So Long, 2016!

Merry Christmas!

What a year it was! For the world at large, maybe not one of its finest, but for me personally, I would say it has been a pretty great year. I was thinking about writing a few highlights from 2016, but I think everything I've expressed in my blog posts throughout the year accurately fit that description. So I'll let my blog do the talking on that part and just stick to a short list of some things I would like to accomplish during 2017:

1. Write at least two blog posts per month

2. Read 30 books

3. Travel to a country I've never been to before

4. Complete a half marathon in 1:45:00 or less

5. Remember my friends' birthdays in advance

Merry Christmas!

I have written other things down throughout my personal diary, but I thought those would be some of the more tangible goals to share with you all.

For Christmas, I spent the holiday with two friends here in Seoul. We decided to head to Lotte World, Seoul's second amusement park. The interesting thing about this park is that it is mostly constructed indoors, so a lot of the attractions are inside walls (perfect for cold weather)! Unfortunately, my friends and I could not navigate our way to the roller coaster we wanted to ride, and thus we stumbled into two minuscule rides meant for children after waiting in line for nearly an hour for each of them. LOL. We look back and laugh at the situation with fond memories.

I rang in the new year with another Fulbright friend, a first year named Arya. A couple months ago, we booked tickets to see some of the most trendy, popular, and stylin' Korean hip-hop artists over the course of a two-day concert to ring in the New Year.

"The Final Countdown"

Jay Park!

My personal favorite, Jay Park, would also be performing. Having the chance to see him perform live has been on my bucket list since the beginning of my three years in Korea, so I was quite excited to finally cross that off the list.

The concert was held at an awesome venue in Gangnam, and surprisingly, it wasn't too crowded over the two days. We danced, sang, and rang in the new year full of laughter and joy. Unfortunately, at that time, I was in the process of getting over a nasty cold, so my voice was shot and I was held back a little bit in that regard... but it was totally worth it!

Happy 2017, everyone!

We felt like Iron Woman

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5-Year Anniversary

EJ and her adorable doll

My friend Sae Min and I

Hyeon Min's performance!

This post marks me pretty close to my 5-year anniversary of starting my blog, "Happening With Hillary". While initially I wasn't entirely attached to the name I created for it, the title "Happening With Hillary" has really grown on me. As you can imagine from the name, and for any reason why most other people write a blog, I started it with the intention of sharing my experiences abroad. Since my study abroad experience in Spain, the blog has become much more than just a way to share my thoughts, memories, and photos with the surrounding community. It has become a habit, a hobby, and something I really look forward to updating twice a month (or so I try!). Since my foot injury last year and the massive amounts of feedback received after those posts, I realized that more people were tuning into these bits and pieces of my life than I initially thought. Because of my blog, I've gotten more into photography, keeping a diary/journal, thinking about how seemingly ordinary days in my life could be something foreign and unimaginable for others, and more. I find myself actively living in a moment and trying so clearly to put it into words so that I can "save it for the blog" later. I hope readers have enjoyed my personal storytelling and recounting of events, although I'm not really an excellent writer. As always, I thank you for taking the time to read my entries.

Myself, Hyang Ran, and Eun Jeong!

Love this group of people!

With that said, it's time for me to catch you up on what's been happening lately! Just like November, December has been an extremely busy but enjoyable month. It started when I visited one of my students who had graduated from Gwangyang but is now studying at an Arts college in Seoul. He studies music and has always been into rapping. Actually, when he was still at Gwangyang, we collaborated together and wrote and recorded two songs together. Anyway, I went to see his end-of-the-year performance at his university, and it was phenomenal! I'm so proud of him and love that I can still connect with students after graduation.

Go Eun and Sae Pi

At school, students were focused on preparing for their final exams, so the atmosphere was pretty serious for the first two weeks. This past week was spent relaxing and playing holiday games with my students after their tests finished. I decided to create "Minute-To-Win-It" games, and the students had a blast with it. The winning teams earned hot chocolate and candy canes to show them a little bit of America's holiday spirit.

China Town

Additionally, the school staff had our end-of-the-year teacher's workshop/retreat. We traveled to Song-do in Incheon, which is a new, urban city with thriving businesses. It was a really cool city to see, and it was fun to hang out with my co-workers and get to know them better outside of school. We stayed for two days, one night. The first day was mostly workshops and professional development, followed by a fancy 5-course meal, lots of drinking, and bingo! I won traditional Chinese alcohol as my prize, haha! The following day was spent as sightseeing, where we traveled to a famous park, cityscape tower, and Incheon's China Town, where we ate a delicious lunch before heading back.

During the final exam period, I didn't have to go to school for 4 days, so I took the opportunity to head back to Gwangyang and visit my friends. I was soooo happy to be in their company and catch up with so many people. This is my small but sweet tribute to my amazing friends who always welcome me, host me, and make me feel right at home every time I visit. Love you all!

Song-do, Incheon

Sora was my coworker at Gwangyang

For the holidays, I will be staying in Seoul and spending Christmas with a few friends. One Fulbrighter from my first year is in town visiting, so we have been enjoying each other's company catching up on life and eating delicious food together when I get off of work. We are planning to head to one of Korea's amusement parks to see the holiday decorations during Christmas Eve, and spend Christmas morning with a short hike up a mountain to enjoy some makgeolli and the landscape around us.

Ro Eun and Go Eun (Sisters)!

