End of EV Regular Classes

This week marked several "lasts" for me here in Korea. I finished exchanges with my Korean exchange partners, after three semesters of meeting with over 50 different Korean students, I will not have another exchange.

On Wednesday, we had the closing ceremony for the English Program. We had a dinner with both the Korean and Internationals that live in GV. It was bittersweet to have one last dinner with everyone in the program. During the dinner, the program director gave out the end of term awards for the EV program, which includes: Outstanding International, Outstanding Korean, Best Suite, and Best Exchanges. Surprisingly, I was given the Outstanding International award, which came as a surprise to me! I was given a certificate as well as a giftcard to Mr Pizza (the best pizza chain in Korea, oh yeah!)

Today was the last day of regular classes in the EV program. This does not include my Korean class in the Chinese program. Nevertheless, this marks the beginning of the end for me as the majority of my classes come to a close. In my Korean speaking class, my teacher brought us a cake to mark the end of our class, celebrate December birthdays (me and Maiko), and wish us well as we leave SCH. My speaking teacher is one of the sweetest teachers I have had, she always tried to find new ways for us to apply the Korean we have thus far in different situations. From writing a weekly journal to her in Korean to watching Korean movies in class, she found new ways for us to learn more Korean.

In my writing class, we wrote memory notes to our classmates. It really hit me at this point that this semester is ending very fast. It was hard to write these goodbyes to my classmates, many who I have been classmates with since last semester.

After classes, we had a Secret Santa exchange with the other Internationals. We ordered food and played Christmas music, followed by a gift exchange. While this exchange was going on, we exchanged memory books for one another to sign. This made the whole "goodbye" concept to a new light. Five of the international students took their finals today and left for the States because of family emergencies. Like past semesters, it was very hard to begin these goodbyes, knowing that they will continue from here on out for several weeks. I feel like these goodbyes are more difficult this semester because I know that I will be saying more goodbyes as I prepare to leave Korea.

This coming week will be filled with studying, so I will be pretty quiet here on this blog. I hope that I can post something once I finish my exams as we approach my Birthday week as well as Christmas.