Finals Week/Final Week

Thought I’d give a quick update about how my finals week went. Because of the nature of my class schedule, I ended up with a kind of strange finals week. I had one final on Monday night, and then the other four on Tuesday. Because they were so clustered it meant I had to study for all of them at once, and I couldn’t really spread it out.

I started studying about a week and a half in advance—some subjects a bit earlier, some a bit later. But when you only have two tests per semester, you have to cover a lot of ground each time. But before I got too deeply involved in finals, on Thursday I did get to go watch the school’s performance of Les Misérables. It was a really good, especially for a college group singing in their second language. It was really beautiful even though waiting in the cold outside for it to start was a bit taxing.

 The Friday before finals I camped out at the library until 3 a.m. Then I came back to the dorm to keep going until 6 a.m. Not my finest hours, I assure you. But don’t worry, I had some pickled radishes to help me through the studying.

That Saturday we had a farewell lunch with some of our wonderful Korean friends who helped all the new internationals out at orientation. Not all of us internationals and not all of the Korean helpers could make it, but it was really good to spend time with them again. This semester seems to have lasted forever, and yet at the same time it seems like just yesterday we arrived at Handong wide-eyed and clueless. This is the conundrum of time I guess.

I spent the rest of the day procrastinating and then eventually buckling down to study again. That evening I went to buy a few ingredients, then headed out to the faculty apartments with two lovely Chinese friends to do some baking. I ended up acquiring several baking mixes over the semester that needed to be used up, and the faculty family I work for told me I could use their oven when they were out of town that weekend.

We had a great evening baking and then sharing with others. But after we were finished it was back to the grind stone. I only lasted until 5 a.m. Saturday night, but was thankful to make it to church the next morning for my last service here. I really have come to love my church family here, and I will really miss them. What a beautiful church with beautiful people! And the worship was just what I needed for refreshment.

As you can imagine, more studying followed. I met up with two classmates for a study session and we ended up being able to take a car out into the city to find a quiet café with late night hours. We found a nice coffee shop by the ocean. It was actually a very productive evening for me, despite the repetitive Christmas music playing and the inebriated wanderers who strayed in later in the night. We stayed out until almost 3 then headed back. I got about seven hours of sleep this time which was greatly needed.

Monday night I took care of my Korean 1 final which may or may not have a good result. Then I pulled my final grueling night at the library. Tuesday came and found me taking more tests in one day than I ever have before. I feel slightly discouraged about at least two of the tests, but at least I can say they are over and I survived a very long day. Tuesday night I was able to have a really good time relaxing with a lot of good friends and good conversations—a blessed end to a very stressful finals week.

Since then I have been packing, taking care of random things, and spending time with friends as much as possible. I am not looking forward to the long trip home, but I trust God will get me through it somehow. Prayers would be appreciated! More posts to come soon.

End of the Semester Celebration

December 6^th was the evening of the I-House end of semester party. This happens every semester, apparently. I-House rents out a fancy wedding hall and everyone dresses nicely and spends an evening off campus together eating good food, enjoying performances from each other, and having general fellowship.

I was a little distraught that it was on a Friday—the same busy Friday that I had to give two presentations, but somehow I managed to pull off my classes smoothly and still have time to get ready with the help of my lovely roommates.

I was late to get on the bus so I was one of the people who got to stand for the trip, which was fine except for being in unstable shoes with heels. The wedding hall was really fancy; at least in my small town girl estimation. I felt out of place stepping onto the polished floors, but the smiles and greetings of my friends put me at my ease.

After everyone found their seats we had a time of worship, prayer, and introductory comments. We watched a video that one of the guys put together all about the happenings in the I-House community this semester. There was a lot of laughter and good conversation. About what you would expect from a tightly knit community in the mood to celebrate.

We moved onto the feasting portion of the evening with some really good food from the buffet. Definitely beat cafeteria food!

Once people were just about done eating a series of performances began where some of the students did something for the rest of us to enjoy. There was singing, dancing, and even a little magic show. As usual, it was a good time and I really enjoyed it. I may be biased, but I think that there are a lot of very talented people here at Handong.

Towards the end of the event they called everyone up to the front who was about to graduate or leave. This meant that my fellow exchange students and I gathered with the others. We were prayed over and then many hugs were exchanged as pictures were taken.

I admit, my eyes grew misty as we prayed together and I hugged all of my wonderful brothers and sisters who I have grown so fond of this semester. I have never been part of a community quite as close and uplifting as the one here in I-House. Over the past few months my every need has been taken care of through God working amongst this fellowship of people from every corner of the globe. Even though my sojourn here has been so short, I feel like I was welcomed into a big family.

