August 3rd - 5th
The first day of classes was surreal. If I had been back home, I would have felt confident because I would have known what to expect, but instead I felt like a freshman all over again.
Quick list of surprising things in my first class - Korea and the US in the 20th Century
1. It is taught by an American.
2. All the students in the class are Americans, excluding four, and even they're exchange students.
3. I knew two people in the class (one from KU and one from orientation).
4. There were two other people from KU in the class.
I think I'm really going to enjoy the class, even if it is at 9 am on a Monday morning.
I really disliked my second class Modern Korean Society for a variety of reasons. The first one was the professor. First of all, he thought the world of himself as a professor, although I wasn't that bothered by it because I figured maybe it was because it was the first day and he was trying to earn our respect. Anyway, he then proceeded on asking us questions he himself didn't know the answer to necessarily just to tell us we were wrong. For example, he asked how many countries there were and one student offered up 300 and he said no, that it should be closer to 200 although he didn't know the precise number either. He asked what the population of Seoul was, to which I responded 10 million, and he corrected me saying 11 million (although I looked it up later and population estimates are between 9.5 - 10.5 million). But these questions also served no purpose. They just seemed like a way to prove that we knew nothing. He also said several things that bothered me in regards to South Korea. First off, he said that Korea wasn't small because if you combined the two countries, they would be in the top 10 list of countries by population. First off, this is a moot point because South and North Korea aren't one country. Second, combined they still don't make it into the top 10 because their combined population is 75-80 million and the number 10 slot is held by Japan with a population of 127 million. So by the time he started lecturing, I wasn't exactly impressed. Then, upon seeing the syllabus, the class was really hard gradewise based on what he expected from us. The midterm and final in total counted for 80% of our grade (40% each) with a 10 page paper (10%) and everything else for another (10%). That really unsettled me because I didn't find the professor's teaching style conductive to real learning and I don't want him deciding my grade when I don't share his opinions and he seemed to present his opinion as undeniable fact. Then, to compound on this mess Yonsei has a relative grading system for all classes in the Underwood College of Intl Studies with more than 10 students, letting only about 30-35% of the students get A's. This includes my Modern Korean Society class that has a class size of 15 people, meaning we're all competing for 5 A's (assuming the professor gives the maximum allowed). So by the end of class I was already considering dropping it and by the end of the next day I decided to for sure to drop it.
I want to sign up for Pre-Modern Korean History so that I'll be taking 15 hours, but right now the class is full. I'll try again during the next couple of days, but I don't know if I'll be able to. If not, I'll just take 12 hours this semester. If I get bored, I can do more volunteering or something. But for right now, I'm finding this tutoring to essentially consume as much time as an academic class. I tutor 4 hours a week (plus a 45 min commute each way), and I have to spend about another 4 hours a week prepping for it. I was really stressed out about whether or not I could manage everything, but dropping that class has made all that worry disappear. I also love tutoring the 8 year old girl. I met her for the first time last night (Tuesday) and she is both incredibly nice and intelligent. She's had English classes before, but forgotten almost all of it. I don't have to teach her from scratch though, so that's a relief.
There are two other classes I'm taking, Korean language and Comparative Study of East Asian Cinema, but I will talk about these later this week.
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
First Thoughts about Seoul
Now that Expo has ended and my study abroad program is about to begin, I think I'm going to switch to a different format of blogging. Instead of recounting my daily encounters, I'm just going to comment on the overall experience because that is what I think will be more interesting and easier for me to maintain.
So after moving in to my new room on the 14th, it didn't really feel permanent at first. I was sleeping on a mattress cover and towel and the room was pretty much devoid of stuff besides necessities, but as the days went on and I got my room more organized (and bought things like a comforter and shelving), my room is now starting to feel like my new home. I love the size of my room and bathroom, even though I find the layout to be a strange. The room isn't that wide (about 7 feet at its widest), but quite long (20ish feet?), so it's actually quite spacious. The place also provides some basic food staples and laundry detergent, which is convenient. My biggest complaint is they have a strict no-guest policy. Before I moved in, they had told me that guys weren't allowed in, but after about a week of having some friends (who were all girls) come and stop by, they informed me (kindly) that it was against their policy. I don't see it being a big deal once school starts though. It's just that during the afternoon when it's hot, it's nicer to just go to someone's place instead of having to spend money at a cafe.
