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Starting last weekend, my host family was not able to host me anymore.  So, as of this Monday, I have been living in the school dormitories with the rest of the second grade girls.  While I was a little surprised and concerned at first about not having a host family, I am so excited to be living in the dorms.  But, as I know others in America are still concerned about it, I’ll share about my first night in the dorms.

Monday night, the nuns took Alyssa and I to get Chicken.  We had a chicken party ^^  

Then, we dropped Alyssa off at her apartment, then went on to Jochiwon.  While Sister Camilla talked to my host mom for about an hour, Sister Noella and I finished packing my stuff (I had packed it all over the weekend) and we just hung out and joked around.  Then we left, and on the way back to school we picked up a bunch of ice cream.

I’ve been sleeping at school every Wednesday, so this wasn’t the first time for me to come to stay there for a night.  But still, when I arrived on Monday night after getting all my stuff, I walked in the door with the nuns and the girls were all like “Emma!!!  Welcome to Pada!!!!”  They were all really excited I was there, which made me feel a lot better.  Since my host family situation pretty much made me feel like nobody wanted me, having all the girls is wonderful.  Anyways, they had cleared up a desk for me, and my own little closet/wardrobe thing. 

The way it works is that there is one main room (called Pada—or Beach in English), and two small rooms for the 2^nd year girls.  Pada is the room I live in, and it has a common area, bathrooms, 2 bedrooms and a shower/laundry room.  Every night when we have reading/diary time, all the girls come to Pada, even the girls who live in the other two rooms (Star and Sky).   In the 2 bedrooms at Pada, 5 girls live in each room.  In the two smaller rooms, 2 people live in one and 3 people live in the other.  We have our desks, and at night time we lay our blankets on the floor and sleep there.

9:00pm every night is when the girls are supposed to be back in the rooms, and 9:30 is cleaning time.  Then, at 10:00 we have reading/diary time, and on nights when the best teacher is in charge of us, we all sit around and each talk about our days, or some other topic.  Last night, we turned off the lights, lit candles, and had time for everyone to talk about something they are sorry about doing.  It was very stereotypical big emotional confession time, but it was very nice.

So, since last night was my first night here, the nuns had me bring ice cream as sort of a “I’m moving in—here’s a gift” sort of thing.  So after our group time, we all went into one of the rooms and ate ice cream and bread that the teacher had bought for us.  It was so much fun J  Then we all sat around and chatted until 1AM, when I finally went to bed.

Being here is so much less stress than having a host family.  I’m sure I will be sick of having no time alone every once in a while, but it’ll be alright.

Also, the weekends here, everyone goes home.  I obviously don’t have a home to go to.  So I’m still not sure how that’s going to work.  But other than that, all is well!