Introduction

Hello!  My name is Bre.  This blog is mainly intended for family and friends, but I feel like I should give a short introduction anyway in case someone else stumbles upon it.

When my grandmother died in February 2012, it made me realize that no one lives forever (I know, right?).  I'd been thinking about going to Korea for school for a while, but I was afraid to take the leap.  But I realized I'd rather regret going after having tried it, than regret not going because I was afraid.  So, in April 2012, I applied and was accepted to Seoul National University's language program for the Summer 2012 semester.  However, some things came up at work, and I ended up delaying it for two semesters, making my first semester the upcoming Winter 2012 session.  If you know me at all, you know how much I hate winter -- the snow, the cold, the shorter days.  So it took a bit to convince myself to go halfway around the world to a place that's much colder than Hampton Roads, Virginia.... where I'd be outdoors for a large portion of the time (vs. just scurrying from my house to the car, and from the car to the building where I work).

I applied to SNU because I'd heard good things about the university -- classes are made up of students from a bunch of different countries, that don't all speak English.  The common language is Korean, so you're forced to use it if you want to communicate with your classmates at all.  But, mainly, honestly, I applied to SNU because everything was able to be done online.  Other schools like Yonsei and Seogang seemed to cater more towards the foreigners already living in Korea... the application, registration, payments, etc all had to be done in person or via a proxy in Korea.  As I actually had a full-time job, moving to Korea just for the chance to go to school didn't seem like a possibility.  And I know a few Koreans in the States, but I don't know any Koreans in Korea.  (I know some friends of friends, but none that I know well enough to entrust several thousand of my dollars to.)

For this blog, I intend to use the Revised Romanization of Hangul (the Korean alphabet) quite often, as well as Hangul itself.  I'm still not sure how I want to write the words that are affected by certain pronunciation rules... but... we'll figure it out as we (I) go.  For example, I'm living in 대학동.  According to the RR, that should be written as "dae-hak-dong," but my Korean teacher (here in VA) says it "dae-haeng-nong."  Is that going to confuse people?  Is it better to type it letter-by-letter so you get the right Romanized letter, or to write it out how it's actually said?  I guess it doesn't matter, so... we'll go with the pronunciation for now.  :)

Anyway, today I finally got my D-4 student visa.  I'll save the story for the next post.