A Weird Start to the New Year [#16]
Greetings!
Back in Seoul after my first trip to America in 10 months. The array of breakfast cereal choices stunned me. And I couldn't stop talking to the random loiterers outside a liquor store near my office, because THEY ALL SPOKE ENGLISH. Now I am contending with an infant with jet lag, plus my own jet lag. So I'm just barely hanging on.
What I Read
There's something about carpenter boyfriends. Stop it with the self-imposed busy-ness. There are zero selfmade billionaires in South Korea. The NYT food critic is a populist hero. Tolstoy on why we get drunk. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler answer questions from fans. How to sneak your cat into work. Don't praise your kids just for trying. And a data visualization of Love, Actually shows that love is actually all around.
What I Wrote
I ended up working almost every day of home leave, thanks to big news happening on my beat once I left Korea and Japan. (Figures.) The two frenemies struck a deal on wartime sex slaves. Then, North Korea tested its fourth nuclear bomb. We still have a lot of questions about it. Though, South Korean young people don't seem to care about the North's latest test. One gal we spoke to didn't even know it happened. And a story you should hear rather than read, featuring the K-pop playlist on the propaganda loudspeakers at the border.
Recommendations
Spotlight, if you haven't seen it already. The Wunderlist app has improved my grocery game. Cards for pregnancy loss. (Why didn't anyone think of this earlier?!)
Let's do this, 2016,
Elise