Wholehearted, Final Reflection

Final Week

I really want to put my sincerity into this last week blog post.

Reflecting back on the past four months in this study abroad program, I’ve been so blessed in so many ways that I have so much things to gives thanks to my God. He led me to achieve all my goals I set at the start of the program, and it has given me wonderful, wonderful experiences, learning, ideas and growth that I will never attain in any other means. I want to list down the things that I am really thankful for, my final reflection.

*Cultural-wise*

During this study abroad pragram, I been interacting with three totally different cultures: German culture, Korean culture, and American culture. As a South Korean student who studied in America only for past two and half years, I was not even familiar to the American culture. While getting involved in this group with awesome twenty-one American friends and interacting every day, every hour constantly, and even going to trips for several days together, I learned a lot about the American culture and learned how I should position myself in the middle of any conversation, or what my attitude I should take in this group. My English-speaking skills improved dramatically, I learned slangs like “fat nap, salty, savage, came in clutch, GOAT” which were very fun to use and make friends happy. I was also constantly interacting with a Korean culture, a culture that I am most used to, by involving in a Korean church and the church choir, meeting them every Sunday, having meals together sometimes during the weekdays, visiting Mandu, a Korean foodplace, where some of the members of the choir works and get free food and drinks, and many others. I was very touched when the church members prepared a gift for me and prayed for me wholeheartedly wanting me to come back at any point. Lastly, I interacted everyday with my host parents and learned a lot from them about the German, standardized, planned lifestyle, and learned life lessons of being a good husband and maintaining a good marriage, and living a healthy elder life. I once went to my host dad’s friend’s house and watched a soccer game with 4 German 60s men, and found myself able to interact and enjoy the moment, while not making them uncomfortable and enjoy too. I also once went to a host mom’s choir concert which had a party afterwards with drinking and singing. I also was able to be a part of it and make good interaction with the German people. And obviously, living in the country itself taught most of the German culture.

*Academic-Wise*

I am actually, really glad that I was able to learn the major subjects of my major through this program. I really am thankful to Dr. Wasser because he really did a good job on explaining all the physiology lessons, which were really good for me to understand them. He was not reluctant to answer my questions, which are silly sometimes, and really helped me to understand the human body. Also, I really thank to my awesome friends, every single one of them, because everyone was very studious in this entire program, as if all the smart ones in A&M had come in this program. Because of my friends, I was also able to follow the studious atmosphere which really helped me to not just memorize, buy actually learn somethings. For this, I am thankful to everyone, but I want to give special thanks to the Anki fellows, Lindsay (challenging overnight study mate), and Ariella (my personal teacher and partner). Also, I cannot miss the learnings I got from Enmodes in terms of presentation preparation, team discussions, splitting of works, research methods, and additional details about cardiovascular and respiratory system.

*Relationship-Wise*

As what Dr. Wasser emphasized during his brain lecture, I am so glad that I had constantly interacting experience under the age of 25, before my prefrontal cortex -responsible for personality and relationship- fails to develop. In my entire life, I been exposed to so many different situations and relationships, that made me always be interested to characteristics, relationship and community roles. This study abroad program was like a little world, where everyone takes their own role with all different personalities, which indeed turned out to be a beautiful harmony. As a relationship-interested person, observing how we interact helped me to realize how a bigger scale community such as organization, country, or even the entire world is likely running, and therefore learned what position I should take as an observant, relationship-focused, Christian individual. As a result, I found that every individual personality is important and precious in a community. There should be leader-type people, who can challenge and find new things; critics-type people who can direct the group to the right way by making necessary but shrewd comments; peacemaker-type people who maintains the balance in discussion and positivity; enthusiastic-type people who can positivity and energy to the entire group, follower-observant-type people who smartly judges what decision should the group take and be essential factors for majority decisions, and object-focused people who never miss the objectives and make sure the group achieves the goal. With all these, I just want to give thanks to everyone in our group for being a good contribution to ultimately produce this wonderful program. I personally chose representative adjectives to best describe each one of my awesome friends. I love them all, every one of them, such a wonderful, precious people of the world. Thank you for everything.

Josh K

- Brilliant

- dependable

Kevin

- Comforter

- friendly

Madyson

- Righteous

- compassionate

Sid

- Extraordinary

- intuitive

Yoong

- Undisturbed

- observant

Vivian

- enthusiastic

- Tenderhearted

Lindsay

- strong

- joyful/cheerful

- Simple/uncomplicated

Ryan F

- ingenuous

- Helpful

Adriana

- Love people

- vivacious

Marcus

- easygoing

- Gentle

- kind-hearted

Katarina

- discreet

- Religious

Ariella

- kind-hearted

- frank

- Calm

Ryan B

- Likeable by anyone

- harmonious

Melania

- Self-disciplined

- sweet in friendship

Sean

- entertaining

- Confident

- achiever

Jessica

- Balanced

- expressive/sincere

Masha

- positivity

- Lovely

Sebastian

- Passionate in anything

- enlighten in relationship

Ana

- Wise

- peacemaker

Josh C

- peacemaker

- Companionable to anyone

- courteous

Very personal, so may not agree with me... Thanks for reading!