Mudfest

Remember that festival I wrote about back in...June?



:-)

VIDEO! Thanks Patrick I know I'd never get around to making it

Friends leaving/Pool Tables/Festival Videos

OK, I have lots to post about but I am just going to post about whats going on NOW and then catch you up on what's happened later.

Two days ago my light bulb changing husband of a friend David got some bad news from home and had to leave on a family emergency. His work wouldn't give him time off so he quit.

Studying abroad was always hard as well. You meet these GREAT people become AMAZING friends and then suddenly they're all gone.

Teaching abroad is different. Most of your friends are on one year contracts. So sporadically throughout the year you start to lose these amazing friends. Its like slowly these great bonds you made are gone...it's a crappy feeling. But you adjust, you smile knowing that you made FANTASTIC friends you will now have around the world!!!! YAY!!!

However, once you finally start getting used to people leaving constantly you also get used to the fact that you have a heads up, you know that in October Aaron leaves, in February I lose Patrick, and in April...well in April I'll lose everyone because that's when I LEAVE!

But having this, having someone just leave without any warning...SUCKS!

And in other recent news...my school has treadmills, pool tables, ping pong tables, a little put put golf room, and one of those waist massager thinggies..we're pretty fancy I tell you!

Oh and also, from a WHILE back when I posted about that festival we went to that was really cool with Patrick's co-teachers, he made some videos on it so voila:

GEPIK Orientation

Monday morning I took my prepacked backpack which I'd spent the last 3 nights living out of and caught the number 7 bus to Yongin. I figured the best way to catch it would be to head away from Suwon Station and Suwon station is towards Seoul (kinda) and I am away from Seoul (kinda)...nope, I caught the bus heading the wrong way. I had to get off the bus, get back on the bus heading the opposite way and sit on the bus for like 2 hours. Oh fun!

I call my friend Cheryl (she's a couchsurfer...I know I know that post is coming) to see if she's there yet, she agrees to meet me at the bus station and I run my but over there. There are two people in the street wearing yellow nametags and I smile. Thank GOD! An organized orientation who knows us Waguks (think...gringos...) will surely get lost. They point us the right way and we hop on a bus to the Hyundai Learning Center...note to self, no taxi driver will know where this place is...hmmm

We get there and get divided into rooms. They put us into rooms based on where we live so we'd get to know who was in our city, that was nice I suppose, but I felt bad for the couples that got divided. We had our first lecture which was some cultural fun stuff (music, dancing etc...I'll upload videos tonight)

There are some fun drinking stories but since mommy and daddy read this log and worry enough about me as it is, let me keep it to one. So the store in the learning center was not supposed to sell us alcohol (I guess) but I found that using my AMAZING Korean I could get myself a beer. It went like this.

"Anyo haseyo" Hello

Lady gestures that she cannot sell me beer and says something about how they won't let her.

*smiling* "Hana" One "Shhh" Put finger to your lips and make the shh sound, point to your purse and say , "kamsamneeda" Thank You.

Keep smiling, insist that you won't tell anyone "Abseyo" Literally...there is none...yeah its as close as I could get

She says they won't let her again but looks around, nods, puts a finger on her lips and sells me the beer.

SUCCESS!!

Communications majors: 1
Language Barriers: 0

Then of course later, we were at a Hof (bar) and I tried to get an empty glass to share a pitcher with friends...I ened up with another pitcher...

Communications majors: 1
Language Barriers: 1

Drat!

So, let it suffice to say that I am safe, alive and still doing pretty good at making friends in random countries.

The orientation was a blast I made amazing friends, picked up a few tips and tricks and feel a bit less lost and confused...or at least like there's lots of other people who are lost and confused.

Oh, this a an older video its awful, but if you listen closely you can hear some music, that was the b-boys random tournamentI walked into a while ago.

Awesome video about living in Korea

These guys live in a small town called Geumcho the video is HILARIOUS! Some of the stuff they are talking about you might not get, but they talk about the romanization of Korean words, the visors, the public transportation food etc

its amusing