Hi! I’m Hea Jin from Seoul, South Korea. Everyone calls me ‘HJ’. I decided to go America as an international student in March, 2007 to improve my English skills and experience different culture. I was very excited to come here. Time passed very fast. Finally, September 15, the day when I had to leave, I was too nervous, little bit scared and very sad to go, on the other hand, I was so curious and excited, too. About 20 hours after I got on the plane, I arrived in  Montana and met my host family who are very nice.

I went to school the day after I arrived here. School systems here are very different than in Korea. In Korea, first, we don’t use lockers. I hate lockers. I think they are very annoying. Second, we don’t have to move to different classrooms. We only move our classroom for English and Mathematics. For the other subjects, each teacher for the subject comes to our class room and teaches. During the first 3 days, I got lost a lot of times here, because we need to find classroom for each period in here.  

In Korea, we spend a way more time at studying compared to here. I usually got less than six or five-hour sleep per a day when I was in junior high because of studying. We go to school about as same as here, we should study ourselves about 50 minutes fist, and school starts. Schools usually end around four or five in the afternoon, and we need to study ourselves at school until 9pm or 10pm. It usually depends on which school you go to. Some schools don’t make you study after school if you don’t want to. If you don’t apply to study after school, we usually go private academies and you usually study there until midnight or one in the morning. It depends. School is very tough, but fun.

In school, we should wear school uniforms. We can’t dye or perm our hair, wear make-up and wear jewelries neither. If we do, we get detention points. Someone might think that it’s very stupid, because we can express our own styles. But I, who experienced both systems, prefer wearing school uniform far better, because it’s very easy to get ready for school in the morning, and we get more responsibilities as students. We can reveal our fashion senses as much as you want after school and weekends.

First time, it was hard for me to speak, understand and study in foreign language. Slang was the hardest part when I have conversations with others. I always needed to ask help for my assignments to teachers, host family and friends. During my first school week, I always had to ask teachers if we have tests or assignments after every single period. Now, I hardly have questions for class compared to first time. Literature is the hardest subject for me to study,

Jet lag and altitude were very hard for me to adapt too. We have about 16 hours gap from here and Korea. I slept a lot. I fell a sleep during class couple of times. It took me about two weeks to adapt to them. During two weeks it was such a disaster. I was always so sleepy and tired, and I had a slight headache because of the altitude. I think it took me about 3 months to totally adapt all surroundings, foods, new people, new home, school life and everything.

It was pretty tough for me first time, but I’m doing very well now. I love my peaceful life in here. Butte is very small city compare to Seoul, my hometown. So, I was somewhat disappointed first time. However, Butte grows on me very quickly. Now, I’m very glad I came here. I don’t regret at all. I’m having fun by experiencing new cultures and visiting many places. I really like my host family and school. I’ll miss here very much when I go back to Korea in May._?xml_:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />