Answers From Lewis

Life the past few weeks has been absolutely crazy. After my sister and I got back from our life-changing missions trip in Louisville I thought nothing else could make me feel so excited for a while. But, boy, was I wrong. As soon as we pulled into our garage my dad told me that we had heard from my host club.

This here is my host city, Ansan, which is in Gyeonggi-do province. It's on the west coast and borders the Yellow Sea. It has a population of about 760,000 people.

안산공업고등학교 (Ansan Technical High School) is my school, which is on the northeastern edge of the city. It has about 1,800 students attending. Because it is a technical school it has some interesting classes like Machines and Electricity besides all the normal classes. I probably won't be taking any of those, but it'll be cool to going to school with people that are. I checked out the website I was given for the school, but of course it was all in Korean, so I had a heyday trying to make sense of the crap Google Translate was giving me. In the end I didn't learn much besides what classes they offer and how many students there are...... I have a long way to go XD

I also have the names of my host parents, which I'm not going to post yet. I tried to email them, but the address I was given didn't work, so I emailed the rotary club person asking about it. Hopefully I will get a reply soon and be able to contact my family.

I was also given the date of my arrival which is the 24th of August. I'm not sure how set in stone that date is, but I'm pretty sure it won't change. But because Korea is a day ahead of us I'll probably be leaving the 22nd to get there in time. Which means I'll probably be back in Dubuque by the 20th at the very least.

I have had many people ask if I am excited to go to Korea. And of course I most certainly am. I think that the reason I get asked so often is because I'm not my usual jump-up-and-down never-stop-talking-about-it excited. And so, my friends, here I shall finally provide the key to solving this predicament. "But very quickly they all became grave again: for, as you know, there is a kind of happiness and wonder that makes you serious. It is too good to waste on jokes.” - C.S. Lewis

Wisdom From Funke

     This past weekend was wonderful. I went to a Girls Scout camp for a couple days with all the outbounds and inbounds from our district except a couple. I had a lot of fun and was really glad for all the advice that everyone was willing to give. I was especially happy that they didn't try to sugar coat things. They clearly told us that there are gonna be some really hard times.
     It was a bit hard for me because I am the only one going to Asia and there were no Asian inbounds, so I didn't get as much specific advice as everyone else did. It also drove me crazy when I couldn't understand all the Spanish, but I did get to practice my French a bit, so it wasn't that bad.
     Overall, it was just a nice relaxing weekend and one more step towards my eventual departure. I probably won't be posting again for quite a while seeing as there really aren't anymore planned days with any of the inbounds or outbounds.
     A lot of people told me I was the brave one or asked me if I was scared to be going to South Korea, but honestly I'm not freaked out about it. There's no point in being scared “because fear kills everything. Your mind, your heart, your imagination.”  (Inkheart, Cornelia Funke)

Inspiration From Tolkien

Hey guys! (whomsoever you may happen to be)
     So, this is my official blog to document my wonderful and surprise-filled adventures in Korea. There will be lots of pictures and probably lots of other random things I discover are possible to do with a blog along the way. I will try to update regularly after I arrive and give you a good picture of what my life is like there.
     Some of you will recognize the title of this blog as a line from the Lord of the Rings. I am a total fan of fantasy books (not science-fiction, they're different) and am going to try to have a quote from a book every time I post that describes how I feel about life at the moment or how I feel about a certain thing that happened.
     So, as I look forward to going to Korea and experiencing everything that is wonderful about it I will keep this quote in mind and remember to take the good with the bad.
     “The world is indeed full of peril and in it there are many dark places. But still there is much that is fair. And though in all lands, love is now mingled with grief, it still grows, perhaps, the greater.”  
     You rock, Tolkien.