I'm alive, don't worry!

Wow, it's been forever.  What was going on last time I wrote on this blog?
...Apparently the only useful thing I've talked about was on September 4th.  Oh my gosh.  I am so so sorry.  I promise I will write at least once a week from now on.  Or at least I'll try to.  These past two weeks have been so intense that I don't even know what to say.
Well, basically I spent the week of September 4th getting ready for school and running around and adding and dropping classes and basically being a big crazy mess.  I finalized my schedule (I think I mentioned I was dropping Japanese literature at the recommendation of my professors) and started beasting at all of my subjects.  I LOVE Korean-Japanese relations (the professor is really funny and interesting - more about him later) and my Korean music teacher (more about her later, too) and my East Asian Cinema class is pretty much my favorite, I'm obsessed with it, even though the professor is a little on the meh side.  I'm "group leader" in cinema class which means I direct the discussion and lead the online forum.  This is the first leadership position I've ever had in my life, which is pretty pathetic because I'm only leading six people.  I'm just the kind of person who is terrified of running for a vote because I'm scared no one will vote for me.  Being in Korea kind of gives you a little confidence, though, because you feel all "different" and a little less scared of what people will think of you since you're a foreigner.  That doesn't mean I'll go as far as sitting in the handicapped/old person/pregnant person spots on the subway, though.  That's a big no-no.  You can't even sit there just until an old person gets onto the subway.  All six of them can be empty and there is no way you can sit in it.  If you're young and you have crutches you can't even sit in it.  It's horrible when you've got a 45 minute ride on a crowded train and there are only two old people.  If you sit there you literally get your teeth knocked out.  Honestly I don't see why these virile old people who can hit so hard have to have these special seats.  Hmph.  Just kidding, gotta respect your elders.
Anyways, I digress.
My Korean-Japanese Relations professor is really smart and knows a TON about history but is a little biased and misinformed about a few things.  When he talked about opium dens in China in the mid-1800's and related them to "the crack houses in the ghettos of America" I couldn't help but laugh a little, since clearly crack dens are not a pervasive detriment to all levels of American society.  But yeah anyways, the best thing about this teacher is he really likes me and always likes to discuss things after class with me, which I love.  And he yells at the Korean students for being late in Korean, and I can understand him.  Today in that class we divided up into final presentation groups and I'm with one native Chinese girl, one native Korean girl, and a Korean-American named Joshua.  We were victims of the "nobody-wants-to-do-the-hard-topic" phenomenon, so we're doing the Economics of Korean-Japanese Relations presentation - as many of you know, I really don't like economics.  But that's alright, I'm sure we'll get through it.  It's not until November, anyways, so I'm sure I'll be much wiser by then.
My Korean Music professor is hilarious and she tends to ramble, but her class is really interesting.  I went to her house at her invitation for Chuseok and met her husband, son, and nephew, and we all had a ton of food together and hung out and her husband decided to try to force everyone to drink until they died.  Luckily as a woman I get to escape that fate (ahhh Korean drinking culture).  In any case, her story is that her father was a rebel and activist against the Japanese back in the day, and then her husband was an activist later on against the invading communist forces.  He was kicked out of Yonsei for his rebellion and sent to jail once.  Her father was in jail twice.  She worked to put her husband through school and herself as well and now they live in this big awesome apartment and are two of the most renowned scholars in their fields in all of Asia.  She's very sharp-tongued and will say whatever is on her mind.  I like her a lot.
My Korean class is a lot of fun - we have a few crazy kids in the class and a few calm ones so it's a nice mix.  My M/W/F professor's name sort of sounds like "kimchi" so we call her Kimchi Sunsaengnim (her full name is Kim Ji-yeon).  The T/R professor has just a normal Korean name but she's still nice.  Her instructions are slightly easier to understand than Kimchi's.  Kimchi always talks about how handsome the boys are and tells us about her weekend beer-drinking.  She's adorable and I love her so much.  We do a ton of reading and grammar and vocab memorizing every week - this week we had about 8 words to memorize, as opposed to last week which was about 120 words.  I had to learn about 6 new grammar structures right at the beginning of the class because all of the questions were posed in those forms, and I had no idea what was going on the first day.  Luckily my speaking is top of the class and my pronunciation is right up there with the Korean-Americans', which is great because I don't have to be "that white girl" who can't pronounce anything or sounds like she's saying "gurreego" when she's saying 그리고 (typical example of bad bad bad way to say things - it's hard to explain in writing but trust me it sounds REALLY ugly).
