Dobby is Free?

Grr Wix keeps deleting the posts I'm working on -_-

Okay, friends, sorry for not posting the past couple weeks. I pinky promise that I will post on Monday my time, on punishment of death. But, to be honest, I think I was still really getting my bearings, so it's probably better to make a compilation post like this. I think I'm just going to divide up my post a bit to make it easier for me to write (and hopefully for you to read).

First, I have knocked 5 (soon to be 6) things off my 300 by 30 already in Korea !

32. Finally go to Korea (after a long 24 hour day of travel from Boston to Incheon, with a quick stop in Detroit for good measure, I made it to Goesan, Chungcheongbuk Province, SK!)

40. Go to a noraebang/karaoke (more on that later)

44. Buy something from a street food vendor (hotteok x2)

45. Eat corn ice cream from a conbini/pyeonuijeom (it was quite scrumptious, but I was surprised that it had actual corn kernels in it)

59. Eat ddeokguk/rice cake soup (we had this on Seollal/LNY in our university's cafeteria)

The soon to be completed item is 50. Go to a local festival, which I will literally do in less than 12 hours but I'll save that for Monday's post...so stay tuned.

Orientation

So, as I mentioned, I had a long day of travel to Korea, but thankfully there were no big hiccups and there was actually a surprisingly large group of Fulbrighters flying out of Boston, so I met up with some other New Englanders in my program and was able to travel with them all the way. After we landed in Seoul, Fulbright met up with us and took us by bus to our university for orientation, about 2 hours south of Seoul. I was exhausted so I conked out on the bus ride. It was a very disorienting experience getting here honestly but I guess that's bound to happen with a trip that long.

Orientation is super busy. We have programming basically every single day, even during Lunar New Year, but thankfully it's not too too much work. We have 4 hours of Korean class a day and then usually 1 or 2 hours of teaching/cultural workshops. I really like Korean class and I do think my Korean has improved a lot. Compared to other countries I've traveled to, I think I feel less stressed about using Korean, but I do still second-guess myself when I speak and I want to get better at just speaking comfortably, so that's a resolution for me this year I think. Also my Korean teacher is really funny (the title is just a random quote from her it has nothing to do with the post lol)

But yeah, I'm trying to think of how to sum up the past few weeks. It's really weird being here because there's almost 70 of us Fulbright people, so we're really a little American/English-speaking bubble. It doesn't really feel like I'm in Korea, even when we walk down to the local town. I think the culture shock will hit a lot more when I get my placement. But so far, I've been enjoying orientation and bit by bit making friends maybe I think? There's a lot of cool people in this program and people are also a lot more laid-back than I was expecting which I appreciate. It' always hard for me to push past my social anxiety/shyness but I think I've been doing a wee bit better than usual so that's a win.

If you want more inside scoop text me your questions hehe.

Snow! I realized all my pictures are soo bad like unbelievably bad lmao I will try to take better pics next week

Teaching

I'll make this section brief, but basically we had two teaching practices -- one practicum with other ETAs pretending to be students and one with real students. The one with real students is a winter English camp for students at some of the schools we could be placed in. It's happening all of next week too, but we only had to do one day and I got assigned to do the first day, so I finished mine yesterday. Getting the lesson plan done was kinda stressful, but I'm really happy to be done now.

Neither of my lessons went perfectly and I think I have a long way to go as far as teaching and lesson planning and scaffolding and all that stuff, but I think my lesson with real students went better than the simulated one honestly, and I'm just trying to remind myself that I'm brand new to this stuff. Growth mindset and all that you know.

Fun Stuff

Okay, as I mentioned, I went out to noraebang, so maybe you are wondering what other stuff I have been getting up to. Honestly not that much lmao. We are usually busy almost all day and we have an 11 PM curfew (and it's freezing here, like <10 degree FAHRENHEIT, so you don't wanna get locked out). But I have gone out a few times into the town that's about a 30 minute walk from campus. There's not a ton here (our Korean teachers are from Seoul and they always complain about the city here lol), but there are a good number of cafes and a few bars. I went to this one bar a couple weeks ago with some people and had some potato pizza and drinks.

Then, last weekend, my friends and I went to search for a noraebang. We ended up finding this basement one that was interesting. They had a big room which we good because we had close to 10 people, and the machine was lowkey broken, and we had to sorta subtly haggle the price of soju down (she was trying to charge us 10 USD for a bottle of soju when it costs less than 5 other peoples -_-). but we ended up staying and having a really fun night! I'm hoping I get to do some more fun stuff with people before orientation ends because who knows where everyone might get placed eeeek

Speaking of which, I get my placement February 1, so stay tuned. I'll text you guys before my blog post though :D.

Anyway, that's all I can think of. I know it's kinda scatter-brained but I have been kinda scatter-brained too. I think I've been adjusting to the program better than I expected but of course this is only Orientation. The real test will come in time. I am grateful for orientation with that in mind.

I'll update you guys on the cool festival I'm going to tomorrow next week. By 친구s and 새해 복 많이 받으세요~!

corn 아이스 크림

Food lol. It's dining hall food so maybe not the best but coming from Smith college the meals here are gourmet. I liked this one.

Judy

Hotteok. The street food I was most excited to try here! Next week I will try Bungeobbang/taiyaki