Movement By Lydia

I just got back to America after spending my summer in Seoul, South Korea with NSLI-Y. I miss the program, the classes, the country, and the people so much... This summer has seriously been the best summer of my life! I love my NSLI-Y family so much♥ Now that I'm home, I have some time to post about my summer in Korea so I will be posting more about the trip! It takes a lot of energy and time to make blog posts [which is why I didn't really in Korea], but I'm going to try and recap this experience to show you all. I'm sorry I didn't post while there! I know a lot of people were really curious about how I was doing and what I was doing, but our schedules were sooo busy and I didn't ever use a computer so I only had my phone. Anyway, more posts about Korea after this! I'm going to start way back at the PDO in NYC [which was in June... wow..]~ This is going to make me so nostalgic... If you want me to talk about certain places or aspects of this trip, let me ...

I apologize once again for not posting at all, but I wanted to make a post about yesterday's day camp before I forget all the details so that will be today's post. First off, I've got to say that this was probably one of my favorite days so far in Korea. I love my team members and had soooo much fun with them yesterday♡ We made a lot of good memories yesterday that I won't forget, and we also built great friendships during the course of the camp. Thanks to my team for making my day so great yesterday and working hard together despite the hot hot weather! I'll never forget my elephants♥                                  So now about the camp and what we did. When we first got there they gave us nametags to wear for the day. We got them and then sat with the other 50 Korean students who were already there and got to know them a little. After the intro stuff, we played icebreakers as a ...

One thing I really enjoy about walking around Korea at night is the STREET PERFORMERS. They are all over the place- bands, guitarists, dancers, rappers, etc... Because I have seen so many street performers and have videos and stories for each of them, I've decided to dedicate multiple posts to various street performers. PART 1:  일루와 밴드 ------------------------------------ This was the first street performance I really remember enjoying. After spending the night eating at a restaurant and going to Starbucks with my Korean friend in 신촌, we were walking outside on the streets and heard music playing! When I stumbled upon this group, they were playing their version of the 귀요미송 haha, quite an interesting song selection for an all-male group. I stayed watching them until their performance was over, and they were really entertaining! These are my boys~~~ The  일루와 밴드 ^^                          ...

First off, keeping a blog is NOT as easy as I thought it would be, so I apologize for not updating it since I left for my NSLI-Y journey back in June. I've been sooo busy between school, program stuff, exploring, etc.. and by the time I come home I am exhausted. I literally fall asleep doing my homework sometimes. So this post will be very long because it'll be a summary of my first week in Korea (minus the in-country orientation we did). Our flight to Korea got delayed so we arrived 8 hours later than we were supposed to. Originally we were supposed to land at around 6pm but instead we arrived at 2:30am. We stayed in a hostel for 2 nights while doing in-country orientation then met our host families on a Sunday. My host family is wonderful♥ I have a little brother who is the cutest thing ever and so much fun. My parents are so sweet and try really hard to make sure I'm comfortable. I even had lunch (갈비) with my grandparents, and one of the first things we talked a...

So before I came to Korea and met my host family, I had already talked with my host mother via Kakaotalk and email. Most of the other students also contacted their family before meeting them, and I would definitely recommend doing so! It makes it a lot less awkward when you meet and you can get to know them before actually meeting them and living with them! Before meeting my family, I talked a lot with my mother about my interests and their interests [which helped with gifts], and just about how we are both excited for me to arrive in Korea and meet. We arrived in Korea on Saturday at around 2:30am, and after more orientation [click here for that blog post] , we finally met our host families on Sunday afternoon! My host mother came to pick me up alone since my brother and appa were at church, and we got along really well. The car ride from the hostel to my new home actually was not awkward and we talked a lot~ She spoke English pretty well, so if I didn't understand the Korean sh...

Originally we were supposed to arrive on the 27th at around 6pm, but due to a [8ish hour] delay at the Detroit airport, we ended up arriving at Incheon at around 2am. The Detroit airport delay was quite fun, however, since I was able to watch the Korea vs Belgium game [World Cup]. I was pretty disappointed I wasn't going to be able to watch it since I was going to be on the plane during it, but we ended up watching it at the airport with a woman who was streaming it on her laptop! YAY for soccer and bonding with random Korean people over it haha. I am a huge soccer fan so the girl who was streaming it and I bonded very quickly hehe. Unfortunately Korea lost [which was really disappointing because I wanted to watch soccer in the streets while I was in Korea], but it was SO much fun watching the game with people in the airport! Also while in the airport, I got to practice my Korean! I've only self-studied [and when I say self-study I mean pick up from texting and b...

Before heading to Korea [or any country you're going to with NSLI-Y], you have what is called pre-departure orientation for 2 days. For the NSLI-Y Korea group with iEARN, we had our PDO in New York City at Columbia University so if you get accepted to that program, that's where you'll be heading!  I'm pretty sure all programs that iEARN is in charge of go to NYC for their PDO, but not ALL NSLI-Y programs will be in New York. American Councils groups usually are in DC for example.                             We arrived at Columbia at around 10am and didn't have anything program-wise to do until 5pm that night so they let us free- we just had to stay within the boundaries (aka don't go to Harlem) and couldn't take the subway. When we first got there, we checked in, received our stipend, NSLI-Y shirts, room keys, and some other things from iEARN. I headed to my room with my cumbersome lug...