Mood: concerned
(The out-of-tune piano which was left in the house we're renting.)
Yet another blog begins. I wonder how long I can keep this one going?
Anyway.
I had a solo Korean lesson today. We started up the last weekend of August, and we even have some new people--a Korean-American couple and a sophomore from my uni--but only the sophomore and I showed up today. He's in the Beginner class, though, so I was alone in Intermediate. It worked out well, though.. 장지영선생님 and I flew through the lesson, and I got some personal attention. I really need to practice speaking fluently and holding actual conversations. I can understand things when they're said to me (or when I'm eavesdropping, ㅎㅎㅎ), but I have difficulty responding. Not that this is unusual.. I've always had this problem in my language classes.
On the bright side, I learned a few new vocabulary words (퇴근 and 출근, which mean "get off work" and "go to work" respectively) and was forced into having a 100% Korean conversation with my teacher about the languages I want to learn, and why I have no interest in European languages. (ㅋㅋㅋ) She was amused.
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University has begun again, in case you couldn't tell. I'm now living off-campus with Lynn and Rita, and so far it's going alright. There have been a few little conflicts and annoyances, but nothing big. I have to say, though, being off-campus is 50x better than living in a dorm. I almost wish I had done this earlier, although that would've meant missing out on living in I-House and rooming with the awesome Leila.
Classes are alright.. Since I overloaded a couple of times during my uni career and didn't piddlefart around with my requirements, I only have to take three classes this semester. Two are 300-levels--Race and Racism with Springwood and The Chinese Revolution with Lutze--and the third is Chinese 201. Very exciting. I'm also taking Fitness Walking, but it's almost over already, and it doesn't count as a real class anyway.
My first exams are already coming up. Springwood's is a multiple-choice/short-answer exam on Tuesday, while Lutze's is a take-home essay exam for Wednesday. I'm actually quite excited to begin writing Lutze's exam... I always have fun with his papers.
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I've begun to think about my future after graduation. I don't know what I want, and that scares me.
A lot of people are just like, "Well, go teach English! All the cool kids are doing it." The problem is, I think I'd suck at being a teacher. I'm barely confident in what I'm good at; what would happen if I was suddenly thrust into a completely different culture where I didn't even speak
I could always go to grad school, I guess. That's what I've been telling people I'm going to do, anyway--go to a Korean grad school and get a Masters in translation. My talents seem to be purely linguistic, anyway; I'm not very good in much else. Maybe I'll pick up a class on oriental art along the way, since I enjoy that.
But after that..what? Do I really want to be a translator? Do I want to stay in Korea, or do I want to come back here? Sometimes I'm tempted to just become a housewife, until I remember that I'd quickly grow stir-crazy from being at home so much. Plus, what Korean man would marry me? Interracial couple with Korean men and foreign women aren't very common. (Not that I'm completely discounting the possibility of marrying a non-Korean.. I'm just saying that's probably what I'd lean towards anyway.)
Argh. THE FUTURE. It nears.
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On a more cheerful note, I've been watching several period dramas (사극) recently.
