Now that my summer break is in full swing, I wanted to tell you how my summer's looking to be. I have a full two months and a half before I go back to the US in time for the International Student Orientation. I used the first two weeks to adjust to the time difference (and it definitely took a while to do that), rest up, and prepare for the rest of the summer.
Though I don't have any research work or jobs lined up for the break like some of my friends, I figured out that I still have a ton of things to get done before my summer ends. Some are quite small things, like reading books outside of the class requirement and learning new songs to play on my ukulele.
Some are much bigger plans, like getting a head start on my Japanese lessons before classes start, and getting my driver's license. I know I'll be taking a beginner's level class in Japanese at college, but I know how fast these classes go in terms of learning about the alphabet system, vocabulary, and grammar, so I thought I might as well do some studying on my own. My future self will definitely thank me later when everyone else is struggling to catch up on the piling work given everyday. I'll come back with a progress report soon enough!
In terms of getting my driver's license, I heard from many of my friends that the course is easier in Jeju than in Seoul because the roads are slightly wider and there are less cars to worry about. So I'll be going down there again in a few weeks. So in a few weeks, you'll get to know whether I passed or failed..!
I also have quite a busy schedule for meeting my friends from NLCS. They're actually all over the world, so there isn't a time we'd all get to see each other, but I know they'll start streaming in once it reaches June. I'm also planning to stay in touch with all my college friends since I won't get to see them for a while. Summer breaks at college are just so much longer than the ones I had in high school, when I really needed them.
My vocal teacher and I got back to having regularly scheduled lessons, which means that I'll have some opportunities to record songs that I wanted to keep. And another regularly scheduled thing I want to do is to get back into fitness. I was taking a fitness class during the spring semester, but my concussion made it impossible for me to finish it. And I hadn't really picked it up again, so I hope to start my healthy habits once more during the summer.
I've also moved churches -- from the one that I've always been going to since I was a baby, my family moved churches to one that I got attached to because of the pastor's sermon. There's a 6-week course that we have to take in order to be considered a member of the church, so going to all those will also be something to look forward to! Since they have a very active young adults ministry, I hope to meet some new friends.
One last thing on my mind is preparing for the International Orientation program. Though I'm not the main person in charge, I'm still the designer for posters, t-shirts, etc, meaning that I have to get my creative juices going whenever they need me to produce something. I have some designs in mind, so hopefully the rest will like it, too!
This, I think is the end of my exhaustive list of my summer plans. I'll be back with updates on how things go!