The first week of May was the period of Seoul Festa 2023. 
There were programs like food street market under the Han river bridge, and Seoul drone show etc.

      We went to a Han river park to see drone show as having a picnic.
The show was so beautiful.
I love the last scene that new Seoul city slogan appeared; Seoul My Soul.
Yeah, Seoul is my hometown and my soul.✨

    I've been working 9 to 6 jobs until now.
However, I don't like it.
I'm okay with my job itself, but I don't like that I have to go to the office certain time, which is restricting my time management.

   That's why I've started having gig jobs.
There is a freelancer platform in Korea like Fiverr of America. 
I've opened my service summarizing and translating thesis or books. 

   It was quite overwhelming that I have to work at the office for 8 hours and work another job after that.
Fortunately, I like reading, summarizing, and writing.
I'm grateful that I have something that I like and I'm good at,  and other people need as well. 

    I hope my gig jobs get bigger, so I don't need to go to the office everyday. 
What I want the most is autonomous time management. 
I want to make money regardless of where I live.  Because I'll move and settle overseas soon, so I need to prepare for it. 
I believe this kind of gig job would give me the lifestyle I want. 

    My dad and I went to trip to Geoje Island, the southern island of the Korean peninsula.
The weather was too windy, so all boat and cruise ships were cancelled that day.
Geoje Island is famous for beautiful small dependent islets to have cruise.
It was shame that we couldn't take boat to see islands. Instead we went to the Hill of Wind, and got the real power of wind there!

Still, it was fun trip with tasty foods.  
And I'm grateful to have a good time with my dad❤️


​ 

   I visited Tokyo!
It was so sudden. He is traveling Tokyo now, and invited me to there.
I was like, 'Why not?'
And there is my Japanese friend there who I met in Seattle 5 years ago.
So I decided to visit Tokyo. 

   My trip started losing my wallet at Incheon airport.😅
I borrowed money from other tourists and transferred them through Internet banking.

   Thanks to him, I could spend a great time in Tokyo without worries. 
I just followed his plan, and everything was great!
We joined Shinjuku night walking tour.🏮  The tour was in English.
I am Korean. I am in Japan. But I am surrounded by Western tourists..  😅
Such a global!

​

     Next day, we went Sensoji, which is the oldest temple in Tokyo.⛩️🌸
And we went to Shibuya. I could get some nice photos in the center of Shibuya scramble!😁

   And finally, I met my Japanese friend!!!
It's been 5 years since we separated in Seattle.
We were such a good friend studying and hanging out in Seattle.
We have been keeping in touch each other so far. No one expected we could meet again. 
But it happened! So fun and moving!

    After separating with her, I went to Tokyo Tower!🗼
It was last night in Tokyo. Such a huge and beautiful city. 
I feel like I can visit Tokyo several times! There seems so many things to explore.

    Do you remember I lost my wallet?
Truth is, I left it in an airport bus when I went to Incheon airport.😅
Next day, I went to final stop of airport bus, and could get my wallet back. 

   My Tokyo trip starts and ends like "Finding my wallet" 


​

     My ex-crush sent an email to me!
It's been almost 6 months since our last meetup.

I've been thinking about him recently for no reason. 
Has he been thinking about me too? The universe and feeling is really connected each other???!!

He said he was dealing with anxiety at the time he had ignored me.  
I never knew he had such mental health issue. He doesn't look like that kind of person who has suffering with mental health  problems. 
I was shocked.
At the same time, I'm suspicious he might be lying to me to try to mess me around again. 

I still like him.
But my real life is more important than sticking to SNS with him who lives far away.
I rather value more my surroundings. 

I already had experience that wasted so much time to imagine and texting to him without no actions.
I don't like it. I don't want to repeat it again. Learned from my lessons. 
If he really means to do, he would take an action instead just texting whatever sounds sweet. 

I've shown my stance clear that I don't want to stick to sns with him everyday. 
And I also said I prefer to interact with people in real life. 

I'm definitely willing to see him in person when there is a chance.
But now we live so far away from each other. And I will take more time and effort to people who are closed to me. 


Still it was nice to have conversation with him!🥰
I just hope he takes care of himself well. 


