It's been a long time

A tranquil river that winds its way through the Korean Folk Village in Suwon, South Korea

It has been quite awhile since I have posted to this space. Not because nothing has been happening, or because I had nothing to say...more because not blogging about anything was a way to avoid articulating things I didn't want to confront. 2014 was a year I am glad to put behind me. I was looking forward to things being different in 2015, but alas, thus far things are continuing in very much the same vein.

An apartment building in San Francisco, California, near Chinatown

It wasn't that I experienced terrible tragedies in 2014 -- on the contrary, I had some amazing opportunities and experiences last year. It was that everything seemed to be piling on top of me all at once: school, my personal life (such as it is...), my home life, important decisions to be made, fears about my future, constant challenges and fears in my immediate family circle, significant financial worries, continual car problems, depression about my current struggles and challenges, etc. It was a constant barrage of small- to medium-sized things that slowly piled higher and higher and higher.

The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California

I did some amazing things last year, though -- I visited California (San Francisco and Los Angeles) for the first time, I got to visit Seoul again for the first time in four years, my family moved across the United States to live the same state as me and I got to spend the holidays with them, I met amazing people, I learned a lot about myself and my Heavenly Father, I experienced in a very real way being carried by grace through trials and challenges that I knew were too big for me, but not too big for Him. It was a very instructive year, but it wasn't a very fun one.

Brightly painted beams support a tiled roof on the walls of the outer court at Gyeongbok Palace (the former imperial residence) in the middle of Seoul, South Korea

This is my last semester of graduate school (for now, anyway -- who knows, I may be crazy enough to go back to school and do it again sometime down the road), thank goodness. But that means two sources of stress coming to bear on me at the same time: 1) the aforementioned thesis, and 2) being finished with school means now there's a big fat question mark on every day after 9 May 2015.

North Korean guards on duty at the border of North and South Korea, Panmunjom, in the DMZ

Right now, the main source of my stress, anxiety, depression, fear, sense of inadequacy, and trepidation is my Master's thesis. (That doesn't mean that the second isn't also making its presence felt, however.) My thesis is about the first half of the first volume of Kim Il Sung's collected Works, which is supposed to contain speeches, etc that he gave from the summer of 1930 until the end of 1943. (The last half of the volume covers just a few months in 1945, following the end of World War II when the Japanese, who had been occupying Korea for the last 35 years, were defeated and Korea was "liberated".) Kim Il Sung would have been just barely 18 in the summer of 1930, and the events as they are narrated in this portion of the Works don't match up with the history most historians and Korean scholars accept. That being said, what the Works claims Kim Il Sung said was most likely fabricated out of whole cloth -- the topic of my thesis is exploring why that portion of the Works was written the way it was.

A South Korean soldier guards the door that leads to North Korea in a conference room that straddles the border -- he and I are both standing on ground that is technically in North Korea

I was due to turn in my finished draft to my committee this last week, but when I met with my advisor to give her a (very) rough first draft two weeks ago, she was concerned that I would need more time. I didn't want to move my date back because 1) if I did, I would no longer be able to graduate in May (but I could still walk in the graduation ceremony), and 2) I was afraid that with too much extra time I would just procrastinate everything until one and a half weeks before the new due date anyway. But to make a long story short, she (and the other members of my committee) won the battle and I'm now defending at the end of April, and due to turn in my draft to my advisor the Monday after spring break (~sob~ for my spring break turning into thesis-writing time...).

On the street in Sinchon-dong, Seoul, South Korea, an area popular with college students

It's a discouraging turn of events, but it does give me the opportunity to practice confronting my fears and sense of inadequacy and not procrastinate. I'm trying to look at it from that point of view and not be depressed about this stress continuing through the next two months of my life instead of being over in three short weeks. That will teach me to put things off...

The aforementioned Gyeongbok Palace at sunset

San Fran! (and the end of the semester)

This last week I spent traveling to and exploring the Bay Area. It's the first time I've ever been to California, actually (unless you count the approximately 45 minutes I was in LAX before getting on a plane to Korea once). I don't think I would choose to live here, but it's a wonderful place to visit! I came to see a friend graduate from Berkeley Law (which she did, this last Saturday), but I spent a few days exploring and sight-seeing before her graduation.

