Aaand 꿑!

It's official, our Sogang days are behind us. All in all, it's been a great experience, I've met some good friends, and while my Korean is still not where I'd like it to be, it's vastly improved from when we first started. I've come to realize that this is going to have to be an ongoing process and I need to accept that I'll probably never be fully fluent. The best I can hope for is to be functionally fluent, with an accent that'll always sound a little off to normal Koreans. But I'm okay with that.

Birth Father came in town the other day and we were able to have some serious conversations with him. My reason for studying was to reach that level, so I feel like this year was well-spent.

So here's the mandatory picture with my Level 4 class at graduation.

Our speaking teacher is in the middle with the Japanese beer we gave her as a thank you present.

I'd say after Level 4, there seems to be a lot of turnover among the students at Sogang. It's probably because if you start at Level 1, reaching Level 4 means you've spent a year studying. So, a lot of the people who started at Level 1 with us are returning to their hometowns.

We attended a going away party for one of Mark's friends from Turkey.

It's kind of a strange feeling to know we'll probably never see some of these people again as their hometowns are miles away from ours. Leaving Poly, it just didn't seem so final since most of the teachers were from North America, so I always kind of assumed we'd reunite at some point. But when people are heading off to Russia, Turkey, Taiwan, Japan... it'll be a bit trickier to meet up. I guess that'll just give Mark and me and major incentive to earn a lot of money so we can travel the world and see these people once again. :)

Anyway, thanks Sogang for the memories, friends, and the Korean skills~ I'll never forget you. ^^

Cooking class

Last week for our Sogang field trip, everyone in Level 4 went to a cooking class in 홍대.

The place was really cool and we got to prepare 안동찜닭 (chicken and veggies in a spicy soy based sauce), 해물 파전 (seafood and green onion pancakes), and 김밥 (Korean version of sushi rolls).

When we arrived, we put on aprons. The cooking area was really nice and there were tables with ingredients for each class. There were a total of 6 Level 4 classes.

Here I am with my classmate Chika. She is Japanese and actually loves cooking so much that she is currently enrolled in 2 cooking classes. After she finishes up at Sogang, she heads to cooking school. Needless to say, she was invaluable as we sliced, diced, sauteed...

The ingredients were mostly all laid out for us, we just had to cut them up and cook them.

Here's the seafood plate. It's kind of odd, because when I first came here I couldn't stand squid, but little by little it's grown on me. I am still not at the point of eating dried and buttered squid as a snack at the movies, but in various dishes it's actually pretty good.

We added the cut up seafood to this green onion batter.

Then we fried them, and TA DAAAA... 해물 파전! This is seriously one of my favorite things to eat lately with 막걸리 (Korean rice wine).

We also rolled up some 김밥. Mine is on the far right. These Korean rolls are filled with rice, carrots, cucumbers, sesame leaves, picked radishes, crab sticks, and more. Amazing.

And finally, here's the 안동찜닭 cooking.

And here's our final product! The best part of the day was that we could eat our creations together with our class. The place also provided us with kimchi (because what is a meal without it), and oranges.

And before we left, we were all given a recipe (in Korean no less) so we can try to make some of these dishes on our own. Any requests?

Different strokes

Today we graduated from Sogang Level 3. Whew.

Mark and I have been having some discussions lately about what we should do next. We want to return to the States in May or June. So with 3(ish) months left in Korea, we've been trying to decide our final "learn as much Korean as we can" game plan.

And today, it finally came to be that our paths will diverge.

Two weeks ago, Mark decided that the best way for him to learn is through language exchanges, supplementary material, and self-studying Korean. Sogang was good for getting him started, but now he wants more "real life" conversational practice. And once he made that decision, he signed up for an awesome language exchange website, Conversation Exchange, met several great Korean people, and never looked back.

I, on the other hand, have been waffling back and forth. I originally thought I'd follow the same path as Mark. For one thing, it'd be cheaper than paying another semester of tuition (especially since I only could qualify for one free semester on scholarship from InKAS). So I met with one girl. And then I freaked out about exams and cancelled the rest of the scheduled meetings so I could study instead.

So for our language exchange scorecards so far, they read: Mark: 6+... Me: 1. Uh, not cutting it.

Today after graduation, Mark and I had a talk which resulted in me creating a pro-con list. Basically, based on my personality, I've concluded need the structure of a classroom setting with tests to keep me focused, and set curriculum that will push me.

