Monday, April 30, 2012

KMF10

I'm currently at the airport waiting on  my flight back home from a weekend getaway to Los Angeles for the 10th annual Korean Music Festival (some people refer to it as KMF10 because it's the tenth year, but I've also heard KMF12 for the year 2012); it was such a great experience & I feel so lucky to have had the opportunity to attend such a great event! The trip to L.A. itself was a bit questionable as I hit a bump on the road with the company I had, but still I enjoyed myself. Aside from attending KMF, the second highlight of the trip was meeting up with a childhood friend whom I had not seen since we were in 4th grade! We kept in touch trough Facebook every once in a while, so it was really excited to see her again. While in L.A. I did the typical sightseeing at the Hollywood walk of fame, & window shopping on Melrose Avenue. I also ate a lot, I mean I ate a LOT of really delicious food! We went to Koreatown a couple of times where the best part was an all you can eat kbbq place my friend recommended. We were there for almost three hours & the waiter just kept the meet coming. Wow. Being in Koreatown & attending KMF gave me a sense of what it would be like to live in Sk if I'm accepted into EPIK. All of the signs where in hangul, and I couldn't understand 95% of what was being said around me. It was all very exciting though and not as intimidating as I imagined. Everyone was impressed with what little Korean I do speak (which honestly, only consists of 1 or 2 phrases I picked up from watching too many kdramas).  The festival itself was mostly in Korean as well. Before going I was a little disappointed in the line up as there were only two artists I recognized, but at the end of the night I came out a fan of everyone who performed. It was my first time hearing of Bobby Kim and G.O.D. and now I keep going on YouTube to hear their songs. I hope I have other opportunities to attend events like this, be it in the stated or abroad.

 --- EPIK update: I passed my skype interview!!! As mentioned before, I was scheduled for a Skype interview on a Monday, it lasted for about 30 minutes and three days later I woke up to an email saying I had passed and could now forward original documents to the Seoul office.  All of this happened about three weeks ago, but I've been waiting for final apostilles to come in, so I wasn't able to post my package until this past Thursday before I went to the airport. I tracked it like crazy this weekend, and last night I got notice that it had been received by my coordinator; thumbs up FedEx for being so fast!! In a couple of days my coordinator will look over my documents and verify that everything is correct. If not I'll have to resubmit, but hopefully that's not the case as it cost me $70 usd for shipping. Once she verifies my documents and forward them on to the office of education, whom will ultimately make the final decision if I'm placed at a school or not. So, basically I'm done with the paperwork and now I continue the wait.  The only EPIK related task I have yet to finish is the awful 100 hour TEFL course I'm taking. It's so tedious and time consuming, luckily I've already completed 70 hours and hope to complete the remaining 30 by this weekend so I don't have to pay extra to extend the course.  And that's the last week of my life in a nutshell. Tomorrow it's back to early mornings and full days of work for me. p.s. please forgive any spelling/grammar mistakes in this post. typing on an iPhone from a busy airport is not my forte.

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