Walk Hard...or soft I guess works too

I'm going to start off with explaining myself for the absence of a blog yesterday. The reason is bright and shiny and makes perfect sense in a country where you are always doing something: I was tired and just wanted to sleep.

So there you have it, and to go along with that flawless logic, I will run through my yesterday in a sentence. I sat around wishing a paper would write itself, watched world cup qualifiers, ate, and thought about writing said paper. However, I still have not written said paper. 

Today has been a roller coaster to say the least. 

At first today, I was all excited. I thought that I could get up and really start today exploring the world of Korean and different tenses and start making my spoken korean dynamic and whatnot. I was pretty much wrong about this. I understood exactly what we were doing today, and the grammar makes sense. I can write sentences and even say things occasionally. However, my listener was broken today, it was like I was dialed in to the wrong frequency or something because I couldn't pick up anything. I could get the obviously simple stuff, but it was like day one all over again.

     That caused me some problems. I have a really hard time dealing with myself when I truly cannot comprehend something. Today I might as well have been sitting in on an MBA class taught exclusively in Swahili, because I had nothing. The good news is, though, that while I was pretty upset that I had failed that one class session (hard to take a test when you can't distinguish sounds) I came to terms with it fairly quickly and set about understanding everything I was writing and reading, and got virtually the same lesson, only without the listening.

    I really think that's one of the important skills to have in a second language situation. You must be able to shift your learning capabilities when you have one of the really tough days. There's no rhyme or reason when they are going to come up, but a back up plan for learning has to be in place. 

After class, we ended up going to Mie's (the western style restaurant) and I ate my feelings through the deliciousness of bulgogi (basically korean barbecue) creamcheese pizza, and wedge fries. The pizza was just a philly cheesesteak pizza basically, and it was incredibly good. It made me happy, which is the important thing. 

Culture class was really great, though. We learned all about the Korean family in a more in depth fashion and it really helps me understand the type of behavior I see when I'm here. Going to a class that helps you understand that kind of thing is so important when you have no prior knowledge of how someone will act in a situation. Or any situation really. Without the culture class, I would probably just be taking everything for face value instead of really getting an inside point of view with the Koreans. They have been shaped just as much by their colorful history just as we have in America by ours. 

Class was over, and we had a long discussion with Patrick about the classes and whatnot. He told us about how they decided what we would be taking and the teachers' qualifications and whatnot. While I spent most of the day uselessly and outwardly complaining and worrying that I am completely uncertain about whether I will receive any credit for this semester at all, I have started the wheels rolling when it comes to actually finding that stuff out. I called my study abroad office, and they are figuring it out. Thank goodness for them. 

My S.A.P.P. group was also in session today, and I think it really took my state of mind to do the right thing for them tonight. When I found the room (one half hour late) I told them that I was changing around how the class worked. While them asking me questions only was nice and all (it was mainly about colloquialisms, idioms, etc.), I felt like I was doing them an injustice by pretending to be some sort of all knowing sensei who could be asked any question, but could only teach through question and answer format. 

         It took a day like today, one where I was completely broken down, for me to realize that these poor people are coming to America in like 4 months. At least Korea likes Americans. Our people don't even like foreigners for the most part. We think they're strange, don't know english, and most people won't have a real international student friend. I have to use my strengths to attempt and help them as much as possible. So, I am now basically emulating my Korean culture and etiquette class, but for America instead. I know about (at least generally) how Americans work. I know how we were influenced. I know why people get up in arms over the second amendment (punpunpun). I know some grammar stuff, and I know idiom things and can articulate them well (sometimes). 

So like I said, I changed the class. I'm really the teacher now, and my students' subject is America. Today they learned about American history, the hows and whys of our wars, the constitutional rights we're given, and other historical things that make us think like we do. I answered burning questions and made them verbally compare America's system of stuff to the Korean one. For homework they are comparing the two countries in a short little page work. All to hopefully improve every part of their english. I really hope they get something useful out of all of it, because now i know what it's like to be in their position. 

Tomorrow will be a good day I think. I have no more steam to let out, hopefully my scheduling deal gets worked out, and I play table tennis. Granted, I have lots of homework and another looming test, and a paper due wednesday, tomorrow will be good I hope. 

Until tomorrow (maybe wednesday :(  )

Aron Huckaba International Vagabond

       

Saturday, Saturday, Saturday

I thought today I would end up going to the jimjebong, which is the korean equivalent of a sauna type place. There are typically rooms of varying temperature, from quite chilly to very hot, and for a minimal fee you can stay there and eat and everything. 

I ended up not going, though. Before this weekend, I was in dire need of some rest and relaxation. I now feel like I've done everything in my power to do nothing, and feel very invigorated. I wasn't completely useless, today, though. I got a paper done that is due tuesday, and need to finish one tomorrow which is due wednesday. 

Today though, ended up being pretty good. I uploaded the pics from yesterday's trip, and I plan to have the video done tomorrow as well. Korean still goes the same old way, as I seem to be getting a lot of things until I attempt to listen to native speakers. That's when things go awry. It will all come in due time, I bet. I just have to try and keep it up and listen as hard as I can, even if I don't catch anything. The problem isn't enough listening to natural speakers, because I end up giving out my email to pretty much a person a day, and I don't have enough energy to reply to them all. It's good and all, but it's a lot of people to keep up with. 

I went and ate at Isaac Toast today a couple of times, which is pretty cheap, and quite delicious. The whole little restaurant is centered around toasted bread with cooked eggs, maybe cheese, and maybe meat. It's delicious, like a hot ham and cheese in the states.

I don't really know what else to say for today, I'm kind of boring. 