So I will continue on to Sogang Level 4. And Mark will seek "real world" learning through Korean friends and self-study. I'm going to miss having him in the program, and talking about different lessons and tests, but based on our learning styles, I think this is the best way for us to reach our joint goal of learning to speak Korean. So, here we go..... ::deep breaths::

End of Sogang Level 2

I've read online that with each level, classes tend to get closer. Probably mainly because everyone's ability to communicate improves, and as the levels get harder it's more important to support each other.

I think I've mentioned this before, but Mark and I were in separate classes in Level 2. It was good, and bad. It gave us the opportunity to meet new people, but when we were in the private class together this break, I'd forgotten how much I like being in class together. It's really fun to see each other make progress, and to see Mark say a really difficult sentence well is such an awesome experience. So we'll see what happens next semester... but I'm secretly crossing my fingers that we'll end up studying together...

Anyway, I was really lucky to have a class of people that I absolutely LOVED. They were so supportive and fun. So on the last day of class, a couple of the girls organized a big last day party (and thank you party for our speaking teacher).

We all contributed money, so we were able to buy her a watch and the girls who organized the party put together a really cute photo book of the class this semester.

Our teacher was probably one of the sweetest people ever. She is extremely patient and was enthusiastic about teaching every single day. Here's a shot of her and me.

In December, she's actually going to be moving to America... University of Illinois Urbana Champaign to be exact. She's going to be studying English as a Second Language. She never really let us know when she taught us, but her English is really good.

Later that night, a girl in Mark's class had a party, and my class met up for dinner and drinks. A few of the students won't return next semester, so this was our opportunity to say goodbye.

As I was typing this, I am feeling kind of disappointed that I don't have more pictures of Mark with his class. I have given him the camera several times, but it always came back empty. Ah well, now I really have to hope we end up in the same class so I can document Mark's classroom experience as well. :)

Anyway, Level 2 was fun, difficult, exciting, frustrating, and ultimately rewarding. I hear Level 3 turns up the heat even more, so I'd like to apologize in advance for any freak-outs I may have on this blog or otherwise. :) But right now, I'm kind of looking forward to the challenge.

Success!

Uh, I feel like I have to apologize for all the complaining, worrying, and generally feeling sorry for myself in the past posts. We've both finished Level Two with really good grades. So yes, we passed -- in a big way. Woo Hoo!

We're still doing the tutoring, and we had our first session yesterday. I think it's going to be well-worth the money since we are going to be spending the entire hour and a half speaking and listening. Our teacher is really spunky and lively. Plus, she's a stickler and doesn't let a single grammatical or pronunciation error slip by her. I have a feeling that after 9 classes with her, we'll see a serious improvement in our speaking. At least that's what I'm hoping for!

Sogang Level 2

So here we are, several weeks into Sogang Korean classes, but at the frenetic level 2 pace. Back in the day, I blogged about how difficult Level 1 was... and now I find myself longing for those days. Yeah, level 2 definitely kicked it up a notch (or 10). The teachers don't spoon feed the information to us as much, definitely speak a lot faster, we don't get to practice new grammar and vocabulary nearly as much. They kind of teach us what we need to know and assume we'll learn/memorize it on our own.

This semester, Mark and I got put in different classes. At first I was kind of nervous to be in class without my support system. But as time goes on, I can see that it's definitely better for both of us, as it forces us to meet and mingle more with our classmates. Plus, we have the opportunity to make twice as many friends.

Speaking of classmates, our classes are still pretty diverse. Mark has South African, Malaysian, German, Turkish, Thai, and Japanese students in his class. I've got a far less diverse class, with half of the class coming from Japan.

One thing I've noticed this semester is that our classmates can speak SO much better this time around. A lot of them didn't attend Level 1 at Sogang, so came in with varying abilities. I know I can be overly modest at times, but I am dead serious when I say this time around I'm without a doubt at the bottom of the heap when it comes to speaking ability and vocabulary.

The semester is going okay, but it requires even more studying this time, which I didn't even know was possible. There are many days that I honestly feel like I'm barely treading water. But I'm not complaining. I came back to Korea to learn the language and it's not a pretty process, but that's what's happening.

More pictures next time. And now back to the never-ending task of vocabulary memorization.

Sogang KLEC Semester 1 Recap

Hard to believe the first semester of Korean classes is over. It's been a great 3 months and I've seen huge improvements in my Korean. (Basically went from being able to say hello and thank you to forming coherent-ish sentences.) I've said it before, but I'm really glad we chose to take this little life detour.

