I made a new friend on Saturday, a friend of one of the girls. She was holding my hand all the way through the seven museums of Korean independence! Here we are in front of a bunch of Korean flags. 

Tae Yeon, the younger girl, at the museum we went to on Saturday. 

For some reason, I feel compelled to post pictures of my living space every time it changes. This is my room at the Korean family's house. The porch is also full of some of my stuff, and you can see that I have a piano (in the bottom left corner of the picture). If I were here for longer and had a little more time, I miight consider learning again...the little girl gave me an impromptu lesson one night. 

a gathering of friends at a park for Okja and Alina's birthdays. (They're the two on the left.) 

my korean class, with the cake we gave our teacher on teacher's day 

the 80's

Here in Korea, I feel like I get to relive a bit of my childhood. Who remembers jellies (the shoes)? Who wore them until they broke? Who wore them even through winter with socks and then when they wore out went to the shoe store with your mom and tried to get new ones but were disappointed because they said they only sold those in the summer? Yeah, that was me. Well, jellies are popular here in Korea.

Other strangely familiar things are popular here, too. I bought some mascara recently that said "dark brown" on the outside. I wore it for the first time on Tuesday and a friend said, "Wow, cool red mascara!" Umm, I didn't actually know it was red mascara until she said that. I don't always put on my makeup in the best light because I share a bathroom with two girls who also have to use it in the morning, so I usually just make do with a pocket mirror in the bedroom. I guess I should have known to be cautious, though, because the so-called "dark brown" mascara was in the same section as the pink, purple, and silver mascara.

In the winter, a version of legwarmers are popular here. Miniskirts are all the rage on the university campus, and side ponytails make the occasional appearance as well. The layered sock thing (you know, when you put blue on top and yellow underneath on your right foot, then the opposite on your left?) hasn't been spotted yet, thank goodness. There is a problem with (older people especially) wearing, say, striped hat, a blue hawaiian print shirt with brown plaid pants and pink floral shoes (just one example from today's bus ride home), but that's a completely different story....

snails and other food adventures

When I came home from school today, I saw a bowl of something moving on the back porch. I went to check it out and found that it was a large bowl full of snails in water. When the dad came home, he showed them to me and told me how delicious they are. I told him they looked a little scary. I went into my room to study, thinking maybe I should jet before he started cooking something with them. When he called out to come eat, I walked into the kitchen and thought I saw fried pieces of things on plates. I was beginning to sweat it when I realized that it was just fried rice. (Maybe I need glasses, or maybe my eyes were just tired of studying already.) So, I was really relieved to eat a normal dinner. He told me that he washed the snails and got em cleaned up for later. Maybe breakfast!?

In other food news, I was planning an early escape yesterday (Sunday) morning to go downtown to a bakery when I walked into the kitchen to make myself some coffee. The mom said that she didn't want to cook so we were just having toast and fruit. Hallelujah. To make the weekend even better, I had the house to myself on Saturday morning while the kids and dad were at school and the mom had gone back to bed to catch up on sleep (their philosophy is that you can make up for all the sleep you lost during the week on the weekend). So, I made myself some pancakes. Yum.

One more food story, then I'm back to my Korean homework. Last Wednesday, I made some sour cream chicken enchiladas (not an easy feat when you have to travel far and wide to find tortillas, sour cream, and good cheese) both to share in the cooking and give them a taste of some Mexican food. The older girl helped me before she had to go to her night English institute. She ate some as soon as they were out of the oven and she said she liked them, but the cream wasn't very good. I left them out while I went to prayer that night and came back to find that the rest of the family had eaten other food. I didn't know if they had tried it and not liked it or not known they could eat it or what. The next night, I got home a little later than dinner time and heated some up. The rest of the family crowded around and started eating off my plate, so we heated some more. The next morning, the girls finished them off for breakfast. Go figure.

learning a language

I think I posted before about the different nationalities in my Korean class. I'm constantly amazed at their language study. Most of them speak fluent English because they studied it from a young age. Of course, there are a few that don't speak much English at all, and the others I don't actually know how well they can speak English because we always speak in Korean except during break time, when you can hear all sorts of different languages being spoken. I looked at one of the Sri Lankan girls notebooks the other day and saw her lovely Sri Lankan writing next to some of the Korean. It just looked like a series of neat spirals to me. She is really amazing to me because she speaks English well, is one of the best Korean speakers in the class, and she also knows Japanese and I think some Chinese. She's still in college at home and took a break to come here for a semester of Korean. Wow.

