Host Family Info, Shopping, Packing…OMG

Hey guys!!

I haven’t updated in the longest,..but, I have legit reasons why! Finals, Regents, and summer homework had me preoccupied. Yayyyy…not!

So anyways…

Host family info came on Monday! I was so stocked! I was given the names, age, and occupation of the people I  was going to live with, where I would live, the time to travel to school, housing situations (room, bed, etc). Other got expected chores, but I didn’t get anything like that on my sheet…oh! Contact info was also provided.

So I contacted my host family and got a reply fairly quickly! I got it within the same hour! Many of my other NSLIY friends had to wait a day or two, so I was very thankful. My family so adorable! Can’t wait to meet them! Hehehe…

Shopping was all in all a very tiring and long process. START SHOPPING EARLY FOLKS (to my future NSLIY applicants!) I…eerr…my parents pushed back shopping because of scheduling conflicts and exam time period, etc. Why didn’t I just shop alone? Well…I’m a teenage girl who needs to be told whether an outfit looks good or not. Why didn’t I shop with friends? Again, scheduling and exams, but we did shop together a couple of times. I “finished” shopping today (2 days before departure). I still have a basic things to buy, like shampoo, conditioner, adapter, etc.

Packing on the other hand…that’s a whole new story! So far all I have packed are my socks…yeah. I suck lol. I plan on buy my basic things tomorrow and finish packing Saturday, but knowing me. It’ll pour into Sunday too!

Stress Come On~~

Sigh, Wish me luck!

-L.O.L

S

Flight Info Came In…FINALLY

OMG! It’s so surreal…it has finally hit me that I’m going to South Korea. The fight info has finally come in and let’s just say I got crazy stares from people on the bus. Yeah…I shirked on the bus. Don’t judge me…

Anyways…

I sat down for 2 hours breaking apart my itinerary and trying to figure out how to navigate the site and trying to find me information.

For the domestic flights, we got to choose our own seats.  For the international flight the seats were assigned, but we were allowed to move our seats near friends or people we knew. There were people on the group chat that spent hours changing seats and discussing the best seats that were available to us and what to do for 13 hours. Yep…nonstop staying in one seat for 13 hours…YAY! Not…I’ll probably knock out or watch a movie.

Signing off…

Embarrassment >.<

Hey guys! I’m back 😀

So…update: 3rd weekly email came in today and the flight itineraries started to come in. Some people got them, others, like myself, are still waiting 😥

OK, so. I took my OPI on Monday and boy did I embarrass myself. >.< I think I did fairly well as a beginner, as I understood majority of what she said and replied with the little Korean I knew.

Info:

OPI: Oral Proficiency Interview

Not everyone had to take it, but everyone that said they had prior knowledge of Korean  had to take it. It’s good as you have a baseline sort of assessment, and then you can gauge how much you have improved after the program.

The interview lasted about 15 minutes, but most of that was me stuttering and silence. My interviewer was so nice and patient I felt so bad!

Can’t wait to see the improvement!

Packet, Webinar, Weeky Emails, Homework…Oh my!

Hey there guys!!!!

Okay update 🙂 Ready?

If you read my other fellow NSLIYan blogs, you already know that the packets have come in with all the program info. I was one of the ones that had to wait longer as I got mine the 23rd of April, which was about 5-ish days after the first person got theirs. In the packets there were:

• Student Handbook
• Parent Guide
• Forms to fill out
• Papers to read
• A textbook to start learning Korean
• Numbers to have saved

Yeah…lots of goodies :DDD

Okay, so after all of that we got an email about a webinar on the 6th of May. We went through more information about the program, what was expected of us pre-departure and it gave us a glimpse of what to expect when we got to Korea. We also got to meet our RD (Residence Director). She seems rad 🙂 That same week we got our first weekly email which basically gave us a heads up that we’d be recieving the pre-departure language learning course syllabus soon and that homework was on it’s way. Yayyyy!! More work >.< Hahaha…but no really. The course is actually pretty helpful and I’m learning :DD

A fellow NSLIYan did a video on the packet if y’all need a visual:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4Mo7IJkn3Y

Hopefully this was insightful!

Have fun reading

~ Ria

An Amazing Opportunity!

First post…so I’ll start from the beginning. Duh. What’s wrong with me.

Okay, so moving on.

Back in 2014 my program manger told me about NSLI-Y, National Security Language Initiative for Youth, which is a program that is sponsored by the U.S State Department that advocates and encourages high school students to study a target language abroad. (If you’re interested I will put the link down below). So, I did my research and found that they offer Korean and then my journey set off. I applied in December and found that I was a semi-finalist in January. As a semi-finalist you have to go through an interview, which I thought I screwed up, but was more than ecstatic more like mind blown to find out that I was a finalist for the Summer Korean Program! That’s right, 6 weeks in Korea baby! I still have a lot more to say…but I just had a brain fart. Guess it got too excited just thinking about it >.< Hehe…more blogs to come since APs are over!! \(^.^)/

Hello world!

Hey guys!

My name is Ria and I have been give this amazing opportunity to study Korean in…wait for it…you ready? South Korea! I have never thought that I would be traveling to Korea anytime soon. My friends and I always talked about traveling to Korea during college or after graduating, but I guess dreams do come true! :’) I have created this blog to track my time in South Korea and hopefully this will provide insight to any travelers traveling to South Korea in the future!

Happy reading!