So Much Good TV - My Current Favorites

So usually I don't really count myself as a TV-watcher.  I normally prefer to watch YouTube videos or read books or surf the internet or watch Asian variety shows via my computer.  But lately I've been finding myself watching more and more TV shows.  Last night it took all I had to restrain myself from trying to catch up on a show so that I could finish a paper (which I did finish, by the way!).  So I thought it'd be appropriate to make a short blog post about the shows I am currently obsessed with.  Here they are, in no particular order!

Yes, I am totally addicted to Game of Thrones!  I had attempted to begin it a few months ago, actually, but never got the chance to actually finish the first season.  But this past summer I finally watched the entirety of the first season, as well as most of the fourth (don't ask why - it's a long story).  There certainly are a few problematic things in this show, but I do my best to ignore it or skip over certain parts if I'm watching on DVD or OnDemand.  Besides that, the plot is totally riveting and the show itself is very, very well done.  The setting, cinematography, and costumes are great.  This currently isn't airing, but the fifth season is supposed to air next spring, so if you haven't watched this show before, I highly recommend taking this winter to catch up on the show!

So with the cheap cable/internet option I purchased with my roommates, we only get a few channels and we don't have OnDemand.  As a result, I have ended up watching things that I don't normally watch at home.  The one I currently adore is Modern Family!  I don't tend to find comedy shows very funny.  But this one is HILARIOUS.  I laugh out loud at every episode.  It is so so enjoyable and really fun to watch on a Saturday evening when I'm relaxing!

If you spend any time at all in the bookworm part of the internet, you have probably heard of Outlander.  It's a brand new show that's based on the bestselling Outlander book series about a woman in the 1940s who time-travels back to 1743 Scotland.  I read the book this summer after hearing so much about the show, and then decided to watch it!  It is so great.  The scenery and cinematography is fantastic, the acting is great, and for some reason I really love hearing Scottish accents.  It's wonderful.  This past weekend they just aired the mid-season finale, so unfortunately we won't have our weekly dose of Outlander until April.  But if you haven't watched it yet, you've got plenty of time to watch the past 8 episodes!

You've probably heard of this show, even if you have never watched it before and even if you don't pay attention to Nickelodeon anymore.  Because you've probably watched or at least heard about the show Avatar: The Last Airbender.  And this is that show's sequel!  It takes places 50 years after the events of A:TLA and there is a new Avatar named Korra.  I feel so ashamed of myself because I realized that Book(season) 4 is about to air, and I haven't even watched the second or third season!  where have I been?  Obviously not in the right place.  Anyway, this show is on Nickelodeon, yes, but it's not just a show for kids.  In fact, I'd say it's more geared toward older people than A:TLA.  So, I'm going to be spending some time catching up on this show, and if you haven't watched it before, I HIGHLY recommend it!

So those are my favorite things on TV right now.  Do any of you watch these shows?  Or do you have any shows you love that you want to recommend?  Let me know!

Thanks for reading!

-Camille

What's Been Going on with Me?

So, it has been quite a while since my last post here, hasn't it?  I would give some excuse like I've been busy, or my computer broke, or something like that, but really the only excuse is that I got stressed and as a result I got lazy.  The last semester of school was pretty hard for me, and I spent most of my time avoiding stress by doing things that were not productive in the slightest.  Then summer came, and I spent most of my summer working.  I barely had a social media presence this summer!  I spent most of my down time reading books (yes I read 14 books this summer, please don't judge me) and I'm just now getting used to my new life back at school.  It's my senior year and I'm making decisions and I'm living in an apartment with my friends for the very first time.  I am feeling a little more optimistic today out of all the days so far, and so I felt compelled to start posting again on this blog.

This time I won't make any promises about updating regularly because I don't want to put any more pressure on myself, but as of now I am hoping to be at least a little more active on my blog.  I actually have things to post about, now that I'm not trapped on campus in a dorm room!

So this post is kind of a life update post.  I'll let you know a little bit about what I've done this summer!

The one awesome thing about my summer job is that it gives me free entry to museums in my city.  So for a fun day out, I took my friends and my parents to the science museum and we got to go to the Disney exhibit!  There were tons of cool artifacts from the Disney archives, including Mary Poppins' bag from the movie!  I love Disney a TON so it was super exciting for me.

I got to be a princess too!

So besides that, I also ate lots of food!  A friend from school came to visit and we pigged out majorly.  Nothing like good Belgian chocolate.

Godiva chocolate is my one true love!

  And of course, I can't go a post without mentioning Asia; my parents got to go to Singapore this summer, and they brought back goodies for me!  Including this special tea:

I've never had jasmine tea before, but I am LOVING this!

They also brought back Korean skincare products they found there (my parents know me well!) but that'll be in another post another time.

I have really become obsessed with tea these days.  I drink it all the time!  For a friend's birthday a couple weeks ago we took her out for tea and I found my new favorite place in the city where I go to school.  There were so many types of tea!  I took tons of pictures of course, but here's just one.

I can't remember what the tea was called, but it was tasty.

