It's too exciting over here!

Hey, sorry about the big delay between posts. I know I keep saying every other weekend, but I am currently failing at that. I've been keeping really busy with Starcraft matches on weekdays and random activities on weekends. Fortunately, my classes are not big on homework and similar to my home university, they assign term papers and those combined with a midterm and a final will make up my entire grade for the class. I really like it being done that way because I can work on my papers a little at a time instead of just having to crap out a new homework assignment every night while procrastinating on a short essay due at the end of the class. It occurs to me now that I never even got to tell you about my classes, so I'll take care of that in this post. Also, I might start getting a bit more starcraft experience heavy (I'll try not to too much) because we're really trying to keep posts on http://starcraftcrew.tumblr.com/ on the short side so that they're easy to get reblogged.

International Trade Practices:
I like this class despite the fact that it's a little basic. It's the best I could do in terms of getting into econ related courses, so I hope I can get credit for it. At the very least, I am far enough ahead in credits that I can afford to have none of my classes here count towards my major (though I would REALLY like it if I could get that to happen). The professor for this class is kind of silly and has a really thick accent, but either doesn't notice or doesn't care because he just powers through words that he blatantly mispronounces. Every day, we're greeted with a really loud "HERRO EVERYONE." The class as I said is more basic than what I expected from a trade class, but I guess it will work out fine since I know about of the stuff that's we're going to learn.

Politics and Society of North Korea:
This was a class I came across when I was desperately looking for a class to add so that I could have the required 15 credits (I got screwed in registration and ran the risk of getting kicked out if I remained with only 12 credits. Now I'm safely full time at 15 credits). The professor for this class actually lives in Busan (about as far as you can get in Korea from Seoul; it takes about 3 hours on the train) and rides the train up every time there's class (and class is at 9am!). For this reason, he made the class only meet once a week instead of twice (one of the days was a one hour meeting). He suggested we work on our group projects in that time, so my group has gladly begun to do that. The class looks like it will be really interesting.

Philosophy in East Asian Literature:
This was the only class (besides my language class) that I successfully signed up for during the registration period. I'm always into philosophy courses (it's still my minor), so I know this class will continue to be interesting. Additionally, I think the professor likes me because I'm usually the most attentive person (and I sit in the back (I don't like having my back to a door and I like a wall to lean on)). He's actually a lot like the 'typical philosophy professor' so naturally I get along with him well.

Korean Language:
I was a little disappointed to land in the beginner beginner level because it felt like the hours I spent studying this summer were wasted. To anyone interested, I don't recommend Rosetta Stone. It was not particularly effective for me. We spent the first two weeks of the class learning the alphabet which was hell for me and two other people in the class because the three of us knew the alphabet, but not much else (the reason they just stuck us in beginner). More recently, we've been working on introductions and stuff which has been nice. The guy that knew the alphabet is struggling now, but me and the (Dutch!) girl that knew the alphabet are still finding this class kind of easy. Just last Friday, there were some games between our university and Korea University, our rival school. Everyone wound up skipping classes throughout the day to attend this. I was unable to do so because of a test in my philosophy class, so there were only two people (including myself) in my language class. Because we couldn't learn anything new in the class, we took a look ahead to what we'll be doing at the end of the semester. I now understand it, so I know for sure I will pass the class. I also started going beyond the scope of the class which impressed the teacher. She has actually said I'm a smart student to my face, which was a good way to build up my ego haha. We have two teachers, one does M/W/F and the other does a lot of just reading and pronunciation work with us on T/Th. I call the reading teacher the aegyo teacher because she (somewhat effectively) displays a lot of aegyo. Most of the guys like her better. I actually like the M/W/F teacher better because she's the one that said I was smart ^__^.

