So a brief forward would include that the theme for this week in the life of Sebastian Park is lots of work. Be it packing/moving boxes or programming late into the night, it’s been a long week in terms of hours worked. Thankfully, as a result of all this, I’m back in the black after paying off my internet and plane ticket bill. I’m also taking off to New York this weekend to have some fun and go karaoke. I can finally put my ability to rap Eminem’s portion in Forever to use
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So this was last modified 7/5/2009 at 5:41PM (not sure what time zone).
NSLI Korea Part 1
It’s currently 8:30 PM EDT or rather since I’m somewhere over Russia on my way to Incheon, I’d say it’s about 9:30AM at the start of this post. Delta’s moving flight map says that’s about 4 hours and 15 minutes off landing.
so basically, I’ve been sleeping, eating, listening to music, watching movies, and talking to Alan (more on him in a bit) for the past 10 hours.
So what is this part 1? Well, this series of posts will probably take the remaining duration of my summer. I’ll be studying Korean throughout the summer and enjoying my time in my parent’s home country.
So I suppose I should start with some preliminary goals. I REALLY want to be able to fluently read and write Korean (both on the keyboard and by hand). My current level of Korean is very deceptive as while I’m able to understand the majority of Korean I encounter, I lack the distinctive knowledge of being able to read anything with a good amount of speed. Or write anything error-free.
On top of that I want to eliminate the majority of the American acent in my Korean. Sure, it’ll always remain (similar to how my english will probably have a unique flare to it as my accent different syllables), I want to take advantage of the total immersion experience I’ll be experiencing.
Oh, and of course like any adventure, I’m going to have fun! And probably study hard. It’s so strange, I never realized how driven I am to learn and do well in things until very recently. I mean, in the back of my head I had thought it might have been in search of the grade I want, but it isn’t. I just really want to do well in anything I do!
Now for my experience so far. I had a terrible flight from Salt Lake City to Washington DC. I don’t know why, but my head was hurting a great deal at the end of it. It was all fine when I got off though. I joked with a tourist in the area for the 4th of July that I had showed up 5 1/2 months late and was sad that I missed Obama’s inauguration. That said, I only got to see the Congress building and the Washington Memorial from a distance (as the opportunity to visit the sites was cut short on the virtue of the flight in which I’m typing up this blog post).
The first two days were a lot of fun as it presented a non-korea environment to meet with the summer, fall, and year students studying in Korea as well. Man these guys are bright (and by guys, I really mean like 75% girls and 25% guys as that’s the composition of the people in the exchange). First of all… THEY ALL KNOW JAPANESE >> What the heck! I want to learn japanese T_T. I’ve been running by my rudimentary japanese by them and they’ve helped with a few things. Really cool guys. Take Alan (since I said I’ll get to him at the top of the post). He’s headed to Harvard next year and on top of that, he has this extremely diligent vibe about him that is compounded by his knowledge of other exchanges which is really cool).
So beyond the sleeping and meeting of people, the first two days were a preparation and getting to know people before boarding this 14 hour flight. The unknowns coming up? I have NO idea what level korean I should/will be placed in. It’s becoming clear that I’ve blessed to have had a background in Korean, but at the same time I also suffer from the bad life-long habits that new speakers are not plagued with. It’ll all be very interesting.
I’d go into details, but I have two months to talk about the people. Points of interest include Dina and her husband who have been absolutely amazing ^^. Also include in that mix Ed who is a Korean History scholar.
So far on this plane trip, I’ve realized that there is no wifi (sad), unlimited movies (WIN!), and a J-pop station (complete with BoA, Sasuke, GreeeeN, Utada Hikaru and others. I’ve watched Watchmen and Push so far. With now 3 hours and 45 minutes left,
Props: Dina, iEarn, the US Gov’t, Delta Airlines
Flops: Sorry, but a bright green T-shirt wasn’t my idea of something I’d wear on an airplane to South Korea ~_~
-Sebastian (watching a comedy next!)
I’m not editing my posts so I apologize for the grammar.
-Sebastian