Welcome to 2020 Too!

      Hello readers, friends and family and everyone else in the world. Returning from my internet sabbatical I am here again to continue telling stories. There’s a lot to unpack in this post, so sit down, grab a hot cup of coffee or tea and settle in. Let’s catch you up on the final leg of 2021 as we round into what started to be the second year of 2020… 2022. Following up on my last post we left off with the season finale of our wedding! Shortly following we celebrated the holidays.

     For Halloween we dug through the black hole in our closet to throw together costumes, feel free to name our costume in the comments! I jumped on the opportunity to return to my favorite activity, dancing! We spent our Halloween night at Dance with Joy Studios scoping out a potential venue location and learning some new moves. Dance with Joy Studios is one of my favorite locations, not because I love the owner, but because they cater to every level of dancer. While it was a small covid friendly crowd Halloween night, there were beginner and advance dancers sharing the floor and teaching each other. This is why dancing has become one of my favorite activities. Many locations in Portland mirror this atmosphere of accepting and learning. I’m definitely looking forward to the return of pre-covid dance days. 

     Our next adventure took us to Salt Lake City for Thanksgiving. After Hawaii, Roy and I were both eager to get back into a plane. Flying in on Thanksgiving morning Roy and I jumped right into family activities. For Roy it was getting to meet the family, in person, for the first time. For myself, it was catching up on the latest family shenanigans and events. Roy fit right in with the family, thankfully since I left him to fend for himself for almost two hours while I ran off with my cousins. You know what they say, sometimes the best way to learn to swim is to jump right in, I threw Roy into the deep end and shouted “Good luck” as I watched him figuratively sink under water. Luckily my uncle saved him from drowning and now they are what you could call “besties”.  

     Being Roy’s first time in Salt Lake we spent the next day showing him the sights and giving him a tour of my life. Showing him my beginning. Starting with where my parents met, their love story and my first house. Roy and I have this joke that he is secretly a Saudi prince. Of course he always denies it, but showing him the difference between an American neighborhood he almost admitted he had a mansion back home. The key word here being almost. Following the tour of Salt Lake we finished the day with a visit to my great grandma’s house. There Roy learned the family game of Oh Hell… story has it, he’s still practicing for the rematch. 

     Salt Lake was a short trip, being over Thanksgiving weekend, and the fact that we now had two brand new additions to the family to come back home to. On November 8th we officially brought home our two fur babies, Arakan and Squid. From that day on we would be known as the SlayitzFamily. Keep an eye out for that social media handle on Instagram, Tik Tok, YouTube… okay, enough plugging, back to the important part - the kittens. Squid is our baby girl and Arakan is her brother. These two tabby’s took no time adjusting to there new home and now are the true owners to the apartment. There favorite toy being plastic springs my parents bought for them. 

     For Christmas, I took Roy on his first trip to The “Real” West, Pendleton. A quick flight there and we had left the city for good old cowboy country. Of course, most of the time was spent with family celebrating the spirit of an American Christmas, but Roy and I did take an hour to drive around the whole town. Shortly following Christmas, Roy and I took our next trip up to Seattle for New Years. 

     In Seattle we spent our first day with my best friend Calies and her boyfriend. After brunch we made our way to the Selfie Museum and the gum wall. Of course we ended our day with watching the New Years Fireworks from my aunt’s condo. 

     Now jumping into 2022, we are already at March! Well… almost April now. My final updates include a last minute trip to Pendleton for my birthday and a new job closer to home. For now Roy is still at home with the kittens, the kittens are almost full grown now, and I have hopes to restart my online presence. Be sure to find us on social media (links below) and leave a comment for what you want to hear next! 

My instagram

Slayitz Family Instagram

My Tik Tok

Slayitz Family Tik Tok

Happy Covid Holidays

Yuseong and I 

     For a brief time, before the second lockdown, I was able to meet up with friends, celebrate birthdays and return to an almost normal Portland lifestyle. I was balancing three days of work, while half attending online university and slowly began seeing a glimpse of future social gatherings. This fleeting moment lasted through Halloween. For the remainder of the Portland Metro 2020, our governor issued a new Covid-19 freeze. For my 2021, I am enjoying that my work schedule will be busy for hopefully the last half of the Covid-19 virus. My work schedule has become my social line, and hopefully I'll start to see an uphill in finances, rather than a downhill.

Odella

     Somewhere around the end of September and beginning of October, I finally was able to purchase the pet I have been wanting to get since returning from South Korea; sugar gliders. It was in South Korea that I first heard of these pets. Jin from BTS, has sugar gliders, and after researching I was hopeful that they would fit my lifestyle. I was able to buy three girls, a mom and her two daughters. For the first couple of days I had them, they were not open to me, or the apartment, but in time they warmed up. The mother is named Bat, because I knew I wanted a sugar glider named Bat. I find it amusing when animals are named after different animals. Her two daughters are Odella, named after lake O'dell on Lake of the Woods, and Eretria from Shannara Chronicals. Odella is by far the most social one and always runs to the cage door when she sees me. As soon as I open the door she jumps out on to me and will hang out on my shoulder, or runs around the apartment exploring. 