YonKo Games:
Each year, Yonsei University and Korea University have a sporting event that covers a weekend in which the two schools compete in Basketball, Baseball, Ice Hockey, Rugby, and Soccer. The main activity during the games though is not watching, but chanting and singing nonstop (literally, there were zero breaks at every game). I learned that the point of the YonKo games are not to see who can win more games, but to see how collectively drunk the student bodies of both schools can get. After the games wrapped up on Saturday, there was a big party on the Yonsei campus at which there was an open bar for two and a half hours until they ran out of beer. An open bar for college students....interesting idea. Needless to say, it was a quiet morning in Shinchon the next day. Unfortunately, I didn't meet any pretty girls at the street party T___T. I did go drinking with my Starcraft friends from Korea University though. I impressed them with my bottle opening ability (that was the first time I've done it in Korea, I'm more worried about hurting myself since I'm not drinking my usual crap-ton of milk each day). They insisted on getting a video of me doing it, so I obliged. I don't know why it's such an impressive feat. I later continued to impress them by chasing beer with soju. Again, something so mundane being found impressive is something that confused me. On the note of beer also, I had a Heineken last night (first time since coming to Korea that I've had non-Korean beer. Heineken is not my favorite Dutch beer (Amstel is) and don't get me wrong; Heineken is good and all, but it's not stellar. But it being my first foreigner beer in so long, it tasted like gold. Korean beer just doesn't stack up. I feel sorry for people here T___T.

My roomate and I have gotten to know each other better. He's actually a pretty cool guy. We're on a comfort level in terms of jokes and information sharing that I'm on with you guys, so it's nice. He's a Ravens fan and I like the Ravens, so we stay up on Sunday nights to watch them play which is also fun. We're going to do that again tonight. It's nice to have a way to watch some football over here, especially since I can then sleep in since I have no class early on Mondays.

I went to the GSL Finals a few weeks ago and it was quite an experience. They had the 10 "all star" players lined up for autographs before the mini tournament. All foreigner fans got instantly moved to preferred spots in the line, then preferred seating, which was really cool. I got autographs from several players and got to chat with a couple too. I joked around with Jinro from TeamLiquid and found out he's actually a pretty nice guy. Also, interacting with BoxeR was quite amazing. When we went in to actually get our seats, we were placed in the third row. There were only press and family members in front of us. When the finals started, team IM sat in the section next to us. My friend was on the aisle and across from him (across the aisle) was NesTea himself. It was pretty cool and the finals were really great TvT.

A couple weeks later, I went to the OSL Finals with my BroodWar friends and some guys I met online from TeamLiquid.net. It was a cool enough experience and the guys from TL were nice, but a few of them really wanted to get absolutely drunk during the matches. I didn't have any interest in doing that because I came to watch BroodWar (they didn't really know anything about it). I've actually found that being a white guy that likes BroodWar, I'm a dying breed. The finals were absolutely amazing and way more intense than the GSL Finals. I was glad I got to go to this because there might never be an OSL again unless the BroodWar scene can find a way to survive in the troubling times it is going through.

General Starcraft viewing is going well too. I found out that Moletrap (english SC2 caster) likes BroodWar and I've run into him at some events, so I've gotten to talk to him a bit more which has been cool. I'm also glad I met him more because I admittedly didn't really like him when I lived in the states. Now that I've gotten to know him a bit (and this is true with all the code A casters), I really like them. They're cool guys. And I like to think they like having a regular visitor to the studios that actually kind of knows his stuff. Most people just pop in once and want autographs and pictures and we never see them again. Can't blame people for being like that though, I was there in my first week. Some players and coaches are recognizing me too, probably since I stand out in a crowd and I'm there quite literally every day. Watching BroodWar has been fun too because I hang out with people that really know the game, so it's nice to have someone that can help me to spell it out. In the semifinals match, I attended with my friend that teaches here. The match actually happened to be on the same day as the birthday of my favorite BW streamer on TeamLiquid (and he's my only way of watching BW matches live back home) so I wished him happy birthday on TeamLiquid and said I would get a sign on stream for him. I wound up actually getting it on the stream much to my surprise. And during each match in the OSL, the winners of the day will autograph a keyboard bag after they win. The bag is then given to the person with the best sign at the end of the day. There was just one winner today, but I got the bag. And it was Jangbi's autograph (current OSL champion), so even better! I was going to buy a keyboard bag while I was here, but not now that I got that sweet one. I was really happy.