I had about half a month before my school started (excluding a day of orientation for international students), which I was thankful for. At first, it just seemed like a long vacation off work, but it all seemed temporary. I felt like at any time I would realize that I had to head back to Yeosu. This feeling was only compounded by the fact I was hanging out mostly with friends from the USA Pavilion who were still in Seoul. For the most part, I was super thankful they were all there because I think otherwise I would have been bored. It's interesting to come to Seoul not as a tourist, but as a student. Although I still wanted to explore Seoul, since I'm here for so long, I didn't feel the need to continually go out and do touristy things. I found myself waking up late every morning, going out and meeting friends for lunch and then hanging out, getting dinner with them or other people, coming back to my room at night, and then staying up and talking to friends back home. Repeat. I knew though that this was unsustainable once the school year began, but it seemed so distant in the future, that it didn't really faze me.
So after moving in to my new room on the 14th, it didn't really feel permanent at first. I was sleeping on a mattress cover and towel and the room was pretty much devoid of stuff besides necessities, but as the days went on and I got my room more organized (and bought things like a comforter and shelving), my room is now starting to feel like my new home. I love the size of my room and bathroom, even though I find the layout to be a strange. The room isn't that wide (about 7 feet at its widest), but quite long (20ish feet?), so it's actually quite spacious. The place also provides some basic food staples and laundry detergent, which is convenient. My biggest complaint is they have a strict no-guest policy. Before I moved in, they had told me that guys weren't allowed in, but after about a week of having some friends (who were all girls) come and stop by, they informed me (kindly) that it was against their policy. I don't see it being a big deal once school starts though. It's just that during the afternoon when it's hot, it's nicer to just go to someone's place instead of having to spend money at a cafe.
I had about half a month before my school started (excluding a day of orientation for international students), which I was thankful for. At first, it just seemed like a long vacation off work, but it all seemed temporary. I felt like at any time I would realize that I had to head back to Yeosu. This feeling was only compounded by the fact I was hanging out mostly with friends from the USA Pavilion who were still in Seoul. For the most part, I was super thankful they were all there because I think otherwise I would have been bored. It's interesting to come to Seoul not as a tourist, but as a student. Although I still wanted to explore Seoul, since I'm here for so long, I didn't feel the need to continually go out and do touristy things. I found myself waking up late every morning, going out and meeting friends for lunch and then hanging out, getting dinner with them or other people, coming back to my room at night, and then staying up and talking to friends back home. Repeat. I knew though that this was unsustainable once the school year began, but it seemed so distant in the future, that it didn't really faze me.
Sunday, September 2, 2012
The End of Expo
Sunday, August 12th
I got lunch with people, but I don't remember who. Anyway today was the last day of the Expo and I worked the last shift ever of Expo. After work, I changed clothes because we were having a cocktail party to celebrate and we all went through the USA Pavilion one last time. Beforehand I thought the idea was tacky and unnecessary because I had seen preshow and main show more than enough throughout the summer. However, it was actually really nice to get to go through it with all of the USA Pavilion people. Afterwards, we had a party on the mysterious 4th floor in a really nice place that I hadn't even known existed. There was some food, which I ate until it disappeared because there was both fruit and desserts, my favorite things. Everyone was just talking, dancing, and taking pictures to remember everything. Madison, Rachel, and I decided to leave together sometime around midnight I think and when we got down to the first floor, we realized that there were several other parties happening. There was one throughout an entire block of the pavilion and another one at the Thailand Pavilion. Since I had friends at that pavilion, I decided to go check that one out, but within three minutes of arriving, some guy dumped what was luckily just water over my head and we decided to leave because the party was too crazy. At that point all I wanted to do was jump in a shower, which I did the moment I got home.
