I’ll write a new blog post today. Definitely today. Today is the day.” But then I have to move all of my possessions to my new room or try to catch up with the busy lives of my friends in different time zones or sometimes even just get that minimum amount of sleep required not to collapse the following day. Without a doubt, there are not enough hours in a day to do everything. However, I felt like a reflection blog post was in order, since I likely won’t be able to recap last semester’s or this summer’s stories in person to my friends and family. Not anytime soon, anyways. So here we are, hope you all still remember me.

I’m sure the spring semester was unconventional and challenging for almost every student. Myself included. I’m not going to write about the obvious again, because at this point we’ve pretty much heard it all. Partially, as usual, it was also my own fault for having taken on quite a lot of work, because clearly I have no concept of sparing myself. This is the point on my blog when I discourage my readers from taking 21 credits that include calculus and a design studio, as well as a *your third language class* taught in *your fourth language* (although this turned out to be a quite pleasant reverse Korean class for me). Finals week was a blur and I have no idea how I managed to maintain a friendhip-preserving social life along with a scholarship-worthy GPA at the same time. Just call me a genius.

However, after filling out 2 notebooks back to back with calculus problems, I can proudly say that my calculus knowledge has forever peaked. Seriously. Ask me what’s 2+2 and I probably only know because of Big Shaq. Area under a curve? Let me curve that question real quick. Taylor series? I don’t know her. The Sandwich Theorem? I am most definitely not thinking what you’re thinking.

I did very much enjoy my basic design studio (a/n: not a diss, this is the literal name of the class), even though it ate up my nerves and my time like nothing else. I recently got approval to take the same professor’s class starting this week and let me tell you I have never been more excited to get assignments because that syllabus be looking fiiiine. I just hope Rona doesn’t ruin the fun, like it almost ruined my summer.

Despite not being able to go abroad, I managed to spice up my holidays with some domestic travels to Icheon, Jeonju, Busan, Jeju island and around Seoul, most of which left me wanting to go back and looking at my photos mad that I forgot to take off my mask.

Also, since deciding that I wasn’t going home for the summer, I spent so much time with one of my, if not the best friend here in Korea that I was, at any given point in the day, probably at her house, walking to or from her house or sleeping. It reached a point where we even joked that if we got infected (yes, we, because come on), we could at least quarantine together, not that we weren’t already doing that. It amazes me how she’s still not tired of me. Jokes aside, I am extremely thankful to have her, because the past few months that I spent with her wayyy surpassed all of my expectations for the summer. Don’t know if my fragile heart can handle this temporary decrease in the frequency of us going out for dinner or (and) bubble tea, but my thighs will be grateful. Feels kind of like a break up and I am not enjoying it. When I said I wanted the summer to end I meant the humidity, not seeing her face 24/7.

I won’t go into any more detail now because I am tired and because, though my blog is sometimes funny and ‘a pleasure to read’ (or so I’ve been told), what it is not is informative, at least not in the way you’d imagine. Unless reading a mix of internet talk mixed with some irrelevant details about my exciting-beyond-imagination life is your cup of tea. Then welcome to the fam.

Alright, catching some zzzs now. Hope everyone is having a wonderful and safe day.

Going back to Korea in February, when my winter holidays were coming to an end and in the midst of Korea’s confirmed cases spike, was, in the eyes of many, a bold move on my part and a downright irresponsible thing to do by my mom, who decided to take her slightly asthmatic youngest son to the other side of the world to see for themselves where their daughter and sister is studying. A month later, now that the virus is starting to spread in Slovenia (which, to be fair, was only a question of time), I still think not going would have been a mistake.

Even though my university, like many others, cancelled this year’s graduation and entrance ceremony, postponed the start of the semester by two weeks and implemented various other safety measures to prevent the spread of the virus among their students, life in Seoul did not suddenly stop because of the covid-19 epidemic. Naturally, the markets are not as lively and the touristy spots not as crowded, but I could not imagine people missing work, panicking or stocking up food. Rather, there are countless notices with the suggested preventive behaviors that everyone sticks to and constant phone alerts to notify you about about risk areas in respective regions of Seoul. The public is kept informed and less panicked as a result. Looking around at any moment of the day, more than nine out of ten people on average are wearing a mask and hand sanitizer is freely available in most public places like buses, subway stations, stores and toilets. It is because people here are aware of one thing, practiced in their culture for as long as they can remember. Society before individual.

One can only stay safe and healthy if they are surrounded by healthy people. No amount of hand sanitizer and no number of face masks is helpful, if your country is flooded by infected virus transmitters. That is why everyone needs to act responsibly in order to contain the outbreak as soon as possible. Yes, I’m looking at you, people who steal and stock such goods and ruin positive public health initiatives. People who need masks for more than reassurance that they are doing everything in their power to stay healthy are healthcare professionals like doctors and nurses, who are in close contact with numerous ill people every day and hence exposed to not only contracting a virus but also spreading it very rapidly, and people infected with the virus, because the novel coronavirus spreads through droplets when a person sneezes, coughs or speaks closely with another. It has been shown that wearing a mask is far more effective at containing the virus to the wearer than it is at preventing the wearer from getting infected. Therefore, people who have been at risk of contracting the virus or are suspected of having been infected should be the ones putting on a mask when going out in public and visiting the appropriate health institution.

