Culture Shock round 1

So, thankfully, culture shock is only mild right now, but I feel pretty lonely, to tell the truth. I'm alone in my apartment, well, in the PC bang right now, but alone nonetheless and it just hit me that I have one full year here and I DON'T SPEAK ANY WORTHWHILE KOREAN. Things are pretty nice here, it's not like I'm in some scary third world area, but it's really hard not being able to communicate. There is a McDonalds less than 5 minutes from my apartment, which is a bit of a relief but when I went there today, I could barely order a cheeseburger value meal. I have to go pick up some tasties for snacking and meals tonight, and hopefully I will be able to get out to an E-mart soon to get some necessities, like dish soap, detergent and HANGERS for my clothes.

In truth though, I'm having a good time, it's just that this is the first time I have been in Korea all by myself and it's a bit strange.

More on this later, when I'm not paying for internet usage...

xoxo,
A

I want everyone to know this...

Technology here in Korea is seriously out of control. I got my cellphone yesterday (still trying to figure out what the correct number is for people dialing from the US) and it is about a zillion times cooler than my blackjack, which is a pretty sweet phone. Basically, it looks like an average slider phone. Small, slider, but with korean in addition to English letters on the phone. Naturally it has bluetooth and an mp3 player and a sweet layout like a cool phone, but here is one thing you WILL NOT FIND in the states. It plays television. Like, there is an antenna, and you pull it up and you can watch t.v. Evidentally EVERYONE does it in Korea on the subway. I am really amped about this function. Also, my phone came with an extra battery, so whenever mine dies, I can just pop a fresh charged one in. It's awesome.

Also, I heard that some phones (but maybe not mine) can act as atm card and you can have them linked somehow to your bank account.

Also, I officially have a bank account here in Korea, and a debit card and all that jazz, which is sweeeeet. I get my first check deposited in there soon (by Monday, I heard), and so that is exciting.

I just wanted everyone to know about how sweet Korea is!

xoxo,
A

Korea, now with pictures!

So we got internet set up in our dorm rooms, which is nice, and we've been pretty busy with classes and lectures, and korean lessons, so I haven't been online much. I'm having a great time here, and everything is really cool. The only thing I kind of dislike is how we are so isolated from the rest of Korea and it's kind of like we are in a bubble. Pretty much 24/7, I am with 700 other native English speakers, and I see maybe 30 Korean people per day. I'm slowly but surely learning more Korean (for example, I now know how to say teacher, principal, vice principal, and student). I'm supposed to know classroom names too but I am very bad at that. Anywho, I figured I would take this opportunity to share some photos with you guys and clue you in a bit on all my experiences. The first picture is a view from my window in the dorm. We are on the 15th floor of a 17 floor apartment complex. It is huuuuuge, and the elevators are really slow. Sometimes I take the stairs but it is exhausting walking up 15 flights, so I don't do it very often. Plus, we walk tons as it is.

On Sunday we went on a field trip! We went to a traditional Hanok village, as well as the Kuemsan buddhist temple. I know how to write all these things in Korean, but unfortunately, I can't show off my Korean skills because I'm not using a computer that has Korean letters as an option, which is unfortunate. Anyways, the Hanok village (which just means traditional Korean village) was really cool. We took a tour of the area, and then we decorated traditional fans, which are made of hanji, which is traditional Korean paper. Han is the word for Korean, and ji is paper. There's your Korean lesson for the day. We also got to look around a bit, and take in the views from a lookout point. We played some traditional Korean games (one similar to horseshoes, and another like pogs, and another that was basically impossible where you had to throw long sticks into a tall vase). The pictures here are of the view from the lookout, pots which are used to make kimchi and to prepare certain types of sauces. Basically, the pots are filled with spices and either buried (for kimchi) or left out in the sun (for sauces) for WEEKS. They smell pretty strongly of spices and what not, which is kind of crazy. Also, the picture of the room with the paper lantern thingys is a room decorated entirely with furniture that is made out of hanji. EVERYTHING you see in that room is made from one kind of tree. Crazy huh? Those Korean just think of everything!

The buddhist temple was really cool. I had never before been to a buddhist temple, and it was really quite impressive. There were several different buildings, each containing various images of buddha, and several other major players in the buddhist faith. Plus a place that housed the four most important objects of a buddhist temple (bell, drum, wooden fish and the cloud plate). I took a ton of pictures, but am only including some of my personal favorites for you viewing pleasure. The gold and intricacies of each of the different areas and shrines was unbelievable. Really, it was an incredible place, in spite of the fact that it was teeming with over 300 EPIK teachers, in addition to the regular tourists and whatnot. Hopefully I will get some different ones up on Facebook so none of this gets too redundant for you all! ^_^

I forgot to mention that on Saturday night I had my first go at Soju drinking, and let's just say I wasn't feeling so well the morning of the field trips. We went to this bar just down the way from the dorms and then the sake started slowing, along with the most enormous pitchers of beer I'd ever seen. One of the girls I mentioned early, from Tampa (USF grad), was out with us, and we showed everyone how it was really done. The next day, I spoke to one of the guys that was out with us, Sean and he said, "people from Florida really know how to party!" Well, duh.

