3/8/07

I can’t believe how productive I’ve been! I’m amazing myself. Look at how productive I’ve been this week:

Sunday I:

- emailed my academic adviser about writing me a letter of recommendation and setting up a time to talk about my courses.

- also emailed HyeJin to let her know about my acceptance. I’m waiting to hear back from her.

Monday I:

- called the Student Health Center about getting the dates for my immunizations and getting a letter from a doctor stating my medical condition. I found out that I can just walk in and get both of those. I was originally planning on doing it this week, but I think I’m going to wait and do it next week, because of money issues.

- made an appointment with my study abroad adviser and met with him. Didn’t have too much to talk about, but I got a little bit of clarification on a couple points.

- visited my academic advisor (who hadn’t read my email yet) and gave him the interview form to fill out in lieu of a letter of recommendation. I was told to get back to him Thursday (today) or Friday about making an appointment to discuss courses.

- Took out $500 from my savings account to use as the deposit needed to save my seat.

Tuesday I:

- paid my library fines to clear holds on my account and paid for an official transcript.

- ordered and received a copy of my official transcripts

- Got a money order with the money I had withdrawn so the study abroad office would accept it.

Wednesday I:

- decided with my mom that we would take the picture needed for the application ourselves so I won’t have to pay money to get it done.

Today I am going to try to remember to stop by my academic adviser’s office to get the interview form and to see if he’s in so I can make an appointment with him.

I’m worried about money. I’m low on cash and me consistently waking up late does not help with the whole not spending thing I was trying to do. I’m just going to have to cut back even more on my entertainment outings and hope for the best. Wish me luck!

3/4/07

I got my acceptance letter! It came in the mail yesterday. I'm so happy! ^_^ Now I have two weeks in which to fill out Yonsei's Global Village application, sign the study abroad contract, and get my $500 out of the bank.

The application is what I really have to worry about. Along with the application, I have to send them 2 letters of recommendation (from my academic adviser and from the director of the Study Abroad office), a physical done by a physician, and an interview sheet.

Apparently when I read over the application before, I missed the part where it states that one of the letters is supposed to come from my academic adviser. I had planned on just have my Japanese teacher adjust his previous letter so it could be used for the Yonsei application. I emailed him tonight, but I feel bad and like I am not properly presenting myself to him, because he has less than two weeks to write it for me.

I am going to call or visit the Student Health Center tomorrow to see if I can get a physical from them. If not, I'll have to ask my mom where I should go. Since I became an adult I have not had a permanent physician. Hopefully I can just go to the SHC and one of their doctors can give me the physical.

Tomorrow I am going to visit the Study Abroad office and see if I can meet with Rene. I have a couple questions about the rest of the process. I also want to ask him about the letter, if it really does have to be from my academic adviser or if I could have sensei do it. Along with that I need to ask him about the interview sheet and who/when/what I need to do to get it finished.

Friday I got a call from HyeJin! I was so surprised. My cellphone rang and I looked at the number. I didn't recognize it and almost didn't answer it, but then I realized it was an out-of-the-country number. I did and HyeJin was on the other line! She asked about study abroad news (along with other things,) but I hadn't heard anything yet at that time. I was planning on calling her back once I heard, but then I pictured her parents answering and me trying to communicate with them and so I voted against calling. I'm going to have to email her later, when I'm not at work. ^^;

I'm going to be busy tomorrow. I'll try and keep y'all posted.

2/18/07

I am slowly inching forward on my path towards studying abroad. I got an email today confirming that my application was received. Well, it was actually sent on Friday, but I didn't see it until today. It said to give them three weeks for a reply, March 9th being the 'projected date of letter mailing' and to give 2-4 business days after that for it to actually reach me. Truthfully, I can't remember which address I gave them, though I believe it's my current one and not my parent's address. Now I just have to wait three weeks for the letter and then everything will become official.

I'm so nervous. I know I shouldn't be and that there's no real reason for me to worry about not getting accepted, but I do. I'm afraid that this semester a couple fantastic people decided that next semester is the semester that they want to go to South Korea. Which would mean that I wouldn't get to go. I know that there is slim to none chance of that actually happening, but that's what I think about.

Especially when I have so much time to think about it.

Well, that's all I really have to post for now. At least until I hear back from them. Wish me luck.

Waiting.

Yeah, so the deadline is only two days away. I'm a *huge* procrastinator (as my friends and family can attest to,) so it's really weird to have to wait for a deadline. At least I won't have to wait for that much longer. Then I'll just have to wait until they make an official decision and inform me of it.

