Winter Break: End Of The Semester Goodbyes

(2/05/2013: For some damn reason I cannot get the date on my posts!)

Yes, yes, I know I should have been able to post a lot more since being on winter break. However, I've been unbelievably busy since the semester ended. So let me feel you in what I have been up to.

Last month has been so hectic with Finals Week ending and "Post-Finals Party Week", Christmas, and New Year’s Eve plans... Now that I have a little breathing room with 14 days before my departure I can finally get back to updating this blog on how I've been doing~!

"Saying Goodbye to Jong-Ho"

(Khanhly and Jong-Ho: I love this picture! She's not upset or mad when I snapped the picture she just happened to have her face that way lol)

So, with finals week finally ending for everyone it was time to relax and have fun. Sadly right after finals week Khanhly, Lydia, and I had to say goodbye to two of our Korean tutors, who we have become very good friends with, Jong-Ho and Ga-Hyun. The first to go was Jong-Ho, unlike the other tutors Jong-Ho was introduced to our Korean class later in the semester. Funny enough Jong-Ho was the only tutor who would ONLY speak Korean to us. The other tutors would speak Korean to us also but always ended up just speaking English lol.

Anyhow, with Jong-Ho leaving in 3 days Khanhly wanted all of us to go out to dinner. Unfortunately many of our friends were busy and weren't able to come out, so it was only the three of us. Around 6pm the 3 of us met up at the Edge, then went to China Town in Center City. After walking a few cold blocks we finally got to Terakawa Ramen, which is a basically a noodle shop. (I will be posting a review on this place later!)

Finishing our food we paid and headed back to the Edge where we meet up with the other Korean international and exchange students and basically had a party lol.

"Saying Goodbye to Ga-Hyun"

Towards the end of the semester Ga-Hyun and I have become best friends, so it was especially hard for me to say goodbye to Ga-Hyun. Although I know I'll be meeting up with her the day I land in Busan, I was still sad to see her go.

Unlike Jon-Ho, Ga-Hyun, was staying in the US for much longer. However, she had to move out of the Edge dorm bye Sunday. Of course we hung out here and there when neither of us were busy, and randomly one day Ga-Hyun, Fred (who was apart of Globalinks: Korea Spring 2012), and I randomly went to Dave and Busters lol.

Of course we had a blast, we sat at the bar and drank as few drinks, and ran around the place playing game after game. *sigh* I'm going to miss hanging out with the both of them together.

Although I will be seeing both Ga-Hyun and Jong-Ho in Korea, it was still very sad to see both of them go. Both have gotten back to Seoul safely and are doing well. I'm sure you'll be seeing them and many others on this blog as time goes by.

Oh and bonus picture of another tutor, my homie Ji... He's going to kill me once he sees his picture on here lmfao!

Read more

Pre-Departure

After getting the call that I was accepted into Globalinks' study abroad program to

Korea University in South Korea I screamed and leaped for joy (literally). Words couldn't explain how happy I was at that moment that I found out I was accepted. For the first week after being accepted I was literally on cloud 9 and NOTHING could bring me down. Until the work started... Now because Globalinks Study Abroad is an external program that meant I had to complete requirements from both Temple University's Study Abroad office and Globalinks.

On Temple's Study Abroad checklist I only had 4 things to complete by December 15th. On Globalinks side, I had 25 requirements to be completed by certain dates which ran very close to each other. My one main mistake was that I under estimated how much work this was actually going to be. When I had last studied abroad in Seoul, South Korea, in the summer of 2009, everything went very smoothly. But this time, is a very different story.

On Temple's side after meeting with the head adviser of the external programs  from the Study Abroad office, I had to meet with my academic adviser. Because I wasn't studying abroad through Temple's program I had to go through each course I would need and get each class evaluated and approved. This meant that I had to go to each department to get each course approved myself. Seeing that I was really worried about this half of the processes my adviser informed me that I had nothing to worry about because she was going to make copies of form to send out to each department. The only thing I had to do was to go to Korea University's website and download syllabuses for each course I wished to take.

As I was knocking out Globalinks and Temple's requirements I felt invincible, until I had to deal with the Finical Aid Office...

(Side Note: Now for those who don't know, yes you are able to use your financial aid package for study abroad programs through your home university.)

For external study abroad students this is where things begin to get complicated. In order to me to be able to use my financial aid I had to wait for all 8 of my courses to be approved and sent in. Then I would have to send Temple’s consortium form to Globalinks, and give Globalinks financial aid paper work for Temple to fill out, which was due on December 1^st. So to make a long story short, I was able to get all of that sorted out by November 29^th.

Thankfully the majority of these problems and all this running around have been solved before finals week came. Although this whole thing has stressed me out beyond belief, I wouldn't want to have it any other way. I’m extremely grateful that I am able to finally study abroad back in Seoul.

Read more