The food here is delicious, but a bit spicier than what I'm used to. I'm enjoying everything and hopefully sometime soon I'll be able to give you guys a post on some funny Korean idiosyncracies I've noticed.

That's all from this time zone!

xoxo,

A

Jeonju University

So Korea so far has been fabulous, although I'm only in day 2. The flight there was brutal, not gonna lie, but so it goes. 6 1/2 hours MIA to LAX, 6 hour layover at LAX, 13 hours in the air LAX to ICN. Then, we got in 5 am Korea time, but didn't get a shuttle to Jeonju (4 hours south of the airport) until noon. So, in summary, 36 hours of travel time.

I have met sooooo many new people, from all over. I just tonight met my first set of Floridians, two girls from Tampa, who went to USF. That was cool. Plus, I've met people from all over the states, some really nice girls from Canada, plus some Brits, a South African, an Australian, and a Kiwi. Sweet, right? Everyone is really friendly here.

The dorms we're staying in here in Jeonju are really nice. They were just built in March and so they're pretty much impeccably clean and organized, which is kind of cool. We have to take our shoes off when we get into our rooms, and I'm getting used to the idea of bowing to people when I see them in the morning or whatnot. The bathrooms are a little different from American ones in that there isn't a separate shower stall or tub, and so the water just kind of sprays everywhere and ends up all over the bathroom floor, and they provide little plastic flip flops to where to keep your feet from getting wet.

Anyways, breakfast lunch and dinner has been kimchi and rice, as well as a healthy assortment of Korean and Western style dishes. Breakfast this morning, for example, consisted of rice, kimchi, salad, pickles, eggs, ham, coffee, french fries (!), croissants and soup.

Today we had our opening ceremonies and a big buffet dinner. The opening ceremony was pretty cool. They had a couple traditional performances (five drum dance, fan dance, pansi) and then they did boring stuff like go over rules and expectations and the schedule. Tomorrow we have our check-ups, which look terrible. We can't eat anything for six hours before we get the check-ups and I can't figure out why. Colonoscopy? haha, I suuuure hope not. At the dinner, they played a bunch of k-pop and I sang along and danced and it was AWESOME.

I miss everyone, although it still hasn't really sunk in yet that I'm in another country and won't see a lot of you again for a looooong time.

It's a relief to have internet though, although I don't have skype set up on the computer I'm using now. We couldn't figure out how to get the internet to work (something about ip address and whatnot. It was completely over my head, and the instructions, naturally, were in Korean), and so I had to run downstairs and get one of the boys in our group of friends to come up and set it up for each of us. He also downloaded something to make it so my computer can recognize and show Korean characters.

That's all for now folks!

Korea is hot.

xoxo,
A

And away we go!

Packing is finally coming together. I had to use two vacuum bags to save space, but so far, so good!

I have the finishing touches to add to my suitcases (a few shirts here, a bathing suit there), and a couple last errands to run and phone calls to make, and I am DONE.

I called SunPass and cancelled my account, and got my remaining $15.25 back (heck yes).

I saw everyone at Publix to day (read: melissa canatella, Mrs. Stolow, Mr. Ostroff) which was kinda cool.

Sunday I'm headed to Miami to spend some time with Eric and Kate, and then Monday at 3:25, I'm OFF!

Loneliness

This is how I feel about loneliness:

It comes when a grandmother breaks her hip. When she feels like she can't do anything anymore, and must rely on others. Even though so many people come and go through the house, she is still alone, because she is unable to perform ALONE.

It comes when you move to China and you have adhd and anxiety and someone fights in a club and you don't know what else to do. It comes when you think you want to go home and have forgotten that you know you will regret it. It comes when the one person you care about more than anything can't help.

It comes when you go on a business trip away from home a week before your daughter leaves. When you're busy doing a job that maybe you don't love the way you used to. It comes when you realize that you are in Phoenix or Indianapolis or San Jose or Montgomery and the only place you want to be is home.

It comes when you have to care for your mother-in-law, even when you're exhausted because there is no one else who can. It comes when, at 9:30 p.m., you are driving home and falling asleep and drifting off the road because you can't keep your eyes open anymore. It comes in the form of mandarin chicken salads and baked potatoes from Wendy's.

It comes when you have to work at JCPenney when you don't want to. It comes when you know people need you somewhere else but your obligations and responsibility tie you to where you are.

It comes when you are packing to go to another country and you just need someone there. Someone just to be present. It comes when your grandmother broke her knee, your dad is on a business trip, your mom is caring for your grandma, one of your best friends is in China, and you sister is in Tampa.

I'm being selfish, but I don't care. I want my mom here. I don't necessarily need her to do anything for me, but I want her here.

I didn't think this was going to be so hard, but it is. Circumstances have made it so.

Packing

Makes my head explode.

I got an e-mail from EPIK yesterday that basically said that in addition to having to pack my entire life up in two 50 lb. suitcases and a carry-on, I also have to be prepared to spend the 9 day orientation with only one suitcase, so I have to pack one suitcase with everything that I *think* I will need for Orientation (business casual clothes, pajamas, all personal hygiene, contract & diploma, casual evening clothes). I will not have any access to any other suitcases for the duration of the orientation, so if I'm missing something, I'm pretty much SOL.

