Wednesday, July 02, 2008

A little rain

[These are all from the home neighborhood this past weekend. Misleading b/c starting yesterday it got all cloudy.] Agh. Four hours of language class and then at least four hours of homework afterwards makes me a little crazy. Plus all the commuting. And getting used to being around international students + gyopos. Yeesh. And then on top of all that, I feel like I should be working on my Fulbright! Even though I'm not officially on it yet.

[Grand Department Store is the closest to home. The silver things are what I walk past to get to and from the bus.] Which means that I want to hit museums and meet more people. But I don't want to commit to it until I get more used to classes. B/c that's the reason I'm here right now, whether I like it or not: to take Korean language classes! I am hating the method, though. I'm totally NOT a rote memorization kind of student, which is what is needed for this kind of program. Unlike French, which I studied for years, I just don't have knowledge of the roots of the language to be able to guess what words mean.

And guess who doesn't know Chinese characters??? Sigh. It's funny to be back in school now that I have a real understanding of my own learning patterns and shortfalls in the brain. I was talking to a classmate and she said her friend's sister went to Oberlin, but that it was a REALLY LONG TIME AGO so I probably wouldn't know her. Well, I did. B/c I graduated that long ago. Hilarious.

Apparently here, they take good care of their trees and lash them together so they don't fall down. I'm going to put my books into my locker and walk to the bus and wait forever for it to come and hope that I get a seat. Wohoo! [oh, I did some extra reading that wasn't required and came across a funny Chinese saying about how people eat everything that flies in the sky but planes and everything w/four legs but tables. My rough translation.]

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