Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Friday, May 29, 2009
Who, What, When, Where, Why, How
Today has been a long day. I started with a class at 9:10 and I stayed busy for the most part from then until 8:30pm. I got home around 8:45. Because of the holidays and campus events, I had to make up one class tonight (a Friday) and I have to make up more classes next week. I will be glad when this semester is over.
Sometimes I am glad to be doing what I am doing and sometimes I am not. I’m motivated to stay here because of the financial package and the interesting conversations I have with students. But sometimes, many times, I wonder if I should stay here. Even though the financial side is beneficial, I don’t see a lot of fruit coming from what I am doing. The students this semester have been very difficult to work with. I think this is a combination of poor teaching methods, language and cultural barriers and a lack of motivation on the students‘ part. It makes me wonder whether I am making much of a difference.
The difficult thing about teaching is that there is no litmus test for the progress that students could make. I think that students are better at listening and perhaps speaking, too, but that doesn’t mean that they can have a conversation in English very easily. I learned tonight that one student doesn’t know the English equivalent to the Korean words for who, what, when, where, why and how. He knew a few of them but not too many. I shocked me to realize I didn’t know this even though the semester is almost over. When he took the oral mid-term test, he seemed to do okay at speaking in English but when it comes to a regular conversation, he can’t seem to manage that. I’m inclined to give an oral exam where all students can do is study the subject but they don’t know exactly what kind of conversation will take place.
Sometimes I am glad to be doing what I am doing and sometimes I am not. I’m motivated to stay here because of the financial package and the interesting conversations I have with students. But sometimes, many times, I wonder if I should stay here. Even though the financial side is beneficial, I don’t see a lot of fruit coming from what I am doing. The students this semester have been very difficult to work with. I think this is a combination of poor teaching methods, language and cultural barriers and a lack of motivation on the students‘ part. It makes me wonder whether I am making much of a difference.
The difficult thing about teaching is that there is no litmus test for the progress that students could make. I think that students are better at listening and perhaps speaking, too, but that doesn’t mean that they can have a conversation in English very easily. I learned tonight that one student doesn’t know the English equivalent to the Korean words for who, what, when, where, why and how. He knew a few of them but not too many. I shocked me to realize I didn’t know this even though the semester is almost over. When he took the oral mid-term test, he seemed to do okay at speaking in English but when it comes to a regular conversation, he can’t seem to manage that. I’m inclined to give an oral exam where all students can do is study the subject but they don’t know exactly what kind of conversation will take place.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Finding Fulfillment when I Don't Fill It
I had a difficult time at church today. This should not be surprising since we are trying to figure out what to do about the English service. It seems that we are not on the same page as far as the leadership of the service is concerned. One person things we should let lying dogs lie and one person thinks we should keep going regardless of who shows up. Both of these are valuable perspectives, I think. Though I am verbally closer to the person who says to let the thing die, I can also respect the person who finds fulfillment in the service. This experience makes me wonder about fulfillment, something I may not think accurately about in my mind.
To me, if something is worth doing, there is some evidence of fruit. It doesn’t mean that there has to be lots of proof that something is worthwhile but some type of evidence would be nice. As one leader and I were discussing the service, it seemed that we weren’t getting anywhere. We were both probably being too abstract in our thinking. A third person seemed to bring us down to earth. He pointed out that the main reason why people are coming to the service is to learn English. He further suggested that we do something less formal.
The stress on learning English makes me want to shy away from this responsibility. That’s why I wanted to go the other direction after my lunch appointment yesterday. There is a part of me that doesn’t understand why people are so concerned about learning English. Yet there is another part of me that can see why people are so interested in learning English. This does seem curious to me, especially in light of the fact that people come to our English service to learn English. I would think they would go to hagwons or something like that but they seem to be coming to church for that.
I’m not sure what to do with this especially in terms of fulfillment. I have never had someone come up to me telling me how much they appreciate what I do, unless the person was directly involved in the service. I’m reminded of one analogy someone gave me a long time ago, that this dilemma is much the same as the person who runs sound. Nobody goes to the soundperson when everyting is going well to express gratitude to that person. They only go to that person when there is something wrong. I wonder if there is something to this analogy that is applicable to my own life, that sometimes there isn’t the life-fulfillment that I have changed somebody’s life but that I am doing something well. What motivates one to do things that are worthwhile when one does not fulfilled in them? Right now the most fulfilling thing to me is going to sleep. I have gotten a lot of work done today and I am officially out of steam.
To me, if something is worth doing, there is some evidence of fruit. It doesn’t mean that there has to be lots of proof that something is worthwhile but some type of evidence would be nice. As one leader and I were discussing the service, it seemed that we weren’t getting anywhere. We were both probably being too abstract in our thinking. A third person seemed to bring us down to earth. He pointed out that the main reason why people are coming to the service is to learn English. He further suggested that we do something less formal.
The stress on learning English makes me want to shy away from this responsibility. That’s why I wanted to go the other direction after my lunch appointment yesterday. There is a part of me that doesn’t understand why people are so concerned about learning English. Yet there is another part of me that can see why people are so interested in learning English. This does seem curious to me, especially in light of the fact that people come to our English service to learn English. I would think they would go to hagwons or something like that but they seem to be coming to church for that.
I’m not sure what to do with this especially in terms of fulfillment. I have never had someone come up to me telling me how much they appreciate what I do, unless the person was directly involved in the service. I’m reminded of one analogy someone gave me a long time ago, that this dilemma is much the same as the person who runs sound. Nobody goes to the soundperson when everyting is going well to express gratitude to that person. They only go to that person when there is something wrong. I wonder if there is something to this analogy that is applicable to my own life, that sometimes there isn’t the life-fulfillment that I have changed somebody’s life but that I am doing something well. What motivates one to do things that are worthwhile when one does not fulfilled in them? Right now the most fulfilling thing to me is going to sleep. I have gotten a lot of work done today and I am officially out of steam.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
English: Children, Dinner and the Future
Today has been an interesting day. I started by working at home, trying to grade all the papers for mid-terms. I only got through one group’s presentation and I am nearly at the end of my rope, or the end of my day rather. Today has been a day of going back and forth between meetings and work. I thought I could get some work done tonight after all the events were over with but I ended up chatting online instead. Finally, I decided to go running after I had another frustrating conversation about the English service.
The first event of my day was meeting the guy for lunch that I met at the PC room last weekend. It turns out that he is a university student at another university in the same city where I work. I asked him why he wants to be friends with a foreigner and he gave the anwer I expected: I want to improve my English. I responded by saying, “So you want to use me for my English”. He didn’t like the way that sounded and I tried to get him to agree to it several times. I would say we had a half-way decent conversation. It was tiring though because of the language barrier. He insisted on walking with me to my home but I said there was no sense in going any further than the university where I work. As it were, he had to backtrack to the hair salon. He wanted to make sure I didn’t think he was trying to use me for my English. I said, “If that’s the case, let’s only speak in Korean from now on.” He agreed.
After that I went home for an hour to grade tests. I finished one group test but that was it. I arrived at the university about the time that my co-teacher suggested we meet. There was a staff person in the office where I met the Korean teachers (aka TAs) who does not speak much English. I had what seemed like a five-minute conversation with her, mostly in Korean, but it was probably only one minute. This made me feel good about my Korean ability which seems to be improving slowly but surely. But then there were other times today when people couldn’t understand my text messages which I typed in Korean.
My task at the university was to work with one of the Korean teachers, a university student, to teach English to a group of children. I can’t quite say that I taught them because the Korean teacher led them through the CCM songs that they will be presenting to their parents in a few weeks. I mostly engaged with the children during this time. A few of them tried to speak to me in Korean and I understood a little bit of what they were saying. Sometimes I was modeling the pronounciation for them and eventually we played the game, “Do you love your neighbor” and we finished with an airplane roleplay.
This was a lot of fun for me. It seemed that the students had a lot of fun and that they were very comfortable in the classroom. The other teacher and I seemed to work well together, too. The adventure continued as I went to dinner with the other Korean teacher (going together with both teachers would have been nice but one of them had to go to church). The meal cost less than 5 USD. We left earlier than we anticipated because it seemed that the people wanted to close the restaurant. I experienced this same phenomenon yesterday with a foreign professor. It was interesting how nobody came up to us to tell us they were closing but they sent us hints in other ways like closing the doors and turning off the air-conditioning (air-con in Konglish).
By the time I got home at 8pm I had a lot of excitement running through me. I thought this called for a celebration with some watermelon. I thought that after eating some watermelon I would have lots of motivation to work but this was not the case at all. I stared at my computer screen for several hours. I was thinking about going running but I didn’t want to leave my apartment so I was thinking of going to sleep. Then when someone called me to talk about the English service I got upset and then I knew I had to go running. So I went running and walking for what seemed to be an hour. Because of being angry, I probably ran harder at times than I have recently. After running I felt less stress, though I am still frustrated about what I should do.
The first event of my day was meeting the guy for lunch that I met at the PC room last weekend. It turns out that he is a university student at another university in the same city where I work. I asked him why he wants to be friends with a foreigner and he gave the anwer I expected: I want to improve my English. I responded by saying, “So you want to use me for my English”. He didn’t like the way that sounded and I tried to get him to agree to it several times. I would say we had a half-way decent conversation. It was tiring though because of the language barrier. He insisted on walking with me to my home but I said there was no sense in going any further than the university where I work. As it were, he had to backtrack to the hair salon. He wanted to make sure I didn’t think he was trying to use me for my English. I said, “If that’s the case, let’s only speak in Korean from now on.” He agreed.
After that I went home for an hour to grade tests. I finished one group test but that was it. I arrived at the university about the time that my co-teacher suggested we meet. There was a staff person in the office where I met the Korean teachers (aka TAs) who does not speak much English. I had what seemed like a five-minute conversation with her, mostly in Korean, but it was probably only one minute. This made me feel good about my Korean ability which seems to be improving slowly but surely. But then there were other times today when people couldn’t understand my text messages which I typed in Korean.
My task at the university was to work with one of the Korean teachers, a university student, to teach English to a group of children. I can’t quite say that I taught them because the Korean teacher led them through the CCM songs that they will be presenting to their parents in a few weeks. I mostly engaged with the children during this time. A few of them tried to speak to me in Korean and I understood a little bit of what they were saying. Sometimes I was modeling the pronounciation for them and eventually we played the game, “Do you love your neighbor” and we finished with an airplane roleplay.
This was a lot of fun for me. It seemed that the students had a lot of fun and that they were very comfortable in the classroom. The other teacher and I seemed to work well together, too. The adventure continued as I went to dinner with the other Korean teacher (going together with both teachers would have been nice but one of them had to go to church). The meal cost less than 5 USD. We left earlier than we anticipated because it seemed that the people wanted to close the restaurant. I experienced this same phenomenon yesterday with a foreign professor. It was interesting how nobody came up to us to tell us they were closing but they sent us hints in other ways like closing the doors and turning off the air-conditioning (air-con in Konglish).
By the time I got home at 8pm I had a lot of excitement running through me. I thought this called for a celebration with some watermelon. I thought that after eating some watermelon I would have lots of motivation to work but this was not the case at all. I stared at my computer screen for several hours. I was thinking about going running but I didn’t want to leave my apartment so I was thinking of going to sleep. Then when someone called me to talk about the English service I got upset and then I knew I had to go running. So I went running and walking for what seemed to be an hour. Because of being angry, I probably ran harder at times than I have recently. After running I felt less stress, though I am still frustrated about what I should do.
Friday, May 8, 2009
Is Something Wrong?
I haven’t journaled for the last two nights. I made up for one of these times the next morning but I didn’t make it up in time to do that this morning. Interestingly, it was the nights that I didn’t exercised that I missed journaling. It is ironic that excercising actually gives me energy.
I was expecting to meet a student later tonight to give him some paperwork that he needs to apply to a university in Seoul. Unfortunately, he got caught in traffic so we are going to meet on Monday. This is unfortunate since that is my research day but perhaps that will be good because I can do some reading in the library or I can just take a break at that time and come back home for a few hours.
Today was a much better day than the last few Fridays have been. I still found my conversation class to be a struggle. Personally I want to step away from the book but I think there is some value to it in helping students learn English grammar. Unfortunately, most of the students today didn’t do their homework so they had to spend a good amount of classtime doing homework. Perhaps I should’ve just moved on to the next task. I was hoping to have people compare answers. I find myself trying to pattern the way I teach after the Greek classes that I took in college and seminary. Unfortunately this is an entirely different setting since I am not speaking to students in their native language. Sometimes they end up teaching me as much about Korean as I teach them about English. The more I study Korean the more interested I become.
When I went to chapel today, I tried writing down words that the speaker used but I didn’t find this as meaningful today as I did on Sunday when I did the same thing. I’m not sure if it was the fact that the sermon was shorter, that I didn’t understand as many words or if my mood was just different. Sometimes I think it is more relaxing knowing that I can’t understand what the speaker is saying and therefore I am more relaxed because I can’t complain about something I don’t understand. At the same time, I think it would be nice to at least understand what the other person is saying.
Lunch with one of my colleagues was interesting as usual. We talked about a plethora of subjects ranging from university politics to media literacy to writing in my journal. Of course this included other subjects like church and Korean culture. He is always telling me to write, write, write.
Eventually I returned to my office to work on the recommendation forms for the student I already mentioned. I was happy to get this done in a relatively short amount of time. After that was all said and done, I tried to contact the department chair of one of the departments I belong to. Since I was told the professor’s English-speaking abilities are limited, I attempted to write the e-mail in Korean and English. One of my Korean collegues whose English far outweighs my Korean (I can’t really have a conversation in Korean) told me my Korean is great. I thought she was being sarcastic but she didn’t seem to back down when I kept telling her I am not good at Korean. I guess she is saying that I am making progress which is an important thing in learning another language. I try to send text messages in Korean as much as possible. Sometimes I text in Korean and other people text me in English. I guess this gives all of us practice, though sometimes we can have misunderstandings if I don’t understand the Korean or vice versa.
During the afternoon time, I also had another Korean colleague visit my office. He expressed interest in visiting around the same time every Friday. He showed me the memory verses he has learned in English from the Bible. I was impressed at his intonation as he quoted the verses to me.
I didn’t meet with the Korean professor that I usually have dinner with on Friday nights. This was a nice break. I am usually worn out by Friday nights and we often have difficult conversations (because of language and cultural barriers). This enabled me to come home and make some dinner. For some reason, by the time I got home I was feeling really good. I suppose it may have had something to do with getting more sleep last night. It may also be because I am doing something with children tomorrow. It seems that I thrive on doing many things. Apparently it gives me something to look forward to. I would imagine that tomorrow night I will feel the letdown that I usually feel on Friday nights.
I’m wondering whether I should continue blogging as I have been or if I should change it slightly. I would imagine it is getting boring to read about the same types of events everyday. For me, being able to put this on a blog helps me to keep on track with doing this. At the same time, I am reticent to say everything because of a fear of offending someone. I worried about that with my last post since I addressed an issue that could be quite controversial.
I was expecting to meet a student later tonight to give him some paperwork that he needs to apply to a university in Seoul. Unfortunately, he got caught in traffic so we are going to meet on Monday. This is unfortunate since that is my research day but perhaps that will be good because I can do some reading in the library or I can just take a break at that time and come back home for a few hours.
