I’m at the International Terminal at San Francisco International Airport once again.
I’ve been here before.
I’m sitting at the same table, at the same terminal I was a little over a year ago. This time, my computer is a little nicer, I’m carrying a heavy jacket and my nerves aren’t shot. In late December 2008 I took my first journey to Asia to study abroad in Singapore. Less than a year after returning, I’m heading out East once again. This time to South Korea, specifically, to teach. The equatorial tropics that kept me warm for six straight months was won’t be greeting me this time.
The last two weeks have been one hell of a whirlwind. Almost two weeks ago to to the day, I made the decision to move forward with my job placement with EPIK, the Korean government’s English teaching program for foreigners. Originally, I was to show up on Thursday February 18th, but it was jut impossible given the time frame.
To be honest, I didn’t think I was going to get a job. I felt like I just caught the train everyone else was after graduation, “there’s no jobs in America, so why not go somewhere else?” My good friend Peter did so last August in China, where English jobs are in near comparable numbers to its population size. Korea, on the other hand, has been harder to get into. The pay, standard of living and locations are in high demand, making it a much more competitive place. That’s why I’m very grateful for the position I have been given.
As of now, I have several hours to wait for my next flight. A good movie may need to be in order for the time being…
This is a short article I wrote for the Final Year Project issue (click to enlarge):
This article was originally published on March 30, 2009 in the Nanyang Chronicle
The Internet sucks here on campus. Because of that, uploading to Flickr is a long, multi-hour process which I dread. Uploading to Facebook is a lot easier. I uploaded two 60 photo albums from my trip to Vietnam the day I got back, but I think I better share them. Note: you don’t need an account to view them.
Here are photos from Ho Chi Minh City, Ben Tre, My Tho and Da Lat.
Here are the photos from Nha Trang, Hoi An, My Son, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City 2: The Return
Here is a Google Map representation with blue being the first photo album and green being the second:
View Larger Map
READ MORE ->
…Click to Continue Reading or Comment »
As a journalist, you’d think I’d be a MASSIVE blogger. Well, for some reason that’s not the case. I think more or less I need something to report on, not just an outlet to voice my opinions. When I write for the Daily Aztec I know I have an audience. I especially love those readers who hate me, for some reason. But with a blog, especially one this obscure on the entirety of the Internet, people have to seek it out leaving mostly friends and family as the readers. That usually means light-hearted commentary more so than the big guns. Haha.
Well, I’m hoping in the next month or so I’ll be able to blog more, for the sake of reporting. So the next update will be about my trip to VIETNAM. I may have to skip Malaysia. Oh well. Vietnam was cooler anyways.
With that in mind, I present my third article for the Nanyang Chronicle, Nanyang Technological University’s tri-weekly student newspaper. My first two articles were OK, and didn’t really come out the way I liked them – mostly because the editors butchered the hell out of them- so I didn’t really feel like sharing them. But my latest article is actually a review that sounds like I wrote it, what a concept!
You can find the review on the lower half of this page or I can just copy/paste it here and you can reader it once you go.. …Click to Continue Reading or Comment »