​

     My dad, brother, and I went to hiking Mt. Mai.🐴
"Mai" means "horse's ears" in Korean. The name of mountain comes from its shape because the mountaintop look like two ears of horse(look at 4th photos above). 
     The flowers around the mountainside were bloomed.🌸
We could enjoy hiking, walking under the blossoms, and having foods at the food street. 
Everything was well-developed as a tourist attraction. 
There were so many people who came to flower-viewing for the spring.  

    Wonderful! 🐴🌸

  
​
    I like I was born at this lovely spring season🌸🌸🌸
My spirit or energy seems to come from air of spring.     
I got many celebration and small gifts from my family and friends. 
Happy🥰🥰🥰

    There are two activities I love; writing and English✍🏻🔤

    I think my first dream that I would want to be was a writer. 
I read so many books when I was child. Also I wrote reviews whenever I read books since 8. 

    I went to a university through writing.
My job is also writing project proposals. And my hobby is writing blogs. My side job is also writing articles for others. 
Writing seems my calling.
I often crave any source I can write about. That desire never dying. 
The world also seems to give me works to write for others. 

 
    I like the sense when I speak English, even though I'm not good at English. 
It's always amazing you can communicate with others in a different language. 
It's true that your range of interact and perspective of the world get widen when you know foreign languages. 

    Today I suddenly think about how my English has been improved so far. 
I remember I really wanted to be good at speaking English. That desire sometimes appeared even in my dream at night!
I also watched so many English TV shows repetitively. 

Now I feel so comfortable to speak English and interact with people. 
That's why I feel my world has been widen in many ways since I can communicate with foreigners everywhere. 

    I have no idea where the love of English comes from. 
It's still going on. I always feel excited and thrilled when I speak English. 
I've been trying to be exposed myself to the English speaking environment.
And the world also seems to try to put me in that environment as well.


    My love of writing and English seems my life callings, which is never die desires.  
Maybe I can mix them for the world. 
I need to follow what the world leads me. We all should do too.  


​

​
    My friend and I went to a so beautiful brunch cafe.🌸
It has the European vibe. The foods also awesome!
The spring breeze coming through the window made me feel relaxed. I could feel peace in everything surrounding me.

    I also went to a blind date next day.
It was okay. The guy seems not interested in me.😅
I had only two blind dates these days. Even though you weren't interested in them, it seems still affect your self-esteem.

    Since my child, I've been sensing some fate that I would end up meeting a foreign guy. 
I'm hardly interested in Korean guys. And it also seems like Korean guys not interested in me. 
I'm not sure which way is right; Korean guys not interested in me because I'm not interested in them or I'm interested more in foreign guys because Korean guys hardly like me. 

     I believe Every Jack has his Jill.👫
And maybe this kind of failures mean I'm on the way reaching out to my life partner. 
I can feel something good comes around the corner.🥰


    

​
    It's spring🌸
The weather is so beautiful these days.
Who wants to work in this season?!
So, we went to picnic to the suburbs of Seoul! Yay🥳

   Lots of foods and drinks!
It was so cool! We spent such a nice time😊

   
    My mom and I visited a cocktail bar!🍹🤩
It was so fun.
It's been so long time for my mom to visit this kind of bar. Maybe it was the last time in her 20s?
She seemed to love the atmosphere of the bar. 
I never knew she liked this kind of place.
We got into the rhythm.
We also ordered my favorite cocktail which is Long island. My mom also loved it.
I hope we can visit this kind of cocktail bar again. 

 

    My previous boss offered a part-time job.
I accepted it for pocket money.😜🤑
He also gave me presents that he bought during his Paris's family trip. 

People say life is about give and take.
In Korea, subordinates give presents to their bosses every national holidays. It's like the tradition in Korea. like showing respect and appreciation to your benefactors. 
Maybe he gave me those gifts because I've been presenting every national holidays.

I need to give it back through helping his works. 

   
​    I had a gathering with my clients. 
My clients wanted to have this kind of time with us. 
I think this is because there has been many difficulties for our project. 
I knew this is for cheering together for the success of the project.
I like gatherings having dinners and drinks with many people. I could enjoy the time.
Yes, of course, we need to do our best together for the mutual goal.  
Anyway, everything goes to the end well eventually. 

