“Where are you going?” The Amtrak official asked incredulously. “How old are you boys?”

This was back in 2008, sitting in a train station office trying to convince the skeptical clipboard lady that my friend and I weren’t runaways traveling alone between New York and Boston. A part of this story ended up as the hook to my college admissions Common App essay, and the initial question from the official the bookend to the piece.

“Where am I going?” I asked the reader rhetorically. “I’m thrilled to seek new adventures in college with unexpected turns, filled with the lasting treasure of new relationships and memories.”

Looking back on this clichéd response five years later, I can only shake my head at how many “unexpected turns” have crossed my path since then. As if I’ve climbed the ladder rung by rung, only to look down now and realize how far down it is now. And I still am afraid of heights.

Living in Korea might have been the strangest chapter thus far.

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Returning to Los Angeles for winter break—and going straight to my high school’s five-year reunion—was jarring. There was a sudden realization that I could not fully explain my first semester abroad and expect automatic empathy. Normally, college study abroad programs tend to lump international students together, allowing them to form a strong yet isolated community from the greater foreigner population at large. In short, a safe haven to escape to; a lifeline of sorts.

After the Fulbright Korea six-week orientation program, however, sink or swim might have been the most apt motto. We’d been airdropped into schools where we were the only foreigner—and fluent English speaker—at our respective institutions. There would be no assistance coming. Moreover, there would be a lack of understanding among friends back home of what exactly you were doing a few thousand miles of ocean away.

Initially, I had not understood the depth of the isolation. I found myself sinking beneath self-doubt and burnout and actively sought to address it upon my return (Re-Education || No. 26). Having thoroughly investigated my ethnic identity and heritage during the first semester, that became less of a priority, though it would inevitably re-emerge in full force without any coaxing (Processional || No. 39 & Korean (proficient) || No. 41).

Six months in and fully convinced that I had “intuitively” made the right decision to come to Korea in the first place, the new concern was that the lack of “fresh experiences” in 2018 would result in mental lassitude (The Halfway Mark || No. 25). For awhile, these concerns seemed to be warranted; save the weekly spring baseball games (Views From the Field || No. 27) and evening design work on the Fulbright Korea Infusion magazine, my motivation sputtered from lack of stimulus.

If anything, the first month and a half back in Jeonju brought about a cycle of reflection and a new wave of doubts, ranging from what I had decided to study in college (Major Choices || No. 28) to thinly-veiled entreaties to myself to “kick myself in the butt to get a move on” and “sprint for the goals I set” (Above Average || No. 31 & Shoelaces || No. 32). A more optimistic analysis of this brief malaise would point to the fact that these reflections resulted in me unearthing and recognizing weaknesses in my character, some for the first time. “The toughest challenge is to neither beat myself up over it nor attempt to beat the flaws over the head,” I wrote. “To do the former is to spiral downwards down the Eeyore path; the latter to play everlasting whack-a-mole” (Weaknesses || No. 30). Strange analogies aside, perhaps this down time was a blessing in disguise. It neither descended into depressive tendencies nor did it derail my ambition.

A simple question from a cheerful student in early April sparked a new mental thread: “Teacher, who is your role model?” Beyond my parents, I really did not have an answer. This was discomforting, given how simple a question it was and how little I had considered it. “Lives seem to run in circles, with the same conversations, peoples, and problems,” I wrote at the time. “Yet without looking, as opposed to seeing life fly by, it’s impossible to see the lessons hidden in plain sight and avoid the same mistakes” (Role Models || No. 33). The fruits of that initial seed being planted would not come to bear until months later.

Simultaneously, historic news on the peninsula blared in the minds of every Korean citizen, catching me up with it. I reflected on the realization that history was being made with each hour and would certainly end up in history books around the globe. “History is becoming more accessible because it’s our history,” I opined excitedly. “Because we have been given the responsibility of the next chapter of history, we can also write on the blank pages to our liking” (Future History || No. 34). My students, while visibly hopeful for the meetings between their president and North Korea’s leader, as well as President Trump later on, were less opinionated than expected. “What should I say?” They would mumble to themselves when pressured into responding to my curious questions. “Opinions, as abundant in America as Harvard Square tourists in springtime, are harder to unearth here,” I noted (Marking Demarcation || No. 36).

Despite all the action on the peninsula, family in Korea resurfaced again, reminding me that the wore of my identity had little to do with geopolitics and regional maneuvering. Back when I visited the home of one of my second aunts, I wrote that “the excuse to visit me was just as much an excuse for everyone to gather; it’s safe to say that there’s less than a handful of times that’s going to happen for this branch of the family” (Reunions || No. 13). I cannot help but bitterly laugh at the irony of that statement as I write this piece on the bus ride to visit the same relative nine months later; between then and now, the only time we have seen each other has been for the funerary services of that aunt’s father, or my grandfather’s younger brother (Processional || No. 39).