Until later,

 Aron Huckaba International Vagabond 

Jinhae, fun +1

Thursday was more of the same, with ping pong going less than stellar. Oh well, that's old news anyhow. The big part of today was Jinhae. It's such a big part of the note, I made it rhyme in the previous sentence. We left the university at 9, and arrived in Jinhae at roughly 11:30. It was pretty neat there, as there were lots and lots of cherry trees. They weren't all in bloom yet, which made me kind of wish the trip had waited a day or two, because the blooms were on the verge of busting. All in all, it was a fun trip. First, we made a stop at the naval museum. It was really neat, and really similar to the naval museum of groton connecticut (a whole bunch of navy stuff and boat theory and whatnot), except that (of course) it was in Korean. I find that I use a lot of parentheses when I type (go figure). Anyways, they had some smallish turtle boats there (pride of korean military history) and a full size battleship or destroyer that we got to tour. Most of the interesting guts had been ripped out of it, but that's to be expected with military stuff. I got really nauseous though, for what seemed like no reason at all as I was leaving the boat. Maybe I don't have my docked-boat sea legs yet, or maybe it was the sprite and mentos (but Mythbusters said sprite didn't work with it? does anyone know?). Either way, I had planned to do a really nice little video about Korean navy history and the whole museum there, but the aforementioned nausea really just stopped all desire to do anything. So I apologize. Afterwards we headed on over to lunch to a Korean meat buffet. I'm not sure how many of you know what a meat buffet is, but it's a spectacle, especially when 100-120 people arrive there at the same time. Basically, it starts out like any other regular buffet. Everyone finds a seat and sits while the waitress makes sure she knows you're there. After that, too, just like a regular buffet, everyone goes to get their food (in this case meat. Oh yeah, and EVERYONE went to get the meat). Since there was so many, the scene looked like something from the discovery channel. People were situating themselves around the foodsource in accordance with some intrinsic value system, whether it be a line, or whoever could gracefully insert themselves between people already in line. The buffet technicians had to bring out meat basically continuously for the first 20 minutes or so, and at the end, everyone had a reasonable amount of raw meat and fresh veggies and spices. Did I mention the meat was raw? Just as you read it, the meat was uncooked. There were, however, little grills on our tables, and when you wanted the meat to be cooked, you did it yourself on your little grill. It really was delicious. Our table first carefully laid out a tray full of meat, making sure it was all perfectly flat. Then, mounds of garlic, onion, and fresh kimchi were also piled on. Once the meat was done and the veggies grilled to satisfaction, everyone took turns making a little meat burrito. Making the burrito is just as fun as it sounds. First, you take a big, green, leaf. Next, add any and all manner of desired ingredients (meat, onions, garlic, rice, kimchi, hot paste, etc.) until you feel your korean burrito can get no more delicious. Then, fold the burrito up and put the ENTIRE thing in your mouth. It's impolite to eat it any other way. I really can't exaggerate the deliciousness of the meat cooked on the grill. They had everything: pork, beef, squid, octopus. The smell gets in your close, but in the end, you're full, so who cares? We all waddled back to the bus after lunch and headed off to the naval academy. That was a really neat place too. They combined the academy with another museum thing. It even had a full size turtle boat! I was so excited! The line looked daunting to me, though, so I didn't go inside it, but it looked fierce even in my modern mindset. I tried to get more video of everything, but I realized I forgot the platform (this fixes the camera to the tripod) for my camera in my room, so my tripod was basically useless. So the video I do have is relatively brief, unfortunately. I apologize again. I tried to capture today the best I could, it just seemed it wasn't going to work out. Besides the turtle boat and nice scenery, there wasn't much else to be had at the naval academy. I really wanted to stay for the parade, but the buses were leaving before and I was too tired to have another adventure. On a bright note, though, I was able to read ~200 pages of a really interesting non fiction book today. It's called Talking Hands and is about a sign language made up in an israeli village. That's pretty much all that happened today. When I came back, I attempted to study, but found that I couldn't, so I am trying to salvage the day as a day of rest and recharge for next week. Let's hope the weekend lets me do it. Until next time, Aron Huckaba International Vagabond

sometimes you can be as surprised as a bear in a snake trap

Today, for the 239572 time, I have been shown the kindness of a people through a simple act of selfless giving. Before I get into that, though, I left out a really interesting part of my day yesterday. 

I don't know how many of you follow/care/know about baseball, but yesterday was actually a big deal as far as sports is concerned. The game played at 9:30 my time (7:30 CST) was yet again another example of how America's place as a world leader in everything is diminishing.
Back in the good 'ole days (not quite as far back as when you had to walk 6 miles to school in the blistering wind of a hail storm, while you collected the rocketing ice balls for fresh water because otherwise you had to go and pump the well for ten minutes in scorching heat just for a glass of water...) America was the best at everything: baseball, basketball, football, manufacturing, and life in general. 
Everyone wanted to be us. It felt great, really. 
However, yesterday, the championship of the world was at stake. Two titans were in the heat of battle with each other, and boy was it a slugfest. America's team however, was nowhere to be seen (on the field, at least). 
That's right, Japan and Korea were the competitors in the final game, with Japan edging out Korea in extra innings. I have heard of some editorials that blame the pitcher and manager for the loss, because Ichiro Suzuki should never be allowed 8 straight pitches to try and score the winning run. It's simply not good managing. I'm not saying, that there weren't other people responsible for the loss (i.e. the whole team), but walking Ichiro would have probably gave Korea a better chance (Ichiro is probably the best hitter to ever come out of Japan, much less, Asia).
But I digress. 
The important point of the matter is, if America ever wants to see domination in (anything really) baseball, we, as citizens, have two options. 

1. Put the best players we have in the game. When every other team is putting the absolute best they have to offer, we have to do the same (see the 2008 United States Summer Olympic Basketball Team). Sure we had guys like Rollins, McCann, Adam Dunn, Jake Peavy, and Latroy Hawkins, but where are our superstars? Where is Joe Mauer, Barry Zito, Tim Lincecum, Carl Crawford, Pince Fielder? I could essentially go on and on.

2. (this might be a little radical) Produce better players. I think the American mindset has allowed us to become happily stagnant. We aren't the best anymore because our athletes (for the most part) are satisfied with making it to the majors and then assuming it's a job. It's just like the average citizen, too. Everyone wants the easy money. Everyone wants the gain without the pain. I think we know we have something to learn.

I hope you don't think the World Baseball Championship is just a meaningless tournament. Baseball is America's game. 
Sorry about the tangent, though.

On a lighter note, it was neat to be present in Korea for the game yesterday. You would have thought that Korea was landing a man on the moon. Everyone was watching. I don't even mean that as an exaggeration. As far as I could tell, everyone was doing everything in their power (even if they don't care about baseball) to watch the game. Granted, the game was Korea vs. Japan (easy to say they are historical adversaries), but when does America ever get together for the sake of pride? Besides tragedies? or the final American Idol show. 
I'm done with the baseball talk now.

Today was good I think. My korean class went pretty well. The teacher is talking faster and faster and it's hard to understand sometimes, but I'm doing pretty well so far so I'm really excited. We have another test tomorrow, so I will need to study for that I think. I'm really looking forward to Friday, when we go to the cherry blossom festival. I think it's going to be so beautiful. 
My philosophy class went well too. We went over Socrates, the Sophists, and their conflicts and why they didn't like each other. Philosophy really intrigues me. It's like, a study of everything, and a study of nothing at the same time. You can be right and be completely wrong all within the course of a conversation. Fascinating, really.

