I'll Probably Get Some Carpet Burns

So...come to find out I'm at the Harvard of Korean Art Universities. Also, many of the students study for two or three years at institutions just to get into the school. On top of that, the semesters are different, so everyone is in the second semester of their school year. This means that when I ended up nabbing a studio space with the seniors at Hognik, I actually nabbed a space with the graduating seniors. Although I'm a junior, I wasn't technically an art major until this year. I took a few art classes my freshman year that inspired me to not give up on art. When I transfered back to USU I had missed the deadline for applying to the art program, but pretended to be an art major by taking a few more classes until I got accepted into the program in the spring. To summarize, I'm sort of behind. Sort of really behind, especially when you add in me late bloomer tendencies! And here I am attempting to paint amongst the graduating seniors! haha, yet again I find the greatest way to get ahead in life is to be the greatest Poser who ever lived (see also: heather peng) and ride along on the wings of champions (actually it's more like clamping onto someone's foot as they drag you across the carpet-like you do to big people when you are a little kid-or to Morgan at the Last Chance Dance in high school until he says to the guy that your with to, "get your date off me."). I've tried to run with the philosophy that to get better at life, hang out with people cooler than you. Yeah you feel like an idiot most of the time, but you might make it.

"Sorry To Baffle You Miss Pretty"

So I've been enjoying being the recipient of text messages from my Korean friends. Except this morning I didn't really know what to do when I received the following text from one of my guy friends, "Hi depressing morning...same week..same papers..(am I doing well? I'm not a robot..)" I was sort of in a bad mood, so I replied with the first witty song lyric that came to my mind via Jacks Mannequin. Therefore I sent the following, "You're not an orphan."

They Never Cease To Amaze

Why, just this Friday, I went down to the dormitory cafeteria for my breakfast of rice and sodium, and walked into a Christmas wonderland! There were red and green balloons hanging from the ceiling, snowflakes, santa clause decals...the whole shebang. I think it had to do with the Christmas themed dorm party that night, but I'm still confused.

"Merely Existing Is A Point of View" - Ben Fred

I would say that I know what's going on about 50% of the time, but I'm getting used to it. It's only a downgrade of about 20% since in America I seem to know what's going on about 70% of the time. The other 30% of my brain could be called the Oblivious Wonder. That's another story, at any rate (as Mr. Littizette would say) I'm starting to wonder if reality is even real. Today, as I was walking to class I had that song, "more than words" stuck in my head. I got to class, dropped off my stuff, then walked down the hall towards the bathroom to fix my hair. I stop because I can hear the song, "more than words" playing. What?!?!? So I follow the sound into the exhibition hall and there is a video project accompanied by the song "more than words." The fact that this song is in Korea, in the exhibition, and in my head, is only enlarging the Oblivious Wonder. All I can do is stare at it, leave, and think about it all day. The title alone.

Leggings and Toilet

For my oil painting class our professor gave us a list of subjects/themes that we could choose from for our next painting project. A fellow student kindly translated the list for me, here were some of the choices...

1. Oh, being in existence
2. bread and frog
3. faster, higher, stronger, and white fear
4. Haeundae (a sea) in the nostrils
5. A cigarette butt and Damien Hirst
6. love which is piled up and added
7. apple and all of the scientist
8. leggings and toilet
9. black and vegetarian
10. cross in the red neck tie

Oh, being in existence!

I translate Ebonics and describe Twinkies

The International club here is called KIMCHI. From what I gather, it's a way for everyone to work on their English and internationality-ness. or whatever. Last week some of the Australian students interviewed students to see if they spoke English well enough to be in the club. They meet every Wednesday to debate different issues. Anywho, I showed up this week along with two other Australian boys. They split the three of us up into separate groups of five or six. This week we were talking about a Korean-American rapper who grew up in New Jersey and became famous in Korea. Apparently he said some controversial things about Korea to a friend in his Myspace and had to fly back to America. So I was reading some of the text that he had posted and asked the students if they understood what he was saying? They didn't, so I had to explain some of the following text, "wassup foo. watchu bin doing...still having pissy fits boutchur rapping? korea is gay...I hate Koreans, I wanna come back like no other...friggin a n e ways yea..." well, you get the picture. One girl-"What is friggin?" I also explained "whack" "illest rapper" "dass pretty dope" It's a good thing that I have so much smack talk stored up yo and knowledge of American slang. The article also talked about anther slang word for "Asians in the U.S. who make great efforts to assimilate the mainstream American society." Otherwise known as a "Twinkie" (yellow on the outside, white on the inside...get it? also see: "banana"). "What is Twinkie?"

