Comparing ‘Before entering GAFL’ and ‘After facing the real GAFL’
10 Things You LIKE and 10 Things You HATE about GAFL?
As it is already facing almost 3months since 13th entering students have first met each other, and we now know the ‘real facts’ about GAFL, I wanted to ask the students about the change in their thoughts.
We all had imagined how the school will be before we came here – a nice classroom full of nice students and nice teachers, clean bathrooms, clean dormitories, and fresh life. While some of them are still true, some of them are exactly the opposite. In order to know more about the student’s opinions, I started an interview on 13th entering students and asked them to name things that they thought it would be good when imagined but not, and one they thought it bad but actually good.
Here are some of ‘Good’ things – The things that they thought it will be bad but actually good.
① “I got to meet a lot of new good friends. Students here like to debate on a subject and talk about their opinion, so when talking freely about a topic, sometimes we can catch good debate points and ideas. It’s kind of nice because we can chat with friends and learn something at the same time.”
② “When will I hear a peacock cry if it weren’t GAFL..? It’s such an interesting experience :D”
③ “There are so many good teachers! At the beginning of the semester, I had some problem adapting in a new environment, but nice and friendly teachers helped me walked through the problem!”
④ “To be honest, I was very worried before entering GAFL because it is an intersection of students whose scores are good. So I was worried if I would not make any friends. However, spending an everyday 24hours together with friends helped a lot on being closer to each other, and I actually feel like I am much closer with friends here rather than my elementary and middle school friends. We also can take a lot of funny pictures of each other! They are good for birthdays~ :D”
⑤ “Because there are a lot of school-made tests such as essay writing tests, debates and so on, I feel like I have a lot of opportunity to success.”
⑥ “I like the custom of pair senior and pair junior well-established. Actually, I was quite interested since everyone has a chance to get at least one close senior or junior. Of course, there are some of my friends who are not close with their pair seniors, but overall, I think that this custom helps us, especially freshmen students, to know about school during the first few weeks.”
⑦ “I am satisfied with the dormitory teachers. At first, I thought that they will be very strict and stern. However, they are like my second parents – they fully understand our situation and they always try to respect us! My roommates and I were moved by the sticky note during the exam week XD♥”
⑧ “At first, I disliked our school’s summer uniform. However, after wearing it a few times, I found out that it is really comfortable, and quite pretty :)”
⑨ “For the first few weeks, I thought that walking up the hill would be a ‘disaster’ for the rest of my school life. However, I found it okay since we only have to come up and down the hill on Sundays and Fridays.”
⑩ “I thought that dormitory life would be uncomfortable, but after all, it became my second home! Also, I like it because I get to live a well-regulated life.”
On the other hand, here are some of ‘Bad’ things – The things that they thought it will be good but actually bad.
① “I don’t have my ‘own time’! :( I always spoke out loud when I study, but I cannot do that here since it might distract other students. Now it distracts me when studying :(“
② “I can’t understand why students don’t flush their toilet.. There even has bogey rubbed against the toilet door. It’s a community life, and I believe that students should do what they supposed to do as a member of the community..”
③ “There are fewer P.E classes.. The everyday class takes up 7 hours, and when adding self-studying time which takes 4~5 hours, students here spend more than 12 hours sitting, just studying. I think that we need more time for exercise, which means more P.E classes..”
④ “More people, the fast the rumor goes. Since we stick with friends every day, 24hours, the speed of rumor spreading is far faster. However, it is a problem since it gets distorted when spreading, and the rumors go bad. I believe that this is the reason why students call GAFL the ‘distortion’ school.”
⑤ “Air conditioner…please… I believed that the AC will be great here, but I was depressed because it wasn’t.”
⑥ “Snacks in the school store are too expensive. Three Smoothies takes up 10,000won, and when drinking two bottles of beverage for 5 days each, it also takes up 10,000 won. Of course, it is better than not having a store at all, but it’s far expensive for students to pay..”
⑦ “The exam schedule the last test was a big stress for 1st grade students. I hope the next exam schedule will be well ordered. I had a really hard time last time.”
⑧ “It is a big stress for me because we have to memorize lots and lots of vocabulary.. My memorization speed is slow, so it is more stressful for me, compared to students whose memorization speed is faster.”
⑨ “WE BECOME PIGS WHEN WE LIVE HERE”
⑩ “The Wi-Fi is so slow for more than 600 students to connect at the same time. I waste almost half of ASG3 working on my Wi-Fi connection.”
