사랑방 소님과 장미*

* = the houseguest and Jangmi (sarang-bang so-nim gwa- jangmi); a play on a Korean movie title, The Houseguest and My Mother, originally filmed in the '60s and remade recently, although I've only seen the older version.

A positive note before I begin whining (again, sorry): I titled this post as such because my rinky-dinky apartment was graced by my very first houseguest!  Besides Jung Min Unni and her mom, of course.  Last Sunday, my dear JaeIn Unni spent the night here in anticipation of her flight to Bali from Incheon (she lives outside of Seoul, so transport on the day of her trip might have been difficult).  Despite it being a little cramped, I loved having her here - there's no denying that it gets lonely at night with no one to talk to (I've so far only met one of my neighbors, who thankfully seems quite friendly is and very good at English).  She gets back from Bali today, and since I haven't seen any of my other unnies in quite some time, it'd be nice to have her here again.

This week would have been frustrating enough given that we've had to prepare for midterms, but I had the added horror pleasure of dealing with the fact that the user account on my computer was mysteriously and irrevocably corrupted yesterday, rendering me unable to even log in.  Consequently, I had to wipe my C drive and lost...everything (ALL OF MY KPOP - you don't understand, it's like a part of me).  It's also complicated things with my antivirus programs, and I had to spend a couple of hours dealing with that today (I talked to the customer service rep while eating frozen kimchi dumplings that I purchased from Grand Mart - an excellent purchase for a poor cook).  This is all doubly irritating because I purchased this computer, a Samsung, not more than 4 months ago when the hard drive crashed (for the second time) on my old HP.  I know I was all fuzzy and glorifying of my shiny new Korean cellphone last time I posted, but really, one should never trust technology too easily.

ALSO I JUST LOST INTERNET FOR 5 MINUTES FOR NO APPARENT REASON. WHY.

Okay, deep breath.  You are a capable human being.
Or not.

Anyway.  Midterms.
So on Tuesday, we had essentially 3 hours of testing - one of 듣기 (listening), one of  말하기 (speaking, even though it was a written exam), and one of 읽기 (reading).  All in all, I thought the exams were fair, but I just don't think I am cut out for the kind of exam Sogang gives.  When you teach a semester that covers at least 16 grammar patterns and over 300 vocabulary words, it must be difficult to design an exam that adequately tests knowledge of everything learned; while I think I learned everything and learned it well, I just don't know how well that translated onto the test.  I guess we'll see?

We took our 쓰기 (writing) test today, and I don't really care about writing (because it's an optional class, it doesn't factor into our final grade), so I am not going to think about it any further.  Actually, I'm starting to wonder if the writing class loses its utility as one climbs up in level; part of me thinks that it's actually a tremendous way to reinforce what you're learning in speaking/reading/listening, but part of me is also pretty sure that that depends on intelligent structuring and good teaching, which I think is definitely lacking in my case.  I heard from a classmate that my writing teacher has a reputation for being...crappy(?) at Sogang, so I guess my dissatisfaction with the class is probably due almost entirely to that (and the fact that it starts at 9am and the classroom is always blisteringly hot).

Next Tuesday: the actual speaking midterm, in the form of 3 5-minute dialogues performed with a partner (perfect timing, really, given that I have absolutely NO TIME this weekend due to the Light Fellow visit - which, of course I'm tremendously happy about, but no one else has stepped up at all to help out with organizing things, and I can't afford to lose my entire Saturday here).  And then the week after that, I have to give my 15 minute presentation (my topic, you ask?  SNSD, of course.  I actually thought I might branch out, but when my teacher heard me say that I might present on them, she got really excited).  Aish.  Not a single break till the end of the month, which is ironically our week-long vacation in which I am supposed to be giving 2 lectures at a conference being held at Yonsei and in Daejeon (I'm confused about how this is going to work), so essentially this is no break at all.  And then two weeks after the break, finals.  FML.

Well.  That was all very encouraging.

Again, I've managed to blog an absurd amount while saying absolutely nothing of value or importance (another Fellow told me my blog was impossible to get through because there were too many words); I think frustration manages to oust every intelligent thought from your head while filling it entirely with selfish, whiny preoccupations.  All I've managed to feel these past few days is anger, disappointment, sadness, and subsequent shame in not being able to do better for myself.  There have been small victories here and there; I successfully put together a bucket of bathroom-cleaning supplies and managed to scrub what may or may not be at least 6 months' worth of grime off of my sink (I've decided that the line between adulthood and childhood is absolutely determined by the motivation to clean your own living space and clean it well - this means that there are probably some very old children out there).  I also procured a new free shower puff simply by buying mascara at a makeup store (I <3 swagga).  But otherwise, I feel like a general failure, like I am taking all of the lessons I supposedly should have internalized the last time Unni lectured me to grow up and start dealing with things like a responsible adult (okay, so maybe being able to scrub a toilet is not the only thing that makes a person an adult, so sue me) and throwing them out the window.  And now I sound emo again!  WTF I need a latte.


I had so much more to say, and I'm disappointed that if I segue into it now, it will be totally unrelated and also no one will read it, so I'll save it for another time when I am hopefully less pissy about life.

Quoted:
J: People change.
H: Maybe, but that doesn't mean the relationships between us should.
(if you want to know, just ask).

사랑해.