Okay, okay, so I haven't written in awhile. To be honest, the past few days have been kind of strange, with all the planned activities winding down, but at the same time, things have been getting more hectic as everyone is preparing to leave. I last wrote on Monday night, before our party with our RA. Now it is Friday morning (as I write this beginning, it is bound to be much later once I reach the end, as I have to leave for the bus for my flight in only about 45 minutes), so I have a lot of ground to cover. Let's get started!
On Monday night we did have our party with our RA. He and some of the Korean girls went out and got tons of snacks and drinks and a cake for us to eat. The cake was the highlight, it was a white cake with fruit on top from Paris Baguette, the cafe which we have all fallen in love with while here. In addition to grapes and other standard fruits, the cake also had some cherry tomatoes on top, which I guess is okay because they're technically fruits, but it was somewhat strange as in the USA, we never ever eat them as fruits. Our RA is very sweet and kind (Later proven by official vote, as he won the "Most Caring Staff" award during our end-of-program dinner. More on that later.), and it's a shame that we didn't get to spend more time with him.
Tuesday was the day we had to prepare our group presentations. Our group decided to cover Drinking Culture in South Korea, and my part of the presentation, along with another girl, we covered popular alcoholic drinks in Korea. I got to talk about Hite Brewing Company (specializes in a Budweiser-like beer, most of the beers here are very very light, kind of a shame as I like darker beers) and Makgeolli, which is Korean rice wine (I quite like it, if you mix it with Sprite, it tastes like champagne). The other members covered the history of alcohol in Korea, some current issues with alcohol, social venues where you can drink, and some Korean drinking games. It only took a short amount of time to actually work on the presentation, the majority of the time was spent trying to coordinate with the other 10 members of the team. 11 people is quite a lot when you're trying to put together one coherent presentation in a short amount of time. In some of the down time, one of the other girls and I did some online window-shopping for Tom's shoes. Back at home, I'd heard of Tom's before for their charity work (the company will donate a pair of shoes for every pair you buy) , but never really seen anyone wearing them. Here in Korea, they are EVERYWHERE. They're supposed to be very comfortable and durable, and the money goes to a good cause too, so I'll probably end up buying some once I get home (yes, I know, more shopping). Our discussion group got done in the early afternoon, and then the rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing. After a bit of reading and napping, we decided to make a movie afternoon out of it. It was raining like crazy, and there were a couple of cracks of VERY close thunder, so it didn't make sense to try and go out sightseeing anywhere. The first movie we chose was called My Sassy Girl, and it was a very crazy romantic comedy. Tough to describe really, it was just very funny, and very random. We watched that up until dinner, and then after dinner, we watched a movie called The Chaser. It was a crime-drama movie about a serial killer, and it was quite good, though quite scary, and a plot twist at the end featuring one of the dumbest characters ever featured on screen made me a bit mad. The plot was loosely based on a true story, which made it all the more creepy, but luckily we didn't know that it was based in reality until after the movie was over, or else I'm not sure we would have made it to the end.
Speaking of all the rain that pushed us to have a movie afternoon, we found out on our last day in Korea that they have been having floods that are breaking all kinds of records, the term "flood of the century" has been thrown around a couple of times. My homestead buddy showed me a picture of the parking lot outside of her apartment, and it was COMPLETELY underwater. All the cars had brown muddy water halfway up their sides, and she said that her family couldn't go to work because of the flooding. Luckily her family lives on the ninth floor of their building, so at least their place is safe - but the first floor of the building is flooded. I wonder if that's structurally sound? It's so strange to think that the place I stayed less than two weeks ago is now totally flooded.
Wednesday was the day we got to present our group projects to the rest of the students and to the faculty for grading. The order for the 10 groups to present was chosen randomly, and we were lucky enough to get to go third, early enough that the people in the audience were still awake and somewhat focused, but not right in the very beginning, where we might have been nervous about having to go first and set the pace. We later found out that our group grade was B+, not too bad, especially considering that our choice of topic may or may not have made the professors slightly uncomfortable . . .