Have I mentioned before that I hate waiting?

Since I can't really do anything more until I get the okay from the USF Study Abroad office, I have to wait. I'm very superstitious about jinxing things, so I feel like I can't really make any plans or think too much about possible plans until they say I am accepted. I know, very silly, but that's me.

I have been thinking about it a little bit. I would like to go to Japan at some point, probably not until January (unless Kristen goes to Japan in the fall.) I would also love to shadow in the embassy at Seoul for at least a few days. I thought, since I have 2 months, or 8 weeks, of free time I might be able to apply to intern there, but during the school year they want a full semester and even in the summer they want a minimum of 10 weeks. Since it's only at the Seoul Embassy that I would want to intern at, I thought that I might email Seoul directly (once I get accepted *knock on wood*) and see if I could shadow or intern or something there. It would be great if they said that I could, though I know, it being governmental, that instead they'll either say no, I can't or that I have to go through normal channels and just apply to be an intern through the State Dept. and that's the only way to get in. Well, I can hope.

Of course I can't do anything until I hear back from Rene and the Study Abroad office. So, like I have been doing, all I can do is wait.

Application. Check.

So I turned in my application to the USF study abroad office last Monday, all completed. The deadline isn't until February 15th and Rene, my study abroad adviser, said it'll take 2-3 weeks to get through all of the applications, so I shouldn't expect any answers for another month or so. All I can do is wait until then. I hate waiting.

But I'm so excited! Now that I turned in my application, it feels more real, a more solid venture. Rene made it sound like (unless I was totally misinterpreting him, which is totally possible) I was pretty much guaranteed into the program. Everyone here wants to go to Japan. Well, not /everyone/, but a huge stack of people want to go to Japan. And almost no one wants to go to Korea. So, by lack of other applicants, I have a really good chance of being accepted and if I'm accepted here I'm going.

The amount of interest in Korea would probably be different if there were Korean language classes and cultural and history classes on Korea, but we don't have anything on Korea. I don't even think Korea was really talked about in the Asia class that was offered last semester. That's alright though, for now. It just means that I have better chances of being able to go.

Hye-jin, a Korean friend of mine that was at USF for the ELI program, visited the school yesterday. That made me happy because I hadn't seen her since last semester. She asked me about my progress and I told her. She said that she had already talked to her parents about a friend of hers (aka me) coming to Korea and that she wanted me to be able to stay the night at their house for a few days. I felt loved. <3

I have two months free in between the two semesters and I haven't figured out what I'm going to do then. My mom wants me to come back, but I kind of want to take advantage of me being over there and go visit other Asian countries. Either way, it's going to cost money. Money sucks. I don't know if I mentioned that before. Or rather, I should say, having to have money sucks. But, yeah, still trying to think of what I should do during that time. I haven't thought about it too hard yet, though, because I don't want to jinx myself on this trip by planning for things before I get accepted. Just have to wait for a month. I just keep telling myself that.

And smiling whenever I think about it. ^_^

1/14/07

Wow. So I've neglected this blog for a long time. Luckily Rachael noticed it and brought it back to my attention. After my last post I didn't really have anything more to say until after I could talk to my advisor, so I sort of forgot I had this. A lot has happened since then and I don't think I'll write it all down in this post.

First things, though, I know where I am planning on going and when I am planning on going. I am planning on going to South Korea for the Fall 2007 and Spring 2008. I am planning on going to Yonsei University's Wonju campus for their Global Village program which is a semi-immersion camp for the Korean students.

I'm looking forward to going, though it's not official that I'm going yet and there are still a lot of details to fill in, state-side and abroad.

I'll write more about it later.

Earlier today: 2/12/06

I've decided to see my advisor around mid-term. I need to find out what my old classes transfer and count as for my major. I decided I would also bring up my interest and intent of interning abroad next summer with the Dept. of State. Hopefully he can help me with it.

I'm happy, because I've found my dream scholarship! It's the NSEP, National Security Education Program. For a semester abroad it pays $10,000! Well, up to, I guess. But that's a lot of money! They prefer people who are studying abroad for a year. It said you could combine an internship and studying abroad a semester to make a full year, which made me get excited - except it then went on to say that it had to be an unpaid internship with a non-governmental organization. :( I don't understand that because one of the stipends for receiving the scholarship is: "The NSEP service requirement stipulates that an award recipient work in the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, State, or the Intelligence Community." (This is another reason why I thought this scholarship was perfect, because I want to be a Foreign Service Officer.) Since this is a requiement, I don't see why you can't use a government internship to count. Makes me sad.