Here's the building we studied in... Arrupe Hall. We were on the 8th floor. Next semester we'll be in another building.

We started every day with an hour of writing. Here is our writing teacher. She was incredibly patient and never seemed to mind when she had to correct the same mistakes over and over in my book.

And this was our main teacher, who we had for 2 hours every day for speaking class. She is so spunky and has a great sense of humor. If she wasn't our teacher, I'd have totally tried to be friends with her. Our classmate is having a party for the class and the teachers tomorrow night... maybe there's still time to make this friendship happen. :)

Oh and do you see all the cards on the board? That's an example of the little conversations that she would put up that we would then practice with our classmates.

Last is our listening and reading teacher. She was really good at explaining difficult things to us in Korean. For example, one of the new vocabulary words was an importing/exporting business. I'm not sure how she did it, but she managed to make us understand that while explaining entirely in Korean.

I like in this picture that there's the lightbulb above my head and "참!" which is what Koreans say when they realize/remember something. :)

Anyway, what a great first semester. Looking forward to what lies ahead, but am incredibly grateful to these awesome teachers for getting us to the point we are now.

Finito!

It's official. We've both passed level 1 and will be moving onto level 2 in two weeks.

::huge sigh of relief::

Whew!

We've officially survived our first round of midterms. Got some grades back and we both did pretty well.

Today was the much-dreaded verbal midterm. The portion that entailed having a conversation with a classmate was pretty easy since we could practice and rehearse a ton. For me, the conversation with the teacher was definitely more difficult. Before the interview, we were given a list of about 30 questions to prepare to speak about. I went over and over the questions and walking into the interview, felt pretty well prepared.

However, I wasn't ready for our teacher (who normally tends to speak at the speed you'd use with either a child or mentally handicapped person), to talk so quickly. Then, on top of it, she went rogue... asking questions differently than I studied them and follow-up questions that weren't even on the sheet we were given. Eek!

I'm actually glad the interview played out the way it did since we won't be given a sheet of discussion topics when we interact with actual Koreans. And I was pumped that I was able to hold my own. And hey, I did a lot better than at my intial placement exam when I informed the interviewer that I like to eat my parents on the weekends. :)

Drum Roll Please....

Got an email from InKAS and apparently the scholarships are offered on a first come, first served basis. (I thought they were based on the essay. Definitely wouldn't have spent so much time on it if I knew that... ah well.) So, the 100% scholarships were all taken... but I still qualified for a 50% Sogang tuition scholarship. That's about $750, so I'll definitely take it! :)

Our Class

Here are some pics of our class. Everyone's extremely nice, which makes going to class and studying significantly easier every day.

We took a few field trips last year with our students at Poly, but not surprisingly, field trips are a lot more fun when they're for us and don't involve a bunch of screaming kids on a bus. Sogang sponsored a field trip a couple Fridays ago. We saw a brand new musical/comedy called Chef, by the same people who created Nanta. This show was about this magical bi bim bap and featured a lot of beat-boxing and dancing. Not quite as good as Nanta, but still a lot of fun. And the day away from class made it even better. :)

Anyway, here's a class picture. Everyone but one girl showed up, so this is a pretty complete pic.

From left to right...

• The blonde next to me is Rachel. Her husband is a civilian who works on the military base. They committed to a 2 year stay in Korea, so she figured while she was here, she might as well learn the language.
• Then on the other side of us in the white shirt is 신 성냉님, our speaking teacher. We spend the most time with her (2 hours!), so we probably know her the best of our teachers. She's so cute and bubbly, she's good at making those two hours fly.
• Next to our teacher, in the pink shirt, is Khalia. She's French and is just studying here for the summer.
• Next to Khalia in the white is Madoka, from Japan. I'm not sure how long Madoka plans to stay in Korea.
• Then next to Madoka is Daniel. He's from Chile and has a Korean girlfriend, so he could be here indefinitely. :)
• In the second row, are Hyae Young and Nina from Taiwan. They're both here for at least a couple semesters.
• The guy in the front is Due. He's a Chinese American from the US (Pennsylvania area). He's officially the youngest in our class... 19. He'll be heading back to the States to start his junior year in the fall.
• Last, but not least, in the front is the amazing Mitchiko. She's 63 years old, a grandmother to 6, and decided to learn Korean "for fun." (And kicking our butts in the process, seriously, she's probably one of the best in the class. Good thing she's so adorable. Haha.) Her husband stayed in Japan, while she came to Korea to live and study for the summer. Oh, and did I mention that she's an international marathon runner? I'm talking Canada, Hawaii, Australia, Istanbul, Korea, and Japan. 6 total and all in less than 5 hours. Impressive, right?

