12:00 Had my medical exam today, and they didn't want us to eat anything until afterward. I was planning to sleep in, but I was wide awake at 5 AM and I had to live in the Thirst Dimension again for 6 hours until the exam was over.
The medical exam was actually a great chance to meet people. I had a bit of a conversation with an older Korean lady who drew my blood, and it was awesome. She understood about every 10th word I said, and I understood about every 10th word she said. She told me to make a jumok(주먹) or "fist" and I told that I knew how to say "blood" in Korean. My preschool-level vocabulary is scoring brownie points for me! :-)
Seaweed and tofu soup for lunch was good, but I can't get use to this purple radish dish. It looks like melon and tastes like pickle, so I steer clear of it in the food line and go for kimchi instead.
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9:30 PM : My afternoon classes were great! One man did a 90-minute presentation on how to make your English comprehensible to your students. Mainly, you need to vary your pitch a lot as if you're reading a story to another person. Your tone and pitch give the students lots of verbal cues that help convey your meaning. He was very funny, too, which was much appreciated among a group of 50 jetlagged people striving to stay awake.
The second presentation was on After School Classes and Summer and Winter English camps--more on that in the future, but suffice it to say that regular classtime is dictated by the textbook while afterschool and vacation classes can be personalized by the teacher, which is what I enjoy most, designing a class.
I've discovered that the jet lag hits hardest between 3 and 6 PM. During parts of the lectures, even though I was riveted by the subject matter, I had a hard time staying alert and upright. Then after a few hours, I was fine. The tired feeling just dissolves.
Had my first Korean language class tonight. We took a placement test yesterday and I was somehow put in the advanced class. The entire class was in Korean. The teachers broke into English about 5% of the time when we needed an explanation, but it was a very heavy learning experience. In my class of 14-ish people, 10 of them requested to be moved down to Intermediate tomorrow. I told the teacher I want to stay because I like difficult things and I enjoyed the whole class very much.
I think being in the way-too-advanced-for-me Korean class will help me understand my students, too. By seeing what cues help me understand my teachers, I'll know how to make myself understood.
My teachers asked us what our favorite Korean food was and why, and I said gimbap because it's similar to sushi. Then they asked us what our "ideal type" was and I said someone with a good speaking voice because I couldn't remember the words for intelligent or funny. Then we got asked our blood type, because in Korea they have ideas about how your blood type affects your personality. I was one of the only people who knew their blood type. Mine is O, which according to the PowerPoint presentation, means I am social, active, glib and curious, yet disorganized. When asked what kind of food is popular in my hometown, I said bacon which is still "bacon" in Korean, then I tried to Koreanize it by calling it miguk-samgyeopsal (American grilled pork?). When asked why I picked Korea to travel to, I couldn't even remember the word for "learn" so I broke down into English and said because of the good community spirit.
And now I must sleep, though I want to study Korean for a few hours, just so I can show my teachers how sincere I am! I'm really longing to make a good impression in class.
Side note: I may be developing an addiction to orange juice. It flows freely here and is almost as common as water, so I've had two bottles a day since arriving. My vitamin C levels are so high, I will never fall prey to scurvy. Not that that was likely to happen in any case.
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