I've always been jealous of people who could speak other languages well. Now that I'm getting to where I can speak Korean, I wonder why I never took the time to really study a language like I am now. It's completely rewarding, in my opinion, even though it takes A LOT of effort. I started trying to study Chinese this week. I bought a book when I was at home for Christmas on Chinese characters and another on conversation. I looked at them a few times, but I stay so busy with Korean that I haven't made much time to study anything else. Well, since I decided I'm going to China for sure, I thought I should get a bit of a jump on the language. It's incredibly hard. The grammar is similar to English, so in that respect it'll be easier than Korean, but learning to read the characters with the right pronunciation will take a lot of time. I can write about 15 or so and can read about 25 maybe, but that's barely scratching the surface. I heard that you need to know about 1000 to read a newspaper!

After Korean class, I usually walk to the bus stop with the two Russian ladies and they often speak Russian. I can recognize some of the words (since my Dad speaks Russian and I've visited there). This week, after I started studying the Chinese characters again and then walked along listening to Russian, the thought ran through my mind that learning Russian would be so much easier! Maybe after I master Korean and Chinese....

i really just want to extol the benefits of napping on a bus

I took a bus into Seoul today (I do almost every Tuesday for one of two different meetings). A great thing about Suji is that even though there's no subway, there are these direct buses that will take you into Seoul pretty quickly. I left a little early with plans to eat in Itaewon, which is on the way to one of the places I go. So, it was about 5 o'clock when I got on...perfect time for a nap on the bus. It's really hard to describe the lovely effect of a nap on a bus (with seats that recline) when you stayed up too late the night before. The amazing thing about taking a nap on public transportation is that you almost always wake up at just the right time to get off. I've never missed a stop because I was sleeping. After my nap, I ate a great kebab at a Turkish restaurant in Itaewon, the international street of Seoul near the army base (which isn't a place I enjoy, but there is great food to be found there) and then I walked to the meeting in the rain. What a lovely evening!

something new every day

I went to a coffee shop today with a friend in the middle of Seoul. We got there, ordered our coffee, and sat and talked for a while, then they turned the lights off, closed the blinds, rolled down a hidden video screen from the ceiling, and rolled up the coffee pictures into the ceiling to reveal lit up liquor cabinets. It was so weird! The coffee shop changed itself into a bar as we were sitting there.

Last night, I went to see Kingdom of Heaven. After the movie, us girls were visiting the bathroom and I noticed something called an etiquette bell on the wall of the stall. I'd seen these before but never wondered what they were. I'm in the habit of reading everything around me, partly because I'm curious and partly to practice Korean since I can understand more after 15 weeks of intensive classes. So, I read the instructions on the etiquette bell. It will make the sound of running water and then turn off automatically. I thought it was nice for them to install something to help you pee faster, and I mentioned it to my Korean friend outside that I thought it was funny. She said, no, those are so that other people don't have to hear us pee. That just made me laugh...Isn't that one of the main reasons to go into a bathroom stall?

One of the current crazes in Korea is well-being. In Korean, they pronounce it as well-bing. They have well-bing burgers, well-bing ice cream, all sorts of stuff. Yesterday, I was looking around a stationery shop and I saw a well-bing pencil case! It had some plastic pockets on the front that held a selection of sealed rice and beans. I'm sure that would impact how you study, if you're able to have some whole grains next to you. That's not the best example of the craze, though. On the subway yesterday, I noticed an ad for a popular underwear company. It was advertising a new well-bing double up bra.

reunification

from an article by Andrei Lankov:

One can easily imagine how discontent about the North Korean system, as well as information about the almost unbelievable South Korean prosperity, will first spread through the relatively well-heeled North Korean groups who are allowed to interact with South Koreans and foreigners or have better access to the foreign media and entertainment, and then filter down to the wider social strata. Once people come to the conclusion that they have no reason to be afraid of the usual crackdown, followed by the slaughter of real or alleged rebels and their entire families, they are more likely to react in East German style than the supporters of the Sunshine Policy are willing to consider. And this will be the end of South Koreans' dream of the North's peaceful and painless evolution. Of course, the current South Korean government is dead set against German-style unification. But what will they do if a large-scale popular movement erupts in the North demanding immediate unification?

level 3 midterm finished!

