So I took my midterm for Ewha and although language school still sucks, Ewha definitely did suck less than Kodae because the midterm did actually reflect on the work we did throughout our time in class. Admittedly, my disdain for the Korean language program is here to stay and has become a secure part of my belief system but I trying to make my time at Ewha work. My teachers are now going to be spending time after class with me so I can practice speaking one-on-one with them since that is my primary (pretty much only) focus for where I want to progress with this language.

It is kind of funny though that most of the other gap year kids started to realize this week that they officially reached their mid way point when I reached mine a while ago. However, after a lot of thought and considering my decision to ween off of meditation because of the intense physical and mental demands of the practice, I made a change of plans for the summer. If I do end up sticking around here to do even more research and actually hone my Korean skills by just working, this week would be the official midway week for me, too. I want it to be.

So now I’m working on getting scholarship applications filled out and financial aid documents prepared for the horror show that is reapplying for financial aid. 2015 is already looking so good.

Now, as I move forward into 2015, I want to reflect on 2014 for a bit. I improved a lot in one particular skill set this year: cooking. Yeah, your boy Mahir cooks. I have been for a while now but actually living on my own demands that I spend more time on it and it is pretty rewarding. So to demonstrate my skill set, I will now provide an onslaught of dishes that I have really rocked. Brace yourselves.

Did I please the masses?

I guess this would be a good time to talk about 먹방 (Korean food porn, literally translates to “eating room”). It has been getting extremely popular as people are coming out and admitting their inextinguishable love for food. (Yeah, screw calories!) The food porn wave hit incredibly hard in Korean (maybe due to their censorship policies on sexual content and adult entertainment?) and it has been spreading to other locations as you can imagine with both the Daily Mail and the Wall Street Journal picking up on it. I don’t know if I can blame them either. Although I have not taken part of this interesting phenomenon, it looks like it is going to stick around for quite a while because even parody pages are not killing the movement. Oh yeah and don’t just think this is directed towards individuals that are interested in seeing women eat, this habit goes both ways. I 11just don’t understand how people can stand through it though. I mean I love food as much as the next person but watching people eat food kind of sounds like torture. Well, to each their own.