The presentations got done in the early afternoon, and then we had a few hours until the Farewell Party that night. I spent some time packing and getting everything in order for the next few days. Dinner wasn't served in the cafeteria like normal, instead we went to a large meeting room, where they had set up round tables with white linens, and fresh flowers and candles in the center. There was a buffet with tons of foods and desserts, and a stage was set up for the "Awards Ceremony." The night before we had been given forms to fill out, where we had voted on "Most Flirty," "Mr. Popular," "Most Koreanized," etc., like for high school yearbooks. The results of that survey were announced at the dinner, and there was also a talent show and a raffle where about 20 people got prizes. We also watched a slide show that had been put together from all the photos that had been taken thought the month. After all that was over, everyone found out who their "Secret Angel" was. I believe I explained this before, but to explain the "Secret Angel" program in a tiny nutshell, at the beginning of the month, we were given the name of a person to give small gifts to throughout the month, and we were that person's "Secret Angel". At this Farewell Party, the tables were turned, and now we were to give a gift to the person who had been our Secret Angel for the month, as a kind of "thank you." The girl who I gave gifts to gave me some Korean snacks as her "thank you", I decided to save them all until I get home, most of the other snacks I bought with the intention of taking home, I ate already. Whoops.
After the Farewell Party, my roommate also gave me some gifts as a going away present. She and I were quite a good match for each other, as we are both somewhat quiet and reserved, not big praters, and she was always very accommodating, even when I had my cold and was hacking on a regular basis. I gave her some things as well, but not until Thursday night, as I wanted her to have them as close to the end of the program as possible. Thursday night turned out to be quite a crazy night - but I'll get to that in a moment. I have to cover the rest of Thursday day first!
Thursday was the final full day, and we were awarded our certificates of completion, and a few speeches were given by students, visiting faculty, a staff member, and the president of Seoul Women's University. A number of people could be seen crying during the presentation, as all the speeches were quite good, and some were quite moving. Our certificates are quite fancy, possibly nicer than the diploma I received for completing my Associate's degree. They're in blue velvet covers, with the seal of the Seoul Women's University embossed on front. We also watched a compilation video of all the footage that had been taken during the month. We had an amazing videography staff, with one dedicated photographer, one dedicated videographer, and a few other cameras that would circulate among the staff when they weren't busy with other tasks. For this program, there are literally hundreds of photos on Facebook as a result (not even beginning to count all the photos all us students took of each other), and as soon as each day's pictures were uploaded each afternoon, friends would tag each other. This turned out to be a quite efficient method for this whole month, as we all took care of our own friends and acquaintances, and the matrix of who knew who was wide enough that we would get done quickly.
Note: I am currently writing this section while on the plane home, and we are experiencing quite a bit of turbulence, so I apologize if my thoughts seem a bit rattled as a result, that may have something to do with it. =)
After the official certificate ceremony, some of us decided to venture out to Lotte Plaza (yes, ANOTHER Lotte item). We had gone to Lotte Plaza a few weeks ago to see a movie, but we hadn't had enough time at that point to actually look around or do any shopping. One of the girls from Cedar Crest needed to pick up a second suitcase to take home al her extra purchases from this trip, but it turned out that Lotte Plaza was one of the worst places we could have thought of to look for that. The best way I can think to describe Lotte Plaza is to compare it to Sax Fifth Avenue. It's one big building, about 10 stories tall, and each floor is dedicated to a different type of item (basement is food, first floor is cosmetics and handbags, second floor is junior's clothing, etc.). Within each floor, there are a number of vendors, but they don't have shops with walls like a traditional USA mall, they just have some floor space, and every shop just spills out on to each other shop. And it is VERY upscale. We stopped to ask the price of a suitcase that we saw, and it was around $300. Not quite in our price range. We did do a bit of looking around, just for fun, and I did find a shirt for $12 in the Zara store, a steal in this otherwise very expensive Plaza. But after an hour or so, we realized that there was pretty much nothing we could afford, and definitely no suitcases (which was the point of this whole excursion), so we went to ANOTHER Lotte outpost - Lotte Mart.