After class, I did a little table tennis conditioning and headed off to dinner and my english group. Dinner was good (pork, kimchi stew), but helping the english group was great. I taught them how to use a, an, and the, and also how to use colons and semicolons. They are really good at english, it's pretty neat. 

After helping the group, one of the guys (his name is Rza, like the rapper) walked me home and asked how to get rid of his accent. I told him to just do what I did to get rid of my southern accent: watch newscasters and try to impersonate them. 

I arrived in my room and quickly got into my table tennis stuff to condition some more. I went to the gym, and hit the table tennis room for a little bit. In there, I met a guy who didn't speak much english, but I knew enough Korean to introduce myself and get him to start playing. 

Before I go any farther, I just want to say that having some sort of skill (sports, photography, music, serious religious convictions), whatever it may be, is actually really useful in Korea. Surprisingly (hopefully not though), Koreans are interested in hobbies too, so if you share a past time with a Korean, they will want to be your friend. 
All joking aside, is really is a great way to meet Koreans. They are tough to just approach and get to know, and using a hobby makes it WAY easier to do so. 

Anyways, back to my story. This is the whole part about more kindness and loving the Koreans' attitude, by the way. 
Me and the guy get done playing, and we had a blast. He had a really fun paddle, which , when used back in the States, allows old, and/or obese men to play with younger guys. It does this by reversing the spin of anything hit at it (I don't want to get too technical, so I will leave it at that). It was really a blast. I could tell he was having as much fun as I was, and when we were done, I remarked that the paddle was really nice, and it makes playing table tennis lots of fun. I in no way even remotely made it sound like I wanted it. 
However, after some conversation, he told me that he wanted to give me the paddle as a gift. I couldn't believe it. He had two paddles that he and his friend used, and he wanted to give this one to me. It was pretty much the ultimate act of table tennis kindness you can take part in. 

I'm honestly amazed every day by the attitude of people here. How are they so nice, so kind, when back home we are so cold? I understand that it's because of cultural things, but when did our culture become so? 

I sincerely hope everyone reading this gets to come to Korea some time. 

Forever Amazed
Aron Huckaba International Vagabond

tuesday on my mind

today was really a lot of fun. Lots of class, I was supposed to meet my buddy, and to cap it all off: Table Tennis! I'm going to go ahead and apologize ahead of time for the brevity of this note. I'm really tired ha ha.

So class was ok today. I was really tired still but luckily I am able to grasp what we're doing easily. I know it's sticking with me because I'm able to speak Korean a little and use what we're learning in class. 

Doing the homework is a little more difficult though. Not on a skill basis but on a time basis. Haha I got in at 11;30 because of table tennis, so I will do homework before class. Lucky thing is that it's easy. My literature class assigned its first paper today, too, so that was pretty exciting. I like writing papers, especially about characters. 

Today I stayed under my budget again! I'm so happy! I spent a total of 6000 won today (but no dinner ha ha) so lets hope I can extend the streak to two days. I bet I can. Now that I have found out how, it's going to be easy I think.

I was supposed to meet my buddy today, but he didn't show up. It's ok if he doesn't, because I have met many Korean friends here now (all through sports, basically) and I can talk to them for practice. If I need something, I will just ask Mr. Kang. I'm assuming my buddy won't contact the office, but if he does, having a buddy will be nice too. 

Table tennis went really well tonight. My coach went through with more drills today, and even showed me some good exercises I can do to strengthen my legs. They are great. I'm pretty sure I will have legs of steel when it's all said and done.

I checked my comments from a couple notes ago and saw how everyone was worried about how I was doing and everything. I want to thank everyone for their kind words, thoughts, and prayers, as I had struggle #1. I really do appreciate it. 
As much as I appreciate it, though, I don't want anyone to spend the kind of money it takes to send something over here. I was just made aware of the fact that it's really expensive, and for some home comforts, I'm not sure that's worth it. 
If you still feel compelled, be my guest, they are still home comforts and they would still be ok. It's always nice to know someone thinks about you that much. It's very expensive though, and I would rather not be a burden like that.

Until Tomorrow
Aron Huckaba International Vagabond

monday to start all mondays

It's been a pretty good one here so far. I learned some neat things today, though, and that's the most important thing, especially on a monday. 


No.1: There IS a way to stay on a budget when abroad. I know it sounds crazy, but I actually did it today. I was even under the budget for today, so I was happy. It's really hard for me to eat under a budget that's only 10$ a day. I couldn't imagine... well I could imagine living on less I would just just be hungrier. I barely get hungry during the day, so I'm in a good place right now. 

No. 2: Instant coffee does not have the caffeine content as regular coffee. I'm pretty sure this one is true, anyways. I make a thermos of coffee a day, and I'm just as tired as always. However, something that may be a contributing factor is that I'm tired to begin with, and that always causes some trouble with caffeine waking me up anyways. How enigmatic. 

No. 3: Men are much more emotionally aloof here than in America. I have heard girls talk about how guys were just too boring because they had no personality, well they would hate to meet Korean guys. Before they become friends with you, there is this really weird awkward stage, which is pretty painful for everyone involved. It's kind of amusing though, because it's like being in first grade all over again. 

No. 4: Everything (at least for me) stays in a constant balance between good and bad. Just when I think everything is going bad and I don't know what to do, something really good comes along and fixes everything. Seriously, I wonder if it's like that for everyone else, but when I audit my life's good and bad points throughout the day (probably a bad practice anyways) I always seem to come out relatively even for the day. If not for the day, then most certainly the week. 

No. 5: It's really tough to teach a second language if you don't know the first. Physical things are easy. Show a picture, act it out, whatever you gotta do. When you're dealing with intangible things though, it's really difficult to get your message across. On the same note, unless you know exactly where you're going with an idea to try and explain some grammar grammatically, I recommend skipping over it. At least in my case, it made everything worse. 

Tonight I met with my english group again and it was a good time. They are really good people and truly want to learn. They consider my advice and listen intently-as long as I don't go to fast. They don't know english so well, but that's definitely ok. After all, they still know english way better than I know Korean. 

All day today I've been looking forward to tomorrow, when I have table tennis practice again. It's basically the best thing that could've happened to me while I am over here. Except that I also get to meet with a chemistry professor next week about research. I'm really super excited. I hope he's interested in something to do with Organic Chemistry, but if he's not, I don't care anyways. I will still work just as hard. 

