My day started at 5 a.m.
Why so early? Because I was trying to transfer into art school, and in Korea that meant drawing. A lot of drawing.
A quick note for anyone outside Korea: there, you can transfer into a university partway through, usually entering as a junior, by passing the school’s transfer exam. For art schools, a big part of that exam is a timed practical test. You sit down, the clock starts, and you draw for hours. So that’s what I trained for. Every day.
A day in the life (of a very tired person)
One day looked like this.
5:00 a.m. Wake up, get properly clean, eat a simple breakfast, and head out to where my teacher was waiting.
The commute, about an hour. I replayed yesterday’s drawings in my head and filled in the weak spots with thought. Mental homework, on the move.
7:00 a.m. My teacher was already there. Every single time. Without fail. We went straight into a four-hour mock exam.
Around 11:30 a.m. Time’s up, and one finished drawing sits in front of me. My teacher and I stand side by side and critique it.
Lunch, one hour. A quick meal at a nearby restaurant or a convenience store, then I put my head down on the desk and pass out for about 30 minutes. Not “nap.” Pass out.
1:00 p.m. Another four-hour exam. I draw like a maniac.
5:00 p.m. Drawing number two is done. My teacher and I lay both drawings out and critique them together.
Evening. Dinner, then back to it, same rhythm as before.
10:00 p.m. The last drawing of the day is finished. I go over all three: what worked, what didn’t, what to fix. Then my teacher corrects them.
The ride home. I look at good drawings, because apparently three hadn’t been enough.
11:00 p.m. Home. Wash up. Sleep. Repeat.
Then do it again. For six months.
I kept that routine for six months. And at the end of it, I transferred into art school.
When I first wrote this in 2023, I was already past 40, and I still caught myself reminiscing about that time. In Korea, most men serve in the military, and you can always spot a group of middle-aged guys swapping army stories with a strange, misty-eyed fondness. It’s the Korean version of reliving your high school football glory days. That’s me, except my glory days are about drawing all day and wolfing down convenience-store lunches.
Looking back, part of me wants to ask my younger self: What’s a “good school,” really? Why were you hanging your whole life on it?
But at the time, it wasn’t a small thing. I threw myself at it like my life depended on it.
What the grind left behind
That passion is still holding me up today. And the simple fact that I did it, that I actually went all in once, made my self-respect solid.
What I believe now: the experience of throwing everything you have at something, just once, is a big enough event to shake up your whole life.
And there was a bonus I didn’t expect. Every day came with a small win: one drawing, then two, then three, each one critiqued and a little better. Those daily wins, and the good result that followed them, gave me a kind of joy I had never tasted before.