Amy's Adventure to Inje: Another long and busy day

I'm starting on the update early so I can head to bed earlier. Think back to yesterday...

We had our first conversation class with a different professor. Jihye told her that we were 'good students' but so, Hannah thought that meant we were masters of the Korean language...after we all kind of struggled through the class we threw out some suggestions and upon learning about Jihye's comment I told Emily "ability and attitude are two different things!" Anyway, she threw a lot of Korean phrases at us. After conversation, we had our first taekwondo class! We just had a 'lecture' introduction. Unbeknown to me...the class is actually made up of regular Inje University students as well! There are probably close to 30 students total. The professor only spoke Korean, so we didn't really know much of what he was saying. IIIHR got Taekwondo 'uniforms' for us and they have our (adopted) names written in Korean on the back-the uniforms are pretty awesome! The next class was a Korean language class. We have the same professor for 2 classes (this one and the Culture class on Thurs.). It reminded me a little bit of the Spanish phonetics class I took at MMC. We learned about the characteristics of the Korean language and then practiced writing the Korean alphabet. Again. But, I think that the practice is paying off.

After class, we went to dinner. It wasn't very good and Emily and I were still hungry. I had remembered passing this egg toast sandwichy place on the street in front of campus so I suggested that. While we were looking at the menu I said "boy, it would be nice if there was someone here to help translate for us!" Just then, I looked up and Emily's roommate, Sung Hee was walking out of the coffee shop right next to the sandwich place!! She and her friend had ordered a sandwich so she helped us out. We brought our sandwich back to my room to eat. After we finished I looked at my schedule to double check my English Town class and...!!!!! Oh my! It was at 7:00, not 7:30...and it was 7:02!!! I was late for my first English Town class!!! I am the co-teacher in the class. The class has about 14 Korean students working on their English skills mostly to help them with their TOIEC tests. There is one leader and then they have all have a member or two from IIIHR helping. We did a quick introduction and overview of the class (it was all in Korean! :/) and then went out for chicken and drinks. It was definitely a different experience. But we played some name games and just got to know each other. I wrote down the names of all the students and maybe one or two things about them to help me remember them. Here's where all that practice of writing in our classes helped!! I could hear their name and write it correctly in hangul (Korean writing)!! My Mom bought me Rosetta Stone for Christmas and I had been working on it almost every day before I left; there was a writing part where I had to write what I heard and I couldn't do it. After being here a week, now I can!! I am so excited! Anyway, we were at the restaurant for a looong time. When we left, they decided to get ice cream. We went to the Baskin Robbins and bought 2 giant tubs-almost everyone picked out a flavor. We brought it back to the dorms, but then had to wait for the 11:20 curfew check-in time to finish. However, when I was back in my room, the floor assistant told Jenny there was a meeting and we both had to go to it. It was basically the head women's RA telling everyone about the English Town trip next weekend and how she wasn't going to be there. 1st-it was all in Korean 2nd-it took her 20 minutes to get it all out 3rd-I didn't actually need to be there. It was really frustrating because I knew it didn't apply to me-I couldn't understand it all anyway. After her long speech, I went downstairs to eat the ice cream with my ET group. FINALLY, I was able to go to my room when it was around midnight. I was so, so tired.

Isaac Toast-'deliciousness' in the making

Almost finished product; I forgot to take a picture!

English Town group

Today:
...another very long and busy day! I finally got to go to my Kindergarten class! :) The kids are sooo cute!! We introduced ourselves and then broke into small groups with about 5 students. Our activity for the day was to write our names (in English) on our own pieces of paper and then decorate our 'name tags'. Alona was in the group with me. A few of the girls were really good with their English, but some of them were just too shy to even try repeating phrases or letters. Then our time was up and we had to return to ET for a special lecture. A non-profit organization came to give an introduction/lecture about Korean culture. It was pretty interesting. Afterward, we were able to dress in the hanbok's (traditional Korean dress) and take pictures and have some traditional foods for a snack. Today, our group decided to go to the cafeteria across from ET. It is typically for the professors, but after 1pm we can go there for lunch. We tried it and really liked it-all the cafeterias serve the same food, but it seemed better. Then Emily and I took a walk around town.

At 3:30, we had a welcoming party for all the international students. That was kind of fun because they had some musicians, taekwondo performers, a couple of different dance groups and a hanbok fashion show. We had dinner and now I am going to study a little bit with Tim and Ben. I can't wait til I can go to bed! I am soo tired!