General Happenings: Being Sick, Midterms, Room Introduction!

So, although I have nothing super interesting fandom-wise to write about this time, you do get some true general happenings having to do with the sort of life any usual person would have. What? I'm not going to talk about anything K-pop as the main topic? It's a miracle...



Being sick and midterms sort of go hand in hand. As for why I most likely got sick, my whole week last week was ridiculously crazy because it was Infinite's goodbye stages and my favorite and two of the other members were being temporary hosts at the radio show Super Junior Kiss the Radio. During the week my average (simplified) schedule was something like...

• 7:30am :: wake up, get ready.
• 9:00am ~ 1:00pm :: class
• 1:30 :: lunch, etc.
• 2:00~ :: usually doing homework or something going on
• 6:30 :: get on the train to go to National Assembly Station (where the Korean Broadcasting System is). have to go early to get a good spot. :3
• 10:00pm ~ 12:00am :: SuKiRa (Super Junior Kiss the Radio)
• 1:00 :: get home. finish up homework.
• ~4:00am :: go to sleep!

I was averaging maybe three and a half to four and a half hours of sleep a night, and with dance practice also happening on some of those days constantly being on the move it was rather crazy. Then Thursday I went to a music show right after school and then a fanmeeting and then to the radio show, but you can read all about that day in my last post, "General Happenings: 111027". The weekend wasn't any better, waking up at 3:45am to go to the music shows as early as possible, including nearly getting sexually harassed on the train on Sunday, and then being on the move all day long.

I may sound like I'm complaining, but honestly, the weekend and all of last week was really, really amazing. Yes, I was exhausted but I was elated to see Infinite and other groups that I love and all of my fangirl friends nearly every single day. As I said though, I'm making this post not centering around fangirling, so back on track.

Because I wasn't sleeping much at all and constantly on the move, I slimmed down to 49 kilos (around 108 pounds) and managed to catch the cold of death that seems to have been going around here. I managed to avoid it up until now, but I think my body at this point gave in. I actually felt okay Monday morning when I went in to school, and even if I hadn't I would have gone anyway because we had our first midterm that day.

But then a bit more than half way through the day I started feeling 100% miserable and feverish and sort of faint. It got to the point where I did actually faint and my classmates and teacher insisted on me going to the hospital or pharmacy even though I told them I was fine. Thank goodness medical care here is so cheap... The youngest guy in our class, Pengcheng, was designated with taking me around to get stuff because they didn't want me to faint again. Went to the pharmacy and they gave me basic cold meds and then he paid for a taxi for me to get home. So nice...

Spent the rest of that day feeling sort of sick before I made myself go and try to get into a less time-intensive music program that one member of Infinite takes part in. We ended up not being able to get in because all of the people who had gotten tickets online showed up so the studio was full. Headed home, went to bed and slept a total of 13 hours. I will let you know now, Korean medicine is strong because it really knocked me out. The next day I went and continued to do midterms like normal.

We had two speaking midterms (one an interview with the teacher, another a scene you had to make and memorize with a partner which is the part I missed after fainting), a reading midterm, a writing midterm, and a listening midterm. I was fairly confident about all of them. Each of the tests were out of 100, except for the speaking ones where the interview was out of 80 and the scene which was out of 20... which together is 100 anyway, but you get the point. I was fairly confident about all of them, except for maybe the interview since I felt like I hadn't used as much of the grammar we've used as I should.

Today we got our results back on all of the tests! It turns out that I had completely missed a page of the reading test... Even though I had checked through once I was done. So I'm sort of hitting myself for that. Other than the missed page I didn't get a single question wrong, so I still got 76. Would I have gotten 100 if I hadn't missed it? Nobody knows...

Then we got our listening test back, and except for one tiny little mistake worth half of a point I got all of them right, so I ended up with a 99.5. So close... so so close. Needless to say I got the highest score in the class on that one.

Writing was next, and I managed to get 95.6... all missed on silly little mistakes. I'm pretty sure I had the highest score in the class again, though this one it's not something I can be so sure about. I definitely was right near the top, though.