In other news, stuff is going pretty well here. I'm really liking it. I of course miss talking to everyone more regularly than I currently do and not having game night kind of sucks, but I can replace it pretty easily with stuff here, so that is always fine. No girlfriend yet, but who knows, maybe one will come someday soon. It took a trip to Korea to learn how badly I actually had 'yellow fever' >___>. So before I sign off for this post, I'll leave you with the short list of things I really wish I had brought.

1: Compass:
I still have trouble finding north sometimes due to cloudiness or  tall buildings preventing me from determining the location of the sun. When I can actually see it, I always know which way I am facing, but sometimes it is just not possible. And the worst part is that (like all things in this list), I had a compass in my hand all ready to pack, but I wound up deciding not to bring it at the last minute.

2: PokeWalker:
With this, I figured I wouldn't be walking very much and I didn't want to risk losing it. Turns out I would likely have not lost it, plus I'm walking at least 2-3 miles each day (then running a mile every other day to stay in shape for frisbee) so having that PokeWalker would have really come in handy since I'm just grinding my pokemon up to higher levels in my free time (when my internet dies randomly).

3: A frisbee:
I jokingly said when I was packing that if I couldn't find a frisbee on a college campus, then it wasn't meant for me to play frisbee while I was here. I of course thought I would have no problem finding one in a store. Turns out I was dead wrong and they're super hard to find. I spent 6 hours today looking for one and about 3 hours last Thursday doing the same thing. I'm going to have to give up and order one online because I need to be throwing so that I am tournament ready when I get back to the states. At the very least, the running is helping me a bit. I also play soccer with the Germans occasionally, which is a good way to keep some coordination up I guess.

Ok well thats it for now. Until next time, peace out!

Your eyes do not deceive you! It is an update!

Hello everyone! I totally spaced on updating last weekend. I'll try to be better about it in the future. It's been a really cramped few weeks and I'm starting to get more and more free time as we go into the actual semester. This post will probably run long, so I'll be keeping all Starcraft related posts short for the time being. I recommend you check out http://starcraftcrew.tumblr.com/ if you want to read about my Starcraft related adventures. Keir and Peter also work on the site, so to tell if I made a post, just find out whether it pertains to Korean leagues or not. If it does, then it is one of my posts. In the future, I'm going to start tagging posts with my name to let people know who made it. And again, I apologize if I'm late on posting in the future (going to try for every other Sunday/Monday), but it may be due to having written too much for that site or just a busy schedule. I'm working hard to try to fill the tumblr blog with as many important news posts as possible in the hopes that it will someday grow big and strong. And since I'm the only one posting about all the things in Korea, I've been pretty much constantly writing posts and getting a huge backlog of them saved up because I don't want to just spam a ton of posts to that site in one day. But I've spoken enough about that, time for a post here!

My plane ride over was nice. As I hate being jetlagged, I made the decision to not sleep the night before flying so that I would wind up having been awake for about 20 hours before hopefully crashing that night and getting a good night's sleep and quickly adjusting to the local time. This staying up idea turned out to be especially great because I was able to get through 13 hours of flying without having to use any electronics or other entertainment items I had brought along. I remember nothing from the SEA to SFO leg because I was asleep before we took off and woke up after we landed. The two guys next to me seemed to have done the same thing, so good thing I [probably] didn't prevent them from using the bathroom. For my SFO to Incheon flight, I sat next to a guy who is an English teacher over here. We wound up talking about Korea related stuff (what I could expect to encounter and whether it was a good experience to teach over here) for about 3 hours of the 11 hour flight. The other 8 hours of the flight were spent sleeping. I was pretty happy with myself. When I landed, I was wide awake and was worried that my sleep plan had failed, but it did eventually work out. There was one girl on my flight from the CIEE group and we had spoken via facebook before the flight, so she waited for me at the exit to the jetway and we went through customs and got our bags together to prevent ourselves from getting too lost. From there, we proceeded to go to the meetup location for the CIEE group. We met the program director there and her (pretty) assistant. Spoiler alert, I wound up asking the assistant out recently, more on that later. After meeting them, we waited for about 3 other people to show up, then we got shuttled off to the university where we ate dinner and all went to bed.

