Settling in

August 20, 2009

Fighting jet lag is a bitch. I did end up falling asleep around 6 last night, and then proceeded to wake up around 1 am, thinking it was like 8 am. Boy was I surprised to see that it was only 1. Luckily, I was able to go back to sleep for a few more hours, but then got up again around 4, and from that point on, it was a struggle to sleep. I finally gave in and got up around 6:30 or so. It stayed pretty light outside the entire night, which was really strange and kind of annoying.

Anyways, I forgot my toothbrush in one of the bags that I had to leave in storage, so I went down to the 7-11 (yes, the quickie mart store thing), and bought myself a toothbrush! Breakfast was at 7:30 on the third floor of our building, so roommie (Arem) and I went up a little after that only to discover that a lot of people had beaten us to it, haha. The “cafeteria” is extremely nice and brand new, and the food was actually pretty good. Everything seems to be served buffet-style, and we can just pick and chose what we want to eat. Yes, they had kimchi for breakfast, and yes, I did try a little. I can’t remember what else I had for breakfast, but they did have some cereal, but NO, I did NOT have it!

After breakfast, we had some free time until 10, which is when our “campus tour” was. The “tour” consisted of an EPIK employee walking us around to building we had already been to and seen. The tour went like this: “this is the Art Building. This is where you will have welcome ceremony later today. Let’s go to next building.” I mean, I guess it was kind of nice because now I really know my way around the small campus, but it was also really hot and humid (already at 10 am), so by the end of the 30 minute tour, we were all drenched and a little annoyed.

We had free time from 10:30 til 12:30’ish, in which time I was able to go get some things out of my stored luggage and check the internet. Lunch was at 12:30, and it was very very good. Had some pork cutlets (they’re called “tongasa” maybe??), some beef, some KIMCHI, some rice and some potato and broccoli sate or some crap. I’ve been very happy with the “cafeteria” food so far, thank goodness. I had lunch with my friend Jessica, and two guys named Jon and Steven. Jon actually graduated from NC State, haha. And Steven graduated from Berkeley. Steven will actually teach in Incheon too, so it’s good to get to know someone who will be in the same general areas as me. We’re all headed over to our welcome ceremony together soon. This ceremony is going to last a few hours, and we’re all expecting to sleep a little through it, haha. That’s exactly what you want to hear, isn’t mom and dad? I’m just kidding though, we of course won’t sleep through it! Anyways, I need to head down to the lobby to meet them, so I’ll get back to this later.

Just got back from the welcome ceremony and welcome dinner. The ceremony started off with some traditional Korean art/entertainment, which consisted of a professional 5-drum group, a Korean “opera” singer, and then a fan dance. The drum group was amazing, and because we were sitting in the front row, I was able to get some pretty good video of them performing. They played for probably close to 10 minutes, and we were all amazed at how together and in-sync they were. It was truly remarkable. The next two performances were by current EPIK staff, that was pretty neat to see.

After the performances, we were lectured…nothing really interesting there. We just learned about some cultural differences and what to kind of expect as a GET. I won’t bore you with his lectures.

After that, we all walked/ran to the welcome dinner. Unfortunately, as we were walking there, we had a sudden torrential downpour, and we got stuck right in the middle of it without jackets or umbrellas. Oh well, hah. The dinner itself was pretty good. Tons of food. I mean TONS OF FOOD! It was insane. And it was all good. I even tried sushi grade swordfish (I’m 99% sure that means the fish was raw). Have yet to try any local fruits, and I don’t think I ever will, hah. I had a lot more sushi, kielbasa (yes mom, they have KIELBASA here!!), spare ribs, and more yummy stuff. I’ve definitely eaten well here so far, so I can’t complain on that front.

After dinner, we have the night off, so the friends that I’ve made are all going to go out and explore what the night-life is like here in small Jeonju. Apparently there’s a karaoke bar, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we hit that up sometime tonight. We’ll see…

We have the medical checkup tomorrow morning (my group is at 10 AM), and apparently we can’t even drink water after midnight…Hopefully I’m not too dehydrated and pass out when they’re taking my blood tomorrow, haha. Okay, well that’s it for now I guess. I love you all, and I hope you’re enjoying reading some of what I’m going through right now. I still don’t have internet in my room, but we’ve found a computer room that has way more computers than the dorm lobby, so I don’t to wait in-line to use the internet anymore. Now if I could just find a way to post this damn blog from my laptop! Oh well…love and miss you all.

Today, I began yet another journey in my life when I boarded the plane leaving Charlotte outbound to Seoul by way of Chicago. I knew this moment was coming, but was totally unprepared to deal with it when the time actually came, and I had to say goodbye to my family in Charlotte. I felt such a harsh and sudden realization that I won’t see them again until the earliest January, let alone trying to communicate with them on somewhat of a regular basis so that we can both keep up with each others’ lives. I’m not sure exactly how I managed to do this while studying in Bangkok, or maybe that’s the point and I didn’t keep up with peoples’ lives, but I knowing that I can’t simply call down to mom or call Alli on her cell was and is heartbreaking. I kind of always thought that spending so much time with my family would make me want to leave them more (just because we can at times get under each others’ skin, Graham), but that was totally not the case at all. I think I’ve come to realize that my family is much more important to me than I thought for various reasons, and I miss you all incredibly already, and it’s only been a day L

With all this sentiment aside (sorry, but I had to get it out of the way and out of my system), let’s look at my journey so far! After a delicious last dinner at Cantina with Mom, Dad, Graham and Leah and Erich, we drove to the airport for the inevitable. Luckily, when I checked in at the US Airways counter, they did not charge me for overweight luggage! A smile really does go a long way ;) So after tearful last goodbyes and hugs, I went through security and said goodbye to everything I’ve lived and loved for the past however many years. My flight to Chicago was on time and not full, which left me hopeful that my next flight to Seoul would not be full either. However, once I landed in Chicago and made it almost all the way through security, some airport worker told me that I had to have an Asiana ticket, not a ticket that US Airways had printed for me back in Charlotte. Frustrated, I went back to the counter, was informed that I have a middle seat, and that the flight is overbooked. Sweet. I get a middle seat for a 14+ hour plane ride. I was not a happy camper.