Something really fun also is that my Korean is picking up really quickly. I'm starting to understand what people say a lot better and also I can talk a little better each time. I just feel more comfortable each time I open my mouth. I think by the time the Discover Korea group comes here and I help them around Daegu and whatnot I will be able to actually help them ha ha.

It's getting kind of late now though, and I need to try and get some sleep.

Until Later
Aron Huckaba International Vagabond

weekend (boo)

So weekends here kind of stink. 

Unless I'm going on a trip to somewhere fun, weekends are a drag. They are usually spent worrying about studying and about all the things I should be doing. Too bad it never seems like anything ever gets done, though. It seems like I can never study enough, like I can never save enough money, or just use my time wisely enough. Not to mention all the official restaurants on campus close for the weekend, and I have to walk to more expensive places. It's all just minor stress stuff.

Living here is fun, but it's tough for a while. Korea is full of lots of low level stress things. The water is different, the air tastes and smells funny, the shower is the bathroom, it's not humid like it is at home, I can't get my normal comfort foods, etc. Normally any one of those things wouldn't do harm, but all together they can pose a problem eventually. 

I can't seem to get my mic stuff to work, I think I have a faulty piece of wiring for them. I will have to call Shure I guess and see what I can do about getting another deal, or I might just buy another one. I'm not sure. I just wish it would work the way it's supposed to. 

Today wasn't supposed to be one of the those tougher days. The only things I have done is study and try to be productive, but somehow or another it's gone downhill. I know I've only been here for about a month now but I feel like I don't know as much Korean as I should. I can say basic sentences and stuff, but that's pretty much it. The grammar is difficult, because it's like crazy yoda talk. 

I'm also kinda worried that I'm not going to get credit for anything when I get back. Funny thing is, that worry is going hand in hand with the worry that I actually will get credit for being here. I really feel like I will be totally dishonest if I say that my language course is deserving of Murray State language credit. My class doesn't seem like a major-level class. Sure, the teacher talks in Korean for 95% of the class, but I don't know many many things. I can't (haven't learned the rules for) say things in the: past tense, future tense (near and far), subjunctive. I also definitely can't say anything that matters, except that I am an American, I study at Daegu University, I'm going to the library, and such sentences as that. I am really starting to feel unsatisfied with myself for trying to pass that off as deserving twelve hours of language (major credit nonetheless). Sure, I'm in class for 20 hours a week, but I'm in the beginner level. There are four levels. This may seem really dumb to say all of this, but I feel really crappy. 

As far as my english classes go, what happens with them? I think I should actually get credit for them, but sadly (and this is my worry), my teachers aren't professors. I know that there are assistant professors and whatnot, but I just know MSU won't like it. Two of my teachers have Masters' and the other I'm sure could right a dissertation on Literature with his knowledge. I really do think the classes are equitable to those Gen eds in Murray, I'm just worried it's not going to happen. 

I can't seem to live up to the serenity prayer, no matter how hard I try. I know if I can't change it, I shouldn't worry, but what if this all counts for nothing? 

It's all exhausting to think about. 

The whole day and yesterday have basically been the same thing, so this one entry pretty much accounts for both. Sorry for no video this week. I should have two next week.

Until Tomorrow
Aron Huckaba International Vagabond

Thursday (Korean second wind)

So today I found a new energy, mainly spurred on by the fact that I actually had a substantial conversation with a korean person. Also, ping pong pretty much rocked my world tonight, and also I am pretty much getting the hang/dominating my classes. 

I really do like the classes. The whole intensive deal is pretty neat. At first, it seems like a lot, but eventually it's just like regular school. You get used to, study a lot, do what you have to do, and hopefully learn something. I'm a big proponent of intensive. I wish there was more intrinsic conversation time in the class, though. I know that it should come from me going out and meeting people, but it's hard to find time to memorize all the verbs and nouns. 

I did have a good time last night and a little tonight though, going around the building and acting out the verbs in a quasi zombie like manner. I can just imagine how I looked: Big goofy American, walking around without any real energy, performing random actions and talking to myself in a language which sounds like Korean but is only made up entirely of verbs. It was definitely funny to do, but it really works. I recommend doing that with any language. It really helps to get those words into your sub conscious. 

Honestly, memorizing new verbs (action & tangible verbs help a lot) is a lot like working out. If you can manage to find time to go catatonic and just act out verbs for like 30 minutes a day, you will learn really quickly. How quickly? The goal of learning a language should be learning it to be used throughout life, and I guarantee you the time to learn the new words is way less than the time you want to use the language. I'm pretty sure these intensive language programs are a lot like broken vending machines that don't accept change. Basically, you only get what you put in. 

In a completely unrelated matter, spring is pretty much here! It was 74 today, and I walked home from ping pong in a t shirt and shorts. The yellow storms are still around, but my allergies are getting used to them, so maybe it's all going to be fine. I hope so anyways. 

Speaking of ping pong, that had to be one of the better parts of the day today. I did ok in playing with the other guys there, but I started trying to talk Korean to the guys this time, and they all wanted to talk to me. Whatever Korean I didn't know, they would try to say in English. They are so nice. 

Anyways, it turns out that the Korean National University Table Tennis Championships are in April. They only get to take ten people to it, and they want me to be their #1 guy! I'm so excited! The coach cam up to me, and the best he could in a hilarious but pretty neat mix of english and korean, told me about the tournament and that he will expect me at practice every day leading up to April 4. It's on April 4 by the way. We will take a train up to a town called Gumi, and the tournament will be held all day. Even if I do terribly, I will be happy. I'm lying, of course. I would never be happy doing terribly at anything. I am going ot practice on my own every day that I possibly can. 

Something else really good happened tonight though, too. On the way back from practice (and for the 2 time in 3 days), I saw like 30 charter buses and Koreans boarding them in a crazy, almost hurried manner. It didn't bother me too much this time, since I had seen it once before. The first time, though, was kind of unsettling. Whenever you see what you think is every Korean in the university boarding buses to get out of the university, I think you would get a little worried. A hundred scenarios ran through my mind. Maybe North Korea was attacking. Maybe the Hello Kitty outlet went bankrupt and the doors were left unlocked because the manager was getting back at the owner for not giving him advance notice that his job was in jeopardy. It could be any of those two reasons. 

Either way, this time I was determined to find out what was going on. I couldn't find anyone at first who didn't look too hurried, but I found a girl walking by herself so I ran up to talk to her (Just for the record, I realize that in America doing the same thing would be asking for a face full of mace or an ear full of rape whistle or something of that sort, but I'm in Korea). 