Pirate by day

     On Halloween day I worked at my brain
rehabilitation residence. For the Halloween spirit I pulled out my corset, and puffy shirt for a pirate gypsy. During my shift at work, one of the clients was giving up a beautiful black tuxedo kitten, that I shortly attempted to convince my friend Yuseong and my boyfriend to look after. The kitten however, found a safe home at one of my co-workers homes. After my shift, and a quick costume change I headed to my boyfriends apartment for a small gathering of six as a samurai. We spent the night eating pizza, playing games and enjoying our last bit of social enjoyment before the next unknown lockdown. The morning after Halloween, I returned right back to work, in my normal clothes.

Calies, Georgie, Shar

      A silver lining around the storm clouds, was having Calies come visit the West Coast during the second week of November. Unluckily for her, she got here just in time for the city of Portland to begin its preparations for the new Covid-19 guidelines. Our restaurant choices were limited, it was raining the whole week and not many places were open. However, we still made the most of our time together with a photoshoot, window shopping (and actual shopping) at malls, and I even took her to a drag show.  The first day in Portland we spent the day exploring downtown around my apartment doing a wet, Portland fall photo shoot. Georgie and Sharmaine drove up from Salem as well to join us for the evening before heading home again. Another day we all spent window shopping at the mall and eating Korean fried chicken back at my place. The next day Calies and I went out for coffee, walked around the mall again some more and ended with empanadas at a tapas restaurant and ended with Voodoo donuts. Calies's take: they're not worth the hype; which I agree. For Calies's last day we drove to the outlet mall during the day and viewed the drag show at night. I took Calies to the well known Darcell's XV, which is listed as one of Portland's must sees and we were lucky enough to be able to get a show in before the freeze. And just like that, the week was over faster than it came to be. 

Zoom

    The remainder of the days in November leading up to Thanksgiving fell into a routine of work, and school when I remembered. Thanksgiving almost snuck up on me this year and due to Covid-19, work and finances I celebrated in Portland via zoom. The day before Thanksgiving, my boyfriend and I did a mix of making some food, and ordering the chicken from Popeyes- yes, including their new chicken sandwich. For Thanksgiving day, we had the leftovers. Thanksgiving morning, like many other families, was celebrated with various zoom calls.

Providence

     In December I started my second job at Providence St. Joseph Hospitals. For now I'll be working as a "Health Access Monitor"- just a fancy name for temperature taker, and working at my brain rehabilitation job. These two jobs will take me through the last six months of earning my bachelor's degree at Portland State University and hopefully will set me up to begin shadowing an occupational therapist and a recreational therapist at both locations. For now, that is the goal and plan for my 2021. Again, with Covid-19 protocols keeping everything in Multnomah county closed, and with bills to pay, I'm working six day weeks between the two jobs. I come home to sleep, and eat, and play with my sugar gliders, before getting up the next morning to go to work again. With that being said, if you want to help support me, please check out my work-in-progress LinkTree for important links. :)

Pioneer Tree

     For Christmas, Roy and I celebrated early since I had to work Christmas night. On Tuesday we went got dressed up for our "second" date at Southpark Seafood. The seating was outdoors and Roy let me sit closest to the heater, so I'm sure he was cold. We ended the night by going to Pioneer Square to see the tree and all the lights. For our actual Christmas Roy opened his presents on Christmas Eve and I got to open mine after the Christmas weekend. Christmas morning was filled with zoom calls with both sides of my family before I finally headed off to work. After the short break I had for Christmas my weekend was packed with as many hours of working as I could squeeze in. Between my schedule at the brain rehab center, I worked my first overnight shift in the Providence ER. Luckily for me, the shift ended up not being too hectic and I was able to find an on-call room to sleep in for a few hours before my next shift in the western wing. 

     For New Years, Roy and I spent the night in, watching tv. At midnight we stepped outside to the river to watch the fireworks, then at 12:05, we went back inside and went to bed. Now for 2021, I'll be heavily utilizing my google calendar as I balance, two jobs (a total of 70 hours a week) and two online classes. 

Return Home

Last subway ride

   After being home for almost two months now, I have settled into my weekly routine. Living back in the United States is amounting to be much more repetitive and uninteresting than my life was in South Korea. 

   Still sick, I returned to the States on the Second of January. After a long flight, I met my parents and brother at the airport, and met my aunt and uncle for lunch. After finishing lunch, it was time to go home. The rest of the weekend was spent recovering from traveling and sickness (I later found out, that it was mono).
   Now, that I was back in the United States, I had the month of January to complete my senior capstone project. If you remember, while I was abroad in South Korea, my senior capstone was to connect an American high school to the life, culture and history of South Korea through weekly blog posts. My final requirement for this project was to visit the classroom and present one final lesson. I scheduled my trip for January 17th.

Snow

   On the 17th, I woke up to snow in my hometown, but made the flight to Portland anyways. I got to Portland and used my free time to go back to my old work to visit some friends. I was surprised to see my work wife had returned to our job! While I was in Korea, I had spoken with her on the phone about how we had both left working at the recreation center and were doing different things with our life now, but she was the first person I saw in Portland.

