시간이 흘러도*

* = as time passes (shee-gan-ee heullo-do)

When did it become June 11? No, really...is it like, practically mid-June already? What?

Tomorrow wraps up my second official week at Sogang, and tonight marks the 2-week anniversary of my arrival in South Korea. I am a little disappointed to report that time here flies as quickly as it does at Yale; another week has gone by before I could even wrap my mind around it, and here I am wondering how the hell it is that we are already about 1/4 of the way through the entire curriculum. Seriously, I'm not even kidding - each level at Sogang consists of two books (A and B), each of which has about 8 chapters. We finish chapter 4A tomorrow. HOW.

So classes progress at the speed of lightning; is this the case, you might ask, for my language skills? Again, I am a little disappointed (okay, a lot disappointed) to report that it is not. This is perhaps the most unrealistic thing on the face of the earth, but my speaking skills are really, really not up to scratch. I met with my Sogang-assigned language partner today, a Korean student who perhaps stupidly signed up to help us dumb 워국 사람 (foreigners) learn Korean, and it instantly became painfully obvious that I am not really ready for a language partner. Sogang reserves this quite nice bonus for levels 3 and up, because at level 3 I suppose they expect you to be reasonably conversant. I am not. Oh, well. I felt fairly crappy after this meeting, especially because I'd missed dinner with all the other Fellows, but a sandwich from Paris Baguette and a waffle smothered in cream and strawberry sauce made me feel a little better. Fat kid.

All that being said, I suppose I'm stuck in level 3, because it seems silly to switch down now. I've already become accustomed to my teachers, their style of instruction, their mannerisms while speaking, etc; plus, I am not suffocating in their classes and understand a decent amount, so I'll just stay and hope for the best. Plus, I adore adore adore my writing teacher and want to be her best friend (she seems to understand that I need a little extra help - whenever she explains things to the class, she generally looks right at me and gesticulates wildly so as to aid her explanation, which is then followed by her coming over to me, pointing at my paper, and slowly repeating everything she just said. I'm starting to get things the first time they are said, so this is becoming unnecessary, but it's kind of hilariously adorable, so I always just smile and nod and sometimes flash a thumbs up).

And with that, I close the book on this ridiculous level 3/level 2 saga, and will only mention it again should I for some reason be kicked out of level 3 due to my astounding linguistic incompetence. Cross your fingers, folks.

Fortunately, in all of my fretting over how bad my speaking is, my writing and reading are definitely improving, and quite quickly. Just because I can't use grammar patterns in spoken Korean does not mean that I don't understand them or can't apply them, because I can. I'm kind of hoping that as these patterns become ingrained in my writing and my psyche, I will be able to gradually incorporate them into my speaking with more confidence.

All things considered (and classwork aside), I am having quite the fine time here in the land of a thousand types of kimchi. This week, I saw Sejin on Tuesday and Wednesday; on Tuesday, she took me down to the City Hall area (a few subway stops away from Sinchon, but a place I'd yet to visit), where we wandered around and eventually settled down for dinner at this yummy place where you sit on the floor (these are actually everywhere in Korea, and happen to be a particular favorite of Sneha's). We ordered this meal, I can't even remember what it's called, but it came with something like 18 side dishes and 2 steaming hot bowls of soup, one 순두부 (sundubu), a smooth tofu soup, and one 된장 찌깨 (dwenjang jjiggae), a soup made from soybean paste. It was all very delicious, and we topped it off with a slice of chocolate cake from a nearby coffeeshop. I think it was my first slice of cake since arriving, and I am most glad that I was able to share it with Sejin! Hopefully, we'll see more of each other, and soon.

Wednesday brought the 3-hour trip to Yongsan from hell, which I will decline to talk about except to mention that I managed (chiefly, in fact exclusively due to Sejin's extremely generous help) to procure both a cell phone and ridiculously-overpriced camera battery charger. The cell phone is the jankiest thing on the planet; pre-paid phones in Korea, called card phones, are pretty much second-hand phones that have been returned and are re-sold for stupidly low prices, so you absolutely get what you pay for. Mine looks like it's been through a washing machine, perhaps a couple of times. On that subject, I have yet to do laundry and am running out of clothes. You didn't need to know that, but yeah. I was also a little PO'ed about the battery charger, since the one that I have at home looks like a Glade plug-in and probably costs even less than that, but that is what I get for being stupid and leaving it there. In the end, I'd rather have a lot of pictures than the 20 or so extra dollars that I had to spend, so no big deal. That being said, I'll post pictures soon. No, really, I will.

And now I shall recommence studying vocabulary and finally crash for the night. The weekend should bring about festivities and hopefully more touristing, so stay tuned.