We had a conversation class this morning. It went okay-the phrases are still a little difficult to get down. After conversation, we had taekwondo class. The cameraman taped the last little bit for the program KBS is making. It was funny because when the instructor told the class it was being taped for KBS I saw all the girls take their hair down and kind of fluff it out.
We had our language class after lunch. It definitely makes me think of a linguistics class, but it is interesting. Later, I went running with Emily, Megan and Kim. After dinner, I had my ET class. I ran into my group leader earlier today and I told him I wouldn't be late this week; I would be early! I was so early I was afraid I was in the wrong place. The lesson Seung Chul, our leader, planned was for the class to write a story from a picture. Then I had to correct their grammar. It went alright, I just wish there were more resources available/more technology accessible in our discussion room. I went to talk with Emily and Maren afterward. I've been looking up different activities to help with grammar and I can't believe it's almost 11 already!
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Monday, March 14, 2011
Just Another Monday
Monday's are pretty great. It is such an easy day! This morning I just relaxed and caught up on things here and there. After lunch, I hung out with Tim in the computer lab; we were looking up ideas for our Kindergarten class Wednesday. I had another break before cooking class. This week we made another type of 'cheon', hwa cheon. It is a traditional dish made with rice flour. The cheon are decorated with a date and daisy leaves to make the design of a flower. Then they are fried; we made a sugar syrup to cover them. These turned out/tasted better than last week's cheon. Maren, Emily and I went to HomePlus to get some groceries and came back for dinner. We met our new classmate, Milan. He was finishing up another program and it ended last week. Dinner was not very good. I had bought "cheese bokki" which is basically ramen noodles with cheese-kind of like easy mac. That also was not very good. Ben called me and I went downstairs to the lounge to study with Tim and him. Emily joined us after a bit. Then I went upstairs to study in Emily's room a little more and Maren joined us. I need to rest up because tomorrow is going to be a loooong day. Our first official Taekwondo class is tomorrow too!
Emily and me with our finished product! |
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Beautiful Spring Day!
The weather was soo nice today! I can feel spring in the air-I can hardly wait for it to stick around. The evenings get chilly, especially when the sun starts to set.
I went to church this morning. It's still difficult to follow/know what's going on. I met up with Emily, Jenny, Ben and Tim at Isaac Toast...aka best sandwich place in town OR my new love. We ordered and took our sandwiches back to campus and ate at the 'outdoor auditorium' in front of English Town (from now on referred to as ET). After lunch Emily and I decided to go study some; the soccer guys and I planned to play soccer later in the day so we went to study over by the fields. While we were studying, all of a sudden Ben came running over from the opposite direction of the dorms and said he needed my help and to grab my stuff and follow him. He wanted to play tennis and there was a big group of older men and women (like a tennis club); he wanted me to translate for him, except I didn't know how to say any of the things he wanted me to tell them!! With a few words here and there I was able to kind of get the point across and Ben was able to play with them. Our 'soccer crew' arrived and then we saw the guys we played with last week and we went to ask them to play with us again. While we were in the middle of playing, the team that was in the futsal (fenced in) field left, so we went to play in there-rather than on the hard basketball court. It was a lot of fun. :)
Emily and Maren came to study our new vocabulary words for a little. Jenny was a huge help! We needed to hear the pronunciation of the words and she was so nice to read through 5-6 pages of vocab for us. When we were done studying, we just talked for a long time. I can't believe it's already 10:30. It is definitely time for bed! Luckily I only have the cooking class tomorrow, so it shouldn't be too difficult! :)
I went to church this morning. It's still difficult to follow/know what's going on. I met up with Emily, Jenny, Ben and Tim at Isaac Toast...aka best sandwich place in town OR my new love. We ordered and took our sandwiches back to campus and ate at the 'outdoor auditorium' in front of English Town (from now on referred to as ET). After lunch Emily and I decided to go study some; the soccer guys and I planned to play soccer later in the day so we went to study over by the fields. While we were studying, all of a sudden Ben came running over from the opposite direction of the dorms and said he needed my help and to grab my stuff and follow him. He wanted to play tennis and there was a big group of older men and women (like a tennis club); he wanted me to translate for him, except I didn't know how to say any of the things he wanted me to tell them!! With a few words here and there I was able to kind of get the point across and Ben was able to play with them. Our 'soccer crew' arrived and then we saw the guys we played with last week and we went to ask them to play with us again. While we were in the middle of playing, the team that was in the futsal (fenced in) field left, so we went to play in there-rather than on the hard basketball court. It was a lot of fun. :)
Emily and Maren came to study our new vocabulary words for a little. Jenny was a huge help! We needed to hear the pronunciation of the words and she was so nice to read through 5-6 pages of vocab for us. When we were done studying, we just talked for a long time. I can't believe it's already 10:30. It is definitely time for bed! Luckily I only have the cooking class tomorrow, so it shouldn't be too difficult! :)
All of our sandwiches! :) |
Sitting outside with our Isaac! |
Yay for Isaac! Haha, Tim's face. |
Relaxed Day
It's getting harder and harder to stay on top of this blog!