But first! A quick summary of the end of the Spring 2014 semester, aka the worst two weeks of my entire life (and it was my own fault). The last week in particular was pretty terrible -- maybe even more terrible than the last week of the Fall 2013 semester, and that one ended with a 30+-hour drive home to Tennessee after only about 15 hours of sleep the whole week. I am so relieved the semester is over! My longest paper was due Monday (April 28) afternoon, but was just less than halfway finished by Saturday night. I started working on it at about 12:30am Sunday morning and it was finished about eleven hours later -- or rather, it was done enough to turn in so I could get started on my other responsibilities. Tuesday I wrote my last paper, for my Research Methods class, and Wednesday I turned it in, met with two of my professors to discuss my other papers, and then spent the afternoon frantically packing up all my things so I could move them into a storage unit. Luckily, my cousin came to help me out. It took the two of us about four hours to finish packing up everything and get it into the storage unit. Unfortunately, in the rush I managed to forget the one thing I have to have to go to Korea -- my passport! Thankfully, I remembered (whilst almost having a heart attack), I was able to make a quick pitstop to pick it up at my storage unit on my way out of SLC the following Monday (May 5). That night (April 30), after dropping everything off at the unit, I drove up to Layton and spent the night at my cousin and his wife's new house, and spent most of May 1 with them having a great time! I'm so grateful to be friends with my cousins, because you have to see them anyway, so you might as well enjoy it, right?

The evening of May 1 I drove up to Logan to my grandma's house and stayed there for a few days. While I was there I got to hang out with my friends and I even got to see my little brother graduate from college! I also "got" to help him move his stuff out of his apartment and clean it, but hey, I love him and he paid for the movie we went to afterward (The Amazing Spider-Man 2 - awesome!).

Monday morning, bright and early, Mr. Farmer came and got me and we started driving west. We got on I-80 and basically drove until it dead-ended into the ocean. We stopped in Reno for the night on the way, where the place we were staying was hosting a bunch of bowlers. It turns out that's because the National Bowling Stadium is right across the street (and was visible from my room window). We didn't stay there long, though; we packed up and left by 9am the next morning and made it to the Bay Area by lunchtime. On our way to where we were staying that night (on an old Navy base that's now been taken over by NASA), we drove past Facebook's headquarters. Their sign doesn't have their name all big on it, just the "like" symbol and the address.

While we were staying on Moffett Field, we saw the skeleton of an old airship hanger that must have been at least twenty stories high, if not thirty, and the door were massive! They moved on what were essentially railroad tracks, they were so big. (I have pictures of most of these things I'm talking about on my Instagram.) We spent that evening and the next morning exploring Palo Alto, which is about twenty miles south of San Fran and were a lot of rich people live, it seems. That afternoon we picked up Mr. Farmer's nephew, Jim, at the San Fran airport and checked into our hotel in downtown San Fran. The view was great! It's just as hilly as all the movies make it out to be, too. And windy! I think the weather's been amazing, but there are a lot of people walking around with coats and scarves on still, which confuses me, but apparently they think it's cold.

The next day, Thursday, we got up early and went to explore the pier area, specifically Pier 39 (which is basically a massive tourist attraction). We saw the seals that live on the docks, ate some yummy bread from Boudin (they even make bread in the shape of animals!), and took a lot of pictures. Then around noon we hopped onto a ferry boat and headed out to Alcatraz in the middle of the bay! It was the only thing Jim insisted on doing, and I was skeptical, but it was really interesting. It was also very, very sobering. Not that I've ever wanted to commit a crime, but now I really, really don't want to. Alcatraz the island was actually not that bad -- windy, but gardens have been carefully planted and tended (as they were during the time it was a prison island), and you can't beat the view from the island. And the prison wasn't exactly dank and dark like dungeons in old movies -- but it would be damp with all the fog SF gets and I'm sure it would have been cold with all the wind whistling around and the entire structure being made out of concrete and steel. They have a really great audio tour of the cell-house that has some commentary by actual former prisoners and guards and they talk about what it was like and some of their experiences. It was definitely much more compelling because of that; otherwise it would have been a slightly chilly concrete room with a lot of empty cells. Hearing the men talk about it made it much easier to imagine what living in those cells would have been like. So all you kids, stay in school and don't do drugs and obey your parents! Trust me, you don't want to end up in prison.

Thursday evening we stopped to see the Golden Gate bridge on our way to meet up with Mr. Farmer's daughter and her boyfriend (who was also graduating from Berkeley Law). We had dinner at Chevy's and had some yummy ice cream for dessert. By the time we got back to the hotel we were exhausted, but it was a fun day. Friday we met her in Berkeley (we took the BART (that's the name of the subway! Bay Area Rapid Transit, BART for short) and she showed us around the law school and the Berkeley campus and some of the area around the school and the downtown. We ate lunch at a pizza place downtown called Jupiter, which was wonderful! Then we came back to San Fran and I left Mr. F and Jim and went shoe shopping (they wouldn't have enjoyed it) and spent some time in my room until we ventured out into Chinatown for dinner. We ate at a great Chinese restaurant, House of Nanking, which unfortunately was not a dive but actually pretty clean and well-kept (dives are my favorite, and usually have the best food, but this place was still really good, if not as atmospheric).