Turns out that the university here offers buses into the city of Daegu every night at like 1030 or so in order to get students home safely. It's needed here because the university is an hour outside the city, and the public buses stop running at 10. 

Well, that's basically all I have for today. I didn't think I was going to have much at first, but it turned out pretty well I think, in length. 

Until the next note
Aron Huckaba International Vagabond

Wednesday all around

The Language program is really kicking into high gear. We have lots of homework and have a test every day. the good news is, though, that I'm learning a whole lot. It doesn't take much to retain it when it's basically all you're doing. I have another big test tomorrow, and probably one the next day too. 

My philosophy class went better, but I think I need to step up my out of class reading. Somehow I still wasn't completely prepared for the discussion. I have to go deep into the philosopher's whole ideas instead of a moderate view of each. It is really much more difficult than I expected. I got assigned a paper too, and I love writing, so that should be a fun time. Today we discussed (mainly) Heroclitus and Parmenides. Their philosophies really helped to shape the sciences of physics and chemistry I think. 
Heroclitus dealt with the constant flux of everything, while Parmenides dealt with the stability of everything. Heroclitus thought that you could study things by learning their attributes (heat, speed, color, etc.), which sounds a lot like physics to me. Parmenides thought about how everything should be reduced down to its indivisible essence, and thought that a change in appearance of something (decay, heat, etc.) was only a change in perception and not of the composition of the subject itself. It's so fascinating to know that these guys came up with these ideas over 2000 years ago. 

I think I may finally be able to stay on budget food wise. I bought the coffee, which saved me from spending three bucks a day on a coffeehouse coffee. The pound bag of instant coffee has already paid for itself, and there is still an incredible amount left. Also, I'm going to stop eating a normal, western breakfast (pastry items from the bakery, since I spend about $4 a day at just that meal. Instead, I can have a Korean breakfast for ~$2 a day. The reason I must budget food money is because I get 300,000 Korean won a month to eat on. If I can keep my food under 10,000 won a day, I will essentially only be paying for fun stuff while I'm here. 

I met my other english communications group today. They are really nice too. They speak english very very well, and might even end up coming to Murray. I'm pretty sure they would have no problem taking university classes, since they understood quite easily what I was saying. They're english education majors which helps I think, but they said that they have only been preparing to come to America for 8 months. If I could be in that kind of shape after 8 months of preparation I would be so happy. 

On that note, I want to say that so far I am really confident that a person taking the Korean Program seriously could quickly progress through Korean and be proficient at it within a year. the language program is only 10 weeks long, so they could take the intensive program around 5 times. 5 times is supposed to be the amount of time it takes to be ready for university classes, at least from what I'm told. It takes 2 or 3 times that long to be ready to study in another language with our American semester class system I think. 

I really hope I continue to enjoy my time here in Korea. It really helps when I get letters and stuff from home. Speaking of letters from home, I was so excited to day when I got a letter from Beth! She sent me two letters and they absolutely made my day. I know that it's hard to understand how much of an effect letters can have, especially in our age of technology, but in a weird country, to have physical confirmation that someone back home is thinking of you and you're not all alone is priceless. I know it won't always be so great here though.

I know that there is a system of steps that one goes through as they spend time in another country, and I think it would be awesome if I never moved into the "I hate everything about this place" stage. It will probably happen, but here's to hoping. This really is a nice place. I think in the realms of places you could live, this country is close to what America is like. Today has been consumed with school and studying though, so I'm sorry to report that I have nothing really more to say about what I've done here. 
Spring IS on the way though, and fast. It's been in the high sixties every day so far this week and trees are starting to come into bloom. I know that basically means nothing in Tennessee and Kentucky (snow can happen any time), but I think here it's a good sign.


Until Later, 
Aron Hucakba International Vagabond

Yellow Storm Fallout Tuesday

Today I woke up and could definitely tell I had been sleeping in some sort of gross pollution-y muck. Luckily, the yellow storm was over by the time I got outside, but I still feel it, more than 14 hours later. It's so weird, to have bad air quality. It really puts a damper on your life when being active causes more harm than good. Hopefully I get over my coordination problems in time for Thursday because ping pong tonight wasn't good (no coordination).  

Class went pretty good today, we are getting into the real korean stuff now, with the verb conjugation and the sentence structure and whatnots and whathaveyous. Same style language classes just way faster pace. In a week and a couple days we've already surpassed at least double the time of American language class.

I really wish I could explain how great my literature class is. We read THE most interesting stories, have great discussions, and have a really good teacher. Nothing else could be better really. We read Chopin and Hurston last week and this week have another famous guy (I forget his name... how ironic) Since yesterday I felt terrible and sickly, I didn't have a chance to talk about one of the best parts of my day. I finally met my english group I'm helping. They are called the Study Abroad Preparation Program, and they are all planning to study somewhere in the U.S. next year. Their english is pretty good, and they want help with what makes American English so great: The butchering of definition that is prevalent thanks to colloquialisms and idioms. I'm really exciting to be helping them. They seem eager to learn and I think I can definitely help them with that kind of stuff.  

In order to balance out the cosmos (ping pong went badly, as I said before) some good things happened to me today. The best thing that happened to me all day was walking by the little desk manager office as i was walking through the glass doorway of my dorm. You might be asking what made it so good.  

It could be that I saw a unicorn fighting a dragon for supremacy of the universe. You know, good and evil and all that jazz; it also might be that I found a baby giraffe. Both of those would have been awesome.  

What really happened was something in between. The desk lady stopped me and gave me this big package with my name on it. I was shocked, to say the least. I really felt like I had just won an oscar or something. It was ok though, because I sincerely thought of thanking the academy as I was signing the package log.  

I would now like to just put in a few words for who I really do want to thank. It's extremely difficult living in a foreign country. It's also extremely difficult to know that of the population in the country you live, you and your fellow countrymen (native country that is) make up a whopping 1% (generous estimate) of the general population. Many other things are difficult when you are 7400 miles away from home. There are some things that seem to make all the difficulties go away, however. Like seeing a baby giraffe.  

Seeing that baby giraffe, however, pales in comparison to receiving a package from someone back home. Dr. Ratliff sent me a package full of the most amazing things I could ever wish for. In the marvelous chest of magic, there were goldfish (Real, tangible goldfish) and Pringles, and even candy! It may not seem that much to you, but when you're missing home, it's like a godsend.  

So I would like to say once (and probably not for the last time) thank you Dr. Ratliff. For everything you've done for me. You might have thought it was just junk food you were sending, but it was actually a box full of happiness. I'm aware of how corny it sounds to say that stuff, but I'm completely serious.