Marcus Aurelius once wrote to the effect that it is only by contemplating death can we live to the fullest. Stepping down the long funeral hall and staring into the mists amidst the mountains behind my family’s hometown, I began to see what he meant. “Perhaps we Americans have it wrong in unnaturally separating [life and death], putting miles between funeral halls and birth halls instead of a few quickened steps. It is as if we are trying to pretend that there can be life without death, and death without life” (Processional || No. 39).

My presence at the services, at which I was explicitly acknowledged as the “representative of the America family,” had only happened because I had accepted the Fulbright Fellowship in the first place. The sensation was somehow equally emotional and emotionally distant, as I recognized the magnitude of my grandfather’s generation coming to an end and the fact that my presence was simultaneously welcome and unnecessary.

Further reflection about my Korean language studies up until that point indirectly underscored how optional my efforts—and this past year—really were, given that my return to America will see the end of me speaking Korean daily and my newfound understanding of Korean culture is nowhere near mandatory in my career or social life. But I could see how it was worth it. “Considering what I gained—a new part of identity, communication with relatives, living abroad—there is no doubt…[but] it was impossible to foresee that each step closer to Korean fluency and cultural affinity represented a step further into the no-man’s land that separates American and Korean cultures” (Korean (proficient) || No. 41).

The process of considering my future plans and identity more deeply unearthed a contradiction that I still struggle with now. What is the source of happiness, and is it correlated with success?

“Now we are at an age where we can be happy without a reason—해맑아,” which roughly translates to a bubbly, innocent sort of happiness. “Is it true? That down the road, the pavement ends, and we have to be happy for a reason?” (Happiness is a How || No. 35). Later on, when my family visited Korea, seeing my youngest brother served as a self-reprimand after the fact. “Sometimes I forget he’s 11 years old. He would rather just hold my hand walking down the street than hear me opine about native cuisine or dress. And honestly, I really should prefer that too” (Visiting || No. 42).

But there were (are) competing priorities struggling for control. This revealed the contradiction becoming apparent: that I felt I could either chase satisfaction by working myself to the bone or seek happiness through detachment, but not both. Be or Do? || No. 37 had me explore the consequences of “becoming ensnared in the rat races that either don’t matter or exist,” while later confessed that the go, go, go lifestyle I had cultivated since starting college (since high school, even) was not about to stop anytime soon. “A proverb I’ve lived my since middle school—“Become comfortable being uncomfortable”—has morphed into becoming uncomfortable with being comfortable. Even while simultaneously knowing that I should respond to this calm and predictable present with thankfulness and relaxation, clearly I’ve lost the off switch” (Down and Ups || No. 40).

“It is equally hard for a perfectionist to remain satisfied with imperfection as it is to attain perfection,” I reflected in late June, with a month to go. “In the process of trying to asymptote towards flawlessness, flaws are suppressed, with wounds stitched with the bullet still lodged inside” (Life’s Abyss || No. 44).

Can you bake your cake and eat it too? Or will this bicameral mind persist, oscillating between seeing happiness as solely based upon objective accomplishments and the detachment from needing any achievements to be happy in the first place? East Asian religions coursework, Bible study classes, and family values point towards the latter perspective as being correct. But apprehension about starting a career in America coupled with a tendency to see shortcomings as pain points to be rectified has elevated the former (Downs and Ups || No. 40 & Looking Back At It All || No. 43). “There is sometimes this awful, nagging fear that chasing various goals in the name of excitement, passion, or achievement is slowly converting me from a human being into a human doing” (Life’s Abyss || No. 44).

Where does that leave me? In all likelihood, in the same place I started, except with a better understanding of both strengths and shortcomings. All this because last July, I started to tentatively peer into the dark, inch by inch, searching for “small glimpses beneath the surface at the unfiltered. Of fears and aspirations, both light and dark, and of the truth straining to rise to the surface.” And the best moments of the grant year have come while sitting and pondering, “hand rubbing on chin, knee crossed over knee leaning back in a chair…thinking more closely about life as it happens” (Writing, One Year Later || No. 45).

Dusting off the hard drive in a decade (will that be a thing?), I imagine that reading about this year will seem almost surreal in comparison to what’s to come. To a certain extent, it already has been; enough so that I’ve had enough material to write 500, 1000, 3000 words a week documenting growth and failures alike. Maybe someday it will become a book manuscript that crosses the desk of some poor publishing house editor doing a friend a favor.

Living in Korea might have been a strange chapter, a blurry, feverish dream of a 12 months, but I would not trade it for anything. And thanks to these newsletters, it was the first year I was aware of an emerging story being written in real time. Hopefully it will not be the last.