Quail Eggs

This morning for practice I was deceived by these little grey balls mixed with our beef, thinking it was steak and potatoes I scooped one up and put it my mouth and was disgusted to find out I had just eaten a rubbery small egg from a quail. For those of you who don't know this about me, I am really freaked out by eggs. Despite that one drawback I had a pretty good day.

We did 4 hours of Korean class followed by lunch then an hour seminar on "camp fulbright" which is an english camp we put on for 2 of the 6 weeks we are here to train for teaching english. We just went over the schedule that we will have during that time period. After that we had a break to get dressed up for Jai Ok Shim to come and talk to us (she is the executive director of fulbright korea) and it was alright, she had some interesting points and it was nice to finally see her but the whole thing was a little stuffy. After that we had dinner which actually included fried chicken so that was pretty funny. I had a one-on-one talk with one of the OCs about how I was adjusting [turns out I'm adjusting well derrr.] then to a "supplemental" talk about the fulbright 15, staying fit in Korea. Supplemental means optional but we think they call them supplemental talks so that more people will show up because they think it's mandatory. I got to talk to Chris for the first time on the phone today which was nice and then I went for a walk with Lucy and we scooped out the place we plan on doing yoga tomorrow morning (the veranda over looking the mountains, how guru is THAT!?!?) and it seems like a lot of girls are interested so it should be very fun. I'm sure some boys would be interested too but we haven't invited them yet. Tomorrow is our first try so we'll see how that goes... will keep you posted with some pictures hopefully :)

Last Night

Hey everyone,

last night after the language announcements we had to meet on the Veranda for a Global Language Exchange meeting with Korean students at Jungwon University and at first I was very tired and no one really wanted to do it but it was "mandatory" so we all went. I talked to a lot of Koreans and am thinking about joining the club but the only thing is that taekwondo is everyday and "GLEE" (I forget what the other E is for) is three times a week, the times don't overlap but it would still be a lot I think. It was really fun then afterwards we all went into the "town" and had some drinks at the bar and it was seriously a trip down memory lane because I felt like I was back in Seoul again doing all the same games. Essentially, it was amazing. I am totally in my comfort zone here and I can't wait to learn and do more.

Yesterday the OCs were talking to us about what their past years in Korea have been like and I was amazed at how excited I was to be doing all the same things that they do. This morning we have four hours of Korean language and then lunch then a seminar about the Korean educational system.

Keeping you informed!

Clare

2nd Day on Campus

Good Morning!!!!

This morning I woke up at 7am, fully rested but wanting coffee. It seems like I got an amazing sleep compared to most people (I went to bed at like 9:30 then woke up at 7 while other people were either up at 4:30-5 or woke up every hour). What can I say, I'm a pro. My roommate and I went down for lunch and I met another rower!!!!! Unfortunately I can't remember her name but she was born in Korea and grew up in Maui. pretty baller. After breakfast there was an optionalhangeul (Korean language) review but Leslie and I skipped it and walked aroundcampus which was amazinnnngggg. There is a golf course and mountains and a garden and a pond and a weird likerock thing. Another kid came up and was taking pictures and he climbed up it but usually in Korea you're not just allowed to walk around on the grass or climb on things they're just kind of for looking so Leslieand I didn't follow him but I did get a good picture which should probably be his next profile picture. While Leslie and I were walking around wealso saw a garden/pond that had dinosaur sculptures and fake plastic geese. The University itself looks like a huge penitentiary. I feel like I'm at a sparesort with all the facilities they have except that it is a University. The OCT which are the people who used to be ETAs but then came back for a year and are running the program (who I think talk to us like little Korea children, which I LOVE cough cough) call it the "marble mansion". It is pretty confusing finding places but I successfully lead a group to breakfast today. woohoo! Breakfast was not the same as it was at Korea University in that it was pretty much the same thing that we had for lunch yesterday and I have a feeling it's going to get old pretty fast (like, fast as in it's already old). I really like Korean food but I am also a dry cereal with fruit and coffee kind of girl. They don't serve coffee at breakfast butluckily there is aconvenient store where I can by a thingof iced coffee. Leslie and I ended our walk at the botanical garden and the pond that Leslie is standing in front of.

