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So I am just writing this little update to how my exchange in Korea is going since the last time I wrote an entry.
So a lot has happened mainly I went to jeju island with a bunch of other exchange students, it was really, really beautiful and I truly enjoyed myself there and definitely would want to go again and do a bunch of things I didn't have the opportunity to try. Other than my trip to jeju island it has been pretty normal here nothing to amazing has happened.
I will write another update just solely on my trip to jeju island and I am collecting pictures for a entry on the food I eat here so once i have a couple more pictures.
So the biggest thing that happened besides my trip to jeju island was that my classmates had their midterm exams which made pretty much up until last Friday incredibly boring here. As all my friends would just be studying literally all the time. I know a couple of my friends finished studying at around 2 am everyday and would then try and survive the school day on just maybe 3 or 4 hours of sleep. This leads to even more people sleeping in class then their is usually.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Pa9bZ.jpg)
That is a picture of my class near the end of our world history class, nearly everyone is sleeping.
So while everyone else was writing exams I pretty much did nothing, just relaxed and caught up on a bunch of lost sleep. The only important thing I did was go apply for my alien registration card which took a total of 8 hours at Suwon immigration office. So that kind of sucked but whatever.
This Friday was the first day of my friends being done exams so everyone was really happy and school was like a day off kind of, just mostly sat in class talked and played games. Was really fun, nothing to serious. Then in the afternoon we had like club activities so my club went to visit a fire station/learning center. It was okay, I guess seemed a little childish to me but they had like a recreation of a house on fire with like smoke and everything so that was kind of cool. After the school activities finished I met with a couple of friends and we're planning on going for a bike ride around to some trails or something. But then one guy calls us to come play like a pick up game of soccer. If you read my past entries you will know I am pretty awful compared to Koreans. So I was really nervous cause I knew some of the guys here would be really really good. We ended up playing for I think over 3 or 4 hours and it was actually incredibly fun. Eventually a couple of groups of other guys showed up on at the field so we had a cool pick up game of our Highschool stick everyone else. We won 2-1! I even scored a goal in one of the games we played. So after playing I was incredibly dirty as I hadn't had time to change out of my school uniform, which is still long slacks( Not the best for soccer playing) and it isnt a grass field so we were playing on dirt. This causes the games to sometimes pause if a big gust of wind comes as everyone turns away from the dirt wave. After the games finished we just relaxed for a bit and rested then everyone left to go home.
Next on Saturday I met my friends and the plan was to go to PC Bang as they hadn't really played any games at all because of exams and such. So we met up and then took the bus to this nicer PC Bang then spent a long time there playing at first LoL and then a bunch of BW. This was my first time playing with someone who was absolutely amazing at SC. Like i couldn't even touch him he was just like man handling all of us. Terran OP! It was really fun though, gotta practice my zerg more though.
Then on Sunday a new short term exchange student from the Philippines is coming to my school as well so me and the Finnish exchange student went to meet him and his host family and have dinner. It is nice to talk with someone who has perfect English and gets all my English jokes and such. Although he doesn't know any Korean pretty much like no where near enough to remotely function here so I think his month here will be tough but I try to show him as much as I can even though I have only been here 2 and half months.
That's pretty much it for what has happened i'm pretty sure. My plans for the next weeks is that I NEED to go see A Pink comeback so that should be pretty awesome and other than that thanks for reading and feel free to ask me any question.
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5/5 for the picture 
Edit: Loki you so niceuu, showing fellow exchange noobies around. Good luck and more pics!
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I love these blogs, keep em coming.
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Great blog.
Coming from a western education system, seeing people sleep like that in class is actually pretty hilarious. I can't even imagine how one of my old teachers would react if 90% of the class was sleeping due to exhaustion. Maybe they would be proud if it was a test day. But then they would remind us how important it is to sleep properly before etc...
Like said, keep them coming!
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I've noticed Koreans don't really study very effectively. They just read something over and over again and hope it sticks. :\
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Wow... Seriously the teacher lets the students sleep like that? Not to mention en-mass lol?
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On May 09 2012 06:23 mizU wrote:
I've noticed Koreans don't really study very effectively. They just read something over and over again and hope it sticks. :\
From my experience (student exchange), in the US they focus on the general concept, i.e. no need for memorization. In my opinion this is quite easy to study for. The issue in other parts of the world is that teachers test you on everything, so you not only have to understand the subject matter, but you also have to cover every nook and cranny in the book or whatever he says. This requires a lot of memorization and a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge time commitment, especially if you suck at memorizing like me.
To the OP hope you gain some good experiences in Korea, definitely nice to see other cultures.
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On May 09 2012 06:23 mizU wrote:
I've noticed Koreans don't really study very effectively. They just read something over and over again and hope it sticks. :\
This is the case in China/Taiwan too ... but it isn't that they all don't study effectively, it's that a lot of Asian schools test on miniscule details that require a lot of rote memorization. My mom told me the other day that when she was in school, for history or English, they're sometimes asked to reproduce exactly what they read, so the general idea is just to cram cram cram, because there is no other way to study for something like that. This also explains the bad level of English education; she told me it was pretty much 0 speaking, just memorization and regurgitation.
My parents said some other stuff about the diff. types of education too between the two hemispheres; they think that the US system is better, even though a lot of it is pretty dumb, but it doesn't burn out the kids as fast, and the top 5% of, say, students from the USA is just as good as, if not better than (due to less burn-out and more of a tendency towards creativity), the top 5% from Asian countries.
