Orientation - opening ceremonies

            The first day of orientation has felt like it’s contained an entire week. I lied about the jet lag – it hit me like a tidal wave the moment I left the cafeteria from lunch and I’ve been in a fog ever since.

I started the day off a weird shower:

I've used this kind of shower before at my host mom's in Spain so it wasn't entirely unfamiliar but still a bit of a challenge keeping my pile of clothes drive since you pretty much hose down the whole bathroom. Oh, and here's the rest of the dorm:

We're messy :/

            First thing this morning was our tour – in my usual style, I barely skidded into the midst of my group before they departed. They started by separating the vegetarians from the rest of the group to get special stickers put on our nametag – a strawberry with the Korean word for “eating disorder” written on it for all I could tell. During that time, I met Eilidh from Scotland who I’d talked to a little bit online beforehand.  We made jokes about them singling out the vegetarians so they could send us home first.

The tour went fairly quickly since there were only two buildings to show and, afterward, I attached myself to Eilidh and a girl from London, Ayesha. We wandered down the streets until we came across a nice little coffee shop and ducked in. It was nice to relax a bit before lunch since we have a long week of classes to look forward to. Ayesha is a Pakistani from London and comes from a Muslim family so it was interesting to compare the similarities and differences between our religious backgrounds. Part of the conversation dipped into UK politics and vacations to neighboring countries – all of which was over my head. They were surprised to hear that I’d only been outside the country 3 times and that most Americans don’t own a passport. Ayesha is mildly cynical and prefers sitting in the corner smoking cigarettes and judging passersby over surface-level mingling. I decided I liked her. Eilidh is more of a social butterfly but in a genuine and quirky way. The more excited she gets, the harder she is to understand. On our way back we found this rad spider:

Not an awesome picture - he was camera shy

We went to lunch together and sat outside afterwards so the other two girls could have a smoke.  After that I was inadvertently adopted into the UK clan when a few other English kids gathered round. I somehow felt the need to keep my mouth shut so they wouldn’t catch on that there was a Yank in their midst. When I got over my insecurity and was asked where I was from, I told them Utah. They had no clue where that was so I told them "Breaking Bad". Close enough and they all nodded knowingly.

The opening ceremonies were after lunch and involved a very cool Taekwondo presentation. I took one picture (and not a very good one):

 and then got sucked into the show. These kids were doing backflips while breaking multiple board with a  series of kicks and all sorts of crazy moves while playing drums and dancing to hip-hop. I felt like a slug next to them. Then we heard from Walter Foreman, a Canadian who’s lived and worked in Korea for over 15 years and talked to us about some of the cultural differences we might encounter, after which we were hearded off to our classrooms.

I met a few of the guys from our group. They were really funny and we exchanged some US vs. Canada banter. I’ve met more kids from Toronto than anywhere else here. Our class was entertaining mostly because the Gangwon kids are such a lively bunch. Our class president wasn’t elected like all the other classes but, rather, strutted to the front of the class upon hearing there would be a class president, gave his election speech, and sat down to some confused but enthusiastic applause. We may have a dictator on our hands.

Our teachers are two very sweet Korean girls who struggle a bit with English so we really have to strain to understand them. They explained that the most commonly spoken language in the world is “broken English” and we’d better get used to it since we were about to become a part of that community.

            I ate dinner with Eilidh and David from Manchester, England. Halfway through we all kind of shut down from the intense jet lag and agreed that we should all call it an early night since we have medical exams in the morning. I might not blog much til I get to Gangwon since it’s going to be a busy week (maybe not even then since I won’t have internet in my apartment for about a month).  Good night!