60 days

Wow, this is the longest I've gone without blogging for two years, I think. Slightly over two months. But I'm back, and just in time, because... I only have 60 days left in Korea. I think I'm only just now starting to realize that I'm actually leaving. I've had this sensation before... I could probably scroll back not too far and find another entry where I wrote the same thing, but that was before I met Manuel and before I decided to stay an extra six months. And every other time I thought about leaving Korea I felt there was something holding me back, or that I just had more to do or more to learn and wasn't ready to go. Now, I don't feel that way. I'm definitely ready to go home.

Don't get me wrong, I'm starting to feel sad about it. I mean, I've lived in this town, and done this job, for two years now. That's a long time. Almost as long as I worked at the Honors College, half as long as my whole college career, and four times as long as I spent in Ireland. This is a big chunk of my life, and I can intuit that I'm not going to have the slightest idea how important it really was until I've left it behind for good. So in honor of that, a new feature of this blog, which I'll try to do daily, if possible.

Things I Will Miss About Korea (TIMAK):

#1 Noraebang

I've raved about this before, but it is something I'll really miss, so it bears repeating. As you know, noraebang is like karaoke... sort of. At a noraebang, there are a bunch of private rooms, ranging in size from relatively small (two people snugly) to huge (>10 people) with karaoke machines. There's lots of English songs to choose from, and obviously loads of Korean ones, and some of my best memories were made in these rooms. Back in the day when we used to go with Amy and Meghan, and even now, when Tim and I just go and spend an entire hour singing the same songs by ourselves... It's so fun. I will go ahead and acknowledge that I obviously harbor secret dreams of being a famous singer, and that I love holding the mic and rocking out. But I'm not brave (or talented) enough to do this in front of a crowd, so it's nice to be able to do it alone in a room and not have to worry about what other think. I'm proud of the awesome repertoire of Korean songs that I can sing, and I should probably be ashamed of the number of hours I've spent practicing them, but I'm not. It was loads of fun, and I'm going to miss it a lot when I leave.

I was going to announce that I'd made another big change to my life plan, but then I realized that I hadn't ever even written about the last development, so I hardly need to. :) I ended up getting offered the AmeriCorps position with College Forward (in Austin), and was, for about a month, really really excited about it. Even now I'm sure that I would have really enjoyed it, but recently I decided not to accept it. I started thinking about graduate school again, and realized that I think it's time to do it. Then I started looking into the application process and came upon a possible problem. Most schools look for the letters of recommendation, and I can think of only one person who I might possibly be able to ask, and she's changed universities. Yes, the letters are relatively unimportant when applying for an MFA in Creative Writing; it's the writing sample that they really look at. But I still need to be able to at least get three letters from people who know who I am, and it's been two full years now since I was even at UCF, 4 since I took English courses.

Then, I had a miraculous thought. I'd committed almost entirely to College Forward, but what if I... didn't go? What if I went back to school at UCF instead? I could take the one workshop I needed to graduate, and also a couple of other writing workshops. That would give me time (read: force me) to create a few more pieces for my grad school application writing sample. It would also give me a chance to work with some professors and cultivate some letters of recommendation. Plus, I'd get back into the swing of school and make sure that I'm ready for grad school. So I've been re-accepted to UCF, fought hard to get the perfect classes, found a place to live, and now the only task left for when I get back will be finding a job. I'm not looking for anything great. I want to live frugally so that I have few expenses and thus have to work few hours. I want as much time and energy as possible free to write write write.

And so far, tentatively, we're off to a good start. I edited the hell out of one of my old stories, and am still doing so, in order to submit it to a few literary magazines when I get home. I'm pretty sure that once I manage to do this once, and receive my first rejection letter, the dam will be broken and I'll feel like I'm really doing it rather than thinking about it. And I've written the first four pages of three new stories in the past week. The problem I'm running into is the will to continue, but I guess I have to tackle one problem at a time. It used to be the will to start that was my problem, so this is progress.

More later.