2025 Retrospective
In 2024, when I wanted to see a wider world, leaving the place I knew was a challenge mixed with the kind of fear that makes you take one breath before stepping forward. In 2025, as I began to feel at ease with life in the United Kingdom, I tried widening my steps more comfortably. It felt a little like getting used to cold water.
I began my master’s studies in the United Kingdom in 2024 because I wanted to see a wider world, and among language study, a pre-master’s, and going straight into a master’s program, the master’s was the hardest challenge, so I chose it. You might wonder why a master’s degree, if the point was the wider world. For me, competing in a culture where I had no roots and did not speak my mother tongue was the option that would structurally break apart my world.
I wandered through Europe: Italy, France, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and more. In Switzerland, I bought a travel pass, got off the train wherever I felt like it, walked around, and hiked in the Alps with a Colombian brother I met at a hostel. I set out from Brighton with no real plan and walked through the Seven Sisters all the way to Eastbourne. I walked through damp London nights in the rain. In Edinburgh, I sat on Calton Hill at night watching the sun set, and during the day I followed my feet along the sea and forest paths. Ah… maybe I had grown too used to life in the UK, because when I went to Edinburgh I brought no ID at all and almost could not check in to my accommodation. I missed my flight to Paris, and that same day I got enteritis and my stomach hurt terribly. I barely managed to see the Eiffel Tower and came back the next day after a strange little stretch of time.
Traveling taught me a great deal about myself. When I spend as many as 200 hours a month, sometimes more than 11 hours a day, in front of a desk and a computer, my head becomes a cluttered room. Travel became a time to absorb everything I had earned until then. The time I spent writing over a cup of coffee on planes and trains was quietly happy.
I also tried for internships. I applied to work on a music platform, and I applied for research internships. I pulled together everything I had and tried. I passed the first round for one research internship, made it to the second, and then was rejected. In the end, I was rejected by all of them, but I gained confidence that if I really work hard, I do have the capacity to reach a final interview.
I started CrossFit and kept going steadily. I pushed my body until I felt like throwing up, and for the first time I deadlifted 120 kg. I also squatted 100 kg for the first time. I gained 10 kg in body weight, but somehow my stomach did not stick out, which was a strange experience. After sessions, I was so exhausted that I could not go home and would rest on the street. I foolishly overworked my body, but it became a foundation that helped me study abroad without feeling lonely, and with better physical and mental health.
I entered a data analysis hackathon, a programming competition, and won an award. My English was still lacking, and being among British friends made it hard to fully take part in the conversation. I was the only developer on the team, and it was also my first time doing data analysis. Ironically, talking over lunch was harder than building the thing. I had signed up with courage, but every morning I wondered whether I should quit. After five days of participating well, collaborating, and even winning a prize, I felt truly proud. I had been wondering whether I had any real skill, and I learned that skill reveals itself when you collide with the work.
In graduate school, I collaborated and competed with friends from many countries, including Thailand, India, the United Kingdom, and Indonesia. It was difficult to coordinate different skills, backgrounds, and cultures; to rely only on English and code even when cognitive fatigue had piled up; and to present our service in front of a client. I signed up for GPU Programming because the syllabus said not to take it if you lacked coding ability, and that warning stirred up my resistance. By the end of the semester, I almost died. Following the lectures was overwhelmingly difficult. I practically lived in the library. Around midnight, I would ask my Indian friends, “Did you succeed…?” and they would smile faintly and shake their heads. It was nothing much, but it became a memory.
The dissertation project, worth a full third of the credits required for graduation, was competitive from the topic selection stage. I had to contact professors first, make my case, and hold preliminary meetings. Thankfully, I was assigned the topic that had been my first choice. I met a passionate supervisor and spent an intense summer. A week felt far too short. I pressed myself so hard that I could not leave myself alone even when I was resting.
Thankfully, after finishing the master’s program, I was given the chance to submit my dissertation to a journal. I wrote the paper bit by bit while traveling in Europe, then returned to Korea and finished it. In January 2026, I finally submitted it.