Some names really quick:
Katherine - The girl on the flight, I think of her as kind of a little sister (independently of the coincidence that her name is the same as my actual sister). We don't hang out much anymore, but early on in the program, we did.
Gary - Nerdy guy, but once he starts drinking, he is a party animal. He's pretty cool and good to hang out with, but I've been hanging out with him less and less as he makes more acquaintances.
Peter, Matt, and Chang - I hung out with them a lot during the couple of weeks that we were with the group. They are fully aware of my Starcraft activities and plan to come to one game with me in the future. They're really cool, but they like to go out drinking whereas I like to watch Starcraft. I'll still go places with them occasionally though.
Boram - The assistant director for the program here. I like talking with her and hopefully I'll get to do more of that as the semester progresses.

By the following morning, the group had all arrived. I was surprised to see the ratio of guys to girls in the group (23 girls and 6 guys). We had an orientation thing, then got assigned to 6 groups (one guy per group as it turned out) and were given a photo scavenger hunt throughout the city. Once I learned it was a competition, I really wanted to win. Fortunately, the girls in my group also wanted to win, so we worked hard all afternoon. Other teams took a break for dinner, but ours did not and as a result, we wound up winning. We didn't even have anyone that was really fluent in Korean, but between a girl that knew some Korean and my ability to read Hangul, it worked out really well.

The rest of the week was pretty normal, containing just some minor events like learning locations of important places. On Friday, we left for our three day excursion to the southern part of the country accompanied by a guy who is an expert on Korean history and knows a lot about the land in the southern provinces. He was kind of weird at first, but was really cool after I got to know him. At lunch, people were kind of sick of him after his hour and a half lecture about Korean philosophical history that took place on the bus ride. As everyone was sitting down at tables, I noticed he was alone while all the others were filling up. I decided I would leave my seat to go sit across from him because I felt pretty bad. Boram wound up sitting next to me, so I must have earned some good karma for that to happen. I got to talking to him (his name was David as well) and I found out that we have pretty identical taste in music (he was a hippie) and he is also an Eagle Scout, so that was pretty cool. I gained a lot of respect for him after the conversation during that meal.

That night, we stopped in a small town to stay at a traditional Korean home (where you sleep on the floor and all that (oh, it's great for your back, I'm sure (not))). Everyone went out to eat, but the group got kind of split in two because no restaurant could hold all 29 of us. The staff people went their own way and I don't really know where they ate. The people that I went with went to a Korean BBQ place which was pretty amazing. We decided this would be our big party night, so we all got a lot of alcohol. Knowing that I could handle a lot of Tequila (I learned that lesson after not reaching my limit after 7 shots and 2 beers over the course of 2 hours earlier this summer), I decided I would try to see how much soju I could have. By the end of the night, I wound up having 2.5-3 bottles of soju on my own. Soju is considered hard alcohol in case you're wondering, so yes, that is a lot. There was some lame truth and dare stuff that I didn't really partake in, but it was funny to watch. I didn't actually get drunk until I blacked out. I felt fine, but then at one point, I remember looking at my bed and thinking "Man, I'm really tired." Next thing I know, I'm waking up in that bed. Apparently, I only blacked out for about 5 minutes before falling asleep, so I guess that worked out. All that happened was I stubbed my toe, a girl asked if I was okay, I said yes and apologized for being drunk, then I proceeded to lie down and go to sleep. Being drunk is an excellent way to fall asleep on a hardwood floor! When I woke up the following morning, a ton of people were hung over, but I felt pretty great actually. Everything wasn't super bright and I had no headache, so I don't know what to make of that.

The second day, we went around the southern part of the country looking at buddhist temples and other cool historical stuff like that. At our traditional hotel for the night, we found out that they got MBCGame on the tvs, so the guys room wound up watching that for a while. Later into the night, we went downstairs to the small scale PC Bang that was there to play some Broodwar. I challenged 4 of the other guys to a 1v4 since they really wanted to play on Fastest Map. Two had never really played before, but two of them had. The worst part was that I totally should have won. If I had stayed in my base for about 30 more seconds, I would have repelled their mass attack and I would have been free to move out. Instead, I was impatient and my forces were all the way across the map when I got attacked. After that, we did a 1v2v2. I killed one guy early on, then the other three allied up against me and I wound up losing. I was playing zerg that time, so I didn't have the chance to go carriers like I did the previous time.

