First Impressions Last

This is a bit reflective, and it's likely you won't care. But, I bet my mom and my grandma do, so here it is.

I leave Korea April 6.

Next week I will have been here for six months. I cannot believe how much the experience has changed me, and I am so glad that I have had the opportunity to travel abroad. For me, it was absolutely essential in helping me figure out who I am and what I need to be happy. 

I have been trying to remember what it was like when I first arrived, and thinking about my potential reaction to living in Thailand. I was so excited, but so much more scared when I first came to Korea. My first night, a cab driver picked me up from the airport and we met my assistant director outside the school, which I completely misunderstood. I could not believe there was a school inside the office-type building where we were. It's on the 6th floor, and the other floors are all different businesses. She rode with us to my apartment; it was probably around 1:30 am by this time. I was exhausted but terrified. 

Pulling up to the apartment in the dark, I just wanted to crawl into a hole. Obviously, everything is smaller here. The lights in the apartment hallways are all motion-censored so we were walking into a dark pit of doom as far as I was concerned. After Jean opened the door to my apartment, I immediately started crying. I don't think I had ever felt so alone or scared. It was small and dirty and without internet connection. My friend Dibby really saved my life those first few weeks. I spent all my money to get into a cab and stay with him that night, and I practically lived there my first month. In the cab on the way to his apartment that night, I was so disoriented and confused,  I remember being scared the cab driver was taking me into the middle of nowhere and was going to leave me for dead. That wasn't the case, but he did get terribly lost, and we drove around Dibby's town for an hour before finding him walking up and down the street awaiting my arrival. The radio played the song "Take My Breath Away" from Top Gun. I remember that it made me laugh and cry at the same time. I couldn't believe something so fundamentally American was happening in such a strange and foreign place.

At that time I don't think I would have been able to survive on my own, but now I feel confident and up for the challenge. A challenge it will most certainly be, as Thailand will again put me in new and testing situations. I will be without internet in my apartment, which has been my number one comfort here in Korea. Since I don't work until so late in the afternoon, it's very easy for me to stay on American schedule. I can talk with friends and family as though I were just around the corner. That will be no more. I have also been told that they are very very relaxed, and often nothing is accomplished as a result. I daily make a conscious effort not to be so uptight, as I have been told I need to relax on more than one occasion in my life. I think living in an extreme that is so different from my personal extremes will also help me to grow. I had a really hard time with the LA culture and laid back lifestyle when I lived there, but I am now much more willing to change.

I currently have a very comfortable life in Korea, but it took me nearly 5 months to get here. I realized after coming back from Lunar New Years that things were starting to feel right. Other than negative situations at work, I have no qualms with where I live or my life presently. This is quite an improvement from two months ago. Making friends in a new country and acclimating, or choosing not to acclimate and deal with that is a very difficult thing to do. I am hoping since I have been through it once, making the adjustment in Thailand will come more quickly. I have worked hard to experience the life and culture of a Korean, sort of. I do work to speak the language, and try not to limit myself in my experiences. I try to stay away from foreign areas, as they are for the most part, very much like America. But everyone is different, and there are also things to be learned in those areas.

Traveling abroad as an American, and more importantly, a Texan, I feel a certain responsibility to represent my home properly. I seem to have taken it upon myself to be Texas' personal spokesperson in Korea. I have always been a prideful Texan, but I love being able to share that with the world. I am so happy to have roots in such a fantastic place, I wouldn't trade that for the world.