I am not sad to leave you, not at all
your kimchi was terrible, your ceiling had leaks
I guess you were good to me, overall
Jungwon, you were my home for six very long weeks I am not sad to leave you, not at all your kimchi was terrible, your ceiling had leaks I guess you were good to me, overall
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So I am playing a bit of catch up on the blog but I am sure you can understand- The last 7 days of orientation were, in some ways, the most grueling of them all. The weekend before this one Fulbright brought us up to Seoul, posted us up in some fancy digs and gave us a lot of information about the coming year. We went to Hwacheon to see the DMZ, had a day off, and attended lectures for two days then back to Goesan for Departure day (post soon to follow) Well, after I wrote that last snetence I lost internet for a while and wrote the rest of this blog post out on word...but what ended up happening was a very long rant about some things that I am not sure how to express yet. I want more time to think on that before posting, look forward to it. However, I want to share the beauty that is Seoul weekend with you all #cantstopwontstop without further ado please enjoy! My Korean class final was yesterday and our "graduation" ceremony is tomorrow. Time really does fly when....well it flies when your schedule is jam-packed full. I'm not complaining though, this was one of the better Korean courses I have taken in that because I knew my grade wasn't at stake I felt more comfortable making mistakes. We also had the option of going to office hours every night which was awesome. I often would go and either converse with my professors or just work on my Korean in a setting where I got instant feedback. While I am a bit sad that Korea no longer has a CLEA (even though its still on the CL list) I really hope that my home stay family will greatly help my Korean speaking and listening ability. I still can't believe it has been so long since I left home. I feel like I am just at that point where I don't want to leave Jungwon... that's a lie. The food is terrible. I want to leave for that reason alone. I cannot supplement my Jungwon diet on my 7,000 won a day diet. But I have truly come to love and appreciate the other 74 ETAs that I am sharing this experience with. It will be extremely difficult to leave them come Tuesday. Tomorrow, at 5:15 am *ugh*, we will be heading to Seoul for our graduation so this will probably be the last post until I get to Seogwipo/get settled into my life there. (don't worry mom I will make sure to skype in on my phone this weekend) I still don't know if/who will be hosting me this year, but I am really excited. Also, Sunday/Monday all the ETAs who are renewing will be in Goesan for a little mixer-get-to-know-you type thing. Sorry this post has been rambling, I am so burnt out on studying Korean and preparing a presentation for our final. I will post pictures from the end of orientation/Seoul weekend as soon as possible- until then- Much love, mem So I haven't done much writing in a while but I need to start studying for my Korean final....my alternative is to offer some vignettes of life at Jungwon. For those curious I go to Seoul next Thursday morning to sign my contract ect. and come back to Jungwon Sunday, then Monday is the returnee-newbie mixer, followed by Departure day on Tuesday. No word yet on my flight but I guess I shall find out soon! Sorry I've been so busy, hopefully things will chill out once I start that Island life.
Korean Class Korean class is a struggle for me because it is so boring. I am definitely at the top of my class which has been strange but in some ways satisfying. The range of ability in the intermediate class is one semester to three years. So sometimes we cover things that are super elementary. It has given me the chance to work on my speaking much more however. In previous classes I was always the one who had to be coaxed into talking and was very nervous to mess up on grammar structures. In this class I am usually the first one to speak up and I try and fail sometimes too. The other girl in my class at my level did CLS for a summer which really gives me hope that Fulbright will give me the immersive language experience I always felt was so critical (haha) to learning Korean. I really love both of my teachers in their own way. They are really funny and I will be sad to not have them anymore. TKD In taekwondo we had our first sparring match this week. You know that video of the two little girls kicking at eachother but not hitting? Thats what most of us looked like. I took on this really cool kid named Ted. He kicked my butt. If I got a chance to do it again I think I would not choose to spar a boy. Lolz. Tuesday is our last class and we're breaking boards. Orientation The OCT has overall done an admirable job trying to get us ready to be Korean teachers. I still have doubts about the effectiveness of very smart people to magically be suited for teaching a la TFA but after meeting a few of the English teachers past ETAs co-taught with I'm more than willing to believe that just by the pure virtue of being a native English speaker we have something to offer these kids. As a last caveat I will say that I have felt considerable pressure to present a positive narration of the Fulbright Program so while I have some complaints about Orientation and the Fulbright Korea program I'm going to save them for after Seoul weekend and the contract with my school has been signed. PS we recently found out we are only guaranteed 18 business days for Winter break. PSS Don't fret yet fam, I think that given my school had a previous ETA they will grant me a break similar to the one the previous ETA recieved...Feb in Hawaii! We get our placements in..... a few short hours! *gasp* I know that afterwards everything will change but I don't really have any control over anything at this point so I am just along for the ride. Check in later for the deets.
