Day 35 & 36: Cheesecake and Cafes

Day 35

Today was a zero movement, lots of phone, day. I had no motivation to move, it was too cold out, and I was getting to a really good part in Gotham. I ran down to the convenience store and stocked up on so many snacks that I would never even consider eating if I was in Canada and then I went back up to my comfy room. I spent the rest of the day plowing my way through Gotham and the yummy food and it was awesome.

(October 30, 2018)

I looked at the Health app on my phone to see how much I walked today and it says 0.71 km... yikes.

Day 36

So I decided to continue watching Gotham today... The cold weather makes me feel really unmotivated to move and I am getting close to finishing this season! By 3 pm I was so bored of lying in bed though. I didn't really have any idea about what I wanted to do so I decided to walk to a nearby entertainment company and see what I could find along the way. It was super chilly out so I spent a lot of the walk trying to figure out where I could buy a winter coat that wasn't ridiculously expensive. Darling Kitchen (the place where I got the super yummy omelette my second day in Gangnam) was on the way so I stopped there to have the omelette again. I arrived 20 minutes before they were going to stop serving the lunch menu so it was very fortunate timing!

While I was eating I started looking at the Tableau blog. Tableau is a data visualization tool that allows users to create dashboards to display data. It's been really weird not having any kind of work to do for 2 months and I was kind of missing it. I have always been in school or working and I feel strange not having anything to do. Tableau was something I was interested in after my second co-op term where I got to work with dashboards for the first time. I downloaded it on my computer, but never really got around to using it as much as I would have liked because school took up most of my time. The Tableau community hosts a really cool blog where they feature different visualizations every week. I used to enjoy reading through it when I was working in second year but I haven't looked at it in awhile. I came across one blog post talking about how sports data is one of the easiest and coolest kinds of data to work with when creating dashboards. I loved reading through it and started to feel inspired to work on my own dashboards again. I didn't have my laptop with me at the time though so I finished up my food and then continued on my walk.

The entertainment company I was trying to find is called Pledis. The main group under Pledis that I really like is Seventeen. They were the first group that I started listening to after I got back into k-pop last year and I like that they produce a lot of their own music. Pledis also has another boy group called Nu'est (and their sub unit Nu'est W) whose music I like.

The walk took about half an hour and I passed Dispatch on the way, which totally surprised me! Dispatch is a news outlet that follows around k-pop idols. They are typically the company that discovers which celebrities are dating each other. I'm not a big fan of them because I really don't see a problem with idols dating and it bothers me that they expose them but it was still interesting to pass by their office and see people working inside. I also passed by the Sidus HQ building, which is another talent management agency. Seoul is such a cool place to walk around, especially at night. Many of the buildings are at least three or four stories tall and each floor has a different business on it. There are so many restaurants and stores that each one needs to be flashy to get people to come in. The result is tons of banners and fluorescent signs all over each building. It was very overwhelming at first but I love it now. There is so much to see that some days I like to just walk with no real destination and look at everything.

Pledis itself was an interesting building. I think it was under renovation or something because they had a big banner on the side saying 'Coming Soon'. There was a black van parked outside but I felt awkward waiting around to see if idols came out or entered it. I took a couple pictures of the building and then started my trek back to my room.

On the way back I took a detour so I could pass by Big Hit entertainment's building. It was so cool to walk by and know BTS could be working inside there at that moment (hopefully on some new music? haha). It was also weird to see their company pop up under my wifi suggestions...

I had a ton of blog posts to catch up on so I decided to crash at a cafe for a few hours. There was a small cafe called Coffee Bay that was nearby and it had outlets (which most cafes don't have here)! It wasn't crowded so it seemed like a good place to work. I went back to my room, grabbed my laptop and sat down to write. I made it through half a blog post before I got distracted by Tableau again. I decided to go through the tutorial videos on Tableau's website so I would be better informed when I started making dashboards this time around. I watched the tutorial videos for an hour or so, following along with all the activities, before the cafe I was at started to close up (around 9:30). I quickly searched for cafes nearby that were still open and found another one which was just around the corner and open until midnight. I packed everything up and moved to Twosome Place. When I got there I ordered another tea and settled down to watch more videos.

This next little bit may seem random, but it's connected to the whole Tableau/ dashboarding thing: There were so many different factors that led to me coming to Korea. One of the main reasons that I chose this term specifically was that I was feeling very unmotivated and uncertain about everything I was doing at school. I wasn't really enjoying my program and I definitely wasn't feeling the love for math that I had in high school. It felt like a good time to take a step back and some time off to re-evaluate or at least have a small break from everything. A few weeks ago, on my flight back from Busan, I was looking out the window and had this moment of 'holy crap I really don't think I'm in the right program'. Three years and tons of money in and there I was, in the middle of my flight, panicking about having to start all over again. Never mind starting over, but also trying to finding something I liked enough to pursue a career in. I have absolutely no idea what I would be doing if I wasn't in math! There isn't anything else that I am passionate about that could be a potential career and the things that I would consider as other options I don't think I would be able to do because of my anxiety. It felt like a really terrible moment to be having this huge realization. I have been trying not to think too much about it over the past couple of weeks but it has still been something in the back of my mind. Today has been such a relief because it has reminded me that there are parts of math that I really do still love. I love data visualization. I love creating graphs and putting them all together to build an interesting and appealing dashboard so I can show people all this super cool information that they may not have been able to find or see because they don't have the same analytical background. For me, today was so much more than just sitting around and watching videos, it was reassurance that the last three years haven't been a complete waste and that, although I don't love my classes, there are things I can do with my degree that I can enjoy. My next step is to find a company or position that allows me to work on the parts of statistics that I like, with data I am actually interested in.

Anyways, back to me sitting in this cafe having another life revelation. I eventually finished all the tutorial videos and then sat in the chair staring at my laptop. My problem is that I have these ideas in my head of stuff I want to do but I don't have all the skills or knowledge yet to actually bring them to fruition. There must be people who create dashboards and post videos online that I could watch so I can learn from what they are doing. For now I really wanted to start on something random. I stumbled across a blog where someone had posted a web connector that allowed people to enter a phrase or username and it would create a table with tons of information about the last 2000 tweets containing that phrase or username. Of course BTS was the first thing that came to mind. I thought it would be cool to study where (geographically) the tweets about BTS were coming from.

Before I started I needed a snack. I went up to the counter to get a bagel but the barista said they had closed their toaster for the evening (it was almost 11 by this point). I told him it was ok and I could just have the bagel not toasted. I got my bagel and sat back down at my table. Five minutes later the barista came over and gave me free cake! He said he felt bad that I had to have a cold bagel. I was totally ok with the cold bagel, but I wasn't going to complain about the free cake either. I played around with the connector and Tableau for another half hour before the cafe started to close up. It was almost midnight so I figured it was time to head back to my room.

I have to be moved out by 10 am tomorrow so I needed to pack this evening to avoid having to wake up early.

It was a struggle to fit everything into my suitcase since I had purchased 4 huge sweaters since I last packed, but I managed to do it!

I have really enjoyed staying in this area. The place is too expensive to continue living at, but it is nice to be close to so many great cafes and restaurants. My favourite food places nearby were Savour (I ate so many meals here because they make yummy kimbap), the red bean place (which I've been to three or four times now and still don't know the name of), The Min's cafe (their five berry drink is to die for), and Darling Kitchen. I am also within walking distance of a really lovely area along the Han River as well as The Min's cafe and other awesome places. I think I will try to find a place to stay near this area again in the future. Maybe a smaller room though so it isn't as expensive.

Hope everyone is doing well,

Emily

(October 31, 2018)