HEY!
There's been so much going on I was a little perplexed as to where to pick up again. It's been so long since my last post because I was at orientation for my public school job since last Thursday. Well that's not the whole reason it's been so long, the real reason is FACEBOOK. Imagine 100ish foreigners in the same dorm, on the same 15 hour schedule every day, so when there actually were breaks everyone would pile into the lobbies and collectively shut down the internet with their facebooking 'necessities'. So I didn't even try -- wha'd I miss from the last 10 days!? Everything still as everything was? Good.
Back to the time line of the last week. Showed up at the airport at 2pm and met up with 7 or 8 other people who arrived around the same time and we took the bus to a university dorm which was in the Hyehwa, an area that is still considered downtown but it's in the north-east section of downtown. The picture above was take on the hill directly behind the school, pretty great view eh? I'll just say this to get it out of the way - I couldn't have been more impressed with how the orientation was run. It really was streamlined, organized, accommodating, informative and impressive.
We arrived and that night was open for meeting, re-meeting and getting the 'where are you from + standard joke/myth rumor about that country' conversations. I moved into my room which I ended up sharing with a guy named Jay from Chicago who was really great person to room with. I think we're both old enough to know how to be decent roommates, also he was hilarious.
The first ACTUAL day of orientation was Friday. The week was stacked with a combination of lectures on various topics, Korean lessons, and a field trip. They kept us busy, which i think was really smart because it prevents possible homesickness. So if you include an hour for breakfast, lunch and dinner we pretty much went from 8am to 9pm every day.
Probably my favorite part of the whole week (classes wise) was on the first day. I didn't take any pictures (UPDATE, found a pic one of my friends took below!) like a fool so I'll try to describe it as best I can. We had our introduction where we all were in an auditorium and there were a few guest speakers. Then half way though they said, now will you please welcome _____ ______ High School's ______ band to preform traditional Korean music. Back in Hwajeong last year there was a lot of traditional music performances and I watched many and it was usually the same. 7 or 8 band members with one drum or one symbol each sitting in a half circle creating and changing beats in perfect time for 10 minutes. Fine, good, traditional, simple. But those were middle aged adults.
These 8 high school kids came out in the same manner and traditional dress, and same hair cut - the lenghty black bowl -- and sat in a half circle and the room was silent with anticipated apathy. After the first minute of setting up the beat and building the sounds and rhythm together, the music started to slowly crescendo and when the beat finally hit the peak and go into boisterous beatings the band members started to FLAIL THEIR HAIR AND HEADS in time with the music! The two base drummers were swinging their head to it's upper most left and then swiftly to the upper most right. The rhythm drummers were rocking their heads in an up and down, a lift and drop rocknroll fashion. Periodically they would slam the drums with their wooden batons and then do a choreographed arm extension with a twist of the baton at the end, come back and hit the drum and then repeat the extensions in a different direction. And they rocked. They rocked the crap out of that song for 12 minutes and then wound it down and got a standing O from (me) everyone. The energy that the brought to the seemingly bland music was fascinating and memorizing. I talked to a few people who said after it was all said and done that the performance was the best part of the week.
I've been waiting a long time to write that on here and so now I am going to get some lunch. Be back later with another post about the rest of the orientation process!!
Good 2 b back!
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