The first week of school

The first week of school went by pretty quickly.  And I have to say that the week in review was pretty good.  But writing about it is difficult, because there is so much that I really don’t even know where to start!

So I guess I’ll start with the basics.  Yang Eob High School is quite a bit different from traditional Korean high schools.  Really, it’s different from every other high school in Korea.  We start off every morning in our home room (similar to other high schools), but then we move to the next class, like in American schools.  At Yang Eob, the teachers don’t move, the students do.  This is really rare for Korea.  Anyways, we move to the next class, then the next class, etc.  The teachers here are all really cool, and they are friends with the students (except the math teacher, but nobody likes him).  After 4^th period, we have lunch. 

The cafeteria food is a somewhat touchy subject.  I still haven’t quite made up my mind on that one.  At the beginning, it was disgusting, but it seems to be getting better.  The last two days, everything has been edible.  I’m afraid this is going to end up like IU, where the food was disgusting, but due to the fact it was the only option I ended up gaining weight anyways ><  Another interesting thing is that once you finish eating, you take your tray over and wash it yourself.

After lunch, for 5^th and 6^th period, I go to the library and have my Korean tutoring.  The nun who tutors me is really sweet, and she always gives us snacks.  Yesterday she gave us dried persimmons, which were really delicious.  

After tutoring, I go back to classes.  This week there have been 7 periods every day because it is the first week of the semester, but starting Monday there will be 8 periods every day.  School ends at 5:10, and 5:10-5:30 is cleaning time.  I clean the Japanese room every day with friends. 

Then, until 6:20, we have free time.  Wednesdays during this time I go to Newspaper club, but other days I just hang out.  Yesterday I watched a movie with some friends.  Hopefully I can find some more activities to fill this time.

We eat dinner at 6:20, and some days I leave right after that.  Other days that I have plans (like Wednesdays, when I have dance club), I can leave later.

Then I come home, and use the computer/work on homework/hang out with my host family.

Now I’ll try and remember some of the high points of my week.  Or low points, in the case of the first day of school.

The first day was really hard.  I made some friends at the beginning, but I had to be completely dependent on them and it was pretty obvious that they were tired of it by the end of the day.  I don’t blame them- every teacher would make them translate, and they got stuck in groups with me, which means they have to help me then too.  It was pretty much really uncomfortable.  And my Korean is not very good, and teachers talk really fast.  I was never expecting to understand classes, so that’s not the issue, but it’s really awkward when you can’t understand anything, then they say your name, then they say something else, and people laugh.  Like, I have no idea what you just said…. Most of the times they expect me to respond, but I really have no idea.  It’s not like they are making fun of me, it’s just uncomfortable.

So, that day wasn’t so great.  But after that everything got WAY better.  I’ve been making more friends, and my teachers are all awesome.  Through joining the newspaper and dance clubs, I’ve been getting involved in different groups of kids as well.  I also managed to demonstrate that girls can play ping-pong too :P One of the days, all the girls in my grade (I’m in 2^nd grade)  decided to have a Ramyun making contest.  There were three groups, and each group made a different type of ramyun, and added different things to it.  The best one was the group who made ramyun with egg, spam, and mushrooms.  Egg in ramyun is really good.  But you can’t let the egg cook all the way.  It still has to be liquidy.

What else interesting has happened….Ah.  The newspaper club put on this competition called “Yang Eob Star K”,  based on the TV show “Superstar K” which is pretty much like American Idol, except I think you can play instruments and dance on it too.  They asked me if I would participate, and so I did.  I sang “The Rose” and it went alright.  No other girls performed ><  It was me, and a bunch of guys.  But there are a lot of really talented guys at my school.  The girls are probably even more talented, they are just too shy to perform.  The girl that is teaching us dance is a better dancer than any female Kpop idol.  She is AMAZING at dancing. 

