Life as a student in SNU LEI (Spring & Summer 2013)

With my level 3 classmates on the last day of school

And so, after 1 year 1 week of being back to working life, I have decided that I should blog about my 6-month student life in SNU LEI. Leaving the comforts of home (and income) for this unfulfilled dream since my schooling days was the biggest risk I ever took in my life. I have never been a risk taker, but I really wanted to do something for myself before I settle down (wheeee yes I'm getting married at the end of the year!) It was the biggest bet on myself I made, and I never regretted my decision. 

I am thankful to my ex-bosses who treated me with such great kindness and gave me the chance to fulfill my dreams. And even more to my loved ones who supported me on this self-discovery (and fan-girling) journey. I wouldn't deny that cute Korean idols were one of the pulling factors :) 

SNU in spring 

My favourite seat in class :D

Lessons in SNU LEI

Now, let's start off with the serious stuff. So like I mentioned in my previous post on SNU, all of us start off by taking a placement test (written test and an interview) to determine which grade we will start with. Although I didn't really take formal lessons in Singapore (I studied online through Talk to Me in Korean, and a week or 2 of last minute studying in Korea before the placement test), I was lucky to be placed in Level 2! The learning curve was steep but I enjoyed learning so much within a short span of time.

And despite wanting to have so much fun outside of school, I made myself a promise to study hard and I did! I obtained the Certificate of Excellence and also Certificate for Perfect Attendance for both levels! :D Don't say I go there and play only hor!

SNU compound

Morning lessons are from 9am to 1pm. Lessons were divided into 4 periods, each about 50 minutes. We have a 10 minutes break after the first and third periods, and a 20 minutes break after the second period. 

Lessons were taught almost 100% in Korean, with the teacher giving us some translations for more difficult terms. I used the new textbook for Level 2, and old textbook for Level 3. (They should have changed to the new textbooks by now.) The new textbook consists of about 4 grammars for every lesson, and different activities in between the grammars. Typically we take about 2 days to finish 1 lesson. The new textbook was definitely easier to read because it's less wordy, and because of the colourful pictures! On the other hand, the old textbook consists of a 1 to a few pages of a story / dialogue for us to memorise everyday! We also take about 1 day to finish 1 lesson! Info overload!

Other than the lessons, we have homework too! Every few days we had an essay to complete, about 4 role-plays in a school term, 2 presentations, 1 mid-term and 1 final exam.

Even though I felt like I just want to keep my mouth shut after every lesson (because of the amount of practice in spoken Korean), I think I actually benefited a lot from the emphasis on spoken Korean from some of my teachers. I remembered that after just a few days in class, I was able to go to the bank and use what I've learnt in class! 

Class Activities
Class activities are what make the lessons so interesting and enjoyable. There were so many activities we did - creating posters for school clubs & finding buddies, role-playing as travel agencies, sellers and buyers, etc.

Posters for finding a buddy in school

Money for the seller

I sold bags and shoes! 

Posters for school clubs recruitment

Mix and match the sentences

We also did a skit during Level 3 and it was totally fun and hilarious!!

Our prize for the skit

We also had pizza parties when the term ends!

SNU Speech Day

I also had the honour to be one of the photographers for the annual SNU Speech Day! My teacher recommended me after seeing my photos in the presentation slides. Haha! It was fun even though I didn't have the appropriate equipment for that setting. I remembered I was almost chosen to represent the class because of my topic (I talked about Kpop and how to get into a music show). Fortunately a more befitting classmate represented our class! 

Performances by students

With my level 3 classmates

Cultural activities outside of school

National Gugak Center (국립국악원)

Janggu - One of the 4 traditional Korean instruments used in Samulnori (사물놀이). 

Salmulnori is a genre of traditional percussion music from Korea. Samulnori is played using 4 types of instruments - "Kkwaenggwari" 꽹과리 (small gong), "Janggu" 장구 (hour-shaped drum), "Jing" 징 (larger gong) and "Buk" 북 (barrel drum). Janggu was the instrument I wanted to learn and thankfully I had the chance to! I actually wanted to take Janggu lessons on Saturdays but my host mum reminded me of the thousand and one activities I had lined up on weekends. Haha!!  

Level 2 classmates

With my Level 2 선생님 (seonsaengnim / teacher)

And for Level 3, we had cooking lessons!

Teacher from the cooking school doing a demonstration 

Classmates busy cooking - No prize for guessing what I was doing most of the time. Lol!

Japchae 잡채 - sweet potato noodles tossed in sesame oil with vegetables

Japchae

Bulgogi 불고기 - grilled marinated beef

My level 3 classmates and teachers

We also went on a fieldtrip to Cheonggyecheon  

As part of our mission, we were supposed to take photos at the designated locations

At the end of our walk

Canteen Food

Another important aspect of your school life, food! Being a student doesn't mean you can't eat well! There were hits and misses at the SNU school canteens. There are several canteens near the LEI building. For variety, we always go to the big canteen near the bookshop and bank, which offers you 3-5 choices of main course. The rest of the canteens only give you 2 choices. The price of a meal ranges from 2,500krw to 5,000krw. 

This must be one of the better meals I had in SNU - ginseng chicken for about 4,000krw.

Chicken cutlet

Bulgogi

Kimchi fried rice

Chicken cutlet

Japchae with Rice

Variation of bulgogi

Bulgogi again

Side dishes are free flow, but don't take double plates, ask for extra in the same plate!

Classmates

This, you can't choose, but I was glad that I had fun classmates for both levels! Most of my classmates were high schoolers going on university, so I was always one of the oldest in class. Thankfully I was second for both levels! (The class register is sorted by age.) I had lots of fun during classes, and also thankful that they didn't think I had such a big age gap with them. :D

Arm-wrestling in class to see who will represent our class for the competition!

Trip to the karaoke (noraebang 노래방) with my classmates. Although all the MVs were the pirated kind, we had lots of fun singing both Korean songs and songs of our native languages

BBQ meat celebration after our exams

Posing for class photo

One of the best adventures of my life, and memories that I will hold on to dearly. To all the people I've met during my adventure, thank you for being part of it! 사랑해요, 그리고 보고 싶다! 다음에 만나자!