So I board, and I see an older Asian woman sitting in the window seat, I don’t know if she speaks English or not so I politely do a little bow and mutter “hi.” Turns out she is Filipino and speaks perfect English, haha. I sandwiched between her and a young Korean guy who was nice and polite when I had to get up and walk around and stretch. Unfortunately, I didn’t get much sleep on the flight at all because the Filipino likes to talk, A LOT. We talked about death, about being happy and content, about her coming to the States for nursing school and working in the ER, about cultural differences and unique experiences we’ve both had living abroad. But the constant need to bring up the fact that death is inevitable and that she would be happy if she were to die right now was not needed! She had some really good insight and advice to give, but she was definitely a little in left field with a bunch of her ideologies. But it was very interesting, and sometimes exhausting, to talk with her. While she was asleep, I was probably watching “17 Again” for the third or fourth time (I can only take so much of Zach Effron playing basketball in yet another movie…), or dozing off for periods of about 20 minutes. All in all, I probably got about 2 hours of sleep the entire trip over, which is not what I wanted!

We land in Seoul around 4:30 am, step off the plane, and have our temperatures taken by security. They are scared shitless about the swine flu over here, it’s a bit ridiculous. Anyways, I then make it to the baggage claim area, where I see people similar to me, and I think to myself, they must be with EPIK too, and sure enough, they were! So we do the weird introducing ourselves, and we all realize we’re all in similar situations, so we can all relate to each other on some level. We all grab our baggage, go exchange our money, go through customs, and then go find our gate where the EPIK bus would take us to Jeonju (where the orientation is). Unfortunately, no one from EPIK showed up for about 2 or so hours after we go to that gate, so there was a bunch of sitting around, socializing, and wanting to be back home with my family.

I somehow make it onto the first bus to go to Jeonju, and I make friends with some people on the bus, thank god. One girl in particular is really cool (I automatically knew we’d get along because she has a few tattoos, and you know…). Her name is Jessica and is from the Midwest and I think went to Purdue. She’s actually half-Korean, so she can speak a little Korean which is cool. And she’s very sarcastic, which is perfect for me. And then there’s another girl Jessica who’s doing this for a second year, a girl named Liz who went to University of Chicago and was a finalist for the Fulbright, and a guy named Ian from the Midwest too. No southerners L . I’m determined to teach my students “ya’ll” though, haha.

We finally make it to Jeonju University after like 4 hours in the bus, we check-in some luggage, do a quick little registration, eat lunch, and see our dorm room. Our room is extremely nice and brand new and I love it. I’m rooming with a Canadian named Arem (spelling?!?!) who is Korean. He’s an interesting guy—who flat out asked me certain questions that I wasn’t really prepared or expected to answer, hah. He also pronounced “epitome” in the strangest way possible, and I had to hold back from laughing at him in his face. It was bad.

So anyways, no real culture shock yet at all…the food at lunch was extremely spicy and eating with metal chopsticks is infinitely more difficult than wood ones. We’re not sure what we had at lunch, but we did have some kimchi and I can tell you it wasn’t half bad! I took a picture of it for you guys back home!

Tomorrow we have a campus tour, and then a big welcoming ceremony and dinner. Until then, I’m skipping dinner and just staying in the room because I’m starting to get very tired and I’m sure I’m about to pass out soon, at 6:00 pm. Not cool. So that’s that. I love you all, and I hope you’re all doing great. ‘til next time…

Bought my plane ticket!

After following the prices of plane tickets for a few weeks now, and watching them steadily increase ( :-\ ), I finally decided to pull the plug and actually purchase MY ticket! When I first started looking at them, I thought it'd be fun to spend a few days in Bangkok before heading to Seoul for orientation, and I found a very reasonable price for that ticket, BUT for some reason I decided to wait in hopes that the price would decline even more. WRONG! The very next day, the price jumped like $200, and out went that idea. Oh well...

So now, I'm leaving August 17 at 10:00 pm from Charlotte. I fly to Chicago, and leave there at 1:00 am on the 18th, and get into Seoul at 5:00 am on the 19th. Just a mere 14 hour flight, no big deal, hah. I've never had any trouble with the trans-Pacific flights, and I expect this time to be no different. I'll sleep a lot, do a few sudokus, read the guide book, maybe learn a little Korean, and watch a few movies...could be worse.

In the meantime, I'm almost done studying for the GMAT which I take TOMORROW, Aug 5! I'm ready for it to be over and to have a score that I can report to grad schools. Hopefully it's a score that I can be proud of, but I've heard of people taking the GMAT like 4-5 times...YIKES. I just gotta give it a go and see how I do and then go from there. The ball is rolling...