Day 7

I keep waking up very early.

With the sunlight shining from my bedroom window, I feel panic. The sun is out! I must have overslept and I will be late to meet my class! What do I do?!

...

I check my alarm clock. 5:30AM. My whole body feels as if I hadn't slept in a week although I had slept since 10:30PM. I rest in my bed until 6:50, and then I take a shower. I go to eat breakfast with my family. We had chicken, eggplant, different kinds of kimchi, and some other things. It was very delicious! Then, my mother accompanied me through the subway until I saw one of my NSLI-Y comrades. We then walked together to exit 8 and met up with the other NSLI-Yians and all walked together to Sookmyung Woman's University.

There, we received some Korean snacks and shortly afterwards completed a placement test. This first test was around my level. It used lots of the vocabulary that I had studied from my Beginner Integrated Korean book, so I did well. Then, we went to the room next door to do an advanced test. This test was extremely difficult! For the first few pages, I had only understood about 3 or 4 words total. After a while, I stopped trying to make sense of the questions and I just bubbled in answers. Then, we went to the floor above and did an interview with one of the Korean teachers. My interview went smoothly! I understood all of the questions asked except for one and I was able to, more or less, answer the questions in either broken Korean or full Korean sentences. Because I felt that I would do poorly during the interview, this success really encouraged me! We then ate lunch-- Bibimbap, kimchi, some type of celery with radish, and a soup with either muscles or snails or something similar.

After a short orientation for Sookmyung University, we visited a bank nearby the school and concluded our session for the day. I then went with some NSLI-Y friends to hang out. First, we went to the nearby bank in order to transfer some American dollars into Korean won. I went into a convenience store and bought a very cute towel with a bear design on it. Our group got separated, but we rejoined and met a kind ajussi who lead us to the bank once more. After figuring out how to transfer money, we traveled to Myung Dong. It was very rainy, so we all had our umbrellas out. While going down to the subway to get to Myung Dong, we heard some american hip hop blasting, filled with bad words. It was very out of place and so we had a good laugh.



We went over to a cafe and got different drinks. I got a cafe mocha and my friends got Oreo shakes or Nutella shakes. We took some pictures together and had a great time talking about our experiences. Because our time was limited, I helped one of my friends finish her Nutella shake. It was so good!!! Then, we all headed back home.



When I got home, I felt very sweaty from the humidity, so I washed my face and changed into my pajamas. Afterwards, I ate a delicious dinner with my mother. Tonight, we ate a Korean melon, bananas, egg, and this kimchi sausage rice.

Tomorrow, I find out what Korean level I will be placed into. I am very excited to see how I did! I hope to get into a high beginner or a low intermediate class, but we all will be able to change classes if needed be. For now, I will sign off.

Deuces! 나무 out-



-end