    My dad, brother, and I had a party for his birthday.🎉🎉🎉
We had the party at the oldest French restaurant in Korea, which is called 9th Gate in Westin Josun Hotel.
There is an altar built in 1897 right in front of the hotel.
I could make a reservation the favorite table view, which is the altar view.

    It was so fun having a conversation with nice dishes.🍽️🥂
​But at the same time I became to feel sorry for my dad.

   I think all parents want to be surrounded and celebrated by many family members.
My brother and I haven't gotten married yet. I realized that my dad wanted to be celebrated by us and our "wife and husband".
In Korea, 70th birthday is so meaningful event. 
So, many Koreans have big party for people who hit 70th birthday.
Comparing to this tradition, our dinner party might be simple.. 

   You don't need to get married for your parents.
But, I don't know. 
Good marriage seems good not only for yourself but also others.👰🤵

    Ordinary people have similar desire and life goals like good job, money, having happy family, and raising kids etc.
Even though you seem different or have some different value, it's so hard to ignore others desire and wants as getting older. 
Because we live together caring each other inevitably. 

    I promised my dad we could big party next year for real "70th" birthday.
I didn't say anything details, but we all sensed that there was an imply that there will be many family members.
I'm not sure if that would happen.
But I also want to have my own family, so I need to make effort for this life goal.👪


​

    There was a time when I almost quit my job because of disappointment about the company. 
I made an account in an E-commerce service platform called Kmong as a freelancer writer.
Just because I didn't want to work for the company😅
(Now I'm still working for a company. But I've been hard time commuting same time regularly. I feel like working 9-6 job is a waste of time..😖)
 
    I knew it would be hard to make money through it. Because you need marketing and advertisement, which would cost a bit. 
So, I didn't expect anything from it. 

    One day, a client asked for work!
It was my first sale!💸
Even though it's a small money, I consider it very meaningful and feel quite proud.
The client's satisfaction of my work also made me feel good.
(As time passed, I think writing is my strongest talent and my life long calling at the same time)

    I just hope I could help others who need my writings. 
It would be mutual benefits for people who need my talent and me who likes writing🥰

​

   
I got LASEK eye surgery!
I'm a very coward person to the extent not able to wear lenses and eye drops on my eyes! So scary..😅
I've been wearing eye glasses instead but only when working.👓 But I don't wear anything most of time. 
My mom once said that I might have lost many things in my life because of my bad eyesight. 
I knew deep down that she was right.
Nevertheless, it was still so scary to get eye surgery(especially, you know eyes are so sensitive organism).
I've thought about getting eye surgery for a long time, but never did it.
 
However, it's time to do it!
I decided to get eye surgery. And I did it!🥳
It only took 30 seconds each eye. I could smell my cornea burnt. It smells like baking squids.😅

It feels so weird to see my face clearly. Maybe it's been 10 years since I quit wearing hard lenses.
I can see I got old..😭
Once I check my face, I get to want to develop my appearance. 
I want to get old slowly! It might be greedy idea not wanting get old at all. 

I'm quite proud of myself being courageous to get eye surgery!😏
From now, I'll face myself and the world clearly.🤟

It's been over 3 years since my last posting!
Why did I stip writing this blog? How have I been? The Pandemic killed me??

I was depressed half of the year of 2019. (You can see through my last postings..)
But I was getting better as trying many things like learning, getting a job, quitting, and getting another job, exercising, and dating blah blah..

In the year of 2020, my crush started contacting me. And we kept in touch with each other through Snapchat.
I was so happy at that time. I think his contact motivated in many aspects of my life. 
My life got fulfilled in many ways. 
The Pandemic didn't actually affect my life. I was doing many things as there was no such thing. 

At the same time, my emotion swung by him. I was sad when he didn't reply me back and ignore my message.
I tried to defend him by myself, and pretend I was okay.

I became a freelancer. 
My blog has been boomed because I posted many things like travelling, reading, and some SNS marketing activities. 
My expectation about him got bigger.
And I decided to go to Seattle to see him. 
But I already knew in the deep down he was just playing with me because of quarantine.