Today was a much better day than the last few Fridays have been. I still found my conversation class to be a struggle. Personally I want to step away from the book but I think there is some value to it in helping students learn English grammar. Unfortunately, most of the students today didn’t do their homework so they had to spend a good amount of classtime doing homework. Perhaps I should’ve just moved on to the next task. I was hoping to have people compare answers. I find myself trying to pattern the way I teach after the Greek classes that I took in college and seminary. Unfortunately this is an entirely different setting since I am not speaking to students in their native language. Sometimes they end up teaching me as much about Korean as I teach them about English. The more I study Korean the more interested I become.
When I went to chapel today, I tried writing down words that the speaker used but I didn’t find this as meaningful today as I did on Sunday when I did the same thing. I’m not sure if it was the fact that the sermon was shorter, that I didn’t understand as many words or if my mood was just different. Sometimes I think it is more relaxing knowing that I can’t understand what the speaker is saying and therefore I am more relaxed because I can’t complain about something I don’t understand. At the same time, I think it would be nice to at least understand what the other person is saying.
Lunch with one of my colleagues was interesting as usual. We talked about a plethora of subjects ranging from university politics to media literacy to writing in my journal. Of course this included other subjects like church and Korean culture. He is always telling me to write, write, write.
Eventually I returned to my office to work on the recommendation forms for the student I already mentioned. I was happy to get this done in a relatively short amount of time. After that was all said and done, I tried to contact the department chair of one of the departments I belong to. Since I was told the professor’s English-speaking abilities are limited, I attempted to write the e-mail in Korean and English. One of my Korean collegues whose English far outweighs my Korean (I can’t really have a conversation in Korean) told me my Korean is great. I thought she was being sarcastic but she didn’t seem to back down when I kept telling her I am not good at Korean. I guess she is saying that I am making progress which is an important thing in learning another language. I try to send text messages in Korean as much as possible. Sometimes I text in Korean and other people text me in English. I guess this gives all of us practice, though sometimes we can have misunderstandings if I don’t understand the Korean or vice versa.
During the afternoon time, I also had another Korean colleague visit my office. He expressed interest in visiting around the same time every Friday. He showed me the memory verses he has learned in English from the Bible. I was impressed at his intonation as he quoted the verses to me.
I didn’t meet with the Korean professor that I usually have dinner with on Friday nights. This was a nice break. I am usually worn out by Friday nights and we often have difficult conversations (because of language and cultural barriers). This enabled me to come home and make some dinner. For some reason, by the time I got home I was feeling really good. I suppose it may have had something to do with getting more sleep last night. It may also be because I am doing something with children tomorrow. It seems that I thrive on doing many things. Apparently it gives me something to look forward to. I would imagine that tomorrow night I will feel the letdown that I usually feel on Friday nights.
I’m wondering whether I should continue blogging as I have been or if I should change it slightly. I would imagine it is getting boring to read about the same types of events everyday. For me, being able to put this on a blog helps me to keep on track with doing this. At the same time, I am reticent to say everything because of a fear of offending someone. I worried about that with my last post since I addressed an issue that could be quite controversial.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
A Typical Day With Some Questions
I am writing this on Thursday morning instead of Wednesday night because when I went home last night I was exhausted. I intended to stay up late to do some work for classes but I kept hearing voices telling me that I should get some sleep. I’ve been through enough sleep deprivation to know my own sleep cycle. I got four-and-a-half hours of sleep the night before last so I figured I better get some sleep last night and hopefully I can get by on less sleep tonight.
Nothing out of the ordinary happened yesterday. Well, I did have an interesting conversation with one student who missed the mid-term last week. One of my colleagues told me she wouldn’t let the student retake the mid-term if she missed it. But since the student was sick and since I myself have fallen upon the grace of professors, I decided to give her a break. Of course she will still have to prepare for the test and I am not the funnest person to take a test with (I like to ask difficult questions in case you forgot).
Yesterday was my free-talking only day. Of course it isn’t just free-talking because it also involves teaching the class at City Hall. This is always interesting, perhaps because of the maturity of the staff taking that class. Last night, the topic was about adoption. This is something I’ve been thinking about more since re-connecting with one of my cousins. I was surprised to hear people talk about the importance of bloodline in Korea. I thought that if Koreans adopted Koreans they wouldn’t be disrupting the bloodline but apparently that is not the case. One person wondered how difficult it would be to discipline children who are not one’s own children. It seemed to me she was referring to adopting children when they are ten years or older when they are adopted.
This conversation reminded me of three people: the first two are my cousins who were born in Korea, one of which I’ve been corresponding with lately (I love the look in peoples’ eyes when I tell them I have a Korean cousin). This has been interesting to talk to her about her home country. It seems ironic that I am in her home country and I am looking forward to telling her many more things when I go home in a month-and-a-half as well as hearing her own story. The third person is Janelle Matthews, a girl who disappeared about 33 years ago. I never knew her personally but I did know her family. I remember seeing the “Missing” posters when I first started going to Sunny View Church of the Nazarene in Greeley, Colorado. Eventually the family had a farewell service. They never found Janelle and it seemed possible that she might not be alive. Whether or not this was true, it was a way for the family to bring closure to this experience.
I think of adoption as a just cause and I still think it is. But I have more questions about the whole process. It seems like a good thing. As one of the staffpersons last night said, everybody should have a family. With globalization being what it is today, it makes one wonder if other countries will or have had people who adopt people from richer countries. What would it be like for a Korean family to adopt an American, where the American goes to live with the Korean family in Korea. How would that affect the person’s psyche? What might the differences be between adopting a toddler and a teenager?
Nothing out of the ordinary happened yesterday. Well, I did have an interesting conversation with one student who missed the mid-term last week. One of my colleagues told me she wouldn’t let the student retake the mid-term if she missed it. But since the student was sick and since I myself have fallen upon the grace of professors, I decided to give her a break. Of course she will still have to prepare for the test and I am not the funnest person to take a test with (I like to ask difficult questions in case you forgot).
Yesterday was my free-talking only day. Of course it isn’t just free-talking because it also involves teaching the class at City Hall. This is always interesting, perhaps because of the maturity of the staff taking that class. Last night, the topic was about adoption. This is something I’ve been thinking about more since re-connecting with one of my cousins. I was surprised to hear people talk about the importance of bloodline in Korea. I thought that if Koreans adopted Koreans they wouldn’t be disrupting the bloodline but apparently that is not the case. One person wondered how difficult it would be to discipline children who are not one’s own children. It seemed to me she was referring to adopting children when they are ten years or older when they are adopted.
This conversation reminded me of three people: the first two are my cousins who were born in Korea, one of which I’ve been corresponding with lately (I love the look in peoples’ eyes when I tell them I have a Korean cousin). This has been interesting to talk to her about her home country. It seems ironic that I am in her home country and I am looking forward to telling her many more things when I go home in a month-and-a-half as well as hearing her own story. The third person is Janelle Matthews, a girl who disappeared about 33 years ago. I never knew her personally but I did know her family. I remember seeing the “Missing” posters when I first started going to Sunny View Church of the Nazarene in Greeley, Colorado. Eventually the family had a farewell service. They never found Janelle and it seemed possible that she might not be alive. Whether or not this was true, it was a way for the family to bring closure to this experience.
I think of adoption as a just cause and I still think it is. But I have more questions about the whole process. It seems like a good thing. As one of the staffpersons last night said, everybody should have a family. With globalization being what it is today, it makes one wonder if other countries will or have had people who adopt people from richer countries. What would it be like for a Korean family to adopt an American, where the American goes to live with the Korean family in Korea. How would that affect the person’s psyche? What might the differences be between adopting a toddler and a teenager?
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
I bought a dress
Today ended up completely different than I anticipated last night. I decided to go to Seoul to shop for a hanbok (a Korean traditional dress) for my cousin. Since she was born in Korea this is something I really wanted to do for her. She said that I didn’t have to but when I insisted on it, she consented. I didn’t really insist, it’s just that she is a genuine Korean which means she was being modest (in my opinion). So I met my Korean teacher, who is also a friend, in Seoul. Unfortunately, I wasn’t as thoughtful as I could’ve been so I went with a low cell phone battery and I was an hour late. She was mad when I first told her where I was and she knew how long it would take me but by the time I got there she was cool. I bought her dinner which was intended to be part of my penance and I told her I’d buy her dinner at the Outback sometime.
I’m grateful that she was able to help me. We went to several different shops. The first was luxurious, the second was about the price I expected and the third had some really good deals. We decided to buy the third option. I was nervous about this because I didn’t want to buy her the “cheap” item but I also didn’t want to spend more of her money than necessary.
This was my first time shopping for a dress so I was quite uneasy about it. I was glad to do it for my cousin and I’d do anything for her or her brother who were born here, but buying something for someone else without having her right there or knowing exactly what her intentions are for using the dress were difficult. I almost went back and bought the more expensive one but I decided to hold on to this one because of the advice of my friend.
After we bought it, we had cold noodles (냉면). This was my friends request and I had no complaints because I also like this type of food. It is good especially when it is hot outside. When we walked in, we almost sat in chairs where it was really crowded. Usually Koreans like to eat on the floor (and this is more true the older people get, though there are exceptions) so I told her I was okay to sit on the floor. And that is what we did.
After that we went to the subway. We tried to catch a rapid transit train but our timing was off so we got back on a subway train and had some interesting conversation for the next hour or two. Then I decided to go grocery shopping after that (shop ‘til you drop, right?) so we got off at the same station.
When I got back I felt bad about not getting the dresses for my nieces that my sister-in-law requested. But I feel better now that I know it would’ve been way out of her price range (double what she wanted to spend). I still feel bad for not getting them since this might be something really special for them. It would give them an opportunity at a young age to be exposed to a different culture. I was thinking too much in terms of the price limit my sister-in-law gave me and not enough in terms of the gift. Since I had a broader range with my cousin it was easier to focus on getting the job done.
All in all, I’d say this has been a good Children’s Day. I think it was probably more eventful than the Children’s Day I had last year at this time. The mission for my nieces is not over. I just have to keep thinking.
I decided to take heed to my teacher/friend’s advice to keep writing Korean sentences. So I’m going to focus on this more than writing every Korean word down on a list. When I get on the plane to America I will have lots of time to study. Maybe I can also work in a Korean movie or ten. You gotta love those Korean movies. They are great stress relievers.
I’m grateful that she was able to help me. We went to several different shops. The first was luxurious, the second was about the price I expected and the third had some really good deals. We decided to buy the third option. I was nervous about this because I didn’t want to buy her the “cheap” item but I also didn’t want to spend more of her money than necessary.
This was my first time shopping for a dress so I was quite uneasy about it. I was glad to do it for my cousin and I’d do anything for her or her brother who were born here, but buying something for someone else without having her right there or knowing exactly what her intentions are for using the dress were difficult. I almost went back and bought the more expensive one but I decided to hold on to this one because of the advice of my friend.
After we bought it, we had cold noodles (냉면). This was my friends request and I had no complaints because I also like this type of food. It is good especially when it is hot outside. When we walked in, we almost sat in chairs where it was really crowded. Usually Koreans like to eat on the floor (and this is more true the older people get, though there are exceptions) so I told her I was okay to sit on the floor. And that is what we did.
After that we went to the subway. We tried to catch a rapid transit train but our timing was off so we got back on a subway train and had some interesting conversation for the next hour or two. Then I decided to go grocery shopping after that (shop ‘til you drop, right?) so we got off at the same station.
When I got back I felt bad about not getting the dresses for my nieces that my sister-in-law requested. But I feel better now that I know it would’ve been way out of her price range (double what she wanted to spend). I still feel bad for not getting them since this might be something really special for them. It would give them an opportunity at a young age to be exposed to a different culture. I was thinking too much in terms of the price limit my sister-in-law gave me and not enough in terms of the gift. Since I had a broader range with my cousin it was easier to focus on getting the job done.
All in all, I’d say this has been a good Children’s Day. I think it was probably more eventful than the Children’s Day I had last year at this time. The mission for my nieces is not over. I just have to keep thinking.
I decided to take heed to my teacher/friend’s advice to keep writing Korean sentences. So I’m going to focus on this more than writing every Korean word down on a list. When I get on the plane to America I will have lots of time to study. Maybe I can also work in a Korean movie or ten. You gotta love those Korean movies. They are great stress relievers.
Monday, May 4, 2009
No More Long Days
It’s been a long day. I probably start off with that quite often. I guess I’ll have to change that for next time since it seems like I have a lot of long days. Today was more relaxing than some research days because I had fewer things nagging for my attention. It helps that tomorrow is a holiday: Children’s Day. I was planning on going to Seoul to meet an acquaintance I met sometime in the past but she didn’t respond to a text message I sent last night so I thought maybe she had other plans. When I called her and thought about the possibility of going to Seoul my heartrate seemed to increase. I told her I was relieved to think that I might not have to go to Seoul. She seemed to understand in spite of making these plans when she was still in Japan. I also thought that maybe I misunderstood something since we were texting in Korean at that time.
I felt a lot better today than I felt a week ago. I’m not sure what made the difference except perhaps making some slight changes in my routine. I’m not chatting online as much these days. I don’t think this is intentional but it seems to work out that way and I find that I am more focused on getting things done and am not allowing myself to get as distracted. I figure if people want to know what is going on with me they can read my blog. I think I am being slightly more intentional about getting work done, though I still have the times where I have to convince myself that I can do whatever task is before me.
After talking to my parents and another friend I try to talk to every Monday, I started reading about Shamanism. This is helpful in learning about Korean culture and it is also relevant at times to the subject I am researching. I didn’t work on this project the whole time, however. Part of that time I worked out some kinks on airline tickets, frequent flyer miles, accounts and I even copied some corrected Korean sentences into my Korean journal. I am almost up to 300 sentences and I can still hardly have a conversation in Korean. I corresponded a few times today with a speech therapist I met at church who is interested in improving her English skills. I can justify this because it seems that I will have to speak in Korean if I want to communicate with her.
At 4pm, I had to attend a staff meeting. Today was different than usual because we had a special guest who talked to us about needs assessment. This was good in that it reminded us to be student-centered and not lesson-centered. Though we had questions at time, I think we conceded that this is a good thing overall. Since the speaker seemed to “badmouth” Korean culture a few times, I wondered what the one Korean sitting in the room was thinking.
After that I went to meet with the family I have dinner with every week. Tonight I just went with their daughters to the restaurant one floor below their apartment. Usually, Korean restaurants have a hurry, hurry (빨리 빨리) mentality but there are a few restaurants that serve spaghetti, pork and other types of dishes that are not really busy and they don’t seem to rush customers in and out of the restaurant. It is a nice environment for people like me who like to take a little bit more time eating their food. The conversation with these girls is getting easier and easier since they understand so much English. The bad part is that I don’t speak in Korean as much as I could.
After that I went to teach the class at city hall. This never seems to be the same. We usually talk about interesting subjects. Tonight I talked to them about why the taxi driver has given me a discount on a few occasions and whether I am obligated to do something for them in return. Since tipping is not allowed here there is nothing I can do. This discussion led to a conversation about how taxi drivers get paid. After that was resolved, which took a while to understand, I tried to give the people in the class more opportunity to speak. This showed me that I am speaking too much and not giving other people enough opportunity to speak. Many of the questions I ask are difficult which is good for them to think critically about in English and also for them to practice speaking in English. By the time we went around in a circle, we had gotten into a discussion about whether parents should have the right to tell their children what to do with their lives after they graduate from the university.
