If God Made You Kindly

If God made you kindly, then kind you should be.

Delicate face dripping lightly with grace,

trim arms and legs frame an hourglass waist.

No bumps or wrinkles, skin smoother than glass,

slightly inhuman, chiseled art of the past.

Formed with such kindness, so repayment should be.

Or wanting for nothing, no suffering or pain.

Veins rush with luck; what you want falls like rain.

Fortune and glory and love and respect,

ooze from your soul, take from life all regret.

Creation most generous, the kindest God can be.

Or thinking and wondering, curious and smart,

creative and loving, the world at your heart.

Easy to grasp and fast to learn,

gazed at in awe, have what all others yearn.

Baptized in brightness, but the gift… can you see?

Or lazing about, every whim, every want

can be done without doubt, clothed in envy everyone.

Broke from the shackles, life is green grass and peace.

Truly no hassle, like doves you fly free.

No worries, no cares, touched by God like a king.

Or simply blessed to have opened your eyes,

inhale, exhale, see the sun rise.

Alive in the now, not devoured by rot,

on Earth as a human, not beast, plant, or rock.

A soul in existence, kindness most holy.

Yet all we offer in return for being made

are gripes and greed, death and war, abuse and fear and rage.

Humanity’s no brotherhood, just shameless self-obsession;

stabbed our Father and ourselves, a sorrowless transgression.

Yes, God takes time to make us kindly, but kind we’ll never be.

Gleaming White Lily

Cracked, barren mud layered with dust

Little green bloom in the wasteland rust

Glimmer of hope, but how could it grow

with nothing but tragic loss to know?

Crying, mourning, knowing the fact

that Little Green Bloom will be no more than that

Sweet little angel, tainted by time

Wishing to save you, hoping you’ll be fine

Departing with life, returning in years

Thinking of you, holding back fears

Little Green Bloom that I left back at home

Now Gleaming White Lily, inner strength made you grow

Seoul

Hello, all! It’s me again 😀 I bet you’re all so excited! (not)

Today I would like to share with you my experience in Seoul last June.

I decided to go to South Korea for all of last summer as my last hoorah before I graduated college, and I am so glad I did. The trip there completely changed my life (for the best), and ever since, I’ve never been happier, healthier, or more sure of myself and what I am doing.

Last summer, South Korea became my most favorite place on earth, and I have been itching to go back ever since I got on the plane to come home. Scratch that. I’ve been dying to go back ever since I had about a week left in that country. I honestly didn’t wanna come home. It is such a marvelous place, and I can’t wait to finally bring you on my adventure through it.

Let’s begin with the room I stayed in:

it was literally the size of a shoebox, and I somehow managed to live there for almost a month. With a shared kitchen, shared bathroom, and shared shower. I died a little on the inside. And I actually shared the room with my friend for about two weeks, which turned the shoebox into a matchbox 😦

Ps, I was staying in Hongdae, which is the club/party/college area. So the other guests renting rooms made it very hard to sleep at night due to their drunken capades.

But even though my living situation was quite bleak, the city itself was pretty cool and fun.

I don’t have any pictures of the city skyline or anything like that because, to be honest, I didn’t really see the skyline once. I didn’t make it to Seoul Tower while I was there, so it was impossible to get far enough away from the city to be able to capture it all. Seoul has some MAJOR magnitude, something else that made my time there a bit intimidating — especially my time alone.

It’s hands down the biggest, most crowded city I’ve ever been (NYC has nothing on it). During my week and a half of being alone, I did a lot of wandering around and ended up getting very lost a few times. It wasn’t the best experience, and if you’re not great at navigating swarms of people yelling in a different language, I highly recommend getting a roaming plan so you can use the GPS on your phone. It would have been a great investment.

Now for food, because that’s what people really care about when they’re traveling.

To be honest, while I was in the city by myself, I didn’t really eat anything. Why? Because it’s almost impossible to eat alone in this country. Everything is served family style, which makes you have to go hungry if you don’t have a grocery sore nearby (like me!). I survived on a free bowl of instant ramen that the landlord provided every few days and some crackers I brought with me on the plane. What a life.

But then lovely people came to my rescue, and I actually started having meals:

(Ps here is where the picture size changes cause I’m getting lazy.)

Didn’t mean for that rando pic of me to get thrown in there lol.

But yes, the food was glorious ❤

I won’t tell you what every single thing was, but it was all phenomenal. I literally didn’t have one bad meal this summer. Korea has food down, and you need to eat everything you possibly can if you’re ever there.

Except dog. Omg please don’t eat dog.