Monday, August 13th
We had a luncheon hosted by the mayor of the city of Yeosu in honor of the USA student ambassadors. The food was good, which is always an added bonus when getting a free meal. They gave me a plate of vegetables since I was vegetarian, and some of the vegetables tasted a bit off, but everything else was good. Afterwards, Lauren, George, Josh, Rachel, Yvonne, and I all went to a cafe for some therapeutic chatting about all our thoughts of Expo now that it had come to an end. It was really good and was a good first step in really realizing that Expo was really done because the day off felt more like one of our breaks than the real end. That night I went to Grace's birthday party, which kind of morphed into a party of goodbyes since it was our last night together with everyone. I didn't leave until 1 am because everyone else was scrambling to finish packing.
Tuesday, August 14th
I finished my packing (I had barely anything left) and went to bed at around 2 am and woke back up at 2:45 am to head down to the Expo Town gates to say good byes to everyone leaving. Anyone headed back to the US was taking a chartered bus to Seoul and so about 25 people were leaving then. I was honestly exhausted, so even though I wanted to say goodbyes, I could honest barely even keep awake. I went back to bed at 4 am to get back up at 8 am. A group of us headed down to the KTX station at 8:50 am in taxis, even though it was only a 10 minute walk just because our suitcases were so bulky. We got there before the train arrived, but that meant we were the first people able to put our luggage on the train and then we just hung out until the train finally left at 10 am. I think there was 12 or so of us on the train headed to Seoul. We arrived around 1:30 pm at Seoul Station. I then got to the place I was living at around 2:30 and moved in my bags. Sara and Grace also dumped their stuff temporarily in my room because they lived too far away to take their stuff there and make it back in time to meet Ambassador Kim. So we grabbed lunch and then changed into nice clothes to meet the ambassador. Even only doing those things we were running late, so we ended up taking a taxi to 광화문 (Gwang-hwa-moon). We sat around in the embassy for about a half hour until Ambassador Kim came in and talked with us for about 10 minutes. Afterwards we all went out for dinner and then a large group of us headed to Emart, where I bought a pillow and snacks. That night I got to sleep on towels since I had no sheets or a pillow case yet, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.
I got lunch with people, but I don't remember who. Anyway today was the last day of the Expo and I worked the last shift ever of Expo. After work, I changed clothes because we were having a cocktail party to celebrate and we all went through the USA Pavilion one last time. Beforehand I thought the idea was tacky and unnecessary because I had seen preshow and main show more than enough throughout the summer. However, it was actually really nice to get to go through it with all of the USA Pavilion people. Afterwards, we had a party on the mysterious 4th floor in a really nice place that I hadn't even known existed. There was some food, which I ate until it disappeared because there was both fruit and desserts, my favorite things. Everyone was just talking, dancing, and taking pictures to remember everything. Madison, Rachel, and I decided to leave together sometime around midnight I think and when we got down to the first floor, we realized that there were several other parties happening. There was one throughout an entire block of the pavilion and another one at the Thailand Pavilion. Since I had friends at that pavilion, I decided to go check that one out, but within three minutes of arriving, some guy dumped what was luckily just water over my head and we decided to leave because the party was too crazy. At that point all I wanted to do was jump in a shower, which I did the moment I got home.
Monday, August 13th
Tuesday, August 14th
Thursday, August 9th
I woke up at 7 am for enrollment, which turned out to be completely unnecessary. I spent like 15 minutes adding classes to a wishlist and then realized I had nothing to do until 10 am. At that point it seemed kind of pointless to go to sleep though, although next time I will definitely only get up a half hour before enrollment. Anyway, by the time enrollment almost opened the number of slots per class versus the number of people who had that class on their wish lists was way out of proportion. The worst example was Modern Korean Society, which had at least 40 people competing for 3 class slots. Luckily, I ended up getting all the classes I wanted, including that one. I'm enrolled in Korea and the US in the 20th Century, Modern Korean Society, Comparative Study of the Far Eastern Cinemas, and a Korean language class. Then I chilled in my bedroom till about 2 pm when Rachel and I went out for lunch. (We had both traded our AM shifts that morning just for enrollment.) We went gift shopping for a bit too on our way back through Expo as we headed to our apartments. Then at 8 pm, we both headed down to the UN Pavilion for orientation since we had signed up to volunteer the following day at its national day (which obviously isn't a national day since it's the UN, but whatever). The UN Orientation was really confusing. None of us knew what was going on. We also all wanted to volunteer for the dinner reception and none of the other activities really, so they arbitrarily assigned us tasks. I luckily got to volunteer for the reception, but Rachel got stuck being an usher for an afternoon concert. The best part of it though is that we got UN Pavilion t-shirts.
