My First K-POP Concert!

This post is going to be short and sweet. Over the weekend I went to the Leasure Sports Festival in Chuncheon and it was actually a lot of fun. I saw Taekwondo demonstrations, people climbing up a rock wall and falling into the water when they couldn't make it to the top, and these really talented BMX riders from several different countries like Japan, China, and the Philippines. It was a lot more interesting than I thought it was going to be and I actually wish I had been able to stay longer than a few hours.

That evening there was a K-pop concert to kick-off the opening night of the festival. There were so many bands there ranging from very new to huge fan bases. I will definitely be looking up a few bands that were there in order to learn more about their music. I enjoyed their songs. I also got to go with one of my other Fulbright teachers and a few EPIK teachers. It was really fun talking to other native English speakers, especially after a full week with my host family.

My Birthday! Plus A Cooking Class

Holidays away from your family can be hard. Especially the first one away from your family after moving to another country 13 hours ahead. My birthday was hard this year. It was the first one that I didn't celebrate with my parents and the first one where I wasn't around any of my family or close friends around. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't totally alone. I did get to spend the birthday with 80 other fulbrighters, and as nice as that was, it wasn't really the same.

To start out my birthday celebrations, I went out with my dynasty the day before. We went to a park not far from campus and just spent a few hours exploring. It was actually really nice. It was lowkey and just about getting out and looking around at what Korea had to see.

On my birthday, ironically, Fulbright had scheduled an extracurricular activity. A cooking class. In Seoul! It was so cool. I love cooking and so I ended up literally spending my birthday in a hot room making kimbap and japchae. It tasted so good when we finished. They also sang me happy birthday in Korean and I got to wear the birthday crown. Although it wasn't how I would have wanted to spend my birhtday, it was still a lot of fun and I'm glad to have gotten the experience of spending it in Korea.

When I moved in with my host family, they asked me when my birthday was, I told them that they had just missed it. They later surprised me with cake and told me that even though they missed it, they still wanted to celebrate it. I'm so thankful for them making the effort to make me feel like I really belonged there.





(Sorry for the short post. This post is predated back to original posting time, however, my original post got deleted somehow and this is a replacement from memory 6 months later)

Last Week of Orientation

My last week of orientations was...well, a tearful one. As I knew everything was coming to a close and that we were all moving on to the reason we all began this adventure, I couldn't help but think about everything that we were leaving. Between the 85 new friends that I have made to the nightly walks around Campus Town, or even just the familiarity of speaking with another native English speaker, I knew that the last six weeks were going to be something I will miss, and the memories I will cherish.

The week started off with preparations for our Korean Language Instruction Graduation. I even now have a paper that tells me I completed 110 hours of instruction in the Korean language, though it doesn't feel like it. I was terrified because it meant that my class and I would have to speak in front of Director Shim, all the Korean teachers, and the rest of the cohort. In Korean. I am so thankful for the rest of my class. They really helped me through it. After our mini-skits, we sang "Remember Me" from the movie COCO, in Korean. I actually really enjoyed that part. My 선상님s (Teachers) were all crying as they gave us hugs and took pictures with us. I may not remember much about the Korean language, I did learn a lot about the culture and gained five more people I could turn to for help.

After that was our farewell from Taekwondo. It was a lot of fun those eight classes, and the master even took us out to dinner to celebrate our time there and to new adventures. Each of the kids was also assigned to give us each a note. Mine was so adorable. The boy called me a 외국인누나 (Foreigner older sister) which was too cute.

We also had our talent show, which I talked about in a previous post. That was so much fun finding out about people's talents I didn't know they had. Like singing, spoken poetry, and so many ukeleles. It was great. There was also a spoof on the OCTs which was spot on and hilarious. I am so proud of the people that wrote it.

Flowers from my Co-teacher

The next day we finally got our ARCs and our homestay information. I am staying with a lovely family with three kids. A girl 시연, who is in my fifth-grade class, a boy 민준 who is in second grade and a little boy 민찬 who is 7 and will start school in March. They are all so adorable, but more on them later.

Friday was the day. It was the day that we all go our separate ways. It was a tearful and exhausting day. I met my co-teacher, who I think I will get along with very nicely, and I traveled all the way to Hwacheon, my home for the next year.

I am grateful the Fulbright Korea gives us those six weeks to learn and create the support system that exists now.

Dynasty Bonding

So as orientation came to a close, so did Dynasty Bonding. Dynasty bonding is essentially the OCTs putting us into smaller groups so that we can get to know some people we wouldn't otherwise talk to, after all, there is 80 of us. So they split us into 8 groups of 10. Each group was named after one of the Korean dynasties.
My group was named after the 가야(Gaya) dynasty. It was a lot of fun getting to know some people that I hadn't really talked to yet. So throughout orientation, they held several events and chances for us all to get to know each other, but more than that, it was a competition. There were challenges and games for us to play to earn points for our dynasties. My dynasty did really good. The biggest of the challenges was pictures.
There were so many photo challenges each week. Pictures hanging out in Sokcho, in every color of the rainbow, hanging out in Songdo, forming human words, dancing to K-Pop, etc. We did a bunch of them. I had so much fun getting to know the 9 others in my group. We went to Central Park together, went out for ice cream, and really supported each other throughout the 6 weeks.

To end it all was the Talent show. Where all of my new friends came out and showed off their awesome talents. At the end of the show, they totaled the dynasty points and we got 3rd place! Which I think was pretty good. They gave us chocopies and cute things as prizes. It was a fun time.

Fulbright English Program

These last two weeks have been insane! Every year Fulbright hosts am English Camp for Korean students to come and have an immersive English learning experience. It is hosted with us because it is also an opportunity for us to teach the students in the classroom before we are sent out into our field placements. It was awesome. I taught two lessons with a co-teachers. The first lesson, I thought, went fantastically well. I was really proud of the lesson. The second one was just a bit disorganized, but it was still a lot of fun and I feel like the kids did learn something from both lessons.

Outside of class, the ETAs were able to participate in Night Fun, which is just a few hours of different activities to hang out with the students, and Activity Weekend, which is just us trying to keep the students entertained throughout the weekend. Both of these events were so much fun. The students were anywhere from 10 to 17 years old so the dynamic was really interesting, but their English levels were fantastic, even for the "low beginners" which really weren't. I was so impressed with them. They were so entertaining to talk to.

This morning was Graduation day and we had to say goodbye to the students as they were all going home, and it was surprising the amount of emotion from the ETAs. The actual graduation was hilarious. The students put on little skits and presentations and it was so cute. I was so proud of them as they had improved so much in two weeks and they were so proud of their everything they did.