Friday:
The girls had their 'health test'. We had a little blood drawn for a Hepatitis check and an x-ray to check for TB. The first Music and Culture class was this morning. The chairman/director of the IIIHR program is our teacher. He's pretty...excited about music. We have two native Korean students playing guitar in our class and Chairman 'plays' the 'drums' by hitting his hands on the desk. Like I said, very enthusiastic about this class. We had a shortened class today because we were going to Pusan. Let me backtrack a bit...KBS (Korean Broadcasting System) is doing a bit on our IIIHR program/us so we have a camera man following us around. He has been doing mini-interviews and stuff since Wednesday including filming the Welcoming Ceremony (Wed). He wanted to have us go to a Korean home and have food cooked by a Korean mother, so we went to Jihye's (our program director) home. Back to class...our class was shortened; it was only 1 hr and 15 minutes instead of 2 1/2 hours. Frankly, I'm not sure I could have sat through another hour and 15 minutes!!!
We left for Pusan around 11:30 or so. We first went to Gwangalli Beach (I think) and did some filming there. It was a beautiful day! The sun was shining and it was fairly warm. I took my shoes off and walked into the water a bit. The water wasn't too cold either. I found some really cool beach glass. After being filmed at the beach, we went to Jihye's home. We parked and then walked through the Seomyeon Traditional Market. It was really neat to see the open market with so many shops and stalls selling spices, vegetables, ddeok (rice cake), fruits, fresh seafood, and meat. Once we arrived at Jihye's home, we were greeted by her mom and two of her mom's friends who helped create our feast. What a feast it was! There was bulgogi, chap chae, cheon (which are like egg-vegetable pancakes), rice, soup, kimchi and other sides. It was very delicious! Dessert was strawberries (they were sooooo good!), tomatoes and yogurt. We were driven back to campus which was nice-the alternative was a 1 1/2 hour subway and bus ride back. Emily and I went for a run around campus.
In the evening, Jenny, Emily and I watched a Korean movie on my computer. It was really slow, long and kind of boring. But, you know how movies go-you just have to watch the whole thing...it never got much better. Then it was time for bed!
