Me. I am a girl across the sea. A girl being like millions of other girls and boys, fangirling like crazy while watching my favorite Kpop-group on YouTube, with English subs of course. I am an adopted Asian, so I have the Asian looks but the European style. In my country, being tanned, flashy lashes, big lips, big butts and curves to the max, was ideal. But I had unconsciously changed style, changed norms. I don’t prefer the same as my friends. I don’t follow the same ‘ideals’ like everyone else in my town.

All because of Kpop. Kpop had both ruined and blessed my life - so many dreams, so many hopeful thoughts but still so far away. I wasn’t even near the Asian ’ideals’ and it kind of hurt my heart. Of course I wanted to fly to South Korea and meet every one of my biases and favorite kpop-groups. It was one of my biggest dreams - but living an eternity away, knowing just a slight bit Korean that’ll make me at least survive in the country and not having the resources were the biggest problems. I was just a dreamy teenager in my early years.

I still had dreams, I still wanted things and I actually believed I could reach them some day. Aside from actually just wanting to go to Korea, I wanted to become and idol. Just like all the role models I had in Korea. Becoming an idol required lots of work, much, much less sleep and being clever. I didn’t feel like I was anything of that, it . I didn’t feel handsome or pretty enough, but I still wanted to try. ‘Send in an audition’ was on the bucket list dearly and once in my life-time, I would do it, and soon. It felt like I was becoming too old so if I wanted to do it, I had to do it soon.

Talking to my parents about it was probably the least terrifying part, even though it was pretty terrifying itself. I told them about everything I knew, all about the research I’ve done – everything. They worried and said almost strictly that no – I can’t live alone in South Korea, absolutely not. But involving the word ‘dream’ and ‘hope’ helped my way of convincing your parents. They had to let go of their child, but of course I stated it wasn’t a guarantee that I’ll be accepted as a trainee, yet even become and idol. I knew about the consequences but I really wanted to try, and if I became and trainee and not an idol in one go, then I at least tried.

My parent finally gave in, after maybe two weeks of arguing and compromising. I downloaded the sheet to fill in and since I was older than 14 years old I didn’t need a guardian. I filled it in, recorded a video together with my sibling who helped out with her system camera. The photos came out better than I expected. The possibility of me becoming a trainee felt really small and to a minimum. I didn’t have any good facial features, white skin, sweet smile, good teeth, a small nose, I didn’t have a lot of confidence and I wasn’t the definition of ‘perfect’. But I still had a sparkle of hope, because maybe, maybe I could get in. I could rap well and sing decently and dance pretty good too, I knew I couldn’t over or underestimate myself.

When I triple-checked if I had everything in the mail, I nervously hovered with the arrow over the send button. Instead of sending it I double checked the address. Hm… Yes, the Big Hit email was right, okay send it now or I’ll never send it! I hastily sent the email and I was now sweating in cold sweat. I was nervous because what if I actually became a trainee? I knew I would do anything to be good, it was just a matter of time before I would get an email back with the response. I was shaking in fear and excitement these two following weeks. I both wanted them to say yes and no. Well, it was a complicated feeling.

My friends knew everything. I had a group of friends and three other friends that I loved dearly.

I was in school and we had English class in our homeroom. We were chatting comfortable with each other while working. My friends were really funny, but we’ll get scolded sometimes by the teachers because they thought we laughed too much.

My friends knew my obsession with the thing called kpop. They didn’t like it that much and they thought the Korean men with makeup looked gay and I of course scolded them for being homophobes or anything. Oh how I hated homophobes, not that my friends were, I just got mad at them. I showed them some of the choreography that BTS danced and they really thought it looked cool and it went ‘so amazingly fast’. I was grateful for the attention given. I’ve told them about my feelings and thoughts even though I knew they really didn’t care unless it actually happened.

Now that I’ve told them that I had sent in an audition to become a trainee, they supported me dearly and I loved them for that. They seemed sad if I went to go but I was cautious with what I said, I didn’t want to get too many false hopes.

Almost two weeks had gone by. It had gone too long. It felt like three weeks and I was almost 100% sure they lost my mail somewhere in the junk bin. I was losing my hopes and fell down to my bed after checking my mails for the umpteenth time. I gave up that evening and just went to sleep. The night had been long. I’ve been working out every day, every evening after making my homework. I danced, did abs-workout and different things. I was going to be prepared for EVERYTHING.

I woke up to the notification on my phone signaling that I’ve got a message. I thought it was a junk message from YouTube or any other website I’ve signed my email address on. I’ve signed up on quite a few.

I quickly read the title and was about to slide it off the messages when I re-read the title. Big Hit Entertainment. I screamed and cried and was so happy I had to scream in happiness.