Oh, and more good news to boot. Or sneaker. Turns out that next Friday, we're going on a trip with the Korean Language Program here. We're going to a cherry blossom festival!! I'm so excited! I won't have a video this week I don't think, but I should end up being ready to go with two next week. Cherry blossom festival is actually a big thing for Korea. It symbolizes the start of spring and the new life that comes with it. Not to mention, when every road in a nice, rustic town is covered in said blossoms, I imagine it would be a beautiful sight.  

The Language Program was originally going to a really famous Korean king's tomb, King Sejong (he created their language) but when they announced it, I looked kind of sad. My teacher asked why, and I told her that I was going to have to miss out on some plans I had to go on a trip (I fully thought they were talking about saturday, not friday). She naturally asked where I was trying to go, and I told her about the cherry blossom festival. In a really cute asian way she smacked her head and said "Oh I forgot about that."  

I didn't think anything of it, but today they made the announcement about the schedule change. I think the fact that the city we're going to is 3x closer really helped too, though. It wasn't just me (I can still pretend like it was though).  

The next day we will be going somewhere, but I'm not sure where yet. I hope it will be somewhere fun. There are definitely a lot of fun places here. Here's a list of some upcoming events I will be doing: Acupuncturist trip (oriental medicine stuff) Sauna Trip (You might be asking, why a sauna? Well, it's very popular in Korea. Unfortunately, you have to be naked the whole time, so I am going to waive my right to film my adventure.) Water Park (The water is heated to a nice warm temperature constantly, even in the winter.  

Looks like that ends our tour for today.  

Until I post again, 

Aron Huckaba International Vagabond

Manic (Crazy Yellow Sand) Monday

Ok so today has been dominated by something called either the yellow sand or the yellow storm. What do you think of when you hear the words yellow sand? Is it a giant hazy cloud of gross pollution floating in from China? 

My visualization wasn't either, but the sad truth is that the unwanted picture is exactly what is true. Apparently, every spring, these giant clouds periodically come over from China, and the whole day becomes shot. Walking around is like living as an emphysema patient. Depending on how bad the "storm" is, you can suffer several different stages of lung incapacity. Today was rather light, at least from what my korean friends said. However, I'm used to the nice, crisp, clean air of the Kentucky Lake Area, so I was basically dying all day. 

Pollution is amazing. I believe firmly that it can destroy your body completely. I feel completely unable to perform any kind of coordinated movement right now, sports related at least. I played basketball earlier today, and that was a BAD idea for sure. I don't know what got into my head, when I knew about the pollution. I really hope it all goes away by tomorrow like it's supposed to. I can't take another day in a row of it. This is definitely my least favorite part of Korea. It's downright oppressive, physically and mentally. 

This note is going to be short because I just can't get the motivation. Pollution sucks. End of story. 

Give a Hoot Don't Pollute
Aron Huckaba Internatonal Vagabond

Easy like Sunday Morning

Today is Sunday. I'm 14 hours ahead, so as you're waking up I'm about to be off to bed. Strange right? I see every sunrise before you and I can call you every day and let you know how beautiful the sunset is. My waking hours are taken up for the most part by your sleeping hours and vice versa. It really makes talking back to anyone in the states tough. When I feel like talking to most people, they are asleep. Just something I wasn't sure if I had mentioned before. So if I haven't had a chance to personally stay in touch well, I hope noone is offended. It's just tough to find the time to do everything since free time is either in my morning or late at night.

Today was pretty cool. I got up and accomplished everything I set out to do, which is pretty exciting. The only thing I haven't done is study korean enough but that isn't possible since I can't study enough ha ha. I'm getting back into the swing of school though. I have coffee now, so that's definitely a contributing factor. It's instant coffee though because regular coffee here is very expensive. No idea why, except that Korea is a lot farther from South America than the U.S. is.

It's a good thing the won (Korean money) is so weak compared to the U.S. If it's not food, it's expensive here. I wasn't aware of it at first, but so many things are more expensive than in the U.S. Some things are cheaper, but not a lot of stuff. Brand name clothes are incredibly expensive here, and it seems like everything is at least 20% more than in America if it has a brand attached to it. Maybe it's do to modern day trade policy and maybe it's do to the Confucianist structure of Korea. Who knows? I'm not in the mood to delve into it farther, I just know it is not good for my shopping pleasure.  

Anyways, after I got lots of stuff done, I went to church. I had met a pastor a couple of weeks ago and he told me how to get on a bus to come to his church. It was a Presbyterian church but I didn't mind. I followed his instructions this week (couldn't get the motivation last week) and jumped on the bus I found there. However, this bus was definitely not going to the Presbyterian church in Hayang. We went into downtown Daegu to this giant other Presbyterian church. Turns out that the church had korean, chinese, vietnamese, and english services. We thought it was pretty cool and upon entering the church, were snatched up by a korean person and showed around the church. We went down to the Chinese part of the church and caught the Chinese service. It was good, I think. There was an english teacher there who spoke some Chinese so he outlined in the bulletin (in english) what we were reading.  

So the sermon was on Matthew 13:24-46. This covered some parables which described how God would pick the good and bad people, and also what heaven would be like. The pastor was very animated and from my experience in American protestant churches I could kind of get what he was saying while catching very few words. After the sermon we got in touch with the english teacher guy and ate lunch in the little cafeteria there.

I'm going to digress for a minute or two. 

Korean church culture is pretty neat. For us Americans, we're used to going to church on Sunday morning and being done in the early afternoon, dispersing to all of our personal plans for lunch or whatnot. The service is relatively short (1-2 hours) and fellowship extends right up until the moment the final prayer is said, and then whoooooosh! Everyone is out the door.  

This isn't the way Korean church culture works, or at least how it was explained to me by Andy, the english teacher I met there (I have only been to the one church so I wouldn't know personally). The first service goes from ~10:30-11:30 and last roughly a hour-1.5 hours later. At that time, everyone fellowships and has lunch together there at the church. After the first service, everyone comes back and has another service which lasts another 1.5-2 hours. Apparently Koreans really value the whole deal about the Sabbath, at least the churchgoing ones do. The church usually doesn't let out until late afternoon and then everyone goes home for the day. It's pretty neat that here in the busy culture of Korea, church is actually much longer than in the states. 

