I'm from Austin. I'm going to Korea. I'm starting a blog.

My name is Jacob Contreras. I was born and raised in Austin, Texas and attended the University of Texas at Austin after highschool. I graduated from UT in Spring 2004 with a degree in RTF (Radio, TV, Film) and attended a 2 year Bible school in Anaheim, California the following Fall semester. After graduating in the Summer of 2006, I came back to Austin to serve full time with a christian group on UT campus. I served for 2 years and began looking for a full time job in the summer of 2008. While I was on the hunt for a job, I began to pick up some hours at my old college job, Papa John's Pizza. Part time turned into full time, and as of today I am still working at PJ's, but not for much longer.

In 2 weeks I will be going to Ansan, South Korea to teach english for a year. Teaching english in a foreign country is not something I ever thought I'd be doing; it just never crossed my mind. The way it went down was pretty simple. A guy that I knew was recruiting people to do this, he asked me if I was interested, and I said, "Yes". So we got the ball rolling. Come next month, I'll be halfway across the globe, trying to teach korean kids to talk like I talk. What's more than that, I think it will be an opportunity to discover who I am on my own; away from my friends and family, and out of my comfort zone. As a result, I'm only bringing the essentials: a Bible to read, a football to teach this country a real sport, and cowboy boots to show them I mean business.

I don't expect things to be easy, at least not at first. I'll probably suffer some severe culture shock initially. I hear they don't have mexican food. That's going to be a problem. I may need to have some people FedEx me some breakfast tacos from Taco Cabana every now and then. I plan on bringing 2 suitcases with me. One will be filled with clothes, the other will be filled with a stash of american food to help me get by until I find the safe places to eat. I am currently eating every favorite unhealthy, fatty, delicious food that doesn't exist in Korea until I leave, because I plan on losing 20 pounds involuntarily while I'm there. It could turn into a problem when the people over there find out that I hate kim chi. I may very well be living off of white rice and moon pies for the next 12 months.