Another reason why it makes me sad is because they also have a rule stating that you can't have been in the country you're studying abroad in for more than four weeks (within the last five years) before going to study abroad (if that makes sense.) (note: I was just looking at their website and I could not find this. Maybe I got thise mixed up with a different scholarship I was looking up... Yep, I was right, it's the Freeman-Asia scholarship.) That's great, because I want to do both in Japan, though it would be okay, if it was true, only because then I would just study abroad in South Korea. I'm starting to get more interested in Korea. I guess once I decided that Korean didn't sound whiny and that I actually like it, it opened up my interest in Korea.

Studying in Korea would be good also, because then I would have a better chance at getting the scholarship. Hmm... Makes me think about looking into studying in Korea for a fulle year. I tink my parents would freak, though, me being gone for around 12 months (internship and study abroad.) Yeah, a lot of wishful thinking on my part. I don't even know if I would like Seoul. Well, we'll just have to see. I wish I knew what credits I still need for all of my requirements.

Back to the internship. I can apply for two different departments. I've decided to apply for the European one and the East Asian/Pacific one. With the A/P one, I'm going to request Japan or South Korea and with the European one, I'm going to request London or Amsterdam. There is a scholarship available for the London one. Amsterdam was chosen because it's in the Netherlands. and there will be free housing. Well, one can hope. ^_^

Back log: 2/8/06

Monday, during my 15 minute break at work, I went to the Study Abroad Fair. Japan wasn't there, but there was a booth about being a Global Ambassader. Sounded interesting, so I went to an information session today. I'm not as interested now. I would have to pay for everything and find my own housing. Sounded like a lot of work and trouble.

Guess that means I'm going to be sticking with a summer internship with the federal government. Looked up information on it again. Found out that my deadline for interning next summer ('07,) which is when I want to, is this November ('06.) Getter start working on it now. I need to talk to my advisor and find out what credit I can get from this internship and what scholarships he might know of.

Interning is definately my first choice, but I would love to be able to study abroad in Japan, too, if possible. Maybe if I got anough scholarships for it I could. I would have to go Fall '07 or Spring '08. Spring would be preferable, but (credit-wise) I should be graduating Spring '08 and you can't go abroad for your last semester. I could just work it out so I had one class left or something for that summer. Of course, all of this is mainly wishful thinking on my part.

Back log: 1/18/06

I'm very torn about what I should do. I would love to do both, an exchange and an internship, but I don't think that is feasible or, perhaps, logical. I know that an internship is the best way to go and that will probably take top priority, but reading the course descriptions of classes available, want to go on the exchange, too. The subjects sound so interesting and I'd have the oppurtunity to stay with a host family. It would be great if I could do both. I hate having to choose. Maybe I could do the internship during the summer and then study abroad for a semester. That could work well. Of course, there's always the pressing matter of money. The only major reason I see why not to do both. I guess we'll see.

Back log: 1/13/06

I've come up with a partial solution to me saving money and my mom agreed to it. She's going to open up a savings account and I'm going to give her money to put into it. That way I don't have any access to it except through Mom. Good thought, right? I thought so.

Back log: 1/12/06

There are two things that I want to do while sstill in college. I want to study abroad in Japan and I want to intern abroad with the Dept. of State- at an embassy or consulate. This is my first semester at USF. I've transferred from UCF with 39 credits. I'm taking 12 credit hours this semesters. I haven't decided yet when I want to do these two theings, which can, possibly, be combined into one trip. I haven't really done anything except read about them and decide I want to do them. The biggest obstacle and worry about being able to do these is money. I suck at saving. I apparently don't know the word. But, I'm going to try.

Explanations

This, my first post, shall be a post of explanations - why I choose the names I did and what I'm going to use this blog for.

First off, this blog's purpose. I am a sophomore university student who wants to do two things: study abroad and intern abroad. I intend to record my progress (or lack there-of) for each of these endeavors here, in this blog. I have already started a paper journal for this, but then I decided I would use the internet for it, too. My first few posts will be back logs from my paper journal.

Next, the names. The title of my blog is "My Yeo-jeong." Yeo-jeong is Korean for journey. I thought this was appropriate because this blog is recording my 'journey' through the processes of interning and studying abroad. My name (and url) is Ga-eul. This is Korean for autumn. For some reason I'm obsessed with the name Autumn (love the full name Autumn Summers.) I've recently gotten into a Korean craze, you could say, and so I decided to use the Korean version of this word as my name.