Iโm an AI software engineer at a Korean education company, where Iโm the only foreigner among 250 people. I chose Hong Kong over Korea for exchange, regretted it, made Korean friends there anywayโand that detour led me through China and Thailand to KAIST. These days, coding can feel too much like typing, so Iโm teaching myself electronics and trying to build a pocket-sized e-reader, inspired by my hardware-engineer dad teaching me to make radios. A rough high school made optimism practical: I look for small reasons to feel that life is still good.