Hello everybody who might be reading this! My name is Jena, and I am a 2024-2025 Fulbright ETA Grantee for South Korea! This means that come January 2025 I will be moving to South Korea and working as an English Teaching Assistant.

A little bit about me: I got my Bachelor of Arts with majors in English & Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and minors in History and TESL at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. I also completed my Master of Arts in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (focusing on Korean film) at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities in 2024. I have been studying the Korean language since 2019, although I still have a long way to go.

This is starting to feel a little too much like a resume, so now onto the fun stuff! I love to write creatively and read. You’ll always catch me with my nose in a book. I don’t watch a lot of films, but I can’t stay away from zombie movies. They’re probably my favorite genre/subgenre, and I adore them, even though blood scares me. I also love finding cool vintage fashion and making coffee! I was a barista for a few years and it’s given me an appreciation for latte art.

There are a lot of reasons I applied to work in South Korea, but the two biggest factors in my decision were that I want to be a professor and I want to get better at Korean. I am personally more interested in the research aspect of being a professor, but I want to be a good teacher too, and what better way to become a good teacher than to teach? As for working on improving my Korean, I feel like that is self-explanatory.

My goal is for this blog to act as a sort of diary of my time in South Korea. We’ll see if I actually follow through, but I am quite motivated!