I have returned.
I've been incredibly busy and running around lately and you will totally understand by the time I finish this blog post.
I am writing this in a bit of a hurried fashion as I only have one hour until my first class by the way so bear with me for any typos!
Apparently the last time I posted was the day before Valentine's Day. Wow. Well, now that it's April 3rd, I shall catch you up.
At the end of February I was able to have a few really cool experiences.
First of all (and this will develop later) I've been getting into a lot of clubs for free through people I've been getting to know, so that's been really cool. The club music in Korea is an interesting topic - there are hip hop clubs and also regular clubs that usually play house or edge toward the verge of mashup house/techno/hip hop and the preference of club depends on what kind of music you're feeling that night. A lot of Koreans tend toward house and techno these days because hip hop was kind of the cool thing when they were in middle and high school, but the hip hop clubs remain popular these days. The DJ scene is booming as well and if you want to get famous you've gotta spin at the big clubs, and the big clubs all demand house/techno, so if you want to make it really big you'd better like that style. Otherwise you'll be stuck at smaller venues in less popular places.
The biggest area to go clubbing is called Gangnam (or like Sinsa, Chungdahm; they're the same area) and people all like the clubs Ellui, Answer, Eden, etc. Recently apparently there's a club opening called Shampoo so that's pretty hilarious and I'm tempted to go there just to say I danced in Shampoo, hahaha. Anyways, more on the clubbing thing will come later.
I was also lucky enough to attend the World Cup Semifinals match of Korea vs. Kuwait. It was amazing because everyone in the stadium had this sort of nationalistic brotherhood holding them together and rallying the crowd and everything. Some guys sitting near my section were strangers at the beginning of the game and by the second Korean goal were screaming and hugging each other and jumping up and down while holding onto one another. It was a pretty funny sight. In the end Korea one 2-0 and one of the veteran members on the team got the match ball, which was I guess pretty cool for him since it had been a while since his last time being the most important player in the game. Oh and he also received a check for 3,000,000원 which is about $2,850 or something crazy like that. Soccer players are lucky!
I've been meeting people recently that I haven't seen in 3 years! One of them is Eungyeong a.k.a. Jenna, who goes to Ehwa Women's University, and then we have Jeongmin and Dongrim who actually both go to Yonsei with me. I met them when I was a senior in high school because they came to a big global water crisis symposium that Hathaway Brown hosted. It's amazing that we've been able to stay in contact. With Jenna I went for buddaejjigae and then coffee and this REALLY cute cafe called Krema (which I want to go to all the time now but it's super expensive). Jeongmin and I went to a place called Butterfingers Pancakes in Chungdahm, which was a godsend because I had been craving American breakfast for the longest time, and they have the perfect most American breakfast-y food I've had in Korea. It was sweet, sweet indulgence. Dongrim and I just met on Yonsei campus and had food together and followed that up with Caribou coffee. She's so sweet, and right before we parted ways she asked me if I was looking for a tutoring job.
And boy oh boy do I need a tutoring job. I had been starting to worry about money because I was in grave danger. I did not realize how quickly the money Wesleyan had given me would disappear, especially considering that I do eat at least 2 meals a day. I guess I should have foreseen it, even despite having cut out many cafe trips from my life to save cash. On top of that I wanted to travel around Korea, so I needed to set aside money for that, too.
Luckily she directed me to a woman who is soon moving to Texas and wants me to teach her children, an 8 year old girl and a 9 year old boy how to be American kids. They know close to zero english and will be attending public school in America next year. I am so scared for them. This is by far the most pressured I have felt about a tutoring job, but I really need to help these kids. The boy really likes science and biology, so I'll have a great time talking to him, but when I asked the mother what her daughter likes, she could only think of princesses. ...Somehow I will persevere. In any case, I will be starting in one week, and luckily this will solve any of my potential financial worries.
