Week 16, 17 & 18: Finding My 4th Point

Hello everyone! Can you believe its been over 4 months since I left the States! My life in Korea has mostly been the same with some minor changes. Week 16 was quite boring and school was still the same. But Week 16 was also the first weekend where I had nothing planned since arriving to South Korea. I just stayed in Gyeongsan and it was actually really nice just to bum it out and not do anything. I mostly cleaned/decorated my apartment and spent time with my host family. For the most part, week 17 was just the same as week 16 but there was actually a national holiday. It was Children's Day on May 5th, which is a national holiday so I didn't have school that day. Instead my host family and I went to the beaches in Pohang. Pohang is a really pretty city and I will have to go back to explore more of it because I was only there for a few hours. I also heard Pohang has amazing seafood so I wanna go back for that.

Week 17 weekend, we had our Fulbright Spring Conference. Fulbright typically hosts 2 conferences for all ETAs during the Spring and Fall and it would usually be in person. However, this year due to Covid our spring conference was online. Honestly, it was such major bust and it really was not fun at all. There were a lot of technical difficulties and being on the computer all day staring at a screen is not fun, especially on a weekend. But as much as the actual conference stunk, I had a really fun weekend because I decided to travel to Masan to meet Diana and Matthew for the Spring Conference. We all stayed in an apartment and did the conference together which made it more bearable. After the Spring Conference ended, I had an extra day in Masan so the three of us decided to travel to a city named Tongyeong. While in Tongyeong, we went on this Sky Luge thing and it was so much fun! You have to take a ski lift to get to the top then you ride this "go-kart" like device all the way down the mountain and take the ski lift back up to do it all over again. While in Tongyeong, we also did this ropes course activity, kinda like in summer camp or the school travel trips. After all of the activities we decided to get food and since Tongyeong is near the sea, they have a lot of seafood. We ended up at this restaurant called "Modern Korean Food" and had scallops, fish, and this pot/stew of seafood. My favorite was the butter grilled scallops and the grilled fish. To be honest, I think this was one of my favorite meals since coming to Korea and I wish the restaurant was in my city so that I could visit often.

During the Week 18, I had three eye doctor's appointments. Since finding out I would be heading to South Korea, I have done a lot of research on Lasik/Lasek eye surgery and it's something I was interested in. After doing a lot of research, South Korea is actually one of the best countries to get the surgery done (even more so then the USA). I decided to get consultations from three different clinics to see if I was still interested and to get more information on them. After visiting three different clinics, where each appointment lasted 2-3 hours for eye testing, I decided I want to go ahead with the eye surgery. Each clinic did the eye testing a bit differently so I really had to look into what types of test each place did and what the tests were meant for. After really considering it, I decided to go with Nune Eye Center which was highly recommended and I thought they were the most comprehensive with their testings, and explaining the results and which surgeries I qualified for. Because I do boxing, the doctors said they would not recommend Lasik and instead I should do Lasek. With Lasik, if you do contact sports, you have a higher chance of damaging your eyes post-surgery and causing a lot of problems in the long run. Whereas with Lasek, it initially has a longer healing time but it's better for people who are very active and do contact sports. Anyhow, I have scheduled my surgery appointment for July 24th so wish me luck :).

Along with having an eventful Week 18 with the eye stuff, I decided I wanted to get back into boxing. During the Fulbright orientation, all ETAs were told to find a 4th Point. Something that was not related to school, homestay life or friends. A 4th point was something that is supposed to bring you joy and allows you to live a more fulfilled life while in South Korea. At first, I thought my 4th Point was hapkido but I think as the weeks went on, I was starting to become bored and didn't enjoy it as much. I started to really only going because the students are fun and I love spending time with them. As much as I liked hapkido, it's just not the same as boxing. Hapkido is much more technical and you need to work more slowly. I also feel like I never got a really good workout with hapkido because of it's technical aspect. Anyhow, because of this, I decided to see if there was a boxing gym near me. I didn't find a dedicated boxing gym but I did find a MMA gym that was only a 10 minute walk from me. I messaged the owner/manager and asked what they offered and he said that they have kickboxing and heavy bags that I could use. This made me so so excited, even though I don't know kickboxing and have only ever done boxing, I figured it be really fun to learn kickboxing. Well, I have gone to two classes so far and I can already say that my enjoyment of life in South Korea has improved so much. I didn't realize how much I missed and enjoyed boxing until after my first class and man does it feel good to be back in it. I think I'm the only girl who is doing kickboxing because so far, all of them have only been men. Also with hapkido, a lot of the students were my elementary students so they were very young. Whereas in kickboxing, there is only one person who is younger than me (one of my 6th grade students actually) and the rest of the people are around my age or older. But all of the guys have been really nice and welcoming. It's been really cool to learn some kickboxing moves since I don't know that but also nice that I can practice my boxing skills again. Currently, my body hates me because I am sore from head to toe and my arms feel like lead but still, I am so happy about this new discovery and my new 4th point. Anyhow, I hope everyone is doing well back in the States and miss you all! Enjoy these pictures and videos! If there is anything y'all want me to talk about, please let me know!