Day 1-Arrival in Seattle 160627

I didn't know what to expect from PDO really, except that all the alumni were like ITS AMAZING ENJOY IT!! And I didn't understand how or why, but I can tell you that they were right.

I can't really say much for our first day of "PDO" because I was one of the last people to arrive. I got here around 7:30PM whereas other people had been here since this morning.

When I got here there was some pizza and everyone was chilling and stuff... and I think there was some get to know you activity that I missed? And then we made a little rules contract about being nice to each other and respect as a group and then they surprised us with KARAOKE!

I sang 눈, 고, 입 bc my friends sorta forced me to but I get super nervous singing in front of people so I was shaking and almost cried lol but Angie was there to save me so I was fine in the end.

And now we're in our rooms but for some reason there's no AC so I just have the window opened and we aren't supposed to but I opened the door too and stuck the fan in there to try to cool it off some because it's actually at least 10 degrees cooler outside and I feel uncomfortably hot and sweaty. Everything here has been sooo hot indoors even though it's way cooler outside. why is there no AC in the whole building ??!

But I digress. Tomorrow we've got a full day: breakfast at 8 and everything else until 5pm at which point I believe we'll be set free to frolick around Seattle and stuff maybe. Hopefully.

I'm already so excited, everyone is even better than I expected and I've already had sooo much fun. This is going to be an amazing trip I can already tell.

P.S. On my five-ish hour flight some guy spilt his coffee on my foot right from the beginning (while I was asleep) and I woke up like an hour in with freaking sticky toes. It was awful. 10/10 would not recommend. My blue polka dot bear socks may or may not be ruined :/

D-1 160627

I guess I already failed at updating my blog frequently. But we got our flight info really late (like two weeks late) and then our host family info only a week ago.

I'll have two little brothers!! I'm excited about this because I've been an only child my whole life. Also, these boys are ABSOLUTELY ADORABLE!

My host family doesn't have Wi-Fi so I've been struggling to figure out what I'll do about it, but I think I'll just walk to a nearby coffee shop if I need to use the internet.

I'm leaving tomorrow for my 7 hours worth of flying to PDO and I'm soooo psyched to meet everyone.

Since I'm leaving tomorrow I guess I'll share my packing list:

8 thin/casual dresses
1 nice dress
7 shirts
6 shorts
1 skirt
3 pairs of pajamas (shirt/shorts)
1 pair of jeans
2 pairs of leggings
3 baseball caps
5 pairs of shoes

Now a lot of people are packing a lot less, but I'm pretty sure I won't fit into much in Korea so I'm bringing enough clothes for 2 weeks. Most people packed half as much and are going to buy a ton of clothes when they get there.

Everyhting else is toiletries, electronics, host family gifts, and my carry on stuff like notebooks, water bottle (empty, of course), iPod and that stuff.

I opted out of taking my 15-inch 8lb HP laptop and I'm taking my dad's iPad and a Bluetooth keyboard instead.

And last but not least I've been staying up all night and sleeping most of/half the day to try to get on Korean time. Its totally working. No jet lag for me! But I'm wondering if PDO will mess that up since our schedule is 9-5 on Tuesday? I guess we'll find out.

T-9 hours. See you there ;)

The Beginning 160418

If you're reading this you probably already know (or have some level of awareness) that I've been awarded an NSLI-Y Scholarship to study abroad in Korea this summer! It's such an amazing opportunity and I'm eternally grateful. I'm going to try to blog throughout the whole process—and obviously the trip—so if you're thinking about applying, or if you're just curious, you'll know what to expect. Without further ado, I give you my story:

It all started on the fateful day of March 31st.

Just kidding, it's not really that dramatic. I was on wisdom-teeth-surgery drugs and woke up in bed around 6pm. So naturally, I checked my phone, only to find 100+ messages from my friends on various forms of social media saying "OH MY GOD JODI DID YOU CHECK YOUR EMAIL?!"
My inbox took a painstakingly long time to finish refreshing and I finally clicked on the only email without even fully reading the words "NSLI-Y 2016 Application Status." My heart was beating out of my chest. The body of the email said:

       Dear Ms. Kirkner,

       Please see the attached PDF regarding your application status.

?!!??!?!!?!?!
And of course the attached PDF took like 8 minutes to download because my wifi chose that of all moments to crash. But when I finally opened it and my eyes managed to focus on the tiny words I started screeching, and my mom came in my room like "Jodi what are you-" thinking I had swallowed my stitches (or seen a spider xD) or something...

And that's how my journey began! Within a few minutes of telling my friends, they added me to the Finalists chat and since then I've met a ton of great people who I'll be spending my summer with.

We haven't gotten any more info about the trip yet, but we're expecting our information packets to come in the mail pretty soon. I'll update as soon as something else interesting happens.