Hello, new friends! My name is Christopher Orabutt, but you can call me Chris. I am 24 years old and I have been living on Jeju Island in South Korea for the past seven months after being accepted to the Fulbright Student Program. I am working at Ara Middle School and teaching English to sixth and seventh graders. I am originally from the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois, so living on an island is a big change! However, there are so many great things that I enjoy about Jeju Island.
South Korea is a peninsula located in East Asia. Being a peninsula means that South Korea has water on three sides of it. Japan, China and North Korea surround South Korea, which is a beautiful country with many mountains. The island that I live on has a tropical climate and is famous for its delicious oranges, called hallabong. A tropical climate means that the weather is wet and hot most of the time. In fact, the coldest that the island gets during winter is 30 degrees! Pretty warm, right? Chicago, where I grew up, is not known for being very warm, so this is a big change.
Growing up, I played a lot sports including baseball, ultimate frisbee, bowling and tennis. When I wasn't playing sports, I was practicing or playing music. I graduated from the University of Iowa with a degree in Secondary History Education and a minor in music in December 2017.
