청일점

A phrase meaning "the only guy in a group of girls," literally "blue one dot" 清一點.
The counterpart phrase for girls is 홍일점, "red one dot" 紅一點.

And it's in reference to a "phenomenon" I mentioned last post, the fact that I'm always the only guy among all girls at Sogang! This was also the case in when I joined this pseudo-Korean drama class. My friend Meng Ju (who you might remember me mentioning before or seen in River or Heeseung's posts/photos) invited some kids in my class and me to join this 5 day pseudo-Korean drama class that her Korean friend would be conducting. The reason I call it a pseudo-class is that it's more of a "study." Our teacher is writing her thesis for her major on educating foreigners Korean so the first day she interviewed us, giving us situations in which a coworker, friend, or superior asked us a favor and we had to refuse. She had previously interviewed native Korean speakers and wanted to see how we foreigners differed in responding to the situations from natives. After we spend some classes watching Korean dramas, she's going to reassess how we respond to situations at the end of the sessions and write her thesis on it. Pretty neat ^^, considering I always think how interesting it is that language also affects how you react to certain situations and taking into account how indirect of a language Korean can be.

After our first session, our teacher took us to eat at this yummy (and very spicy!) Hong Kong-themed restaurant, Wan Chai. Again, I apologize for blurry photos T_T.
Mm mm 탕수육 tangsuyuk, the Korean version of sweet and sour pork.
Meng Ju and Leng! And Yuki's hand, because she doesn't like pictures haha.
Our teacher and 사과 Zhe Ping (her Korean name is Sagwa, which means "apple," because the Ping in her Chinese name means "apple" haha.

Afterwards, Leng and I hung out in Meng Ju's hasukjip, flipping through channels on her TV, seeing dramas, animes, news, and...English education programs.
I didn't quite understand what she was trying to explain here lol.
I don't know how you're going to learn English from this...but maybe it's a more advanced level? Then again, if it were more advanced, I don't know why she would have to explain it in Korean...I think one of the biggest issues I have with a lot of how Seoul teaches English is with focus on reading and writing. They have to take the Sogang approach and put focus on speaking! One of my language partners' English practice involved translating Korean sentences into English and I told her I didn't quite think she could learn English like that...so we're going to try to take a different approach. You know there's something wrong when you get an English sentence translated as "Let's try opening the dream box!" which sounds completely natural in Korean, but in English?
On the other hand this kids' show was cute haha. Also watching the dramas and animes made me kind of want to get a TV, but I don't know where we would put it and whether it would really be worth the cost. Probably not. I'll probably just get my fill from finding movies and dramas and whatnot online ^^. Also, I've never been much of a TV watcher

On Thursday, continuing my trend of meeting up with friends from last summer, I saw my Taiwanese friend 향진 Xiang Chen!
Blah, super blurry picture >_<, but this is Xiang Chen and her friend. We ate at a really yummy meat place, although I'm not sure I really liked the taste of intestine much. There was a bit of a weird side taste to it that I found rather unpleasant >_<.
Afterwards, as we always do in Korea haha, we went to a café. And mm I think I developed a love for green tea latte! I was turned off it ever since I tried it at Starbucks in the states but maybe other cafés do it better because this one at Paris Baguette made me quite happy :).
And in line with my previous posts, I now provide you with another strange picture. Hmm, I wonder if this is akin to dying your hair. These poodles kind of look like cotton candy in my opinion.

Lastly, some food pictures! Because food pictures are always fun.
Similar to 돌솥, where food is served in a stone pot, this is 무쇠, served in a steel pot. Mm mm, these dishes always make me happy, especially tasting the crunchy rice that sticks to the bottom ^^.
And a (blurry =[) picture of 냉면 naengmyeon (cold buckwheat noodles) that Bob made for us to eat mm mm. I normally am not too big a fan of 냉면 but maybe I'll give it another chance because I sure enjoyed this :).

Sorry for the boring post :(. Unfortunately, nothing much is quite happening. In response to the weekly question that Ann sent out this week, though, part of me is a bit sad that I'm missing out on an entire year at Yale. There's a bit of surrealness to coming back to a "new Yale," where a whole year of new students will have completed their first year, where the year younger than me will now be my equals, and where my grade will move on while I'm in a way frozen in time. It's a strange feeling, but I don't feel too horribly uncomfortable about it, because I know I have friends to return to :).

As for why I chose to come here again, I definitely didn't feel complete staying in Korea only for three months, especially considering I had only finished Level 3 at Sogang. I don't believe that fluency can really be attained in a language without having lived in the country, and I felt that one year (well, really 9 months) would be a good amount of time to spend abroad. I'll be able to complete Level 6, the last level required to graduate (level 7 is a culture class) from Sogang, and I'll be able to experience all four seasons that Seoul has to offer, an experience I think will be very interesting (albeit, probably not horribly different from New York's four seasons considering the similar latitudes). The whole idea of language learning being a staircase process is interesting, and, having felt on a plateau all of last year with Korean and wanting to quit, I think I've reached another increasing slope point, which makes me happy :). Listening to people talk and understanding almost everything as well as being able to express myself in various aspects makes me really happy, although it upsets me that I still have trouble understanding simple things like when I order something and they ask if I want whipped cream or if I'm having it to stay or to go, or if I have point cards and whatnot...T_T.

Regardless, although I may not reach "fluency," a level which I think is hard to define, by the end of this stay, I think I will be able to at least reach proficiency. Not only that, but forming bonds across nations, despite being very sad when you all have to part, I think is a nice feeling, and it's a very unique experience to learn about how different people from different parts of the world view different things...in a language none of us speak fluently, Korean.

Apart from the language learning aspect, I think having this year is also giving me an opportunity to see what I really want to do and to see what's out there (vague sounding, I know). There are still so many classes I want to take and honestly, if I had just continued into junior year, I feel like I might have made bad class decisions, just because I'm still thinking about what I want for my future. So in a way, I'm freezing time, allowing my mind to clear and think about what I will want to do and seeing better the connections between what I am doing.

Also, when else will I be able to spend a year in a country like Korea? And not just that but focusing JUST on learning a language, where hanging out with Korean friends is a form of studying. It's a pretty great opportunity, and appeals very much to my language-loving side :).

Hmm, all that sounded really corny haha. But I guess that's inevitable when answering questions of this sort ^^.