Last week

Well here it is, my last week in the states before I take off for Korea. It's an interesting mix of feelings: excited to go, sad to leave everyone and everything here, wanting to explore the new place, and that part of me that just wants to be there already and not have all this stress from packing and getting ready to go.

I packed up most of my things last night and plan to finish tonight. The moving company is coming tomorrow afternoon to pick everything up and get the air-freight under way. They said that it takes about 18 days for stuff to get there, so the sooner they can start the better. That just means that I need to know exactly what will fit into my suitcase before they come, so that I can get everything there ... I probably also need another power adapter too. I'll have to get one this week or weekend.

I had cultural awareness training for two weeks last week. The training was excellent as I was able to show how much I already knew about Korean culture and I was able to learn about 3x more. During the training I got to hear from three different speakers (i know sounds boring) and they were all excellent. One is a political science professor and Korean national who walked me through a lot of the culture, history, economics, and US relations associated with South Korea. This was great as he presented a ton of information that I hadn't heard before or information that I had heard of, but wasn't sure if it was true. The second presenter was one of Westinghouse's former correspondents for pacific rim activities. He had a ton of interesting and helpful business type information which would have taken me the whole residency to learn. The final presenter was someone who currently lives in the Changwon area. She was closer to my age and able to tell me things to do and places to go in the area, which will be great for weekends and such. She also showed me the website for the city which has a ton of cool stuff.

Over the weekend I got to meet up with a bunch of the family to say hello and goodbye before I fly out this Sunday. The plan is to get into Korea June 1st, move into my apartment June 2nd, and start work June 3rd. So that is the tentative plan, lets see if it holds up. I'll try to be back for an update before I fly out of the country.