I got home from school early today because we had our midterm. I wanted to study a lot more for it, but I think I did pretty well anyhow. My purpose in taking the class isn't to get a good grade, but to learn the language, and while I am sure that studying more will result in learning more, spending too much time on memorizing words and grammar rules isn't in my mind the most important way to learn the language. I did spend a good three hours, if not longer, yesterday evening at a coffee shop so I could study without the distractions of my home. Our test consisted of a thirty minute listening test, a grammar/writing test, and a reading comprehension test. In the middle of the written tests, we were called out to talk one on one with the teacher.

I came home to a cell meeting that the mom of the family I live with is a part of. After they left, I ate the leftovers of what they had for lunch (bulgogi, which was really good) and the mom asked me to make some cookies. I have to go to my Friday job in about an hour, so I told her I didn't have time but would make something for them later during the weekend. This morning, she asked me if pizza dough can also be used to make cookies. I told her that probably wouldn't work. I already had some pizza dough made and in the freezer from last time, so she asked me this afternoon to make some pizza instead of cookies. She already had the dough thawed and ready for me. :) I really think that God has given me a lot of patience, either so I can live here or because I live here. Probably both. In my mind, I'm thinking that it's weird to ask people to make stuff for you on demand, but I don't feel irritated. Yay!

another link

I thought this, by John Piper, was really interesting. The Good, Insane Concordance Maker. God's plan is to use even our insufficiencies for His glory!

a typical night

It's almost midnight. I got home just before the parents did about 30 minutes ago and the kids hadn't done any homework until the parents walked in the door. Now both girls are yelling at their mom at about three minute intervals to help them with something or get them some water and I'm thinking this is pretty crazy.

Our Korean midterm is Friday. I spent almost all day on Saturday (10:30-5 with a break for lunch) in the library studying, but haven't studied much since then because of here and there commitments. I'm hoping the next two days will be a little more free. I did get a little jogging time in and also watched two Korean movies on DVD over the weekend. I still read the subtitles in English, but it's good practice to hear it.

I am getting my visa to go to China this summer this week, and I think I have a plane ticket. That's exciting. I'm starting to think how I need to get rid of more stuff and get ready to be there for a while, because I think I'm gonna stay for at least a year to teach English conversation at a university. Did I already mention that? Well, it is late and there are yelling girls around, so I'm not thinking clearly.

it's happening today

Here's a link a friend sent me about North Korea. It was featured on Breakpoint with Chuck Colson and has some links for more information.

where does the time go?

At about the same time I moved in with the Korean family, I started tutoring three times a week and teaching one class at an English institute a week. It only adds up to 5 or so hours of work a week, and I don't do any outside prep for it, but somehow finding time to stay caught up on e-mail, blogging, homework, keeping in touch with friends, getting ready to go to China, you know, all that... is hard now. You would think that since I moved in to someone else's house where all I do is help with the dishes and just a little bit of grocery shopping and cooking would save me some time, but somehow the opposite happened. I help the kids with their English homework only occassionally, I try to have conversations with the parents whenever we have time, and I've been on two little "family trips" since I moved in. I guess it all adds up.

Yesterday was children's day in Korea. We started the day with fermented bean soup, seaweed, rice, mushrooms, and eggs for breakfast. The girls both had an ice cream bar after breakfast. I guess if you eat regular food for breakfast then you can have dessert afterwards! I thought seriously about telling the family that I had plans so I could get caught up on some stuff like studying for our midterm test, cleaning out my email inbox, and reading, but I decided that it would be fun to spend it with the family and I keep praying that no matter how much I don't understand or can't express myself like I want to in a conversation with the parents that I am still learning something. So, we went to a park about 2 hours away (should have taken less time, but there was a lot of traffic because it was a holiday), went shopping in an outdoor mall that felt strangely like San Antonio (it was called La Festa), saw some of their old friends who live near there, had a yummy lunch, and then walked around the park until it started raining. On the way home, in the car, the girls and I played games. We played the noun game in Korean and English, and bingo and I spy in a mix of Korean and English, but mostly English for me. We had a good time, and I was glad I went.

Today, Friday, was back to normal, but tomorrow is Saturday and I am committing myself to starting to exercise again (I haven't made time for that since I moved into the homestay either) and then getting caught up on studying. Wheeee!