Although I often get homesick around this time, I am glad to have good company here in Seoul with me, and I am lucky that all of my family and friends back home also have each other to celebrate and be with this year. I am thankful for good health, a roof over my head, and the multiple opportunities I have to try new things and follow my dreams. Here's to a continuation of that as 2017 approaches, and I wish the same for all of you. Be happy, be merry, and be kind to one another!

Sending lots of love,
Hillary

Happy Holidays!

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How I Feel About November

Celebrating Halloween with my after school class

Overworked!! Holy moly it's been a crazy month. A drastic change between November 2015 and November 2016, I tell ya. I was sitting on my ass with my foot propped up and watching crappy K-dramas in the hospital all of last November, and this time around I could barely find anything trashy to watch due to all of the election coverage and newly revealed scandal with S. Korea's president, Park Geun Hye.

Hanging out at Everland with Morgan!

Although this month has passed so quickly, I look back on it fondly. I made a lot of fantastic memories with friends, co-workers, and students, despite the political turmoil everyone around the world seems to be facing. I'll talk about some of my highlights, and what's been keeping me so busy.

At the race with my best buddy, Go Eun

Since my last post, we've celebrated two large holidays for Americans: Halloween and Thanksgiving! For Halloween, my friend from Gwangyang (Morgan) came up to visit, and we traveled to one of Korea's amusement parks, Everland, together to check out their detailed decorations. It was awesome! A lot of people were dressed in costume, and the decorations were fun to see along with all the fall foliage. It was so beautiful! I felt so happy just to get out of the city and see trees and mountains and a sight of home with all the costumes and decorations. After Everland, Morgan and I met up with two of my Korean friends and we went to the foreigner district of Seoul to celebrate Halloween! We danced throughout the night and had a great time together.

My friend Ryang Sun and I like to visit museums together!

At school, I celebrated Halloween with the students through Halloween bingo, "trick-or-treating" with their English vocabulary, and having a Monster Mash with my club class, which included mask-making and decorating, pin the face on the jack-o-lantern, and a murder mystery game. It was so fun and the students seemed to enjoy it a lot.

Hiking Seoraksan with Fulbright friends

After Halloween, I was due to prepare my school's English Speaking Competition, where 7 students from each grade are selected to write a 4-5 minute speech on a topic of their choosing, and present them in front of the entire school. Each student earns a prize just for participating, but of course they all want to earn the top spot in their class. I had the task of helping the students write, edit, and help them practice their speeches. We worked on fluency, speed, volume, pronunciation, and most importantly, body language and tone fluctuation! We spent almost three weeks preparing for the big day. The students worked so hard, and I was very proud of them. They had an array of topics such as the E-Sports Industry, Earthquake Concerns on the Korean Peninsula, How to Live a Productive Life, Being a Good Leader, and more! I was taken aback by the depth of the students' vocabulary and knowledge of colloquial phrases. They all did a great job, and we celebrated with a huge food party at the end of it. 

Playing Apples to Apples with my after school class -
We ate apple pie along with it!

While the students were busy training for their speech competition, I was training for one of my own: my first race back since my foot injury! I decided to sign up for a race back in Suncheon (near my old placement city) with two of my Korean friends, and we completed a 10K together. I was a little nervous about how I would do since it was my first time back in competition since my injury. All went well, and I am eager to continue racing and get back into healthy competition. My friends and I have already made plans to sign up for more races this spring and summer! Woohoo.

Thanksgiving Dinner with Fulbright

Another big feat for me this month was (re)conquering Seoraksan National Park. Most of you may not know or remember that this was the exact park where my near-fatal blister was formed on the back of my heel. I am not gonna lie, even though I had already been back to hiking and strenuous exercise before going back to Seoraksan, I was a little nervous to climb this mountain range again. An irrational fear of another blister magically appearing in the exact same spot... but all went well and I walked away unscathed! Muahahaha. It was a bit of a last-minute decision to go - a Fulbright friend from my first year (shout out to Zoe W.!!!) was back visiting Korea from San Fran, and so we decided to head there and hike for a few days. A couple of the other Seoul Fulbrighters tagged along too, and we had a great time together! It felt great to be outdoors and enjoying each others' company.

Made some chicken pot pie for Thanksgiving

And of course, to top it all off, we just concluded Thanksgiving celebrations! I always get a little homesick around this time because I miss my family, home-cooked meals, and being lazy and watching football with Cooper and dad. But luckily, the Seoul ETAs hosted a potluck dinner on Thanksgiving evening, and the Fulbright Program also hosted a formal Thanksgiving dinner for us this past weekend! So, celebrating twice was not too shabby... hehehe! 

Amazing views!

I'm now in the process of booking my travel plans for winter vacation! Although I'm not planning to go back Stateside for the holidays this year, I will definitely be traveling abroad because I missed those opportunities last year due to my injury. So far, I am looking at traveling to Taiwan, Japan, and Bali. I am especially excited for Japan because I am planning to meet up with one of my Japanese friends who was an international student at ISU during the same time I was there! So, we have been in contact and are hoping to get together during a leg of my trip there. I am so excited to see her and reconnect after about four years!

I'm sorry it's taken me so long to post an update! I have been meaning to write throughout the month, and then in the free time that I DID have, I decided to be lazy instead... it won't happen again! I'll let the pictures speak for themselves this month. Talk soon!

I've got my miniature Christmas tree set up!

Seoraksan is pretty even when the foliage is gone

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