Much love, Emsloth When I was thinking up the title of this post, my main goal was to encapsulates my feelings during this past week. There was the constant second guessing as I filled out my preference form. There was also the triumph of visiting Seoul on my own, getting back into the swing of being independent. Then there was the sheer terror of trying to make it back to Goesan and second guessing my ability to identify the correct bus and procure a ticket to the location I want to go . There where many moments this past week when I just didn't know what to do. Then there was today. Today was beautiful. Today I ate good food and laid in bed and played with kids and did yoga. I didn't have to worry. I didn't feel so lost. It was just what I needed. So my placement form. The whole thing was electronic but they gave us a paper copy before hand so that we could be prepared going in. The 13 categories were as follows: type, gender, size, english ability, religious affiliation, new school, homestay, location size, environment, specific location, resource availability, Other ETAs (that you either want to be near or not) and accessibility to extracurriculars. I tried to explain the s%*t out of my answers in the boxes provided. It was kinda funny, a lot of people told me that they "didn't really have any preferences" and my response was "awesome, cause I have tons". I guess with that is the heightened chance that I will be sorely disappointed...but what are you gonna do? I know what I want. I am a bit frustrated with the lack of communication that has accompanied the placement forms. The party line from the OCs is "it depends" and when asked specifics its usually going to be an "I don't know" or "we'll talk about it later". While I don't see myself as a strict rule follower, I am someone who likes to have all the cards on the table. It doesn't seems right to me that there is so much being omitted. However, I am not running this ship, so who I am to say? So what do you do when you don't know what to do? I'm still working on that one, but for now my answer is just wait and see.
As week three comes to a close (half way through orientation might I add) I am beginning to tire of the "orientation life". This past weekend was a really nice reprieve- we went to Donghae to relax by the ocean. Donghae literally translates to East sea so we were in a city called East sea swimming in the East sea. I swam and swam and swam. I also ate some delicious crab and visited a lighthouse. It was idyllic to say the least. We also got a reprieve from the food at Jungwon which was nice. It was kinda funny to pull up to the hotel and realize that the school and the hotel were affiliated. Some of the second years had joked with us that we would be "surprised by the hotel" by I thought they meant sleeping on "yo" or that the hotel would be typically Korean in its strange ornateness. This whole cult thing has started to freak me out a little bit...at this hotel they had ostriches, turkeys, peafowl, and monkeys all kept in too small cages. Maybe that has something more to do with Korean views on animal rights but it was still kind of disturbing. Regardless, I had a great time rooming with Leanndra and Amelea and a great time just relaxing. No lesson planning. No Korean. Just me and the water and friends. Getting back to Jungwon on Sunday night (we visited some Korean historical sites but nothing of huge importance and it was soooo hot) I had gotten a package from Karen (감사합니다 한국 어마!). She got me candy from paris baguette, so delicious, so cute! Then it was back to reality. 1-on-1's about placements, 1-on-1's about lesson plans, lesson planning, placement forms, homestay requests. This week I truly have been wiped out. Which is why I am writing this blog post instead of going to Taekwondo. I think I may look into TKD at my placement just because I need a class in order to make myself workout...but right now it is kinda painful doing it with fifty foreigners and one instructor. I know the poor guy is trying but for the most part we just look terrible and spend a lot of time not doing anything. I also think it could help with my Korean. I guess we shall see. Ooh this week I taught my first lesson. Being in front of those kids was not nearly as scary as I thought it would be...but the kids at camp fulbright are supposed to be the best of the best so I guess that isn't much to go off of. The main comments I got back was that I was basically a sesquipedalian... yeah, I got chastised for using too long of words such as currency and itinerary. What can I say Word with the Word really ingrained in me that good ole latin and greek based vocabulary. I have had some professors in college try to beat that habit out of me (here's looking at you Prof. Munter) but it just happens. Oh and one of my examples was the order in which you would buy and apartment in Seoul...I definitely am meant to teach higher levels in my opinion. Anyways, these poor intermediate kids still got what I was teaching (woohoo) and I am on to my next lesson with the Advanced kids. My first theme was "I dream" and next weeks is "We care". I get the feeling these themes are annual but its always interesting to see what people do with what they're given. I will try to talk more about the placement form later (maybe after I've gotten my results back) but in the mean time I hope to put up some more pictures. Miss you all! You probably have a lot of questions about this strange strange place, but to be honest I have very few answers. Through internet snooping I have deduced that this school is possibly built by this weird religion/cult. Enjoy! |
Author안녕! I'm Emmy and this is my blog detailing my life in Korea with Fulbright mainly through pictures. Feel free to contact me on my about page. TTFN Archives
June 2016
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