Yesterday, the nuns and the priest and Alyssa and I went to this Pal-So-Ri concert, which is Korean traditional music.  It was really really cool.  It was about an hour away, so we drove there, then we met with a Yang Eob alumni and her family and her younger brother and ate a Korean traditional dinner.  I’m pretty sure the whole event was pretty much a sucking-up to the Priest and nuns to try and get the son accepted to Yang Eob.  It was interesting, none the less.  Anyways, there was a lot there that was not the most delicious.  Doing anything that is traditional Korean like that is extremely awkward, because there is so much etiquette imbedded in it that we don’t know.  It’s very stressful ><  But I will have to say, I think we were a pretty interesting sight getting out of the car; a priest, 2 nuns, and 2 random American girls in middle-of-nowhere South Korea.

I love my nuns, by the way.

New Home

First things first:  I do not have internet at my new apartment.  My apartment has internet, but it isn’t wireless, so I can only  get it if I go sit in my host brother’s room and use a cord.  So yeah.  No internet on a frequent basis.

Anyways, my expectations for this host family were totally wrong.  Yes, we are “in the country” of Korea, meaning that we are in a small city.  As in, sort of like Carmel except more city-like.  My apartment is about 40 times more modern than my apartment in Incheon, and my family is WAY more Western.  This is a very difficult adjustment.  This morning, my host mom fed me toast and eggs.  Honestly, I miss my rice and kimchi T.T (AND KIM!!! I MISS MY KIM(seaweed) and my red-bean milk.  I miss that too.  I wish it was easy for me to get to a grocery store and buy some, but I would have to have a car ><)

My host sister seems nice, and my host mother also.  It is really difficult not to compare them to my host mom and host sister in Incheon, because they were SO wonderful.   Anyways, nobody here speaks English, so it’s a little difficult.  In Incheon, if I really needed to get something across, Da Young could help me.  I guess I’m thankful for this, as it means that my Korean will have to improve more.

My host brother is a student of Catholic University of Korea (same as Soontaek!), but he won’t go back to school until August 27th.  So until then, he is living at home.  Don’t be confused though, just because he is at home doesn’t mean I will actually see him.  Since I’ve been here, he has spent all his time in his room playing StarCraft and has only emerged 3 times to eat xD  What a stereotypical Korean boy!

My host sister is currently at home because she is still on summer vacation (until we start school on August 22nd) but during the school year she lives at school (it is a boarding school).  So once school starts, she will only be home on the weekends.  So during the weekdays, I will be the only child here.

There are no foreign people here.  Yesterday was my host brother’s birthday, so we went to the Tous Les Jours to buy a cake.  Tous Les Jours is a bread store (Korean bakeries are way different from American bakeries, and they are like ten million times more awesome).  Anyways, we bought the cake, and the lady who was working there comes up and hands me this loaf of delicious cream filled bread as we’re walking out saying “예뻐서” or basically, “because you’re pretty”  I guess this is the benefit of being the only foreigner!

This is only the first full day that I am with this family, so I am still sort of uncomfortable.  I’ll give it time though, and hopefully soon it will be better.

The last two weeks

It's been a long time since I've last updated.  What can I say--I've been busy.  Very very busy.  So I'll try and explain exactly what I've been busy with, but there is no way I'll be able to cover it all ><

I don't think I've blogged about the war museum yet, so I'll start there.  On August 2nd, Soontaek and our group merged with Audra's group, with their supporter Woochul.  We went to the War Memorial of Korea, and it was really really cool.  It was interesting to see a different perspective on the Korean War, especially regarding America's involvement.

When we got there, there was this huge presentation by a bunch of Korean soldiers.  They were all marching and doing this routine, and it was really interesting.  We also saw a lot of military vehicles and such there, so there are some pictures on facebook if you want to see.

The next day (August 3rd)  Dayoung came to meet me after class with her friend, and we went to the National Museum of Korea.  It was a really interesting, but there was so much information there I feel like I need to go back about 400 times before I can actually retain it.  Anyways, it was a really huge and awesome museum.

The next day our group met up with Woochul's group again and we went to this traditional Hanok neighborhood in Insadong.  Hanok is a traditional Korean house.  It was okay, but it was raining so not so great.  Afterwards, we all went and ate Patbingsu ^^  Patbingsu is sooooo good!