Living in I-House

On Tuesday, everybody was supposed to be moved into the dorms. Each day after Tuesday, I think I've been meeting an average of six new people each day. To help me remember everyone's name, I've been requesting for each person I meet to come up with a song to assist my memory. There have been some good ones: Nick from the USA gave me the old Nickelodeon theme song, Aeryoung from Korea gave me something I hadn't heard (but I didn't forget her name)...hmm...those two might be the only two that ever got back to me. I asked a ton of people and only these two obliged...I didn't realize that until right now.

Life in I-House has been very different. What I mean by that it is hard to have fun at I-House. There are some TVs that have English channels, but there are no DVD players. Some students have wires to connect their computers to the TVs, therefore making it possible to watch movies, but I only know one person that has that. I-House also has very bad sound insulation, so hanging out in someone's room requires loud whispers or quiet talking to avoid bothering other residents.

So where am I going with this? The only places that we can really hang out are: coffee shops, bars, clubs and restaurants. Put together dozens of international students on break from school, mix that with a desire to make new friends and the conclusion is that each night has several large groups of 10-15 international student heading out to dinner, followed by a bar (we often combine to form a bigger group) and sometimes concluded with a club. Since I moved into I-House a week ago, there has only been one night that I came back without alcohol in my system.

Keeping that in mind, there isn't too much else to say on February 23rd - 27th. On the 28th I was pretty excited about going to coffee with a new friend that I met the night before, but sadly she canceled on me. I was pretty disappointed, but enjoyed a quiet night inside.

Friday was my orientation for Ewha. I had a busy day on Friday! Judy, a student from PSU currently studying at Yonsei, made time to meet me for lunch at noon. But, I wanted to go on a campus tour before I met her, meaning that I had to go to the 10:30AM tour. And then, at 1:30PM, I had to be back at Ewha to start the actual orientation. That lasted for three hours, concluding with a dinner at 5PM.

Okay, with all that said, I need to mention what really had me stoked all day. I met Youna for coffee on Thursday and she told me that one of the English TV stations in Korea was joining orientation to interview international students and also spotlight Ewha's international program. I requested that she suggest for me to be interviewed!

I got to the 10:30AM tour gathering at the Office of Global Affairs. Sure enough, there were TV cameras roving around and talking to people. Youna hinted that I should wait until the 11AM tour so I can have time to talk to the camera, but also that the 11AM tour would have the camera following them. That decision was pretty easy and I could just leave the tour early if I was running late for my lunch with Judy. I was mingling around with everyone, talking about my former modeling and acting days, but the camera didn't interview me...actually, the camera didn't talk to a single American there. I was flanked by one French guy and one German guy and they both were interviewed! I was totally pissed!

But I wasn't mad for too long. On the tour, the guides demonstration the library system. To me, it was needlessly complex. In order to have a computer in the library lab, you need to use this computer to reserve a computer seat. The guides demonstrated and then the cameras asked for an international student to do it as well. Youna called me over for my close-up! I performed flawlessly. I checked out a seat, smiled for the camera and gave an interview about how easy it was afterwards. It was easy, just for the record, but the demand for those computers must be pretty high to have a system function like this.

There isn't too much to say on my lunch with Judy. We bought some kim bab...it was called "vegetable kim bab" which honestly made me think there wouldn't be much meat. That wasn't true because I am pretty sure that the vegetable kim bab has more meat than any other of the options. I had to pick it all out.

I made it back in time for registration and orientation. I got this really cool Ewha book bag and a t-shirt. The bag is so neat! I think I am mostly going to use this bag instead of my backpack for the term. Orientation was blisteringly boring. It took three hours to essentially read everything that was printed in our handbook. There were some highlights including a traditional Korean song performed by a campus club and some skits that helped lighten the mood. It also went slower because the presenters, although having strong command of English, could only talk as fast as Ben Stein. It ended with a wonderful dinner where I was interviewed a second time. The question I was asked was something like "how hard is it to be at a campus so different than your home campus and how comfortable do you feel here?"

At 6:30PM, the Ewha PEACE buddies were hosting a party at a local bar that included "free" drinks (with the $6 admission charge). It was pretty fun because there were so many of us there -- I would guess 70 of us in this tiny bar.

On Wednesday it was one of the American students' birthday and she turned 21. I started going around and letting people know we were going to be leaving to take her out to celebrate with us...I just didn't realize how effective that went. The bar we were at was closing at 10PM and we were gathering to leave at 9:30PM...somehow we pulled a good 45 people with us. Getting 45 people into a bar on Friday night proved difficult as four places rejected us. We kept walking around until our numbers dwindled to about 20 and we found a good place...sadly the birthday girl left shortly before we found a spot. She was more interested in hanging out at a club.

My classes start tomorrow. I've been invited to join a group (no idea how big) to go to a sauna tonight at some point. I am pretty excited for that because I've never been to a sauna like this.

Won't be too late tonight...my first Korean class starts at 8:30AM tomorrow...

And finally, after proofreading this, I need to make a quick point -- my English is getting worse here. Constantly being surrounded by people that make tiny grammatical mistakes, coupled with my inability to utilize the beauty of multisyllabic words, means that I can't hear complex English and I can't speak complex English. This is already showing in my writing as I had to proofread this entry a couple times...(did I really write "tomorrow starts my classes"?)