When I got home, I checked my e-mail, took care of a situation so that I can pay my travel agent for the flight tickets (at a relatively low cost for flying from Asia to North America), calling someone else and then I decided to go running. I knew I had many things to do but I decided to make this part of my “Brent Time”. It seems to be helpful for me to have this space to think about nothing but running and whatever happens to come to mind. I had one person say hello to me in Korean or so I thought and I responded. But then they just kind of looked at me so I wondered if I was just hallucinating.
For the past few hours I’ve been adding Korean words to my vocabulary list while also chatting a little bit with people. I eventually signed out and am about ready to crash for the night. I’m not sure this method is the perfect way to learn Korean but I haven’t figured out a better way and I think this is good for reviewing the things I am learning. I have a lot of things to do tomorrow and I am hoping to focus on grading mid-terms, studying Korean (maybe finishing the vocabulary list from the textbook and adding some more from the sentences I have recorded. My goal is to have an exhaustive vocabulary list which I can review on the plane for so many hours. I hope to finish the mid-terms tomorrow morning and then work on the Korean project in the afternoon. I’m also planning to meet my Korean teacher in front of her office so we can shop for a Korean traditional dress for my Korean cousin (one of them). That should be an interesting experience.
I felt a lot better today than I felt a week ago. I’m not sure what made the difference except perhaps making some slight changes in my routine. I’m not chatting online as much these days. I don’t think this is intentional but it seems to work out that way and I find that I am more focused on getting things done and am not allowing myself to get as distracted. I figure if people want to know what is going on with me they can read my blog. I think I am being slightly more intentional about getting work done, though I still have the times where I have to convince myself that I can do whatever task is before me.
After talking to my parents and another friend I try to talk to every Monday, I started reading about Shamanism. This is helpful in learning about Korean culture and it is also relevant at times to the subject I am researching. I didn’t work on this project the whole time, however. Part of that time I worked out some kinks on airline tickets, frequent flyer miles, accounts and I even copied some corrected Korean sentences into my Korean journal. I am almost up to 300 sentences and I can still hardly have a conversation in Korean. I corresponded a few times today with a speech therapist I met at church who is interested in improving her English skills. I can justify this because it seems that I will have to speak in Korean if I want to communicate with her.
At 4pm, I had to attend a staff meeting. Today was different than usual because we had a special guest who talked to us about needs assessment. This was good in that it reminded us to be student-centered and not lesson-centered. Though we had questions at time, I think we conceded that this is a good thing overall. Since the speaker seemed to “badmouth” Korean culture a few times, I wondered what the one Korean sitting in the room was thinking.
After that I went to meet with the family I have dinner with every week. Tonight I just went with their daughters to the restaurant one floor below their apartment. Usually, Korean restaurants have a hurry, hurry (빨리 빨리) mentality but there are a few restaurants that serve spaghetti, pork and other types of dishes that are not really busy and they don’t seem to rush customers in and out of the restaurant. It is a nice environment for people like me who like to take a little bit more time eating their food. The conversation with these girls is getting easier and easier since they understand so much English. The bad part is that I don’t speak in Korean as much as I could.
After that I went to teach the class at city hall. This never seems to be the same. We usually talk about interesting subjects. Tonight I talked to them about why the taxi driver has given me a discount on a few occasions and whether I am obligated to do something for them in return. Since tipping is not allowed here there is nothing I can do. This discussion led to a conversation about how taxi drivers get paid. After that was resolved, which took a while to understand, I tried to give the people in the class more opportunity to speak. This showed me that I am speaking too much and not giving other people enough opportunity to speak. Many of the questions I ask are difficult which is good for them to think critically about in English and also for them to practice speaking in English. By the time we went around in a circle, we had gotten into a discussion about whether parents should have the right to tell their children what to do with their lives after they graduate from the university.
When I got home, I checked my e-mail, took care of a situation so that I can pay my travel agent for the flight tickets (at a relatively low cost for flying from Asia to North America), calling someone else and then I decided to go running. I knew I had many things to do but I decided to make this part of my “Brent Time”. It seems to be helpful for me to have this space to think about nothing but running and whatever happens to come to mind. I had one person say hello to me in Korean or so I thought and I responded. But then they just kind of looked at me so I wondered if I was just hallucinating.
For the past few hours I’ve been adding Korean words to my vocabulary list while also chatting a little bit with people. I eventually signed out and am about ready to crash for the night. I’m not sure this method is the perfect way to learn Korean but I haven’t figured out a better way and I think this is good for reviewing the things I am learning. I have a lot of things to do tomorrow and I am hoping to focus on grading mid-terms, studying Korean (maybe finishing the vocabulary list from the textbook and adding some more from the sentences I have recorded. My goal is to have an exhaustive vocabulary list which I can review on the plane for so many hours. I hope to finish the mid-terms tomorrow morning and then work on the Korean project in the afternoon. I’m also planning to meet my Korean teacher in front of her office so we can shop for a Korean traditional dress for my Korean cousin (one of them). That should be an interesting experience.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Easter and the Church
Easter and The Church
Acts 4:23-37
When I was in my 20s, there was a popular book. It was called, “Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire.” It was a book about prayer. Like “The Purpose-Driven Life,” this book was very popular. The pastor himself didn’t have a degree in Bible or theology. He claimed to base his ministry on prayer. He said that God built this church. The church was located in New York City. And he claimed that this ministry grew and grew because the people of the church prayed.
As many people ran to the bookstore to buy this book, I stayed home. When something is popular I usually go in a different way than everyone else. But I knew people who had read this book. One of these people was my pastor. She said that this book made her think about her own prayer time. She described this as a difficult experience. I thought to myself, “why would someone read a book that makes one’s life more difficult?” She thought this was a good thing. I’m sure this made her look at her prayer time differently. But I wasn’t convinced.
Around that time, I went to a youth conference. One of the workshops I went to was about this book. The person who led the workshop was also a believer in the book. He talked some about this book. Then he gave us an opportunity to experience prayertime during that workshop. After the prayertime was over with, he asked us to talk about our experience. I remember there was one girl who was deaf. She could not hear anything but during that prayertime she heard some kind of noise. She took this to be a message from God. She thought God was saying, “If you meet me like this more often, I will do great things.”
Even after this experience, I still wasn’t convinced. If God wanted to do something really great, why didn’t God just restore her hearing? It is a common thing for us to try to go back to the good ol’ days. Maybe for some of us, the good ol’ days were when we were in high school. If we are married now, maybe the good ol’ days are when we were single. If we are single, maybe we’re still looking for the good ol’ days.
Many people have read Acts with a desire to get back to the good ol’ days. They think that the church used to be perfect. If we could only be like the early church was, that would really be something. Then we could really do church. That is what this book was about. As with many popular Christian books that time came and went. The writer said that if people started praying there could be a revival. If there was one, I don’t think it happened in my church.
For some reason, I have always struggled with prayer times like these. It was like a speech class. I felt like my prayer had to go a certain way. Since I was preparing to be a minister, I thought that I had to say everything just right. I hear that same concern when I hear people ask how to pray in English. I wonder if we miss the point with prayer. Or if at least the writer of the book missed something.
This is not the first chapter in Acts. This is the fourth chapter. Much has happened here. Jesus has spent time with the disciples in his resurrected body. Jesus has told the disciples to tell the good news of Jesus dying, being buried and being raised from the dead. The disciples did what Jesus said and they got arrested.
Now I don’t know about you but I think I’d have a word or two for Jesus. “Now just a minute. I’m okay with telling people about you. But what is the point of getting arrested for obeying you.” I guess the apostles came to expect this after following a guy who got in trouble a lot. After they had been set free, they went to the church.
There is something interesting about this church that the apostles were leading. Acts 4 tells us that they went to their friends. It doesn’t tell us they went to their business partners. It doesn’t tell us that they went to the board meeting. It tells us they went to their friends. The people of this group within the Jewish faith were so close that they were friends.
For me, this word is sacred. I don’t call just anyone my friend. I have different levels of relationships. First, there are acquaintances. This is someone that I meet. I might even have lunch with them at work. But these are not quite my friends. Then there are casual friends. These are people I might have dinner with but there are some things I still don’t talk to them about. Then there are friends. These are people I’m comfortable with whom I don’t have to hang out with. I choose to hang out with them. Then there are close friends. These are the people that I tell everything to. These are the people that I call when I am depressed, when I want to talk to someone without worrying what they might think. When I read Acts, I hear the writer saying that the people of this Church that started at Pentecost were close friends. And that’s probably why the Apostles went to them first.
Now why would someone want to arrest Jesus’ apostles? Surely these were good people. Surely they didn’t make people too excited. All they were doing was being witnesses. They were telling people what they saw. But of course part of what they saw was Jewish religious leaders pushing for Jesus to be killed. And if somebody was wrong, it was probably those religious leaders. Or maybe it was the Jewish people of Israel who agreed to have Jesus crucified. I think I would arrest somebody if it looked like I had killed the Son of God.
After these apostles were set free from jail, they went back to their friends. And THEN they prayed to God in one accord. I can’t help but think that all the craze about praying is sometimes misinformed. In this story, prayer is a response to what God is doing and a request for God to continue acting. It is not enough to pray in and of itself. These followers of Jesus were praising God. They called God sovereign. This means they recognized that God is the one who creates. They didn’t give God this title often. It was a special occasion. And while they were at it, they asked God to continue to use the apostles. They wanted the disciples to speak with boldness. This means they wanted people to believe the apostles’ story. They needed to believe themselves that the story they were telling was indeed true.
And now comes the moment we’ve all been waiting, the shaking of that place. All we are left to here is imagination. We don’t know what the people said. We don’t know whether they prayed for this sort of thing to happen. It would seem unlikely that they asked God to make that place shake. And yet that is sometimes how we rate the effectiveness of a prayer meeting. We sometimes try to repeat this kind of a scenario because then we know that God is involved. And yet, we are told time and time again that if we want to experience salvation with God, we must trust God. That means there is an element of uncertainty.
I should probably apologize to you for choosing such a long passage to read from this morning. I’m sorry. I could have chosen Acts 4:23-31. Or I could have chosen Acts 4:32-37. If I chose Acts 4:23-31, I worried that we might think praying is enough. And if I chose Acts 4:31-37 we might think that serving is enough. Acts 4:31-37 is about service. It would be easy for me to go this direction. Where is God involved in the world? I think it must be with poor people. It must be in helping those who can’t help themselves. But if God is relational, surely prayer is important too. This is where I struggle. It’s difficult for me to pray to a God that I can’t see or hear or understand. So I thought this sermon would speak to me if I included both parts. And maybe by including both parts it will speak to you, too.
The text tells us that there was great grace upon the apostles. We often think of grace as this forgiveness that God gives us. We talk about God’s gracing overlooking our sins. But grace is much more than this. It also refers to God giving us power. And that is what God did for the apostles.
The disciples were testifying to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are still celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is the fourth week after Easter. It was a new day after Jesus was raised from the dead. It was originally the apostles’ duty to talk about Jesus being raised from the dead. And now it is our turn. How do we talk about Jesus being raised from the dead?
On Easter Sunday I went to the Seoul Anglican Cathedral, 서울대성당. The priest gave a decent sermon. First he preached in English and then he preaced in Korean. I was impressed since he is a native English speaker. I was convinced that he researched the passage well. But I was also disappointed that he didn’t talk about what difference the resurrection makes today.
The resurrection was central to the message of the apostles. Yes, they talked about Jesus’ life. Yes, they talked about Jesus dying on the cross. Yes, they talked about Jesus being buried. But the good news is that Jesus was raised from the dead. And the good news that carries from the good news is that life can be different. Life can be better.
So what difference does the resurrection of Jesus make to 나사렛대학교회? Why are we here? What difference does the resurrection make to this English service? Why do we come here every week at 9am? We could go to the 11:00 service and even get to sleep in. Is there a reason? Is it so we can improve our English? Is it to extend an invitation to people who don’t go to any church? Is it to connect with the students of this university? Is it to minister to people in the community where this church is located? Are we doing that?
There is an important detail that I failed to mention. It was the result of the prayer meeting in the room that shook. The people asked God to give the apostles authority. How did God do this? God filled them with the Holy Spirit. This wasn’t the first time the apostles experienced the Holy Spirit. To say this was the first time they received the Holy Spirit would be misleading. This was a fresh infilling of God’s Spirit. Now why would God do this if God only wanted those Christians to pray? Lots of people pray. They don’t need the Holy Spirit to do that. But in order to fulfill God’s call for us, we need to experience God’s power that comes through the Holy Spirit.
When a church does what the apostles and the early Christians did, we say, “the Church is being The Church”. Unfortunately, many times this is not the case. Many times people don’t extend love to other people. I wish I could simply ask whether that is the case at this church. But I’m afraid it is the case. There is a lack of community here. People come here because they have to or because their spouse has to. Perhaps there are people who come here for other reasons. But having talked to university students who haven’t experienced that grace at this church, what can we do to change it?
There are lots of ministries where the Church is being The Church. These come in a lot of different forms. One of these is the XXXChurch. This is a ministry that was started to help people who are addicted to pornography. Pastors from this church go to events where there are strippers dancing on stage. Their motto is, “Jesus loves porn stars.” Their goal is not to shut down the companies that produce these materials. Rather, they want to help people addicted to these types of materials to be free.
Yesterday I talked to a friend of mine about what it would be like for the Church to be The Church. He imagined that the Church could be so much more if people were honest. The word used to describe the relationship of the people at church in Acts is “friends”. This takes grace. It’s easier to come, do our thing of going to church and then going home or to the Yawoori or whatever. But to develop relationships with people takes work. Let it start with us, in the English congregation at 나사렛대학교회. Look around for the students. Don’t assume they have enough friends. Look around for the people you don’t know. Think about walking around the neighborhood and helping those who can’t help themselves. I think my friend is right about the Church. If we realize the resurrection of Jesus in our own lives, we could make our lives better and everyone else's.
Acts 4:23-37
When I was in my 20s, there was a popular book. It was called, “Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire.” It was a book about prayer. Like “The Purpose-Driven Life,” this book was very popular. The pastor himself didn’t have a degree in Bible or theology. He claimed to base his ministry on prayer. He said that God built this church. The church was located in New York City. And he claimed that this ministry grew and grew because the people of the church prayed.
As many people ran to the bookstore to buy this book, I stayed home. When something is popular I usually go in a different way than everyone else. But I knew people who had read this book. One of these people was my pastor. She said that this book made her think about her own prayer time. She described this as a difficult experience. I thought to myself, “why would someone read a book that makes one’s life more difficult?” She thought this was a good thing. I’m sure this made her look at her prayer time differently. But I wasn’t convinced.
Around that time, I went to a youth conference. One of the workshops I went to was about this book. The person who led the workshop was also a believer in the book. He talked some about this book. Then he gave us an opportunity to experience prayertime during that workshop. After the prayertime was over with, he asked us to talk about our experience. I remember there was one girl who was deaf. She could not hear anything but during that prayertime she heard some kind of noise. She took this to be a message from God. She thought God was saying, “If you meet me like this more often, I will do great things.”