At a Korean church, I served by leading praise and playing guitar. Living my life, I never imagined I would end up leading praise. I learned that quietly attending worship and standing in the place of a leader are different realms. My voice cracked, I struggled after choosing difficult songs, and when it overlapped with exam periods I barely slept, prepared just enough, and showed up. Playing guitar with others for the first time, after having treated it as a hobby, made me face how embarrassingly limited my skill was. After praise ended, the joints in my fingers hurt, and I shook out my hands every time. I had wanted to make good use of the sound engineering I learned in university; I wanted to help as an audio engineer, but that was not what the place needed. In the end, I only checked things briefly before and after worship and praise.
Lastly, the discipleship training and worship I received at the Korean church helped me greatly in keeping and growing my faith abroad. Thank you.
Failure Becomes a Layer of Paint, and Then Clarity
Today, back in Korea after finishing everything, I write this feeling full. My shortcomings showed themselves in every direction, including areas I have not mentioned above, and I was ashamed to my heart’s content. I worked hard not to remain inside a dark room, but in the end there were times when I stayed in the darkness anyway. Even so, I have a strange groundless confidence. At first I wondered whether this full faith came from results, but I realized it came from failure. I failed relentlessly, and I was relentlessly embarrassed. Yet I am looking forward to the life ahead. I no longer doubt myself.
Slingshot (Gravity Assist Maneuver) A maneuver that borrows the movement and gravitational field of a larger celestial body to gain speed and direction that cannot be obtained with one’s own fuel (will, time, resources) alone.
For me, it means continuing to choose to place myself in a state where I cannot help but fly.
I define 2025 for myself as the year I attempted a slingshot. Countless failures allow growth that exceeds expectation. If you have a dream, you can move toward it. Hope does not require qualifications. Reality is only reality. Common assumptions are only common assumptions. Courage will arise in proportion to the fear we face, and when the time comes it will be revealed, so let me shine indifferently and brilliantly.
Through this training, I met the giants that had been sleeping inside me. There is a desire in me to live as a person of letters, spending days buried in books and writing under orange light in the dark night; to sometimes long for a strong body; to live as an engineer, working with sweaty effort and quietly sipping coffee while tapping at a keyboard; and to spend my days thinking about what good music is and what good sound is.
These sleeping figures inside me do not want to end their lives with their eyes closed. Even if only ash remains where I leave, I want to burn each day, and even if I die standing, I want to live without regret. This heart of mine feels almost spiteful, so I prefer tension and the fullness of growth over boredom and comfort. I now know that my life will probably be busy forever.
If I want to hold on to something, I actually need to be loose, and footsteps that continue plainly are stronger than determined will. The loss of being unable to protect the things I love in the distant future is larger, deeper, and more painfully immense than whatever is right in front of me now. More than brief display, I want to protect the small things I love. In doing so, I naturally come to hold ideals while looking reality in the face. I want to become a mountain that keeps warmth even in cold reality. There are so many problems in the world, but not every problem needs to be solved. Before problems with no answer, I find myself looking less at “how should this be solved?” and more at “who chose to solve this problem?”
As I close the year, I realized that the wider world is not only in travel, but also in books and in deepening relationships. In that way, I returned to the starting point of the journey. If asked how I want to travel the wider world, I want to walk the proper path. Honest time contains precision, and what has been deeply formed eventually becomes sharp. There is no need to forcibly divide the options, nor to confine myself to one of them. I want to place myself in an unmoving posture from which I can go anywhere and become anything.
In the end, we will each become a book. May my life be enough if there is just one book in my library with my name written on it.
P.S. I remember that before a trip to China, a staff member once told us that we would never forget that moment for the rest of our lives. There may have been many other choices available at that time, but this memory would remain with us for our entire lives. For me, this past year and a half became such a time.
Ah, I am also so, so happy that I graduated from the master’s with a First!!!!!