             My boxing coach once said that I have lack of passion when I practice. He kept encouraging me to add more power to punch as stirring my motivation. I actually thought myself doing my best and seriously. But it might not have been enough to him. His comment left some uncomfortable trace in my mind. At the same time, that reminded me of a statement that the racquetball guy once said to me; ‘Be fierce’, which also left me uncomfortable feeling like being caught my secret by others.
             As exercising, I discovered many things about myself. And people who see my workout also find something in me that I haven’t noticed by myself, and point out casually like speaking what they see without any specific intention which, however, makes me feel like being touched me on the raw. And most of time, uncomfortably, they are right. I think I never tried my best and deeply engaged in anything in my life. 


             I was a smart and talented girl in many aspects. Being good at many things at some degree in the first place would be a gift, but at the same it’s also a curse. I’m good at so many things and show visible improvement quickly from the beginning whenever I start something new. But this talent often seems to lead me to give up quickly or change something new to try whenever I start struggling higher improvement or encountering crucial moment that requires more focus and practice. I often became like, ‘Oh, well, it’s getting difficult and not sure I’m right for this. It’s okay, I can try another things’, ‘What about trying this and that thing? It seems right for me’, ‘I think I’m quite good at doing this even though it’s my first time. I might be talented for this’, ‘Hmm, it’s getting difficult. It’s ok, fuck it up. What would I do with this thing? Does it help for my life? I don’t think so, just quit and there are many things I might be good at’. And this vicious circle continues.
             And now I see that I have dabbled in many things but never committed to in the long period of time. Not only about learning or sports, I also often give up people and relationship whenever there seems difficulty as justifying there are many people out there. Overall, I think I have a fear of commitment and intimacy issue. I like instant gratification, but don’t like struggling and confronting difficulty and try to avoid it. So… with this vicious circle and tendency throughout my life as a dabbler, I actually feel lost what working hard or being committed means and how to do it. A little bit panic. 




​

           Loneliness and boredom led me to get into some dating apps. One of these apps is an app for people who want to do language and culture exchange with foreigners. I downloaded it without any expectation to get “normal” people having any pure intention of “language exchange”. I did it anyway. But, I eventually met a very nice person who is open with different culture and interested in history and politics of where he visited. He is a German and came to Korea with very funny reason. I contacted him because he seemed a traveler who stayed Korea temporarily (there are many foreigners stay quite long period time in Korea with no specific and clear purposes. And you can easily catch the common things they have in, which is I don’t find positive…) and interested in visiting history and art museums of Korea according to his profile. I was really excited that I found a person who really wanted to meet local friends to get to know about Korea while he was staying.
              I showed him around Seoul for two days. We visited National Museum of Korea, Contemporary art museum, the Korean traditional street, and other hot places for young Koreans often go to have fun. We hit it off quite straight away. Hanging around with him, we had very good conversation. He asked me lots of about Korea such as the politics, social issues, and mental issues of Koreans have recently (he studies in psychology). I really enjoyed having conversation with him with such deep topics. He often asked me some questions I’d never thought of before, which challenged me to think in new perspectives. He also comforted me a lot on having hard time these days of being unemployed. It was so funny we were strangers each other but we seemed to share so many personal things one another. I told him my current situations and how stressful I am, and he shared his crazy dating history for some reason. A little bit oversharing, but I liked it. We might have felt comfortable each other.
              All conversation with him really inspired me and made me want to do my best to live my life fully. I think this stranger gave me a cue in my repetitive boring daily life. He gave his contact as inviting me London where he studies. I don’t know if I’ll ever visit London in the near future, but I truly want to meet him again. But regardless of we meet again or not, I really appreciate this unexpected but so grateful encounter. At the same time, I learned that the more you’re depressed or down in your life, the more you need to do something unusual to stir your saggy life. Who know? You might get unexpected opportunities or meet good people. 

