Movement By Lydia

For those not familiar with what a supporter is, a supporter is a Korean college student that you meet with two times a week to study Korean and go around Seoul with. Supporter groups are groups of 2-3 NSLI-Y students around the same level of Korean (usually from the same class) paired with a supporter.  Supporters are something unique to the NSLI-Y Korea program, though other programs may have something similar. They act as tutors, tour guides, and friends all in one! Supporters as "Tutors"  As I mentioned above, you meet two times a week with your supporter for a few hours, and it is up to them where you go. One of the supporter's main role is to help you with your Korean, so they have a little book that corresponds with the lessons you learn in class and work out of them. We mainly focused on speaking. We would go over vocabulary and grammar in their little book then do some kind of role play or question and answer to practice what we were learning. After ...

In continuation with my last blog post, here is the second "Post NSLI-Y/College Life" blog post. This one is geared more towards alumni, but anyone can read it to learn of some of the opportunities you get as NSLI-Y alumni and know how to keep up with language studies even after you come home from being abroad! This blog post ended up being much longer than I expected, so I have split it into two different posts:  Part 1: Keeping Up With Korean  Part 2: Opportunities as a NSLI-Y Alumna They're quite long, but I encourage you to read both of them. They're filled with personal but relevant post-NSLI-Y experiences that will hopefully be beneficial to you. ALSO, I saw that NSLI-Y started sending out notifications last week, so HUGE congratulations to those who will be going abroad with NSLI-Y this year. And to those who don't get it, congratulations to you  too , really. Congratulations to you for even being a semifinalist and for applying to NSLI-Y in the firs...

Wow, I haven't posted on this blog in months, even though I had intentions of posting more over the summer and during this past winter break. It's hard to believe it has been almost two years since I received that exciting notification telling me I was going to Seoul, South Korea for the summer! When I talk to people about my time in Korea, sometimes I  still say "last summer" before I realize it wasn't just last summer... it was two summers ago! Time flies, I've gotten old. Okay, time to get to the actual blog. This one is geared more towards alumni, but anyone can read it to learn of some of the opportunities you get as NSLI-Y alumni and know how to keep up with language studies even after you come home from being abroad! This blog post ended up being much longer than I expected, so I have split it into two different posts:  Part 1: Keeping Up With Korean  Part 2: Opportunities as a NSLI-Y Alumna They're quite long, but I encourage you to read bo...

So during the program, there are a few cultural activities we did that were set up by the program. One of them was a Korean cooking class, which I was looking forward to because I love Korean food and already cook it back home! I was excited to learn how to make more foods! Our cooking class was at  서울관광고등학교, and it was quite the subway ride to get there from where I lived. I left super early in the morning.. like before my host family woke up. I think that was the only day I didn't eat breakfast with them&left before they woke up, so I just left a note to let them know where I went. Despite leaving so early I was almost late cause the station was SOOO crowded.. I remember seeing a girl in the subway station then running together to find everyone because we were scared we were late. Anyway, we all met at the subway station and then walked to the high school we were having our cooking class at. There were a LOT of hills, which is why we were told to wear sneakers haha.  ...

외국인 Above is the word "foreigner" in Korean, and if you aren't Korean, you will be called this in Korea. Don't take it personally when they call you this... It's just what they call people who aren't Korean. A lot of people have asked me questions like "What is it like being a foreigner in Korea?" and "Do you get treated differently since you are a foreigner?" so I decided to make a blog post about it. Everyone will obviously have a different experience with this, but since mine honestly won't be much help to many of the people asking these questions, I got some help from my fellow NSLI-Yians! My Personal Experience: Looking Korean So I am Chinese, but everyone in Korea thought I was Korean. I speak a good amount of Korean and have been told I have very little of accent, so I was mistaken all the time for being Korean, even when I was speaking (although I have terrible grammar so that could give it away lol). This was good i...

I apologize once again for not posting at all, but I wanted to make a post about yesterday's day camp before I forget all the details so that will be today's post. First off, I've got to say that this was probably one of my favorite days so far in Korea. I love my team members and had soooo much fun with them yesterday♡ We made a lot of good memories yesterday that I won't forget, and we also built great friendships during the course of the camp. Thanks to my team for making my day so great yesterday and working hard together despite the hot hot weather! I'll never forget my elephants♥                                  So now about the camp and what we did. When we first got there they gave us nametags to wear for the day. We got them and then sat with the other 50 Korean students who were already there and got to know them a little. After the intro stuff, we played icebreakers as a ...