Know Your Onion!

There is quite a large amount of international craziness going on here! For example, my American friend Marion's parents are Vietnamese, but she is always assumed to be Korean. Another boy I met was born in Boston, his mother is French and his father is Japanese. When he was five he moved to France, came back to the states for college, and now works in Japan. My other friend was born in Korea, went to high school in the middle east, moved to Australia, and is now back in Korea. Come on Vamanos! Where have I been all this time?

Phat Sunday

Sundays here have proven themselves worthy of being excellent Sundays. I go to an English speaking branch. It consists of some families, about 15 or so young adults-mostly graduates teaching English here, couple missionaries, some young married couples, some random groups I have yet to meet, etc. I truly feel that I have just been absorbed by the members. Everyone is so friendly and so loving. There is a high turnover rate of people coming and going, so as soon as you get there, you get welcomed in and loved as soon as possible. I've only been here three Sundays, but it truly has been wonderful. I'm so grateful for how much I've been blessed.

T-shirts of the Week

A guy-front, "I have a crush on you" back- "crush on"
A young girl, "This is my dream So Hot."
A dude on the subway, "I supplement my personality with witty t-shirts."
A girl, "Elvis Lives"

Chance of Rain

Introduce Yourself!

Today I had Technique of Oriental Brush (freshman class). I wasn't planning on taking this class but by an act of fate, I ran into someone who told me that the Professor spoke English. Hot dang! So today was our first day of painting. We use 1. Rice Paper 2. BIg oriental looking soft hair brushes....3. Indian Ink (black ink). The Professor is so nice, she gave a short lecture and then explained it to me in English afterwards, then helped me get started. Suddenly she was like, "I encourage them to talk to you and work on their English, why don't you introduce yourself?" Then she got the attention of the entire class (maybe about 30), and told me to give an introduction. So I'm all like, "sup, yo foos. I from the states y'all." then I flashed the peace sign. No, I'm totally kidding, I did the normal name, from America, USU exchange student, I'm nice so talk to me... thing. Anywho, I give my brief spiel, and then the whole class gives me an applause! I go back to work, but the next thing I know, there's about five students surrounding me and asking me questions and talking to me. They were so cute! Then they started showing me how to hold my brush the right way, and how to get the ink soaked in it, etc. It was awesome! Afterwards, the professor took me out to lunch, and it was so great! These Koreans I tell you, they will kill me with kindness.

Today

American: Adored or Ignored

It's generally either or here. I'll roll with that.

My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down

I buy an American candy bar or an ice cream every day, for my own sake. I tried out the cafeteria in the dorms today. Breakfast is a bowl of frosted flakes, toast, hard boiled eggs, and kimchi. At dinner there was a ginormous self-serve vat of endless rice. This was paired with some strange patty and a gelatinous glob of bright yellow....something. Paste maybe? It also had red and green treasures mixed in. It was also cold. There was also Kimchi and some soup. At $3.50 for breakfast and dinner everyday, who could ask for anything more?

Catchy Phrases

A guy walking around campus in a T-shirt that reads, "Michigan State Mom"
Another fellow student's T-shirt, "I love math!"
A little girl's T-shirt, "I Like Boring Things."
Girls Tee, "Mercy" and "I Am Not Your Hero."
The Apple Store is called "Frisbee"

Psychedelic Drugs and Nomadic Hippie Villages

So...having completed the first week of classes, I can now say that I've sat through about five or six hours of Korean lecture. Granted, most of my classes are studio art classes-meaning more work, less lecture, but the first day of any class is usually devoted to explaining the syllabus and then giving everyone the DL on the history of the subject, etc. Anywho, to be quite honest with you, I really didn't get a whole lot out of it. English cognates are about zero so I can't even follow a single thing. It all went over my head. In a gigantic title wave. In one lecture, out of all the Korean characters written on the board there were two English words: Zen and Ecstasy. I can only conclude that the entire lecture was about achieving zen through psychedelic drugs. Cheeky little professor...My installation class was a little more interesting. We talked for an hour and a half (I stared blankly) then we watched some videos, had a break, and the rest of class was a slide show of a Nomadic Village in France? that our professor had lived in. Why I looked at pictures of scantily clad hippies doing yoga and greeting nature I may never know. I've developed several coping skills through this process (it's been pretty rough, hearing sounds that don't mean anything, for hours on end!)
A. think about your goals and aspirations.
B. rap silently in your head.
C. slip into a coma.
D. daydream about summer.
E. think about boys
F. think about how you are sick of boys!
G. Start over with A.