After our walk we had to go to a "Korea Language Program Opening Ceremony and Language Placement Test" and I almost PEED MY PANTS because I was SO EXCITED because KOREA UNIVERSITY is going to be teaching us!!! They sent teachers to Jungwon University (none of which were my old teacher) to come teach us Korea and then at the end of the course we are GOING BACK TO KOREA UNIVERSITY!!!!!!!!! AKLDJFALDJFALKDJFALDKJFADF I'm so happy. seriously I am, I almost started crying. Maybe not but I was pretty dang excited. So that will happen at the end of the program and I CANNOT W

AIT. I'm getting excited Just thinking about it. I took the test which was the same exact one that we took when getting to Korea University where I have improved from witting a smiley face to an introduction about myself but then i was sent to the interview where I was like holy crap I don't know what this lady is saying so after a lot of misunderstanding and me apologizing I just started speaking all the random phrases that I knew but she kept trying to ask questions to elaborate and I was like meanheyo I give up. So we'll see where THAT gets me. hahaha. the good thing is I'M NOT GRADED!! except personally. and because I am highly motivated I am convinced I will do awesomely. Plus Leslie has been impressed with my random Korean so far so I'm not too worried about it.

I wanted to end with a picture of the dinosaurs which were right by the pond and to the right of these was the door to the botanical garden.

Welcome back to the wonderful travels of ClareHubbard in South Korea. Sorry to disappoint you all but I did not get on the wrong bus and essentially nothing bad happened to me except that the internet isn’t working for me but by the time all of that gets figured out it should be wor

king. I actually just got email but for some reason the internet quit again once I tried to find my blog. I am trying hard not to remember what time it is at home but I haven’t changed my computer’s clock yet and it’s 1:01am.

So far I have flown from Detroit to Chicago then in Chicago at the gate I recognized some girls from the facebook eta group and went over to say hi. I ended up sitting next to Lucy from West Virginia and we talked for the four hour plane ride. She will also be teaching early education like I am but she majored in it at college (West Virginia Weslyan). I also met Ashlee who played softball at Depauw (sp?) and Leslie who is Korean American and went to Knox. In LAX we met up with a whole bunch more ETAs and sat down for a big dinner then all sat at the gate together where we were bused out to our plane. On the plane I sat next to two Korean women and across the aisle was Ken, another Fulbright eta.

When we FINALLY got to Inchon customs and getting bags went by quickly but then we had to sit around waiting for the luggage truck (this was at 4:45am Korean time) then had to load everyone’s luggage. I met a bunch more people (obviously) including a boy named Charlie who used to row for some University I don’t remember where; Liza who went to Northwestern and is Leslie’s roommate; Elizabeth who is from New Mexico; Lisa who has a Korean grandmother but doesn’t look remotely Korean; and my roommate Ekatrina (riddle me that) who was born in Russia and then came over to the United States when she was 8... funny how both my roommates in Korea have been born in Russia.

On the bust ride (3 hours) I sat next to Leslie and we talked a lot but were both motion sick as well. I finally got to the dorm and my roommates bus was delayed because one of the kids got on the wrong bus and the other bus lost track of him for like an hour. Our shower is attached to our sink and is not a separate part of the bathroom there is just a drain in the middle of the room, which makes it super difficult to be clean about it.

We just had lunch and right now I am about to go on a tour of the campus. I will add pictures later!

Love,

Clare

Here are some pictures that I would like to add. Also, I'm sorry because even as I am writing I can tell how bland this post is, I think it has something to do with my exhaustion. In the 3 hour meeting that we had right after lunch we were told that we could not say anything bad about Fulbright and the program in anyway on blogs. This is a disclaimer that you won't be hearing me saying anything nasty... at least about the program. In the meeting we talked about rules, did some basic Korean culture and some short phrases. We did meet the ETAs bingo which is an activity I was not looking forward to because it means you have to get up and introduce yourself to everyone even though we were all exhausted. We also had to take pictures which will be given to anyone in the Fulbright program and be posted online. Something fun that has happened though is that Lucy, Leslie, Liza (Leslie's roommate) and I have signed up for Taekwando so I am super excited about that. Leslie and I are also doing a Korean cooking class. Leslie is fluent in Korean and during our tour the guide was too petrified to speak English so Leslie had to translate for our group it was pretty funny then we had dinner, got our fulbright tee shirts and went to our rooms. I hung out in Liza and Leslie's room and talked to them for a while mostly about the test we have to take tomorrow that will put us in our Korean classes. My goal tonight is to stay up until 10pm... hour and fifteen minutes to go!!

