진짜 별 거 아닌데요

"It really is nothing."

Done with Level 5, woo! This level has been constant work, what can I say? But it's finally done! I've heard Level 6 is a lot more speaking and less work, which will be nice. I'm always up for speaking practice ^^. I'm curious how having a less structured class will be like, but who knows? I might love it :). Video class is apparently very fun so I'll look forward to that--much nicer to have a new video every day than to watch the same clip over and over two days in a row haha.

These past few days have pretty much been catching up with old friends--Kana, Meng Ju, and I met up with 구은미 선생님, our level 4 speaking teacher for dinner at On The Border--expensive food! But very good! And as Koreans will often do, she insisted on paying the large part of the bill, such a sweet teacher :). We had lots of fun catching up with her--it's a pretty great thing when you're able to see a teacher in a casual context, it makes them so human and less...scary teacher-like haha!
Mm mm delicious Mexican food. It's pretty crazy how expensive foreign food is here though :(.
:D!
Level 4! Level 4!

Yesterday was graduation day--good-spirited as always and the kids who put on the play last semester showed it to the rest of the Sogang students (as graduation was not cancelled due to swine flu this semester so it wasn't only Level 4 students there).
Hiroko, Kevin, and Miyuki were the MCs for the graduation.
The speaker, a Level 7 student, gave a speech, likening learning at Sogang to a video game haha.
Dancing to 소원을 말해 봐 in the play.
Hans 씨!
The line from the title of this post. We learned in Level 3 the lines when giving a gift to be modest "Oh, it's not really anything." So Sagwa took out the gift and said "Oh! It really isn't anything." Hehehe, such a great line.
Another Level 3 line that was mentioned in a post from two summers ago: "둘이서 먹다가 하나가 죽어도 모를만큼 맛있어요" "It's so delicious that if two people were to eat it and one were to die the other wouldn't notice." This was reenacted here in the play haha.
"When Hans 씨 went to Level 5, he found it very difficult because the teachers talked very fast." These two teachers were my writing teacher and my speaking teacher, both of who talk relatively fast hehe. The first line:

"아시겠죠? 넘어갈게요." "You all understand, right? Let's move on."
"내가 성격이 급해서 말을 빨리 빨리 하니까 미안." "Because I have a very rushed personality I speak very fast. Sorry!"
After the graduation, we gave 오승은 선생님 our gift!
조재희 선생님 (our video teacher) with the flower we gave her.
Our class :D.
Eating at our favorite 팔색 삼겹살 restaurant for dinner :D.

And today Henry and I went down to Gangnam to meet Donghyuk, a Yale student who's in the military right now for two years. Always lots of fun catching up with friends :), and it's a nice feeling being able to converse with him in Korean rather naturally as when I was at Yale I would only speak with him in English--fun fun.
Crazy Jenga!

So I'll be heading to China for a week on Wednesday to visit my friend Ian, another Light Fellow, as well as two other friends who are studying there! See you guys in Level 6 :).

녹초가 됐다

"Exhausted"

One word (phrase in Korean) that describes how I feel very well. Despite the fact that I'm taking a year off from Yale, I forget sometimes how tiring it is to learn a language, especially when you're getting at least 50 words of vocabulary a day thrown at you, 4-6 grammar patterns every two days, constant 예습 (meaning "to study ahead," a word that my non-English speaking friends find humorous does not exist in English) and review every day, dealing with homework and writing about a page or so in writing class, etc. etc. the list goes on. And even when you're not in class, something about trying to make yourself understood in a foreign language can be very exhausting, so all I want to do now is just lie down and release all this tension, because I've just taken my speaking final! Phew.

Once again, I must apologize for missing a post because of finals coming up and work piling up more (I'll write another one tomorrow after the graduation). Not much has happened these two weeks, taking into account everyone buckling down for finals, but Henry, Kana, and I gathered our Korean friends and we had a fun exchange with them and then delicious dinner at our favorite samgyupsal place 팔색 삼겹살 (8 colors samgyupsal, where they literally give you 8 kinds of delicious samgyupsal, mm!).
As much as I try to meet more Koreans, many of them, especially guys, seem to just always be very busy! And a habit I've noticed is that some Koreans have a tendency to cancel often...something that quite a few of my friends have experienced. Alas, I keep trying, and hopefully I'll be able to make some more Korean friends who I consistently meet (there are only two now who I am able to consistently meet)!

One thing that has felt really satisfying, that I am able to see as my improvement in Level 5 (though for a while it felt very much like a plateau) is my ability to now talk about societal issues or controversial topics with my friends and Koreans (including health insurance, abortion, contraception, study abroad, English in Korea, euthanasia, etc. etc.). Our textbooks have started to add more of these issues for us to debate about (and I've heard level 6 is all about debating), but even beyond the textbook, we've been able to talk about other topics of interest that we just want to talk about, which has instilled in me a new confidence in my Korean skills.

On the other hand, though, going to get a haircut and not understanding a lot of what one of the male employees said (most likely a combination of my not being very used to males speaking and lots of everyday words--a category I've noticed we kind of lack in the Sogang textbooks) reminded me that as always, learning language is still a longgggggg path to pursue.

Til tomorrow :).