After the show we got lunch together, so here are a few shots of the group:

And lastly, Asians love to throw up the peace sign, but I was showing them what my friends and I used to do for pictures... it's called the "Look at my cute face" pose. Yeah, we're all pretty freaking cute. :)

Anyway, that's our class. Looking forward to the next 6 weeks with the group!

Out of the Comfort Zone

I knew coming back to Korea and learning the language would push me out of my comfort zone. But I never could've predicted just how much...

First of all, Mark and I agree that neither of us has ever studied this hard in our lives. Ever. Spending 3 hours or so drilling vocab, practicing new grammar, and memorizing phrases after class is over is the norm. On a daily basis, my brain just plain hurts. And I know I've said this before, but I can't say it enough. Sogang's program moves FAST.

To give you an example, this past week, we've learned:

• the past tense,
• the future tense,
• how to say you can/can't do something,
• how to say you want to do something,
• how to give and understand directions,
• how to use adjectives,
• a whole new style of speaking (the polite formal style),
• how to indicate the method in which something was done, and
• how to ask someone to do/not to do something.

All of this... along with about 100 new vocabulary words.

But besides studying, I've been forced to sing by myself in front of a class and to go out with a sheet of paper and ask 5 random Koreans for directions to places in Seoul and to write down what they said. Both were nerve-wreckingly huge LEAPS out of my comfort zone.

Basically, to survive in class, you have to throw any self-consciousness out the window and do whatever is asked of of you. Here's Mark wearing a kitten sleeping mask and stumbling around the room trying to follow our directions to pin the hot pink tail on the elephant. (For the record, he succeeded in record time. :o) I credit our team's amazing direction giving skills.)

But so far, I'd say all of our work and bravery is paying off as I'm definitely seeing big jumps in what we can say. Midterms are quickly approaching, so we'll really find out then, right? Next week, we'll have a writing, reading, listening, and speaking midterms. Then the following week is an actual speaking midterm -- one-0n-one interview style. I think that's the one I'm the most freaked out about. Wish us luck!

Flash Cards and Football

Now that we've completed a full week of class, we've pretty much fallen into a normal daily routine. Not that being off work for a full 3 months wasn't nice, but both of us really prefer to have a purpose to our days. Our schedule is still pretty relaxed since I have haven't started working in the evenings yet. I have a feeling once all of that starts up, it'll be a lot more hectic and I may find myself missing my 3 months of laziness.

But right now, our schedule of going to class from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., stopping for a quick lunch, and heading back home to these lovelies is working out pretty well.

Yeah, our lives right now are pretty much consumed by flash cards. We're memorizing about 25 to 50 new words a day, so we're flying through these guys. Good thing there's a school supply shop right around the corner.

Actually, the classes haven't been too bad so far... but a lot of what we're doing has been review. We actually just started the actual Chapter 1 on Friday -- before that we spent 5 days on the "getting ready" chapters and a review day. And can I say that review days (at least the one we had so far) are a blast? At our last review day, we played charades, telephone, and more. Sounds cheesy, but it was a great way to make sure we really knew all the vocabulary and concepts. We're going to have one after every 2 chapters -- so every 5th day -- so those'll definitely be days to look forward to.

Since our schedule is still not that tough, last Wednesday we went back to visit the kids at Poly. It's crazy how much we've both found ourselves missing them! I was a little bit nervous that they wouldn't remember me, but I think my friend Kerry did a good job getting them excited for our arrival because they were absolutely adorable.

They were so funny when they found our we're learning Korean... they started shouting out Korean words and asking us if we knew what they meant. And more than anything, they LOVED that at our Korean school, one of our rules is... "Don't speak English."

Mark's students seemed pretty pumped that their human jungle gym had returned. There was literally a mob of kiddos climbing on him in the library.

Finally, World Cup mania has struck Korea. I never really watched it before, but last night we went to a bar with some friends to watch Korea versus Greece and the excitement was infectious.

Here I am in my Korean jersey...

Here are Mark and me... Mark got a jersey also, but claimed it was too small at the last minute. Booo... I'll have to get a picture of him wearing it at the next game...

