Wanderland Elle

It's hard to remember why I packed all of my belongings into two suitcases and a carry-on 18 months ago to move to South Korea. Anything that couldn't fit was gifted to my more-than-willing-to-accept teenaged sister, or stuffed into trash bags and thrown out. Coincidentally, my parents were in the middle of a divorce as I made my final journey preparations, and neither of them would have room to store any of my things. Tons of books collected throughout my childhood found a new home at the library. Odds and ends that I have a habit of hoarding made their way to the dump. And thus, lighter, it was time to embark on this sparkly new adventure. Oh, how we love things when they're new.

Why South Korea, though? That's the question, isn't it? It could have been anywhere, really. But, with Korean American friends that introduced me to the food, a Korean language teacher encouraging me by telling me how great of a way this would be to learn the language, and US expat blogs raving about their ability to pay their student loans with ease I dove right in. To be honest....I was running. I wouldn't have admitted it then, but I'm an entire 18 months older now. I'm wise. I know.

I was running.

My hopes when I first got to Korea was that I would learn how to be an adult. I wouldn't live with my parents. I wouldn't have to depend on anyone. I know, pretty basic stuff. I was enticed by the ability to completely reinvent myself. I could decide what kind of adult I wanted to be. I wouldn't be lazy, I wouldn't be messy, I wouldn't be anything like the person I had grown to be. But, I quickly learned that changing as many time zones as I did was not the same as changing myself. I'm still a sloth. I'm still a mess. I'm still almost exactly the same as I was before. I'm just 18 months older.

I did do some good, though.

All things considered, I have accomplished some major goals. I can easily pay bills in another language without any help. That's something. And, I learned how to make "ricotta cheese" from nothing but milk and vinegar. That's something else. Honestly, I've also come to realize a lot of personal truths about myself, although I'm not ready to share them just yet. There are a lot of things that I worry about as I prepare myself to head back to America in less than 6 months...

But we'll save that for another blog post.

As you could tell by the title, I'm participating in a weekly blogging challenge. It's called the Blogging Abroad Boot Camp challenge and it's a way to reinvigorate my writer's spirit (AKA wine isn't enough). It's a weekly challenge, and I'll be giving you new blog posts every week *hopefully* for the next nine weeks. How many times can I say week? If you want, check it out by clicking the image below. Also, go ahead and let me know, if you're are or were an expat, what's your why? For my homies that are in their home countries leave a comment about a time that you made a life-altering decision. Did you recently quit a stable job to pursue your cheese-making dreams? Did you drop everything to see a one night only curtain of your favorite Broadway play? Let me know!

As a college student, I constantly blamed busy class schedules and endless homework assignments for my lack of motivation when it comes to writing. There was a time when I loved writing. It didn't really matter whether I was writing about my feelings, my day, a poem, a short story, an essay...it really didn't matter. I just enjoyed the act of putting pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard. In college, I only wrote for the purpose of passing classes. Nothing more. I didn't feel like I was writing creatively enough for my liking. As a sophomore, I took an essay writing class. I wrote personal essays. It was reflective, liberating, and dare I say, creative. As a junior, I wrote papers about Shakespeare. They were analytical, concise, academic, and yet, they were fun to write. As a senior, I took a class about creativity, and what it means to be creative. My mind was opened to the idea that maybe college wasn't stifling my creativity, but allowing me to be creative in more mediums than I would have pushed myself in before. After that, I allowed myself to dabble in different forms of media to get my point across. I was dipping my toes into the vast possibilities that composing post-undergrad could afford me.

BUT. And there's always a but, isn't there? Since graduation, I've found myself more stagnant than ever before. I'm lazy. I wake up, I go to work, I go home and eat dinner and  go to bed. Now I have to ask myself. When did I fall out of love with writing? When did I extinguish the flame of inspiration inside of me? How much longer can I blame my university for robbing me of something that I willingly gave to them. Every time I sit down to write, I allow trivial things get in my way. I get distracted by Facebook (seriously, what is with my recent reclamation of all things Facebook?). So I'm making some promises to myself. I want to fall in love with writing again. I want to push myself to write everyday, and I a posting it here in order to hold myself accountable. Next time, I should make some promises to myself about exercising, but that's neither here nor there.

Anyway, listing things, let's go! I promise to:

1. Keep a journal on my desk at home.

my new journal.

I will start keeping a journal, to write down a bit about my day, every day. I used to love writing the good ol' fashioned way (no not clay tablets). I'll reclaim my love of writing by sitting down with a journal to recount my days. This will also be helpful when I want to look back on my life and write that memoir. Or maybe, just to keep me from letting anything from this beautiful adventure called life slip by unnoticed.

I got this idea from something I saw on Facebook (oh, irony). But, a woman wrote about how a grade school teacher made her write in a journal at the end of class everyday, and at first she fudged around and wrote a bunch of nonsense, but after a couple of weeks she really started writing about her day, and her feelings, and it allowed her to think reflectively about not only her own actions, but the actions of those around her. She felt as though the act benefited her so much that she continued to do it everyday for the next 30 years. I'm inspired.

2. Sit down and work on posts for this blog three times a week.

3. Update this blog twice a week.

4. Record more.