Year 2 시작하자!

Let's start year two of this Fulbright thing! Woohoo!

Some updates: I have not been blogging regularly for the past month because I have been on vacation. I spent four weeks in the US, attended two weddings, did some grad school research, caught up with old friends and made some new ones, and didn't think about Korea at all. (Well, that's not strictly true. I kept up with Korean news and wrote regularly in my Korean blog. But I didn't study Korean or watch any K-dramas, as I had planned to. I also didn't eat any Korean food, plentiful as it is in the Bay Area.)

About three days ago, I packed my bags and hopped on a plane from San Francisco to Seoul. A nice old 아줌마 sitting next to me decided that I would be her conversation partner for the final two hours of the flight. She thought that I was a Korean-American and first asked me where in Korea my parents were from. Later, she talked to me about her life. A Korean teacher in Osh, Kyrgyzstan who hails from Gwangju, she rambled about her experiences during the Gwangju Democratization Movement and the Kyrgyz Revolution of 2010, and I understood about 50% of what she was saying. I've gotten good at nodding and smiling at the right times when someone is speaking to me in Korean on the assumption that I know what they are saying. That said, it was an interesting conversation.

From the airport in Incheon, I took a bus to Cheongju and then another bus to Goesan, where the forty second- or third-year Fulbright ETAs joined this academic year's new crop of teachers (numbering eighty, for a total of 120) at the tail end of their six-week Orientation. I got to know a handful of them, although between their packed schedule and my travel fatigue, not much socialization was to be had. However, I did spend a lot of time catching up with ETAs from my year, and we played lots of Bananagrams and Contact. (All of the new ETAs now know me as the guy who loves word games, since I was the answer to one of the questions -- "This second-year ETA loves word games such as Bananagrams and Contact" -- during Quiz Night. I am okay with this.)

After about a day and a half of this bite-sized Orientation, it was time for Departure Day. Everything ran exactly the same as last year's D-Day, only this year it was blazing hot instead of raining buckets. Also, this year I didn't even bother to say too many goodbyes, knowing that it isn't really goodbye, because it's so easy to visit my friends in other cities. I guess the real farewells were for some members of this year's Orientation Committee who are not renewing their contracts. Leslie, Ashlee, and Anthony are going back to the US, and I'll miss them a lot! But for everyone else, it was just, "Hope your apartment's nice, and see you soon!"

Speaking of which, my apartment is really nice! It's small, to be sure, but has basically everything I need. I've got a fridge, a two-burner stove, a desk, a bed, a closet, and a kitchen table in two rooms, plus a bathroom and a laundry room with my own washing machine. Also, my school provided me with a lot of appliances and living essentials, so I don't have to buy very much! I already have utensils, cookware, a rice cooker, hangers, and more toilet paper than I think I'll ever need. They even got me a freaking convection oven! It's so big it takes up more than half of the kitchen table. I know those cookies I baked for everyone last semester had something to do with this exorbitant investment...

I'm really, really thankful that my school has taken such good care of me. They definitely didn't need to buy me an oven! But they do have money, and they apparently like me enough to spend it on me. Rent is 500,000KRW a month, which is about $450. It's a bit above average for a place like this, but I'm not complaining -- my school is taking care of the rent. I'm responsible for utilities -- gas, water, and electricity. There's no Internet, so I'm using my phone as a WiFi hotspot and tethering my laptop to it. I'll have to check to make sure this doesn't cause me to go over my monthly data plan. And lastly, the apartment building is a mere five minutes' walk away from my school.

Good deal all around. I'm fortunate and happy.

So, what's next? I will spend the weekend preparing for my first classes on Monday and catching up with some friends in the city. I also haven't quite finished unpacking, and there are some household items I still have to buy, like a fan and a laundry hamper. And food. Food would be nice. In fact, it's 2:30pm and I haven't even eaten lunch yet. I think I'll do that now. Bye!

Departure Day

It has been one week since Departure Day, or D-Day as most of us have referred to it. D-Day was last Wednesday, when Fulbright Orientation came to an end and all 120 (or so) of this year's Fulbright teachers gathered only to be scattered to all different parts of the country.

It was very much like Placement Day, but this time all of the returning ETAs (those who have renewed their grants for a second or third year) were with us. And in the audience, in addition to our OCTs and the Fulbright Office staff, were hundreds of teachers, principals, and vice-principals from our schools, who had traveled hours to tiny little Goesan to meet us and bring us to our new homes and schools.

The night before was a frenzy of packing and reminiscing on the six awesome weeks of Orientation. I took the opportunity to play some final games of Contact, Bananagrams, and Pirate Scrabble. On the morning of, people seemed a bit quieter than usual, but otherwise it felt like any other day -- mediocre breakfast at the Jungwon cafeteria included.

But then everyone got dressed up, and everyone started bringing out their luggage, and then everyone started bringing out their cameras to take photos, and then it hit me that everything was about to change.

The ceremony was quick. Lots of ETAs were given flowers from their co-teachers and school administrators, including almost everyone in Jeollonam-do. We then ate lunch with the people from our school, not in Jungwon's sorry cafeteria, but in a super-fancy (and predictably ostentatiously decorated) banquet restaurant in the university guest house. Where was all that good food hiding all summer?

After lunch, there was so little time left before the school staffers' meeting with the Fulbright Office was over and everyone started disappearing left and right for their placements. It definitely felt a lot like the aftermath of Commencement, just a few months ago. Everyone was everywhere, it was loud and hot and people were fairly emotional... Also, it was raining, hard. Symbolic much? I just wanted to leave quickly before it got overwhelming.

And so I did, and my co-teacher Saerona and I drove out of Goesan (we had some trouble with our GPS; I think there's been a lot of recent road construction around our tiny town) and south for three hours until we arrived in Changwon. My new home for a year. Here in Changwon, the real adventures have begun!

A fraction of the D-Day photos I took. Center: I met another Swattie! Melinda Neal '11, who is renewing her Fulbright grant for a second year in Jeonju. Left, from top to bottom: Ryan and Rachel, my Gyeongsangnam-do (경상남도) buddies! (We are the smallest provincial group of all of this year's ETAs.); Andrea and Hana, reppin' the greater Philly area (Swat, Bryn Mawr, and Villanova); Tracey, the first ETA I met and my trans-Pacific traveling buddy; Kelly, fellow lover of the liberal arts discourse. Right, from top to bottom: Jet, my awesome roommate who's teaching his middle school boys in Daegu how to dougie; Sara, my ukulele-and-Ultimate-playing friend; and Katelyn and Jason, fellow Pokémon Masters. I hope to be able to visit all of my friends around the country this year!