I have learned so much from these people and grown in so many ways. Every shared meal, shared difficulties; every conversation or time of laughter, the prayers we exchanged… all of it has been so meaningful to me. I never imagined I would feel this way at the end of my time here. I have been blessed to know some of the brightest, most beautiful and encouraging people I have ever met. I have been so welcomed here at Handong, even though I am an awkward, kind of inept blonde girl who just showed up for one semester.

The end of the semester party filled me with thanksgiving. I am so glad I got to know these people, even though saying goodbye will be so hard. It is all worth it.

After we got back to campus I finished up the evening with even more fun picture taking and conversation. Then I stayed up until three a.m. with some of my very dear girl friends watching a move and then talking into the late night hours.

It was a perfect evening for me. I just hope that the encouragement I felt from that night will help me to endure the hardships of finals! Prayers would be appreciated as I face this difficult upcoming week. Especially pray for my trip home and the rough adjustment I will have once there.

And to all my Handong friends, both international and Korean, I love you guys! Thank you for making this the best semester I’ve yet to experience. You guys are the best.

Thanks for reading! There is still more to come, so check back later if you feel so inclined. Thanks! 

Miscellaneous

There have been a few noteworthy events that occurred over the past couple of weeks, so I will write a little bit about some of them in short, episodic format.

Thanksgiving

November 28^th was my first time to spend Thanksgiving away from home. I honestly kept forgetting that it was a holiday, but every time my friends posted about it on Facebook I did feel a little bit sad not to be at home with my family.

Thursday, however, I was invited to two different Thanksgiving meals. The first one I had to decline because of limited time, but the second one I was able to attend. All of the international faculty get together in their apartment building and have a big dinner. Everyone contributes something, and lots of the professors open up their apartment to host all the people.

As American students we were kindly welcomed into the massive throng that evening. There was a lot of good food, good company, and good conversations. It was really neat to get to know some of the professors better and hear their stories. There are some really amazing people here at Handong. It was also good to celebrate with people from such a wide variety of backgrounds. America was certainly not the only country represented there! I was really touched that they invited us into their big family and showed us such spectacular hospitality. It was a really nice evening.

Bowling

Another fun event last week was the I-House bowling trip! I admit, I was hesitant to go because I have never been good at the game and I have bad memories associated with it. But I promised to go with my friends, so that evening I climbed onto another bus and headed into the city.

I will be honest, Korean bowling shoes are even worse than American ones. But apart from that discomfort, it was a really fun time. I didn’t do half as badly as I thought I would, and had a lot of fun with all the people who came out. 

We even got to taste a little bit of street food after we were done because we missed the bus and had some time to kill. Not sure why they call them fish cakes, because they are more like a noodle, but they were tasty anyway. The outing was another good study break, especially with finals looming on our horizon.

Baptism

One of the most incredible, beautiful things that happened for me recently took place this past Sunday. One of my dearest and best friends here at Handong is my roommate, Noelle. She is from China, and her family is not Christian. But through her university she came to faith in Jesus and accepted Him into her life this past summer.

Throughout this semester, my roommate has become one of the closest friends I’ve had throughout all of high school/college. She is such an inspiration to me. Her heart is so soft and so kind, and she treats everybody with an unending grace. I have learned so much just by watching the way that she lives her life. I am incredibly honoured that God chose to place me in her life. She has patiently bore with me through all my difficulties and all my joys throughout this semester, and I truly treasure all of our long and late conversations, our meals together, our walks, and our shared laughter.

When Noelle was baptized this Sunday my heart was filled to bursting with joy. As I watched my sister take this step in her life, I was struck with the beauty of salvation and the incredibly way God has written everyone’s salvation story. I was also struck by a deep sense of wonder that God allows us to be part of other peoples’ stories. He allowed me to get to know my roommate, and allowed me to be with her as she proclaimed her faith in public. What an incredible honour. Such a good moment of my semester.

