new adventures

Tomorrow, once again everything changes. I will be leaving my orientation site and heading off to my placement for the year. There are so many emotions coursing through my mind. I am excited to start teaching, but sad to leave the friends I have made. I cannot wait for more independence and freedom, but also a little nervous as to how that will look. For the most part, I have been avoiding processing my emotions, saving that for when I get to my new home. I think it is the homestay that is most pressing on my mind. I found out that I will live twenty minutes from my school by car and will have three younger sisters (why does that sound familiar?). Both of my host parents work at school, but not the school at which I will be teaching. I keep pondering what the people will be like and if I will quickly connect to them. Orientation ended so quickly. One minute I was stressing out over the next Korean exam and now the whole thing is over. Within a week, I am going to be a teacher.

The Bible Study I am a part of had a final prayer service before we all head out. It was a good time to turn the control back over to God and remember that the next days are in his hands.

Well, I had better get some sleep for the big day...

archery!

Today I joined a group of about twenty-five ETAs in an amazing archery lesson. We had the opportunity to practice at the same archery field that the Korean Olympic team practiced on and receive instruction from the coach who led the Korean archery team to a gold medal at the Olympics. There was a little bit of excitement.....

We began the afternoon by learning the basic posture in holding a bow and arrow. I found it slightly different that I have to stand at a ninety degree angle from my target. Also, the bows that we were using had a sight about three inches up from the arrow. After everyone was fairly comfortable with the stance we got to practice shooting a target approximately ten meters (39 feet) away. Three or four people were shooting at the same target, and we would shoot six arrows before stopping to retrieve them. The first person to strike yellow (the center circle, worth ten points) got a free T-shirt. I was not that person. Amidst the laughs and encouragement, we had a great time and learned how to shoot. I hit paper every time and made it into the inner circle for several shots-I even had a couple of shots within an inch of the exact center :). I cannot imagine how to hit the Olympic distance targets-I think they were 70 meters away! Archery is an entertaining sport and I would love to come back to this range to practice or watch a tournament.

After archery a couple of us walked into town and went to a kimbap restaurant. Kimbap is kind of like sushi rolls without the fish. It is cheap and really yummy!

 Alanna and I wandering around before we began archery.

Lined up for practicing the positions.

The instructor and I.

The target after my group's best round.

Jinhee (my roommate) and I.