On the third day, we saw some more buddhist temples on our way back into Seoul. We arrived late at night and at that point, I just stuck around the dorm and went to sleep.

Throughout the following week, we just had a mass of orientations: first for our program, then for the university and the dorm we were staying in. It was a lot of sitting and listening, but I was able to find time at nights to go to see Starcraft every night. I've become a regular there and I'm starting to even get recognized by some Korean players and coaches (I mean, I have to stand out being one of the few white guys they see on a daily basis). I've also made some good friends through these matches which has been really fun because it makes the games a lot more interesting. I can't hear English casters (and there are none for BroodWar matches), so having someone to talk to is nice. If you've seen my facebook, you know that I've been meeting players left and right, it's been really cool. I've been finding new players to become a fan of and it's been really nice. I've also liked getting back into the BroodWar scene too, I had really missed it.

So less has been happening recently because classes were starting this last week. We did make it out to the DMZ which was pretty interesting. It was a full day, but we got to see into North Korea, we got to see tunnels they dug, and other cool touristy locations. During the trip, we asked Boram if she wanted to come out clubbing with us one night and it was eventually decided on a Friday night. Weekday nights are nights that I go watch SC and Fridays are BW match days, so I was a little bummed, but I was excited to get to hang out with her, even if it was also with a bunch of other guys and some girls too. I found out we were going to meet her in a part of town that is near the GOM studio, so I figured I had time to be over there to watch those matches instead of BW. Then, I got a better idea and asked Boram if she wanted to go get dinner with me before we met up with everyone. She said yes, so that was pretty exciting. Unfortunately, plans fell apart and the hangout never wound up happening. It turned out she had something come up, so she wasn't able to get dinner with me either (T___T). She apologized, and it was fine. Secretly, I was kind of happy because I got in touch with her on my way to the subway, so I hopped on one going the opposite direction and got to see the BW I had thought I would have to miss. She also said that we'll have to hang out later in the semester, so there is still hope.

Today, I had my preliminary games for Code A. There was of course no chance at me getting into Code A, but a couple friends and I figured it would be a fun chance to maybe get to play some pros. My friends went yesterday and didn't do so well against their opponents. To make it worse, the opponents weren't really big games. Moletrap and the other commentators offered to stream their games for fun, but it turned out BoxeR was playing at the same time, so that didn't wind up happening. I thought there was going to be a chance for me today, but I had an early match and the commentators weren't there yet. Oh well. I wound up playing Startale.Squirtle who is actually a really good player and a former Code A member. When he said his name in the chat, the first thing that came to mind was "Oh thank God, a Protoss!" TvP is my strongest matchup, so I was happy to give Squirtle the best games I possibly could. He was really friendly and didn't roll me too insanely hard and it was a fun experience to play him. Afterwards, I asked where he was sitting so I could congratulate him and I did that. He seemed kind of surprised that I offered to do it, I guess it's not that common of a thing to do. I got to meet quite a few pro players today and it was nice to have played Squirtle because I could just tell them I got beaten by him and nobody would have to ask how skilled I actually am at Starcraft. They know Squirtle is a good player and should beat me regardless of my ladder ranking. One last fun note, I got a lot of attention from some spectators. I'm not sure whether it was due to me being white or due to me playing southpaw. It was probably a combination of the two.

Oh, but I forgot! I got to see BoxeR play! Usually, when he plays (be it at MLG, GSL, or whatever) he is instantly upgraded to showmatch status and is put in one of those booths. He was in the later stages of the tournament, so nobody was really around and I was able to stand behind him with SlayerS_Jessica, SlayerS_MMA, and a couple other random people. I know it sounds kind of mundane, but to actually stand behind BoxeR while he's playing in a tournament is probably a once in a lifetime experience and it was totally cool. He lost unfortunately, but maybe next time I'll get to see him rack up some wins.

That's all I can really think of to post for now. My classes aren't 100% locked in yet, so I'm going to refrain from posting about them until that is taken care of. Until next time, peace out.