One year already?

The first real "Korean" image I have is from our first bus ride to Gwangju from the airport.  We were sitting in huge pleather-covered chairs, trying to sleep in the blue light from the HD TV at the front of the aisle.  I gazed out of the window at the night rolling past, hoping to catch a glimpse of the country I had moved to.  For a long time I just watched the highway fly by, orange concrete surrounded by black.  But then we drove by a city.

Endless rows of buildings towered over skinny roads, tall and narrow and long.  Electric signs crowded the buildings, neon red and green and yellow flashing like a mini Times Square on every block.  "This is so cool," I thought as the neon swirled past in the night.

* * *

One year later and I still find myself thinking that.  Sitting on top of a mountain at midnight, gazing out at Gwangju's orange and purple lights that twinkle in the haze while friends chitchat in the shelter behind me.  Launching roman candles in the middle of a bustling traffic circle with children and grandfathers into the night sky, the cacophony of a festival mixing with the smell of gunpowder and horses.  Watching fishing boats chug around the blue waters of the South Sea from a sleepy beach town as an ajumma picks onions across the road behind me, I think  "This is so cool."

I'm lucky, in a way, that living in Korea still retains enough of the "exotic" to provide fodder for stories that friends back home will find interesting.  But it's not when I'm eating soup made from congealed pig's blood or dressing up in a hanbok at my boss's request that I really feel satisfied.

For a long time - since at least high school - I knew that I wanted to go abroad.  I didn't just want to travel, I wanted to live and work in a different country.  It's why I studied International Affairs, and it's why I went to GW.

When I stand on top of the mountain, and think about where I am and what I'm doing and how much I simply love my life right now, I'm awestruck.

To be two years out of college, and in the exact position you hoped to be is a strange feeling.  There's a sense of "Mission Accomplished" sure, but I'm also acutely aware of how lucky I am to be here.  For so many people here, and for so many friends back home, the job is a stepping stone, a temporary stop on the way to fulfilling their career or life goals.  Maybe I'm generalizing a bit too much, so I may get into trouble, but it seems that while most people my age are where they hope to be at this point in life, they're not where they hope to be in life--not yet.

Standing on top of that mountain, I realize that this is it.  This is where I want to be--in life.  Period.  I spent the better part of the last seven years trying to get here, and I love it more than I ever thought possible.


It's incredible to have reached a goal.  It's thrilling to have been so right in setting that goal. But it's also a little scary.  What if this is it, and it's all downhill from here?  What if I've peaked too early and I have to spend the rest of my life working some dreary job chained to a desk as my friends trot around the globe and live glamorous expat lives abroad? (not that desks are all bad, I have many fond memories of desks)

But then some shopping center's lights will be shut off, or a car screech will jolt me back to reality and I'll notice the lights from the farms twinkling off in the distance and I'll think to myself, "This is so cool."