잘 해

My hair straightener broke. It is a tragedy for a number of reasons: 1) now that the weather is humid, I actually need it, or else I look like an elderly woman who just went in for a perm, in the worst possible way, and 2) I only bought that thing a few months ago, and I expressly bought the second-cheapest straightener instead of the cheapest straightener in order to prevent something like this from happening. But on Wednesday I woke up and it simply didn't turn on any more.

I got pretty bummed out thinking about shelling out $20 for a new one (when the one I have is basically still new), but then my roommate said that she spent $120 on the one she has now, so I don't feel so bad any more. Then again, her hair is like a luscious waterfall of thick swishy beauty, so there's really no comparison.

I am not sure about my world literature class. I like it but the teacher isn't very committed to teaching. A lot of the students don't do the reading because they don't have to (no quizzes or anything), and the class is run on a "who wants to talk?" basis. Today he let us out 50 minutes early because only a few people had finished the book we were supposed to have read. It doesn't make any sense. If you want your students to read the books, you have to make it really cost them if they don't. Instead of rewarding slackers. It's a fun class and everything, but I can't help but think he doesn't actually care. It's frustrating.

Speaking of school though, this sounds bad but I saw a clip the other day of Taemin and Onew talking about how they were both the #2 best students at their respective high schools despite being trainees all that time and working themselves to death for SM (who notoriously treat all their trainees like crap). Having just received a completely surprising C average progress report in my history class, the one class that I was sure I was acing, it made me think about my attitude towards school and how right now it's basically the most important thing I could be doing. I don't even have anything else going on and yet I still treat school like it's not the biggest deal in my life, like a chore that I only have to try just enough to get an A and no more. Well that's worked for me in the past but I don't think it's working any more. The truth is that in the hierarchy of Things That Are Important to Me, school honestly ranks below things like having fun and studying Korean. Which is kind of wrong. It also makes me feel ungrateful since basically it's the hugest privilege to be in college and actually have the opportunity to study my eyes out. Right now, I'm actually forced to study my eyes out in order to make up and end up with alright grades at the end of the semester just because I've spent so much time until now messing around doing other things, but next semester I really need to start out with the mentality that I have to go strong from beginning to end so I can actually have something to show for having such an awesome opportunity and not end up at graduation with a "due tomorrow? do tomorrow" work ethic. I feel like that could really have bad repercussions in my life. So here's to actually doing work to the best of my abilities before it's absolutely urgent.

That's one thing that I find cool about Korean common phrases; so many of them are encouragements to the betterment of humanity. Like how in America some people say "take care" as a sort of farewell, but in Korea they use "수고하세요", which means "work hard". If I could only point out one good thing about Korean culture, it would be their commitment to raising a nation that's sustainable because in their eyes you're never too high-class to work hard and do well.

So how is your translation going? It's good that you picked out the 국 clue. The thing about 국 is that it doesn't necessarily mean a specific country. It's more like nationality. In the case of this sentence, 외국인 isn't referring to an actual place, it's more like a group. A group of places. Or people. Yeah. I mean, you can just go look it up. It's not like you're forbidden to use the dictionary.

Here is the video that I was talking about earlier that someone showed in my Literature for Adolescents class. I didn't know it was TVXQ until afterwards when someone mentioned the name, and I was like "WHAT?!" I think it's the only song they ever did that was remotely like that, with the hair and the outfits and everything. I liked it in a weird way. I mean, it hurt a little, but I liked it. I think it was made in 2004, so they're all really little and gosh it's just so weird. But I like TRAX so it was cool to see the collab. I guess. I don't know. I have super mixed feelings. WHAT IS GOING ON WITH THEIR HAIR? That is the burning question for me right now.

-Amy