On Friday I went back to the Seodaemun Public Clinic to get my lab results ("You okay!  No hurting!  No sick, okay?  You go home okay.") and turned it into the front desk for housing so that I wouldn't get kicked out.  Yay!  The weekend afterward (starting September 10th) was a four-day weekend for CHUSEOK!!!! (That's the Korean version of Thanksgiving - this year it was September 12th.)  As I told you, on the actual day of Chuseok I went to my Music professor's house and had a good time with her family.  The next day, I went to....Caribbean Bay!!!!  **steel drum music in the background**
As my family knows and many of my friends know, I'm a little hydrophobic and a weak swimmer.  So I was a little apprehensive about the water park, but hey, it was discounted from the usual $50 per entry to $18, so what could it hurt?  I went on a bunch of water slides and raft rides, (holding my breath and plugging my nose the entire time) and went to a sauna and a steam room and a hot tub and everything.  It was SO MUCH FUN!  I was nervous about wearing a one-piece because I heard that in Korea girls wear coverups all the time, and so I thought I would look maybe a little...not-conservative in my bathing suit, but I counted 6 girls with bikinis on so I decided it was perfectly fine.  I was also ready to pull out the "I am an ignorant foreigner" card, but it didn't come to that.  Anyways, yeah, Caribbean Bay is great and I'll attach some pictures later.
For the rest of the week I didn't really do much fun stuff, mostly my TONS AND TONS of reading (boo) and other homework.  I went shopping and got a new winter coat and some running shoes - SO CHEAP!! - and I mistakenly tried to go for my first tutoring session on Thursday the 15th when actually it was supposed to be the next week - I made it halfway to Namtaeryong before the mother called me and corrected my error.  Oops!
On Saturday I met up with my friend Christine and went to see a Shakespearean play presented at the Seoul National Theatre in Dongdaemun.  The play was Measure by Measure and thank goodness I knew something about that play beforehand because although the actors were supposedly speaking in English, I had NO idea what was going on.  Korean people have a lot of trouble with British accents and, when combined with unnatural patterning and strange syntax as Shakespeare is wont to include, it just becomes a giant balloon of what tha heck are they saying??  I read the Korean subtitles along with being able to pick out a few of the English words and was able to make out, in general, what was going on.  It was still fun, though, and I had a great time with Christine.  She was asking me a ton of questions about what the difference is between Korean guys and American guys and I had to keep explaining that I had absolutely no clue as I've never been close friends with a native Korean guy, let alone dated one.  She told me to investigate and I just laughed.
On Monday I had my very first tutoring session with a little girl named Suhyun, American name Minnie.  She was so adorable!  However, she absolutely would NOT make full sentences.  Her mother speaks a little English and was able to explain that, although the other kids in her class would write whole paragraphs about a picture, she would write just one sentence and not say anything else after that.  My mission was clear.  However, as I was a stranger and such, she had no way to open up to me just yet.  I started planning her next lesson as soon as I left her house.  Her second lesson was actually tonight (September 26th) and this one went beautifully.  Her mother wanted me to stay for two hours so I made double the pay, and she talked a ton because at the beginning of the lesson I explained a few times that teachers like BIIIIIIG sentences and lots of words.  I also drew pictures for her and had her tell me some BIIIIIIIG sentences about them (to make teacher happy!) and then she sort of caught on and went crazy.  Like she literally would not shut up.  It was great.  Her mom was really pleased.  We even went for a walk and she held my hand and told me about her ballet lesson.  SO CUTE.  I can't get over it.  At the end of the lesson she was talking to a toy bunny in Korean and she said "Rabbit, I love Janet teacher!" and I legit almost cried.  It was a truly beautiful moment in my young teaching career.  Minnie, Janet teacher loves you too!