Anyway, moving on again, Seoul has a thing for street art, which I found fascinating. I was surprised by how much graffiti was everywhere, but it sort of made the city a little more homey and welcoming.

And finally, here are some pictures (and selfies) of me throughout the city:

That was a lie. It was mostly selfies of me in my shoebox room.

One thing I hated was that I had to wear a mask a lot of the time when I went outside in Seoul. I have terrible outdoor allergies, and the air quality made me practically unable to breathe without a mask. So if you also have bad allergies, be prepared.

And that is all! Seoul was actually my least favorite place in Korea, but it was still pretty fun. There are a couple of places in Seoul I am going to recommend specifically in separate posts, but in general, if you’re in Seoul at all, check anything out. It’s all quite wonderful, and you will have a good time no matter what.

Thanks for reading, and if you’ve also been to Seoul, tell me where your favorite place is. I’m curious for the future when I go back.

Until next time ❤

Aruba

Hi, everyone ❤ It’s me again, after a terribly busy month. And being that it’s the one year anniversary of when I traveled to Aruba, I thought I would share some photos of the trip on here with you.

I remember we left at 5:30 am to fly there, and it was kind of miserable, for obvious reasons (5:30 is not an acceptable time to be awake, uh-uh).

But once we got there, our exhaustion was SO worth it.

We stayed at the Riu Palace, and it was by far the most beautiful hotel I’ve ever been.

I dream about going back, just so I can walk around and feel like a queen again for a week and a half ❤

Speaking of walking around, here is me doing a “bunch” of stuff around the resort:

Yes, that’s a lot of shadow shots. But it captures the vibe of me being active, no?

Here are some angry mirror pictures:

/a failed mirror pic cause I got caught.

And here is my lovely sister and mom ❤

Now you may have noticed, but I’ll say it anyway: The one downfall of this place is that there wasn’t much to do at the resort. Their activities were a little cheesy and very few and far between, which left the only thing to do being laying around/swimming/drinking/eating. And as fun as that is, it’s not enough fun to last you more than a week (or less if you’re me). By the end of the trip, I was very anxious to get home and start doing things again, which gave this resort major minus points in my book.

For example, take a look at the drinking:

All six of us on that trip drank at least three drinks a day. Cause there was literally nothing else to do. They weren’t strong drinks, but still. Not good.

However, I will note that there was a lovely little shopping plaza right across the street that was fun to visit at night:

And I’m just remembering now that I bought something there and have no idea where it is/what it was. I feel like it was jewelry. Now I’m a little sad…

But moving on, here are some pictures of the gorgeous nature on this island. If you’re going to come to Aruba, it should be to see the landscapes. Because they are just phenomenal.

Absolutely gorgeous. The nature was my favorite part of this trip, and I would take a walk every single day just so I could see as much of it as possible.

And finally, we need to talk about the food.

It was NOT that good.

Granted, in resorts like this, especially on an island, the food is never that phenomenal. They have to get a lot of stuff shipped in, it’s expensive, and they end up cutting corners to make it work. The best food was at the Italian restaurant and the breakfast buffet. The room service was also pretty balling. But everything else was below average. So if you’re a foodie and can’t stand a sub-par meal, definitely don’t stay here. You won’t survive.

And that is about all I have to say for Aruba. Will I ever go back? Maybe one day. It was certainly a beautiful place, and this was a gorgeous resort. However, there are other places in the world that I like much better than here and thus would choose to travel back there many times before returning to this happy, little island. I do recommend going asap if you’ve never been there before, though. It’s worth it at least once in your life, especially if you love nature.

Thanks so much for reading. Let me know if you’ve been to Aruba in the comments below. I’m always curious about other people’s experiences.

Until next time ❤

Toronto

Hello, all 🙂

Where is my warm welcome back? There is none?? Because I’ve been away for so long???

I understand, and I deserve it. I’m glad no one reads this little deserted island of internet anymore 😂

Just an update: I’m adding a travel section to this blog, and I’m doing it for two reasons. One, I don’t blog a lot anymore cause I’m always going places now. And two, I love travel just as much as blogging, so it’ll give me an excuse to keep up with this thing.

And to begin your journey with me through my travels, we will throw it back to my many trips I took last year to

Toronto.

I went to Toronto a lot last year, and I had a love/hate relationship with the city. I loved it cause it was big and kind of nice to walk in, but I hated it cause it was big and you had to walk everywhere, which sucked in the middle of the FRIGID Canadian winter.

On the way to Toronto once.

Looking back on Toronto now, I’m pretty sure the only two things I really liked there were the shopping and this one bar I ate spaghetti in once (I don’t have any idea what it was called).