So, school has now started.  I'm taking more credits this semester than I ever have before, so it's a little overwhelming.  But I'm going to try my best.  It doesn't hurt that I started off the year by scoring a free root beer float before class the other day!

Root beer floats are just SO delicious~

This has been quite a long post, I think, but I hope the numerous pictures make it a little less boring.  I promise that future posts will be more interesting!  There are a lot of things I want to blog about, it's just finding the time that is the difficult part.

Let me know in the comments how you spent your summer, or what your favorite tasty drink is!

Till next time,
Camille ♥︎

Attempts at Organization!

날씨가 너무 춥다!!

This winter has been so, so, so unbearably cold!  I always say I don't mind the cold, but when I say that, I really mean I don't mind REASONABLE cold.  As in, I'm comfortable up to like 30 degrees (Fahrenheit) or so but once it starts getting in the teens and into single digits... and NEGATIVE temperatures... I'm ready to head into hibernation.  Not to mention the wind chill is always extremely cold and in the place where I go to school, the wind is always blowing!  I think I probably wouldn't mind the extreme temperatures here if I didn't have to walk all over campus every day to get to class.  A couple minutes in the cold is a little bearable.  But 15 minutes?  Welcome to Frostbite City!

Anyway, besides the extreme winter we've been having, I haven't been keeping up with this blog at all.  I didn't necessarily have writer's block, but it's more like I had so many ideas but I wasn't sure how to execute them.  Have I mentioned I'm a perfectionist?  People, for some reason, always seem to think that perfectionists are super organized, on top of everything, good students, etc.  That is not really the case, actually.  Perfectionists can be Ultra Procrastinators because we get so concerned about doing things perfectly that we won't let ourselves do things!  So because I have no confidence in my writing skills (despite having been writing for fun my whole entire life) it's hard to get myself to open up Blogger and start typing a post because I know I won't be able to write it exactly as I would want it to be written.  But that's something I need to work on.  This procrastination thing really hinders me not only with blogging but also basic life things, like essays for school, job applications, and even eating dinner!

But now that I'm actually sitting and writing, it's flowing a little easier.  I'm in a quiet room in the language building waiting for my Korean class to start in about 40 minutes, so I'm feeling particularly productive.

I decided that to get myself to blog, I need to make a plan.  Like, plan out blog posts so that when I sit down to write I have something to work with so that I'm not stressing out about what to write.  So I decided that for my new few posts, I'm going to do a little series.

For the past few weeks I've been feeling especially homesick (if that's even the appropriate word to use in this situation) for Seoul!  I miss Seoul so, so much.  Even the smallest things will remind me about it.  I got a free green tea latte at Starbucks the other day and that triggered a bunch of memories of going to cafes with my friends in Seoul.

The extremely tasty green tea latte I had at a cafe in the National Museum of Korea!

 So, the little series is going to be:

Things I Miss About Seoul

I figured this would be nice because not only can I go down memory lane and share about my experiences in Korea, but it could also be helpful for people who are planning to visit Seoul and want to know about things to do.  The posts will have many more pictures than I've been posting so far.  I'm really excited to start posting about that and I hope everyone enjoys it!

Anyway, that's all for now.  Korean class starts in about a half hour, but my laptop battery is dying so I should put it to sleep.

For all you students, how do you like to spend your time between classes?  Are you productive and do homework or are you like me, and surf the internet and text your friends?

Thanks for reading!

~Camille ♥

I May Be a Little Obsessed

As my friends who I met in Korea (and my family) could tell you: while I was in Korea I developed the hugest obsession with Korean cosmetics.  To convince you of this, let me share just a small fraction of the buying frenzy I went on during those four months.

And these three bags were from ONE day of shopping (possibly in Myeongdong, although I couldn't tell you specifically seeing as I did so much shopping that all of the shopping outings have blurred together in my memory).

Before going to Korea, I started to read a little bit about Korean cosmetics, specifically BB cream (which you have probably heard of as it has recently become popular in the west) and since BB cream originated in Asia, I was super excited to purchase a real Korean BB cream while I was in Korea.  However, upon stepping into a cosmetics shop in Korea for the very first time (it was a Nature Republic in Myeongdong, I remember THAT part clearly at least) I could tell I was in trouble.  I dragged my friends into the store with me for the sole purpose of buying BB cream but I actually walked out of the store with this:

Not only did I have that, but the salesperson (a very kind girl who spoke English well and latched onto my friends and I as soon as we came into the store) convinced me to purchase CC cream, which is a newer fad.  (I don't particularly like CC cream as much as its predecessor, but that's a conversation for another blog post.)  Salespeople in Korean beauty stores can really make every product sound amazing, even if they're speaking in Korean and you can't understand every word they are saying.  It's dangerous for an easily swayed consumer like me!!

And so began my adventures with Korean cosmetics.  After that adventure, I spent lots of time reading blog posts and watching Youtube videos about various Korean cosmetic products and, of course, I always decided that I simply MUST get this or that product.  I'm sure people who know me thought I would phase out of my love for makeup and skincare after coming back to the U.S., but I am definitely just as interested as I was while I was in Korea.  Of course, the only problem is that now I have to order most Korean products online, where it costs significantly more and takes longer for me to get it!

