moving back to the other side of the world he had to have a lie down.
Upon rising, his emotions squashed back down, he gave me a hug, a
salute and a secret handshake and said he would support me in
following my dreams. As long as I believe, believe, believed in myself,
he would believe in me too.
My parents weren’t surprised either. I never knew they knew me so
well but it turned out they did know me and knew that I knew that
Korean was what I knew I wanted to know. I guess when you know
you know, you know you know, you know? Korean language and
culture were my passions, and I was determined to study them. I did
not know what I was going to do with it afterwards but I knew that to
study them was the next step on my path into the future present.
But first I had to be accepted. None of the other universities
captured my imagination the way SOAS did. I summoned my courage
and sent off my application. I drew little cartoon ramyeons on my form
to give it an edge and to show that I really cared. Waiting was the hard
part.
“These things take time, you’ve got to be patient,” Father said.
“A mighty oak tree grows out of the tiniest acorn.”
I tried to be patient like an acorn. Muncho assured me that I was so
good that SOAS couldn’t possibly pass up the opportunity to have me
as a student. I held on to those encouraging words of encouragement.
Jordan helped me to distract my thoughts by taking me to fly our kites
together. Finally, on the first of August 2007, I got my acceptance
letter from SOAS and so began the next chapter in the great
adventure of my life, the details of which are in the next chapter.