수업시작해!

Classes have begun!
On Thursday I had my very first class - Comparative Study of East Asian Cinema - with a very nice professor who sent us on a guilt trip for not reading the syllabus before coming to class (in my defense, I actually did read it, which is honestly a little surprising for me, haha) and showed us a martial arts movie clip, then asked us to talk a little about it.  As some of you who read my paper comparing the literary/film version of Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress to the Mao period and cultural movement of China know,  I am obsessed with analyzing film, especially East Asian film, within a global viewpoint context, etc.  Blah blah I am being boring.  Anyways, yes, to sum up, I'm going to really like that class.
After Asian Cinema, I had the Korean placement test.
...hmm?  What?  Was I talking?
Oh...sorry, I was going into post-traumatic shock and forgot what I was saying for a moment.
Ah, yes, the Korean placement test.
Never have I been so very torn to shreds by an exam.  I thought I felt lost during orgo.
Here's my impression of myself -
Page 1: "La-de-da this is okay, doo-doo-dooo...articles, past tense, okie dokie..."
Page 2: "Hmmm...well I don't know this grammar form but the rest of this is easy...."
Page 3: "Okay so maybe I only knew two answers.  That's fine, it's just a hard page."
Page 4: "Well...at least I only have......SIX MORE PAGES?!?!?"
Page 5: "%$#@#*&"
And then I closed the packet and handed it in.
Next was the interview, which I had to wait for for about an hour while everyone else went.  The lady interviewing me asked me some simple questions like where I'm from and what I study and what my best friend is like.  Once I started struggling to complete more than 50% of my sentence she stopped asking the increasingly difficult questions and complimented me on my pronunciation, and said that I could go.
I left the test just praying that I wouldn't be put into Beginner 1 Korean.
Luckily, the next day when the test results went up, I found out that I'd been put into Beginner 2!! YAY!!  To me, that's a victory (although I was secretly hoping for Beginner 3...but really I'm satisfied).
Turns out that the text books for the class were about $68, which isn't awful because it's the most expensive set of books I'm going to have to purchase.
After purchasing the books and going through my schedule, I was advised by the director of study abroad that I should probably not be taking 5 courses, since one of them counts as two courses, and so I dropped Japanese literature :/  That leaves me with Comparative Study of East Asian Cinema, Modern Korean-Japanese Relations, Introduction to Korean Music, and Korean Language.  15 credits here, which is approximately 4 Wesleyan credits (personally I count it as a little more because at Wes the teachers can speak pretty good English, but here, they have a lot more trouble - my Korean professor can't speak English at all and so when I did my homework last night I wasn't even sure I really had to do the homework).
Friday night I went out to Hongdae with Peter, Dan, Sam, Kyle, Chang, Toan, Matt, and a couple other kids.  We took a taxi and the taxi driver was hitting on me the entire time.  This guy was around 60 years old.  He told me "You are pretty, just like the korean language."  **shudder** Peter got really protective and told Matt to pull me out of the taxi as soon as it stopped in case he tried anything funny.  It was REALLY busy (as Fridays in Hongdae usually are) and we went around to a few places including HoBar, BarZen, and Hongdae Gongwon.  We had a great time and saved a couple of Korean girls in the process!  There was a group of seven dudes from England standing in a circle flirting inappropriately with these two korean girls, and so we stepped over and started chatting them up (one of us for each person there) and started leading them away, and then I went over and started talking to them.
The one girl, Sunha, only spoke a little English and I only speak a little Korean, but we both took an immediate liking to one another.  In Korea, people of the same gender hold hands a lot (it's pretty common to see guys who are totally straight and just friends strolling down the street hand-in-hand) and so I was a little uncomfortable but not surprised when she walked around holding my hand for the rest of the night.  She was really funny because every time she saw a guy she thought was unattractive she'd shout "UGLY BOY!!!" and things like that and then ask me how her pronunciation was.  I was cracking up.  We all ended up eating at a restaurant for a while and then Chang and I took a taxi home.
The next morning, I went to Bundang with my friends Dayoung, Bomi, Suyoung, and Alex.  We had rice and curry for lunch and walked along a really pretty creek with frogs and flowers and everything.  it was gorgeous!
On Saturday during the day I didn't really do anything.  I took a nap and then I went to Hapjeong to visit Kyle and had dinner from a convenience store because all of the restaurants seemed really expensive or unappealing.  Convenience store food is surprisingly good here.  Convenience stores are as common as gas stations in the United States.  However, in Korea, I've been hard-pressed to find a gas station really anywhere.  They're occasionally on street corners on really busy roads but nothing like the way they are in the US, with 4 on every intersection on the East side of Cleveland.
On Sunday I met with Bomi, Dayoung, Alex, Taekyung, Kevin, Seoyoung, Suyoung, Crystal, and a few other kids to play 욫놀이 (Yutnori I think is how one spells it in English - if you click on the link you can see a picture of the pieces) but basically you have a game board and four sticks and you throw them in the air and move the pieces.  It kind of reminds me of Pachisi.  You can send someone back to home if you land on their spot and there are some other interesting odds and ends to the game, but basically it gets CRAZY.  Our team leader, Alex, who is usually mild-mannered started shouting and threw his cushion onto the floor and shaking the leader of team yellow by the shoulders when they sent three of our pieces back to home in one turn.  When they asked me what I thought of the whole affair at the end of the day, I said "재미있고 무서워요" (fun and terrifying),  and they laughed at my apparent patheticness.
Before we played Yutnori, the girls and I cooked ddukboki while the boys played ping pong, which I found a little odd because I really like ping pong (even though I'm awful at it) but to the girls it was just sort of their duty, and I remembered that things were different because, being in Korea, girls kind of get shafted when it comes to having fun and chilling out.  The other side to this, however, was that cooking was actually a lot of fun as well.  The ddukboki was AMAZING and we also had odaengguk (fish cake soup - trust me it's tastier than it sounds, white people).  I told them about how I had been involved in the cooking of 60 servings of ddukboki for the KSA Culture Show last year and they were really excited about it.  One thing I'll miss coming home is feeling really special all the time just for being me. (That sounds really depressing if you think about it too hard, hahah)
Anyways, today, Monday, was a pretty exciting day.  I got up and went to my first Korean-Japanese Relations class, for which the professor wasn't present but his apprentice filled in, and apparently I won't have the class on Wednesday because he'll still be on his business trip then.  I also won't have it next monday because of 추석 (Chuseok - Korean Thanksgiving) break.  Nice.
After that I set up my library account, adjusted my bank account, charged my phone minutes, and went to the Seodaemun Health Center for my chest X-ray and Hep-B test.  They had me change with two other women in a little room with pink robes along the walls (in Korea, women don't really care abpout being naked in the same room - thus jimjilbangs [saunas] are all very public) stand in the most awkward position EVER to take the actual X-ray (seriously I can't even describe the uncomfortable stance, I'd have to mime it for you) and then they sent me across the hall to draw my blood.  I was a little peeved because in America when someone draws my blood they always roll my veins for about five minutes in both arms and then eventually use the big vein in my hand, but here they just stuck it in, drew the blood, and no problem.  I'm not in pain, don't have a huge bruise, nothing!  Why can't it be easy like that every time?!  *huff*
Anyways, after that was finished I ran to Paris Baguette and got a pastry, then came back home to check email, register for my Korean class (Drop/Add started today) and write this blog post!
So there you have it, you're all updated!
As soon as I finish laundry at 3:50 I'm gonna run to my second Korean class, so I'll talk to you guys later!
Love,
Janet