Starting school this week was great. The campus is crowded again with Sogang students in the first days of their fall terms and the classroom atmosphere is friendly and fast-paced. In the last days of the summer, I started having dreams in which I was walking along Wall and High Streets on the way to class, and I was wondering if I was going to really miss campus. As a sophomore, on my first night in Trumbull, I looked out at the lights coming on all over Alvarez Court and was stunned to think that at this certain point in August all these people all over the world start gravitating right back to this one spot. Planes arrive, trains arrive, cars arrive, and these people pour out from all over onto campus as if they were made for it. I guess that after 16 years in school, I am made for it.
But those dreams didn’t last too long before Sogang’s campus became a nice place to spend the coming fall.
And to kick off my school year, Bo invited me to Ko-Yon Jeon (고연전), two days of sports competition between Korea and Yonsei Universities and two nights of partying and drinking back in Sinchon and Anam. Since I got back from Busan, the streets in Sinchon have become strung with banners taunting the Korea University “kitties” (Korea’s mascot is the tiger) with puns or just plain insults, and sponsored by the neighborhood businesses. Here is a picture of the games from wikipedia. I made it to the last competition, the soccer match at the Jamsil Olympic Stadium and joined Bo and the Kodae crowd.
I haven’t been to any college bowl games in America, but I imagine that they must be something like this. There was no need to tailgate because students could bring their own food and drink into the stadium, so thousands and thousands of students and alums were dancing, singing, cheering, and jeering as cheerleaders dressed up in these indescribable costumes set off fireworks. It was amazing. The only problem is that every time I go to one of these games I’m on the losing side.
