Starting Moxie and Mountains and... Moving to South Korea!

It’s been a few years since I thought I’d like to try my hand at blogging. I’d been hoping to work on my writing skills (they’re rather rusty since college) and thought this would also be a good way to get outside and try more things. I spent some time thinking and came up with Moxie and Mountains. I wrote one post about an amazing climbing festival i went to. Then… cue the pandemic.

Here we are, 2 years later, and the idea has come back to me and the timing feels right. Why, you might ask? Because I’m on my way to Korea! I leave in February and will be staying in Seoul and studying Korean for the next 6-9 months.

So as I get things going here, I thought a good way to start would be to reflect back on my path to learning Korean and moving to South Korea.

It Began With a K-Drama… And then a YouTube Spiral… (I just wanted to know their names! 😂)

It started, as I’m sure it has for many, with a Korean (K) Drama and then BTS. K Drama’s global popularity has risen in the last few years, especially during the pandemic. My sister’s friend recommended she watch Crash Landing on You and in turn my sister recommended it to me. We were solidly into the pandemic by then, late summer of 2021. I gave it a go and as with most shows I watch, I rushed right through all the episodes and finished it in a few days. I’ll have to do more posts on Crash Landing On You (CLOY) and K Dramas in the future, but needless to say, I loved it a lot! (I may or may not have pulled an all nighter to finish it…)

As I told my sister how much I enjoyed CLOY, she recommended I check out BTS. (Not really sure what her reasoning was there but I’m soooooo glad she made the rec - honestly best rec of her life right there).

The date that shall go down on the record as my ARMYversary - September 27, 2020. It only took one music video to get me hooked. I watched another and another and as many ARMY will relate, I was then watching videos on how to tell the members apart. (I just wanted to know their names! lol)

Diving In - Learning Korean

So how does one go from watching a K Drama and finding BTS to selling her house, going on sabbatical, and getting ready to move to Seoul for almost a year to learn Korean? All in less than a year? Wow, when I put it like that, it sounds kinda crazy. I prefer to think of it as intrepid.

So if the first points in this journey were watching Crash Landing on You and finding BTS, then the third point, which followed shortly thereafter, was starting to study Korean. It was a pretty short time before I got to this point.

At the time, I was struggling to learn Spanish. I had a few apps but my practice was inconsistent and I didn’t have the Spanish language incorporated into any parts of my life. After becoming ARMY though, I was constantly seeing and hearing Korean. I would hear it in K-Dramas and BTS music. I would hear it in BTS interviews and episodes of Run BTS. I would see Hangeul in tweets by BTS and on trips to H-Mart to try different Korean foods. I delayed starting to learn Korean a bit because I didn’t want to give up on Spanish. But eventually I came to the realization that I was passionate about Korean in the here and now and I could always come back to learning Spanish later (which I still intend to do).

So in December of 2020, as I did a 2021 goals visualization exercise, I researched and drew out a plan for studying Korean in 2021. Based on my research, I knew I wanted to start speaking Korean with someone right away. So shortly after Christmas I started lessons through iTalki. And I’m now over a year into my Korean language studies and still loving it!

Making the Leap! - Moving to Korea

These first three points feel like a natural progression. But making the leap from studying Korean to “I should live in Korea for a year” feels like a pretty big leap in hindsight to make in such a short period. But when you find something you're passionate about, I believe you should go for it. You never know what tomorrow might bring and I don’t want to spend my life putting my dreams on hold. 

To be honest, I’m not entirely sure how the idea of doing a year in Korea came into my head. I know I looked at teaching English overseas. It’s a good way to get paid, but it would require me to quit my job. I really love my job so I didn’t want to go that route. I then found out about Korean language schools and how you could study Korean through a university for 20 hours a week and get a student visa. That seemed like a great fit. I was studying the language anyway. What better way to do it than full time, in Korea, where I could study and travel? It was pretty early in 2021 that I brought the idea to my boss. Almost a whole year in advance.

So one thing led to another. I did more research, looked at costs (I'll be on unpaid leave for my sabbatical), talked to my boss about timing, and got my parents on board.

Honestly, even after writing all of this, I still can’t believe that I’ve only been studying Korean for a year, but here I am, submitting visa paperwork, having sold my house, and I’ll be on my way to South Korea in just under 6 weeks. Where did the time fly?

I think my family and friends know that I come up with a lot of grand ideas. Trips and projects I’d love to do. I like to dream about the future and I toss a lot of things out there into the universe because you never know what might snag and turn from a dream into reality. And who you might pull in with you along the way. My family is pretty good at humoring my ideas. My dad is a dreamer too, although more with an eye towards businesses as an entrepreneur. My mom I think has accepted this about me at this point. My siblings are super supportive. They might not always get why I want to do a particular adventure, but they’ll be there to back me up. So long as it doesn’t involve my sister doing anything outside her comfort zone of paved trails and bathrooms :) I couldn’t do this move without my amazing brother stepping in to watch my best friend and best dog ever, Cobalt.

So as I set off on my adventures, I’ll blog along the way, and see what adventures come my way in 2022 as I fly to the other side of the world!