To-Do

1. Buy new power converter to replace the fried one (overwhelming power of 1,875 watts of blow dryer! *note-cool smoke).
2. Go to class, see if professor speaks English, ask if I can stay.
3. Wander Aimlessly, find new streets.
4. Find a place to slack line.

I Could Have Taken a Taxi, but That Would Have Been Easy

Instead, I opted to drag over 50 lbs of luggage through humidity and hills on a twenty minute walk to my new dorm. Twice. But I got the job done! Unfortunatley, in my state of being an overly sweaty person, I met my new room mate for the first time! "Hello, I'm the sweaty American!" wow. At any rate, my roomie is named Mi-Su. She is a ceramics graduate student-yes apparently I'm living in the graduate dorms, how very officail of me-she is 27 years old, and no speaky Englishy much, and I no speaka Korea. This is beautiful, it will help me learn Korean! We tried using a Korean to English translator online for a while. About half the time it kept coming up with completley bogus English sentances, so I ended up cracking up instead of communicating. She seemed to understand the translated Korean. Highly suspicious.

American Shout-outs

Today I was walking opposite a group of older Koreans on a walking path. They looked pretty tired, but all smiled at me, and one dude-looking especially sweaty- just flashed the peace sign. Sometimes as I'm walking people will spurt some random English right as we pass. I'll hear stuff like, "looks good" or "hey Jesus" in my ear. I've also found that I'm in the secret society of white people-few and far between, whenever you see a fellow blondie, there's always a smile exchange. *note: T-shirt of the week: a menacing nun with her fellow nun cohorts that reads, "Sisterhood Satan."

Week One of Korea!

It went something like this.
1. Mom drops me off at the airport. I am a little offended by the rest of the family. They all came to drop me off when I got shipped to Boston, but nowadays, no one cares when you go to Korea!
2. I fly to San Diego.
3. I only have 15 minutes before my flight to Korea leaves! To the international airport!
4. I have to run!
5. I have to run onto the plane!
6. Why am I such a sweaty person?
7. Out of all the Asians flying to Korea this day, I get seated by another American exchange student going to study in Korea! Her name is Sada. She is from Nebraska (fields) and she is splendid.
8. They play only four terrible movies so I watch 17 Again, and the Disney Channel. I decide that Nick is the best looking Jonas, but I can’t whole heartedly decide this because he reminds me of Forrest Bodily, who is my 5th cousin and primary wet willy giver.
9. 11 hours later…I am in Korea!
10. I am met by two students who take me to the Bebop Guesthouse!

The Bebop Guesthouse
This place kicks! The Bebop guesthouse is free toast and eggs for breakfast, a collage of indie movie posters, super friendly and helpful workers, friendly travelers, good music, and overall-just super chill.

The Swine Flu-it will get you every time.
I arrive on Wed, I'm supposed to move into my dorms on Friday, but receive an email telling me that I can't move into the dorms until I've been in the country for seven days. This is so I will not infect the school with the Swine Flu. However, I will work on infecting the guesthouse, and spreading it throughout the city as a whole! bwa hahaha! and the nations, I think I've met people from 9 or 10 countries in the guesthouse alone. At any rate, it works out fine since I get to hang out at the Bebop! My new favorite place.

Is it Beach or B****?
Today’s lesson in English is helping my French friend Magali pronounce beach when she is worried that it is in fact sounding like the b word. I demonstrate what each sounds like, and then we practice the words together!

A siege of foreigners!
I have been conversing with people from Korea, Japan, Taiwan, China, America, France, Germany, Finland, Ireland, England, Denmark, Russia, and Israel!


Turns out the world is small after all
I think I am the only American at Hongik until I meet Marion! When I ask her where she is from, she says, “California.” I’m all excited! West coaster! So I tell her I’m from Utah and then she says, “I was born and raised in Utah, in Salt Lake! I just go to school in California!” If that doesn’t set you off on a mind trip, I don’t know what will!

