Hang ul and ALLA these other Korean Speakers

Korean language lessons began today and, as it turns out, it is a language I’m not familiar with. This made learning it surprisingly difficult and even simple things such as speaking fluently did not go easily. In fact, did not go at all.

One amusing thing was the instructor, a Korean who speaks almost no English, looked at the class (about 30 people maybe) muttered “too many” (which is half of the words he has in English) and rushed off to his Division office. In about 3 minutes he returned and the class was divided into two. I idly wondered if an itinerant Wayguk could do this with his 2IM English class full of 37 heathen Chinese, but alas, I imagine not.

As I looked at the first lesson I saw a series of classroom scenarios on the handout. I thought, “how nice, he’s tailored his class for our needs.” I thought this because, despite what some of my skeptical, even angry, friends believe, I care about human links (this is not a reference to any kind of food product), human efforts, all of warm sweating humanity, really. Then, of course, I realized the swine started with these particular scenarios so we would know what he was saying when he ordered us around like human puppets, we dancing on his infernal strings to the demented music echoing in his head.

Here was a teacher I could respect.

Class went well, though his written hangul is INCREDIBLY sloppy which makes spelling complicated. The study group is thinking about hiring a Korean tutor to

a) check our pronunciation
b) make sure the spelling we pick up off the board is in the realm of the real.

Then it was off to the office to swap lies with J, my amusing but oddly unfocused office-mate. He’s 32 and trying to figure out what it is he wants to do with his life, so we get along. Did I say he’s oddly unfocused? I can’t remember, he’s rubbing off on me.

He took me around the corner for a Kimchi dish with rice and an egg. It was the first restaurant meal I’d had in a while and it was brilliant. He helped me with some food pronunciations, and I think I’ll venture out a bit more once the paycheck lands.

I also got my camera-battery charger today. At 70 bucks it was a complete rip-off, but there’s a photo trip to some mountain this Sunday and I want to get up and out. I was going to go to Expo Park today, but I am told it is not worth the trip. I need to get some household supplies anyway, so I may just put this off til Saturday. Worth the trip or not, I should check it out just to day I did.