It's already Day 19! We are two and a half weeks into the Fulbright ETA Orientation and I just taught my very first class evah, like in the history of Gabby, yesterday. Woot!
(this is what I found searching for: triumphant trumpeting)
Wait. You all have no idea what this orientation is do you?
Don't worry. It's just a six-week training program in a giant marble building, secluded in the middle of Korea, in the middle of nowhere, which we affectionately call the "marble prison". We are not allowed to leave. I haven't seen the sun in three days. Not lying.
Hahaha it's really not that bad. It's not like we're getting brainwashed by aliens or anything.
But really! It's fun! There are 76 English Teaching Assistants in the Fulbright Korea program (including me), and just about every one I've met is awesome and fun and I'm glad to be stuck in this (actually really beautiful) marble prison with them all.
This is my fabulous roommate that is amazingly almost as crazy as I am, Micia:
And a panorama of this pretty amazing campus (and Micia!).
Though it is beautiful, the marble is actually super dangerous. The way showers work in our dorms is that you just use a hose to wash yourself in the bathroom, end up getting water everywhere, and it flows down a drain by the sink (there is no separate shower room). This makes the floor super slippery and poor Micia had an epic wipe-out last week after her shower.
Marble = danger!
They keep us busy here. This week and next week are special in that there is an English language intensive camp for Korean students hosted by Fulbright going on - so instead of our teaching/cultural workshops, we get to practice teaching English to little Korean campers (what I did yesterday).
Our regular schedule is like:
6 am - (if ambitious) get yo self outta bed and go for a run
7 am - get yo self together (last minute Korean hw!)
8 am - b-fast noms
9 am - four hours of Korean language class
1 pm - lunch food times
2 pm - teaching or cultural workshops for three to four more hours
6 pm - final meal o' the day
7 pm - optional social activities that you of course attend because you want to make friends with all these peoples
And sleep eventually.
Pause! Side story here!
So there must be some kind of military camp nearby this campus, because we occasionally hear fighter jets overhead (and no, it's not our northern neighbor attacking). And on two separate occasions, one during the night when walking up the giant hill from the little town back to campus and then the next morning on a run - I encountered an army. They filed down the sidewalks, four or five abreast, not marching all crazy in unison or anything, but there were hundreds of them! I had moments where I could not see either end of the lines. They kept filing down and I tried to surreptitiously take a fake selfie to actually document this alarming number of soldiers marching across the street, but they totally caught on and shouted out "Hello!" to us. That photo was a fail:
So then I tried another more obvious shot, but it's super dark and blurry:
If you look closely, those dark forms across the street are all soldiers. You can sort out of make out the shape of their heads…
Anyways - when I ran past them the following morning, I was on the same side of the street with no crosswalks to the other side, and had to go run in the edge of the road to get past them all. Since it was a) light out, and b) I was mere feet from them - they were much more obvious with their looking at me and shouting out things like, "Hey!" "Hello beautiful!" "I love you." in their accented English. Of course I did my best to pretend like I was not running past an entire army, just running in the road because I wanted to, and couldn't hear any voices either.
I really need to work on the whole acknowledging the opposite sex thing - but it's more than a little overwhelming to have to face hundreds of soldiers at once.
Goal for the year: have a real Korean male friend. Like a guy I can talk to instead of run away from. Those of you who have read my previous posts know - studying at a women's college for the summer in Seoul meant all my Korean friends are female…
Wait! This is the perfect segue for everyone's favorite - Funny Korean-English!
Since we were just talking about women, I should let you know of this restaurant's wonderful menu options:
Everyone knows that salads are of women and for women….
And this just looked terrible - though I'm sure it could "invigorate" me..
And to close I just have one quick story to share with you all. Again, those of you who have read previous posts probably recall my thrill of success with my first load of laundry in Korea.
Well.
I put one load in before this weekend, just a small one, put in some detergent in the right spot, pressed start after figuring out the buttons and it all started just fine. "Whew. Success," I thought. Oh no no no.
I come back after the 50 or so minutes, expecting my laundry to be all cleaned up and ready for the dryer. I only had about a 15 minute time slot to move my clothes to the dryer and then get lunch before our guest panel session began and never thought there could be a problem… low and behold. The washing machine door wouldn't open.
I pressed start again and it said there was 32 minutes left and some other random letters that surely meant there was some kind of problem. I just had no idea what that could be.
I pressed all the buttons.
No, really, I pressed all. the. buttons. It would not start again. It would not do anything at all actually.
I used my legs and tugged on that door. With all my mighty Gabby strength. That door would not open.
Defeated, I headed into the cafeteria to try and find our Korean RA who maybe could help me understand this washing machine myth. She told me she'd check it out and I should just sit and eat lunch quickly before the panels started. I sat down and ate quickly and restlessly waited for the news of my beloved laundry. It was an agonizing wait. Minutes felt like hours and a single tear slid down my cheek as I thought of that one T-shirt with that one pair of running shorts and allll those socks and underwear, awaiting their liberation from the clutches of the evil washing machine.
Warning - the above might be a slight dramatization.
In the end, my RA had to call some professional help (janitors) and after unplugging and restarting the machine (computer IT help anyone?) and getting something to pry the door open, they finally got my washing machine's door open. I was told this on my way to the panel. I did not have time to go back down to the laundry room. If we are late to any activities our teams loose points and we have a public shaming.
So, like the good girl I am, I went to all three panels. I abandoned my laundry to wait three more hours.
When I finally did get back down and I opened the machine door, I saw my small pile of laundry floating in some slightly soapy water at least a half a foot deep. Think this:
Except with less laundry and less soap and A LOT more water.
Haha sorry I can't help myself. Alot, more water!
If you don't know what this is, I command thee to go to:
Ahem. To make this simple story that became a long story, short: I saved my laundry from their sad pool of despair, washed them in a working machine, and everything from there was just hunky-dory.
I just spilled a lot (ALOT hehehe) of water all over the floor and nearly wiped-out just like Micia.
But I didn't. Because I'm just so cool like that.
Story-time 끝!
Thanks for reading this pretty long, doozy post! I have some more stories to share and I'll probably post again soon.
Gooooood niiiiiiight.
-Gaberoni
No comments:
Post a Comment