          The stress of job searching so sucks! It feels like I’ve got depression and anxiety. It’s really new level of stress I have ever experienced! When I was young, I luckily got my first job right after university graduation. So, I didn’t suffer this stress. And actually, I had no idea how stressful the young job hunters felt at that time. But, here we go. Now at 30, I finally got to know how it feels. It’s like… identity crisis. And it is! I read an article of NY Times. It says job loss or unemployment is actually more like about issue of identity than financial instability. Another article also says the stress level of unemployment and job searching ranks third on the top next to divorce and breakup. Ha.. the worst thing is I also don’t have someone to lean on. People say not expect to rely on someone when you’re not in a good state. But, I’m human. I know it in the head, but I can’t in my weak mind. Sounds so miserable.. my self-esteem flew away.

           Anyway, because of that, I’ve tried several dating apps. To be honest, I don’t like online dating apps and never thought I would use it. I somehow thought online dating apps are for losers. But, yeah, here is she, she is a loser, confirmed! So just do it, girl. I once got matched a guy in one of apps, but after few sentences back and forth, I stopped texting him back. Usually, people ignore or walk away when counterpart doesn’t response for whatever reason. But he seemed to wait my reply few hours. And when it seemed to be apparent I stopped replying him, he started throwing some bad words to me. He cursed my appearance and unemployed status. He even said I should have been thankful of him because he tried to save me who is 30 years old female but with no jobs, not good look “objectively”(what doesn’t it mean?), and small boobs. Oh, well, I never asked you to save me, though.. It was so funny. Because he, 23 years old, was the first one chose me, 30 years old female. I didn’t response at all. Didn’t feel any need to defend or be angry to him. I even didn’t hurt by that comment. I somehow already feel insecurity about those things of me he pointed out. Like someone just mentioned things about me that I’m already aware of? I even felt it was oddly refreshing thing I have ever experienced these days. Yeah, this is me nowadays. want to cry. oh, wait, I already cried  just before! 

            My father and I watched a National Geographic documentary in the morning. The short segment was about giraffes mourning their loss of a peer. A giraffe was killed and eaten by herds of lions. After the night, the morning broke calm and empty. Only one leg bone and some debris of the victim left on the vast dry plains. It looked so vain. Over there, some giraffes started appearing one by one. One giraffe came close to the leg bone and bent its legs to smell it. Other giraffes also began to gather around the bone and smelled it in turn. My father described their behavior as kissing the bone. It might not matter whether the behavior is smelling or kissing, but we knew what it meant for. I didn’t know animals have feel their loss and even are able to mourn their own ways. I know some few animals do that, but didn’t know that giraffes also do it. It was quite shocking and emotional to see in the morning. My father got some complicated face with small sigh as soon as giraffes mourned their peer’s loss. The scene was so captivating, hardly to take off my eyes from it. 

             ​I’m having hard time dealing with my life, but my country also increase my worries. Korea is having very difficult time these days. It’s having serious trading spat with Japan, which will lead long economically difficult time to people and the country. Amid the weak situation resulting from economic war with Japan, China and Russia intervened and showed military presence illegally in the Korea’s sea and air. North Korea keeps shooting missiles. The U.S. doesn’t care about it anymore. Seems like the country is under the siege by enemies. My father joked me I should have stayed America not having come back. Yeah, I hear you... lol
            
             Historically and geopolitically, the Korean peninsula has been a powder keg because its location of being surrounded by foreign powers; China, Russia and Japan, furthermore the U.S. The country often became a battle field of foreign countries which wanted to expand its territory, to protect its backyard, to search for ice-free ports and to protect its ideology; Japan had the long political purpose of conquering the Korean peninsula to cross the Chinese continent. China perceived the Korean peninsula the eastern backyard to protect its eastern border. Russia tried to move south to get ice-free ports since it had started to expand its territory as gradually eating Siberia and the part of Manchuria fighting with China. The United States draw a line on the middle of the Korean peninsula to protect it from being contaminated by Communism in the Cold War era. The Sino-Japanese war (1894) broke out in the Korean peninsula to decide which would take over the peninsula. Japan won. The Russo-Japanese war (1904) occurred in the Korean peninsula as well to decide which would get the Korean peninsula. And Japan became the final winner, and made Korea its colonial 6 years later. After the end of WW2, the U.S. and Soviet Union, which represented ideologies of Capitalism and Communism respectively having the South and North of Korea backed, clashed in the Korean peninsula in 1950 (The Korean war), which is referred as the first war of Cold War era. And the result of the war still remains the status-quo of division of Korea.
             As a small country, especially a country having a bad luck of location, Korea should know its weak position in the world power and try to be realistic like figuring out who would be the ones to hold hands and to be cautious about. Small countries can’t survive alone. But, I feel like Korea now lost friends and started be seen easy enough to be ignored and invaded. Those events I’ve mentioned above happened just over 100 years ago, which is very near past. And the situation nowadays is really similar with the past. Not only me, but many other Koreans also think the same way. I’m really worried about my country if we make the same mistake we already paid high price for sticking to be alone and not knowing what was going on its surroundings. 




