Monday, Nov 13

Wow, when was the last time I did an OOTD?!?

It is finally actually cold here. Hallelujah! I was able to wear LAYERS and a light jacket and not die lugging myself up the hill.

Yeah, not sweating was pretty much the highlight of the day.

Tuesday, Nov 14

Someday I’ll get a bulletin board…til then, washi tape on wallpaper works

Early early tutoring session, 7:50am. How am I NOT a Korean whiz by now??

Wednesday, Nov 15

Well, for better or worse (and it’s worse, all right), the written part of the final is over. It’s humiliating how little I know. Well, how little I know of what they WANT me to know.

This was our last time all in class together. Every day this week kids (students) brought candy to put on everyone’s desks. Cute, right?? I’m going to miss them.

Thursday, Nov 16

Having myself a big ‘ol pity party.

Today was the last part of the final, a one-on-one “dialogue,” (more like an interview really) with a teacher (not our teacher). I struggled (as usual) – understanding spoken Korean is my worst category, so it’s hard to answer questions correctly when you’re not exactly sure what you’re being asked. Do I prefer soju or beer? OR, which costs more: soju or beer? OR which is on the left, the soju or the beer?? How far do I live from class? In minutes or miles? Oh, not miles, they’re metric. How do I say counted minutes? All this while a stranger is watching you, waiting for an aswer.

At the end, she goes 베티 씨 (that’s me), 한국어 어령워요?? Hangoogoh ohlyowhoyo? Bettye, Korean is difficult for you? YA THINK?!? I probably did not answer one question right.

When I walked out and saw my classmates standing around awaiting their turn, I hightailed it out of there cuz I was starting to cry and I didn’t want them to see that 🙁 I walked back to my room in the rain, trying to not just out-and-out CRY cry while walking on campus.

Rainy view out my window

Almost as bad as the frustration and humiliation of working so hard and spending so much time trying to learn and having it make virtually no difference and being constantly embarrassed that I’m not getting it when everyone else is…is the fact that my doing so poorly has put a divide between me and them…and that makes me really sad and a little hurt feelings-y. Literally people avoid sitting in the seat behind me now so they don’t have to pair up with me when we do exercises in class…cuz I’m so slow and never even understand WHAT we’re supposed to be doing and they try to explain it to me in their limited English and I don’t understand that either, and it’s just…I get it. I GET IT. It’s a pain to to have to work with the slow kid. And now I’m the slow kid. It feels like we’re out on the playground and no one will pass me the ball 🙁

And I’m a grown-up and should be able to deal with that, but…I’m also far far from home without my support system and I never seem to understand anything that’s going on and it stinks that theywon’t let me play any reindeer games.

I realize at least a small percentage of this is probably in my own mind, but that’s basically where I live, so…

Yeah. Pity Party for One. I got home, put on my nightgown (at 2:30 in the afternoon), and got in bed. I had a couple handfuls of cereal out of the bag for dinner cuz I didn’t want to to get re-dressed to walk to the kitchen just to warm something up in the microwave. Eventually went to sleep.

Friday, Nov 17

Morning sky

And woke up the next morning to blue skies and no tears.

My classmates 🙂

My only obligation of the day was going to the graduation ceremony for the language program. Not for me, but there are a lot of people at various levels in the program and some of them were graduating. I sat with my class and watched the program, and both taekwondo and kpop dancing demonstrations? Performances? Either way, the school offers classes in both, so this was the culmination of their efforts over the term. Then teacher handed out certificates to my classmates who passed the class. Interestingly, all the Asian students passed. All the non-Asian students did not pass.

From the very beginning of the term I saw that the Asian students picked up the Korean “sound” very quickly and well. Korean has some sounds that are just not in the English language, so I struggle with those. But the Mongolian, Chinese, and Nepalese students souded very authentically Korean from very early on. Another things I noticed about them was their notes – very VERY neat and organized. My notes look like the diary of a crazy person. In the beginning I would rewrite my notes after class, so they were organized…but very quickly the time spent on me just doing the homework and trying to memorize the vocabulary was taking so long, that rewriting notes fell by the wayside.