Also, I noticed something else in the church today. I met Andy and he was a really nice guy. He was trying to get into better and better teaching jobs and also trying to do some mission work. He knows some chinese and some korean and of course english (he's from ohio). He lived in China for a little over a year and has been in Korea for a year in a half. I guess he likes it here in Korea, because he is trying to become a college english teacher. This all brings me to my point.  

The things I found today kind of bothered me. Not in an offensive sort of way but in a concerned, fascinated sort of way. Let me start off by saying that I'm not as nationalistic as many people, and lean strongly towards a global state of things. I wish everyone would broaden their horizons and study abroad. I want everyone to see what other places are like and how the basic human struggle is intrinsic, no matter the culture. 

What I saw today in Andy awestruck me. At first I thought I was speaking in a strange tone or doing something wrong, because his nonverbal communication clearly suggested that he wasn't following anything I was saying, at least until he thought about it. The fluency in his english has seemed to disappear to give way to some kind of semi-natural way of speaking one would expect of someone studying and still trying to master the language. His verbal communication skills were also lacking, at least in english, as his tones were slightly off, and he had a considerably peculiar air about him as he talked, almost like he was unsure what he was saying. Right before I would begin to speak, I could see that he was waiting me to say something, but as I began to talk this melted into an instant uneasiness and a kind of disappointment. I honestly couldn't figure out if I was doing something wrong or if I suddenly developed a crippling lisp or something.

All this description is necessary, I think, to help me bring up my point. Is this kind of loss-of-fluency normal? According to Andy, he had only spent a total of 2.5 years overseas, and that time had been split between two countries. Does intensive language training result in a complete loss of your formal self? How fast does a person unknowingly assimilate into a new culture? It makes me worried about losing my ability in english as I'm immersed here, at least to the extent I saw today. It was actually kind of disturbing, I think, because I can definitely feel that my english vocabulary is shrinking in a rate directly proportional to the rate my Korean vocabulary and understanding goes up. Is this what's to come of me? Will I lose the only thing that makes me a natural citizen. Will I end up in a sort of perpetual awkwardness between cultures? 

None of these questions will keep me from fervently pursuing my Korean studies, especially since become proficient is my goal. It's just unsettling, that such a natural ability would be easily lost like that. I'm pretty sure I wrote twenty questions just now, and honestly I might be able to answer like 2 of them. This is all a big pool of unknown territory to me. In the end it boils down to the fact that i really don't want to lose who I am in the pursuit of personal improvement. It's similar to waking up one morning and discovering that you've turned into an animal or some other Kafka-esque metamorphosis.

Thinking about it further, I can see the self-cultural shift is inevitable if one truly wants to be fluent in a language. Look at the naturalized citizens we have here who speak english very well. Many of them have assimilated into the culture in some way or another to a large extent. I'm sure if they were to meet someone from their home nation who barely speaks english, the impression they would give would be like the one I got today. The whole church trip thing essentially took up my thoughts and energy today. Like I said before, I got all the necessary homeworkish things done today but I've been hung up on what happened in church today.

For Now

Aron Huckaba International Vagabond

Haeinsa Temple Video

Blogging is tough when your days are nothing special

So basically the title sums it up. I think this is as great a time as any for a little exercise I call realization and reality check. Instead of offering up a summary of how my life has been extra ordinary instead of extraordinary for the past three days, I would like to allow a deeper look into some of the observations I have made while here.

Originally this looked like a real honest-to-god paper. It had the same cold feel, had logic trying to prove a point, but who needs that? This isn't a paper writing class. This is a neat little blog I like to keep because it gives me a chance to express myself in a situation where it's hard to do so on a regular basis with anyone I wish.

Let me start off with a question.

Why Study Abroad?

I asked myself this a considerable amount of times when I first entered college, and my answer was always the same. "If I want to graduate with honors, I have to study abroad." That was that, I thought, purely obligatory.

It would be easy to say that's how it ended, that I went and ended up enjoying myself for a couple of weeks. I went on a couple of two week excursions into new countries and really did enjoy myself. The experiences were great, and the classes fun and interesting.

The best part about study abroad is that there is a deeper, less obvious benefit to spending money on a trip and class rolled into one. I never really got it until I got back after my trip to Korea in 2008, but once discovered, it could only be described as an awakening, a blinding flash of light which engulfed me, picked me up, shook me around, and sat me gently back in my chair.

Through my travels on the first two trips I realized something profound: There is more to the world, more to humanity, than what is offered in America. The U.S.A. is a melting pot. It's a populous country where things are good and things are bad but as Americans, we have a feel for it, and it's comfortable to think it's all there is.
Even though it's all of those great things, I see that we're pretty isolated from the rest of the world, both in thought and attitude. From what I can tell, isolationism is second nature to us. We want what's best for our country and only our country. We're afraid of anyone who doesn't like us, and our idea to fix that wasn't to improve relations, it was to shut ourselves off even more. That stuff is easy to see, and when concerning yourself with a country for just 2 weeks is certainly great, it's like getting a slice of the pie. It's certainly delicious, but when you're done, you kinda want to see how the rest of the pieces taste. The whole pie is the semester abroad, and is just as delicious as the first piece was.

Studying abroad is like being able to broaden your horizons a little (the jump is comparative to the transition of black and white tv to color) while gaining an appreciation for who you are as both a citizen and a person.

Being engrossed in a culture which can certainly be seen (opinion starts here) as an America that still has faith left in the world (end opinion), I have come to understand the subtle differences and the traits we share. Their are also blatant differences, but they should be easy (they're blatant) to spot.

I have come to understand that the American mindset is very unique.

To each other, I believe Americans feel some sense of duty to their country, but greatly feel the need to be some sort of emerging dissenter. Nothing every comes of partisanship, except a sluggish system and resentment towards fellow citizens.

To other citizens of the world, Americans come off as very different. Some see us as too patriotic. Others see us at not patriotic enough. Furthermore, some see us war-mongering blubbering idiots, while others view us as kind and gentle creatures with hearts three sizes too large.

What are we really? I believe we're somewhere in between, and everything at once. I'm sure any able bodied American can think of times when each of the previous criteria applied to them. When compared to Koreans, it's easy to see where it's true.

Koreans are naturally very passionate people. The average person here is very willing to assign themselves to a cause and truly care about people. They have a sense of unity and patriotism that Americans can certainly look up to. I believe patriotism is a good quality, and should be separated from nationalism. The former is a love for one's people and place in life (country, people, province, hometown, etc.), while the latter is a biased view towards issues driven by one's elitist attitude. I don't know how many Americans every day that can be seen the same way, but I won't tell you your own experiences.

