In Which I Get "Rolled Over" by a Car

It isn't a big deal. I don't think I'm seriously hurt.
All that happened was that the lady ran over my foot and then my leg, but nothing seems broken or sprained.

But wowsers it was strange!
At first, I went into something that was probably shock... I had this huge adrenaline boost and my senses were mighty heightened (colors, sounds, everything was much more clear)... then it leveled off to a numbness. Then, it just hurt.

After some ice and elevation, I felt considerably better and now it's just a dull throb. Hopefully it won't be too bad in the morning!

But honestly,
Does anyone really ever think they're going to get run over by a car?

In which I find myself being alone

So it's been about a month since I got to the states.
It's different, being away from my family that is.

It's weird having to follow new rules, It's weird having to eat totally new things, It's weird living in a new place. But, it's also way fun because I've gotten extremely close to my friends and I've got to try loads of new things.
I'm utterly grateful to my friend Ali and her family for allowing me to stay with them my senior year. They've been absolutely welcoming and supportive.

But despite the fact that I'm surrounded by such great friends, I still miss my family.
It makes it a bit difficult to do school work, to have fun with friends, and "be a kid".

Maybe I'll get to visit soon....

In Which I Don't Want Summer to End

I started summer the first week of June, but despite that I still don't want it to end.
It doesn't feel like summer has passed. Perhaps it's because I spent most of my time indoors by myself, but it really hasn't felt like summer.

Instead of going out with friends to the beach, or going to an amusement park, or falling into some summer fling, I've been stranded in Korea all alone. 

Maybe if I went out like others it would have felt like time passed and something happened but as of this moment, nope.

School will begin soon... and I'm just here wondering where the days went.

In Which I Meet A Cicada of the Summer.

One thing I enjoy about Korea is that you can hear cicadas every summer.
That little buzzing that echoes throughout the cities and the countrysides.

In Seoul, it's hard to get away from the sound of cars and people. People  here are loud, vocal, and the city never sleeps. Not at midnight, not at four in the morning.

But, for fleeting moments, when one cicada gets the courage to sing, the city comes alive and all the cicadas create a chorus. It's a beautiful sound hearing them all in harmony.

Today, I was sitting at home on the computer. Then, all of a sudden, something swooped onto the window screen and clutched the mesh screen and began to sing. It was so exciting to see a cicada hanging on my screen right by my nose. As though it was a song specifically for me.

In which I begin to write...again.

For the longest time I've wanted to get back into writing.
Everything from fanfiction to original stuff. I think it's really important to cultivate a love of literature in every generation, and a large part of learning to love reading, is learning to love creating and being a part of new worlds. People, especially Children, have to be able to fully immerse themselves in these new worlds. You don't have to be a child to learn to love to read. You can start at any age, at any time.

People who hate reading as a whole, are silly. Once they find the right book for them, I'm sure they'd be just as in love with reading as I am. Anyone who says they hate reading, haven't found the right book yet.

I've begun by writing two short stories and one novel. I've only begun plot work, world creations, character info, etc., but I can already feel the story weaving itself. It's exciting seeing myself sit for an hour and get all these pieces of papers set about me with a new world.
I've only written on a few lined pieces of paper, but I think I'm going to invest in a notebook for this. I don't want to lose anything important!

I'm glad that I started to write again, I can feel my creativity spreading, and I can feel myself feeling like I've been accomplishing something, which I haven't felt in a really long time. It's a good feeling.

In which I admit to tears.

I admit it, I cried. I cried like a baby.
I bawled through the whole thing.

Some scenes I don't even remember watching because I was too busy wiping away my tears.

Of course with every movie, there were differences between the book and the film, but that does not make the movie any worse or any better than the book. This movie was brilliant.

I can't remember a single moment when there weren't tears in my eyes. The movie skipped some scenes I thought were important, but for the most part, they were spot on.

The acting was brilliant, the shots were splendid, and the themes remained true.

We see Neville finally rising to take his place, the potential that Dumbledore saw in him, the courage he always held.

We see the relationships and the breaks and the wonders of magic.

The opening scene, the ending scene, the prologue. It was all just... bloody brilliant, and I have nothing more to say about the movie.

I've waited 11 years for this moment ( as some have waited for 14 ), and it was worth the wait. Harry will never leave us behind, so long as we choose to keep him in our hearts, always. Until the very end.

In Which I Got Hooked on Harry Potter

The first Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, came out June 30th, 1997.

Today, fourteen years ago, the lives of many changed.

It wasn't until December 25, 2000 that my life changed, as many before mine did.
I was 5 at the time, and it was Christmas.

My brother is five years older than me, and as a kid, I was jealous of him all the time. Whether it was because I felt my parents always showered love and gifts on him, that I never got, or just because he seemed "cooler" than me (which seemed quite unfair at the time). So when my brother began reading the Harry Potter series for school, reading them became the bane of my existence. I begged and begged my parents for a large part of the year to let me read the books. I wanted to be just like him, show him that  I could read them too, that I was old enough to handle it. My brother took every opportunity to rub it in my face that he got to read them because he was old enough, mature enough, cool enough.

Finally, my parents relented and on Christmas, I received a paper back version of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. I was ecstatic and I spent all day and all night reading as much of it as I could, after all, who needs food when you have magic?
Laying on my parent's bed and just reading. I was happy and excited and jumping for joy as I read all about  Harry, Ron, and Hermione's first adventure together... that is until I got to the part where Voldemort came into the story. The little illustrations that precede each chapter I had imprinted to memory. Every single one of them. But boy-oh-boy did the one of Voldy scare the bejeesus out of mini-Yugina.
I cried that night after getting to that chapter, afraid to go to bed, scared that Voldy might hurt me as he hurt Harry, Quirrel, Neville's parents, and everyone else. It took me a week, before I was able to finish reading the book due to my fears of the Dark Lord. When I finally finished the book, the nightmares went away, I came to respect Dumbledore as I had never respected before, and I've loved Harry ever since.

I love Harry for saving me from Voldemort, just as he saved the wizard world.