sometimes quiet is violent

Hi, It's been a while, yeah, 4th year has been hectic to put it mildly. But we're here. I put up a wee poll on my Instagram story (which, if you didn't know by now is the place I update my life daily) about writing on my experience starting anti-depressants for the winter season. The results were unanimously YES WRITE IT, so here I am. Many of you know I struggle with mental health, and I'm not here to highlight how much I've struggled. But, even as little as the poems I write and post every winter should go to show that I experience seasonal depression and it's severe. This year, encouraged by my parents, I wanted to seek help. I guess that's what happens when your dad follows you on Instagram and sees the depressing poetry. I'm thankful he did. I made my yearly visit home in October, and went to the doctor's office here in Finland (private, pricey but ensured me being seen promptly) and told the doctor how I feel every winter. She recommended

Because it's summer, and the nice structured life of going to university every week is gone, and I'm always incredibly fundless in July, I'm spending a lot of time in my head. Besides the usual identity crises and disruptive intrusive thought patterns I'm racking my brain for dissertation ideas and trying to find an answer to the ever present "what will I do after uni" question. It feels like just a few weeks ago I was writing on this blog about what I wanted to do with my life after graduating the IB, and here I am in the summer before my 4th and final year in university. A lot of my friends have their plans, are writing their applications and preparing for applying to various places. I'm absolutely shitting it. I have no clue what I want to do after university, except that I want to move away from Scotland. That's not hugely useful when thinking about a solid future, but up until now my plan had been to teach in Korea. After my trip I realised I

3/6 23:58 Okay, I'm writing this one super late. It's because I was being super organisational though! I've individually packed and written notes for all 15 people that I got souvenirs for (you say excessive, I worry I forgot someone) and stuffed all but 1 bag into my carry-on suitcase that is now full! Honestly, I'm hoping all of the rest of my stuff fit's into my big suitcase and my backpack. I did leave myself 10kg weight to fill so if I'm smart about packing I might just make it. If not I'm not sure what I'll do, maybe donate something. Not gonna go the Joey way and just wear everything. Today was for shopping for the rest of my souvenirs and some make up that I'd been saving up for getting. I've been kind of hesitant about spending larger quantities of money on this trip but at this point with only one more unplanned day (and then Tuesday is going to be full) and then leaving, I wanted to make sure I finally got the stuff I'd been hes

2/6 21:30 I'm so frustrated I honestly feel like crying. I just tried and failed to get food several times, and had to resort to a cup noodle once again. The thing is, today went pretty well up until now. Let's rewind. Today was museum day! I decided to go to Seoul Museum of Modern Art first, because it was nearby at City Hall subway station. I was up earlier than usually but a shower and curling my hair took a bunch of time so I still ended up leaving when I usually do. After a short subway ride I popped into a Quiznos to get some breakfast. I've never been to a Quiznos but I know it from American movies, it's basically like Subway but kind of upgraded. I had a very basic veggie sub and the worst milk tea of my life. It had white bits floating in it and I don't know if it was the fat from the milk or just, off milk. The trek down to the museum was very warm, but it was super pretty! There was a small garden-y bit with statues in it. The museum itself is a nice

1/6 23:18 Today has been slow again, which I don't really mind. I stayed up late editing a video so I actually fell asleep rather quickly and slept really well! I knew I was going to stay inside until at least 5pm today because that's when the tickets to see my fave kpop group BTS in London went on sale. I was determined to go because I've never really wanted to see anyone live except BTS, they're just a group I feel like I should experience live no matter how far I'm sitting or standing. Thanks to awesome friends we got tickets and I'll be seeing BTS on the 10th of October! I'm really excited already. After the tickets were confirmed I decided I really needed to get out so I wandered out with my earphones in to find some cake. I wanted to find this specific cafe called A Twosome Place because I saw the heart-shaped cake there, but once I found one today they didn't have it. I chose a New York Cheesecake instead, and had probably the first drink here

31/5 22:57 Helloooo. Today was a super slow day as I've sort of ran out of things I can think of doing (which I'm aware is ridiculous in such a huge city like Seoul, but a lot of the stuff that's cool here is cooler with friends present). Basically I just wanted to go to Myeongdong and eat a hot meal somewhere, which, fair enough, did take all day (but mostly because I left at like 4pm). The reason I wanted to go back to Myeongdong is because the underground shopping center has the best deal on socks ever. Legit, it's 10,000 won for 11 pairs and they're really good quality! That's 7 pounds for 11 pairs of socks, I'm almost tempted to go get another 11 but I won't fit it in my suitcase. Another reason for Myeongdong was the Style Nanda Pink Hotel. Style Nanda is a huge Korean fashion chain that also has it's own make up line called 3CE. It's fairly expensive, but I wanted to go for the aesthetics. The whole building is 6 stories tall, decorat

30/5 22:00 I felt very disappointed in myself waking up around 2pm today, but I couldn't fall asleep for ages and then there was annoying construction noises in the morning so I was trying to get my 9 hours for naught. I did eventually leave the room after trying on a million different outfits. I was convinced I wouldn't survive in this flowy off-the shoulder dress I had but everything else looked bad so I ended up in the dress anyway. Spoiler: I did survive! I kept having to tug the underskirt down tho so as not to flash the public all of my behind. After visiting thrift shops yesterday I decided I wanted to try going to a few more today, so I made a little plan. There was a few more Beautiful Store locations nearby and I discovered a new brand called Vin Prime that sells cheap-ish 'vintage' clothing in Seoul so today was to be basically a repeat of yesterday. I mean, it worked so why not do it again. I made my way to the first Beautiful Store which was a success,

