The past week has been very unlucky. The things that could go wrong with the planning of my time in Korea have gone wrong. It’s not all bad though. First up, I forgot to mention accommodation when I applied to the University. So I haven’t a place in dorms. I have to wait until the 21st to see if anyone drops out. I’ll be in Korea on the 21st though. If no dorm space available then I have to go searching for off-campus housing. It should be fine but you can see my worries. My Korean is basic at best. People think I should have gone to Japan instead as I’m progressing very well with that but the chance for Korea at just the right time was too good to pass. I have a good interest in Korean culture so this trip should be eye opening and help me get back into academic study. Anyway another problem was getting a visa. All my correspondence with the University was by email so I took those along to the embassy thinking that’d be okay but turns out they wanted the acceptance letter on University headed paper. No way around it. So now I have to country hop while I’m out there so I can stay the required length of time without a visa. A week in Japan then I think. The pic is my friend watching the river in London after our visa disappointment. London was good. We met up with some friends there and ate some good food in a little restaurant looking over the busy streets in Covert Gardens. Anyway I fly out to South Korea on Tuesday. Future posts will be about Reptaro in Korea.

Doffing. Why is it called that? Doffing is the process of removing the mortar-board, swinging it downwards before quickly swinging it back up to the head. Yep, doffing. We doffed at least three times. Once during our five seconds of fame which was strutting across the stage in front of some dude high up the University ladder; once to the same dude, as a class, when he declared in Welsh (I’m ashamed I struggled to understand it) that we were graduates; and finally to another dude after he told us we became members of some graduate alumni. As much fun as doffing is, it’s nice to now I’ve officially achieved a degree in Graphics. I’ll miss that University, maybe I’ll go back to do a masters next September. For now I have three months in another University continuing my language studies. Then the scary bit: a winter, spring and summer trying out graphics in the real world.

For my birthday I went out with some good friends for a meal and drinks afterwards. We headed into the capital city Cardiff and the bay area. It was actually really busy due to one of the most important football matches ever! Yes Wales vs. England was the following day (yeah England beat us even though they played shit). Anyway we asked for tables and most places were full. We hit up the Chinese restaurant and they were about to turn us away as well until one of my Chinese friends started speaking Cantonese. Then they happily fixed us up with a good table and made other people wait longer. It was my birthday so I really didn’t feel bad about jumping the queue for the sake of Chinese people looking after their own. What was nice though at the end of the meal they brought me over a ice-cream with a candle in and got the dude on the piano to bang out happy birthday which most of the place sang along too. A little too much attention maybe. After that we shimmied on over to a pirate themed bar and true to pirate style got wasted. Fun night. That pic on the left was my favourite of the set everyone took. There’s a selection of them here.

Twenty three. Wow, I’m getting old. I didn’t even see this birthday coming. I want to make this year a good year. Hopefully, I’ll be off to South Korea in three weeks time to study and experience a different culture. I want to do a bit of design, language and training everyday. I’ll also watch bands as often as I do now and keep listening to great music from around the world. I think it’s good that Im looking forward rather than into the past. If I do look back at the year just gone, it actually wasn’t bad. Cool people made time for me, I graduated University with some cracking feedback, I saw some of the best gigs in my time watching bands and more besides. There were bad things too but I’m forgetting them already. Anyway let’s hope my 24th year on this planet will be pretty incredible as it’ll be the year I finally leave education and go looking for my place in this world.