My Name is JIN YEONG.: Week 3

"THE 20S ARE LIKE the stem cell of human development, the pluripotent moment when any of several outcomes is possible. Decisions and actions during this time have lasting ramifications. The 20s are when most people accumulate almost all of their formal education; when most people meet their future spouses and the friends they will keep; when most people start on the careers that they will stay with for many years. This is when adventures, experiments, travels, relationships are embarked on with an abandon that probably will not happen again."

Is this what I'm doing in Korea?? I like to think I will look back on this time with many of those thoughts. So, What Is It About 20-Somethings? Check out the whole article. It's pretty interesting, and I have a feeling a lot of my 20-something friends can relate, at least on some level.

Well, it's now Week 3. Although I've technically only been here in Korea for 17 days and in my apartment/room (more on that later) for one week. It's safe to say that my sense of time is all messed up. It feels like it's been so long already, and we're not even one month in.

I feel like I've known the friends I made at orientation forever, and in reality, we spent less than 9 days together before we moved out on our own. I think we are all just clinging to one another in an attempt to feel normal, which I'm certainly not complaining about. Just for scale, after meeting Tara, we were sitting in my dorm room at orientation freaking out about whether we would be placed near each other and planning sleepovers in case we were far way. We had met 8 hours earlier. Yes. Best friends for life after a wonderful medical exam and lunch in the cafeteria. That's how it works here. I went to dinner with some of the girls last night at a Mexican restaurant at the Yeouido stop called Casa Loca, and for a second, I felt like I was back in America, hanging out at Plaza Tapatia.

This has been the first full week of school at Wolgye Elementary School, and I could not be happier that tomorrow is Friday. I have semi-started teaching, but I think my co-teacher is hesitant to let me take control. I can't blame her. She translates pretty much everything for the students so I'm not entirely sure how this will work for me. I think it will just be a learning game to find a sort of rhythm that works for us and a lesson planning style we both like. I think both of my co-teachers are open to letting me come up with my own lessons because they tell me to plan something, but then one wants to see a script which I don't really plan on making. Hopefully she'll realize that is just creating more work for the both of us. Other than that, I think I am lucky in the sense that I will actually be co-teaching in all of my classes rather than have a co-teacher who doesn't help me at all. I also get to teach a parent's class and an after-school reading class with only a few of the smarter students so I think those will probably end up being my favorite.

I just realized this is a super boring post, but I promise I have some interesting stuff to write about next time. For now, here are some pictures I snapped on the first day of my tiny studio apartment/officetel. It's definitely not spacious by any means, but it is home now. It is beginning to feel more comfortable, and I am sure to acquire more things to make it feel like mine.

Shoe closet when you walk in. I guess it's probably a good thing I don't have all my shoes bc they would never fit in here.. and it is a shoes off Korean household.