I-It said that I-I’ve been accepted as a trainee AND OH MY HOLY ING GOD I AM GOING TO KOREA. I was squealing, jumping, running up and down the stairs because containing the happiness would have been a pity. My parents looked at me like I was a crazy ape or something because I certainly looked like one.

“I AM OFFICIALLY A TRAINEE FOR BIG HIT ENTERTAINMENT!!!!!”I screamed almost as strong as I could (I have a strong voice, trust me). This moment of my life was indescribable. It was so amazingly impossibly possible that it wasn’t even possible. My parent sighed because now, their precious daughter would move out before her older sister. She was only fourteen years old but it still happened. They didn’t want to stay in her ways to reach her dreams. Now the hard work was awaiting me in Korea. They provided me a home and everything I needed, they would meet me up at the airport and they paid my plane ticket too, apparently. They sent the ticket and oh my ing God I was freaking going to KOREA!!!!!!

So now here I was. I confirmed of living with strangers and all that shizz. I was on the plane to Korea, no expensive ticket and I didn’t care one bit. I could live both primitive and luxurious - I could do most of it. I was sitting alone. Apparently I had half of the row for myself. It was chill, good food. Korea apparently had good and healthy food, full of nutrition. The flying attendants were really nice to me. They asked if I flew alone and I said, yes, yes I did. They talked to me to keep me entertained even though I had movies to entertain me with. I knew it was because I flew alone, as a kid.

At the airport, I was waiting for my luggage and left the ‘airport’. I saw three men looking really approachable holding a sign with my whole name on it. I smiled shyly and slowly walked towards them and they actually seemed to recognize me, to my surprise. I didn’t know they would recognize their trainees. The greeted me with a Korean greeting and since I’ve been obsessed with kpop for a few years, I of course knew how to greet them formally.

“Annyeongseyo, my name is Lovisa Sjoeberg, but call me Jessica, it’ll be easier.” They bowed slightly to me and I bowed ninety degrees to show my respect and they greeted me back. “Annyeongseyo.” They smiled at me. Seemed like they actually like me, puh.

“Let’s go, we’ll show you your dorm.” They even drove me personally to the dorm. They told me that my performance on my recorded video was so good they just wanted me to train for a few months and that by then, I would move to another dorm. I would apparently move to another group that recently had debuted. I didn’t know any more groups than BTS that debuted recently - I’ve been admiring them dearly. Their choreography was amazing. I would be a part of a new group, really soon. Usually you train for many years and I would show how much I got, in a few months? I couldn’t believe that. I really wanted to hug them but I kept myself from doing that.

They told me I had a nice style and nice clothes today specifically. I had just worn some sneakers, stretchy dark blue jeans and a white shimmy with rolled up sleeves, together with a trench coat. Yes, I know basic as hell. I also brought my Timberland’s and yes, I may sound snobby but I am as basic as you could possibly get. I really liked my beanie my friend got me a year ago and it was dark grey beanie hanging loosely from my head. I had earphones plugged in my ears but of course removed them as soon as I saw the three men. I really was lucky they said that I had such talents. Well, I’ve been on a dancing camp earlier in America and in Canada so I’ve had a lot of education. My condition was pretty good since I played basketball in my hometown so the exercises I got from that were no joke. I was on multiple camps every year. We have really strict but fun coaches. They were really funny and creative. Our team actually had the most wins in our location. Like, a few years ago, we could beat every team in our age and those who were one year older, but now it is much harder to beat people, I don’t know why. FYI, just so you know^^

They asked me if I was okay around boys and I said I was a friendly person around any kind of people. It didn’t matter of they were boys or girls but I also said it was obvious if I actually was interested in a boy. I would try much harder to look good and cool in front of him. I don’t know why I actually told them this - they seemed kind and open about this so I just opened up to them. I knew that around interviews and such, you had to stay put and be as innocent as possible about the subject called ‘relationships’.

They also told what kind of classes I would attend, it was dancing, rapping, vocal’s and acting. Didn’t sound so harsh, but I am sure I would be eating those words soon.

They took away my phone the first three months so I could focus on my training, even though I would have done that either way. My friends and parents knew about this so they weren’t worried.

I lived with three other girls on our dormitory. It was four beds in the same room and I slept on the bottom bed, fortunately. We were provided with two bathrooms and me and a really kind and cute girl shared one. She was the average Korean, light skinned, cute nose, big eyes and all that. I actually felt kind of ugly compared to her. She said I was beautiful and it cheered me up since she said that out of the blue. She was okay in English, since I couldn’t communicate with her in Korean. She was a good learner too, but I can’t say that I am awesome at English either. I am probably average in my own country.

We were provided with skincare from some luxurious Korean skin care company. It was so cool to go through the different steps. The one I shared bathroom with carefully explained to me how to apply everything since she’d already done that for a few weeks. The food was good, the food that they provided us with.

The company sent me to a school called KENT and I enjoyed being there.