Handong is a really wonderful place to be able to take this kind of step, I think. There is such a closely knit family here to support and encourage you. I was really glad to be a part of this meaningful event, and I hope that I won’t stop learning from my fantastic friend Noelle any time soon.

~~~~~

I have not been able to write very much because things have been getting kind of hectic. I had two presentations this week, and group work every night preceding Friday. I have another presentation to go on Monday, and then the grueling process of studying for finals. Prayers would be very much appreciated as I face these tests! I am working on typing up another blog entry about the I-House end of semester celebration, so stay tuned.

As always, thank you for reading!

Culture Night!

November 23^rd the International Student Union held their biggest event of the year: Culture Night. It has a popular reputation at Handong, especially amongst the international students. Even as exchange students we were told about it during our orientation week. What is Culture Night you ask? It is a night to celebrate the cultures represented at this school with singing, dancing, food, and fellowship.

All of the international communities get together fairly early in the semester to begin planning this event under the leadership of the president and other members of the International Student Union.

The event begins with each community serving samples of food from their country to the crowds that show up early enough to get a portion. As you can imagine, figuring out how to cook for hundreds of people can be a challenge.

After the food is gone the main event of the evening begins; meaning, a series of performances from cultures represented here on campus. These performances include dancing, singing, story-telling, and other creative ways to represent and demonstrate the beautiful culture the students from their respective communities come from. When the performances finish, there is a fashion show to exhibit the traditional costumes from all over the world.

This is a skeletal description, so now I’ll flesh it out a bit by talking about my experience with Culture Night.  

Over a month ago we were all asked to start getting together with our countrymen to begin the planning process of what we wanted to perform. That’s when the series of meetings began. Each community would send a leader or representative to the meetings where logistics and guidelines for the event were set out with the help of the international student union, then we would hold another meeting to confer that information to our individual communities so that we could plan our section of the program accordingly.

Once we figured out what we wanted to do, our task was to start practicing! As Americans, we had a difficult task coming up with a traditional dance specific to our country. We decided to do a combination of several popular dances taken from the past century of our history. We also ended up including a short skit based off a popular American movie near the end, but I’ll elaborate upon that later.

Only three out of the seven of us had ever danced before so it was a really interesting and sometimes crazy process trying to choreograph it. But with the help of YouTube, talented members of our group, and a lot of time we figured out a routine. As often as we could we gathered to practice the dance routine and polish it up. I have never danced before in my life so it was traumatizing, exciting, stressful and foreign all at once to me.

While we practiced our dance routine we were also trying to decide on what to cook. After much going back and forth we landed on the all American… pie! Apple and pumpkin. Making pie for a few hundred people or so was a daunting task, but with the combined ingenuity of many minds we were able to calculate how much of the ingredients we would need.

The final two weeks before the actual event were busy. We all had to figure out final logistics, practice as much as possible, make our few props, coordinate with the other communities, and so on.

The Thursday before the big night was when we started the baking process. I spent a couple hours that afternoon peeling and slicing up around 75 apples. The next day, Friday, we had to start actually putting everything together. Almost everyone from the American community helped with the baking, including the wonderful faculty couple who let us use their kitchen and a few other awesome helpers.

With our combined forces we got those miniature pies baked and stored—waiting for the coming day when they would all be eaten.

Saturday dawned and found all the internationals dragging themselves at 10 a.m. to the auditorium for a semi-rehearsal. After that I spent the rest of the afternoon doing some final practices with my group, getting homework done, and preparing myself for the evening.

At around 3 p.m. we gathered again to help set up the food serving area and take care of last minute details. Every detail had to fall into place—lighting, music tracks, our introduction video, entering and exiting, prop storage, etc.

By 5 o’clock we were ready to receive all of campus to taste our food! For the next hour or so we served pies and interacted with the other internationals, the Koreans, and some guests who came from off campus. It was a lot of fun and our pies went pretty fast despite the massive quantity we had made.

America!

I got to try a few small things from the other countries’ tables, but I was mostly serving. At last the time for performances came and everyone settled into the auditorium. We started with some traditional Korean drumming, as well as a traditional Korean dance. A message was given on the theme of the night—Passion of the Nations. The idea behind Culture Night was finding unity amongst the diversity of God’s beautiful world, so we heard some good words upon that subject from our faculty adviser.

As each culture performed I was really impressed by what everyone came up with. There was dancing, singing, and more dancing. Everyone put so much work into their performances! I won’t describe each performance in detail because it would be a lot to try and describe, but I will give a list of the cultures who performed:

