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Eight months in South Korea

One semester at Sogang University

An internship at Seoul City University

Thanks Mr. and Mrs. Tim and Korean Mom and Dad for extending your hospitality to her.

We are thrilled to have CC home. 

She is keeping me sweetly distracted.

Olive

South Korea Girl {CC}

South Korea Girl is not coming home for Christmas.

 It is good news though. Really. Many of you have asked about her in e-mails and in comments. She will complete her semester at Sogang University in Seoul this week. She studied Korean and Asian history. She loves South Korea. CC has been studying Korean for over a year here in Georgia but there is no substitute for total immersion in the culture.

She had been fervently applying for South Korean internships. She was interviewed for two in the last two weeks. Time was drawing near for her to fly home and it was making me anxious. Flying to South Korea is expensive and she would have to fly back for an internship.  

Being a mom I was caught up in the myriad of details. What about a visa extension? What about the plane ticket? What about approval from her home university? What about the cold winter?

CC was in perfect contrast to her mother virtually unconcerned about all of the above. She had met with a missionary couple and arranged to live with them if an internship happened. She arranged to help them teach orphans. She felt that God strongly wanted her to stay. She was and is resolute. I am proud of her faith and in awe of her.

She accepted an internship at Seoul University to work at a museum. 

She will be helping a man there with his English as they work and he with her Korean. We continue to talk and text, for free, via Kakao Talk. It is a free app that hardly ever cuts us off. The winter in Seoul will be nothing like CC has ever experienced. It can get in the negative numbers. We live in a state where coats are optional.

The image above is of CC (on the left) and her now roommate. I think they are adorable. Her roommate is from Georgia and also attends CC's home university. They did not know each other before this South Korean semester. They can continue their friendship when CC returns.

I tried to pull some images of Seoul and CC in the snow off of Instagram but could not. She is coffeeaddict0021. She takes a lot of pictures of Korean food, coffee and historic sites.

We will miss her terribly at Christmas but we will be fine. I will be fine. I am happy for her.
Thank you all for asking about her.

Please read my sponsored post from Kaplan and Blogher 
Thirty Minutes In The Day Of A Registered Nurse.  
It is a true story of a sick young man I cared for.

Happy Christmas
Olive

Picture This Moment

Picture a blond, skinny, blue eyed, young child looking about four years old (but actually six) running down a chain link fence and signing to her mother as her mother drives away from school. She's signing "I love you" continuously as she runs along the fence as if her mother is leaving her on the concrete playground forever. This scenario occurs every morning.

Now picture that same child, grown, but still petite at age twenty-two (looking fifteen) in line at Hartsfield-International Airport signing "I love you" in the security line as she prepares to fly off to university in South Korea. Maybe for five months or perhaps for an entire year. The mother or young exchange student have no idea when she will return.

This is when the mother cries. She pictures, the skinny child, the concrete, the fence, and not the TSA in their navy uniforms checking her in at the large shining airport. The mother then signs "I love you" back to her daughter.

That was my CC and me last week.

Can you picture what I have been up to?

Joy and Peace

Olive