=-} Almost near the end of study abroad

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Faustina Than

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Faustina Than

<i>Home Institution</i>: St. Olaf University <i>Expected Graduation Year</i>: 2024 <i>Academic Major / Minor</i>: Economics / Public Health, Family Studies, Statistics and Data Science <i>Destination</i>: Yonsei, South Korea <i>"Hello" in your host country's language</i>: annyeonghaseyo (์•ˆ๋…•ํ•˜์„ธ์š” ) <i>Demographics</i>: Asian/Asian American, First-Generation College Student <i>Future Career Goals</i>: Go to grad school in public health with concentration in health management and policy to be able to enter the public health field. <i>Top Three Study Abroad Goals</i>: Meet many different people of different backgrounds; Be inspired by the cultures different from my own; Exploring things out of my comfort zone!

HELLO!!!

Today marks my last month in South Korea as I will be leaving studying abroad earlier than expected. I never expected to go through so much emotional turmoil then I would have if I stayed at my college, which is saying something as a private liberal arts college. To say in the least I wished I had made a lot more friends than I did, but I did almost everything in my bucket list (tbh there wasn’t much on there anyways). I will be visiting Busan and Jeju in the next few weeks so we will see how that goes especially with current issues. HOWEVER, I have been able to go to my first Festival!!! We woke up sooo early and we ended up standing for 12 hours straight. It’s been three days since then and my legs are still sore >.< , but because we were early, we were so close to the stage and we got to interact with so many of the artists that were there! I’m so glad I went with avid concert goers because I don’t think I would have made it until the end of the concert and it made me realize that I need to treat myself better with the people I surround myself with because I knew that the person I was hanging out with was draining my emotional battery. I don’t know what I’m going to do when we go to Jeju and Busan together because I will be going with them.

Since my last blog, I still don’t have my card because they sent it to the wrong place and I had to call them twice. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get it before I leave Korea because I haven’t been able to have cash and one of my cards work sometimes at places.

On a happier note, the midterms finally ended! Now finals are coming up so I will be doing a bunch of essays for my classes and I dropped one of my five classes! I will take my philosophy GE through a biomedical ethics course at my home college. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to wake up for this class because it’s at 8 am, but we shall see. I am honestly surprised how my body was able to be ok with the 15-hour difference these past few months, but it makes sense because I used to stay up until five am and then wake up at 5 pm. We also have been going to so many cafes! It’s well known that in Korea that cafes are known for their aesthetics and I have probably spent so much money probable buying so many sweets. It’s actually really interesting that so many items on the menu are probably the same price as meals in Korea.