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        This feeling is so weird; being anxious... I don’t recall I had this chronical feeling before. This anxiety last quite long and steady. Because of the fact that I haven't had this feeling before also seems to stimulate my anxiety.     
          I searched for the reason of this unfamiliar and unpleasant feeling. And I found out that people might feel anxiety because they’re worried too much about the future and uncertainty of life, which is so normal worries that are felt if you're human. Also, perfectionism can cause anxiety like thinking or expecting everything should go well and being afraid of when something doesn’t go well. To me, that explanation totally makes sense. In my 20s, I always had goals and purpose of my life. I knew what I liked and what I wanted to. So, I went for it, worked hard to achieve, was busy to pursuing my goals and rarely had time being bored or doing nothing. When you have specific goals and know what exactly you want, you rarely worry about the future because you're busy pursuing them. Also, you're probably confident to your choices, so why would be things you're worried about? My life was packed with plans and what I wanted to do without doing-nothing-time, which is my way of living rather fulfilling life. But, the situation now is totally different, which is almost opposite from the past. No wonder having different life situation brings having never felt feelings.
 
        I might have been growing for past 2 months since I started studying myself and the way how human being works through reading and introspection. I’m getting used to be easy to shift my mind and the way of thinking when I encounter some negative feelings. I feel anxious, helpless and scary of almost everything. But, I try to perceive these negative feelings in different ways. For example, I started thinking that this period of my life full of uncertainty and unstable emotions might mean I get to new page of my life. I might be transforming into “new me”, and the unfamiliar feelings might be signs before I successfully enter high level of me. Like preparation process before going to unknown stage. Imagine when you go to new school or work. You feel uncomfortable and nervous enough to feel pain in your stomach. But you go there, you have to go there challenging the uncomfortable feelings. And that’s what I should do: keeping moving forward as carrying the uncomfortable resulting from the uncertainty of the life. 
 
        Last posting, I said I was going to be a translator. But I changed my mind. I’m thinking of something but I’d like to say it when I really start it. Action matters. 

             I planned to finish this blog since I had come back to Korea. I felt like this blog was only for recording my being abroad life. But! I decided to keep writing it! I might have thought that life is divided depending on where I am. Especially, if you have very big change of physical location, you will get a chance to assume that your life would become totally different than former or later life. But, I realized that regardless of where I am, I'm moving forward with experiences, happy memories, and life lessons that I obtained from my Seattle life and keeping thriving my life with those. 
 

             It’s been almost two months since I came back to Korea. Putting one sentence to summarize these two months, I had the most difficult time in my life. I’m still struggling, but it’s getting much better. I think I’m in the period of changing my life value and perceptions like how to live and priority of my life.
              When I came back to Korea, I missed a lot Seattle and people thinking that I lost people and stable life there. I really wanted to back to Seattle and painfully regretted to come back to Korea. I think the reason I felt lost was simply because of the fact that I’m broke, unemployed, and not married yet. I felt like I didn’t accomplish anything in my 30. I felt like I’m a loser. But the thing is… this situation was the same when I was in Seattle, but I was there feeling the happiest time in my life so far. How come I was suddenly aware of these things as soon as I came back to Korea? So weird. Family issues were also added to my struggles. I felt like many negative things suddenly came to me.
             However, there was much more serious issue. The biggest problem I faced with was I didn’t have what I want to do and how to live with my life. I just felt lost and meaningless. I almost got depression like suddenly crying and thinking of death and worthless of my life and whole things. During this tough time, I desperately did something to make me feel better. I watched lots of motivational Youtube videos, read philosophy, psychology, and self-help books to get some help myself get a life plan and my worthiness, and most importantly did journaling like writing down my thoughts, emotions, and evaluation of my life; why I felt hopeless, how I lived, what value I had and will have, my mistakes of the past, what I’ve learned from the past, and my strengths and weakness etc. Whenever I read or watched those things, I’ve tried to instill the messages into the brain and applied to my daily life. Also, I reached out my friends and former coworkers. With helps from books, videos, and journaling, I got lots of great advises and supports from people, which is I really feel grateful again to my people.
 
