Quick Thoughts

As I wait at Incheon International Airport in South Korea for the plane that will take me to Dalian, China with five hours to spare and nothing do I find myself being gravitated to finally starting this blog. After a few moments of spontaneous creativity the blog is named and the layout completed (for now) and I am writing my first post.

As I sit at the terminal in the dark because it is 5am here and with no lights on because I guess they're trying to be sustainable here as well; I just wanted to reflect on a few thoughts and feeling that have already crossed my mind.

So initial feelings...first anxiousness, then nervousness, next humility, and finally ending in confusion.

My first feeling of anxiousness comes from the wait and I guess the feeling of the fact that it is finally happening. After spending the entire sophomore year filling out forms after forms and attending meetings after meetings I was finally on my way to the airport. As excited as I am to be traveling and studying abroad I do worry about my proficiency of the Chinese language and my ability to communicate and function in society once I am over there. For instance, just trying to get a hair cut. It worried me so much that I just decided to chop off all my hair so I wouldn't have to worry about trying to describe how I wanted my hair cut.

Traveling to South Korea was an experience in itself. In the U.S. public announcements always go, with some exceptions, in English and then Spanish. On the plane however it went Korean and then English. This small difference struck me for two apparent reasons. First, it showed just how vast the world truly is. How no matter how big America is or tries to be English is not the most prevalent or most spoken. It shows how we are the secondary/foreign language. Second, just waiting and listening to the public announcements was longer. In the U.S. we could listen and then after it was all done we could just continue what we were doing. But for us foreigners we had to wait listen to it in Korean - to make sure we wouldn't miss it in English - and then listen to it in English. While I'm not attempting to make a huge deal and debate out of this, it does give off an air of inferiority.

Which has lead to confusion. Why have I attempted to do something so different, so outrageous and crazy? Why did I decide to go to a country that speaks a completely different language with only mediocre to beginning proficiency? Why am I here? To me that answer has always been simple: to become fluent in Chinese. But I guess I forgot to thing deeply about the actually learning process and how I will survive that. The question becomes what am I doing here? Why didn't I just take the easy route and go to school in central Pennsylvania? Am I the adventurous type? Do I like a challenge? I don't have an answer. Just a hope.

To finish, a quote from the movie Inception which describes my feeling pretty well:

You're waiting for a train, a train that will take you far away. You know where you hope this train will take you, but you can't be sure. But it doesn't matter - because we'll be together....China here we come!