Even after this experience, I still wasn’t convinced. If God wanted to do something really great, why didn’t God just restore her hearing? It is a common thing for us to try to go back to the good ol’ days. Maybe for some of us, the good ol’ days were when we were in high school. If we are married now, maybe the good ol’ days are when we were single. If we are single, maybe we’re still looking for the good ol’ days.
Many people have read Acts with a desire to get back to the good ol’ days. They think that the church used to be perfect. If we could only be like the early church was, that would really be something. Then we could really do church. That is what this book was about. As with many popular Christian books that time came and went. The writer said that if people started praying there could be a revival. If there was one, I don’t think it happened in my church.
For some reason, I have always struggled with prayer times like these. It was like a speech class. I felt like my prayer had to go a certain way. Since I was preparing to be a minister, I thought that I had to say everything just right. I hear that same concern when I hear people ask how to pray in English. I wonder if we miss the point with prayer. Or if at least the writer of the book missed something.
This is not the first chapter in Acts. This is the fourth chapter. Much has happened here. Jesus has spent time with the disciples in his resurrected body. Jesus has told the disciples to tell the good news of Jesus dying, being buried and being raised from the dead. The disciples did what Jesus said and they got arrested.
Now I don’t know about you but I think I’d have a word or two for Jesus. “Now just a minute. I’m okay with telling people about you. But what is the point of getting arrested for obeying you.” I guess the apostles came to expect this after following a guy who got in trouble a lot. After they had been set free, they went to the church.
There is something interesting about this church that the apostles were leading. Acts 4 tells us that they went to their friends. It doesn’t tell us they went to their business partners. It doesn’t tell us that they went to the board meeting. It tells us they went to their friends. The people of this group within the Jewish faith were so close that they were friends.
For me, this word is sacred. I don’t call just anyone my friend. I have different levels of relationships. First, there are acquaintances. This is someone that I meet. I might even have lunch with them at work. But these are not quite my friends. Then there are casual friends. These are people I might have dinner with but there are some things I still don’t talk to them about. Then there are friends. These are people I’m comfortable with whom I don’t have to hang out with. I choose to hang out with them. Then there are close friends. These are the people that I tell everything to. These are the people that I call when I am depressed, when I want to talk to someone without worrying what they might think. When I read Acts, I hear the writer saying that the people of this Church that started at Pentecost were close friends. And that’s probably why the Apostles went to them first.
Now why would someone want to arrest Jesus’ apostles? Surely these were good people. Surely they didn’t make people too excited. All they were doing was being witnesses. They were telling people what they saw. But of course part of what they saw was Jewish religious leaders pushing for Jesus to be killed. And if somebody was wrong, it was probably those religious leaders. Or maybe it was the Jewish people of Israel who agreed to have Jesus crucified. I think I would arrest somebody if it looked like I had killed the Son of God.
After these apostles were set free from jail, they went back to their friends. And THEN they prayed to God in one accord. I can’t help but think that all the craze about praying is sometimes misinformed. In this story, prayer is a response to what God is doing and a request for God to continue acting. It is not enough to pray in and of itself. These followers of Jesus were praising God. They called God sovereign. This means they recognized that God is the one who creates. They didn’t give God this title often. It was a special occasion. And while they were at it, they asked God to continue to use the apostles. They wanted the disciples to speak with boldness. This means they wanted people to believe the apostles’ story. They needed to believe themselves that the story they were telling was indeed true.
And now comes the moment we’ve all been waiting, the shaking of that place. All we are left to here is imagination. We don’t know what the people said. We don’t know whether they prayed for this sort of thing to happen. It would seem unlikely that they asked God to make that place shake. And yet that is sometimes how we rate the effectiveness of a prayer meeting. We sometimes try to repeat this kind of a scenario because then we know that God is involved. And yet, we are told time and time again that if we want to experience salvation with God, we must trust God. That means there is an element of uncertainty.
I should probably apologize to you for choosing such a long passage to read from this morning. I’m sorry. I could have chosen Acts 4:23-31. Or I could have chosen Acts 4:32-37. If I chose Acts 4:23-31, I worried that we might think praying is enough. And if I chose Acts 4:31-37 we might think that serving is enough. Acts 4:31-37 is about service. It would be easy for me to go this direction. Where is God involved in the world? I think it must be with poor people. It must be in helping those who can’t help themselves. But if God is relational, surely prayer is important too. This is where I struggle. It’s difficult for me to pray to a God that I can’t see or hear or understand. So I thought this sermon would speak to me if I included both parts. And maybe by including both parts it will speak to you, too.
The text tells us that there was great grace upon the apostles. We often think of grace as this forgiveness that God gives us. We talk about God’s gracing overlooking our sins. But grace is much more than this. It also refers to God giving us power. And that is what God did for the apostles.
The disciples were testifying to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are still celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is the fourth week after Easter. It was a new day after Jesus was raised from the dead. It was originally the apostles’ duty to talk about Jesus being raised from the dead. And now it is our turn. How do we talk about Jesus being raised from the dead?
On Easter Sunday I went to the Seoul Anglican Cathedral, 서울대성당. The priest gave a decent sermon. First he preached in English and then he preaced in Korean. I was impressed since he is a native English speaker. I was convinced that he researched the passage well. But I was also disappointed that he didn’t talk about what difference the resurrection makes today.
The resurrection was central to the message of the apostles. Yes, they talked about Jesus’ life. Yes, they talked about Jesus dying on the cross. Yes, they talked about Jesus being buried. But the good news is that Jesus was raised from the dead. And the good news that carries from the good news is that life can be different. Life can be better.
So what difference does the resurrection of Jesus make to 나사렛대학교회? Why are we here? What difference does the resurrection make to this English service? Why do we come here every week at 9am? We could go to the 11:00 service and even get to sleep in. Is there a reason? Is it so we can improve our English? Is it to extend an invitation to people who don’t go to any church? Is it to connect with the students of this university? Is it to minister to people in the community where this church is located? Are we doing that?
There is an important detail that I failed to mention. It was the result of the prayer meeting in the room that shook. The people asked God to give the apostles authority. How did God do this? God filled them with the Holy Spirit. This wasn’t the first time the apostles experienced the Holy Spirit. To say this was the first time they received the Holy Spirit would be misleading. This was a fresh infilling of God’s Spirit. Now why would God do this if God only wanted those Christians to pray? Lots of people pray. They don’t need the Holy Spirit to do that. But in order to fulfill God’s call for us, we need to experience God’s power that comes through the Holy Spirit.
When a church does what the apostles and the early Christians did, we say, “the Church is being The Church”. Unfortunately, many times this is not the case. Many times people don’t extend love to other people. I wish I could simply ask whether that is the case at this church. But I’m afraid it is the case. There is a lack of community here. People come here because they have to or because their spouse has to. Perhaps there are people who come here for other reasons. But having talked to university students who haven’t experienced that grace at this church, what can we do to change it?
There are lots of ministries where the Church is being The Church. These come in a lot of different forms. One of these is the XXXChurch. This is a ministry that was started to help people who are addicted to pornography. Pastors from this church go to events where there are strippers dancing on stage. Their motto is, “Jesus loves porn stars.” Their goal is not to shut down the companies that produce these materials. Rather, they want to help people addicted to these types of materials to be free.
Yesterday I talked to a friend of mine about what it would be like for the Church to be The Church. He imagined that the Church could be so much more if people were honest. The word used to describe the relationship of the people at church in Acts is “friends”. This takes grace. It’s easier to come, do our thing of going to church and then going home or to the Yawoori or whatever. But to develop relationships with people takes work. Let it start with us, in the English congregation at 나사렛대학교회. Look around for the students. Don’t assume they have enough friends. Look around for the people you don’t know. Think about walking around the neighborhood and helping those who can’t help themselves. I think my friend is right about the Church. If we realize the resurrection of Jesus in our own lives, we could make our lives better and everyone else's.
Another Good Day
Today has been a long, but enjoyable and even a productive day. It started with an English service, a Korean service, lunch, translating the first sentence of the Lord’s prayer from Korean into English (still trying to figure out what to do with the difference in Korean grammar, like where it says that God’s hallowed name is received), hiking, dinner at home, watching a Korean movie, cleaning my apartment, and filling out my district license renewal application.
The first thing on my list of things to do was to participate in the English service at one of the churches I am involved in. I had more responsibility today because I preached and I did the things I usually do (confession, reading the scripture, leading the congregation in confessing the Apostles’ Creed and giving the benediction. One person told me she feels inspired when she listens to my sermons. Another person told me I spoke slower today than usual which is a good thing I think. After this I waited for two students who have been missing the class the last few weeks because of schedule conflicts or tests.
At 11:00 I went to the Korean service at the same church. I was going to do something to keep myself occupied and then I decided to write down as many words as I could make out during the sermon. I came up with 150 or more and was told they were mostly right (nobody told me exactly how many were wrong). I found this to be much less frustrating than simply listening to a sermon where it seems that most of what is being said doesn’t make sense to me.
Then I ate lunch with two guys I know and get along with rather well. We didn’t talk real long because the people responsible for cleaning the room where we ate asked us to leave so that they could clean the tables. This doesn’t quite seem hospitable to me but it is common at this church for people to do that sort of thing.
After that, I went to the other church where I am involved. The Korean name means “Grace” when translated into English. I think this is much more of a “grace place” than the church I went to this morning. I don’t know how intelligible my thoughts were about the first sentence of the Lord’s prayer were. This was complicated by a word or series of words in Korean that mean to receive. It seems questionable whether the person praying or God is receiving.
After this class, I played around with some children at church, one of which goes to the class I taught. When we left, his mom asked if I am busy (in Korean). I wasn’t quite sure what she said and I ended up being invited to hike with them at a mountain nearby. The truth was that I needed to grade some mid-terms but I wasn’t sure I would get anything done at home. I most certainly didn’t want to spend hours at home getting nothing done so I decided to say yes.
This was an interesting time since only two people could speak a little English and the other two could only speak Korean. I made the youngest person laugh when I called the children “grandma” or “grandpa” in Korean. After we came down from the mountain, the mother who invited me bought ice creamish snacks for all of us. When we got to my apartment (officestel) building I said goodbye and made some dinner.
I watched a Korean movie while I ate rice, tofu and kimchi. This was another interesting movie that started with a proverb about making branches move with one’s spirit and mind. I tried to listen to what people were saying in Korean but since the subtitles were in English I paid more attention to the story line than learning the Korean words that were being used.
After the movie was over I decided it was time to clean my apartment. I tend to let it get a little dirty before I clean it. Then when I realize that the clutter is distracting me from doing my work, I do a thorough cleaning. I’m guessing this happens once a month. I think the last time I did this was when my ex-girlfriend came over here and I basically ruined the relationship. Several hours later, I was done with the apartment and now I have the satisfaction of setting my mind to do something and actually doing it without spending several hours convincing myself that I can really do it. I was interrupted by this exciting activity by the same woman who bought ice cream for all of us after hiking when she brought me kimchi. This was another kind gesture on her part.
When I came back, I sent a text message to one of the people leading the English service asking her if she was okay. She called me and we talked about the service. I was aggravated by the fact that the senior pastor wants to continue the English service without helping us find people to lead it in a way that is better. One person suggested that we include the sermon in Korean in the bulletin. I think that if we do that we might as well have the service be in Korean. It is frustrating to me that people seem to think we should be to blame when they can’t understand it. I don’t notice anybody trying to make a Korean service simpler just because I am there. But I guess that is to be expected since I am the guest.
An hour after that I finished cleaning my apartment and then I decided to check my e-mail and found information about applying for the renewal of my district license. Even though it was quite late by then, I decided to finish the application tonight so that I can focus on reading tomorrow. I have a ton of work to do to catch up on the research I’m behind on. So now it is 1:35am and I think I am ready to get some shuteye.
The highlight of today was definitely going hiking with the people from “Grace Church” and then reading the text message from one person who asked me if I needed kimchi (in Korean of course) and later brought it to me. This is in spite of the fact that she can’t speak much English. It seems like the mothers of these children are really trying to look out for me. This makes it very difficult for me to complain about Christians being hypocrites. These people seem to be interested in practicing what they preach. If I could do anything I think I would back off of the church where we are trying to have an English service and just go to Grace Church. But it is difficult because I wouldn’t be able to do anything in a church service if I didn’t participate in this service, at least not in a Korean church. But I think we need to do some major planning if we decide to continue, and it seems that none of us have time to really plan for it.
The first thing on my list of things to do was to participate in the English service at one of the churches I am involved in. I had more responsibility today because I preached and I did the things I usually do (confession, reading the scripture, leading the congregation in confessing the Apostles’ Creed and giving the benediction. One person told me she feels inspired when she listens to my sermons. Another person told me I spoke slower today than usual which is a good thing I think. After this I waited for two students who have been missing the class the last few weeks because of schedule conflicts or tests.
At 11:00 I went to the Korean service at the same church. I was going to do something to keep myself occupied and then I decided to write down as many words as I could make out during the sermon. I came up with 150 or more and was told they were mostly right (nobody told me exactly how many were wrong). I found this to be much less frustrating than simply listening to a sermon where it seems that most of what is being said doesn’t make sense to me.
Then I ate lunch with two guys I know and get along with rather well. We didn’t talk real long because the people responsible for cleaning the room where we ate asked us to leave so that they could clean the tables. This doesn’t quite seem hospitable to me but it is common at this church for people to do that sort of thing.
After that, I went to the other church where I am involved. The Korean name means “Grace” when translated into English. I think this is much more of a “grace place” than the church I went to this morning. I don’t know how intelligible my thoughts were about the first sentence of the Lord’s prayer were. This was complicated by a word or series of words in Korean that mean to receive. It seems questionable whether the person praying or God is receiving.
After this class, I played around with some children at church, one of which goes to the class I taught. When we left, his mom asked if I am busy (in Korean). I wasn’t quite sure what she said and I ended up being invited to hike with them at a mountain nearby. The truth was that I needed to grade some mid-terms but I wasn’t sure I would get anything done at home. I most certainly didn’t want to spend hours at home getting nothing done so I decided to say yes.
This was an interesting time since only two people could speak a little English and the other two could only speak Korean. I made the youngest person laugh when I called the children “grandma” or “grandpa” in Korean. After we came down from the mountain, the mother who invited me bought ice creamish snacks for all of us. When we got to my apartment (officestel) building I said goodbye and made some dinner.
I watched a Korean movie while I ate rice, tofu and kimchi. This was another interesting movie that started with a proverb about making branches move with one’s spirit and mind. I tried to listen to what people were saying in Korean but since the subtitles were in English I paid more attention to the story line than learning the Korean words that were being used.
After the movie was over I decided it was time to clean my apartment. I tend to let it get a little dirty before I clean it. Then when I realize that the clutter is distracting me from doing my work, I do a thorough cleaning. I’m guessing this happens once a month. I think the last time I did this was when my ex-girlfriend came over here and I basically ruined the relationship. Several hours later, I was done with the apartment and now I have the satisfaction of setting my mind to do something and actually doing it without spending several hours convincing myself that I can really do it. I was interrupted by this exciting activity by the same woman who bought ice cream for all of us after hiking when she brought me kimchi. This was another kind gesture on her part.