Another view of the Toronto skyline. I love when you take a picture of the horizon, and you can see in it that the earth is round.

Toronto taught me a lot of things about life, and I’m sad I don’t have many pictures of the city anymore. (Actually, I probably do somewhere. I’m just too lazy to go find them, so later when I stumble into some, I’ll make another post about this city.)

On the way home from Toronto once

I think the most important thing I learned from this city, though, is to enjoy every single second of every single day no matter what. You never know what life will throw at you, and you never know God’s plan. Things change really fast, so enjoy the way they are when they still are that way. Cause you just never know.

Me in Toronto once

And that is all for photos I have on my phone of Toronto. I know I have more somewhere, but I just can’t deal with that right now 😂 If you ever have the chance to go to Toronto, I highly recommend it if it’s the summer. If it’s winter, it’s still fun, just bring a lot of thick clothing, take advantage of the free ice skating, and make sure you’re back in your hotel (or wherever you’re staying) before the sun starts to set. After 4 pm in the winter, you will freeze to death outside.

Thanks so much for reading, and I hope you enjoyed ❤ Talk to you again soon.

New Beginnings

Hello ^^ I realize I haven’t posted since July, but I just wanted to come on here to give a little update and hopefully break the silence.

It’s been quite hectic since I returned from my trip this summer, with school finally finishing up and me still juggling multiple jobs. But it is all finally over, and I couldn’t be more grateful to be starting 2018.

I’m pretty sure I’ve done New Year resolution posts for the past few years, but if I made this a post dedicated to that, it would already be over.

You see, 2017 was a hectic year for me in more ways than one, and now that I’m at the end of it, I’m completely drained. I can tell you all the reasons why, but I’d rather not dwell on them. The only thing that matters here is that it’s been a struggle, and for the past month, I’ve been slowly tearing.

But I’m sick of living in this fragile state; it’s too draining to continue this way. So my resolution this year is simple: to finally start living for myself.

I’ve spent my whole life trying to make others happy, almost always putting their feelings and happiness over mine, doing everything I can possibly think of to protect their emotions and feeling incredibly guilty myself when I do not. It’s why I’ve ended up like this, but I’m not going to be that way anymore.

I only have one life, and if I waste it trying to please every person I meet, that life is going to be very short. I need to start living for me and no one else, doing what makes me happy and being proud of it and not caring what everyone else will think and say. Cause at the end of it all, there are only two things that I will always have: God and myself. So why try to live for everyone else?

I have a good feeling about 2018, even though I’m starting it off a bit unsteadily. But I guess we shall see how it all turns out.

I hope to post frequently again now that I’m graduated, but who knows what will pop up in the future and keep me from actually doing that.

Thanks so much for reading, and I hope you have a happy, blessed new year that is dedicated to you and no other person in the world.

Until next time ❤

What’s Taking So Long?

With every noise,
I jump.
Is it you coming back at last?
With every jump,
I can’t breathe.
Why would you do this to me?
What are you saying?
I wish I could know.
I wish I could follow you out of this home.
But privacy is your right,
and I trust that this time,
you’ll do what you have to do.
Just please come back soon.

---

Just had a little spark of inspiration to write this poem. Not my best, but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless.

Until next time ❤

Another Travel Update

So I’m here with a little update on how my trip is going.

As always, I wish I had more time to be writing and pursuing the things that I love to do in my spare time, but I have so much on my itinerary that I can’t do as much as I wanted. Oh well. Story of my life. One day I’ll master time management. Just not any day soon. 

I can tell that my Korean is slowly getting better, though. However, it’s still hard for me to understand most things that people say. I have an unbelievably small vocabulary, so that’s the main source of the problem. And because of it, I’m forever indebted to my friends (especially my girl Jenny) for providing a constant interpretation service, without which I would be an utter buffoon 24 hours of the day, seven days a week. 

With my friends, I’m just an idiot for maybe 12 hours each day. A huge improvement, no?

I still really love it here, though. The more I am seeing of the country, the more I am in awe of it. It’s really quite a beautiful place, and I recommend that everyone travels here at least once. The food is wonderful, the people are too kind, and the atmosphere is so wholesome and cozy and safe. Really, it’s a wonderful place to live, and I am so glad I have decided to spend an extended period of time trying said living out. It’s truly one of the best decisions of my life.

But it’s a tad bit more expensive than I had originally thought. That’s probably just cause the first leg of my trip is in Seoul, but I’ve definitely spent more money on food than I had hoped I would in the first three weeks. Oh well. Guess I’ll be more prepared next time.

Which reminds me to say: There will definitely be a next time. When I graduate, I am for sure trying my hardest to move here for a bit. I want to travel the world some once I finish school, and I’ve officially decided that this country will be the first leg of that adventure. 

