Even though I know I mention this nearly every week, it wasn't until this past weekend that I realized that my time in Korea is really almost done. In less than 2 weeks I'll be done with finals and in about 4 weeks I'll be back at GW. While taking the bus to school, I've had some thoughts that I thought (haha) I would share.
1) At SNU, there’s a person guiding traffic at the crosswalks for students to cross and it makes me feel like I’m back in kindergarten. Especially with everyone wearing their long parkas looking like children. Me included.
2) Sometimes I forget I’m in Korea and am fascinated by the immense number of Koreans around me. Then I realize I probably look like a foreigner to them but I also am a minority back in the US #identitycrisis. I realize this is actually a larger issue under the surface but even being in the US since I identified rather strongly as Korean (especially given that I'm Korean-American), it's interesting actually being in Korea and being perceived as "foreign".
3) Sometimes, I think there’s so much pressure to make the best of your time abroad but only in one sense - going out, discovering your new city and making new friends. Which I guess I’ve done to an extent but looking back at the past 3 months I’ve kind of just been wondering where the time has gone and what I’ve done with it. Especially because I have all my relatives here and yet even being in the same country let alone same city as some of them kind of still feels like it doesn’t matter because I haven’t seen much of them. Is it because I’ve never spent much time with them so it’s just awkward? I don't know.
4) I feel like because of this certain study abroad culture I’ve retrograded back to my high school ways of procrastinating and sleeping at the weirdest hours which I’ve tried pretty hard to change in college. It’s an unfamiliar feeling thinking about going back to the grind when I get back and hoping I can get back to being on top of it with what I foresee to be a difficult next semester because (yikes!) I took only one difficult class here and it got me real good.
5) I’m going to miss the food here and the convenience stores and the hours in which you can get GOOD and CHEAP food. Where else other than Korea can I get spicy rice cake and fish cake and tempura at 3 AM??