Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

• Today has been a crazy day. Filled with lots of emotion. It’s hard to believe that this morning I was waking up in my bed in Jochiwon. I definitely cried at least 4 times, including when Sehee choked back tears as she tried to say goodbye to us in Morning Briefing and when Marcelle gave me a goodbye kiss on the cheek (I think I might not be a robot anymore). I miss it! Although I didn’t know or necessarily like everyone at Orientation, I really liked the atmosphere of it and just being around so many people from all over. Plus, we all know I hate change. And this is a big one, even though many people are fine with the transition and I’m sure it won’t seem big in retrospect. But we left our bubble. And it stinks.
• And we are now at English Village – one of the strangest places I’ve ever been! I will preface this explanation by saying that this is definitely one of the nicest places I’ve stayed, and it could be SO much worse. But this place is just creepy! It’s built as a place for Korean students to attend English camps (it’s one of many around the country, and is the 3rd largest). It is themed like an airport (complete with a fake plane, customs desk, duty-free shop, baggage claim, security check, waiting area and signs) and there are “situational” rooms everywhere...so that the kids can practice English in real settings. It's honestly a great idea! And cool that they value English education so much that they’ve spent this much money on it. BUT when we are here by ourselves, without children around and half the lights turned off, this place is no longer cool, it’s is downright creepy. Like we’ve walked into a modern-day ghost town. Or (as Jeanette put it) that we are in a life-size dollhouse and there is a giant watching and controlling our every move. There also isn't really anything to do. The closest convenience store is a 40 minute walk away. In addition, our coordinators STILL don’t seem to know what’s going on and I continuously feel like they don’t have vital information. I understand that Korea has different values and practices than the US when it comes to planning and carrying stuff out, but TaLK scholars in other POE groups have received WAY more info than we have and are well-taken care of. So we can’t blame it on Korea.