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On May 09 2012 06:51 babylon wrote:Show nested quote +On May 09 2012 06:23 mizU wrote:
I've noticed Koreans don't really study very effectively. They just read something over and over again and hope it sticks. :\ This is the case in China/Taiwan too ... but it isn't that they all don't study effectively, it's that a lot of Asian schools test on miniscule details that require a lot of rote memorization. My mom told me the other day that when she was in school, for history or English, they're sometimes asked to reproduce exactly what they read, so the general idea is just to cram cram cram, because there is no other way to study for something like that. This also explains the bad level of English education; she told me it was pretty much 0 speaking, just memorization and regurgitation. My parents said some other stuff about the diff. types of education too between the two hemispheres; they think that the US system is better, even though a lot of it is pretty dumb, but it doesn't burn out the kids as fast, and the top 5% of, say, students from the USA is just as good as, if not better than (due to less burn-out and more of a tendency towards creativity), the top 5% from Asian countries.
Pretty much exactly this. Like one of our English test was reciting 1 paragraph exactly as it was in the book. But I would say everyone here seems a lot smarter and I know it is stereotype but most are really good at math.
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On May 09 2012 06:51 babylon wrote:Show nested quote +On May 09 2012 06:23 mizU wrote:
I've noticed Koreans don't really study very effectively. They just read something over and over again and hope it sticks. :\ This is the case in China/Taiwan too ... but it isn't that they all don't study effectively, it's that a lot of Asian schools test on miniscule details that require a lot of rote memorization. My mom told me the other day that when she was in school, for history or English, they're sometimes asked to reproduce exactly what they read, so the general idea is just to cram cram cram, because there is no other way to study for something like that. This also explains the bad level of English education; she told me it was pretty much 0 speaking, just memorization and regurgitation. My parents said some other stuff about the diff. types of education too between the two hemispheres; they think that the US system is better, even though a lot of it is pretty dumb, but it doesn't burn out the kids as fast, and the top 5% of, say, students from the USA is just as good as, if not better than (due to less burn-out and more of a tendency towards creativity), the top 5% from Asian countries.
From my 6 month exchange period in China I can say these things:
- The Chinese only cram but have no idea how to apply
- They do everything by book, no real life practice.
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On May 09 2012 18:29 LlOoKkIi wrote:Show nested quote +On May 09 2012 06:51 babylon wrote:On May 09 2012 06:23 mizU wrote:
I've noticed Koreans don't really study very effectively. They just read something over and over again and hope it sticks. :\ This is the case in China/Taiwan too ... but it isn't that they all don't study effectively, it's that a lot of Asian schools test on miniscule details that require a lot of rote memorization. My mom told me the other day that when she was in school, for history or English, they're sometimes asked to reproduce exactly what they read, so the general idea is just to cram cram cram, because there is no other way to study for something like that. This also explains the bad level of English education; she told me it was pretty much 0 speaking, just memorization and regurgitation. My parents said some other stuff about the diff. types of education too between the two hemispheres; they think that the US system is better, even though a lot of it is pretty dumb, but it doesn't burn out the kids as fast, and the top 5% of, say, students from the USA is just as good as, if not better than (due to less burn-out and more of a tendency towards creativity), the top 5% from Asian countries. Pretty much exactly this. Like one of our English test was reciting 1 paragraph exactly as it was in the book. But I would say everyone here seems a lot smarter and I know it is stereotype but most are really good at math.
That's retarded and teaches you nothing =.= But it can't be the same with math and physics right?
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From what I've seen most high school students are good at memorizing theorems and equations, then applying them to get the numerical answer but when it comes to understanding the concepts... Thats another story; such as asking them about fundamental physics like work/energy and Newton's laws, they will most likely just throw equations at you. But its fine I guess, they all have good work ethics and it carries on into university =)
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On May 09 2012 23:19 Recognizable wrote:Show nested quote +On May 09 2012 18:29 LlOoKkIi wrote:On May 09 2012 06:51 babylon wrote:On May 09 2012 06:23 mizU wrote:
I've noticed Koreans don't really study very effectively. They just read something over and over again and hope it sticks. :\ This is the case in China/Taiwan too ... but it isn't that they all don't study effectively, it's that a lot of Asian schools test on miniscule details that require a lot of rote memorization. My mom told me the other day that when she was in school, for history or English, they're sometimes asked to reproduce exactly what they read, so the general idea is just to cram cram cram, because there is no other way to study for something like that. This also explains the bad level of English education; she told me it was pretty much 0 speaking, just memorization and regurgitation. My parents said some other stuff about the diff. types of education too between the two hemispheres; they think that the US system is better, even though a lot of it is pretty dumb, but it doesn't burn out the kids as fast, and the top 5% of, say, students from the USA is just as good as, if not better than (due to less burn-out and more of a tendency towards creativity), the top 5% from Asian countries. Pretty much exactly this. Like one of our English test was reciting 1 paragraph exactly as it was in the book. But I would say everyone here seems a lot smarter and I know it is stereotype but most are really good at math. That's retarded and teaches you nothing =.= But it can't be the same with math and physics right?
Math/Physics are just memorizing equations and methods.
There's something to say for knowing sheer volumes of information, as well.
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EPT
