I had my first official day of school today. Yesterday was orientation (which was only 45 min of going over rules - kind of not what I expected), and placement tests, both written and oral. Let me tell you, getting tested in something I don't know much about is soooo not fun. I felt not so smart, especially when everyone around me was plowing through it like a boss, and I was...well, not so much like a boss. I felt kind of crummy and dumb, but nowhere to go but up, right? I feel now that it's ok that I don't know much, and I'm excited for all the things I will learn.
They placed me in level 3, which is just above the levels where they teach them the alphabet, so I'm not at the complete bottom. That made me feel good, since I got there just by self-study with no previous classes. I feel like the language and culture instruction will be really good. I have 2 language teachers and 1 culture teacher, and they are all really good. The organization of the program leaves a lot to be desired. We still feel like we are being left in the dark about a lot of things, and it all seems poorly organized and poorly communicated to us. They did not have enough textbooks, and they tell us about things at the last minute (I did not find out what level I was in until this morning). I still don't have wifi in my dorm room (I'm in the lobby right now), and we just found out we have a dorm meeting at 11pm tonight, followed by a cleaning check. Um, excuse me, what? Homegirl's gotta go to bed.
I also got to start eating at the cafeteria yesterday. There is usually a Korean and a Western option for breakfast, and even though I thought getting used to eating soup, rice, etc., for breakfast would be weird, the Western versions always look way worse than the Korean option. I've never actually had some of the food in the western option for breakfast a day in my life - things like a bowl of little tomatoes, some kind of casserole looking stuff. Um, no. Here's my Korean option from today:
Yes, that is broccoli on the upper left, and what tasted like little smokies on the upper right. Surprisingly satisfying. The soup had some fish, korean radish, and soybean sprouts, which I've made before at home, so I was familiar with it.
There are a lot of sports fields on my little campus. Here's one I found while doing a scavenger hunt in my culture class today.
This is the view from my dorm window on the 8th floor...well, only 1/2 of it. The rest wouldn't fit in the camera viewer without reflecting my room in the window.
This is one of my friends, Alejandra. She's from California, but her parents are from Mexico. She is a lot younger, but she is not interested in partying and drinking (which she can legally do in Korea, but not in the U.S.), so we are glad we became friends. We eat together every day and hang out in the evening when others are doing things we don't want to do. She's been taking Korean for 1 year, so she is much better than me.
I'm eating the fattest kimbap (rice roll) I've ever seen. The little pink things on the right are also the tiniest sausages I've ever seen, maybe 1 1/2 inches long. This looks like sushi, but it's filled with lots of different vegetables and cooked meats. So delicious! Nomu masshisoyo!
3 comments:
Hey Dorthy-it's so fun to see your posts. Sorry about the dorms. I'm glad you found a good friend that has your same standards-that's awesome! I don't think I have ever in my life had broccolli for breakfast-but it is probably a good idea! I have had it in eggs before but never by itself! That's so fun to try new foods all the time! Good luck on your classes learning Korean-I'm sure you are doing a lot better than you know! Have fun-can't wait to see more posts! Love ya!
Hey, I've actually had tomatoes for breakfast! Your Dad said that he really wasn't into most of the Korean food and I told him that we already knew that.If the kimbap wasn't wrapped in seaweed I'd probably like it. So glad that you and Alejandra are friends.
Elsie says "Alice is here." And "Be safe." She got the biggest smile on her face when she saw you in the pictures. And "You should have brought me there. I'm gonna miss my mom and dad so I can't go. I'm sad that you are in Korea." And "I love you so much. We went to a rec center (Scera pool)."
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