Today:
I am so tired! It is already almost midnight! We'll see how much of today I can remember. The days seem so long-it is so hard to even recall what happened earlier in a day! I slept in a little. Our small group (Maren, Emily, Jenny, Tim, Ben, Maren's roommate, and I) went to eat lunch. We all wanted something sweet to finish the meal. Half of us got ice cream cones from Lotteria (basically the Korean McDonalds) and the other half got smoothies from a coffee shop closer to campus. Maren and Emily wanted to check out a store in the Student Union to look for postcards, so Jenny and I went too. That store was closed, but we also passed the bookstore and I remembered I wanted to find a Korean/English Dictionary. I was hoping for one that had half the dictionary K/E and then E/K, but the one I got should work well too. It has the word in Korean (written in Hangul) and the definition in English. I am pretty excited about it. Emily, Ben, Tim and I studied on some picnic tables out in the sun for a little. I even got to use my dictionary! After studying, we ran into Ji, our soccer guy. We (minus Emily) decided to play and enlisted the Sweds as well. The soccer field is usually always being used. Today, only half the field was being used, by a baseball team. We were able to play a little. Then we saw a group of about six 10 year old boys and asked if they wanted to play with us. They did so we split them in half and us in half; they were really good! We played for about an hour. Afterwards, Ji treated everyone to ice cream (I passed since I had already had my cone!) After dinner, we decided to rent a movie. We went to the movie store we visited last week, but their selection was not so great. We thought "Dinner for Schmucks" would be a good funny movie, but they did not have it. Finally we figured out someone could download it. Movie night was fun. For some reason, we started the movie really early and finished around 9:30, no one was really tired yet, so I went to get my cards (soo glad I brought them!) and played "pencils" (since we don't have Spoons) and "Ki's Game". As usual, I am exhausted! Good luck to everyone with the upcoming Daylight's Saving Time. Korea does not participate in that, so I will continue to stay at my regular time while all of you will have to "spring ahead"! :)
Friday:
The girls had their 'health test'. We had a little blood drawn for a Hepatitis check and an x-ray to check for TB. The first Music and Culture class was this morning. The chairman/director of the IIIHR program is our teacher. He's pretty...excited about music. We have two native Korean students playing guitar in our class and Chairman 'plays' the 'drums' by hitting his hands on the desk. Like I said, very enthusiastic about this class. We had a shortened class today because we were going to Pusan. Let me backtrack a bit...KBS (Korean Broadcasting System) is doing a bit on our IIIHR program/us so we have a camera man following us around. He has been doing mini-interviews and stuff since Wednesday including filming the Welcoming Ceremony (Wed). He wanted to have us go to a Korean home and have food cooked by a Korean mother, so we went to Jihye's (our program director) home. Back to class...our class was shortened; it was only 1 hr and 15 minutes instead of 2 1/2 hours. Frankly, I'm not sure I could have sat through another hour and 15 minutes!!!
We left for Pusan around 11:30 or so. We first went to Gwangalli Beach (I think) and did some filming there. It was a beautiful day! The sun was shining and it was fairly warm. I took my shoes off and walked into the water a bit. The water wasn't too cold either. I found some really cool beach glass. After being filmed at the beach, we went to Jihye's home. We parked and then walked through the Seomyeon Traditional Market. It was really neat to see the open market with so many shops and stalls selling spices, vegetables, ddeok (rice cake), fruits, fresh seafood, and meat. Once we arrived at Jihye's home, we were greeted by her mom and two of her mom's friends who helped create our feast. What a feast it was! There was bulgogi, chap chae, cheon (which are like egg-vegetable pancakes), rice, soup, kimchi and other sides. It was very delicious! Dessert was strawberries (they were sooooo good!), tomatoes and yogurt. We were driven back to campus which was nice-the alternative was a 1 1/2 hour subway and bus ride back. Emily and I went for a run around campus.
In the evening, Jenny, Emily and I watched a Korean movie on my computer. It was really slow, long and kind of boring. But, you know how movies go-you just have to watch the whole thing...it never got much better. Then it was time for bed!
Gangwan Bridge and Gangwalli Beach |
Beach!! |
Em, me, and Maren jumping! |
Fruit stand |
Spices |
Kimchi and side dishes |
Rice 'popcorn' making machine. |
Jihye's Mom's cooking: food for 12 young adults |
The aftermath of 12 young adults |
Colin and Jihye's Mom |
Today:
I am so tired! It is already almost midnight! We'll see how much of today I can remember. The days seem so long-it is so hard to even recall what happened earlier in a day! I slept in a little. Our small group (Maren, Emily, Jenny, Tim, Ben, Maren's roommate, and I) went to eat lunch. We all wanted something sweet to finish the meal. Half of us got ice cream cones from Lotteria (basically the Korean McDonalds) and the other half got smoothies from a coffee shop closer to campus. Maren and Emily wanted to check out a store in the Student Union to look for postcards, so Jenny and I went too. That store was closed, but we also passed the bookstore and I remembered I wanted to find a Korean/English Dictionary. I was hoping for one that had half the dictionary K/E and then E/K, but the one I got should work well too. It has the word in Korean (written in Hangul) and the definition in English. I am pretty excited about it. Emily, Ben, Tim and I studied on some picnic tables out in the sun for a little. I even got to use my dictionary! After studying, we ran into Ji, our soccer guy. We (minus Emily) decided to play and enlisted the Sweds as well. The soccer field is usually always being used. Today, only half the field was being used, by a baseball team. We were able to play a little. Then we saw a group of about six 10 year old boys and asked if they wanted to play with us. They did so we split them in half and us in half; they were really good! We played for about an hour. Afterwards, Ji treated everyone to ice cream (I passed since I had already had my cone!) After dinner, we decided to rent a movie. We went to the movie store we visited last week, but their selection was not so great. We thought "Dinner for Schmucks" would be a good funny movie, but they did not have it. Finally we figured out someone could download it. Movie night was fun. For some reason, we started the movie really early and finished around 9:30, no one was really tired yet, so I went to get my cards (soo glad I brought them!) and played "pencils" (since we don't have Spoons) and "Ki's Game". As usual, I am exhausted! Good luck to everyone with the upcoming Daylight's Saving Time. Korea does not participate in that, so I will continue to stay at my regular time while all of you will have to "spring ahead"! :)
Ji, Ben and a few of our new friends! |
Ji buying ice cream for the six 10 year old boys who beat him at soccer |
Thursday, March 10, 2011
What happened to the day??