Read my blog post here

   After reuniting with her, I began to make my way to the high school, only to check my email on the
max to see that Portland high schools had a two hour delay due to weather. My teacher had originally asked to reschedule, but because I flew in, we were still able to make it work. I gave the class a short lesson on Korean names.
   After finishing the lesson, I made my way back to the Portland State University campus to meet with friends. I spent my weekend with my friends Isaac, Roy, and Haley, playing mini-golf, catching up and of course, sharing all the missed drama.
   It wasn't long before I was in Portland again. The very next weekend I drove back up to Portland to join the Seollal celebration put on by the Korean Student Association. I got to see me good friend Sunho and see many of my other Korean friends. I was very happy to be back in Portland, but I realized, that coming to Portland a second time in such a short time made it even harder to return home.
   As for the rest of my time, I am keeping myself busy between working at the local parks and

Bam.Bam Designs

recreation department and my human anatomy class. I have started to get back in to photography as I drag my best friend along to abandoned locations to take photos.
   Also, I was able to convince her to have a Galantines with me this year. My best friend, her two younger sisters and I all went to the local sushi restaurant for Valentines and then went and saw Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey afterwards.
   For now, I just have work and school planned, but in my distant future I have very exciting plans to go see BTS in concert at Fedex Field!!

Halloween!

Everland

   Happy Holidays!

   With the holidays right around the corner, I've been very busy with celebrating my first international Halloween and preparing for my final next week! After my finals, I'll have plenty of free time to travel and explore more of South Korea.
   In the meantime, I have been exploring the amusement parks near Seoul and at the perfect time to celebrate spooky season!
   To begin my spooky adventure a large group of my friends and I met at Lotte World the Saturday before Halloween. While there we enjoyed as many rides as we could during the day before we explored the Haunted House after sundown. I can honestly say it was the most well put together haunted house I have ever experienced. To start, they section you into small groups of six and have you walk together holding onto a rope. In the haunted house, you go through all the classics, an old dining area with people around the table, someone lying in a bed that jump scares you. The scariest part however was just before the end. It appears as though you come to a dead-end, only to realize that the next way through is to crawl through the fireplace on the other end of the room. When you approach the fireplace someone is waiting to jump scare you as you pull the curtain back.  We finished the haunted house just in time for the "Zombie Parade"; a short display of actors in zombie makeup roaming the grounds of the amusement park. By the time this finished it was already 10:00 p.m. so my friends and I made our way home to change into clubbing outfits.

Bumblebee

   My girlfriends and I took the time to go home and get all dressed up before we shared a taxi to Itaewon to go clubbing for the rest of the night. Even though it wasn't Halloween yet, the streets were already filled with people in costumes celebrating. In Itaewon, people do not take their costumes lightly. It was common to see large groups all matching or to even see full cosplay or movie ready costumes. That night my friends and I stayed out all night, finishing our night at 7:00 a.m.
   During the week we had our first meeting of Speaking Society after taking a quick break for mid-terms. This week's topic was about the required military service in South Korea. The group I was in were all females so we had a pretty short discussion and tip-toed around the subject.

Scarface

   On Halloween day, my friends and I returned to Itaewon again to see the costumes again. This was the day we saw the person in the high-quality Bumblebee transformer costume. Despite not having a costume I still wanted to celebrate so at one of the booths in the street I had my face painted to give myself a fake scar. After a quick hour in Itaewon, my friends and I decided that as cool as the costumes were it was not worth being pushed through crowds to just move 10 feet. We decided to go to Hongdae instead. However, when we got there we realized that EVERYONE was in Itaewon. None of us had seen the streets of the Hongdae area so bare. Needless to say, we found a place to eat chicken and then made our way to our favorite club, Sinkhole.
   Again, we stayed out all night to ride the subway instead of paying for a taxi. We took the first subway home and made it back just after 6:00 a.m. At 8:00 a.m. Georgie and I had to get ready again to make it in time to go with our Korean class to the next amusement park, Everland! A quick nap on the bus was all the sleep I got that night.

Classmates and my teacher

   I did not get to ride as many rides at Everland as I did Lotte World because of my classmates and I decided to wait in time for the  T-Express roller coaster. During our almost four hour wait we practiced our Korean and the almost vertical drop at the beginning of the ride made it completely worth the wait.
   After the ride, I spent the rest of my time wandering around the park with my friends taking videos and photos to fill our social media. One of my classmates filmed footage for her youtube channel that I'll link here later when she posts it!

   At 6:00 p.m. we loaded the busses and returned to campus. For the last time, this Halloween week, Georgia and I had to quickly get ready to turn around and get to our next event at 8:00 p.m. 

Everland trip

   The final celebration of Halloween was a party room that my friends and I rented out for the night. We started the party with pizza and water pong then moved to a game of truth or drink. Eventually, the game turned into a deep conversation of us all getting to know each other on a more personal level. The gathering went on until 7:00 a.m. the next morning. Afterward, we all rode the subway home and squeezed in a quick nap on the train. I made it home just in time to wash off my make up, get a quick sleep then wake up to get ready for a date.

   Now I'll be taking a much more relaxed week as I study and prepare for my final next week.