It seems like my mood swings are getting worse. One day I'm happy, one day I'm sad. One day I'm excited about everything, one day I'm worried.
I don't like people belittling me, my ability. I hate people saying that "getting a masters degree is peanuts". It's really tough for me, taking my masters degree (especially when it's in research) overseas, alone. It's tough when my technical skills suck, tough when I really don't know the way to do it, tough when everything goes wrong and I don't know why and I don't have anybody to ask and guide me here. Tough to start the day, tough to end the day worrying about what work to do, what kind of experiment to setup tomorrow. So just because I don't complain about it all day long doesn't mean it's easy work and don't force me to get a fucking PhD degree cos you have no idea how much hard work it takes.
On the brighter side of things, I woke up to exciting news that my journal abstract got accepted to the Taiwan conference!!! So my chances of going to Taipei this year-end just got upped afterall! You guys have no idea how many sleepless nights I have gone through worrying whether my paper got accepted or rejected.
I am going to take the TOPIK (Korean Language Proficiency Test) this Sunday. I paid 40,000won for it myself, just because I want to gauge my grasp of the language since I have already been here for one and a half years. Spent one whole week studying the grammar (conjugation, connectors... fxxxing difficult) and memorizing essays. The listening/ comprehension part is easier for me and it would really depends on the day itself so I didn't really practice on that. Hope I can pass with flying colours and get Level 2 successfully. :-)
A delayed post on my Jeju trip:
24th June (Friday)
Today is the day of my presentation. Although I have had countless presentations (this being my 3rd conference presentation) on my research work, I still get the jitters whenever it is expected of me to go on stage.
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| Fresh in the morning with makeup on :-) |
The venue of my conference is in Ramada Plaza Hotel at Jeju-si. It is a 5-star hotel located at a beautiful location just by the sea. The conference hall in which I presented is very grand too.
Some pictures of me during my presentation... ^^
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| Tiina & I after my presentation |
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| Having some coffee after my presentation |
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| Me being hiau-hiau in the hotel lobby... |
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| And the bright vermilion colour against the blue sky somehow reminds me of Fukuoka... |
After our presentations, we went out to play.............. passed through this underpass which had photographs of Jeju citizens lining each side of the wall... quite interesting.
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| Old people on one side |
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| And children on the other side |
First stop of the day was Yongduam Rock (龙头岩), or 'Dragon Head Rock' in English. Due to insufficient time, I didn't get to visit this with Leo last time so I wanted to visit it this time.
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| Our conference venue - Ramada Plaza - in the background |
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| With Rohit. They say that this shot is a must-shot for honeymooners going to Jeju. Well... Rohit replaced my hubby in this photo hahahahaha. |
Looking back at my photos, I just realized that I took many breathtaking shots here. Like the following two pictures:
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| This is the Dragon Head rock. Does it really look like a dragon? |
Then we took a taxi to our next destination - Jeju Loveland. I didn't enter cos I had already been there the last time with Leo. So I went and sat in a cafe while waiting for them and fell asleep........
There was a nice big cloud following us everywhere...
After Loveland, we went to Shin Jeju-si (new downtown area) to take a look... then we found out that there was nothing there really except for the hotels and Shilla Duty-free Shopping Center...
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| Nice street lamp in Shin Jeju-si (Yeon-dong) |
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| Took a picture of myself in the toilet... ^^ |
And finally... Ildo Beach!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This was the first time this summer that I went to the beach... and it was in Jeju! Ildo Beach was recommended to us by the taxi driver. I have this habit of striking up conversations with taxi drivers here cos I wanna practice my Korean and it really boosts my ego when I can actually understand when they're talking... hahah.
When we arrived at this beach, I was very surprised cos this was the place with the two lighthouses shaped like horses!!!!! I saw this from the airplane flying into Jeju but I had no idea that they were located at this beach! So I felt very very happy when I saw this... *^^*
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| Retro mood... ^^ |
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| Ildo beach!! |
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| Hahah... I just get so excited whenever I go near beaches... Rohit didn't dare to go into the water due to his bad 'past experience' with seawater... hahah... |
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| Yoohoo! |
Saw a pretty ribbon-pattered seashell on the beach...
And drew some letters in the sand ^^
Chilled out somemore and bought some souvenirs until it was time to leave...
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| Saw a spectacular sunset at Jeju airport before departure... |
Comments
加油！ hwaiting~!
Glad you liked it ^^