Way-gook-in' it up in Korea!: Ordering delivery food in Korean!

So today was a big day: Korean quiz in the morning and teaching in the afternoon.

The quiz went OK. I know I made at least one stupid mistake: one question asked what I was eating and I read it as drinking, even though I know the difference between those verbs! Oh well! :-) After the quiz, class was so hard. I think because my brain was mush from all the studying and lesson-prepping I did yesterday. We covered lots of vocab and I felt more lost than I have ever in class so far. :-( Oh well, hopefully I'll pick up the new words soon!

I scarfed down lunch than hurried back to the classroom building to set up for my lesson about farms. The students seemed to really like my lesson! Especially learning the different sounds the animals make compared to those in Korea. The ad-lib got a little boring when we were sharing them at the end, but overall I think the students had fun! I really enjoyed when we did the animal sounds game. ^_^ The teacher told me that I spoke "way too fast", but I feel like most of them stuck with me throughout the lesson... but I've learned that most of the Korean students are very good at faking that they know what is going on until you ask them a question that actually makes them think. It will be hard not to just go at the pace of the best students, who sit in front and answer all your questions! Something I'll have to work on... Other than that, the teacher thought my lesson material was excellent.

After class I went with several other people who taught that day to Baskin Robbins to celebrate. Today I chose a mint chocolate chip to ease the heat of the day. The cold/rainy disappeared, at least for yesterday and today. Let me tell you, lugging around my ancient HEAVY laptop to class in the heat was not too much fun. But the ice cream was amazing! Then it was time to start studying and doing the relatively large amount of Korean homework we had tonight.

I ended up ordering dinner tonight instead of going to the cafeteria! A few of us decided we wanted "Chinese" noodles (ja-jang-myang: similar to the "black noodles" that I often ate at school from the Asian grocery store in Peoria). The orientation leaders decided that they would help us order, but that we actually had to call it in! So I volunteered to be the caller, and I ordered food for 7 people! They wrote it all out, then I said it on the phone, and then Charles (Korean-American) confirmed that I had indeed ordered the right food...which I had! The man had understood my very slow Korean! Success!!! ^_^ That made me feel sooo good! And the noodles were amazing! And to top it off, they only cost 3000w ($3) for a big bowl delivered! I thought the delivery was really interesting -- they bring it in a metal case/shelf thing on the back of a moped and there are actual heavy-duty plastic plates and bowls. They then return later to collect the dirty dishes! That way there is minimal paper waste: only the wooden chopsticks and saran wrap used to cover the dishes. By the way, wooden chopsticks feel so foreign to me now! Korea uses flat metal chopsticks. Also, I have become quite the chopstick expert in the past 3 weeks! It's amazing what hunger will help you accomplish. :-)

After supper I headed off to Calligraphy class. Only a few of us showed up tonight. It was very relaxing as usual. At the end I got to make a bamboo tree instead of just the usual letter tracing. After that I took a short walk with Anne, Matt, and Yoonmi (our Korean RA) and then STUDIED STUDIED STUDIED and did my homework. I need to spend lots of time studying these next 2 weeks, which are our last of Korean class here at orientation. Our final exam is a week from Friday! I've set a goal for myself: to study Korean 1.5 hours every weekday once I'm at my homestay. If I can learn everything in my textbook by the end of the year, I will be satisfied with my language abilities! So, there it is: my official goal.

Have a great Monday everyone!!!