Three and 3/4 years ago, I never expected Korea to become home. I find myself experiencing a strange sensation as I walk the streets on my last days in Korea. I don't yet feel closure, though I know that I am ready to move on to my next adventure. It's odd to think that all of the people I've met here are not going with me. I'm still waiting for that sense of relief - that deep breath and sigh that will let everything sink in and fall into place. I'm trying to allow myself to be in the present, to experience my emotions as they come, and to face the reality that I'm leaving this foreign world that has become familiar and that I somehow now associate with home. Being a stranger in a strange land has allowed me the anonymity to skip by unnoticed when desired and to stand out like a sore thumb nearly always. THough I don't think the same as my neighbors or have the same cultural nuances, all of these differences have become a source of comfort and have provided me with an odd sense of security. I'm not apprehensive to leave and try something new. I'm not sad to leave, but there is this sense of ... something. Korea is a part of me. It is a part of how I think, what I have experienced, and how I view the world. The very things about this country that can grate on the nerves have become the norm. To go back "home" to the US, to have the rest of the people in my life not understand this experience, have no schema with which to share common ground or hold discussions, to just have them not understand. I fear that they look at my time in Korea separate from who I am. Korea has helped me to become centered, to focus on myself, to live for the now, not the future, to stand up for myself and have confidence in what I do. I hope someday to cross paths with someone who understands and laughs when I say "large-y" or "nice-uh," someone who knows what it is like to be the only odd person out - the only foreigner on a bus, the only light hair in a sea of black heads, someone who remembers the first moments in Korea, being surrounded by neon signs in the suburbs and not being able to read a single one, someone who knows what it's like to sort out recyclables into 10 different categories and to be yelled at for doing it the wrong way. I will not say goodbye to Korea - just "till we meet again."