I think that the most life-changing experience I've had so far in Korea is attending the Big Bang Big Show. I am sort of kidding, but not really. I have never really had celebrity crushes, but when the 5 members of my favorite K-Pop group came out on stage together, I completely fangirled out and I think I almost passed out. Now I understand those girls that used to faint and cry at Elvis and Beatles concerts. It was a great experience, and they sang all of my favorite songs. I won't blab any more because I'm sure about 75% of my small audience does not care about Big Bang. And also I know a small percentage will be judging me when they google them. Oh well. Love is love. (Teehee.)
A great thing that happened just recently in March is my joining of a group called SKY Events. SKY stands for Social Korea Youth, and what the group does is work with clubs to plan parties that bring people together from all sorts of backgrounds. The people working there are all really nice and fun people. Just last weekend we had our MT (Membership Training) which is when everyone hops on a subway to a small town outside of Seoul, rents a cabin, and spends a night hanging out, talking, drinking, grilling, and just getting to know each other and having fun. I had a really great time and although at first I felt awkward and shy around the other members, I feel a lot better now and really like the team I'm working with. I hope to join the Marketing team because I think I would be best at that. I guess I'll find out what I'll be doing soon!
Oh man, I almost forgot one of the most important things ever to write about!!! To those of you who had not yet seen me screaming about it all over facebook, one of my best friends from Wesleyan, Hee-kyong, is my roommate this semester! YEAAAAHHHHH!! I was really really excited when we found out we'd be living together. She's a great roommate and although some people thought we would hate each other by the end of the year, it's not happening yet! Although we do have until June 21st. Just kidding! It'll still be great then. Last semester my roommate was pleasant to live with but it's just a lot more comfortable being with Heeks and being able to reminisce and talk about life, laugh over old stories, and gossip about our friends at Wesleyan (whom we miss dearly, of course).
My brain is slowly starting to occasionally say things in Korean before I think the English, and the other night I had a dream in Konglish. It's a little bit scary. My friends always tell me I'm good at Korean and English, but a pro at Konglish. I don't know how I feel about that. I guess my family has a lot of re-assimilation work to do when I come back in the summer.
Last but not least I'll talk briefly about my classes. I have mixed feelings on them this semester. My Korean class is great because my Monday/Wednesday/Friday professor is none other but Kimchi sunsaengnim, the one I had last semester! She was my favorite, and I'm really happy I get to have her. The Tues/Thurs professor is funny, and she's a lot nicer than the one I had last semester. I am also lucky enough to be back in the same class as Laura, Joelle, Randy, and Julia this semester, and Hee-kyong is in the same class, too! I actually started the semester in a different class, but I switched right at the beginning because I didn't like the professors and the students were wild and too noisy. I'm learning better in this class.
My other (taught-in-English) classes are Korean Cinema, Pre-Modern Korean History and its Historical Sites, and Korean Language and Culture. Cinema is taught by a floaty existential woman who rarely talks about cinema and mostly talks about the old times in Korea and her parents and culture/interpersonal relations. We have to watch the movies outside of class and do reports every week. I'm not sure how I feel about it. My history class is GREAT because the professor is a really sweet PhD student who really wants us to get passionate about the subject. We go on one field trip every 5 weeks. Just last week was our trip to Anguk, which is a place with a lot of historical significance. We walked around for 3 hours visiting a temple, an old girls' school, different art displays, the main temple of 천도교 (sorry I don't know the English), and the constitution building. We visited the area where the leaders of the Enlightenment Movement used to live and meet, too. It was really fun and the professor is one of my favorites. My culture class is fun mainly because the professor has a Korean/Russian accent that makes her sound positively evil. However, I really like the class and she shows us videos every Thursday that keep things interesting. There aren't a lot of requirements for the class either, so I can focus on my Korean studies.
Anyways, that's all I can think of for now. If I remember anything else I'll post later.
OH by the way, I'm leaving tonight for the beautiful island paradise of Jeju-do. It'll be ballerrrr! I'll make a whole big post about that when I return!
Miss y'all bunches!
Love,
Janet
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo
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