HeeJin Lee

Third weekend in a row at the airport, with two more to go in the next month! Grateful to be able to travel and recharge, both professionally and personally.

It takes time to craft the questions, but the exercise is fun for me, too. And the best part? More resistant to canned answers from AI. And I can tell, from the quality of the essays, that the students had fun writing them too!

Best thing I did this semester for my classes was to give creative essay assignments. While they still require students to read and analyze the works assigned for class, they require them to produce something creative reflecting their analysis rather than the standard analytical essay.

아이고 그렇군요 ㅠㅠ 안타깝습니다 삼실 공간도 너무 소중한데!

선생님! 혹시 noise-cancelling headphones 사용해 보셨나요? 완벽하지는 않지만 저한테는 도움이 되더라고요. 강추합니다!

Also, I’m so intrigued by those who rely on chatGPT/gen AI like this. Why do they do it? Why take the classes? What do they gain from using gen AI that they wouldn’t otherwise?

Potential hot take but I count students like these as lost causes, and focus on those who do or at least try to do the work—they may not be as vocal or visible, but they are there, for sure! Gotta count the wins and the silver linings where I can.

This was so lovely to see this AM, Evan! If only our HS teachers could see us now, lol.

The only thing that would have made this break perfect would have been a fun read or my journal, both of which I left at home! But I’ll take this nice midday pause.

Ultimate luxury: Solo brunch at a nearby café for making it thru the 5AM reading group + finishing an application early at the office + early AM meeting at school that ended early. Looking forward to attacking the emails, readings, and meetings this PM!

Physically exhausted but need to make at least some effort to get ready for my 5AM Zoom seminar with colleagues in Korea. Not helping that my usual say out of office is then booked up with meetings all the way until 4pm 😭 No time, even, to respond to the lovely thank-you messages for last week!

Week 5 and students in one of my two courses have read through the entirety of PACHINKO! Next up: END OF AUGUST, which is even longer. So proud of this group for how much they’ve already read already!

This past week made me realize just how wide the US is—still recovering from the flight to and from the West Coast. Can’t work today, but hoping to feel strong enough to run basic errands!

What an amazing week! Feeling energized and inspired from our gathering even if I am utterly physically exhausted. Grateful for the community and looking forward to our work together in the coming months. Next stop: Seoul!

고생하셨습니다 선생님! 저도 좀전에 이번주 행사 다 마무리해서 시원섭섭하지만 또 엄청나게 피곤하네요 ㅎㅎ 푹 쉬세요!

In other news, made it through the rush hour traffic (just 1.5 hrs lol), back up to LA from Irvine; now having bfast, then going to pick up some wines for the workshop dinner tonight before heading back into the hotel to drop off bags. Then off to a grant meeting!

Grateful to Dr. Gabrielle Jung and scholars at UCI yesterday! Had so much fun and learned a lot from everyone’s questions and comments. Looking forward to doing some justice to their feedback as I continue to prepare this article for submission!

Hosting a workshop this week in LA with colleagues coming in from South Korea, so far no issues!

Niche LA skeet: Enjoying a bfast burrito from Gjusta and realizing how I took so much of good food (available in the US) for granted 😭

Had decent takeout sushi for dinner and realizing that, no matter my general dislike for this town, how much I missed this!

LAX! Practically feels like being back “home”—we’ll see if I remember how to drive in LA, the real test with getting on the 405 tmrw 🤣

Layover in the South and of course they have AC on in the airport lounge in early Feb., of course they do 🤣😭💀

Can’t believe that ppl still take FaceTime calls in public, on loudspeaker, in 2026—in an airport lounge, of all places 🫠

Not funny how the city is finally cleaning up the snow in my neighborhood, ONE FULL WEEK after the actual snowing ended. The worst snow clean-up timeline—and I say this as someone who just moved up here from central VA!

One silver lining to having left town before the storm as someone who relies on street parking: I’ve become super familiar with multiple public parking garage options in my neighborhood, given that I didn’t even have a spot to dig out for myself 😭

Before the UCLA workshop, a short trip down to Irvine to give this talk on a different paper (though still on the topic of the Cold War), one that I’ve been sitting with some time!

Oh, thank you for this recommendation, will check it out!

Finally have the bandwidth to think about reading for pleasure again. Where should I begin? I know that no matter what I end up reading, I’ll inevitably read as if reading for work, but I want to get back to just indulging, reading for the sake of reading.

Excited to return to SoCal next week for this workshop—really looking forward to seeing dear colleagues and mentors in the sun (thanks to Chris and the UCLA Korean Humanities Initiative for hosting), away from the snow and frigid temperatures in Pittsburgh!

전 엘에이 주민으로서 제가 못 받아드릴거 같아요! ㅋㅋㅋ 조만간 따뜻한 쏘켈에서 뵐게요^^