When I came back, I sent a text message to one of the people leading the English service asking her if she was okay. She called me and we talked about the service. I was aggravated by the fact that the senior pastor wants to continue the English service without helping us find people to lead it in a way that is better. One person suggested that we include the sermon in Korean in the bulletin. I think that if we do that we might as well have the service be in Korean. It is frustrating to me that people seem to think we should be to blame when they can’t understand it. I don’t notice anybody trying to make a Korean service simpler just because I am there. But I guess that is to be expected since I am the guest.
An hour after that I finished cleaning my apartment and then I decided to check my e-mail and found information about applying for the renewal of my district license. Even though it was quite late by then, I decided to finish the application tonight so that I can focus on reading tomorrow. I have a ton of work to do to catch up on the research I’m behind on. So now it is 1:35am and I think I am ready to get some shuteye.
The highlight of today was definitely going hiking with the people from “Grace Church” and then reading the text message from one person who asked me if I needed kimchi (in Korean of course) and later brought it to me. This is in spite of the fact that she can’t speak much English. It seems like the mothers of these children are really trying to look out for me. This makes it very difficult for me to complain about Christians being hypocrites. These people seem to be interested in practicing what they preach. If I could do anything I think I would back off of the church where we are trying to have an English service and just go to Grace Church. But it is difficult because I wouldn’t be able to do anything in a church service if I didn’t participate in this service, at least not in a Korean church. But I think we need to do some major planning if we decide to continue, and it seems that none of us have time to really plan for it.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
A Bizarre Day
Today was a bizarre kind of day. It started out good. I woke up about eight or nine hours after I went to sleep. Unfortunately I didn’t sleep very well. I felt like I was on top of the mountain when I woke up. Then I got distracted by calling a friend in America. The conversation was very worthwhile but I got my mind off of what I was doing. After I finished talking with him I chatted for several hours with another friend. Again, this conversation was worthwhile but it didn’t help me in getting my work done.
I was dreading writing a sermon because of my chronic perfectionistic tendencies. This was heightened by the difficulty of writing a sermon that is usually difficult for people to understand. So I read through some commentaries and then decided to take a nap. I had to drag myself out of bed at 6 to write the sermon. I wondered if I was writing it in vain since the copy center closed. At 7:30 or so I headed to the university campus to see if they were still open and sure enough they were closed.
On my way to the university I ran into one of my colleagues and his wife. He suggested to me that I print off my sermon at a PC bang (aka a computer/internet cafe). He also invited me to stop by their apartment to get some books I asked about before. Since the copy center was closed I went to Kimbap Nara for some dinner. I’m trying to branch out to other restaurants when I am alone but I chose this restaurant since I’m familiar with it and I was relatively close to it. When I ordered the waitress asked me something I didn’t understand. I understood 괜찮아요? (okay) so I said “yes”. It all seemed to work out okay since the meal was good.
After that, I went to the PC bang to print off my sermon. I had some difficulties printing it off at the computer so the guy at the desk let me print it off from his computer. As I was paying for it, he asked me where I live. I told him and he said that he would like to become friends with a foreigner. Alarms went off inside of me while at the same time I was excited about the fact that someone might want to be friends with me. So I said I am looking for a Korean friend and that I am not interested in teaching English. He seemed to be okay with that. We will see. One of my uncles, the paternal uncle who still talks to me, told me once that if I am out and about I might find a friend where I least expected to find one.
After that I went to my colleague’s apartment and his wife offered me ice cream. I think I got there around 8:30 and I left at 10:30. This was an interesting conversation in many ways.
I spent most of the day in my apartment and I didn’t get very much done. I was hoping to grade mid-terms and add more words to my Korean vocabulary list but I didn’t get either of those things done. The highlight of the day was definitely hanging out tonight with a colleague and his wife. It’s amazing how being with people changes my attitude towards myself.
I was dreading writing a sermon because of my chronic perfectionistic tendencies. This was heightened by the difficulty of writing a sermon that is usually difficult for people to understand. So I read through some commentaries and then decided to take a nap. I had to drag myself out of bed at 6 to write the sermon. I wondered if I was writing it in vain since the copy center closed. At 7:30 or so I headed to the university campus to see if they were still open and sure enough they were closed.
On my way to the university I ran into one of my colleagues and his wife. He suggested to me that I print off my sermon at a PC bang (aka a computer/internet cafe). He also invited me to stop by their apartment to get some books I asked about before. Since the copy center was closed I went to Kimbap Nara for some dinner. I’m trying to branch out to other restaurants when I am alone but I chose this restaurant since I’m familiar with it and I was relatively close to it. When I ordered the waitress asked me something I didn’t understand. I understood 괜찮아요? (okay) so I said “yes”. It all seemed to work out okay since the meal was good.
After that, I went to the PC bang to print off my sermon. I had some difficulties printing it off at the computer so the guy at the desk let me print it off from his computer. As I was paying for it, he asked me where I live. I told him and he said that he would like to become friends with a foreigner. Alarms went off inside of me while at the same time I was excited about the fact that someone might want to be friends with me. So I said I am looking for a Korean friend and that I am not interested in teaching English. He seemed to be okay with that. We will see. One of my uncles, the paternal uncle who still talks to me, told me once that if I am out and about I might find a friend where I least expected to find one.
After that I went to my colleague’s apartment and his wife offered me ice cream. I think I got there around 8:30 and I left at 10:30. This was an interesting conversation in many ways.
I spent most of the day in my apartment and I didn’t get very much done. I was hoping to grade mid-terms and add more words to my Korean vocabulary list but I didn’t get either of those things done. The highlight of the day was definitely hanging out tonight with a colleague and his wife. It’s amazing how being with people changes my attitude towards myself.
Friday, May 1, 2009
An Interesting Day
Happy May Day! I didn’t realize it but today is International Labor Day. I just want to know why I didn’t have today off. Maybe it has something to do with Children’s Day which is coming up on Tuesday.
This was a less eventful day today than yesterday. All I did today was teach a class, eat lunch with two students and a professor, meet with a counselor and then I met with another professor whom I had dinner with. The class didn’t go as well as I had hoped. A few of the students told me they would like to have more opportunity to speak so I tried to give them more opportunity to speak. This meant they just spoke in Korean more. I’m not sure what to do about this situation.
I was going to have lunch with a professor whom I usually meet with on Fridays but I never received a response from him regarding my e-mail. It turned out that his response was in his drafts folder so I never received it and I thought he was busy. I was going to have lunch alone and I ran into a few students I know so we had lunch together. We tried to speak in Korean but we ended up speaking in English after all.
After lunch I went back to my office to work on things for a while before my appointment at 2pm. I wasn’t very productive during that time because I was nervous about meeting a counselor at 2pm. This was supposed to be a diagnosis of my recent emotional state. I was beginning to think I might have clinical depression but she didn’t even see the point of me meeting with a psychiatrist. She did advise me to seek counseling if this were a more ideal setting where she knew someone who wasn’t busy, didn’t charge as much money and who could speak English very well. I thought her English was good but she seemed to think it wouldn’t be good enough. In any event, after talking for an hour-and-a-half, she basically told me that she doesn’t perceive me having any major problems and that I need to develop some friendships or else I will get worse. So I guess this is a refresher course from earlier times in my life when I was “depressed” as a result of being lonely.
Meeting with another professor went well, though I found this to be very exhausting. Even though his English is good we still have difficulties communicating with each other. This makes me think it will be just as frustrating to communicate with people in Korean if I ever get anywhere near close to being able to communicate in Korean. Sometimes it seems that we are just not on the same page.
After I came home, I decided I needed to start running. So before I turned the computer on I changed my clothes and I went running. I must confess that I didn’t run the whole time but I ran part of the time as I explored this part of the city where I live. I tried to find a coffee shop where I might be able to work tomorrow but I forgot that I have some commentaries to read so I guess I will stay here until I get that done. Hopefully I will be able to go to a restaurant around here for lunch. I think at the very least I need to stop staying in my apartment all day. It is sometimes difficult choosing a restaurant to eat at alone because some places only sell food that is too much for one person to eat. Eating in a restaurant makes me feel good because ordering in Korean gives me confidence about communicating with the waiter or waitress. It also makes me feel good just to be around people. Part of me wonders if my difficulties are related to a personality change because it seems that I am becoming more and more energized as I am around people. I think I better be reading somewhere else for my research project on Monday so I can actually get something done.
That was a long tangent. After I got home from running, I tried to start working on my sermon for Sunday. I was not at all enthused about preaching earlier today. I’m still uneasy about it because it seems like most people don’t understand what I am saying. I do a lot of reading for it and I wonder if this is in vain to some degree. What often happens is that I use too many big words and too long of sentences. I am not sure that reading the sermon is helpful either.
I thought that running would give me more energy but instead it seems to have made me more tired. Perhaps this is a good thing because I’ve been having more trouble sleeping. The only thing I haven’t done yet is add more Korean words to my vocabulary list. I might just let myself have one night off so I can get some shuteye.
This was a less eventful day today than yesterday. All I did today was teach a class, eat lunch with two students and a professor, meet with a counselor and then I met with another professor whom I had dinner with. The class didn’t go as well as I had hoped. A few of the students told me they would like to have more opportunity to speak so I tried to give them more opportunity to speak. This meant they just spoke in Korean more. I’m not sure what to do about this situation.
I was going to have lunch with a professor whom I usually meet with on Fridays but I never received a response from him regarding my e-mail. It turned out that his response was in his drafts folder so I never received it and I thought he was busy. I was going to have lunch alone and I ran into a few students I know so we had lunch together. We tried to speak in Korean but we ended up speaking in English after all.
After lunch I went back to my office to work on things for a while before my appointment at 2pm. I wasn’t very productive during that time because I was nervous about meeting a counselor at 2pm. This was supposed to be a diagnosis of my recent emotional state. I was beginning to think I might have clinical depression but she didn’t even see the point of me meeting with a psychiatrist. She did advise me to seek counseling if this were a more ideal setting where she knew someone who wasn’t busy, didn’t charge as much money and who could speak English very well. I thought her English was good but she seemed to think it wouldn’t be good enough. In any event, after talking for an hour-and-a-half, she basically told me that she doesn’t perceive me having any major problems and that I need to develop some friendships or else I will get worse. So I guess this is a refresher course from earlier times in my life when I was “depressed” as a result of being lonely.
Meeting with another professor went well, though I found this to be very exhausting. Even though his English is good we still have difficulties communicating with each other. This makes me think it will be just as frustrating to communicate with people in Korean if I ever get anywhere near close to being able to communicate in Korean. Sometimes it seems that we are just not on the same page.
After I came home, I decided I needed to start running. So before I turned the computer on I changed my clothes and I went running. I must confess that I didn’t run the whole time but I ran part of the time as I explored this part of the city where I live. I tried to find a coffee shop where I might be able to work tomorrow but I forgot that I have some commentaries to read so I guess I will stay here until I get that done. Hopefully I will be able to go to a restaurant around here for lunch. I think at the very least I need to stop staying in my apartment all day. It is sometimes difficult choosing a restaurant to eat at alone because some places only sell food that is too much for one person to eat. Eating in a restaurant makes me feel good because ordering in Korean gives me confidence about communicating with the waiter or waitress. It also makes me feel good just to be around people. Part of me wonders if my difficulties are related to a personality change because it seems that I am becoming more and more energized as I am around people. I think I better be reading somewhere else for my research project on Monday so I can actually get something done.
That was a long tangent. After I got home from running, I tried to start working on my sermon for Sunday. I was not at all enthused about preaching earlier today. I’m still uneasy about it because it seems like most people don’t understand what I am saying. I do a lot of reading for it and I wonder if this is in vain to some degree. What often happens is that I use too many big words and too long of sentences. I am not sure that reading the sermon is helpful either.
I thought that running would give me more energy but instead it seems to have made me more tired. Perhaps this is a good thing because I’ve been having more trouble sleeping. The only thing I haven’t done yet is add more Korean words to my vocabulary list. I might just let myself have one night off so I can get some shuteye.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
An Ordinary Day
I don’t have much to share today. It seemed to be a normal day of ups and downs. As has been the case recently, the ups were when I was with people and the downs were when I was alone. The highlights of today were giving a mid-term to a Hotel English class, free-talking with a student about the Lord’s prayer and having dinner with the students I meet with a few times a week early in the morning. The down times were when I felt exhausted or perhaps a little depressed. It reminded me of when I have grieved the loss of someone. When I was with people I sometimes would forget about the loss, but then when I was alone I remembered what had happened and my heart sank back into sadness.
I had more time to myself today because my free-talkers canceled or didn’t show up. This can be frustrating or disappointing but in my case this was a nice break which enabled me to get everything done for my class tomorrow so that all I have to do is go to class or drop off my stuff in my office if I get to work early enough. This is probably the first time I am completely ready for the class with the powerpoint presentation already posted on the website. The downside is that I didn’t get to eat 떡복이 (dokboki) with a student who said she’d bring some this week.
I was also surprised by a colleague who came to my office to invite me to lunch. I guess some foreign professors were going to McDonald’s. Even though I’ve been here for a year and am in a bazaar emotional state, going to McDonald’s didn’t sound too appealing so we went to a spaghetti place instead. This gave us a chance to talk about some things before our classes at 1pm. I tried to pay for his meal but he insisted on going dutch (of course I didn’t push him too hard).
I think the mid-term was more enjoyable for everyone than the previous classes because students got to participate in the class more and they were basically leaders of the class. One class in particular did a great job of keeping us entertained while also showing their understanding of the hotel environment.
After class I talked with a few foreign professors for a while about some of the things going on that were related to school and our plans for the summer vacation. Eventually I went back to my office to work on class prep. for tomorrow. I forgot about my 4:00 free-talking appointment because the other students canceled. This wasn’t a big deal because I was working in my office. There are some students who take my energy and some who give it. She is the latter type of student. We have a running joke about “Bible study” and she told me she studied the Lord’s Prayer in English. I’ve been thinking about learning that prayer in Korean so we spent our free-talking time translating it from Korean to English. One would think this would be the same as in English but it seemed to me to be quite different though she said it was the same. For example, rather than saying “your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” it says, “your will has been done in heaven, may it also be done on earth” or something like that. It seemed to me to explicate the things that the English version implies. This was very refreshing to me.
After she left, I went back to working on some things for the next class which I finished while I was waiting for students to come at 6pm. I really was worn out by the time they came to my office and they knew it. I also tried a different method of free-talking which seemed to be much more difficult. I think all of us were frustrated at points but I guess it was good practice for all of us.
After that I met some other students in the lobby of another building so we could have dinner together. We ended up going to the fast food version of a Korean restaurant which I believe is still healthier than McDonald’s or Burger King. They wanted to go there because it is much cheaper than other types of restaurants. This was a good time but I don’t know that it was all that effective as a “free-talking” session. Nonetheless I keep learning more about students every day.
After that I came home. Of course we stopped for ice cream on the way back and I got a coffee-flavored ice cream something or other (as Mrs. Carl used to say). I intended to go running tonight but I figured that I should work a while until I get tired. By the time I thought of running it was already 10pm and I wondered if that would be productive and if I would be more exhausted tomorrow. Since I have an important meeting tomorrow I decided to call it a day and go to bed.
