End of my second year in Korea

If the first year in Korea was a terrible year for blogging, the second year blog was nonexistent.  There were so many things happening, so many things to blog about, yet I just didn't.  But my second year was filled with things outside of the Native English teacher's Korean experience.  It was personal.  Perhaps, that's why it has taken me so long.  But here is it anyway.

The most significant event came almost 2 weeks after Chuseok, Korean Thanksgiving.  My co-teacher and I went to the police station to find my aunts, uncles, and cousins after my sister sent me some necessary documents.  Fortunately, it contained my uncles and aunt's Korean ID, which is similar to our social security number.  After an hour at the police station, I left excited, but somewhat doubtful that I would hear anything back quickly.  So it came as a surprise when I got a call from my co-teacher saying that they have not only relocated by family, but they were eager to meet me.  My co-teacher, who I adore, offered to come with me to meet my family.  My Korean was still pretty terrible and it wasn't good enough to explain everything that has happened in over two decades.  Even after not seeing them for years, it felt familiar and comfortable.  From that time in early October through my last day in Korea, I have spent as much time as possible with them.  I'm leaving out a lot of details about this, but I will save those details for another time.

The next most significant event: graduate school.  I will NEVER, EVER take the GRE again!!!  Since I've decided that I will not do a PHD and I got into grad school, I have no reason to ever take it.  I am the example that you can bomb your GRE and still get into a good program.  I started the application process with seven schools.  You know the saying, "shoot for the stars"?  I did.  When I got rejected from my "safety" school, I panicked and applied to three more schools.  I should have been patient and save some money.   Less than a week after I spent hundreds of unnecessary dollars, I was accepted into American University's SIS program.  It was in my top three choices, so naturally I was going to accept the offer.  Then the UCSD's offer came and now I had a decision to make.  As good as UCSD's program is, I hadn't thought too much about it and I focused on the DC schools.  But as always, I started to dig deeper and read everything about the two programs.  Then I made my famous PROS/CONS list.  And here I am in San Diego with two weeks left of my summer prep courses.

Here is my thought about my last year in Korea.  As my Korean improved dramatically and I spent a lot of time with my family, I didn't feel like I was a foreigner having some grand adventure.  A foreigner, yes!  Somehow my world was about my family and grad school.  It all felt so normal.  BUT none of it was normal.  Perhaps this perception of normalcy and my personal journey throughout the year is what I needed to start a new chapter as a graduate student.