Big Changes

Hello, World!

Welcome to my new blog and, if we're being really dramatic here, 'new self'. This blog is a way for me to keep a collection of my thoughts and experiences and share them with others while I embark on my biggest adventure yet: my time teaching in Korea. It's also totally and unapologetically self-indulgent. Whatevs, bro.

If you are one of my close friends or, let's be real, my mom (hi mom!), you already know why I'm doing this. If you happened to stumble upon this from being a Facebook friend from high school or some how by the Google lords, let's get you caught up.

I was totally that girl. The one who had her shit figured out and who knew exactly what she was going to do with her life. The one who had a plan and stuck to that plan. The one who secured a job right out of college in the exact planned field. The one who rolled her eyes at people who went to law school, did Teach for America, joined the Peace Corps, etc, because obviously they were just trying to figure out what they wanted to do. The one who liked to write in thematic lists.

OK, I totally still do that one.

The point is, I was a very different person with very different priorities. I graduated college in May 2011 and started working full-time at an advertising agency in downtown Minneapolis doing media planning. If the last time you talked to me was in the summer of 2011, I was probably really excited about this job and acted really pretentious about it.

The job and industry were just not what I wanted. I considered changing agencies countless times but at the end of the day, I just didn't have the passion and drive to really care all that much. I was burned out. Work was tireless and meaningless and I did not enjoy my environment. With the exception of a select few, I also really couldn't stand the people that I worked with. When you spend 10 hours of your day at the office, you don't want to feel like a kappa-house reject 24/7. (Disclaimer: individually, most of my coworkers were lovely people. But as a collective group, I felt like I was living out my fifth-grade clique rejection PTSD in real life.)

After a really rough year and a half of working for the same agency and having tremendous ups and downs, I had the vacation that changed the course of my life. In the summer of 2012, I went to my cousin's Bar Mitzvah (a Jewish rite-of-passage into adulthood at the totally mature and appropriate age of 13) in my hometown of St. Louis and I was flooded with accolade from relatives telling me how great it was that I had my whole life figured out at the age of 23. Then it hit me: I HAD A CHOICE IN THE MATTER?! This wasn't expected of me at this point?! I thought back to my friends who were all taking time off, traveling, working abroad, doing TFA (which I completely respect if you're doing it for the right reasons), etc and I got really envious. Maybe there was something to this whole letting-life-happen thing?

After the Bar Mitzvah, my mom took me to New York for a wonderful mother-daughter trip. As I was walking through Central Park I had a thought: I really disliked Manhattan. I mean, I found it absolutely repulsive. And you know what Manhattan is? The advertising capital of the world. I always loved the idea of living in New York and thought that it was my destiny. If I no longer had any desire to live in the absolute best place for my chosen career, maybe I didn't want to continue in my chosen career?

I came back to Minnesota with a mind flooded with thoughts of what to do next. I researched other marketing jobs and nothing seemed like a far enough departure away from the field that I despised. I went through countless 'get-rich-quick' ideas before thinking about the many people I knew who had taught in other countries. I never thought that I wanted to teach and I never thought that I'd want to live in Asia. But the more research I did, the more perfect the idea seemed. Some how, the concept of throwing myself into an unfamiliar situation, an unfamiliar occupation, and a totally unfamiliar land seemed like the perfect way to combat my current situation of boredom and confusion.

Here I am, five months later, about a month away from starting a year-long contract in Suwon, South Korea. I still have a lot to learn and a whole life ahead of me, but here is what I am certain of so far:

1. A college major does not define a person.
2. It is totally, 100% OK to change your mind.
3. There is no way to know what a situation is really like until you're in it.
4. Enjoying the journey is so much more important than the destination.
5. Success is not a measure of income, job titles, or societal approval; success is a measure of individual ability to challenge oneself to live their best life possible.

In this blog, I want to chronicle the mechanics of my time in Korea, my discovery of what I want to be when I grow up, and basically whatever I feel like writing about. I promise that not every post will be this preachy.

But for the time being...WHADDUP, LIFE?! Let's rock this bitch.