So now it is at the end of the day and all I have left to do is to brush my teeth, do a little meditating (I’m not sure how to manage this one), and get some shuteye. I think tomorrow could be an interesting day. I’m just not sure how much to share.
I had more time to myself today because my free-talkers canceled or didn’t show up. This can be frustrating or disappointing but in my case this was a nice break which enabled me to get everything done for my class tomorrow so that all I have to do is go to class or drop off my stuff in my office if I get to work early enough. This is probably the first time I am completely ready for the class with the powerpoint presentation already posted on the website. The downside is that I didn’t get to eat 떡복이 (dokboki) with a student who said she’d bring some this week.
I was also surprised by a colleague who came to my office to invite me to lunch. I guess some foreign professors were going to McDonald’s. Even though I’ve been here for a year and am in a bazaar emotional state, going to McDonald’s didn’t sound too appealing so we went to a spaghetti place instead. This gave us a chance to talk about some things before our classes at 1pm. I tried to pay for his meal but he insisted on going dutch (of course I didn’t push him too hard).
I think the mid-term was more enjoyable for everyone than the previous classes because students got to participate in the class more and they were basically leaders of the class. One class in particular did a great job of keeping us entertained while also showing their understanding of the hotel environment.
After class I talked with a few foreign professors for a while about some of the things going on that were related to school and our plans for the summer vacation. Eventually I went back to my office to work on class prep. for tomorrow. I forgot about my 4:00 free-talking appointment because the other students canceled. This wasn’t a big deal because I was working in my office. There are some students who take my energy and some who give it. She is the latter type of student. We have a running joke about “Bible study” and she told me she studied the Lord’s Prayer in English. I’ve been thinking about learning that prayer in Korean so we spent our free-talking time translating it from Korean to English. One would think this would be the same as in English but it seemed to me to be quite different though she said it was the same. For example, rather than saying “your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” it says, “your will has been done in heaven, may it also be done on earth” or something like that. It seemed to me to explicate the things that the English version implies. This was very refreshing to me.
After she left, I went back to working on some things for the next class which I finished while I was waiting for students to come at 6pm. I really was worn out by the time they came to my office and they knew it. I also tried a different method of free-talking which seemed to be much more difficult. I think all of us were frustrated at points but I guess it was good practice for all of us.
After that I met some other students in the lobby of another building so we could have dinner together. We ended up going to the fast food version of a Korean restaurant which I believe is still healthier than McDonald’s or Burger King. They wanted to go there because it is much cheaper than other types of restaurants. This was a good time but I don’t know that it was all that effective as a “free-talking” session. Nonetheless I keep learning more about students every day.
After that I came home. Of course we stopped for ice cream on the way back and I got a coffee-flavored ice cream something or other (as Mrs. Carl used to say). I intended to go running tonight but I figured that I should work a while until I get tired. By the time I thought of running it was already 10pm and I wondered if that would be productive and if I would be more exhausted tomorrow. Since I have an important meeting tomorrow I decided to call it a day and go to bed.
So now it is at the end of the day and all I have left to do is to brush my teeth, do a little meditating (I’m not sure how to manage this one), and get some shuteye. I think tomorrow could be an interesting day. I’m just not sure how much to share.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
A Fulfilling End to a Draining Day
Today was a long day. I guess I said that yesterday. But today was filled with responsibilities with no play time in between. I started my day at 7am and got home a little before 9pm. After that I drank some water and started working on an evaluation sheet for a test I am giving tomorrow. Evaluating the class I had on Tuesday was very difficult so I made a rubric of sorts tonight. After that I added some Korean vocabulary words. I’m not sure if it is completely helpful but I don’t think it is helping me to fly through the textbook without learning these words. Now that I think about it, I should probably separate the nouns from the verbs and try to write sentences using those words. This is a long process but I think a lack of Korean ability is contributing to my feelings of inadequacy. I said contributing, not that it is the main reason or cause of these feelings.
Today was a fairly routine day of free-talking after meeting with my early morning Bible study crew. The topic of today was Jesus casting the demon out of the man in the cemetary in Mark’s gospel. This led to a brief discussion of whether demons really exist. I tapped into my experience in an urban church in Kansas City where we sang, “Victory is Mine.” This song makes no explicit reference to God but it does refer to Satan. I suggested to those who question the existence of demons that we think of demons as those things that lead us to believe things that are not true, such as thinking we have to get drunk one more time or get one more fix on the street or being lured away from studying by chatting online or playing video games or whatever. This is an interesting experience because most of the people in the group seem to be Christians to some extent while two people are not Christians. I try to be affirming of those who trust Christ as their savior while also trying to be sensitive to those who are not Christians.
The victory came for me today when I went to lunch with a colleague. I thought this was a routine “go to lunch with a collegue” day. I realized differently when he knocked on the window of the building where we met and a mother and her daughter came inside the building. I realized then that it was an attempt to have me help her or her daughter with her English. Knowing what was ahead, even though I didn’t have any warning about this beforehand, I decided before anybody asked me that I would say no because my plate is already fuller than it needs to be. I think this surprised my colleague since I have developed the reputation on campus of always saying yes when people ask me for favors. I tried to gently explain that I am already doing to much and that my plate is full (without the idiom I hope). This didn’t seem to make much sense so he kept pushing. Finally I expressed my frustration over feeling like a commodity whose obligation it is to help people learn English. My ultimate bluntness came when I said that many people want me to help them but not too many people were interested in helping me when I had food poisoning or when my emotions are out of sort. I guess I looked like a bum who had lost his enthusiasm since I was enthusiastic when I came. Interestingly enough, he mentioned something to her about Vietnam which I said nothing about. I have expressed interest to him in moving to Vietnam and I suspected that he told her about this as if I had lost my love for Korea in hopes of moving to Vietnam.
I felt good about this in a way and bad about this in another way. I have met many people by helping them with their English. This has also given me opportunity to practice Korean since people sometimes struggle to listen or speak in English. But sometimes this is a realization that what seems like a friendship is only that on the surface and that the “friendship” only succeeds as long as I do people favors. I hope that is not true in this case but I guess time will tell.
After lunch I was exhausted. I don’t know if it was the emotional drain of saying no and wondering if I did the right thing or if it was a lack of sleep or just the exhaustion of my emotional disposition. After some free-talking students left, I had no energy to do anything. But then I was revived when a colleague knocked on my door to offer me coffee and a quote about letting people know they are not alone. After this, I had energy to do the things I was needing to do and my disposition changed. I was finally able to overcome my emotions and get ready for doing other things.
I wasn’t sure if the students I usually go to dinner with were going to come so I started to contemplate going to a restaurant alone which would also give me practice speaking in Korean. I’m glad I waited though since they came after all. They were not late, it just seemed to me that they were because my free-talking students before them left early to prepare for a major test tonight.
Having dinner with the students was a bit strange due to a combination of issues. We went a little ways from the campus where a student suggested. But when we got there they said it was too expensive. So we went to another restaurant that was about the same price. I told them I didn’t have time to keep walking around to the different restaurants since I had another class to teach after dinner. One of the students who is in one of my classes expressed interest, through one of the other students, in having me help him with his grammar. His English communication skills are quite low and I have not seen him put forth much effort in the class. In the end I said we’d see if he shows up whenever we decide is a good time to meet. One of the frustrating things that happened shortly after we got to the second restaurant was when two of the three guys said they needed to go to the toilet. The truth was that they “needed” to smoke. I didn’t realize this until they came back to the table and I could smell the cigarette smoke. This frustrated me because the other student and I had been waiting for them to order. In the end, I was ten minutes late to the class at city hall as a result of this situation.
Oddly enough, the most rewarding part of the day came at the end of the day. This is one of those things that I said yes to that does wear me out in a certain way but is rather fulfilling. The people who go to that class are more motivated than university students and their English level is high enough that we can have intelligent conversation. This gives me the ability to ask a lot of interesting questions. Tonight we talked about driving and who we’d be the most comfortable riding with. It ended up being a philosophical conversation to some extent and the people seemed to respond well to it though sometimes it was difficult for them to respond to my questions. Even though I am a difficult person to put up with in general because of the difficult questions, I feel like I can be myself in that type of setting. Of course I worry that I am not doing good enough or that I am giving those with the highest English level the most opportunities to speak. I’ve been trying to go around and ask different people questions.
After that I came home without a depressed feeling, finished writing up an evaluation sheet, added some Korean words to a spreadsheet I started over winter vacation and after I post this, I will be ready to brush my teeth and go to bed after a few moments of reflection. This is difficult for me since I am not good at sitting still and doing nothing more than being quiet.
But I can’t forget the highlight of my day. That was talking to my Korean cousin about a traditional dress she would like me to buy for her and take it to her in the US. You all know I am not much of a clothing shopper so this should be an interesting experience.
Today was a fairly routine day of free-talking after meeting with my early morning Bible study crew. The topic of today was Jesus casting the demon out of the man in the cemetary in Mark’s gospel. This led to a brief discussion of whether demons really exist. I tapped into my experience in an urban church in Kansas City where we sang, “Victory is Mine.” This song makes no explicit reference to God but it does refer to Satan. I suggested to those who question the existence of demons that we think of demons as those things that lead us to believe things that are not true, such as thinking we have to get drunk one more time or get one more fix on the street or being lured away from studying by chatting online or playing video games or whatever. This is an interesting experience because most of the people in the group seem to be Christians to some extent while two people are not Christians. I try to be affirming of those who trust Christ as their savior while also trying to be sensitive to those who are not Christians.
The victory came for me today when I went to lunch with a colleague. I thought this was a routine “go to lunch with a collegue” day. I realized differently when he knocked on the window of the building where we met and a mother and her daughter came inside the building. I realized then that it was an attempt to have me help her or her daughter with her English. Knowing what was ahead, even though I didn’t have any warning about this beforehand, I decided before anybody asked me that I would say no because my plate is already fuller than it needs to be. I think this surprised my colleague since I have developed the reputation on campus of always saying yes when people ask me for favors. I tried to gently explain that I am already doing to much and that my plate is full (without the idiom I hope). This didn’t seem to make much sense so he kept pushing. Finally I expressed my frustration over feeling like a commodity whose obligation it is to help people learn English. My ultimate bluntness came when I said that many people want me to help them but not too many people were interested in helping me when I had food poisoning or when my emotions are out of sort. I guess I looked like a bum who had lost his enthusiasm since I was enthusiastic when I came. Interestingly enough, he mentioned something to her about Vietnam which I said nothing about. I have expressed interest to him in moving to Vietnam and I suspected that he told her about this as if I had lost my love for Korea in hopes of moving to Vietnam.
I felt good about this in a way and bad about this in another way. I have met many people by helping them with their English. This has also given me opportunity to practice Korean since people sometimes struggle to listen or speak in English. But sometimes this is a realization that what seems like a friendship is only that on the surface and that the “friendship” only succeeds as long as I do people favors. I hope that is not true in this case but I guess time will tell.
After lunch I was exhausted. I don’t know if it was the emotional drain of saying no and wondering if I did the right thing or if it was a lack of sleep or just the exhaustion of my emotional disposition. After some free-talking students left, I had no energy to do anything. But then I was revived when a colleague knocked on my door to offer me coffee and a quote about letting people know they are not alone. After this, I had energy to do the things I was needing to do and my disposition changed. I was finally able to overcome my emotions and get ready for doing other things.
I wasn’t sure if the students I usually go to dinner with were going to come so I started to contemplate going to a restaurant alone which would also give me practice speaking in Korean. I’m glad I waited though since they came after all. They were not late, it just seemed to me that they were because my free-talking students before them left early to prepare for a major test tonight.
Having dinner with the students was a bit strange due to a combination of issues. We went a little ways from the campus where a student suggested. But when we got there they said it was too expensive. So we went to another restaurant that was about the same price. I told them I didn’t have time to keep walking around to the different restaurants since I had another class to teach after dinner. One of the students who is in one of my classes expressed interest, through one of the other students, in having me help him with his grammar. His English communication skills are quite low and I have not seen him put forth much effort in the class. In the end I said we’d see if he shows up whenever we decide is a good time to meet. One of the frustrating things that happened shortly after we got to the second restaurant was when two of the three guys said they needed to go to the toilet. The truth was that they “needed” to smoke. I didn’t realize this until they came back to the table and I could smell the cigarette smoke. This frustrated me because the other student and I had been waiting for them to order. In the end, I was ten minutes late to the class at city hall as a result of this situation.
Oddly enough, the most rewarding part of the day came at the end of the day. This is one of those things that I said yes to that does wear me out in a certain way but is rather fulfilling. The people who go to that class are more motivated than university students and their English level is high enough that we can have intelligent conversation. This gives me the ability to ask a lot of interesting questions. Tonight we talked about driving and who we’d be the most comfortable riding with. It ended up being a philosophical conversation to some extent and the people seemed to respond well to it though sometimes it was difficult for them to respond to my questions. Even though I am a difficult person to put up with in general because of the difficult questions, I feel like I can be myself in that type of setting. Of course I worry that I am not doing good enough or that I am giving those with the highest English level the most opportunities to speak. I’ve been trying to go around and ask different people questions.
After that I came home without a depressed feeling, finished writing up an evaluation sheet, added some Korean words to a spreadsheet I started over winter vacation and after I post this, I will be ready to brush my teeth and go to bed after a few moments of reflection. This is difficult for me since I am not good at sitting still and doing nothing more than being quiet.
But I can’t forget the highlight of my day. That was talking to my Korean cousin about a traditional dress she would like me to buy for her and take it to her in the US. You all know I am not much of a clothing shopper so this should be an interesting experience.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
A Good Day in Hindsight
Today has been a long day. This is typical of most Tuesdays. It started with an early morning “Bible study” at 7am, then a faculty/staff chapel at 8am, followed by a Mid-Term exam in my 9:00 class. The mid-term did not go as well as planned because of the language barrier and some students not doing as well as I had anticipated. I take this to be due to the language barrier and perhaps a lack of studying on their parts. It is the language barrier that makes it difficult to know how to grade the students in a way that is fair to everyone involved.
I had a important lunch meeting with a friend to talk about the way I have been feeling. This was helpful to me just to talk about some of the issues and get some advice on how to work through these issues to attain some degree of sanity though it didn’t deliver me from this present age.
After that I met with a student to proofread something she wrote for me to correct. Unfortunately, I didn’t get all the way through it so I will have to finish it sometime tomorrow or the next day. I won’t be meeting with her until next Thursday so that gives me some time to do some work in this regard. I was not all that alert by this time which probably slowed me down some.
After that I went to a church to teach a free-talking class. On my way there, I had to drop off a trip request form in my department’s office to be approved by the Department Chair. Since nobody in that office can speak in Korean I got to practice some Korean using a sentence I haven’t used before. Then the person I was speaking to asked me another question which I didn’t know the answer to because I didn’t understand her question. Eventually she figured it out or else she just gave up asking. A Korean professor who can speak well was going to call the office to make sure they understood what to do. At the church, we played a version of baseball where I ask a question and they respond. I don’t do it like some people play the game but it served the purpose of getting the students to speak in English and it seemed that everybody was having fun, those who wanted to study and those who wanted to play games.
