Things That Have Been On My Mind Lately

WARNING: DANGEROUSLY LONG BLOG ENTRY AHEAD. PROCEED WITH CAUTION!

1. Sometimes I wish people would ask me how I'm doing. Yes, there are a couple people in particular that do ask me how my day is, but then there's those that either a. do and then go onto stories about themselves or b. just (almost) completely ignore me and go straight to them. I know I'm a pretty good listener and all and I really do love listening to people talk about their lives. I guess it's just how I am; I listen to their problems and it makes me want to try and help them fix their lives. But sometimes that's tiring. Sometimes, I want to be completely selfish and talk about myself and my life and my problems. I want to have someone who listens and truly cares, a lot like I do for people.

Yes, I do talk to God about my life and everything, but it's difficult not getting immediate feedback. My life wasn't meant to be lived alone. But I do feel alone. Plus, I always feel bad whenever I talk about myself and I degrade my problems to seem as though they're lesser than other people's. I listen to their complaints and their worries and their stresses and I feel like I know a lot about their lives, but what do they know about me? I'm not one to just blurt out what I'm feeling if you ask "How are you?" because 9 times out of 10, no one really wants to know. And if they do want to know, they'll ask questions to really draw it out of me, just like I will almost always do for them. And now, here I am blogging about my problems. What a passive way to get things off of my chest. How selfish blogs are! I still don't understand why I have one except for things like this. And that's no fun, is it? Maybe I don't understand what blogs are for then. But I digress. I guess I just wish that I could know that someone cares and wants to hear about my life as much as I want to hear about theirs. It's tough and lonely.

2. South Korea. Now onto a more positive note:

I want to study abroad in South Korea.

Crazy right? But true.

I've been really looking into it and researching things, even though I would probably go Spring 2013. I never did this when I originally wanted to study abroad in Europe. Maybe it was just too far away, maybe I never really was interested in going (which is probably a lie), I don't really know. But all I know now is that I want to go abroad and study and learn and experience and be immersed and love the whole world.

Since I'm a quarter Japanese, Eastern Asian countries have always interested me, but I always thought it was a bizarre fascination to have, especially since I really don't look Japanese (which always comes as a shock to me: I have blonde hair and pale skin. What part of that doesn't scream Asian?) But anyway, I've always wanted to go, and after watching all these Korean dramas over the summer and really learning more about the culture through those and through my own research, I am all engines go.

I feel like I'll never really have a "reason" to go to Korea when I'm older either. I know countries in Western Europe are in my future; I feel like they're so much more accessible than other places may be, so I'm not really in a huge hurry to go. Japan is a definite must for me, since I do have that Japanese blood, so, again, I know I'll definitely be going someday. But Korea? Who does that? What a random country! But Seoul, the capital, has over 10 million people! I can't just ignore that. They have LG, Samsung, so many science and technological labs, Daewoo, Hyundai, airlines, banks, KBS, K-Pop, and so many other things! That's incredible! And they're not communists like their northern counterpart, they seem to be thriving, and they're slowly increasing their influence in the world.

I have a new found passion in my heart for this place and going there to study and I do believe that God has put that there for a reason. I know I'm not there yet and I don't even know if I'm going to go, but I know that I'll go someday. I feel like all the cards have been falling into place too, so I met with a study abroad adviser, almost on a whim because they had open appointment times, I've been doing all this research, looking into things, telling people I'm going, and all these things that make me feel confident that I will most likely be going. I know that if I don't go, however, that God has a different plan for my life and He ignited that passion there to late become a huge fire so that I know exactly when I will go. Maybe not even Korea, maybe somewhere else. But it's there now, and I'm so excited for the idea that it's reminiscent of when I fell in love with Jesus back in spring. Clearly, there's no comparison to that, but it's pretty amazing anyway. But I'm going to pray hard about it, keep looking into things, convince my parents to help me pay for it, and make sure I fill out the best freaking application ever. With God's power, I will do whatever I can to move this process along. Heck, I might even live there after I graduate, who even knows?

Never in my wildest dreams could I have ever guessed that I would know all of this stuff and be so fascinated by it. I mean, little old me, never been out of the country, wanting to go someplace radically different from the western culture I was raised in. But I want to learn so much. I want to learn Korean. I want to learn the honorifics. I want to have friends from all over the world. I want to experience different cultures. I want to eat foods I've never even dreamed of before. I want to study somewhere else. I want all of these great things from Korea and I know that they can deliver. I'm just so excited about the prospect of going that I research something new every night. It's a good way to use my scholarship (which is definitely a perk, albeit a little lesser) and satisfy my intellectual curiosity, something I thought had died after last semester. I'm so nervous one second and then excited the next and then I have to step back to realize I'm not even started on an application. It's really what's keeping me going, knowing that I have to get good grades to go and finish everything I have left on time.

3. Mathematics. I still think math is really beautiful and I do like certain aspects of it, but I'm getting burnt out and sick of it. I don't want to go to math graduate school, I don't want to be a teacher, I don't want to be a statistician, I don't really want to do anything directly related to math, especially if it's anything like my Real Analysis class (which is completely terrible). I don't care about proofs, I don't care that the rationals are dense numbers, I don't care that an alternating series diverges. I like applications of math more than this stuff (though that's still 'meh' to me), so why am I learning about it? Especially as a required capstone. If they let me choose my capstones, I would not have chosen this class. I don't like pure math, so why are they forcing it upon me? Forcing classes on people can be okay on occasion, but something like this is ridiculous. Maybe I'm just ranting now, but I can honestly say that this class is harming my already low interest in mathematics. And the fact that I only have three more classes to finish my major drives me crazy. I should not be hating my major right now. I should be in love with it, seeing all the great prospects for my future, being excited for graduate school in something semi-related.

But I'm not.

I'm just frustrated and angry at myself for choosing this major and angry at the program for making math majors take 4 capstones while other majors have to take one or two, and I'm upset that I'm not good at math anymore, and scared that I'll just barely pass the rest of my math classes, and worried about how that will affect my future and how this is going to look on my resume, and on and on and on. I feel like breaking down, dropping out, moving away, something! Anything other than math. Blech. It sucks.

But, like I said above in my Korea part, I know I have to keep it up or else all those dreams will be out the window. I just need to pass my classes, keep excellent grades in my other classes, hope that everything will even out, and then I'll be good to go.

So, yeah, that's my life recently. Pretty strange mix of things, yes? I definitely have my ups and downs, but I wouldn't trade it for the world and I know that I'm so blessed to have a life like mine. I know I'm dramatic about this stuff sometimes, but I know that I need to do stuff like blogging to sort through my thoughts and get it off my chest. Besides, I think and learn better when I write stuff down, so I think this could work not only for my own personal benefit, but as a sort of prayer about my life and really showing God the desires and needs of my heart. I hope that makes sense. And sorry it was a freaking long entry. I just have a lot to say.