Class Begins

On Friday, March 19, my first graduate class began at 2 pm and lasted until 5 pm. The students have classes from 9 am to 7 pm with a few classes on Saturday. One student we know even has class exams on Sunday. CNU is a large university with 30,000 students. My class has 10 students and they were all a little apprehensive about the class because the class is taught in English and with their English skills this will be a challenge. One of the unique items that the Korean telephone system has is that you can type in an English word and it will translate to Korean. They were busy texting to their cell phones all during class. My class is set up so they can use our class software at SDSU called Desire 2 Learn. They were amazed that they could access the class information anf that we would provide that to them. I am recording the lectures so they can listen to the class and also I am making my notes more complete so it will be easier for them to follow the material. Also, any visuals are also made available for them to download as well. When I first tried to access D2L with the computer in the classroom we had some difficulty with the fact that the computer was entering Korean alphabet characters even though I was typing what looked like a regular keyboard and thus D2L would not recognize the ID and password information. With the help of the students we got the problems resolved and they were able to log into D2L.It is amazing to me that I am 1/2 a world away from some of my class material and yet I can modify and upload course material to D2L and the Korean students can access the information from their own home. Korea has the highest Internet availability in the world with more than 95% of homes having Internet. Some of the students in the graduate class were from the Korean exchange student groups we have had at SDSU during the summer and I was happy to see some familiar faces. Next week we find out when we will be teaching our conversational English classes. We know there will be at least two classes with about 12 students in each class.

My office is adjacent to the Department secretary's office. He (yes, he) is in charge of doing all the class scheduling, copying, and day to day activities for the Soils staff. He does not speak much English but between my illustrations and occasional words that we both understand we are getting by. There are always things we can learn from another culture. He brings me and other staff members fresh tea every day (morning and afternoon) and sometimes some little cookies (because he knows that foreigners like sweet things). I like this custom. Koreans do not eat many sweet items rather they prefer fresh fruit. The one "sweet" we have been served more than once, is a chunk of baked potato coated with a sugar glaze. They call this a "sweet potato"! It  may sound odd, but actually we like it.

The Soils staff number 6 and they meet once a month for a meal to discuss their department. There is a Department Head for the soils group and the Department Head role is passed from one staff member to the other after a two to three year term.

To celebrate the end of our first full week at CNU we had a lovely meal at the Continental Sky Lounge. The cafe is 16 stories up in one of the high rise buildings next to where we live. The food was excellent and much less expensive than at the motels in Yuseong. We could look out over the town and see all the buildings and mountains for miles. What a view! We will go there more often. One of us had spagetti (similar  to what we eat but with a Korean twist) and the other pork cutlets. We were full when we left. We have had a good week and tomorrow, Saturday, we plan to explore Daejeon (Teajon) using the bus and maybe subway systems.