Finally, here's the group with our tequila shots to celebrate the second goal...

I know I'm a bandwagon soccer fan, but I'm definitely looking forward to the next month of World Cup games and celebrations! Shouting Korea!

Sogang KLEC: First Impressions

We've successfully survived two days of school at Sogang's Korean Language Education Center!

Here's the entrance to the University:

And here's the sign in Korean (of course!):

The classes? So far, so good. A lot of what we've been going over these last couple days is review... but we're doing tons of speaking and practicing, which is really helping with my pronunciation. Yeah, saying things into a computer on Rosetta Stone doesn't compare to having a real live teacher critiquing my words.

Speaking of our teachers, we've got 3 really fun, dynamic teachers. They do a great job getting us all involved and interested in what they're saying... even though it's all in Korean. Our class is really international. There are: 2 people from Japan, 1 from Chile, 1 from France, 2 from Taiwan, and 4 Americans. (Eventually I'll try to take some pics of our teachers/classmates, I just haven't really worked up the nerve to be that weirdo with a camera yet. Haha.)

Our days start at 9am with a writing class. Then after a 10 minute break, at 10am, we begin the speaking class. The speaking class goes for a whopping hour and 40 minutes with a 20 minute break in the middle. Finally, we wrap up the day with a 50 minute reading and listening class. It sounds like a really long time, but the teachers are great about throwing in a mixture of hands-on activities, desk-work, and group work. We actually do a lot of circulating around the room and practicing skills with our classmates.

You can actually even tell how much the class centers around conversation by how the room is set up!

Anyway, if we put in the work, this program really does seem like one that'll work in getting us speaking the language, which is my main goal. It looks like we're going to have to do some major studying though... we got the syllabus and it looks like we're going to be flying! As in, we start a new chapter with new vocabulary, grammar, and themes every two days!

It's not going to be easy, but one of our classmates was telling us he has a friend in the program who is now a level 3... which is basically means she's on her 3rd 10-week session. And he said at this point she can speak to anyone, anywhere... oohhhhh I can't wait!!!!

Korean Level Test

Well... tonight we got a call from Sogang for our Korean proficiency test. Let's just say that when she asked me what I like to do on the weekends, she had a good laugh when I told her that I like to eat my parents... pretty sure we'll both definitely be in the Level 1 beginner class...

Accepted

Mark and I received an email letting us know we've officially been accepted into Sogang University's Korean Language Education Center (KLEC). All we have to do is transfer the tuition payment... and take a level test with an instructor. They say that the phone interview will be anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes. But at my current level I'm guessing it won't take more than a minute. I know how to say hello, my name, where I'm from, then I've got nothing...

We'll start classes June 3rd -- I'm so excited!

Plan B

When Mark and I set off on this adventure, we told everyone back home that we would teach English for one year, come home, and everything would be back to normal.

Somehow between then and here things have changed a bit...

Being here, I've accomplished some of the things I've wanted to do. I met my birth father, mother, and brother, learned a little about Korean culture, become OBSESSED with the food, and even survived a year as a teacher. BUT, there is a big hole in what I've done and what I want to do. Most importantly, before I come back to America permanently, I feel that I HAVE to learn Korean. And while the Rosetta Stone is nice, it's just not cutting it.

It is literally killing me to have my entire birth family in my life and not to be able to understand or speak to them. It all really bubbled to the surface when I met my birth mother. She was looking me in the eye, speaking to me, and all I could do was stare blankly back at her. Worst feeling ever.

Mark has told me that he understands I'm on a journey and he'll just follow my lead. (Did I seriously win the husband lottery or what!) I found a Korean language program at Sogang University that seems to be exactly what I'm looking for. The focus is speaking and it is supposed to be the best at getting students speaking quickly.

Today, Mark and I went to Sogang and applied. The whole process sounds pretty painless and if all goes well, we can start classes on June 3rd. We will be attending Korean classes from 9-1 Monday through Friday. Two of those hours are devoted to speaking, one hour is listening and reading, and one hour is writing. We're going to start with a 3 month semester and decide from there if we want to continue.

SOOOO, long story short, we ARE coming home at the beginning of April... but for a visit instead of for good. We'll stay around for about a month and a half and then head back to Korea to try to learn some Korean.

I'm pretty excited about the future and for the first conversation I can hold with my birth parents. Cross your fingers that all goes well and we'll see everyone in St. Louis SOON!

::image courtesy of Genomics Law Report::