May 13, 2011 인제대학교 Inje University

We started the day off with our culture and language classes.  Man, I feel like I don't know worth squat about Korea.  In class, I swear everyone else knows what's going on and I'm a deer in the headlights.  I'm sitting in class going, "Wait, who's that?  What happened?  Huh?"  I hope that my understanding will be soldified by the end of this study abroad.  I'm reading Dr. Peterson's book on the history of Korea which has helped out a bit along the way.  :-)

After class, we went to 인제대학교 Inje University where we will get to attend a few classes and use some of their resources for the study abroad (library, etc.).  I really looked forward to this because of the students that we will meet.  I loved the Korean students at the ELC and so I thought this would be just as fun.  We got to see various parts of the campus.  We got library cards and visited the president of the university.  That was pretty neat.  Regarding presidents of universities, it's a democracy where as in America it's not democratic in its selection.  I thought that was pretty interesting when they told us that.  After, Dr. Peterson had to give a lecture at Dr. Park's class, the man who we met on the bus coming down here.  We got to meet his students for a little bit.  Dr. Peterson gave him lecture which was in  Korean.  It was a bit hard to pay attention because my head hurt so I laid down and slept during the lecture. 

After the lecture, Dr. Park treated us to lunch at their cafeteria.  They tried to make us sit with someone not from our study abroad group (so every person could meet someone new).  Well, that plan didn't work out.  We were all willing to try it but I think Dr. Park's students were too shy that only 2 students actually followed what they asked us to do.  Across from me was a student named 박현준 Park Hyun Joon.  He's from 제주도 Jeju Island (jeju-doh) which is Korea's Hawaii they say.  He's the first person I've met from 제주도 Jeju Island. It was good Korean practice.  During the lecture, we were all laughing inside because he had the same jacket as Kenwood that day!  And then he comes and sits next to us!  We couldn't help but laugh inside.  :-)  현준 Hyun Joon is really nice and wants to do stuff with us.  We're planning on hanging out tomorrow and studying as well.

Dr. Park's class

Kenwood, Victoria, and 박현준 Hyun Joon.  They couldn't stop laughing when we were taking this photo because they're wearing the same jacket. 

I'm adjusting to 김해 Gimhae even though I miss 서울 Seoul.  I thought the dialect would be really strong down here but it hasn't been bad.  In fact, most people nowadays are trying to hide their dialect (which they're really good at).  I'm excited for tomorrow!  I wonder what we'll do with 현준 Hyun Joon!