Future...

Assalamualaikum

You know there's the Page 1 of 365?

It's page 6 today (it's 12am in Korea now)

We're definitely not getting younger by the minutes, what's more by the year

I know I'm getting older and when the clock strikes 12AM on the 1st of January 2014, the question about my goals in life that have been bothering me for the past months is pressuring me more and more. 

Before I came to Korea, while waiting...

The future was dark for me. 

It was dark in my mind because I was clueless about what I really want to do with my life.

I mean I know what my dreams are but after convocation, the road to achieve it seems lost.

My feet is buried deep some place without the ability to move not even an inch. 

Before 2014 came, I've made a few istikharah prayers, wondering if the offer I got from dad would be better for my future or what is easy would be better for me

Admittedly, I didn't do it as frequent as I'm supposed to but I did it for quite a few times

And after new year, that decision once again pressures me and somehow the easier choice is what my heart tells me would be the better choice.

I consult my family and my friends for it, asking them if what my heart tells me could be the answer from Him.

They say they don't know but all advices are the same, they ask me not to give up half way. 

I'm not a quitter, but I was probably just so confused at that time that I felt like quitting. 

I don't feel like quitting at the moment though, so rest assured. 

This greed in me is probably the thing that confuses me so much right now

I want to write, I want to learn how to make films and scripts, I like communications, and somehow I also ended up loving languages and teaching

After teaching just a simple malay to a Korean friend, I figure out that it can also be part of a job to take

But that just adds in to the number of greed I have in what I want to do in life.

The road ahead is still kind of blurry...

I'm still not sure about what I REALLY want to do but while thinking about it, I'm taking my time in deciding it

Disovering and understanding myself, my needs and my dreams once again.

InsyaAllah, with His help, I believe I'll get the right answer soon.

Assalamualaikum. 

Being alien

Assalamualaikum
So I cheated the date again yesterday while updating the blog post about letting go
Anyways, this time I'm going to talk about being alien.
So in Korea, you call foreigners as 외국인 and 외국인 also means alien
and when you're a foreigners here and you need to get the identification card, it's called "Alien Registration Card (ARC)"

And once, while playing games of...... I don't really know what it's called but basically you need to brag about what you've done and if the person u ask never did that, you'll get a marble from them and the ones who have the most of it wins and well, I'm kinda cheeky in this one game, my question was,

1) Have u fly before?
2) Have u seen an alien before?

So the first one refers to where I tried flying fox before and I think I was 16 or something and I played it while lying down(?) but well, some thing like Superman and it counted as flying.
And the second one actually do refers to us all foreigners in the class but no one thought of it exact for my friend, Kobe and I ended up winning the game /wiggles eyebrows/

But actually in Korea, you can feel like an alien especially when you don't have the "typical asian" look. You need to understand what "typical asian look" meant to understand what I mean.
You don't get stared at that much if you're talking in Korean and actually does look asian, you know how people stereotype 'asian' as those who have small eyes, fair skin and, I don't know what else.
You do get stared at if you're talking in english, chinese, malay or well, any language besides Korean language that is.

But you get stared at more if you don't look asian at all, and when you're wearing a hijab.
Just know that what I'm writing doesn't represent the whole Koreans in a whole but just those who I've encountered so far.

In Malaysia, there are still Muslim people who doesn't understand why we NEED to wear Hijab, so for someone who's not a muslim, it would still be a bit hard for them to understand why.
Some of the ajussi and ajumma here ask me the normal question, "Aren't you hot?" and my normal answer would be, "It's ok, I'm used to it. Malaysia is summer everyday anyway."
and some of them would sometimes ask me, "You don't have to wear it, you can open it (hijab). No one will catch you and no one will know even if you open it."
and I just answer "The God (Allah) sees everything" 
Maybe I should explain more to them when I say those things but usually to someone who I met while passing by, I don't explain to them more about it but to someone who I met like maybe twice a month because I always eat at their store or something, I do try to explain as much as I know about my religion.
They're asking not with the intention to degrade my religion but because they really want to know.
And I don't mind explaining as well.

And here, the ajumma and ajussi and kids, will stare at you a lot.
The ajumma and ajussi will keep on staring at me, especially when I'm walking home alone until I greet them.
When I'm with friends, they don't stare at me that much.
The kids, they do stare at me a lot. One kid practically walked backwards after I pass him by just to stare at me. Imagine me greeting them, some of them actually goes "daebak!!!", at least that's what my friend told me when I walk in front of her.
And while going home with my friend, some of the middle-school student was having their recess time I guess and were gathering around and we were on our way home and all of them are throwing out all the english words they know to us, well at least they didn't curse.
We heard things like, "hey what's up?", "hey bro?", "yo bro!" it was so funny but kinda annoying as well.

So yeah, you do get to feel how special you are here
You do feel alienated here with how much they stare at you.
The tip is, when they stare at you, there's 2 reason for it,

1) because you're weird
2) because you're too pretty

Just pick the 2nd one all the time and you can't help but to smile at it
Ok that's not a form of bragging, but thinking that way is always better than thinking that you're weird.

Assalamualaikum :)