Friday, August 10th
Zeno (Swiss Pavilion), another woman from the Swiss Pavilion, Yvonne, and I all met up with the UN Pavilion coordinators at 10 am and then we headed over to the hotel where the dinner reception would be held. We didn't really do anything until 11 am because nobody was really sure of what was going on, but after that we were left with one manager and were in charge of decorating the venue. We just used ribbons to decorate the indoor and outdoor area, so the work wasn't hard. At around 3 pm, Vanessa (Swiss Pavilion), Sara (USA Pavilion), and Ellen (USA Pavilion) showed up as well to help us out, but by then we'd pretty much finished everything. So we sat around a lot and talked until the reception started at 7 pm. We greeted people for the first hour and then they actually let us eat during the reception, which surprised us. So we all sat down at a table outside and while some of the food was amazing, some of it was not so much. It was a free buffet though, so we got to try and eat plenty. Anyway, we chatted and ate until the end of the reception and then we helped clean up for only a half hour or so. They also let us take any of the leftover drinks we wanted, meaning our fridge got some free orange juices. I'm really glad I decided to volunteer, but I'm definitely lucky I got to work at the reception and not at the concert or any of the other events that day because I don't think they would have been as fun.
Saturday, August 11th
We celebrated Caleb's 8th birthday. Caleb is the son of our CEO and he is an honorary student ambassador. He loves working with us and rotating through all the positions. So there was a pizza party for lunch that all the student ambassadors were invited to attend in order to celebrate his birthday. The pizza slices were gigantic, so I only managed to eat one. After that there was cupcakes. I don't remember what I did after the party.
I woke up at 7 am for enrollment, which turned out to be completely unnecessary. I spent like 15 minutes adding classes to a wishlist and then realized I had nothing to do until 10 am. At that point it seemed kind of pointless to go to sleep though, although next time I will definitely only get up a half hour before enrollment. Anyway, by the time enrollment almost opened the number of slots per class versus the number of people who had that class on their wish lists was way out of proportion. The worst example was Modern Korean Society, which had at least 40 people competing for 3 class slots. Luckily, I ended up getting all the classes I wanted, including that one. I'm enrolled in Korea and the US in the 20th Century, Modern Korean Society, Comparative Study of the Far Eastern Cinemas, and a Korean language class. Then I chilled in my bedroom till about 2 pm when Rachel and I went out for lunch. (We had both traded our AM shifts that morning just for enrollment.) We went gift shopping for a bit too on our way back through Expo as we headed to our apartments. Then at 8 pm, we both headed down to the UN Pavilion for orientation since we had signed up to volunteer the following day at its national day (which obviously isn't a national day since it's the UN, but whatever). The UN Orientation was really confusing. None of us knew what was going on. We also all wanted to volunteer for the dinner reception and none of the other activities really, so they arbitrarily assigned us tasks. I luckily got to volunteer for the reception, but Rachel got stuck being an usher for an afternoon concert. The best part of it though is that we got UN Pavilion t-shirts.
Friday, August 10th
.JPG) |
| Ellen, Sara, and I, making the UN pavilion logo |
Saturday, August 11th
We celebrated Caleb's 8th birthday. Caleb is the son of our CEO and he is an honorary student ambassador. He loves working with us and rotating through all the positions. So there was a pizza party for lunch that all the student ambassadors were invited to attend in order to celebrate his birthday. The pizza slices were gigantic, so I only managed to eat one. After that there was cupcakes. I don't remember what I did after the party.
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