Life Update

Ok, guys. This time is more like a life update than a relation of events. Not too many big things have happened, but things are definitely different.

Firstly, my family. In the first few days I was here I felt a lot more comfortable with my brother, just because we spent more time together and his English is better than Unni's. But after he left to go back to wherever it is he goes to college, I can now say with certainty that I am a lot closer to my sister. It's not that I like one more than the other, I just know her much better. She is so much fun and quite a bit like me. She hums and softly sings fairly frequently, she makes a lot of faces, she does silly things just for the heck of it. She's great. My mom is also wonderful. I knew that from the second I met her, but seriously guys. I love her so much. She is so sweet and nice and funny and cute. I honestly want to stay with this family the whole year. I also know my dad a bit more now. I still don't see him that often because he works, but now that I stay up later with the rest of the family I see him at night and all of us usually just sit in the living room and talk for a long time. It's really nice. We have a lot of fun without really doing anything.



Sunggook, Inbum, Kangik, Kihoon, Coraline and Jinsung (and me)

Secondly school. School is really strange. It's a big mix of fantastic, boring, and annoying. Let's start with fantastic. I really like the people in my class. I'd say my closest friend right now is Hanbyul. He's very funny and outgoing and has better English than most people in the class. Even though I say he's my closest friend, we're not close. Really at all. I guess, I wouldn't say he's my closest friend, he's more like the person I know the best. I don't think I can honestly say I have any friends yet. It'll take time. But even though I don't think of them as my real friends yet, I have a lot fun with them and like being there. Now for the boring. I think that even if I did speak Korean I would find this school boring. Most of the classes are just lectures with little participation by the students. The only classes we do anything in are math and gym. Both of which are wonderful for me because they don't require me to speak Korean. And I never thought I would say that I'm the best gym student at any point in my school career. But here I am. Seriously. These people are fifteen and sixteen and they were holding the volleyballs as if they had never seen one in their life. Finally, the annoying. There are a couple things here that really bother me. Ok, so the whole corporal punishment thing wasn't a surprise for me when I got here and I don't mind it. It's not like the students ever get serious beatings or anything. So the occasional hit on the head or student that has to stand with their arms up doesn't bother me, as it's quick. But it does really bother me when teachers will take up to half the class calling different students to the front of the room and stand there talking to them before making them do whatever punishment they have in store. One class period the teacher took up the entire time making the class squat/walk down the hallway. But it bothers me much more that Coraline and I are generally exempt from the punishments. Only our homeroom teacher has punished us with the rest of the class, which I appreciate. I want to feel like a part of the class and the system. Just because I'm from America doesn't mean that I can't do exercises. Watch our gym class sometime. So, overall, I like the school and love my class, but wish that they didn't waste as much time and included us more.

In the past week or so, I'm happy to say that my free time has been much more productive than the beginning of my stay. The first couple weeks I usually just laid on my bed or sat at my desk and thought. Now I spend a lot more of the time in between classes and things praying and reading. It's amazing how praying can calm you down when you're really frustrated. My free time at home is also well spent. I've gotten a lot of cross-stitching done recently and my current project is moving along nicely. Just yesterday I also remembered that I like origami (yes, I forgot) and started doing a little bit of that again. I finally wrote a response to a letter I received the first day I was here (sorry Janet). And running down to the market on the corner has become one of my favorite things to do. My mom sends me to get stuff often and the lady that owns the place is so cute and sweet and always gets things for me because I don't actually know what they are, I just know the name that my mom told me.

I still haven't been able to go to the youth service at the church I've gone to a couple times. The first time I had the chance my mom had planned out my whole day. The Saturday after that we had a big rotary day (I'll talk about that in a bit). And of course this Saturday we're going to be out of town. Hopefully I get there sometime soon; I really want to decide whether I'm going to stay there or try to find a different church.

So, last Saturday there was a big huge event for all the Interact (high school) and Rotaract (college) clubs in our district. There were maybe three hundred people there. It really was a very boring day. Because only a very small percentage of the people was us, the foreigners, everything was done in Korean and I didn't understand pretty much any of it. The entire morning we just sat in our seats and I just talked to Anna, another American, the whole time because we had nothing else to do. She's pretty cool so that made the morning better. I ended up spending pretty much the whole day with her. After lunch we all did this weird domino game that I honestly am not going to try to explain here seeing as I can't do it even when I'm actually talking to someone so.... Then we sat around a bit, then we had dinner, then we sat around for a while longer. I was yet again just talking to Anna and Kaytleen sitting outside. A little bit before we walked back in something interesting did happen though. There was this Korean guy that walked past us, but after a few paces he turned around and walked up to us. He had his camera out and he didn't say anything he just held up his hands and mimicked taking a picture. So we took a picture with an absolutely adorable, silent Korean guy. He did say thank you (very quietly) afterwards though. And I noticed as he was leaving that he had a tattoo on his arm that said "Serendipity". It was so funny. It was probably just an English word that he thought would look cool and be hard to pronounce, but it was hilarious how it fit the way he looked and acted. After that we went inside and watched an absolutely hilarious talent show where everyone's talent was dancing in a group to a Kpop song.
Friday I went out for the day again with Ochun, Kaytleen and Jack. Ochun also brought his friend Gunhee along, which was nice. I'm in need of more friends. He was really polite and sweet. I liked him. We didn't really do much except see a movie and eat and walk around and ride the bus, but it was really good for me to get out and go somewhere without adults and with people that I already knew, instead of meeting new people again. It's not that I don't appreciate when people take me out places, but I get kind of tired of meeting people thinking "I'm probably never going to see you ever again.".
Oh my goodness, I almost forgot Choosuk, Korean thankgiving! It was on Thursday. The day before we spent a couple hours on the floor in the kitchen making a ton of food, including burdock and lotus roots (strange, but not gross). Then on Thursday morning we got up early and went to my grandparents house. There my dad and grandpa set up this whole thing for a ceremony to honor their ancestors. From what I saw in all the other exchange students pictures, most of them wore hanboks, Korean traditional clothes, and saw a lot of family on Choosuk. But me and my brother (who came back for a couple days) and sister, didn't have hanboks and we didn't participate in anything, and we were the only relatives there. We just sat in the other room and eventually fell asleep. Then we ate and then slept more while the adults talked a lot. It was much more boring than I expected the day to be, but that's ok. The food was delicious.
So, yeah, that's how I'm feeling at the moment. I love it here, a lot. It's simply beautiful. Before I came I thought that I might not like being in a big city very much, but I love everything about it. Even though a lot of things have been really hard and frustrating so far, this has already been one of the best experiences of my life and I've learned so much about myself. I can't wait so see what the next few weeks have in store. (Sorry, no quote this time. Too much work).