My One Room (내 원룸)

I know the pictures could be a little better quality and my room a little cleaner (what did you expect ;-) ) but I thought I would post two pictures of my little room. I have a nice heated floor that I sleep on. Since it is Asia most of the time my shoes come off at the door to keep things cleaner. I also have a pretty nice desk for doing homework and a lightning fast Internet connection included (I think cable as well). In one of the pictures I am standing outside of the door and you can see my tiny kitchen, off to the left of the main room I also have a small square bathroom that turns into one large shower. Just be careful which way you aim the shower nozzle or you might start to flood your room via the crack at the bottom of the door. I found that out the hard way!

Out in the countryside (or college town depending on who you ask) my little one room cost me around 1,300,000 wan for 6 months. This is a little over 1,000 dollars and only requires me to pay for electricity and gas (about $10-20 a month).

The room really feels a bit like home and when I put my bed away it even seems pretty large at times. It's not all that bad... ^--^

Back to Korea

I know I have been in Korea for a good 2 months now and haven't updated my blog so I apologize for that. Anyways I am starting my journaling for one of my classes back at MSU and thought a good start would be to post part of my first journal on here. It's a good explanation and catch up on what I am\have been doing. Hope everyone that reads this is doing well. -Joel


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In the summer of 2008 I had the opportunity to travel to a sister university of Minnesota State Mankato in Daegu, South Korea. The entire trip was all expenses paid and only required us to help teach English classes 5 days a week at a summer camp for Korean university students. Having enjoyed this experience so much I decided that I would like to have the opportunity to study abroad in this amazing country with it's own unique culture and language which the Korean people are extremely proud of. After much work a pilot exchange program was worked out where I would be allowed to go to our sister university, the Catholic University of Daegu (대구카토맄대학교) for Korean language study.
After working out the exchange program the Catholic University of Daegu suggested I apply for a Korea government program called the TaLK program. Having also been accepted into this program I was able to come to Korea over a month early, have my plane ticket reimbursed, and spend time around Seoul for almost a month while attending orientation for this program. The TaLK program (talk.go.kr) stands for Teach and learn in Korea, and will provide me with a plane ticket home as well as a small monthly stipend for teaching at a rural elementary school for 9 hours a week. This is something that I feel could be a very valuable experience to me as a future educator and one who is looking to potentially come to Korea in the future to teach English.
For most of my life I remember being very interested in cultures far different from my own and as I have gotten older this interest has only increased. So with this trip to Korea I hope to find out many things. For starters I at some point in my life would really like to learn to use a new language at a functional level, and I feel this trip will give me an opportunity to start this while allowing me to meet new people from around the world. I also felt that I would like to spend a longer time living in another culture (Asian cultures have come to be something that I really enjoy) and this trip provided me with this opportunity. If I enjoy this trip I strongly believe that I will try to work abroad more in the future.
As mentioned before this also gives me a chance to meet many new people and form valuable friendships all across the world. The TaLK program has already provided me with the chance to meet many new Korean friends as well as people from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Britain, Canada, and of course people from all over the United States.
Next week I will start my language courses at KLI (the Korean Language Institute) that is a part of the Catholic University of Daegu. I will be taking two 10 week intensive language courses 5 days a week, 4 hours a day while teaching English 3 days a week at my Elementary school. I thought this would be a good place to start my journal and more intensive Logs.

I know this trip will be filled with hard work as it already has been. But I also hope it will be filled with fun and meaningful memories which will last a lifetime. Time will only tell.

Last Week and Visiting a Local Temple

Top picture is of Dong Soo and Soju (kind of a Korean wine\hard drink), Bottom one of Mitchell and a student acting a little strange. Both at a great Korean BBQ Restaurant in downtown Hayung (just down the hill from Campus).




Well it's my last full week here in Korea, and it's been a lot of fun, I hope that these last couple of days are both long and very enjoyable. Lately me and a fellow MSU student Mitchell(pictured above) have been trying hard to hang out with some of our Korean friends as much as possible before we leave, and that has made the remaining days some great ones.






Also a few days ago I was walking home from playing Settlers of Catan with some of the full time English teachers and I stumbled across a temple. So today I decided to take my camera out and grab a few pictures of it. It's a local one hidden in alleyways. It may look old but was really only made 3-4 years ago if I remember correctly. It is still in use and meant that it probably would have been a whole lot more interesting and open to me if I would have brought one of the Buddhist Korean students with me to look around... Oh well, maybe next time.

A Hike up the Mountain in my Backyard...

Korea is a hilly\mountainous place, and conveniently enough we have our very own mountain path just on the other side of campus. So Sunday afternoon I decided to make make my way up it, and aside from the considerable chafing that was sustained by my legs, I think I had a pretty good time. ;)










Also it was nice to see the camera I used had a timer option so I could take a picture of myself after making it to the top. It was very pretty up there, and also covered in exercise equipment which I thought was neat (Everyone wants to lift weights, do pull-ups, and hoola hoop after hiking for an hour on a very steep path).

Another Week

Well another week has gone by and it's actually kind of sad too see that my trip is halfway over, I guess I'll have to work hard to enjoy the next two weeks... I've gotten to try doing a lot of new things and eat even more new things. As well as making a lot of new friends.

Although on this very humid day we apparently decided to make it more American by making our way into Daegu (Mitchell,our Korean friend Joon, and myself), where we proceeded to eat a stuffed crust pizza at Pizza Hut and then went to watch the movie Hancock (which is pretty funny). The movies from America are in English with Korean subtitles and seems pretty enjoyable for everyone. It's also funny to see how people who can understand English laugh at some jokes just a half-second earlier.

I will try to post some pictures of Daegu soon (the big city which we are right outside of), as well as taking some pictures of things which are very different in Korea. This however will involve me taking my camera along with me on trips and I definitely haven't been doing that enough!

Hope people are having a great summer in the states and that everyone enjoyed the 4th of July! :)

Week 2 of Classes

Well I know it's been awhile since I've posted anything here, but I've been having fun with the exception of getting rained on all day sat. It's hard to complain too much when we've had 3\5 days clear during what I've been told is monsoon season.

Week 1 went well, and I was able to see a lot of great "Project English" projects made. I even have a few repeats for each class. One of the ladies is a Journalism major and wanted to continue practice writing English in a more formal way (mostly conversational English that is taught, even in the writing). Two students who are taking the Children's Stories portion again seemed to really enjoy creating them last week.

One really big thing I think I helped with last week was getting some of the students to use past tense. It seems to be one of the really hard things for them to know when to use. They know the vocabulary without a problem but if you dont point out when to use it then it's likely not going to be used. I dont think that Korea has a tense for future in their language, it's included along with present tense, but they definately have a past tense.

Without further ado I have some of the work from last weeks Children's Stories class. I dont think anything was perfect but that would likely be hard even for us english speakers; it's still very understandable and often really creative! Better than anything I could create!







These are pictures of the Childrens stories they created, once I figure out an easy way to post up a file on here I might post one or two of the Newpaper articles that were written last week as well. The full class picture is actually of my new Children's Stories class as well, not last weeks...

Scenic views on top of the hill

Daegu Catholic University is located on top of a hill almost as a separate entity from the town below. My dormitories are at a particularly high spot with some great views being only a 30 second walk away.














Most of these pictures are from the edges of hills to the left and right of the dormitories, while one is looking right outside and the tall picture of the building is the one I stay in.