Happy Anniversary to Me

I just looked at the date and realized that today is my 2nd anniversary of coming to Korea. I came to Korea on this date in 2008. While I haven't technically been here a full two years, since I went home for two months last winter, I still tell people it's been two years... I just count that as an extended vacation more than anything else.

What have I accomplished in 2 years? Here's my list:

• Completed through level 3 of Korean studies, aka, I'm in the middle of the intermediate level.
  
• Eaten dog, live octopus, poisonous blowfish, silkworm larvae and penis fish (not sure what it's actually called, but if you've seen them you know exactly what I'm talking about) among many other strange foods.
  
• Dated my boyfriend for over a year.
• Visited nearly every tourist attraction in Seoul.
• Traveled to Taiwan, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Beijing, Bali, and Japan twice. I'll be adding Cambodia to that list in less than 2 weeks (yikes!).
• Worked at two different branches of the hagwon SLP.
• And as of next week, will have completely finished paying off my student loan debt!! (started at $21,000USD when I graduated in 2007)
  

I feel as though I've accomplished a lot in two short years. I only really have three goals for my next year (maybe last year?) in Korea. Those goals are:

• Pass the level 4 Korean test (no easy feat)
• Save $10,000 for Graduate school
• Travel more. (top on the list are Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Shanghai and Kyoto)
  

The first two of these goals are a bit loftier than they sound. While I've completed all the level 3 courses, it doesn't mean I learned everything I could/should have at those levels. And level 4 tends to be super heavy on the vocab, which is my weak point.

As far as $10,000 goes, that's also gonna be a hard one. In my last 6 months of working, I saved 6,000,000 won, and when I sent home 5,300,000 won, it was only about $4,300 USD. And 2,300 of that will go to my loan. Which leaves me with only about 2,000 saved for 6 months of working. In order for me to save more money, it would mean quitting my traveling and Korean classes, which I'm not really willing to do....

Once I'm finished with my contract at the end of January, I'm going to be looking for either a 6 month contract or some kind of part-time job that will extend my visa. If not, then I'll have to either get a student visa or a tourist visa, but I'm hoping it won't boil down to anything that extreme.

I'm hoping to go back to grad school in the fall of 2011 if all goes according to plan to get my masters in teaching English as a second language.

P.S. Just as a blast from the past, here's a post from my 1 year anniversary.