Hi everyone, it’s week 5! 

Here are some updates: 

Last weekend, I had a solo day in Seoul. First, my friend and I had lunch together at an acai smoothie bowl cafe, which was delicious! Then, I explored Bukchon Hanok Village for the first time. This village is lined with traditional Korean architecture and full of gift shops and cafes—definitely a sight to see. It’s very hilly though and it was a very hot day, so it turned out to be more of a hike than I was expecting, but beautiful nonetheless. I took my time there, just slowly walking around, taking in the sights, and taking different paths through the village. After that, I walked over to the Insadong and Ikseon-dong area to go to a popular cafe I found online where I ordered their popular honeycomb bread (so good!). After that, I went to a bookstore to cool off and buy a book and some stationary. Finally, I wrapped up my day by visiting Namsan Tower! I’ve been there before, but it’s always a fun tourist attraction to visit. I didn’t go inside the tower to the observatory, but I did take the cable car to get up to the mountain and walked around the free patio. Here, there are rows of locks all over the fences and it’s so pretty and colorful. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the lock I added over a year ago with my friends, but I did leave a new one. So, my weekend was full of activities I’ve been meaning to do again, so I’m very happy to have checked those off of my bucket list again!  

For my work week, I can’t say anything has changed. My internship has gotten very regular and familiar, so I am glad to feel as comfortable as I do in my role now. However, what is uncomfortable is the weather in Seoul! It’s so hot and humid here from the moment I wake up to the time I get home which makes me reluctant to go outside for too long… 

This week, I’m reflecting on my leadership experience. Before starting at this internship, I would say I have pretty strong leadership skills in different jobs I’ve worked in. Most of my work has been part-time jobs or full-time summer jobs in food or retail in very customer service-focused positions. Particularly in one of my full-time retail guest services jobs one summer, I found that I was very capable of taking the initiative to have operations go smoothly and to promote cooperation within the team. This role had a team of about two or three people at a time working the guest services counter, answering phone calls, assisting customers, making returns and exchanges, and also running the in-store pickup and drive-up delivery order services. The role required quick decisions making about who in the team did what at any given moment, as well as required multitasking skills. When business got hectic and overwhelmingly busy, which was very often, I was the one in the team that acted as the leader and facilitated tasks so that work got done in a timely manner. I have always had a very hard working mindset, so my leadership skills manifested in this way, even though I was not in charge of the department myself. 

Now, in this internship role, I have found that there is no opportunity to show off those skills in high-stress situations. Tasks and work at my company are very individual, and they are mostly separate from the others in the office. So, my personal leadership skills and identity in the way I’ve expressed it before, is not needed. Rather, I show leadership on a way smaller scale when I am working with our clients. When I am directing conversations, giving feedback, and generally teaching clients during English study, I am motivating them and tailoring sessions to best fit their needs for further improvement. In this way, this internship experience has challenged my view of leadership. The concept of leadership, to me, always sounded like skills and actions that had to be big and elaborate, but now I know that leadership can infuse itself into smaller, less important tasks as well. 

I am becoming a better leader because of this experience because I now have worked in environments where leadership takes different forms. I see from my supervisor how leadership doesn’t have to be strict and structured, but rather giving others the space to learn and grow individually through indirect support. I see now from my calls with our clients that being a leader can mean that I make sure that others are adapting well, and adjusting to their needs and concerns accordingly.

Goodbye for now, and there’s more to come next week!