So, obviously I haven't been posting as often as I had meant to, but that means y'all get one long post today! (Yay!) This trip has been the busiest I've ever been while abroad so it's hard to find time to record my adventures because I'm caught up in a whirlwind of homework, classes, workshops, making an effort to be social and make friends, and finding time to do things like sleep and shower.
A typical day for a Fulbright Korea ETA in orientation looks kind of like this:
8:00 - 9:00 a.m: Breakfast
9:00 - 1:00 p.m: Korean Language Class
1:00 - 2:00 p.m. Lunch
2:00 - 3:15 p.m. Workshop 1
3:30 - 4:45 p.m. Workshop 2 (usually)
6:00 - 7:00 p.m. Dinner
7:00 - 9:00 p.m. Evening activities (Dynasty challenges, Hanji crafting, Real Talk Seminars, or team builders, etc)
After our nightly activity, we're usually free, but we still have to do things like attend an extra study hour of Korean for beginner classes, do homework, make lesson plans, attend lesson planning workshops, try to get to town to explore, extracurricular activities, etc and after that it's usually about 10:15 before I'm back in my dorm. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE doing what I'm doing, it's just strenuous and doesn't leave me a whole lot of time to blog.
Today there was a LOT going on, between having my first fulbright lesson plan due and my first ever Korean language quiz. Korean is such an intimidating class and I'm always caught between the joy of success and the frustration of feeling completely foreign to the language and being completely surrounded by it. Despite the notion that English is spoken universally, this is not, I repeat, NOT true of Goesan (and a lot of Korea!). It's hard to communicate in rural Korea without really knowing how to read/understand the native language. Sometimes I feel trapped in my little English-speaking Fulbright bubble. I'm afraid that I won't be able to make friends in my placement or that I'll spent a year constantly feeling like an outsider if I can't translate for myself. My classes are very intensive, but I'm so grateful for them! A week ago I couldn't read hangeul but now I'm taking tests based on full sentences and writing syllables that I've never heard before! I sometimes feel like I'm drowning in the language, but the reassurance I get once I understand a snippet of a sentence makes it totally worth it. I absolutely CANNOT WAIT until I'm conversational and can start speaking with confidence!
Other than Korean, I've been super busy with lesson planning, trying to absorb as much workshop-knowledge as possible, making friends that will weather the cold Korean winter, and finding time to sleep. There are so many interesting cultural aspects of Korea that maybe I'll write a series on different aspects of the country I'll be living in over the next year- at least then I'll have the excuse that I was being productive with my time (blogging just hasn't been productive this time around because any time I sit down to blog, I end up watching kpop music videos instead -_- Sorry!) So, since I've been slack, I figured I'd give you a rewind on the past few days!
Day 4: Second School Visit!
Day 5: Classes, Welcoming, & Kpop
Day 6: Workshops, Ninjas, and I Live in the middle of paradise
Day 7: FOOOOOD
Days 8 & 9: Lesson Planning and Korean Classes
In Conclusion...
Never want to write a catch up blog this big ever again,
Haley