Sorry I haven't made any posts lately, I have been very sick the last few days and so have spent all of my free time sleeping. It started Sunday afternoon but let me just start from the beginning.
After the medical check, welcome orientation, class meeting, and welcome dinner I went out to explore a bit and have a few drinks with some people. Well, one of the guys I went with got sick and so I walked him back to the dorms so he could sleep in his room instead of on the bench in the bar/restaurant. :/ So then I went back to the bar, had a little more to drink, met a lot of really awesome people, got to hang out with some locals for a little while, and I'm sure they were making fun of me but that is totally fine with me because I was a little..."sheets to the wind" as well as asking them how to say things in korean, their names, telling them my name when prompted, which they found... interesting and amusing I guess? They said, "Oh, Rose. Like the flower, Rose, yeah like the flower." While making the shape of a flower with their hands to which I responded "Exactly :D". Anyway, some good interaction with the locals. Then the guy that I went with and I went back to the dorms and I ended my night with a very hot, very dizzy shower not to be repeated in following nights. That Soju will take you for a ride. It's the drink of choice over here and it's sort of like vodka but smoother and sweeter with less burn. Also, they call it the creeper. I'm sure you can figure out why :/ haha
Saturday morning brought a very early 7am with a cold shower and getting ready for my first day of classes to be kicked off with a very interesting and energizing, and most certainly butt kicking, hour and a half of Taekwondo. yeah. It was awesome and although I thought that I was going to die for the first half hour alternated with wishing I would die or that I would just collapse or my spine would fall out or something, after the first 30 minutes, purely cardio let me add (as in jumping, spin jumping, running, running and kicking, spread eagle jumping, russian dance kicking, etc) I did not die. Instead, my back went numb and I sincerely and completely enjoyed the other hour of class. It was interesting and challenging and exhilarating, just like I knew it would be, and I can't wait to get in a class when I get to my province :] This was followed by a 20 minute break to run (almost literally, and on jelly legs) back to our rooms to change out of our very stinky, very sweaty clothes and "Squeeze in a 5 minute shower if you can" (yeah right, it took 7 minutes to get to the dorm from the gym) and then run back to class. Then we had "Tips for Teaching Reading", then lunch, then "See It! Hear It! Do It!" (a class on different learning styles and incorporating that into our classrooms), and then finally "A Brief Intro to Korean History and Culture" (during which I have no idea what happened because I fell asleep :/ ), then dinner, and last for the night, our first lesson of Level 1 (there's also Level 2, 3, and a KPop class) Survival Korean. Our schedule is breakfast from 7:30-8:40, class from 9-12:20 with a short break to walk to the next class and a snack and water between (I felt like I was in Kindergarten, especially when I skipped lunch and took a nap), then lunch from 12:30-1:40, class again from 2-5:20, dinner from 5:30-6:40, and then Survival Korean from 7:20-8:30. It has made for very long days. Saturday night was topped off with going out with a bunch of girls from my floor, drinking some not awful Korean beer and meeting some more really awesome people. There are people here from literally all over the world. Its incredible to get to meet so many different people with different personalities and customs and everything all in one place and at one time. It's also a little overwhelming but I just try to hand out facebook information and remember that it's all sinking in, I just can't process it all actively right now (it's also what I tell myself about 80% of the classes because it's sooooo much information and it's all so good and useful but since I still don't know what grade I'm teaching or the environment or anything, I have to try to suck it all up and then pick out what I need later when I can actually apply it, so I've been taking a lot of notes and have gotten all the lecturer's emails (except the History lecturer...) so I can get the info again later if I need to, or rather when I need to).
Back from classes for the day and finished with my project so on to Sunday. It was pretty much the same as Saturday, just different classes, and I started to feel poopy about noon. Sore throat, yucky stomach, the works. Nothing too eventful for the day except as previously mentioned, it was the first day I got to see the sun over here. I even got to see some sunset reflected in the clouds, very beautiful. :] So I stayed in and went to bed early Sunday night.
Monday was our fieldtrip. Unfortunately I ran out of time tonight and am going to sleep so that hopefully I can be better tomorrow and not worse. But, that's two days. I'll tell you all about my adventures into the great unknown tomorrow. 안녕히 계세요!
(It means goodbye when I'm leaving and you're staying:] )
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