Today was almost non-stop. It was breakfast, class, lunch, workshops, Taekwondo (TKD), dinner, GLEE, gym. I started at 8am and ended at around 9pm... It was exhausting, not because I was physically straining my bodies but because I was mentally working and paying attention all day.
I'm in the Beginner Korean class with nine other ETAs and our class consists of four hours each day with ten minute breaks every hour. Today we spent the entire day (all four hours) on learning the sounds and phonetics of Hangul, the Korean alphabet. My voice hurt by the end. We then scarfed down lunch and had three and a half hours of workshops about classroom management. They were actually really helpful but just exhausting since we were further sitting for the entire period and listening. Like I've been noticing earlier, I really think Fulbright does a great job making the overall experience not overwhelming. We're learning everything slowly and really adjusting to the new life at a reasonable rate. I'm very happy with everything. Listening to the two current ETAs talk about management styles and strategies was interesting because I haven't put that much thought into it yet. But I got a lot of pointers and I'm hoping to really implement them when I get my class. It's really exciting thinking about it.
Since it ended pretty late, I had to go straight to TKD, which was actually another presentation about the history and practice of TKD. We won't start actually practicing it until tomorrow and our uniforms come Thursday. I'm pretty excited about that too since it'll be a good workout and a new experience.
GLEE was also pretty cool. I didn't get a chance to meet a lot of people since the ETAs definitely outnumbered the Korean students but I did get to meet some. We played a Charades of sorts. We got into groups and competed against the other teams.
Later on in the night, I went into the lounge at 10pm because I thought we were going to continue our K-Pop routine but Caden was busy with RA stuff. I ended up playing Banana Grams which is honestly just an expensive version of Speed Scrabble.
As much as I'd like to reflect more and not merely recount off the events of the day, I am extremely tired (from this long day) and know that I have to rest up for tomorrow. Apparently, it will be a repeat of today, except I won't have GLEE. Instead, it's replaced by my one-on-one with Leslie. This really is like I'm back at Michigan all over again.
Oh and one of the other ETAs created a 360degree tour of Jungwon University, where we are living for Orientation.
http://www.vanarsdalephoto.com/jungwontour/tour.html
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