After that, I went home for a while as I waited for time to pass. I made plans to meet my Korean teacher to study a little bit of Korean. We ended up talking a lot about other things as usual and some of that time was occupied with talking to another student whom she also teaches. This time had some good points and some bad points. The good points were of course the times of relaxing and the difficult points were the points of studying Korean and being reminded how bad I am at speaking Korean.
After the coffee shop closed, we went to the grocery store to get a few items I needed. This was our original plan to go to the store to give me practice speaking to people in Korean. But I didn’t do much more speaking than usual, though it was helpful to learn the different types of tofu and talk more about Korean culture.
I became more depressed as I talked with my Korean teacher about my struggles. If I let myself, I can get really bogged down. But when I think of the people I interacted with, the students, the staff members, my teacher and the people at the grocery store tonight, I think this has been a good day. Now I think I will get some shuteye before my alarms go off at 5:15.
I had a important lunch meeting with a friend to talk about the way I have been feeling. This was helpful to me just to talk about some of the issues and get some advice on how to work through these issues to attain some degree of sanity though it didn’t deliver me from this present age.
After that I met with a student to proofread something she wrote for me to correct. Unfortunately, I didn’t get all the way through it so I will have to finish it sometime tomorrow or the next day. I won’t be meeting with her until next Thursday so that gives me some time to do some work in this regard. I was not all that alert by this time which probably slowed me down some.
After that I went to a church to teach a free-talking class. On my way there, I had to drop off a trip request form in my department’s office to be approved by the Department Chair. Since nobody in that office can speak in Korean I got to practice some Korean using a sentence I haven’t used before. Then the person I was speaking to asked me another question which I didn’t know the answer to because I didn’t understand her question. Eventually she figured it out or else she just gave up asking. A Korean professor who can speak well was going to call the office to make sure they understood what to do. At the church, we played a version of baseball where I ask a question and they respond. I don’t do it like some people play the game but it served the purpose of getting the students to speak in English and it seemed that everybody was having fun, those who wanted to study and those who wanted to play games.
After that, I went home for a while as I waited for time to pass. I made plans to meet my Korean teacher to study a little bit of Korean. We ended up talking a lot about other things as usual and some of that time was occupied with talking to another student whom she also teaches. This time had some good points and some bad points. The good points were of course the times of relaxing and the difficult points were the points of studying Korean and being reminded how bad I am at speaking Korean.
After the coffee shop closed, we went to the grocery store to get a few items I needed. This was our original plan to go to the store to give me practice speaking to people in Korean. But I didn’t do much more speaking than usual, though it was helpful to learn the different types of tofu and talk more about Korean culture.
I became more depressed as I talked with my Korean teacher about my struggles. If I let myself, I can get really bogged down. But when I think of the people I interacted with, the students, the staff members, my teacher and the people at the grocery store tonight, I think this has been a good day. Now I think I will get some shuteye before my alarms go off at 5:15.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Alone, depressed; With People, Happy
Today was one of those days that started out difficult but ended well. Because of the way I have been feeling, I didn’t wake up with much motivation. I called a friend whom I try to talk with on a weekly basis after I called my parents and they weren’t home. So I went on with my plans to study about Korean culture to prepare for the presentation I will most likely be making in September. While I got some things done I didn’t get as much done as I anticipated. I also was not able to meet with the family I usually have dinner with on Monday evenings before I teach a class at city hall.
Today we had a special meeting to discuss changes with the way the university deals with foreign professors. There was a lot of disconcertion regarding this, especially for those who have been placed in departments where the professors can’t speak fluently in English. According to these changes, the foreign professors are no longer under the wings of a Korean professor who tends to our questions and concerns. This seems to be part of a bigger plan to have all of the classes in English. For this to happen, the professors will have to improve their English skills and the students will also have to improve. This seems like a marketing strategy to make the university more appealing. But it doesn’t seem to take into account the English level of the students. Even for the best English speakers, it would be difficult for Korean students to take all there classes in English. Not even all the prestigious universities in Seoul do this.
After this meeting, I went to have dinner at a restaurant. Since I had to teach a class at city hall I wasn’t all that interested in going back home. So I went to Kimbap Nara (김밥 나라). Kimbap is basically rice, vegetables and meat wrapped in seaweed. I didn’t have this, but instead I had curry which was good. I went by myself so I had to order it myself in Korean, of course. It always makes me feel good when I do this rather than hiding behind a Korean who usually orders for me when I go with a Korean. This type of restaurant is also very reasonable. It probably cost me about 1.5 USD for a whole meal. It’s probably not the most healthy Korean meal but it is better than McDonald’s by a long shot in my opinion.
By this time, I was feeling much better than I felt most of the day. This is the mystery of my emotional disposition. When I am alone I feel depressed but when I am with people I feel much better about myself. It makes me wonder if I am hiding out in my apartment. I also wonder if my own feelings keep me from doing everything I could do. When I talked to my dad about this he suggested that I not let my feelings rule me. I took this to mean he was saying that I should ignore my feelings. I didn’t like this advice because I feel like that is what I have done for much of my life.
But when I thought about what changed in my own mind from the morning and afternoon time to the evening time, it did seem to me that I did “ignore” my feelings in some sense. If I didn’t, I would probably never have done anything today because I didn’t feel like I was adequate for the task. So I sucked it up and did what I had to do. That totally changed my disposition and I also had an enjoyable time with the staff I taught at city hall tonight. We talked about a lot of things from one university student referring to another student as one’s senior to making a list for one of the people who wants to get married in the future. This led to an interesting discussion about whether it is necessary for a man to have a car in order for a woman to fall in love with him.
After that one of the staff people took me home and my day was officially over. Well, not quite over since I had some things I wanted to work on. I decided to do the dishes, something I have been putting off for longer than I can say publicly. This made me feel better. Then I also studied Korean and learned how to link sentences together to make one longer sentence. By the way, my Korean journal is up to 273 sentences. Now if I could just remember everything that I wrote. So now I guess it is about time to get some shuteye for a while. I have to start my day at 7am with an early-morning Bible study. So tomorrow will be a long day with that, a faculty/staff chapel in 100% English even though there are people who won’t be able to understand the whole thing (I’d be mad if I were a Korean), a mid-term, lunch with a pastor, free-talking, teaching a class at a church and hopefully meeting my Korean teacher at the store to practice some things with Korean and to buy some groceries. I think I’m going to buy enough for breakfast but also try to eat out more and see if that changes my disposition. I just have to figure out how to manage that in terms of my budget.
Today we had a special meeting to discuss changes with the way the university deals with foreign professors. There was a lot of disconcertion regarding this, especially for those who have been placed in departments where the professors can’t speak fluently in English. According to these changes, the foreign professors are no longer under the wings of a Korean professor who tends to our questions and concerns. This seems to be part of a bigger plan to have all of the classes in English. For this to happen, the professors will have to improve their English skills and the students will also have to improve. This seems like a marketing strategy to make the university more appealing. But it doesn’t seem to take into account the English level of the students. Even for the best English speakers, it would be difficult for Korean students to take all there classes in English. Not even all the prestigious universities in Seoul do this.
After this meeting, I went to have dinner at a restaurant. Since I had to teach a class at city hall I wasn’t all that interested in going back home. So I went to Kimbap Nara (김밥 나라). Kimbap is basically rice, vegetables and meat wrapped in seaweed. I didn’t have this, but instead I had curry which was good. I went by myself so I had to order it myself in Korean, of course. It always makes me feel good when I do this rather than hiding behind a Korean who usually orders for me when I go with a Korean. This type of restaurant is also very reasonable. It probably cost me about 1.5 USD for a whole meal. It’s probably not the most healthy Korean meal but it is better than McDonald’s by a long shot in my opinion.
By this time, I was feeling much better than I felt most of the day. This is the mystery of my emotional disposition. When I am alone I feel depressed but when I am with people I feel much better about myself. It makes me wonder if I am hiding out in my apartment. I also wonder if my own feelings keep me from doing everything I could do. When I talked to my dad about this he suggested that I not let my feelings rule me. I took this to mean he was saying that I should ignore my feelings. I didn’t like this advice because I feel like that is what I have done for much of my life.
But when I thought about what changed in my own mind from the morning and afternoon time to the evening time, it did seem to me that I did “ignore” my feelings in some sense. If I didn’t, I would probably never have done anything today because I didn’t feel like I was adequate for the task. So I sucked it up and did what I had to do. That totally changed my disposition and I also had an enjoyable time with the staff I taught at city hall tonight. We talked about a lot of things from one university student referring to another student as one’s senior to making a list for one of the people who wants to get married in the future. This led to an interesting discussion about whether it is necessary for a man to have a car in order for a woman to fall in love with him.
After that one of the staff people took me home and my day was officially over. Well, not quite over since I had some things I wanted to work on. I decided to do the dishes, something I have been putting off for longer than I can say publicly. This made me feel better. Then I also studied Korean and learned how to link sentences together to make one longer sentence. By the way, my Korean journal is up to 273 sentences. Now if I could just remember everything that I wrote. So now I guess it is about time to get some shuteye for a while. I have to start my day at 7am with an early-morning Bible study. So tomorrow will be a long day with that, a faculty/staff chapel in 100% English even though there are people who won’t be able to understand the whole thing (I’d be mad if I were a Korean), a mid-term, lunch with a pastor, free-talking, teaching a class at a church and hopefully meeting my Korean teacher at the store to practice some things with Korean and to buy some groceries. I think I’m going to buy enough for breakfast but also try to eat out more and see if that changes my disposition. I just have to figure out how to manage that in terms of my budget.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Purpose
Today was the exact opposite of yesterday. I left my apartment around 8:40 this morning and came back around 3pm while I waited for a friend (I’m not sure if Aristotle would classify us as this or not) to finish her church duties. I was going to take a nap but I decided to type out the text messages I’ve sent and received in Korean. This was about 100 messages. When I came back tonight after coffee and dinner I translated them and sent them off to my Korean teacher. I’m sure she will love me for this.
My day started with the English service at the university church. My role in this was rather minimal today because I was only responsible for greeting people coming to the service, leading the congregation in confession, reading the Scripture passages (except for the sermon text) and leading the congregation in affirming our faith by reading the Apostles’ Creed. Okay, maybe my role was more than minimal. What I mean is that I did not preach. But that will change next week as I will be preaching. After the service I talked to a Korean professor and with the other ministers of the service about the future of the service.
I am concerned about a service in English in a Korean church that has more foreigners leading it than Koreans. Since there are few foreigners who go to this service, and since it is in a Korean church, it seems to me that there should be more Koreans leading the service than foreigners. I guess today it was half and half. But still, it seems to me the ideal would be for there to be more Koreans leading it than foreigners.
I’m really not sure whether to continue my involvement in this service. It seems that I experience God’s grace in some sense through this service, especially when I feel like the sermon is just for me as it seemed to be today. The vision of the service seems to be unclear so it is difficult to manage the success of the service when I am not sure how to manage that. It seems that different people come to the service but there is little consistency except that the service is attended by few people. Some people have found it difficult to understand what is going on in the service. I’m sure some of this is due to my complex sentence structure but I’m not sure about the rest of the service. It could be that this service is structured differently than a typical Korean Nazarene service. I am wondering if having a service completely in English is too much. When I went to the Anglican Cathedral on Easter Sunday the service was partly in Korean and partly in English. I suggested that we might want to try that if we continue to do the service.
After a lengthy discussion about the service and the church in general, I had lunch with a few people I know at the same church. I talked with them some about the English service but I didn’t learn much from them except that the service is difficult to understand.
After lunch I went to Grace Church (은혜교회) to teach English to some children and their mothers. This was quite challenging when I tried to talk about the names of the 12 disciples in English. I learned that I don’t know much when it comes to the details of these names. It was difficult trying to figure out the differences between the English and Korean translations. Then it also got confusing when I tried to explain these differences and when the people in the class tried to explain them to me. This was difficult and frustrating because I can’t speak Korean fluently and they can’t speak English fluently. The name that is the most unique is James. One of the students suggested that the Korean translation is wrong. When I asked why the Korean translation must be wrong and not the English translation, they said that when the Bible was translated into Korean there were people involved who were not Christians. I challenged this when I noticed that a fairly recent translation of the Korean Bible (New Korean Revised Version) which was copyrighted in 1998 for the first time used the same name for James. I argued to the contrary because I heard that one of the theologians at KNU participated in this translation. Of course it is entirely possible that I am the one that is wrong. I was surprised that one of the students was so quick to assume that it is the Korean Bible that is wrong.
After that class was over, I went back to my apartment while I waited for a friend to finish her church duties. She ended up taking longer than she expected so I just kept working on Korean. We met at 4pm and had coffee followed by kalguksu (갈국수). This was a fun for both of us I think though it was a little difficult with the language barrier. She tried to get me to try speaking in Korean and I failed miserably.
After I came back to my apartment, I felt that same empty feeling that I’ve been feeling the last few days. I persevered in spite of it through the Korean sentences and am feeling mildly better. Now to figure out what the source is of these feelings. For now, I think I’ll post this and call it a day. I need to get up early tomorrow to call my parents and a friend in America.
My day started with the English service at the university church. My role in this was rather minimal today because I was only responsible for greeting people coming to the service, leading the congregation in confession, reading the Scripture passages (except for the sermon text) and leading the congregation in affirming our faith by reading the Apostles’ Creed. Okay, maybe my role was more than minimal. What I mean is that I did not preach. But that will change next week as I will be preaching. After the service I talked to a Korean professor and with the other ministers of the service about the future of the service.
I am concerned about a service in English in a Korean church that has more foreigners leading it than Koreans. Since there are few foreigners who go to this service, and since it is in a Korean church, it seems to me that there should be more Koreans leading the service than foreigners. I guess today it was half and half. But still, it seems to me the ideal would be for there to be more Koreans leading it than foreigners.
I’m really not sure whether to continue my involvement in this service. It seems that I experience God’s grace in some sense through this service, especially when I feel like the sermon is just for me as it seemed to be today. The vision of the service seems to be unclear so it is difficult to manage the success of the service when I am not sure how to manage that. It seems that different people come to the service but there is little consistency except that the service is attended by few people. Some people have found it difficult to understand what is going on in the service. I’m sure some of this is due to my complex sentence structure but I’m not sure about the rest of the service. It could be that this service is structured differently than a typical Korean Nazarene service. I am wondering if having a service completely in English is too much. When I went to the Anglican Cathedral on Easter Sunday the service was partly in Korean and partly in English. I suggested that we might want to try that if we continue to do the service.
After a lengthy discussion about the service and the church in general, I had lunch with a few people I know at the same church. I talked with them some about the English service but I didn’t learn much from them except that the service is difficult to understand.
After lunch I went to Grace Church (은혜교회) to teach English to some children and their mothers. This was quite challenging when I tried to talk about the names of the 12 disciples in English. I learned that I don’t know much when it comes to the details of these names. It was difficult trying to figure out the differences between the English and Korean translations. Then it also got confusing when I tried to explain these differences and when the people in the class tried to explain them to me. This was difficult and frustrating because I can’t speak Korean fluently and they can’t speak English fluently. The name that is the most unique is James. One of the students suggested that the Korean translation is wrong. When I asked why the Korean translation must be wrong and not the English translation, they said that when the Bible was translated into Korean there were people involved who were not Christians. I challenged this when I noticed that a fairly recent translation of the Korean Bible (New Korean Revised Version) which was copyrighted in 1998 for the first time used the same name for James. I argued to the contrary because I heard that one of the theologians at KNU participated in this translation. Of course it is entirely possible that I am the one that is wrong. I was surprised that one of the students was so quick to assume that it is the Korean Bible that is wrong.