However, the public is incredibly quick to point a finger and glare at people, blaming them for getting infected, which saddens me immensly. It’s not like anyone wanted an outbreak of a new disease to happen and affect hundreds of thousands of people. It’s not like anyone wanted to get infected, much less spread it around. The worst thing we can do in this epidemic time is use the fear instilled in us by the scary statistics to fuel our hate for others, to excuse our racism. This is a fearful time for many. There is no culprit to be found and nothing to be gained by searching for one. Let us all be conscious of our thoughts and actions and let us not forget human decency.

Finally, I am happy to report that my mom and brother are back home, healthy as ever. I am sure that they also have themselves to thank. So, you too, dear reader, stay safe, wash your hands and let’s get through this together. All of us.

As this semester (and with it my first Korea experience), this year and decade are all coming to an end, I’ve been thinking a lot about the people who have greatly influenced my past couple of months in Korea. And I was faced with the realization that, though you cannot like and be liked by everyone, I am overall much more than just satisfied with the people who have been in charge of my academic experience at KU – the professors. And not being able to express my appreciation to them personally, for fear of coming off as if I’m looking to improve my grades via flattery, I have decided to dedicate a blog post to the people who have helped me grow and develop as a student. So, here we are.

Let me start with the professor that saw me every day for two and a half hours, our 선생님. I’m sure teaching the Intensive Korean class is not much easier than attending it and as motivation and energy decrease with time, it would have been easy for the class to become boring and exhausting. Not on his watch. There was rarely a time when he was not trying to make us laugh, be it with puns or funny examples. He tried to keep his positive attitude even when all of us, the professor included, barely had enough energy to stay upright. He was extremely thoughtful and even bought a cake for my birthday, that was the first time I ate one with chopsticks. I am genuinely thankful that he made learning Korean a pleasant experience. I enjoyed the course till the very end and am already looking forward to the next semester.

Twice a week, I attended a course on Ancient Chinese Law and Philosophy. One of the rare classes where attendance was completely liberal, but I still ended up going to every single lecture. Call me a nerd and see if I care. He is so well-read and charismatic that it was a real pleasure listening to him. I am seriously considering just showing up to some of his lectures next year. Though his subject is not exactly what I’d imagine I’d enjoy a couple of months ago, I even had a good time revising for the exam with friends. Not only did I learn a lot about Confucius and his teachings, I find myself applying some concepts to my daily life as well. Just goes to show that sometimes when life throws unexpected things our way they can end up being blessings in disguise.

Another professor I had the pleasure of seeing in my morning lectures and, let me just say, being able to eat your breakfast while looking at memes and having class discussions with that really cool person next to you (shout-out if she ever reads this) is the way to go. Besides, most of the assignments and the midterm were group projects, so they ended up being pretty fun to do anyways. I think I learned a lot from just being required to participate in class and critically think about concepts before being given the answer, as I did quite some analysis on my own that I could’ve just searched up online otherwise. I can definitely say that the professor knew how to keep us interested in the content of his lectures.

I have a lot of compliments for the class after it as well. Though I’m not into public speaking at all, the presentation I had in this professor’s class was the least stressful one to date. I felt comfortable and confident and I hadn’t even practiced that much. (Or at all, to be completely honest, but don’t tell him that.) He seems to be a really approachable professor in that he never pretended to know everything and quite frequently appreciated points raised in our debates that he hadn’t previously thought about. And though this is most probably a cultural thing, a simple social requirement he grew up practicing, he always asked “how are you?” when we met outside of the classroom. And I appreciate that.

I’m grateful to the Korean professor who was the first and only one to reply to a stressed ol’ Maja, when she couldn’t get enough credits during her course registration. A very kind and friendly professor, who thanked us for coming to class at the end of each lecture and whose passion for teaching could be seen in the way he got excited about topics and examples he was explaining. He occasionally commented on pressing world issues or recalled a time he went to Sicily and was just so nice of a person in general that I couldn’t help but overcompensate for other students’ lack of attention by nodding vigorously when we made eye contact and smile at all of his jokes.

Feeling like it might be unfair to leave out a professor just because my experience in his class was not as pleasant as it could have been, I need to also mention a course that taught me how to pour my absolute everything into a project. Three-quarter-nighters were not uncommon before this class and I spent a lot of my time and energy self-teaching myself skills that would help me achieve the goals of the professor’s assignments. Regardless of how the class turned out, I do feel that I have learned a lot about how I prioritize and about how much I am willing to sacrifice in order to sleep peacefully, knowing that I’ve done my best.

A special mention should also be given to some professors from my department. Recently, I have started feeling much more optimistic about my academic future at KU, partly thanks to their efforts. Firstly, along with a friend of mine, I was invited to a lunch with our adviser, which made us feel a lot more included in the affairs of our department. Besides, we got to spend some time talking to a well-educated professor who seemed to really be interested in what he was asking, despite the meeting likely being included in his job description.

Secondly, an International Students Workshop was organized by two foreign professors of my department, aimed at improving the program to better suit our needs, and there are not enough words in my vocabulary to express how grateful I am for that. It has easily been one of the best moments of my first semester in Korea and that is saying a lot. I felt heard, I felt less alone in the struggles that I had been facing thus far and I felt excited to learn from them in the future. I felt included. I left that workshop with a huge smile on my face, despite the fact that I had a final exam right after it finished. None of the praise that I can think of right now does justice to how I felt in that moment and if, god forbid, this blog is ever found by the aforementioned people, I hope they realize just how much their efforts mean to me.

All in all, I believe it is important to acknowledge and express my appreciation of people who often get forgotten in the conversations about university life. Because they do deserve some credit for my current satisfaction with life. A big thank you goes out to all of them. Let me wrap this post up with the following quote from an unknown author: “Not all superheroes wear capes, some have teaching degrees.”