Anyway, this first class was an interesting experience, for sure. I did not pass (as expected) so I will be taking the class again. I don’t so mind that…I just hope I can figure out some things to do differently so I can keep up with the class better this time.

At Korean barbecue with classmates

After the program, a group of us went out to Korean barbecue, which was fun. I was glad to finish off the class on more comfortable terms with them, not like I’d been feeling towards the end of the term (EVERYBODY HATES ME!!!). We had a few  a lot of drinks and it was nice to be a little drunk, ha ha. And we were able to talk more than we could in class.

And the one thing that I keep thinking is…how we all (people all over the world – different countries, different cultures, etc) think we’re so different. But we’re NOT. We’re the same. Ultimately we all kind of want the same things: to be happy, healthy, safe, and comfortable. (Most) people are not like the pictures we saw in our childbook text- and storybooks. Maybe thousands of years ago people were so different, but now?? Not so much.

I even went to a SECOND place after kbbq…even though at that point my “oldness” was catching up to me and I was getting tired. Some of them wanted to go on to 노래방 “noreh bang,” which means literally, “song room,” which is…you guessed it, karoake. Which is VERY big here. Tons of them on every street. But it’s different here than in the US. Here you rent a room for a certain amount of time, so it’s just you and your friends (or just you if you want). You can get food and drinks. It’s a good place to go that’s not a bar or club, and most young people don’t have their own apartments, as they’re too expensive compared to Korean salaries. Like the PC Bang…and ALL the coffee shops where they expect you to set up shop with your laptop and books for hours…

I feel that’s something the US is not doing well. Giving people places to GO. It seems like so many opportuities lose out to development of housing/retail spaces.

Okay. That’s it for me. It was a pretty good day (other than getting my embarrassing report card) and helped wipe away yesterday.

Saturday, Nov 18

Hid out in my room and recovered from the week.

It was glorious.

Sunday, Nov 19

Back to studying! I want to get a jump start on the class…I’m trying to get through both textbooks before class starts on Dec 6, so I need to get through a couple chapters a day and review the vocabulary. Anything I was not 100% on, I’ll go over with the tutor. I HAVE to pass this time…and it has to cause me less stress.

Took a quick break to go to a nearby sandwich shop Toasty Road, it’s very cute, just a teeny tiny hole in the wall, with a window you order through…and then wait five minutes for your sandwich. I got an egg, bacon, cheese on toast. I’ve been missing my weekend bacon egg and cheese from NY…and I know NOTHING is the same, but I’m hoping to find a reasonable facsimile thereof.

This was not it. Korean “bacon” is more like ham, the egg was that like “shaped scrambled egg” like on an egg mcmuffin, the cheese was mozzarella…but there was ALSO a thin pancake layer with corn and green onions…and a sauce that seemed a little like barbecue sauce. No. And I don’t know about other countries, but here it is not like it is in the US with “have it YOUR way, have it your way.” Like at Starbucks at home almost every order is like a custom order, “I’ll have a grande lukewarm creamy milky cafe mocha with no chocolate and extra whip fratala.” Not here. There are five options on the menu board and those are your five options. Exactly as they are on the menu board. So I will not be going back there and asking him to omit the pancake and barbecue sauce.

just a cute lil entrance to someone’s house

Study study study…then I met my friend at 6:00 and we took the bus to a nearby cute area BUT, as usual, our phones would not connect to data once we were off the bus so we were never able to find exactly the spot we wanted to go…and we walked two miles just to get pizza and then take a taxi home (I was able to use the pizza place’s wifi to get the taxi when we were in there).

I just don’t understand why we can never use our phones outdoors. It makes things REALLY CHALLENGING when you’re going places you’ve never been. I see all the Korean people on their phones CONSTANTLY inside and out. I’m hoping when I get an actual Korean phone plan, that maybe that will make a difference…I hope the issue isn’t with the phone ITSELF.

When I got home I studied some more…and now it’s time to go to sleep and prepare for another day OF VACATION 🙂

Goodnight.