Last but not least was the dreaded speaking. The first thing the teacher had to say for me when I went up was that I speak Korean (accent and speed wise) much better than most Western foreigners, even in the same level. Didn't have any mistakes to point out about the interview, just that I needed to use more of the grammar we had learned. Saw that one coming... In the interview I got 73.5 out of 80. From what she had seen of me and my partner practicing for our scene she gave me 13 out of 20. So overall on speaking I got 86.5.

I still have finals to look forward to. Hopefully I can manage to not get sick for finals and get close to 100 on all of them and keep my participation points (= homework, taking part in class, pronunciation in class, etc. worth 20% of the overall grade) up so I can have a shot at getting a scholarship for the next term. Since things have to be paid for the next term before finals happen this term, I'm guessing it'd just be a refund of the money I would earn? No way to tell. But that would be a great surprise.

And! I have finally taken pictures of my room now that I have cleaned it to show all of you. Now, my idea of 'clean' and how clean a room of this size can get with all of my stuff is relative. But it at least doesn't look like a pigsty. First though is the good view out of my window. I'm in the corner room of a corner building on the third floor, but down the other street I can see down there are trees blocking most of the lights so I can't get a decent picture. It's a weeknight, so the streets are relatively empty, but I can smell the food cooking at the several barbecue restaurants in the area... Smells so good... but it's so expensive, haha.

Next is my desk/table. Because of the awkward shape of my room, despite it being one of the larger ones here I don't have space for a chair so the bottom end of my bed is my desk chair. It must be bad for my back, but it's comfortable and convenient. You can spot the yellow rice bowl I was eating my dinner of rice and kimchi (which I actually have managed to get used to somewhat) out of. Usually I eat more for dinner but I didn't feel like going out, plus I had spent a bit extra on lunch today. The window there isn't the window I took the earlier picture out of, because all you can see from there is the field of the elementary school right nearby. And then the open sort of cabinet that doesn't have a door in the middle is my food storage place. I do have a fridge, but that's where my cereal and snacks go.

As you can probably see on my desk, on the far left I have a little corner crammed full of stuff. It is all the stuff I use often enough to warrant just leaving it out instead of finding some place to store it. But it is organized some! At least after I cleaned my room today... My camera, stationary, make-up (= BB Cream), my pencil bag, and various electronic cords and wires. You also can see the cute mug I just bought today. We are able to use the ones here, but I sort of wanted one I could call my own. It says "yummy Doughnut it's time to enjoy it!" Oh Engrish.

This next picture is the awkward corner where my bed doesn't really fit in... So a bookshelf/storage shelf with a custom made top thing is crammed into it. The top shelf is all of my CDs. I currently have at least one copy of every single one of Infinite's CDs, two of the repackaged album with one of them signed, two B1A4 "it B1A4" CDs, three U-Kiss "The 2nd Album Neverland" CDs with two of them signed, and one of each of Boyfriend's CDs. I just bought those last two yesterday and today respectively, one because I wanted it and it was cheap (8500 won!) and the other that was still freakishly cheap (9900 won) and it's my entry for possibly getting into their fansigning this weekend. The middle shelf is my Inkigayo magazines and then my Infinite lightsticks. The bottom shelf, which you can't see, is stuff that I just don't use like my American phone and the spare attachments to my power converter. On the top i have my cereal bowl and a tray, medicine, contacts, and my alarm clock.

Right next to my bed is where my suitcases, trashcan and bags in general are. I keep my music show blanket folded on top of my big suitcase, though often other stuff gets thrown there as well. 

And now, my bed! It's a lot bigger than beds I've seen in other friend's gosiwon rooms so far, so I'm happy. I've even gotten used to having super firm beds here. When I first got here it was hard to sleep because of how firm it was, but now it's just normal.

And now, for the wall that's across from my bed... Of course it's dedicated to my Infintie posters! I have other posters (B1A4, a spare Infinite Ediq poster, U-Kiss, etc) that I don't have up, mainly because my tape is not the best and I literally have to retape these three every couple of days. It doesn't tear up my posters, which is good, but it just doesn't stick well. If I had to do that with like eight posters... I would die.

And that is my room! Yay~. Maybe at some point I'll make a post about my school and things around there.