Preparing for Korea

Namsan, a photo by blueoceanpalm on Flickr.

In about 8 days or so I'm going to be hopping on a plane for the first time in well over a year and going to Korea for 3 months to study again at Yonsei University. I'm super excited and I'm pretty much already packed.

This time I'll be attending the summer regular program instead of the summer special program, so I'll be in Korea for the whole summer instead of just a month and a half. This summer is probably one of the last free summers I'll have because I am planning on getting my associate's degree in the winter or spring of next year and beyond that is a big, vast plain of uncertainty. Better take this opportunity when I can, yeah?

When I get to Korea, I'll be staying at a hostel for the first four days or so, and in that time I've got to find somewhere else to live for the rest of my time. I'm thinking about a goshiwon-type place, which is kind of like a dorm room, but off-campus. I'm hoping I'll have a more authentic Korean experience at this kind of place because when I was staying at the dorm the last time, I spent WAY too much time speaking English. I probably won't be able to distance myself too far from my mother tongue, but I can try my best.

At any rate, I will probably have better Internet access in Korea than here at home. That said, I will try my best to post stuff like blog posts, pictures and videos while I'm there, but I will be pretty busy going to school and traveling around as much as I can, so there is a chance that I might not update very often. We'll just have to see how things go.

One time when I went to San Francisco, I stopped periodically and wrote what I was experiencing in a notebook. I tore the pages out of the notebook after my trip and sent it to my mom. I wish I still had those pages, but it was so relaxing to just stop every once in a while and write about what I was doing. I've gotten myself a notebook and I've been writing in it a lot lately. Maybe while I'm in Korea, I'll share some of my notebook entries. This blog is called blueoceanpalm's notebook, after all...