I feel like not going to Korea would be significantly easier than trying to pack right now. Seriously, this SUCKS.

Goodbye Gainesville

So I'm at home. I got back yesterday early evening, after spending Friday homeless. Let me tell you, not having a house/apartment to go back to is just a crazy feeling. I drove aimlessly for a while, trying to figure out where I could go for free and occupy my time. I visited Spin Cycle and talked to Alisha for a bit. I went to Stacy's. I went to Pita Pit with Lamm. Cool thing happened there. I wasn't planning on going out to eat dinner, because I have roughly 30 dollars to my name right now. But Lamm called and said she would take me out dinner to as a going away present (hooray). I was kind of craving a tuna pita from Pita Pit, so we decided to go there. I met them, and Lamm and I walked in, while Joel stayed with Zoe (a long haired chihuahua) outside. we waited for a moment, and then began to order, but, alas, the cash register was frozen. They were trying to restart the computer and what not, but it wasn't working. Sooooooo, the manager gave us FREE pitas. HOORAY! So as it turns out, Lamm's treat ended up being free anyways.

Then I went to Dani's to get ready for my going away party. We got ready at her new apartment, and then we went over to Courtyards to finish getting everything together. People were slowly trickling in, and by 11:30 there were a ton of people there. It was really interesting because it was kind of a combination of the frisbee crowd and ELI people, but it worked out just fine. Naturally, beer pong was super popular, and people mingled at least some. Stacy and Laura ran the beer pong show for a little while, and Pav even played a game with one of my students, Diane. Meg and Pav dressed up like Koreans, and Stacy was the statue of liberty, which I LOVED. It was really fun, but very very sad at the same time. I cried three times in the course of the night, but I bucked up fairly well each time afterwards and really enjoyed my last night in Gainesville. One of my students, Alice, gave me a painting she did of a flower that is really quite pretty. I will definitely be bringing that to Korea to put up on my wall. I played lots of beer pong and got moderately drunk, and told Sarah and Nicki secrets about an ELI boy. I spoke a little bit of Spanish and a little bit of Korean and said bye to EVERYONE.

Saying goodbye to Nicki was particularly hard, as she is the one person I've known longer than pretty much ANYONE. What's crazy is I only dropped a couple tears when she actually left, but then a couple minutes later, when Alice gave me the painting, they noticed I looked a little down, and when I told them I had just said goodbye to one of my very best friends in the whole world, I started crying again. I went upstairs to put the painting with my stuff and I broke DOWN.

Regardless of the crying though, I don't think I would have wanted to have spent my last night in Gainesville doing anything else. Courtyards was my little party home, and it was only fitting that I sleep there that night.

The next morning, hungover as can be, I helped clean up Dani's apartment because they had to move out by noon. It was a little risky throwing a party the night before they had to check-out, but I would argue that it went really well.

Today I went shopping with Mom. I got a new LeSportSac tote, a coin purse, and this adorable sweater from the Gap.

Left & Leaving

Everything is packed. I sleep in my apartment for the last night tonight. After that, it's throw the sheets in the car, commencement, GOING AWAY PARTY, and home.

I leave for Korea in 11 days, people. I am just beginning to freak out. My Gainesville life is pretty much done-zo.

xoxo,
A

Success

So packing yesterday was not particularly successful, in the sense that I packed one tiny box full of clothing to offer my sister. My room is currently a big fat freaking mess. I did three loads of laundry yesterday, and one clean load is currently chillin on my bedroom floor right now. I'll have to take care of that soon. I did succeed in going through a bunch of my t-shirts and being pretty selective in the shirts I actually kept. Anything that could even be considered slightly too small or slightly too worn got tossed quickly into the salvation army/garbage piles respectively.

My closet is looking okay. I threw out two big bags of garbage yesterday, so slowly but surely I think I'm making my way to a cleaned up apartment. The hard part will prove to be the little things. The knick-knacks the pictures, the stupid shit I never really needed but have now.

Last night, unlike the daytime, was a complete success. I went with Ximena (a coworker at the ELI) to a party at a student's apartment. It was mostly a Spanish-speaking crowd and as they and I proceeded to drink, I was heckled increasingly to speak Spanish. By the end of the night, I was speaking pretty much freely, and it was received really well. I hate speaking Spanish to big groups of native speakers because I'm concerned that they are going to judge me and then correct every little thing and I won't be able to communicate because I'll just shut down. I think I'm so used to being in school where mistakes are bad, and they grade your spanish in a very real way, with As and Bs, and I'm really used to being pretty good in the classroom setting, that the prospect of having other native speakers listening terrifies me in a lot of ways. I ended up having a conversation about Spanish speakers and American mentalities and prejudices IN SPANISH. Victory.

Anyways, today I will be going to the mall. Gap is having a sale (30% off everything!!!) and I have a giftcard I'd like to use.

Also, I will hopefully start to put some things in boxes and shit.

Goodbye Gainesville. 5 days.