The Overwhelming Pressure of a Compliment

I’m a perfectionist. When I do something, I like to do it well, and if possible, I want to be the best. This drive is what allowed me to power through grad school and my thesis, and it also makes me fiercely competitive, even when I’m just hanging out playing bowling or ping pong with my friends. If I’m having an off day and can’t perform well, it’s hard for me to have fun, even if I’m just playing a meaningless game.

Advertisements

Korean Speaking Encounters — Korean Conversation Cafe

Followers of this blog will probably know that for several years now, one of my biggest goals has been to improve my Korean speaking skills. Every year I list it as one of my main goals, and every year I still feel nervous and insecure about my Korean speaking.

Over the past year, I’ve actually improved my Korean speaking quite a bit. Finally! After years of wishing for improvement, starting last fall, I’ve actually been taking steps to practice speaking Korean. I wish I could take the credit and say that I just woke up suddenly motivated to start speaking to my friends in Korean, but that’s not what happened.

An Uncertain Future

A lot has happened since my last post, which was 4 long months ago. I finished and defended my master’s thesis successfully. Two weeks ago I finished taking and teaching classes. And one week ago I officially graduated.

In the midst of all that craziness, there were a lot of times that I wanted to sit down and blog, but there always seemed to be something more pressing that I needed to do first. But now it’s officially summer, and I have some extra time on my hands to finally update my blog with my progress over the last 4 months as well as my future plans.

Goals for 2019

Here we are, almost 3 weeks into the new year, and I’m just now getting around to posting my goals for the rest of the upcoming year. I’m finally emerging from the stressful, procrastination-driven thesis-writing vortex that I’ve been in for the past month (although it’s not quite over yet), and I can finally start focusing more on other things, like my language learning goals for the upcoming year.

The Sudden Death of Dramafever – The Biggest Disappointment of 2018

I posted a few days ago about my biggest highlight from 2018, and that showcased the academic nerdiness that makes up a big part of my personality. Today, on the other hand, I discuss the biggest disappointment of 2018, and it has nothing at all to do with my academically nerdy self. Instead, it has everything to do with the hopeless romantic in me that loves the extremely cheesy and full-of-ridiculous-tropes phenomenon commonly referred to as a K-drama.

The Biggest Highlight of 2018

2018’s been a crazy roller coaster year for me, but throughout it all I managed to learn a bit of Korean along the way. I thought I’d try something new this year and post about the biggest highlight and the biggest disappointment of 2018.

Progress Report: 2018 in Review

What a year!  It’s hard to believe that another year has already flown by, but here we stand at the beginning of 2019.  Before I set my goals for the upcoming year, it’s time to look back at my goals for the previous year and see how I managed to do.