 
            As consciously trying to get a daily routine, I started boxing instead of playing racquetball since I don’t have anyone in Korea who is able to play with me. I also started reading newspapers because the circumstance of Korea is the worst these days such as North Korea nuclear issue as usual, unprecedented economic regulations from Japan intending to revenge politically to Korea, and inaptness of the Korean government like the inner conflicts in politics and incompetency in foreign policy etc. I didn’t care what the country and the world was going on when I was in my lowest time, but it seems like I’m getting some room in my mind to worry about outside. Can it be considered a good sign?
          And now, finally, I’ve gotten to know what I’m going to do and roughly getting closer to define my priority of my life and how I’m going to live with. I’m going to go to a graduate school for interpretation and translation and become a translator who translates the Korean into English. I think I can do it well because I love writing and communicating in English. I especially want to translate the Korean history or politic books into English, which has been one of my long life goals. I find the division history of two Koreas and the Korean contemporary history a high potential market to the global intellectual readers. Also, I’m going to be physical instructor for disabled people. With my privileged of having a good physical ability, I think I can help others to get physical activities for their health. Lastly, I’m going to build physically and mentally healthy family, becoming physically and mentally healthy wife and mom.
            That’s it! I can do it. I will.
 

            The title of my last posting in Seattle was <It was all meant to happen>. I believe everything happens for a reason. Bad times also have a reason. Without this tough time, I wouldn’t think ahead about my life and seek for my life value I prioritize and how I live with. It's true I had a great time last 1 year, but because of that I made a big mistake that I was being too much comfortable with my easy life not seeing my circumstances realistically and preparing long term life plan. I used to regret coming back to my country, but it turned out it's a great timing to evaluate myself and my previous life to move forward with plans. I feel like this season is for me to prepare the change of my life.
​               So, it's awesome I've found my life goal and got confidence. But, there is much more important thing than planning a goal; I should keep walking through the long journey as being cautious about easily giving up or getting tired. Before judging about whether I'll accomplish my goals or not, I first want to be a consistent and patient person who doesn't get easily bored and give up, which is the thing I've never succeeded yet. I feel like I've got some obligation to challenge all process of life that gives me some random stuff. 

         Writing letters is not only about sending your love or thanks to others. In the process of writing love and thanks to others you care for, you also receive love and thanks from yourself. I often feel my unconscious mind unexpectedly tells me some messages I rarely recognize in daily life. 

             I sent letters to my people I’ve met in Seattle. Each letter has different air. Some letters contained full of love and admiration. Some letters revealed quite private realization about myself. Some letters tried to hide my true feeling. Some letters had light and chilled air. Some letters put my wandering mind. As writing these letters that had different breeze, I realized how much I’ve loved by people, how much I’ve loved them, and how much I’ve enjoyed this 2 years life. And as realizing those things, I couldn’t help it but to cry and feel sincerely grateful. Now I don’t remember what exactly I wrote about in each letter. But I realize that I put my every single memory, feeling, and realization of spending time with my people, and spread it to people. Now, my memories, feelings, things I’ve gone through became to be in their hands. I’m feeling little bit free and now I can let it go. I hope they keep part of my memory and sometimes have a time to gently smile back. That’s what the letter is for, isn’t it?

            
             I often got lost the purpose of staying Seattle. But, I finally realized it. It was meant for me to get to know who I am and to want to be a better person who can love others. And my friends have taught these things. I hope I don’t forget these learning and keep working on spread my love to others as much as I’ve gotten from others. It was all meant to happen. Thanks for all.