But that’s really far in the future (six months is far, right??), so let’s not focus on that. Now I just wanna update you by saying that I’m loving it here. And I also find myself starting to involuntarily use Korean exclamations quite a bit more than English ones, which is something I really didn’t expect to come from this.

But yeah, that’s all for now, I think. I’ll talk to you again in a bit when I have time for another post (which will probably just be another silly update).

Ps – Sorry my blog has gotten so boring, lol. I never intended it to be this way.

Until next time ❤

Hello, friends. I’m in Seoul!

Yup, that’s right, everyone! I’m in Seoul!!

(^ The view from my room)

It doesn’t actually feel like I’m here. It kinda just feels like I’m somewhere in America that’s not my house. But alas, I’m on the other side of the world from where I grew up, and it’s so hard to get used to.

Jet lag is only messing with me a little, thank goodness. I didn’t sleep for two days straight thanks to my plane rides, so when I got here yesterday evening, I didn’t spend much time out and went to bed at like 10. I thought that would help me avoid jet lag entirely, but I only passed out until the sun rose around 5:30 am. At that point, my room was filled with so much light that I woke up and couldn’t go back to bed despite the fact that I was still exhausted and still needed like five more hours of sleep.

Around, 8 am, though, I figured out how to turn the blinds into actual blinds (watch my vlog to see that), and I ended up falling back to sleep until 1. Oops. That’s the latest I’ve ever slept in til in my entire life (but I so needed it, lol).

Despite the many hours of rest, though, I’m still really tired and sore from traveling over here. The 14 hour plane ride definitely exhausted me, and I’m going to be taking today (Saturday) as my R&R day. I might go out for an hour or two this evening just to walk around and explore, but for now, I’m just relaxing. I got some vlog editing done and have a ton of other things I plan on getting done throughout today, too. So I’ll for sure be able to keep myself occupied.

But for now, I just want to blog and tell you a bit about my overall experience so far.

The plane ride here was crazy. It went super smooth and didn’t actually feel like 14 hours, but I couldn’t get out of my seat at all because literally everyone around me was sleeping the entire time. It was terrible. All I wanted to do was stretch and walk and use the bathroom and get my freaking things out of the overhead compartment, but I couldn’t. So instead, I kept fidgeting in my seat and doing little leg exercises so I wouldn’t get blood clots or anything. (Cause that apparently happens.)

But because all of my personal belongings were above me, I read the little book in my purse for two hours until one of the flight attendants passed out headphones. Then I watched like 7 movies, some of which ended up being way too inappropriate for the plane (aka nude scenes), and I had to turn them off halfway through. Good thing everyone around me was sleeping, lol.

The plane landing and then me walking through the airport wasn’t really as special as I thought it would be. I thought it would feel like I was finally arriving on the other side of the world, but it literally felt like I just landed back in Pittsburgh, except I was the only white person there for some reason. Same with getting on the subway. I was like, I’m in Toronto again but every single person except for like two is Asian. Weird.

(Random interjection: The really cool thing about the flight was flying over Alaska and Russia and Japan. Never thought I would actually get to do that in my life.)

What really felt different from home was getting off the subway. Literally as soon as everyone exited, they sprinted as fast as they could for the elevators, and I was like woahhhhh, what is happening???? But my friend and I just casually waited for the madness to disappear, and then we got on a much less jam-packed elevator maybe a minute later.

Which made me strongly question these Seoul-lites’ philosophies. Why do what they did when they would only have to wait a few more minutes if they didn’t? They couldn’t all have been in that much of a hurry where an extra 60 seconds would have destroyed their plans.

Patience is a virtue, Korea. Slow your roll.

But moving on, everything after that just kept feeling less and less like home. First of all, it is so clean here. I don’t know how they do it, but there is literally no trash anywhere whatsoever (and there aren’t even trash cans on the street), and all of the buildings are kept in such pristine condition. (I’m staying in Hongdae, btw). Coming from America, where everything in every city is a little dirty in at least some way, I’m in awe. Tell us your secrets, Seoul.

Also, all of the streets here are so narrow. I really can’t believe just how jam-packed everything is. There must be 200 buildings on my one little street alone. The alleys are so small and long and winding, and it makes for this crazy, crowded, otherworldy feel.

For example, when I got off the subway, I was shocked to be in this little back alley that was probably barely big enough for three people to walk side-by-side through yet was still painted for traffic and had decently sized cars parked on it. That road would have never existed back home in Pittsburgh — or at least would have been for pedestrians only. Which really makes me curious: Is there any sort of zoning here, or do they just build things wherever? Because zoning would have probably helped keep the clutter down and allowed for wider streets.

