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.
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