new adventures

So 9 months later, I'm back with a new round of big updates.

First, a bit of catch-up: For the past year and some change, I've been working in the Daegu Center of Wall Street Institute, and I've been fortunate to have some great opportunities to build my job experience, awesome co-workers throughout the whole company, wonderful students, a perfect location in Daegu and a great little apartment within walking distance of work and downtown. There have been sizable challenges (mostly when the company went through a rough economic patch with layoffs), but overall it's been a great year and it was a really wonderful step in my life and career.

During that time, I also did a lot of soul-searching and research for future career paths, and finally settled on a plan to go back to school and work toward a career in international education development. I will at least eventually work in developing countries, and possibly I'll start out that way, but have to weigh several considerations (jobs, money, locations) in timing that.

My grad school plans went appeared to go awry when I bombed part of the GRE, but amazingly my top pick, George Washington University in D.C., took me anyway (as did American University, and I even got waitlisted at Georgetown - who knew?).

And on a most fortunate Friday the 13th almost six months ago, I fell for a friend who's since become an amazing part of my life. He's a 33-year-old Korean pharmacist in Daejon, a city a couple hours from here, and well ... just a really great guy who makes me silly happy. And as a bonus, his family is awesome, too. :)

A combination of funding considerations, grad school prerequisites and wanting to stick around with InSoo awhile longer led me to defer my admission by a year. But needing to seriously study Korean for both grad school and personal goals, and wanting to be closer to to my guy, meant giving up Daegu and my current job. So I managed to hook a university job in Seoul that will allow me to study and work simultaneously (and take a nice, long trip home over winter vacation!), and now I'm off to the big city for a year.

Leaving is bittersweet, but I know I will keep many of my good friends here and I'm excited about what's ahead. (And I lucked into a huge apartment with a great roof for dinner parties and lots of extra space for guests, so there will be plenty of incentive for visitors. Hint, hint.)

So ... yeah. That's pretty much the wrap. I don't know if I'll be updating this often again or what, but felt like I should at least post a note of major changes. Although I'm not so hot on the blogging these days (things have sort of settled into regular life rather than exotic notes of interest), I do think about all you out there in the real world and enjoy connecting with you on Facebook and other cyberspace places.

Living around the world for an extended time creates the problem of always being far from those you care about, no matter which country you're in. But it's a pretty amazing opportunity and lets us all know so much more of the world vicariously. And hopefully I'll see a bunch of you American batch in January or so when I'm back for a visit - probably with InSoo.

Love to all and keep in touch!
-K