October

October was very busy! At the beginning of the month I moved into a new apartment with 4 other girls. This week we moved everyone else into a new apartment, and the moving should be all finished now. It’s pretty tiring to do moving for a few hours in the morning and then go to work and have a full day of teaching, but we all did it and now we’re in these great new apartments. It’s such a blessing to be in a nice apartment that really feels like home. The girls I live with are wonderful and it’s so much fun to not come home to any empty house.

My weekends have been very social. Since getting my cell phone, it’s been easier to more confidently explore Seoul and meet up with friends. One of my new friends is Jieun, a girl who is close friends with Minsun, who was on my hall when I was a Community Advisor in the dorms at EMU. Another new friend is Saeran, a Korean girl I met at the Japanese church. Saeran and I have met for language exchange (Korean/English), and it’s so nice that we can speak Japanese with each other, too. I’ve also made some friends from my Saturday Korean class, both with students and with some of the assistant teachers. A few weekends ago we went to a “dobokki” festival. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tteokbokki)

With Jieun, at a Mexican restaurant

Sarah and I with Andi and Tristen, teachers at our Korean class

I also cherish the friendships I have made with my co-workers and roommates. It is so much fun to just sit around with my roommates and talk. We are so comfortable with each other that it’s like talking with my sisters. At work, it’s so fun to be able to easy communicate with my co-workers and joke around. It’s very easy to communicate because the other teachers are native English speakers and we’re pretty similar to each other in many ways. Someday I do want to work in a more Korean work environment, as it will help me learn the language and culture more quickly and completely, but for right now I’m  content in my situation.

With Kate and Abby, some of my roommates

I continue to enjoy studying Korean so much. I study when I wake up, and I study in the evening. Even I am amazed with my motivation to hit the books- I worked hard at Japanese, but I didn’t spend this much of my spare time studying Japanese, especially with textbooks and vocabulary memorization. I don't get a lot of speaking or listening practice because I’m in such an English-dominated environment, but I try to seek out opportunities and on the weekends meeting with my Korean friends in very helpful. I’m also taking time now to learn a lot of vocabulary and work on my writing. In October, I wrote in a Korean journal every day, and I hope to keep that up. I found a website where I can submit what I wrote and native speakers check it in exchange for me checking what they wrote in English. That also gives me practice typing in Korean, which is totally different from typing in English or Japanese. I also often go to the silent study room in the library with Sarah. You need your library card to enter this room, and you get a special assigned seat from a machine before you enter. It’s an interesting environment, with lots of intense university students doing complicated math problems or reading textbooks. 

My phonics class

My teaching continues to go well. I still have a lot to learn, especially because I'm teaching in a different setting than I had been, but I find my job so fulfilling and enjoyable. I don't think I want to teach young children for the rest of my life, but I'm enjoying it now, and it also helps that the class sizes are small. I can't imagine teaching thirty 5-year-olds, but I can handle 3. This month I will get 3 new students and lose one because he's moving.

I'm still visiting different churches and not sure where I want to go, but I keep going back to the Japanese church. The service is bilingual, in Japanese and Korean, so it's easier for me than just Korean. I really like the people there. It's also been a really blessing for me to have weekly English bible studies with my roommates and other women in the community. I feel like I'm getting some healing and inner restoration.