Weekend Warriors
I get all my school business done by Friday, and hit the town with Magali! We go to an awesome cafe and then wander around "The Fringe Festival." We see some video art, an insane drum circle, and a ridiculous amount of drunk foreigners. A Korean musician starts talking to us so we go to a bar together, (I drink water) and then get into a club for free (techno madness, and everyone cheers for us when we start dancing). It's after 3 in the morning at this point and I am so happy to finally head back home! The city scene is still going strong, these people never quit!
I spend Saturday night recovering from clubbing- that stuff always stresses me out. ha. I hang out at the Bebop where my Japanese photographer friend shows me his work, I chat with a French dude, 2 Austrians and and another French boy come in for a moment-are wildly entertaining-I fall in love with all of them, I get to better know my Korean friend/part owner of the Bebop, I chat with Magali, and hang with some Korean girls. A lot can happen when you stay in one place.
Sunday! I go to the English speaking LDS branch! It's awesome!

Back To School
Today (which is Sept. 1st) I started my first day at Hongik University. This week will be trying out classes and seeing which professors speak English and are willing to work with my embarrassing inability to speak Korean. Most of the classes that I'm taking are mainly studio art classes (less lecture) so it should work out all right. hot cha.

Also, the craziest thing that happened to me today after an Oriental Water Color class. As I passed a stairway, I saw the looks of nature at the top. Following this lead, I found some nature at the top! I saw a trail so I started scouting it out. I walked on it for a while and turns out, I find this huge forested park! It's full of hiking trails, play grounds, a temple...all sorts of crazy! Just what I need to escape the city! It was totally awesome. I also got especially excited when I realized that I'd just had a trippy Narnia experience!

Korea is wonderful so far. Even though I don't speak the language, I've still been able to get around. Most everyone speaks at least some English. The people are so friendly and willing to help, I've been so blessed! :D

ALASKAN CRUISE

Seattle, WASHINGTON: Impressions
Aug 1, 2009
Hippies! the 90’s lives! We (all of the 9 Pope siblings+spouses+some grandparents+cousin Chelsea+me) embark on our Alaskan cruise.

Ketchikan, ALASKA: Zip lining
Aug 3, 2009
We ported in Ketchikan and peaced out of our cruise ship. The cruise offers on land “excursions” that you can sign up for, overpay for, and thence enjoy! I signed up for the zip line course through the canopy of the rain forest. Not bad. I got to zip around to seven different bases in the treetops and cross perilous swinging bridges. One cool thing-I felt like I was in Twighlight, the part where Edward and Bella whip around in the tops of the trees, not the part where Edward sparkles in the sun for several minutes. At any rate, the forests of the Pacific Northwest are awesommme.

Juneau, ALASKA: Invasion of the Sea Kayak
Aug 4, 2009
So Kevin, Rodrigo, Heidi, and I signed up for sea kayaking. Kevin and I were in a kayak together, and Heidi and Rodrigo commandeered another kayak together. We got to paddle around for a while and enjoy a splendid view of the Mendenhall Glacier. We also saw seals and eagles. It was super fun! Heidi and Rodrigo have to add a little pressure to the paddle when they started getting passed up by the mom and the six year old girl, which was not something that they would stand for.

Skagway, ALASKA: What happened here?
Aug, 5, 2009
We took a lovely train ride through beautiful beauty. It was very beautiful. We then had a half day to wander around town, look at the tourist stores- which were exactly the same as the ones in the other ports. I do say, Alaska is quite beautiful.

Prince Rupert, British Columbia, CANADA: What happened here:?!?
Aug 6, 2009
Welcome to Canadia! At Prince Rupert, you have six hours to do the following:
1. Look at the two tourist stores.
2. 2. Buy six issues of National Geographics from the 60’s, late 70’s, and ‘89 for 54 cents! Salvation Army! Prime for valentines, birthday cards, and motivational posters.
3. Go to the open aired market. Six booths! Look to buy some sweet Canadian wooden jewelry. “what kind of wood is this?” “I don’t know….they’re imported….from Thailand.” uh….
4. Take pictures of clovers until you evacuate the area due to an old drunken man pissing into the street onto a jeep tire.
5. Buy mom real maple syrup candies, and eat one of them.
6. Take pictures of someone’s lost pair of underwears, decomposing in the litter.
I must say, I always did suspect that there wasn’t a whole lot going on in Canada.

Pacific OCEAN: Day at Sea
Aug 7, 2009
Cruises are all kinds of crazy! The best thing to do is enjoy the endless supply of free ice cream, lose all concept of time, and go dancing with Kevin and Rodrigo until 3 in the morning.

I'm getting around to it...

Here goes a massive blog post. Ketchup!