International

Until I went to China after my sophomore year at William and Mary, my only international experience was a brief, one night stay in Canada with my family when I was a kid.  Once I started, living abroad seemed to be addictive.  So far, I have spent about six  years outside the US.  Much of that time I have spent studying either languages or music, but between an international assignment and numerous trips, I have spent about an additional year in Asia actually earning money.  I managed to pick up three other languages (Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese, and Italian) and mostly forget two of them (Italian and Cantonese). 

What will probably be my largest exposure to international culture is only tangentially related to my studies.  Marrying my wife, Hyounsoo, fulfilled a prophetic joke I made when I was in Hong Kong - "Wouldn't it be ironic if, after all the time I spent in China and learning Chinese, I ended up marrying a Korean or Japanese lady."  Well, not only was I studying the "wrong" language, I was in the wrong place as well.  After spending four and a half years in Asia, I met her back in Indiana.