Lotte Mart is best described as a store with a severe identity crisis. On the floor with suitcases, there was also the cosmetics section, which was right next to some pianos that were for sale, near the kids' toy section, which was right next to the book store, which was right next to the underwear section, which was right next to the pet section. And when I say pet section, I don't mean that these were items for pets, I mean that they were literally pets, and they were literally right next to completely unrelated things. On one shelf on a cage was a rabbit, above him was a lizard, facing that shelf was a bin full of puzzles, and across the aisle was the men's boxers. Whoever organized the store definitely had an interesting way of deciding what items were related to each other. We did find a suitcase, and some of us bought a few other small items too (but I didn't, my shopping spree ended with the $12 shirt in Lotte Plaza). You had to check out on each floor, so we went down a level to look for something to drink, and on that floor entered a grocery store. There were tables out offering samples every few feet, and as a souvenir I picked up the flyer advertising what was on sale that week. The groceries also suffered from confusing arrangement, and random food groups were thrown together. If I remember correctly, I think the lighting section might have also been on that floor.
Once we got back from shopping, we went to dinner in the dining hall, and it turns out that we were in the minority by doing so. Pretty much no one else was there with us, nearly everyone must have decided to go out for the night. After dinner, some of us watched a movie called "My Girlfriend is an Agent," which was a cute romantic comedy/spy movie, but due to the fact that we were watching it curled up with our blankets and pillows on the floor of our common room, and I was a bit tired, I fell asleep about halfway through. I awoke to the sound of a siren or alarm in the movie, and got to watch the last five minutes or so. The three of us who had been watching (or sleeping through, in my case) the movie stayed on the floor for a bit, though while we were there a GIGANTIC bug flew by, a bug that one of my suitemates said was a mosquito, but I think it was some completely different species of animal - I have never seen a mosquito that big, I think it might be biologically impossible for a mosquito to grow to that size. I need to look that up when I get the chance. We worked on our laptops for a bit, and then heard over the intercom system that we were to clean our rooms. We emptied out our trash cans, but our curfew time was right around this time as well, so it meant that everyone was back in their rooms for the last night, and then roommates and suitemates and schoolmates started handing out presents to each other and reminiscing - then the tears started. Nearly everyone start crying, and for a good couple of hours, any room or suite you walked into would have at least a few people crying at any given moment. Of course, these people would then wander around to find their friends to tell them what had happened or what they had received or whatever, and then some new people would start crying. Ar our headcount meeting last night, we were given a DVD of the photos and videos from the program, and our RA also wrote each of us a note. I told you he was quite nice. In our room, we also did what the Korean girls called "rolling papers," the name of which, I have to admit, threw us off when they first mentioned them. We all went "What? Rolling papers? Are you talking about cigarettes?" Not quite. How it really works is like this - everyone takes a piece of paper and writes their name at the top. Then the paper is passed to another person, who writes a note to the person whose name is at the top, and this continues until everyone writes on everyone else's paper, and each paper has a note from every person. All the 11 girls in our room participated, and we also wrote a rolling paper for our RA. After this, it was quite late, though I stayed up for a little bit to spend some more time with the girls from our room (and the Cedar Crest girls who technically were staying in other rooms, but spent most of their time in ours). About 2:30am, I headed to sleep, and that was that.
This morning (Friday) around 6:45am, the one Cedar Crest girl who had to leave on an early flight came in to my room to poke me awake (I had said she should, so that I could say goodbye to her). Unfortunately I was a bit dazed, and not nearly as coherent as I thought I would be, so I just kind of sat up and stared confusedly at her for a few seconds until she was like "Okay . . . I have to go now." I then said "Bye!" and fell back asleep. I got up about an hour later and took a shower and went to breakfast. There were very few people eating, though that's not necessarily because today was the last day, as the program has been advancing, fewer and fewer people have been getting up in time to eat breakfast, probably because they've been staying up later and later as they get more comfortable with their roommates and other friends. After breakfast, I made one last trip to Paris Baguette with one of the other Cedar Crest girls, and then had a few hours to poke around until our bus for the airport left. Now I'm on the plane, and once I get home and back online, I'll post this. I suppose that does it for this official program, but I'll keep on posting some of my thoughts and experiences from South Korea once I get home.