Saturday was Chris's graduation! It started at 9am, so we left our hotel at 6:30am to make sure we weren't late (we were more than an hour early). As far as graduations go this one wasn't too bad, but there were so many people! After the reception, we all went our separate ways and I tried to find a Korean restaurant in the area Daddy told me about. I wasn't able to find it, but I did find another Korean place that looked almost exactly like it had been transported intact straight from Korea to Berkeley. I had some yummy bibimbap there and did a little more exploring before I headed back into San Fran, where I did a little shopping (but I couldn't really buy anything because I only have my carryon) before going back to spend a little time in my room. Then I had a fun adventure! Someone must have tripped the fire alarm (accidentally or not), because I was happily updating my Instagram with pictures of my adventures when it went off about 9pm~ish. At first I thought it was an accident or a joke, but all of us pounded down the stairways to the pavement outside nonetheless. Two honest-to-goodness fire trucks came racing up the street, sirens blazing and lights twirling, and some real, live firemen went into our building and checked everything out. Thankfully, there was no fire, but it did make last night the most interesting and exciting Saturday night I've had in a long, long time!

Which brings me to yesterday. Ever since the semester ended, I haven't been able to sleep past 7:30am, and coming out to an earlier time zone has made it worse! I wake up rarin' to go between 6 and 6:30 and can't get back to sleep, and this morning was no exception. So I got up and packed up all my stuff, then walked about 1.5 miles to the nearest church building for church. It was a lovely service and the people made me feel so welcome!

Right now I'm in the LA area enjoying hanging out with my darling Julia! So I'm going to go do that now. ^_^ Thursday morning, bright and early (7am!) I'll fly off into the sunrise, headed for Korea. My friend Sooyeon will pick me up at the airport Friday night (Korea-time) and I'll stay with her for a bit and also try to visit as many of my Korean friends as possible before my classes start on 3 June.

Why I'm Depressed and Not Lazy

Avoidance has long been my method for coping with overwhelming and/or difficult things. Things I didn't want to do. This list is long, but (part of) it looks something like this:

waking up in the morning

doing my homework

doing my chores

cleaning my room

paying my taxes

practicing (anything)

finding a job

making a decision about health insurance

deciding on a topic for my thesis

applying (for anything)

etc, etc, etc

Here's the thing about avoidance: It's not a great coping mechanism. It doesn't get things done, and it's not productive. (Though, to be both honest and fair, some times when I'm avoiding one thing (i.e. a final paper), I get a lot of those other things done, like cleaning my room.) It makes the last minute incredibly stressful. (Take, for example, the time ~cough~lastsemester~cough~ that I was finishing up my last week of classes, taking all my finals, writing all my final papers, and packing and preparing for a marathon cross-country drive home. All in the same week. Yeah, I didn't get much sleep and I was pretty much a wreck. It wasn't a good time.)

I had an epiphany just now, while boiling water to cook up some ramyun for my dinner. Two of my non-shared New Year's resolutions were to be more self-compassionate and to try to deal with hard things promptly instead of avoiding them. My epiphany involved the intersection of those two goals. Right now, I'm really struggling with that second goal. 

My life is exceptionally hectic-feeling right now. I'm trying to juggle making some professional contacts, nailing down a research question for my thesis (thankfully I think I've finally found a topic), dealing with getting the ball rolling so I can do research for my thesis, four classes (each with a not-insignificant number of expectations), homework, a new church calling, beginning research for important papers for each of my classes, new responsibilities in regard to a possible (unexpected) future career, finding something to do and some way to support myself this summer, and all the other mundane stuff like taxes and healthcare insurance and feeding myself. Honestly, I think at this point it might be a tender mercy from the Lord that I'm not in a relationship, because it would just be one more thing to juggle.

But...do you know what I did yesterday with my day off from school? Instead of catching up on all the things I'm responsible for, I went to Home Depot and dropped some cash on some materials to make myself a headboard. Yup. That happened.

Here's where my epiphany (finally -- were you getting bored? sorry) comes in:

I'm depressed.