But the way everything is now doesn’t make it less appealing. It almost adds to the appeal by making it just a little more unique.

 

Everything here is so cute and quirky, too. I step outside, and I instantly want to explore every single inch of everywhere cause it’s all so interesting. I know I’ll never be able to actually see everything, cause the city is impossibly large, but I’m definitely going to try my hardest to see as much as I can.

Anyway, moving on a bit, the guest house I’m staying at is really nice, but it’s so, so, so small. It’s much smaller than I expected it to be given how much I paid for it. But being that it’s in Seoul, one of the world’s biggest, busiest, and most popular cities, the price really isn’t that bad, I guess. And it’s super clean! (The host is actually here right now cleaning, which is why I’m writing this post, to kill the time until I can use the bathroom and thus get dressed). Apparently most guest houses in Seoul are really dirty, so I am so happy that this one is not.

The host is also so kind! I haven’t left my room to go meet him, cause he’s busy and I don’t want to be a bother, but right before he got here, he messaged me and asked if I like watermelon. When I said yes, that it’s one of my favorite fruits, he told me he would put some in the fridge for me and my friend (even though she isn’t here yet lol but he doesn’t know that) with a label on it that says “for Leah” so that no one else will take it. How nice!!!!!

The only thing I’m not a fan of is the bathroom situation. There is a small room with two toilets in two stalls and a sink. Then, there is a different room with a traditional Korean shower (aka a giant room in which you stand with a wall-mounted shower head that you can take down to spray yourself off, etc.). It’s clean and not bad, really, but what I’m not a fan of is that the door to the bathroom with the toilets is always open. There are two pairs of shower shoes sitting right in the doorway, and that leaves me unsure of if I’m supposed to close the door or leave the door open when I use the bathroom. Because more than just one person is supposed to be able to use it at one time, so I don’t know if I will hinder that by closing the door. But I also don’t want sounds of me peeing echoing through the house. So, yeah. It’s an issue. Once the host is done cleaning, I’m gonna explore closing the door so that maybe I can relieve myself in comfort next time around. I really hope that I’ll be able to!

Another thing I don’t like that much: The only fridge in the house is a mini fridge in the kitchen. The host restocks it with food and drinks, but that leaves me with the question of where I’m supposed to put my food and drinks.

Luckily, I don’t have to rely on bottled liquids while I’m here. I read into it, and the tap water in the city is safe to drink. So I really don’t have to use the fridge if I don’t want. But still, it would be nice if the fridge was bigger.

And I guess the last strange thing I wanna mention is that it is so weird seeing only Asian people everywhere. You don’t realize how diverse America actually is until you leave it. Back home, I blend in, but here, it’s just all Koreans. I stick out like the sorest thumb there ever was.

But it also makes me really excited to see people of other races walking around, too. There are definitely less minorities here than I expected, but there are still enough where I see a few every twenty minutes or so. It makes me smile when I do.

Ah, but (this is random, sorry haha) I accidentally forgot to bring my adapter for my chargers (South Korea uses the same wattage as Europe), so I had to go out last night and buy one. I ended up getting it at this dollar store-type place, and it was about $5. Not bad, but I think it would have been cheaper in America  😦 Sad day.

And now it’s almost 5 pm, everyone back home is still sleeping, and my host is still here cleaning. I JUST WANNA USE THE BATHROOM BUT I CAN’T. Oh well, haha. That’s what I get for sleeping until 1.

The jet lag is really killing me, though. All I wanna do is sleep, but I can’t. I didn’t think it would be this hard leaving Eastern Standard Time for the first time ever, but it is. My body is not okay XD

I’m definitely gonna hold off on sleeping until 9 or 10 tonight. It’s a good thing I have a crap ton of work to get done, as well as a lot  of places to explore, or else I’d be in grave danger of falling into my normal sleep pattern.

But basically, to sum it all up, I’m literally living in the future compared to back home, thanks to time zone changes as well as major technological advances here (which I’ll talk about later), and it’s amazing. I haven’t seen much of the city so far (obviously), but I already love it. I just wish I could enjoy it with my family 😦 I miss them all so much already ❤

But I will see them soon. Seven weeks really isn’t that long, right?

 

Anyway, that’s all for now! Pretty sure the host is still here, ugh. I really screwed myself over today. I will not make this mistake again!

Thanks so much for reading, and I’ll be back soon with another update ❤

One More Semester

My sister graduated from college on Friday, and I have just one more semester to go. The thought of this terrifies me. We are both becoming official adults within the same calendar year. How is this even possible?