Week 5: Placements and Culture

This is the group that will be with me in Daegu.  However
their schools are a little far from mine.

As I mentioned in my last post, we received our school placements on Friday and I have been informed that I have been placed in Daegu. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daegu#Climate at Jukjun Middle School http://www.jukjun.ms.kr/ .   I was expecting a High school, but I was lucky enough to have dinner with one of the orientation leaders tonight who has a similar middle school and she was really encouraging.  I was pretty nervous about how to lesson plan and handle students with lower levels and not that all those fears are assuaged, but I feel encouraged nonetheless.  It turns out I have at least 3 Korean friends that live in and around Daegu, so I won't be hanging out with all totally new people.  That makes me feel a little more confident too, because I was super worried about not being able to see my Korean friends.  2 of those people I met at my school when I studied abroad last year. ^_^

Eating Pizza in the ETA Lounge on Campus with my Friends

Over the weekend my friend from Seoul came to visit.  It was too bad that the weather was sooo hot because we could only hang out inside for fear of heat exhaustion.  Ok, so that's a little bit of an exaggeration but it was like 95 degrees.  We did do a short campus tour and ordered pizza with some of my American friends here.  Mostly we just caught up on our lives that we've missed out on in the intervening year since we've seen each other.  It was really nice to see a Korean friend.  Thus far, this program has very much been a bubble of hybrid American-Korean culture and to have someone totally outside of that bubble be around, was really cool.

They made a "Wall of Chin-up" to encourage us about our
language classes, and this was my note :)

This week, in language class, we had our last quiz and we're doing our final lessons.  I performed a 5 min speech in Korean, and I felt really dumb doing it too because when I practiced, I was able to perform it smoothly, but in my class, in front of my teacher, I just stumbled a lot.  I have definitely learned a lot in my language class, but, at the same time, I feel like my evaluation in my class is not an accurate reflection of my real ability because I can communicate passably about necessary things with my Korean friends in Korean, I just can't do it as a performance--> which includes speeches or tests.  Granted I do have a passing grade on my tests, but even that is just barely.  The real test of my skillz (yes, with a "z") will be when I get out there in the "real" world.  ^_^

We did talk about our homestays today, which was a good discussion, if a little repetitious.  I think whatever the composition of my family, we'll get along.  I'm really hoping my Korean abilities will be enough to get by talking about things there.  (what I said about with my friends more refers to eating or shopping or opinions I have).  I really want to learn more about Korean cooking, so hopefully my "Mom" will be willing to teach me : D.   They also talked about all kinds of things in terms of letting our families know where we're doing things and how to be tactful in Korean culture and how to figure who when it is okay to help to do chores like laundry or cleaning.  Also our contract stipulates that our families are not to request we tutor our host siblings, however there are clever ways to endear ourselves to our host parents without directly tutoring them, which we probably won't have time for anyway. Good to know the tricks.

My Roomy: Taekeum

This weekend I am planning on heading up to Seoul to reunite with one of my former Korean roommates for a day trip.  Still not sure what we'll do quite yet, but it's bound to be a good time.