After that class was over, I went back to my apartment while I waited for a friend to finish her church duties. She ended up taking longer than she expected so I just kept working on Korean. We met at 4pm and had coffee followed by kalguksu (갈국수). This was a fun for both of us I think though it was a little difficult with the language barrier. She tried to get me to try speaking in Korean and I failed miserably.
After I came back to my apartment, I felt that same empty feeling that I’ve been feeling the last few days. I persevered in spite of it through the Korean sentences and am feeling mildly better. Now to figure out what the source is of these feelings. For now, I think I’ll post this and call it a day. I need to get up early tomorrow to call my parents and a friend in America.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Poor Time Management
Today was another unproductive Saturday. Well, in the end it was productive but I sure could’ve done a lot more things today than I ended up doing. I stayed in my apartment all day today. I intended to spend four hours preparing for my class on Tuesday and another four hours preparing for my class on Thursday and another few hours preparing for my class on Friday. But as it turned out, I found other things to do that seemed more appealing. And now I have two of the three things done. I need to figure out what to do on days like today. It seems that I don’t have much drive to prepare for classes. I have heard it said that insanity is when you do the same thing and get the same results over and over again. I think I messed up that quote but you get the idea, right?
About the only thing I did today to intentionally relax was watching a Korean movie. This was quite meaningful. It is called, “Jung Cheon” (중천) which means The Mid-Heaven. This might be the first Korean action movie I have seen. I was able to pick up a few words but not most of it so thank goodness for English subtitles. I won’t tell you how it ends in case you want to watch it. It’s a good movie for those of us who can’t understand Korean because there is less speaking than the romance movies I have seen. I have two more movies to watch and then I will have seen every movie once. Then it is time to start over again. I’m hoping to learn Korean little by little as I watch these. I recommend these to people who need something to help them work through the drama of life (well they help me anyway).
I’m embarassed that I haven’t studied Korean today or yesterday. As you can see, I tend to waste a lot of time procrastinating which contributes to my feeling of not being fulfilled. This has been a decent day, but a day filled with recovering from regret.
About the only thing I did today to intentionally relax was watching a Korean movie. This was quite meaningful. It is called, “Jung Cheon” (중천) which means The Mid-Heaven. This might be the first Korean action movie I have seen. I was able to pick up a few words but not most of it so thank goodness for English subtitles. I won’t tell you how it ends in case you want to watch it. It’s a good movie for those of us who can’t understand Korean because there is less speaking than the romance movies I have seen. I have two more movies to watch and then I will have seen every movie once. Then it is time to start over again. I’m hoping to learn Korean little by little as I watch these. I recommend these to people who need something to help them work through the drama of life (well they help me anyway).
I’m embarassed that I haven’t studied Korean today or yesterday. As you can see, I tend to waste a lot of time procrastinating which contributes to my feeling of not being fulfilled. This has been a decent day, but a day filled with recovering from regret.
Friday, April 24, 2009
I Have a Choice
This has been another good day. Not quite as good as yesterday, but still a good day. It started with making another call to the bank in America, then giving some oral mid-terms, then having a long lunch with a colleague while we ate kalby tong (갈비 탕), then working on some stuff in my office followed by meeting with a colleague tonight.
By the time I got back to my office after lunch and calculated the grades for the tests I gave this morning, I was worn out. I’m not exactly sure why. For the last hour before meeting with my colleague I read something another professor invited me to peruse.
When I met with my colleague this evening, we talked about many things. The first hour was consumed mostly by the subject of how to speak English. He has been a Godsend for me in terms of figuring out how to manage the class and figure out how to teach English the most effectively. I’m still learning and am feeling much better about teaching than I did at the beginning of the semester. I lost my cool a few times but have learned through the process thanks to some colleagues whose know-how far exceeds mine.
As we left his office, I gave him the details of my recent break-up. This was helpful and hurtful in terms of working through the process. I am mostly over the broken relationship though there is still sadness and regret for the things I did wrong. There is also a recognition that many things did not make sense and they still don’t make sense. But it is still more natural for me to blame myself for these things rather than her.
We even spent some time talking about ministers, titles (a key issue of the subject in the above paragraph), and a little bit of theology. Now I did my best to keep it simple but anybody who knows me at all knows I don’t do well at keeping things simple. That’s why I carry around my electronic dictionary with me as much as possible. It is just so difficult to speak simple, short sentences. This is something I’ve struggled with since I arrived here though I think I might be slightly better at it than I was a year ago. I remember hearing complaints about how complicated my e-mail messages were. That was when I learned to write in shorter sentences and to hit the return key each time I used a period and to doublespace between sentences.
The thing that kind of surprised me tonight is when my colleague told me he liked me. I didn’t ask many questions because I don’t want to let the secret out. I was hoping he would go into more detail but I guess we got distracted and started talking about something else. Here again was someone who didn’t really have to say this. I didn’t ask him of his opinion about me but it was something he freely offered. I guess I have a choice. I can spend my life wondering why I am not a better person or I can accept myself with all the flaws and recognize there something good within me. Of course I want to do the latter but this is not so easy for me.
By the time I got back to my office after lunch and calculated the grades for the tests I gave this morning, I was worn out. I’m not exactly sure why. For the last hour before meeting with my colleague I read something another professor invited me to peruse.
When I met with my colleague this evening, we talked about many things. The first hour was consumed mostly by the subject of how to speak English. He has been a Godsend for me in terms of figuring out how to manage the class and figure out how to teach English the most effectively. I’m still learning and am feeling much better about teaching than I did at the beginning of the semester. I lost my cool a few times but have learned through the process thanks to some colleagues whose know-how far exceeds mine.
As we left his office, I gave him the details of my recent break-up. This was helpful and hurtful in terms of working through the process. I am mostly over the broken relationship though there is still sadness and regret for the things I did wrong. There is also a recognition that many things did not make sense and they still don’t make sense. But it is still more natural for me to blame myself for these things rather than her.
We even spent some time talking about ministers, titles (a key issue of the subject in the above paragraph), and a little bit of theology. Now I did my best to keep it simple but anybody who knows me at all knows I don’t do well at keeping things simple. That’s why I carry around my electronic dictionary with me as much as possible. It is just so difficult to speak simple, short sentences. This is something I’ve struggled with since I arrived here though I think I might be slightly better at it than I was a year ago. I remember hearing complaints about how complicated my e-mail messages were. That was when I learned to write in shorter sentences and to hit the return key each time I used a period and to doublespace between sentences.
The thing that kind of surprised me tonight is when my colleague told me he liked me. I didn’t ask many questions because I don’t want to let the secret out. I was hoping he would go into more detail but I guess we got distracted and started talking about something else. Here again was someone who didn’t really have to say this. I didn’t ask him of his opinion about me but it was something he freely offered. I guess I have a choice. I can spend my life wondering why I am not a better person or I can accept myself with all the flaws and recognize there something good within me. Of course I want to do the latter but this is not so easy for me.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
A Good Day...For Real
I really don’t think it is necessary to blog today. I’ve had a really good day. But I guess I will continue the habit just in case this is the last good day I have in a while. Then it can go down in the record books that Brent Dirks (aka 도영웅) had at least one good day. And the truth be known, I have probably had many good days.
I’m not exactly sure what made today so good. I’m not complaining or anything it just seemed to be a normal day and for some strange reason I am feeling good even after I ate kimbap that was probably a little old. Hopefully this day won’t end with food poisoning.
It started with a trip to the bank to transfer funds. This can be a depressing experience with the exchange rate but since the Bank Manager assures me he’s giving me a better rate than the standard one, I’ll receive his goodness with gratitude. After that I consulted with colleagues about Korean culture, starting with a question about 나는 하고 내가, and led into a discussion about church. I had to cut that short so that I could find the person who brought me kimbap, a beverage, and two oranges. Then it was back to my office to write out a letter to the bank that recently closed. Now that is an interesting thing to try to inform an organization about your current address when there is a check with your name but nobody can pick it up because their name isn’t on the account. Note to self: if you start up an account before leaving the country, put a family member’s name on the account. After I finished that and attached questions for the Mid-Terms coming up tomorrow and next week I went to the copy (not 거피) shop to make some copies but the form I printed had too much gray background so they wouldn’t make the copies. That’s okay because I ended up saving paper this way. And I faxed the letter to the bank for the third time. Hopefully this time it went to the right place.
That was just for the morning activities. The highlight of the day was having lunch with a Korean colleague. We walked around for quite a while and we finally settled on kalguksu (갈국수) even though we both had bibimbap (비빔밥). My colleague wanted rice like a good Korean and that is what she got. I didn’t care what we ate. Since I had a class at 1pm both of us were under a little stress to eat, talk and get back to campus on time. But it worked out just fine.
I was a little nervous about class because this was supposed to be a review day. The students often lack motivation and I knew this would be no different during Mid-Terms week, a time when few students get sleep. I think they are hoping that the professor will give them extra points for every hour they don’t sleep. Of course they used some of the time in my class to sleep. But it was during this time that I negotiated the final. I started with 45 questions and ended up with 15 questions by the end of class. This mostly changed the fact that the students know what they are expected to present and raised the bar on my expectation that they be ready to knock the socks off their “professor” so to speak. They seemed to be happy with my compromise (each group is responsible to present five roleplays, for a total of 15 roleplays, which should take two or three hours) and I feel good about not getting upset with the students when they lacked the motivation to work with their groups and I think I treated them with respect by reasoning with them about the Mid-Term. I guess time will tell whether or not this is true.
After that was the second highlight of my day when I accepted an invitation from one of the students in that class to join him for coffee. He invited another student who also free-talks with me from that class to join us. I remembered another student who also free-talks with me and I invited her to join us there as well (thank goodness for cell phones and text-messaging). She brought a friend and we talked for a few hours. Another free-talking student also came during that time.
An awkward moment came at the end of the conversation when one student invited another student to his house for dinner. He asked me what my evening plans were and I wasn’t sure if he was inviting me or not. I asked him after embracing the awkwardness for a moment and he said he would do that another time. I made it clear to him that I wasn’t trying to invite myself but I was just trying to make some clarification. Hopefully he won’t feel obligated to invite me in the future.
After that I packed my belongings and came home to enjoy the food that a lady from church gave me earlier that day. Now I have come to the end of the day and am having an online conversation with one of my Vietnamese friends. What better way to end the day?
I think there are some good reasons why I feel the way I do. Of course this is one day, and it could just be the luck of the draw, but I suspect the lack of pressure also has something to do with it. Because this is Mid-Terms week most of my free-talking has been canceled. This subject is a puzzle to me as to how to manage free-talking with students without getting overwhelmed. Also, I am not responsible for the early-morning Bible study this week because of it being Mid-Terms week.
So I guess another thing, perhaps the most important thing, I’d like to do with my free-time is to develop relationships with people. I have also been able to continue the practice of studying Korean and doing a little bit with classroom work to prepare for tomorrow. Now I think I need to figure out a way to add exercise to my routine. I have done less chatting online tonight which I think has given me a chance to do other things.
I’m not exactly sure what made today so good. I’m not complaining or anything it just seemed to be a normal day and for some strange reason I am feeling good even after I ate kimbap that was probably a little old. Hopefully this day won’t end with food poisoning.
It started with a trip to the bank to transfer funds. This can be a depressing experience with the exchange rate but since the Bank Manager assures me he’s giving me a better rate than the standard one, I’ll receive his goodness with gratitude. After that I consulted with colleagues about Korean culture, starting with a question about 나는 하고 내가, and led into a discussion about church. I had to cut that short so that I could find the person who brought me kimbap, a beverage, and two oranges. Then it was back to my office to write out a letter to the bank that recently closed. Now that is an interesting thing to try to inform an organization about your current address when there is a check with your name but nobody can pick it up because their name isn’t on the account. Note to self: if you start up an account before leaving the country, put a family member’s name on the account. After I finished that and attached questions for the Mid-Terms coming up tomorrow and next week I went to the copy (not 거피) shop to make some copies but the form I printed had too much gray background so they wouldn’t make the copies. That’s okay because I ended up saving paper this way. And I faxed the letter to the bank for the third time. Hopefully this time it went to the right place.
That was just for the morning activities. The highlight of the day was having lunch with a Korean colleague. We walked around for quite a while and we finally settled on kalguksu (갈국수) even though we both had bibimbap (비빔밥). My colleague wanted rice like a good Korean and that is what she got. I didn’t care what we ate. Since I had a class at 1pm both of us were under a little stress to eat, talk and get back to campus on time. But it worked out just fine.
I was a little nervous about class because this was supposed to be a review day. The students often lack motivation and I knew this would be no different during Mid-Terms week, a time when few students get sleep. I think they are hoping that the professor will give them extra points for every hour they don’t sleep. Of course they used some of the time in my class to sleep. But it was during this time that I negotiated the final. I started with 45 questions and ended up with 15 questions by the end of class. This mostly changed the fact that the students know what they are expected to present and raised the bar on my expectation that they be ready to knock the socks off their “professor” so to speak. They seemed to be happy with my compromise (each group is responsible to present five roleplays, for a total of 15 roleplays, which should take two or three hours) and I feel good about not getting upset with the students when they lacked the motivation to work with their groups and I think I treated them with respect by reasoning with them about the Mid-Term. I guess time will tell whether or not this is true.
After that was the second highlight of my day when I accepted an invitation from one of the students in that class to join him for coffee. He invited another student who also free-talks with me from that class to join us. I remembered another student who also free-talks with me and I invited her to join us there as well (thank goodness for cell phones and text-messaging). She brought a friend and we talked for a few hours. Another free-talking student also came during that time.
An awkward moment came at the end of the conversation when one student invited another student to his house for dinner. He asked me what my evening plans were and I wasn’t sure if he was inviting me or not. I asked him after embracing the awkwardness for a moment and he said he would do that another time. I made it clear to him that I wasn’t trying to invite myself but I was just trying to make some clarification. Hopefully he won’t feel obligated to invite me in the future.
After that I packed my belongings and came home to enjoy the food that a lady from church gave me earlier that day. Now I have come to the end of the day and am having an online conversation with one of my Vietnamese friends. What better way to end the day?
I think there are some good reasons why I feel the way I do. Of course this is one day, and it could just be the luck of the draw, but I suspect the lack of pressure also has something to do with it. Because this is Mid-Terms week most of my free-talking has been canceled. This subject is a puzzle to me as to how to manage free-talking with students without getting overwhelmed. Also, I am not responsible for the early-morning Bible study this week because of it being Mid-Terms week.
So I guess another thing, perhaps the most important thing, I’d like to do with my free-time is to develop relationships with people. I have also been able to continue the practice of studying Korean and doing a little bit with classroom work to prepare for tomorrow. Now I think I need to figure out a way to add exercise to my routine. I have done less chatting online tonight which I think has given me a chance to do other things.
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