Journal Entries

I thought maybe the easiest way to catch up would be putting little parts of my journal on here. So, I hope you enjoy! :)

[morning of June 24th]
"After a great morning of exploration, it was off to orientation for us. This included our health examination, which consisted of peeing in a Hello Kitty cup, stripping off our top garments for an X-ray and giving blood, among other things. On this day we also got to meet Dr. Han & have a genuine Korean lunch. It was certainly interesting and I discovered that I might end up having issues with textures of food here."

[June 26]
"Friday we started orientation with videos on Cheonan City & KNU. Turns out, they LOVE using the word ubiquitous to describe their city! Cheonan City is trying to be very cutting edge in their technological advances.....also we went to the Cheonan City Hall. They showed us their U-City (U for ubiquitous of course!) which was a faux apartment full of futuristic technology. It was pretty legit."

[June 27]
"....We also went to get our T-money cards at the subway today & had our first experience trying out the subway system. It was very nice-clean and well kept. Also, there's English letters on the signs and stuff which makes things much easier! We went after that to Baskin Robbins. I had the most wonderful ice cream. It was cappuccino espresso delightful deliciousness...or something like that!"

[June 29]
"This morning, Terry took Julie and me to our schools. I walked in, got yelled at in Korean to take off my shoes, and then was greeted by two English teachers who told me to call them Monica & Olivia. The three of us, Sam, the assistant & head principal all met together. The principal seems very nice-definitely a well respected man! He was a tae kwan do major in college & was a 6th or 7th level graduate! We had conversation about me and the school (all through translation of course). Then he gave me a picture of some duck eggs that were near the school last week & said he hoped it'd bring me luck. He also gave me a vase with a tae kwan do cat on it & told me to use it to keep pencils in! Monica said I was very lucky because she's never received a gift from the principal!........After lunch we all went to the clinic. I had several bug bites that I was having a weird reaction to and Jenny wanted me to make sure they were nothing else. So, for a doctor's visit, a prescription & a bottle of anti-itch solution, I paid less than 20,000 won (about 15-16 dollars). This was WITHOUT insurance. Once I have my insurance, it's 3,000 for the dr. appt. and 3,000 for a prescription. Can you believe it??"

[June 30]
"Tuesday started at 4:00 in the morning when the fire alarm went off! It was this crazy loud siren with some lady speaking in Korean (the same lady that talks in the elevator). We were all so out of it that I'm pretty sure if there had actually been a fire near us, we would've been toast...then when we actually got up in the morning, there was no hot water...wonderful."


Ok, I'll be able to add more later. For now, I'm sitting in a room with no air conditioner, and it's getting very stuffy in here! So I'm going to go back to my office where there's air. Enjoy!