I can't believe it's already 10pm! Where did my day go?? We had our conversation class in the morning. That was not too bad. I was relatively familiar with the phrases we were working with. However I found out that I can never get lost or lose something because that phrase/word is really long, and very difficult to pronounce! Our afternoon Culture class was okay. There are a few Chinese foreign exchange students in this class as well. Our teacher is kind of excited because he studied a lot of Chinese and sometimes puts the Chinese characters on the board to help 'translate' some for them. Emily, Maren and I went for a short run after class. It was a little bit embarrassing running because there is a bus stop towards the rear entrance of the campus and there were a LOT of students standing waiting for the bus and we had to run past them twice. It is kind of an unusual sight to see girls playing sports and even running. So I'm sure we looked a little crazy. After our run, Emily and I passed the soccer ball around in a 'performance area' in front of ET. We just sat outside because the sun was shining and it wasn't too cold. When the sun started going down a bit, we decided to study with a small group of the guys... except they don't really 'study'. They just all sit at tables next to each other (writing or reading) but don't talk at all. Dinner was not too bad...Emily and I REALLY hoped that it was going to be bad because we are in LOVE with Issac's (pronounced Eesack...); which is the amazing sandwich place we went to on Tuesday.
After dinner, Emily hung out here. Then we went to Baskin Robbin's with Maren and Jenny. We ordered a quart I think and devoured it in about 10-15 minutes, haha. We were talking about Adam Richmond from Travel Channel's "Man vs. Food" show, and so toward the end we were saying "women vs. food!"...We had a lot of fun; I think Emily and I were on a bit of a sugar high, because all of a sudden, everything was really funny.
Tomorrow we have a 'health test'. They are just going to do a little blood draw/test and an x-ray. It starts at 7, so...off to bed I go.
PS I'm realllly behind on pictures! Hopefully there will be some down time on Saturday. LOTS of great pictures to come!! :)
After dinner, Emily hung out here. Then we went to Baskin Robbin's with Maren and Jenny. We ordered a quart I think and devoured it in about 10-15 minutes, haha. We were talking about Adam Richmond from Travel Channel's "Man vs. Food" show, and so toward the end we were saying "women vs. food!"...We had a lot of fun; I think Emily and I were on a bit of a sugar high, because all of a sudden, everything was really funny.
Tomorrow we have a 'health test'. They are just going to do a little blood draw/test and an x-ray. It starts at 7, so...off to bed I go.
PS I'm realllly behind on pictures! Hopefully there will be some down time on Saturday. LOTS of great pictures to come!! :)
Jenny and Emily with our GIANT tub of ice cream! |
Oh yea, we just finished that. |
Where did it all go?!? |
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
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.
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!
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 |
English Town group |
English Town group |
...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!
New Year's bowing ceremony demonstration |
All of us in Hanboks! |
Emily, Maren, the cute little girl, and me |
Welcoming Ceremony: Hanbok Fashion Show-Alona, Joakim, and Magnus |
Traditional Instrument |
Dinner was good! |
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Mushy Brain
Hi and goodnight everyone. Today was such a long day...my brain is mush. Updates tomorrow when I get a chance.
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