jet lag (aka winter break, phase 1)

the first 1/3 of my winter break is now over. tomorrow i will head to seoul and then i'll be off to Hanoi, Ha Long Bay, Kuala Lumpur, and Bali for 2 weeks! it's gonna be soo hot! which sounds exciting at first, but honestly, after being in korea for the last few months, i think i'm gonna melt haha. (as i write, jinju is 23 degrees while seoul is a straight 0...).

but anyway, here are some highlights from phase 1 of my winter break:

-prepared the most xmas presents in my life! (and these aren't even all of them!) i wrote merry christmas in korean on those pastry things to give to the teachers i like but am not close enough with to give a bigger gift.

-spent christmas eve at Club NB with 2PM who, of course, encored with heartbeat (the last clip in my school festival video).

-went to the war memorial where a portrait of the great battle of jinju exists
-finally took a pic with my ad, which can be seen throughout seoul
-went to Urbana in St. Louis. which was amazing! my main reason for going was to try and figure out the next steps in life and some options definitely arose so that was sweet.

-being at urbana also meant getting to kick it with kyle, emily, and damata. not to mention also getting to be in chris harry's bible study with hundreds of other people. and sharing a room with kenny wong and jon liu.

-spent new years eve worshiping with 17,000 people at urbana

-hit up the gateway arch in STL

-shot a shotgun though i failed to hit anything, which was a little bruising to my ego, i'm not gonna lie. i'm usually pretty good at shooting games. ahh well..

-went home to LA, which meant going to the beach! twice! (pics taken from tiff) where some of the boys (anton "studied," though he made up the exercise by running to the factories or wherever he went, crazy kid) participated in the great Manhattan Beach Triathlon, which consisted of push-ups (winner: me), sprinting (winner: tay), and yoga (winner: yang). yang came in last in both push-ups and the sprint, yet outlasted everyone at yoga by like 10 min lol

seriously... how is this possible in january? i love this place

-then kate and her host-bro came out to LA (after they spent a week in jeff city, missouri). took them to Venice Beach, Beverly Hills, K-Town, and Disneyland. and, maybe more importantly, took um to eat In-n-Out, K-BBQ LA style (with beef and rice paper), and Hawaiian BBQ (Shakas).

these two are so weird. there's no question they're related.

it is a small world after all... smaller than you think, yet somehow bigger at the same time...

-lastly, here's a pic of the cherry of a car that i'm borrowing for the year... ballin!


out: the reason i am calling this phase of my winter break, jet lag is because my sleeping patterns have been soo jacked these last three weeks. my first week in the US, at urbana, i woke up at 7am the first morning, then 3am, 3am, 4am, and then i didn't go to sleep until 4am. and then these last few days back in Korea, i've woken up at 6:30, 7, 4:30. it is now 3am and i'm supposed to wake up in 5 hours to catch a 4-hour bus ride up to seoul. i'm surprised i'm not dead yet.

it's a new year! which means it's time to try to accomplish our goals in life again! and to maybe not give up this time.. man, there is so much to work on!