South Korea (Hayang)

China

Indonesia

Mekong (Laos, Thailand, Cambodia)

South Asia (Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal)

Australia

Nepal

Russia

Mongolia

Myanmar

India

Madagascar

America

Africa

To try and give you at least a brief picture of the variety of beautiful things I got to see and experience, I made a little video blog if you so desire to view it. Sadly, I was not able to video every single one, but at least this can give you an overview. I also wish I could have taken more pictures of everyone else's performances!

By the time it came to our performance, I was honestly getting nervous. Everyone else did such a wonderful job, and here I was—the American who had never danced before, much less in front of a crowd! But as we gathered back stage and said a prayer, I decided to have a good time of it. And you know what, I did. Somehow the moves came to me along with a smile on my face. I had so much fun listening to the crowd laugh at our cheesy, random routine.

We went from doing the Charleston to swing dance, from swing to the twist, from the twist to some disco set to the BG’s “Stayin’ Alive,” then on to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” Then we got some 90’ boy band in with the guys of our group doing N’Sync’s “Bye Bye Bye.” This was followed by a modern dance called the jerk based off a popular song by Audio Push. Next, we surprised the audience with a few seconds based off the movie “Titanic.” The boys even made a cardboard ship!

The pictures describe it better than I could. Everyone had a good laugh as Celine Dion’s voice rang out passionately across the auditorium with our guys standing on the long board. I am still not sure what inspired them to include it, but everyone enjoyed it so I guess it worked!

We concluded our 6 minute dance with the Harlem Shake, another modern trend in American culture right now. I hadn’t actually practiced that part, so I winged it. I am so glad that I can say I ended up having a blast performing. We may have been silly, but that was alright. I did not mind. It is not easy for me to overcome insecurity and pride in order to do something like that, but I am glad that I did.

After the last performance from the African community we watched the fashion show, and then our International Student Union president got up on stage to give a few heartfelt words. A lot of division has been occurring on campus this semester as a new university president has been elected. This occasion has met with a lot of protests for many complicated reasons. But even in something small like Culture Night, we were all able to experience unity in a meaningful way. So many people worked hard and so many beautiful relationships were showcased throughout this event that it really was a light for Handong. At least, this was my perception. I was really touched.

We ended with singing the Handong logo song, then a huge group picture of all the students—both international and Korean.

The goal of Culture Night was to bring glory to God and celebrate His diverse world in light of the fact that it is also a united world through Him. I think it achieved that purpose. As pictures, laughter, and conversation followed the end of the event my heart filled to bursting. I was surrounded by so many beautiful people, with beautiful stories, who came together in a beautiful way to make it a memorable evening. I am so glad I spent the time and energy on this event. It meant a lot to me, and reminded me of how blessed I have been this semester. It was refreshing, and so many good memories were made.

Thanks for reading to a long, rambling blog entry! I cannot express very well why I enjoyed this event so much, but I bet that if you had been there you would have felt the same. :-)

Blessings!

Picture Tour

I will have at least one big blog post coming sometime after the big campus event this Saturday. Until then, I thought I would give you guys a picture tour of some aspects of my daily life here. I know that I always like to be able to envision what my friends are doing when they are in a totally new place, so hopefully it will be somewhat interesting to you to see some of the things I see daily.

Welcome to Handong! This stone sits as the bottom of the hill that leads you up to Handong.

This is the familiar walk toward my resident hall, International House. It's the red/brown brick building on the right.

My beloved I House! A welcoming home

This is where I do most of my homework. Not the tidiest desk, but it works well for me

This is where I go to church and chapel every week

This is the lake where I go to find peace and quiet

This is a path I walk to and from class every week

This is a path I walk just for fun. Interesting buildings, nice scenery

This is the library where most students will spend a lot of time. Also a classroom building

One of the first and biggest buildings on campus and where the majority of my classes are held

This is the one big, open grassy field on campus. And you aren't really supposed to walk on it, so I just gaze at it longingly every day. That big building is the cafeteria/student union building

This is a high view of the cafeteria and the sports fields right in front of it. There is a running track, basketball court and soccer field all in one

Inside the cafeteria where I eat almost every day

 These are some of the things I eat at said cafeteria, though these are just a few options

Seaweed soup, kimchii curry rice

Egg, sauce, and fried shrimp on rice

Tteokbokki. Spicy stuff!

This is only served at night, after dinner. They give you a burner, noodles and then you cook it yourself. Delicious

So now maybe you have a clearer picture in your heads as to what the everyday things look like for me. If I did a really thorough job you would be overloaded with pictures, so I will be kind and leave it at this for now. I have to say, I really love this campus and think it is beautiful. I am managing just fine on the cafeteria food, though it can be a bit repetitive and sometimes I just want a home-cooked meal. But I am content and in no real hurry to leave. 

As always, thank you for reading!