October has honestly been one of the busiest months I’ve had here so far. It started off with Chuseok — basically a week-long holiday — and we spent it in China, which ended up being one of the best trips I’ve ever taken. Then we came back to Pohang right into the chaos of midterms (not fun). I didn’t even have time to recover from travel mode before I was back to basically living in the library, trying to catch up on everything. Eventually the exams came and went, and after that, I kind of didn’t know what to do with myself since the last few weeks had been so intense. But now it’s kinda nice to just sit down and look back at how the month went.

So, the month started with me packing for China on the very first day of October, and in the afternoon we headed to the airport in Busan. Check-in was a bit of a mess because our group had these long, complicated European names, so everything had to be done manually. But we made it through, grabbed some dinner, and boarded the flight. A few hours later, we landed in Shanghai and took a taxi straight to the hotel. We slept like babies that night, and the next day was all about exploring the city.

Apparently, our group stood out a bit because a lot of locals wanted to take pictures with us. It honestly felt like we were celebrities or something.

Then we took a train to a mountain area for some hiking and accidentally stumbled into this small village that was having a Mid-Autumn festival. We ended up befriending the town mayor

and meeting a bunch of locals. There’s no way I would’ve ever found that place on purpose, so it felt super lucky that we ended up there. After that, we spent another day in Shanghai before heading to Beijing. There we visited a bunch of palaces, went shopping, and hiked the Great Wall. Honestly, it was an unforgettable trip, and I was really sad to leave and go back to school life.

But, of course, reality hit fast because midterms were waiting right around the corner. For the next week, I spent my days in lectures and my nights in the library. I even started taking naps in the library’s “relaxing room” — which, by the way, has the comfiest armchairs ever. More than once I looked up and realized it was already past midnight, and there was still no end in sight to the studying. You’d think with all that reading I’d have been super prepared, but I feel like I only realized what I should’ve been studying once I actually sat down for the exams. The Korean education system is so different from Finland’s, and I think I was using the wrong approach at first. At least I learned a lot from the midterms, so hopefully I’ll do better when finals come around. Still, it was a crazy intense week, and the stress really started to pile up.

Luckily, before the exam week kicked off, we decided to go hiking the "12 Waterfalls of Pohang" trail (well, almost all of it). The scenery was stunning, and it felt so refreshing to be surrounded by trees instead of textbooks for a change. It definitely helped clear my head. Of course, part of me was still stressing about the Monday exam, but I figured that letting my brain rest a little would probably help more than just cramming endlessly. I don’t know if it actually improved my performance, but I’m gonna keep that mindset moving forward. I think it’s super

important to balance mental and physical well-being with all the academic effort. Like sure, studying matters — it’s literally my full-time job right now — but still, there’s a limit to everything.

And just like that, the exams came and went, and suddenly we had free time again. It felt really weird not having to study constantly. My first instinct was to go straight back to the library, but another part of me just wanted to sleep for a week. So we compromised and went on a little weekend trip to Jeonju to relax. We rented a traditional Korean guesthouse for one night, went to a makgeolli workshop where we made (and maybe sampled a bit of) traditional rice wine, and wandered around the Hanok Village and a nearby temple that also had a small museum.

Apparently Jeonju is where the royal family of the Joseon dynasty originally came from, so there was a lot of info about King Taejo and the history of Joseon in general. We also visited a traditional teahouse, where they taught us the proper way to serve Korean tea. It was actually super interesting and really calming. Honestly, it was the perfect weekend trip after all that stress. Highly recommend!

After all that, we came back to campus, and it was time to get back into study mode again. Two of my courses got new professors halfway through the semester, so that shook things up a bit too. Even though we didn’t exactly start from scratch, it still felt like a bit of a reset. I think after midterms I managed to shake off some mental clutter and now I can focus way better. I also have a clearer idea of what to pay attention to and what’s actually worth writing down.

Lately, I’ve also been going on more walks and even made friends with a couple of the campus cats. Oh, and I found out that there are turtles living in the pond at the Jigok Community Center! So yeah — that’s been my month.