My Classes

Yesterday was the first day of classes at Yonsei! It was a really exciting day; campus was the busiest I've ever seen it and you could tell that all the Korean students were happy to be back. The first class I had was Theory and Practice of Sports Medicine. I walked in and soon realized that I am the only white person in the class. Boy, do I stand out! The class was interesting though and the professor was very nice. His name is Dr, Justin Jeon and he's spent the last few years in the States studying the effects of exercise on cancer, cardiovascular, and diabetes patients. He studied for two years at Harvard Med, and what's really cool is that he spent some time developing an electro-stimulant rowing machine. Electro-stimulation is administered to athletes (we use it at school and I've received it on my back) to relieve muscle pain. Professor Jeon said that he's happy I'm taking his class, but he understands that being the only exchange student can be really intimidating.

Before my next class, I met Rosie, Felix, and Kia for lunch in the Student Union cafeteria. I had a rice bowl with some cabbage, a fried egg and some sort of teriyaki sauce. My next class was Religion and Culture 2: Christianity and The West. I have to take a class on Christianity for my Religious Studies major, and so I decided it'd be interesting to take it while I'm here since unlike the U.S., Christianity is only one of the major religions (accompanied by Buddhism and Confucianism) in Korea. The professor is Korean-born but she grew up in Argentina and studied in Italy. She's now back in Korea as a visiting professor. The class seems interesting for sure but I'm going to have to listen very carefully because her English is not perfect.

I then went straight to the next class, which I was not able to get into initially because it filled up so quickly. The professor told me it was fine if I take the class anyways and he signed Rosie and me in. This class is actually the pre-requisite to Religion and Culture 2, it's Religion and Culture 1: The East. The professor's name is Dr. Young-Ho Chun and he seems really cool; he reminds me a lot of Professor Dobkowski who is one of my favorite professors at HWS. Professor Chun is also a visiting professor this semester, and he teaches at the Saint Paul School of Theology in Kansas City. He has to go to a conference in Germany in October so he canceled a couple of classes, but me and Rosie are certainly not complaining!

The last class of the day was Imaginative Writing. I went to it anyways, even though I was pretty sure I was going to drop it since I was able to get into R and C 1. I think I made a good decision. The class doesn't seem nearly as much fun as I was hoping it'd be and I just didn't "gel" with the professor.

Today I had Religion and Culture 2 at noon and then I met Rosie for lunch at Cafe Kkini which is the restaurant in our dorm. We both had the Singapore chicken noodle dish. So delicious! My final class is Science of Nutrition and I had that this afternoon. The professor's name is Sooyong Park and she seems really easy-going. The class is largely made up of exchange students so I think she recognizes that we're in a different mind-set than that of Korean students. She was the only professor that I had that provided office hours for the students. I learned that professors don't typically post office hours here like they do in the U.S., but rather you're supposed to make an appointment with a professor on your own if need be.

So that's a wrap for my classes! I didn't get much sleep last night because Seoul was hit with a typhoon! We knew it was coming at some point but I was still alarmed when I woke up in the middle of the night. The wind was whistling and howling so incredibly loud that it sounded like someone was pounding on our sliding door! I got out of bed a few times to watch the storm from our window and it just looked like a flurry of green! The leaves were swirling everywhere so fast that you could hardly see anything else. Today campus workers have been very quick getting all of the brush cleared from the sidewalks and roads. I think it's pretty cool that I witnessed my first Typhoon!