All of this is just to give a little introduction to a topic I will be blogging about very often.  I have sooo many Korean cosmetics that I want to share about!  Such as my beloved Pore Clarifying Toner from Missha (I must confess I am in a marriage with this product; since I began using it I refuse to use any other toner and I'm actually halfway done with the bottle... MUST PURCHASE MORE!!) and this amazing Laneige moisturizer that I've been testing out this week.  So, besides normal blog posts about my exceedingly average and moderately stressful life, I'll also make lots of posts about beauty products.

I know it's been forever since I made a blog post!  I honestly have so many ideas for posts but I've been really stressed out and busy with school and life in general and most of my writing energy has been put into writing for school (and in November, my novel for National Novel Writing Month!).  Thankfully, I'm heading home for winter break next Tuesday night and with no schoolwork to worry about I will have plenty of time to blog!  Woohoo!

But for now, time to prepare for the dreaded finals.  Can you hear the dirge playing in the background?

Thanks for reading, and good luck to anyone who, like me, has finals coming up!

-♥Camille

대학원에 갈지 말지 고민이다 or, I Have No Idea What I'm Doing

The title in Korean actually translates to, "I'm worried about whether I should go to grad school or not," but I think the English title is a more accurate representation of my mental state right now.  Currently in my Korean language class, we are learning that grammar point of talking about anxiety and concerns and I feel that it is eerily appropriate for my life right now.

In all honesty, it has been a very long week (or rather, past few weeks) for me.  But I'm not going to get into the details of multiple midterm exams/essays/projects and extremely limited free time, although I could definitely go on for paragraphs and paragraphs about that stress.  Instead, I wanted to blog a little bit about what I've been thinking about lately in regards to my future.

Last week I was thinking about the ideas I've been tossing around about what to do after graduating and I remembered my mom suggesting grad school in Korea.  Of course I had always thought this was out of the question. "Grad school is expensive! What would I even go to grad school for? What good would going to grad school in Korea do for me?" are some things that I always thought about.  But as I was reading more about teaching in Korea (and China, for that matter, as China is one of my post-graduation options) the more I thought that maybe it's not exactly what I would want to be doing right after leaving school.  I mean yes, I would like having a job immediately after graduating so that I can pay off these ridiculous student loans, and it would be nice to not have to find an apartment on my own in Korea, but there are a number of aspects to full-time teaching there that are sort of off-putting.  And in the end, teaching is not the job I hope to have in the end and so I would like to spend more time in Korea making connections and building up my resume to make me more competitive in the Korean job market (as it's very difficult for foreigners to get non-teaching jobs in Korea due to the market being very competitive already just amongst Koreans).

Because of all this, I decided to start looking up information about graduate school in Korea, just for fun.  But I started to realize that grad school in Korea is MUCH cheaper than American grad school.  For instance, at Seoul National University, the tuition for the program I would like to study in is just under $3000 US!  Besides school fees being cheaper there, I realized that there are many scholarships specifically for foreign students that cover all the school fees.  There are even a number of scholarships that cover all the school fees AND give a monthly living stipend of around $800 US.  Apparently, more than 90% of international students who go to graduate school in Korea get scholarships to pay for their studies.  So after realizing that it is actually affordable, I started to take this idea more seriously.

There are so many advantages to going to graduate school in Korea.  First of all, the university life would give me more free time where I could get a part-time job, as well as give me opportunities to get internships that could possibly lead to a job later on!  I have read before that getting internships in Korea is much easier if you already live there, especially as a student.  On top of all that, I'd end up with a master's degree, which looks pretty good on my resume, even if I were to move back to the U.S. for some reason and look for a job there.  Really the advantages to going this route after graduation are just so great.  Of course, there are a few kinks I would have to work out. For instance, most grad school programs for topics I want to study aren't guaranteed to be taught in English, so I would have to get a very high level on the TOPIK (Test of Proficiency in Korean).  That means much more rigorous language study on my part!  There are programs taught in English, but they are international relations programs for the most part, which I am not sure I would be interested in.  There is also the option of simply taking Korean courses there, which would be nice if my Korean ends up not being proficient enough, but I think a master's degree would be more beneficial in the long run.

So basically, that's what I'm thinking about now.  I know there's still a year until I'm very close to graduation, but I think for things like this I should start thinking about it now, so that I'm not stressed out and rushed later on trying to figure out what to do after I graduate.  I just think that for now I should work harder on practicing my Korean to become proficient.  I should also focus on keeping my grades up, so that it would be possible for me to get into these grad school programs and get scholarships!

This was a very long, very boring post, I know.  But I thought it'd be nice to write a little bit about this so I could work out my thoughts.  My upcoming posts will be more focused on fashion & beauty!  I'm compiling a post about my purchases in Korea, and I also recently bought some beauty items from Yesstyle.com (I've recently becoming obsessed with that website!) and I'll be reviewing them soon after I've used them more.

Thank you for reading, and have a great weekend!
-♥ Camille