29/5 20:30 So, yesterday was a bit of a bust. I just didn't feel great so I stayed in bed all day (minus a quick nip to the shops for a snack at 9pm). I just felt like all my anxieties got the best of me and the thought of being seen by other people was just too much. I talked to some friends and family online which helped a lot, so thank you. All in all it made me motivated to do something more today. I decided I wanted to do some cheaper and semi-ethical shopping, but Korea doesn't have a huge thrift shopping culture so I researched a bit online. There's a lot of vintage but that's often overpriced, and I don't care that much about what brand my shirts are so paying for a logo doesn't make sense to me. Turns out a lot of the charity shops here are Salvation Army shops, which is a no-go because they're the worst aaaand I'm not supporting them with my money here or anywhere else just so they can go and mistreat people in their shelters. Finally, I did

27/5 21:17 Last night was a bit stressful, I was up at 3am messaging my bank (they're cancelling my card at the end of the month and I was stupid and only realised yesterday) and writing down questions to ask my airline for my flights back, but I slept enough and woke ready for my cooking class! In the description of the class it said we would be paired up with others but I received a message from my host about an hour beforehand saying I was the only person today so I was going to get a private lesson! Pretty good. I made my way to the subway station indicated in the class description and met with the host. He was a really nice Korean guy who spoke English really well so we got along nicely. The class was preceded with a little bit of history, as the class was taking place in the Korean Cuisine Culture Center. After learning about what Korean food is made up of and when it is eaten the cooking began! The instructor was an older Korean woman and my host translated everything to

26/5 23:15 I really needed today. I met up with a friend from a long time ago (we met once at an Avengers themed sleepover movie-night in 2011) that I reconnected with over the internet almost two years ago. She lives in Korea right now and agreed to meet up with me while I was visiting. She's also Finnish so I got to speak in Finnish/Finglish the whole time which was really refreshing! After the usual get up and get ready I walked to the subway station and quickly realised my mistake. It was 30 degrees outside today and I wore long woolly trousers. Luckily they're cropped and wide-legged, so let a little air in, but boy today has given a whole new meaning to the term 'sweaty bottom'. We met up with my friend to go visit a cafe nearby that was doing a promo for Jeonghan, a member of the Kpop group Seventeen. It's Seventeen's anniversary today so there were cute photos and the cup-sleeves all had his face on them. The cafe mainly did bagels, so I got a pink

25/5 21:00 Today has been a slow chill out day to balance out the walking and traveling from the past few days. I decided this when I woke up at 3pm and couldn't be arsed to plan anything super complicated. As I got up in my pyjamas I heard the door jingle and...people arrived! I haven't met them yet because I didn't want to impose on them seeing as they just arrived but hopefully there will be a fateful meeting by the kettle or something. I heard them speaking what I assume to be Spanish so from my detective skills I conclude they are two Spanish girls. Here's hoping they're friendly! I got ready super fast and decided to just head out and walk into actual Hongdae, because where I'm staying is a small suburb within Hongdae and I've not seen the 'main' streets. Hongdae is a trendy and studenty area known for being hip and cool and having a lot of busking, whether that be singing or dancing or guitar playing. Since I had time I just wandered around

24/5 22:00 The urge to yell "honey I'm home" to my empty airbnb when I get back every night is still here. There's two other rooms but I don't know how popular this place or time is for other tourists so they're empty for now. I'm really hoping someone else stays here too so I can have someone to at least pretend to be my friend, though I'm appreciating the solitude that means I can cook noodles wearing just a long t-shirt. Moving swiftly on, today I went to Gangnam! I fell asleep around 4am and got up at 2pm which is an improvement from yesterday. Got ready and went out the door, this time wiser about which direction to head in. I felt confident walking down the street with my earphones in, blending as much as I could and then I realised that the small piece of paper hitting the back of my leg was in fact the tag still attached to my skirt. Honestly all I could do was laugh as I removed the tag and continued on my way. I hope at least someone found

23/5 22:16 Boy. OH BOY. Today I ventured outside. Which was surprising, because I had weird jetlag insomnia and only fell asleep at 6.30am. But, I woke up at 2pm and showered, got dressed and decided to head out to pick up a transport card and a sim card so I could finally start to explore without feeling like I was going to be stranded. This took a bit of convincing my brain because usually if I get up later than 1pm I feel like I've already wasted the day and might as well not go anywhere. The "you paid for this vacation now take advantage of it"-argument worked well enough. Foolishly I decided I didn't need to map out my way to the station and confidently started walking in a random direction from my airbnb. This ended as all situations in Seoul so far where I've needed to get to somewhere specific: me turning around and walking back, making a lot of turns, and in general just making a fool of myself by getting so easily lost. Today there was a benefit to ge

22/5 Left my airbnb in a very simple get up, brush teeth, change, pack, go-rhythm. I had two hours before my second and long-stay room was available but I contacted the host and she agreed to let me put my luggage in the kitchen and come back later to check-in. I found the place with relative ease which I guess was the universe making up for yesterday. Oh, and the host had made a video of how to get there so there was a comprehensive guide as opposed to the previous airbnb. It was so freeing to only have my backpack with me! I walked around just looking at the stores and different places, smelling the smells and feeling the air. I was super thirsty so I stepped into a convenience store and picked out some peach ice tea and my favourite snacks: honey butter almonds. A bigger bag of these is 7 pounds in Edinburgh. I got a wee bag for 1,000 won which is about 70p. I walked about a bit more and found a long walkway in the middle of the area that had lots of little benches. I sat down to