Okay, that's not the huge epiphany. I've been struggling, off and on, in one way or another, with depression for a long time. The epiphany came when I realized, Maybe I'm not lazy. Maybe I can stop berating myself with that label and realize that my procrastination and avoidance are symptoms, not part of who I am.

That being said, there are definitely times when I deliberately make poor choices with my time. ~cough~all-nightkdramawatching~cough~ But right now? Struggling to finish or even start my Korean homework (normally a class I love)? Not answering emails for days and dreading checking my inbox? Starting decorating projects instead of catching up on work? Making ramyun and grilled cheese and eating cereal at almost every meal because I can't work up the motivation to cook? Falling off the wagon on my calorie-tracking and not even wanting to try to get back on? That's depression. Situational depression, yes, thank goodness, which means that at some point it's going to have to end. But what an amazing moment of self-compassion to realize that all that stuff I'm not doing? It's not me, it's my situation. And I can fix that. I can get help to fix it. And it can end.

How grateful I am to know that my Heavenly Father loves me, because lately, that's just about all that's getting me through the day.

(For more on this topic, I suggest reading Elder Jeffrey R. Holland's talk, "Like a Broken Vessel". It's marvelous, and gives me a lot of hope and strength.)

August Update

It's been more than a month since I've updated, possibly the longest time I've ever gone without writing on my blog since I started. The problem isn't that I haven't had enough to write about, but that I had too much. It's been a crazy, stressful month.

The first half of August I spent tying up loose ends at my jobs in Logan. There were a lot of things to do at my office job, in particular. We had to hire someone to replace me, and then she spent a few days with me learning the ropes. It never seems like you do a lot until you have to tell someone else all about what you do, and then you do way too much. My nannying job didn't require anything like that, but the little girl I'd been taking care of turned one the Monday of the last week I was there, and of course there's a lot of hullabaloo for that momentous birthday. (On a side note, it seems that one is the magic number for the kids I nanny, something akin to Cinderella's midnight curfew: the day after the first little boy I nannied turned one I left to move to Utah; just a week after the little girl I nannied turned one I moved to SLC.)

And there was that weekend -- the weekend before I moved -- that I got sick and puked my guts out every hour or so all night. That was fun.

About a week later, I moved down here to SLC with no place to live. A kind friend generously lent me the use of an empty room in her basement for a few weeks while I searched for a place to live, but come 1 September I would have to be in my own place. Needless to say, not having a plan or a permanent place to live -- not to mention living out of half-unpacked suitcases and boxes -- has been stressful. Add in going back to school and some fun hormones, and the latter half of August has been...interesting. I did find a place, though, and just in time -- I signed the lease to rent a room in a small house with three other girls yesterday morning.

To say it was a relief is a huge understatement. I found the place last Wednesday, but it wasn't until this Thursday morning that the landlord told me he'd decided to rent to me. The wait was interminable and nerve-wracking, especially since I wanted to live there so much. The house is located in a quiet family neighborhood just off a major road that goes past the university. It's got two bedrooms, a living room, a small bathroom, a small kitchen, and a small dining room upstairs and a laundry room, a small bathroom, and two bedrooms downstairs. It has a decently sized backyard (with a laundry line! I'm excited to hang my sheets out to dry) and a small front yard. All the other girls are RMs (returned missionaries), and all are about my age, going to school or working. I have one of the upstairs rooms, which is a real blessing. After living in basements intermittently over the last two and a half years, I've learned that basements are not a good place for me. I need good natural light to stay happy and positive. More details and pictures to follow when I actually move in.

And school. Graduate school. That started last Monday, the 26th. I even remembered to take the traditional first-day-of-school picture! Since no one was around to take it of me, I had to do it selfie style.

My schedule isn't very grueling. Because I'm a grad student, I only have to take nine hours to be full-time. Because I have the FLAS Fellowship, I'm not allowed to work. And because the Asian Studies MA program at the U is interdepartmental and very, very small (think seven people total), I'm taking all undergraduate classes for graduate credit. I also have a couple of Institute classes, but they don't require work outside class, and I'll be spending a few hours a week helping with a professor's research study for one of my classes. And I have no classes on Fridays.

My goal for this year is to treat graduate school like a job: up to campus by nine, and no going home until five. Hopefully this schedule will allow me to do all my work during those hours on campus and I won't have to bring anything home with me. That was the best part about working: once you're home, you're done. No homework, no papers, no readings. All your time is yours. I loved having guilt-free free time in the evenings, and I'm hoping to preserved that. Thus far I haven't done too great...but I'm working on it.