**Disclaimer: Photos were being weird but way too tired to figure out how to place them other places. The one of the pool is the view from my window and that pool is one of four pools on the campus... so far I have found 3. There is also a picture of my bathroom where the shower is that thing from the sink. Another picture is showing the divide in the room and Ekatrina is in it exiting my side and going onto her side. There is also another picture of just my part of the room where the closet is at the foot of my bed.

I have decided to take a break from my studies and give you...
Interesting Korean Fun Fact of the Day!!!
Did you know that the Christmas holiday in Korea is celebrated mostly by couples and New Years is celebrated by families? Interesting switcharoo, they don't even get christmas trees! The missionaries obviously didn't do a very good job on this peninsula. And that's your Korea fun fact of the day.

Yesterday was good I woke up and I spent the day with Caitlyn and the two Italian girls in the study room. We ordered a pizza and let me tell you , it was the most difficult pizza I've ever ordered. First we tried to call dominos then they just were not being helpful at all then we tried to order online except there was a pay pal thng and it just wasn't going to happen so finally we went to the front desk and they tried to order and as Iwas at the front desk I looked down and I saw a package sitting on the desk for ME! from poppa, these crazy skittles that were good and so I shared with everyone in the lobby including the girl working behind the desk and the security gaurd. The skittles held us off for a while until finally the pizza man came up the CJ hill on his scooter and delivered the pizza, we ordered 2 large pizzas and 4 1.5 liter cokes (we didn't know the cokes would be that big) It was very satisfying. Then we went to dinner with another girl named Anna and her boyfriend had just sent her flowers which was very nice then we went out for drinks at a couple places and went to a club. I got back at 5am then we woke up and caitlyn and I came to davinci with ed and we had bagels and coffee and then ed left and barbar and thi kim came and we sat studying and had various exchange students come and talk to us for a while after they saw us in the window. Kurt came in and made me feel bad about myself because he has already written a couple pages for the 6 page paper due December 15thhhh and Henri came in and he's in our class too but now we are finishing up studying and are going to get barbeque at the pork place. I'm looking forward to a quiet night because even though I was going to go to see some live music and various clubs with Isabella but she doesn't feel well and that's ok with me because I'm pretty tired. In davinci there is a christmas tree and I kind of forgot that christmas trees come with christmas but now that I have been reminded I'm pretty excited for the christmas tree at home. I also realized that I haven't thought about my turtle bruce in a while but now that I am thinking about him more im pretty excited to play with him when I get back!!!

Hey everyone! sorry it's been so long, I hope you all enjoyed your thanksgiving turkeys. I had a good weekend, we had a KUBA party and all the foreign exchange students and their various KUBA buddies were all packed into a Korean club. The boys on the KUBA staff dressed up in dresses and wigs and did a dance to a popular k-pop song. classic. Then on Saturday night a boy who was visiting Alex who goes to University of Pittsburg came to visit from Japan and Alex had a date so he dumped his friend with Barbara and I so we went out with him and he was pretty nice but kind of weird. He came to visit Korea for a starcraft video gaming thing? I don't know and he was showing us "sticky pics" of him and girls that he dates in Japan. Once you get past that he's alright. Over the weekend I had to miss a temple stay because I had a group meeting for a presentation that we have tomorrow. I was really upset though because none of the group members had done anything and we didn't accomplish anything at the meeting. I was pretty upset so I tried to schedule a temple stay for Barbara (she's in my group too), Carolina (she's from Chile) and I this weekend but it's full so the only weekend I have left is the one before finals. I made a reservation but I'm really nervous about the amount of work I'll have before then. I finished my art paper which is due December 10th. (I've never been so prepared in my life) and I also finished my scholarship paper yesterday that is due on the third. It's like when I'm bored I do homework. who would have thought? So I'm pretty depressed that I have the last three weeks of my stay in Korea planned out and so that makes it seem like a very short period of time. Caitlyn and I are walking around Seoul this weekend so that should be a fun activity. mmmm that's about it.