Today is my last full day of study before I take my Korean exam.  I don’t know how I’ll do but I feel pretty good about it.  As my wife likes to say, "If you don’t know it by now, you won’t know it by now."  I’m sure I’ll cram in some last minute vocabulary study in case they ask me about current events such as the Iraqi election, the Tsunami, or last night’s State of the Union address.  Other than that, I’ll wait and see and take my chances with the language arsenal I’ve already developed.  Because I already passed in Chinese I don’t feel as hard-pressed to pass my Korean exam, which is good because I don’t want to be too nervous when I actually take my exam.  Confidence, being relaxed, and a good night’s sleep will be critical to my success.  I’ll try to post a blog entry as soon as I find out how I did on the exam.  My exam is at 1 p.m. tomorrow (Friday, 2/4), and then in the evening my family and I will meet up with other Korean students to (hopefully) celebrate passing the exam and our imminent departure to Korea.  If I don’t pass, we’ll just celebrate getting out of here.

The President delivered his State of the Union address last night.  I was not able to watch it, but I read a transcript of the address.  The highlights were Iraq, the War on Terror, and Social Security.  Apparently the President got his message across, because a poll taken by CNN/USA Today/Gallup last night showed that respondents reacted favorably to his proposals.  The recent success of the Iraqi election also benefited the President.  I would have liked to see more focus on Economic issues such as paying down the Debt and domestic growth.

Today was a banner day for me.  Many things ("action items" in business speak) that have been hanging in limbo waiting to be done ("closed") finally happened today.  Computer software and hardware I ordered arrived.  Payroll requests were processed.  Multimedia I had taken to two vendors to render into DVDs were available for pick up (the first one botched the job).  Rent paid.  Onward and upward.  Although I didn’t study Korean as much today as I should with my final exam on Friday, I still feel great about having completed a bunch of things on my never-ending to-do list.  Doesn’t it feel great when things go right for a change?  If I could count the days I’d proverbially banged my head because nothing went right, I would probably be able to retire early.  Neverthelessl, no one should ever become a slave to a to-do list.  There’s still much to be done in preparation of our journey to Korea.  I can only hope that after the first month or so in Korea life will slow down substantially.

The Vote in Iraq went better than expected.  That’s great news.  We still have to wait a few days until the finally results are tallied.  With all the terrible news coming out of Iraq and the recent tsunami tragedy, it’s nice to hear some good news.  The voter turnout appears to be better than expected; terrorism lower than expected.  If Iraqis can brave the threat of the death to go to the polls, surely we can do the same.