27 million

Trade, a movie based on the article The Girls Next Door by Peter Landesman, opens this weekend.

Tonight, I heard Jin Chung, the Director of Intern and Fellows Progams at IJM, talk about human trafficking.

Slavery?? Sex trafficking?? There is an estimated 27 million slaves in the world today, which is MORE than the 10-12 million Africans shipped to the Americas back in the 16-19th centuries. WHAT?!

We gotta do something about this.

International Justice Mission

moon cake?

Happy Zhong Qiu Jie! (Mid-Autumn Moon Festival)

Unless you're sitting in the library during your 1L year, I guarantee you are having more fun than I am.

I probably won't get to eat any mooncake until this weekend, although I'm supposed to eat fried chicken tonight to celebrate Chuseok (the Korean version of this holiday).

nyers nicer than midwesterners?

BH and I were sitting in Fairway Market Cafe, waiting for SL. Out of the blue, the two ladies next to us leaned over and asked "We have half a bottle of Pinot Noir that we can't finish. Do you want it?"

I've never been given free wine by a random stranger before. Maybe NY isn't so bad after all.

reminder: i left LA for this

wake up.
go to class.
find food.
go to class.
take a nap.
find more food.
go to library.
study.
get kicked out of library because it's closing.
go to dorm.
study.
sleep.
repeat.

sigh

what i've been up to

Studying. And more studying. Oh yeah, I almost forgot.....studying.

Last night marked the end of my first week of classes. I slept 12+ hours.

Last night, I ate dinner with nobu and then we went to k-town (or k-street) for norebang (karaoke). To kill some time, we went into a Korean supermarket where I decided it would be a good idea to buy some frozen food even though I don't have any way to heat it up. At any rate, since neither of us read Korean or are well versed in the intricacies of distinguishing good Korean dumplings from bad ones, we resorted to The Wisdom of Crowds method (i.e. asking random Korean people which dumplings were good, analyzing the results and then purchasing each package to taste test and see if they were right). Actually, we just asked a few people and then I bought two of the suggested packages. But I have full faith that their recommendations are better than anything I could have decided on my own. And no, I didn't sing. I was too tired and went home. Remember the 12+ hours of sleep?

Tonight, I ate dinner with MY and ST, who took me to a Taiwanese place in Chinatown. We got there at 8:37pm. They closed at 9pm. At about 9:10, they started turning off the lights and the other people in the restaurant paid their bill and left. At around 9:15pm, we were the only ones still eating, every other chair had already been stacked on the tables and the floor had been mopped. Yeah, they're not subtle about wanting to go home. Nevertheless, we trudged forward and didn't leave until we had finished. Actually, they were very nice to us and told us to come back tomorrow.

Afterwards, we tried a new tea shop that opened up and got some boba. Since it was a new store, we chatted with the owner and the employees for a while before we left. Then we walked to ST's car, which took another 5 minutes. Only after getting in the car, did MY realize something was wrong.

"Hey, wait a minute! They didn't give me any boba! You heard me order right? I said I wanted boba! They asked if I wanted boba and I said yes!"

After this tirade, MY insisted on getting the boba she rightly deserved, so we swung back to the shop. She asked for the boba, and the employees, eager to please a new customer, quickly obliged, even asking if she wanted more ice. MY walked out with a new cup filled with tea, ice and boba. Moral of the story: finish drinking your tea before you go back and tell a new store they made a mistake so they will refill your drink. Thanks for the life lesson, MY.