Visa, Flights, and Preparations for Korea

Things that have been accomplished recently:

1)  Obtaining my Visa.  
This process actually went a lot quicker than I was expecting.  It only took two days for me to get my     Visa back after I sent in my application.  This hasn't been the case for people at other consulates--but           let's face it, Boston rocks.

2)  Booking my Flight to Korea!
.......Over $900 later and I have my transportation to Korea secured.  I leave the morning of August 18th from Boston.  I'll stop in Chicago, where I'll get on another plane that will take me to Korea.  I've never even been on an international flight, so I'm really not sure how I am going to handle that 14 hour flight.  What do you even do on a plane for that long?  That's longer than my electronics will stay charged.......


Things that need to be accomplished:

1)  Learning Korean
I've never been the type of person that enjoys learning languages.  Over the years I've dabbled in French, Latin, and Spanish, but I've never really become proficient in any of them.  The thing is, I hate memorizing.  Reading books? Writing papers?  Sure! But I hate to sit around and cram information into my head, and any way you go about it, learning a language is in large part memorization.  Of course, Korean is particularly challenging in comparison to the other languages I've been exposed to because it's nothing like English.  I am also just severely lacking the motivation to buckle down and study.  My brain is either in summer mode or completely unfocused because of the millions of thoughts I have about all the things I need to do before I leave.

I'm hoping to learn a little more before I leave.  If not, I guess I will be having some challenging moments once I arrive in Korea and I can't understand anything....

2) Finishing my pre-orientation courses
One thing I was completely unaware of when I signed up for EPIK is that once you are accepted you have to finish a bunch of pre-orientation online lessons.  There are 17 lessons in total, and each lesson has a quiz at the end. The lessons range from everything from developmental psychology (think Freud, Erikson, etc.)  to Korean culture, language, and history.  They're not difficult, but somewhat time consuming nonetheless.  Not to mention they are not the most exciting (and that's putting it kindly)....I never would have thought that I'd have to be listening to a lecture about Freud to prepare me for life in Korea....you just never know.  

3) Deciding what I'm bringing with me
I need to decide what needs to be purchased...there are many things I can think of, but seriously, this process has already cost me so much money that I'm not sure how much more I'm prepared to spend.  I think I will need to start packing at least a week in advance because there are just SO MANY things I think I need to bring....but the reality is that I can only bring two suitcases with me.  It will probably take me a week to sift through all the stuff I WANT to bring and all the stuff I actually NEED to bring.  Have I ever mentioned that I hate packing?!