Annyeonghaseyo (안녕하세요)~

Anneyonghaseyo~ (Hello!)

When I was born, my parents got this crazy idea in their head to name me Heather.... Weirdos. Just kidding! Anywho, most people at school call me neatner, neats, ginger (EW!) or just the crazy girl. So call me whatever you feel like. :)

This summer I am going to South Korea as part of Youth For Understanding (YFU) Short term program to Korea for 6 and a half weeks.

I leave June 22nd and return August 6th.

I didn't want to do a full year because it's my senior year. I just, I CAN'T miss senior year. Not when I have so much left to do here. And YFU doesn't offer any semester programs for Korea so it was summer for me! But I am a firm believer in fate, and destiny and I figure, if it is meant to be, it will happen.

So how did all this come about?
It actually started during prom season. My dad & I went out driving around, trying to find some botiques that sold amazing dresses that weren't carbon copies of each other, when the subject of my love for Korea came up. We discussed maybe going on vacation there this summer- for 3 weeks or so. But the more we talked about it, the more we realized that going there, I would only be seeing things from a tourist's standpoint, rather than as if I were LIVING there. And the whole point is for me to see if I want to live there one day.

My dad suggested maybe student exchange for the summer. He told me to do some research and we'll talk. I researched and narrowed it down to YFU- one of the most respected and well-known foreign exchange programs and one of the few offering Korea. We talked about it with my mom, and by late March, I convinced my parents into going- not by begging, but by giving them logical reasoning as to why I wanted to go. Deadline was April 1st 2010. I found out of my acceptance April 18th.

Now, I play the waiting game for being matched with a host family. Host family info is being sent at the end of this week. :D