Home Is Where the Heart Is

...and mine is in Korea. To tell the truth, I was worried before I came back. Everyone (oh, nebulous Everyone, cousin to They!) told me that it's different when you're not a missionary, that I would find it very different and not to be disappointed. Plus, this time around I'm not in Seoul. Nope, this time I'm in a "small city" of only 700,000 people. (I keep trying to convince Koreans that this is, in fact, quite a large city, but they don't buy it.)




But to tell the truth, I'm more in love than I was the first time. Well, by the end of the first time. Of course it's different when I'm not a missionary, but everything I love about Korea is still the same -- the food, the people, the culture, plus, this time around I get to add in an obsession: dramas! And noraebangs! (Basically, it's private karaoke where you only have to sing in front of your friends.) And, I don't have to walk around all day in the summer heat, so that's definitely an improvement. The truth is, in some ways I feel more comfortable and at home in Korea than I do in the States. I'm not sure why that is, exactly, but maybe it's because somehow I blend into the rhythm of life better. Maybe it's because I blatantly stick out that I feel more like I fit in. I don't know. I just know I love it here.

I wish I had some pictures to post, but my camera has pretty much bitten the dust. (This is in addition to my computer and my iPod. This is not a good year for my electronics.) So instead I'll just write a little bit about what's going on right now.

I'm in Jeonju, South Korea, studying at Chonbuk National Unversity. I get up every morning around 645, get ready for the day and eat the (very hearty) breakfast my 이모 (it means "aunt") makes for me, then head out around 750. I catch the bus about 805, make it to the classroom by about 830, and have four hours of classes starting at 900. There are three classes, beginning, intermediate, and advanced; I'm in the advanced class. For the first two hours we have 유승섭 선생님 (Professor Yoo Seung-seop), who is our grammar teacher; for the last two hours, we have 이숙정 선생님 (Professor Lee Sook-jeong) for speaking and listening. She's pretty much the bomb. I want to grow up to be just like her. On Friday afternoons and Monday mornings, instead of our regular class we have 김병용 선생님 (Professor Kim Byeong-yong), who is...well, he's supposed to be our writing teacher, but he mostly just lectures for two hours about whatever he wants, then gives us massive, ugly, really-difficult-even-for-Koreans articles to translate into English.

At one pm, we let out for lunch, then have the rest of the day to do homework (this is Korea, after all, the land of much homework and constant studying). We also meet with our peer tutors. Mine is particularly awesome. Her name is 김경숙 (Kim Kyung-sook), and she's a year younger than me so she calls me 언니 (the term for a girl's older sister) and we're not actually friends by Korean standards (only people the same age can be "friends" -- everyone else is a "close [fill in the appropriate relationship term here]"), but we are good friends in the American way of looking at it. I usually come home in the evening around 1900, sometimes earlier and sometimes later, depending on what activities we had in addition to class that day. My family -- my 이모, my little sister, 민경 (Min-kyung), and my little brother, 준영 (Jun-young). I do have a dad, but he lives and works in Seoul during the week and only comes home on weekends; since I've been gone every weekend except the first one, I haven't seen him in about three weeks. But we're going on a family trip this weekend, to Seoul, to a waterpark, so that will be fun. Anyway, after dinner (which is very yummy; my 이모 says she's not a good cook, but all the food is wonderful), we usually do homework, watch TV (DRAMAS!!!!! In real-time in KOREA!), tease each other, ask various language questions, or I get quizzed on my day. It's a very relaxed, family atmosphere. I'm getting spoiled, too, because my 이모 does everything and won't let me help. It's very different from my family, that's for sure. But not bad. ;)

Next post: my cool adventure in 부산 (Busan) and some more about what I'm doing.