Today Is The Day!

Well I'm writing this post from the airport in St. Louis. Yup--that's right! Today is the day of the big trans-pacific move! First I'm flying to Chicago and then straight from Chicago to Seoul. And honestly? I could not be more excited to go!!! I normally dislike flying but I can't wait to jump on both planes today!

Packing actually went pretty well. My brother Tetris-ed everything in my bag for me and I was able to fit every single thing that I wanted to take except for my sleeping bag. Small sacrifice to make for more clothes space, though! My bags were significantly overweight so I got slammed with heavy bag charges (fuck you, United. Seriously, go fuck yourself. Asiana charges HALF of what you charge for overweight luggage). While it was expensive, at 6 AM right before moving across the world, I couldn't care less. I'd rather pay than have a crazy stressful travel situation and have to Sophie's Choice my stuff.

Never in my life have I felt so sure of anything as I feel about this. It's kind of crazy and unpredictable, but that's the point! This is exactly what I need to be doing in my life right now and I am so lucky and happy to have this amazing opportunity!

Winding Down and Speeding Up

I've been in St. Louis for two weeks and am leaving for Korea in less than week now. Technically, I will be flying over the Pacific exactly one week from today. In the time that I've been here, I've been visiting family and friends and studying for my GRE.

And I killed my GRE. I mean, I did a lot better than I was expecting. Now, they say that one cannot cram for the GRE but I did it. I went from not remembering how to multiply fractions to getting a pretty solid score in a week. It CAN be done. It just needs a lot of time devoted to it.

Since my GRE on Thursday, I have procrastinated started unpacking from Minneapolis, only to re-pack again in a few days. I also made over 100 cakeballs yesterday for the lovely farewell dinner that my mom threw for me.

Red Velvet, Chocolate Peanut Butter, and Cookies and Cream. Be jealous.

I will really miss not having an oven and not being able to bake while I am over there. I'm sure I'll get creative but I really enjoy making these! In all honestly, I just enjoy the accolade that I receive from everyone when they taste them.

Today I did my big Costco trip and spent more money on medicine than I ever thought I would. I bet if I added up the money that I've spent on medicine for the next year it would rival my REI bill. What I've read over and over again is that you really need to bring a lot of medicine with because their stuff in Korea is just super different than ours. And my health is not something that I want to mess with.

In the next few days I have to finish unpacking, spend more time with family and friends, get everything else that I need from Target and whatnot, pack everything, and then get on the freaking plane! I also have a to-do list like six pages long with everything from my taxes to my dry cleaning. One thing is for sure: a week from now, all of this will be done and over with and I will be off on my adventure!

Mardi Party

I know that it's been a while since I last posted but there honestly hasn't been TOO much going on.

Every day in St. Louis is pretty much consumed with me studying for the GRE and doing little chores here and there around the house. I have started cooking dinner for my family quite a bit which I'm sure they enjoy (and I enjoy, too). Cooking on someone else's dime is awesome!

So yes, back to the GRE bit: I'm taking it on Thursday and I am actually feeling very good about it. My practice test scores have nearly skyrocketed about every day. They say that you can't cram for standardized tests in a week but um, chyeah you can (if you have 10 hours every day to study).

I still haven't unpacked anything from the MPLS-STL trek but I'll get on that just as soon as I finish the GRE. By the same that happens, I'll be ready to start re-packing for Korea!

As many St. Louisians know, the Mardi Gras celebration here is the second biggest in the country (after NOLA of course). I went to my first one ever on Saturday and it was...an experience. I had a ton of fun with my friend from high school and her brother, sister-in-law, and their friends but yeah, definitely an experience. Every single time I try to day-drink/marathon it, I always start out by saying that 'I'm terrible at it' but then I give in and try to do it anyway.

Guess what?

Any guesses?

I really am terrible at day/marathon drinking. I didn't get sick or pass out anywhere public or anything like that. I just think that I have about a 5 hour limit to partying and anything that goes beyond that, I get disinterested. Needless to say, I was back at my parents' house, sober, and in bed by 10PM.

I'm sure that there will be some amazingly fun times in Korea in the next year, but I am just fine with none of them including the challenge of sustaining a buzz and an excited attitude for 12 hours straight.

Roger Murtaugh in Lethal Weapon absolutely had it right:

Into the Valley

It has been a little while since I last posted. I am now writing from my parents' house where I will be for the next (almost) three weeks before I go to Korea. My to-do list here is quite small in comparison to the Minneapolis to-do list before I left:

-study for and take GRE
-unpack everything I brought here
-buy extra things that I am bringing to Korea that I haven't gotten already
-learn a bit of Korean
-repack for Korea

Pretty simple list for three weeks!

My goodbyes were all really hard and very tearful. I want to extend a huge huge HUGE thank you to all of my friends that came to last Friday's event, who tried (but couldn't make it because of the snow), who helped me get ready to go, and especially to my best friend in the whole world for helping me pack my life, sell it, destroy dispose of some pieces of furniture, being my emotional support, driving with me down to St. Louis through the worst road conditions imaginable (the snow wasn't that bad; it was maybe two inches TOPS. But instead of plowing the minute it stopped snowing, they waited hours to do the biggest highway in the area!), and for being one of the greatest people I  have ever known. 

But back to the other friends: they just rock. They all said such sweet things to me while I was sobbing in the VFW (go screw yourself and stop judging me, hipsters) and I can't imagine better friends and people in this world than my group in Minneapolis. I'm typically really bad at goodbyes but this provided a huge amount of closure and felt pretty good in a weird way. 

So now I'm here, living with my parents and my puppy, with pretty much nothing to do aside from study, for now. It honestly feels really good to not have anything else going on but we'll see how long this feeling lasts. I tend to get pretty restless.

I guess if I get bored, I can just reconfigure my Pack It Cubes and luggage again!