On Tuesday night, the 20th, I went out to a Makkeoli bar with my conversation partner, Donghyun.  His English is pretty darned terrible so our conversations consist mostly of a fumbling and mumbling and searching in our phone dictionaries, but it's not so bad.  Makkeoli is a fermented rice wine and we had a few bowls of that with something called 해물전 (haemuljeon - seafood pancake) which is basically a salty eggy fried pancake that you eat with makkeoli because the tartness of the wine cuts the heaviness of the fried taste.  It was delicious and the place we ate it in was decorated in the style of the late Chosun dynasty.  That was the most awesome part for me because recently I finished up a Korean drama called Damo (tea-serving-girl?) which takes place around that era and I felt like I got transported back in time.  Very cool.
On Thursday I tutored Mia's cousin's daughter for the first time (her english name is Eileen) and she was pretty good at pronunciation and LOVED talking a lot.  She was really fun.  A little hyper toward the end, but what can you expect out of a little kid?  We ran out of time for tutoring her mom, but next time her mom and I will do some grammar trouble shooting and get to know what kind of help she needs in English as well.  For Eileen I might work on making sure she has better pronunciation and just slows down a little when she reads because she rushes wayyy too much.
On Friday the 23rd, my life as a true Foreigner-living-abroad-in-Korea began because I obtained my Alien Registration Card (FINALLY) and my ATM card - YAAAAY!  Although now that I have an ATM card I might become very, very poor...very, very fast.
That night I went to tutor for Mia's cousin's other friend, whose kid's name is Rachel.  She was really good at talking and had to work at pronunciation a little.  She's adorable and, although shy at the beginning, got really excited and silly at the end.  She even started putting books on her head and calling them hats after I taught her the word hat.  She wanted me to wear a book-hat too and so I happily obliged because sometimes I'm weird.  Later on I'm supposed to start tutoring her father as well.  Korean people are often just very afraid of using the English they've learned - they understand it quite well, but they're afraid to speak because of how difficult the pronunciation is.  I will make it my mission to improve future global communications by raising confident English speakers!!  **self-important digression!!**
On the 24th I attended 연고전 (Yeongojeon - the Yonsei vs. Korea University sports event) and had a great time there.  It was crazy - kids were all screaming and jumping up and down and doing coordinated dances and shooting off fireworks and drinking and heckling and all sorts of insane stuff.  My friends and I didn't get so crazy because we don't exactly have all of that school spirit, but I got a great video of a really drunk white guy with a cape and no shirt on doing all the female dance moves to the Yonsei dances, so it was totally worth it.  I have a few pictures of the event, too, so I'll put those up.
It was fantastic.  I'm going to totally skip over the part where Yonsei got their butts kicked in the soccer game with a final score of 3-1.
Yesterday night I ate at T.G.I. Friday's...which was, surprisingly, a great experience.  For 20 dollars I got a salad appetizer, a half rack of ribs and two chicken fingers, a brownie with ice cream (which was, by the way, amazing) and a smoothie called Perfect 10.  It was one of the entrée specials and oh man it was good.  It was probably better than American Friday's.
Anyways, yes, as I told you today I went back and taught Minnie again and now I'm back home.  In the morning I skyped and chatted some Wespeeps (shoutout to Angie, Reese, Autumn, Seungkwon, Esther, and Heekyong!) and I miss Wesleyan SO much!  I wish I had my good friends here with me.
In any case, I'm really hungry so I'm gonna grab a "생그림" (fresh cream a.k.a. whipped cream) flavored yogurt and finish up my homework.
This post took like an hour and a half to write, I hope it doesn't take too long to read!
Enjoy subsequent pictures.  I miss you guys and love you a lot!
<3,
Janet