Koreans are extremely kind people, as far as I have seen, and truly love Americans. That being said though, there is certainly a dark side to every situation. While they love Americans (I should really say caucasians), they treat other races much differently. Koreans are actually pretty aloof and cold to each other, based on their social system of respect and politeness rather than their heart size, and treat people who aren't caucasians like second class citizens. This observations don't include black people, though, because Koreans treat them as mainly an anomaly I think (there are not many black people at all in the entire country of Korea).
I think this behavior is the opposite of how Americans treat each other, for the most part. We are often afraid of foreigners and warm to those fellow Americans around us (sometimes).

This entry was supposed to have so many different paths I'm pretty sure that I ended up straying several times, and it's actually kind of hard to keep a train of thought up. I will keep posting my observations about Korea as time goes by. There are plenty to be had, thats for sure.


For Now
Aron Huckaba International Vagabond

P.S. I will have the video of Haeinsa up tomorrow.

March 10th, 11th

I really do need to keep updating daily. It was hard for me to update yesterday though, seeing as I had class and I had to basically go straight to table tennis practice. I didn't want to be late because I had no clue where the gym was.

My apologies for not updating about my first day of classes when I got back, and for not having my video of the haeinsa temple trip up yet. When I got back I was so tired, I collapsed after a shower.

So here's a summary of my first day...

Mar. 10

I went to class not really knowing what to expect. All I had heard was how tough the language class was and how quickly it went. After all, it IS held for four hours a day. A lot can be covered in that amount of time. Not only did that weigh into my nerves, but all I had seen was that the test destroyed me completely. I was a little worried.

My worries were for the most part unfounded, however, as my teacher spoke some english (only when necessary, i.e. to tell us the meaning of words) and spent the day on the common vowels. We got ten minute breaks every hour, so it really wasn't that bad. However, I don't know how many of you have been in a super intensive learning situation, but it literally drains the energy right out of you. I went in with a full stomach and only four hours later, I was starving, and I'm not joking. It's pretty neat though, how concentration like that can use so much of your energy.
Personally, it really makes me appreciate the great minds of our time that much more. I definitely need brain training if I think I am going to be in that higher state of mind for extended periods of time.

The class got over, and after lunch, it was time for my literacy class. My instructor's name is Antar. He is an older black man who is really nice and extremely intelligent. The theme for our class is basically discrimination and the underlying themes. We will be discussing sexism, racism, classism, determinism (just kidding), and sort of prejudice issues in general I guess. I truly love discussing things that have meaning. It really invigorates me to learn by conversation, and to be exposed to new ideas.
I think the class is going to be great. At least, I hope so. I'm going to be drained coming out of language class so let's hope I have something left in the tank every tuesday ha ha. We already have a bunch of reading to do, but at least it's great writing.

After all the class was over for the day, I rushed home to get ready for table tennis practice. When I arrived at the building I was meeting the people in, I was asked to play with a chinese guy (I think) I had never seen before. Turns out he was really good, and I had a real problem dealing with the shots we has giving me, and controlling the table in general (I found out later that he was the best in the club) but I held my own for the most part.
Everyone eventually showed up, so we walked the 2498324 miles to their gym. That distance is a slight exaggeration, but it was a good 20 minute walk. When they said gym I was expecting some sort of monstrosity with like 20 tables and people playing everywhere. There were three nice tables and a good floor surface, and a good rotation going throughout the night. All in all it was good, even though it wasn't what I thought it would be like.
I went on playing well into the night and when I looked up it was close to 11 PM. This was no good, since the door to get into my dorm stops working at 10 PM. I decided to try my luck and walk back anyways. Luckily for me, there were a couple of Mongolian girls in the lobby to let me in.

The night ended in success. I then took a shower and powered down for the night.

March 11.

Today was waaaaay more boring than yesterday in language class, but only because I was super tired all day. I couldn't help it. I woke up after my first table tennis practice feeling more sore than days of strenuous weight lifting. I almost slept in, but luckily woke up by my internal clock in time to grab some breakfast and head to class.
We learned about some diphthongs and simple consonants today in class, which, just like yesterday, focused on pronunciation. I can always use pronunciation practice, especially since I have been studying less than a year. Another good thing about the class, even though there is very little english spoken (maybe 5 words in 10 minutes), is that there is very little english spoken. It's like a crutch has been magically lifted out form under me and I now have to figure out what's going on, or just be left behind. Needless to say, I am listening much better than before, even only two days in. I feel very confident that even though it's kind of a shock and awe system when it comes to learning in a new language, I will definitely be the better for it, and will probably come out with much more knowledge than if english were used widely in the class.

Today I also had to adjust to a new teacher (ours left at halftime). She was very good as well, and spoke good english (too bad she didn't speak much ha ha). It was her job to help move us into consonants and the double consonants. It went well. Before I go any further, I would like to talk about the Korean language in general.

I believe that any serious student with a desire to learn can easily excel in the classes offered in Korean Language here at Daegu University. The language was made so that it's easy to learn (the alphabet is phonetic), and when taught, holds up to the desired non-difficulty. I'm in language class for 20 hours a week, which equates to much much much listening practice and much speaking practice. To go along with that, the classes are filled with other international students who have their own problems with the language based on their first language. It truly is a nice program so far, and I think even someone with no prior knowledge of Korean can do well here. That being said, for the first week or two of being here, a knowledge of common words used (like What time is it?, or even Where am I?).

So after class, I was told that I finally get to move into my new room! My new room is on the seventh floor, where I stayed last summer. I was so excited to hear that, but it would have to wait, as I had class first.

Today's class was Western Philosophy. My instructor's name is Steph, and she's from Ireland. She's really nice, and her accent is awesome to listen to all day. It's kind of soothing really, I don't know why. Anyways, I have a feeling her class is going to be a blast. Since it's philosophy, she is centering it around outside reading about the persons covered and also discussion. Like I said, I love discussion, and reading about how others viewed the workings of the universe. It's so interesting to me how to try and discover things about humanity in general, just as Plato did. I might not be able to define justice just yet, but I know that by taking the class I might get a few steps closer to developing a sound philosophy of my own.

After class I finally got a chance to move into my new room. It was jsut as great as what I hoped it would be. The drain in the bathroom doesn't back up, I have a breakfast nook type thing, a giant desk, ample shelf space, a flat screen tv, and a fridge. Also, the view is sweet from up here, which certainly helps determine how nice my room is. I'm a sucker for nice views. This room is basically what the dorm rooms in Murray isn't though. It's comfy, inviting, interesting, warm enough/cool enough, aesthetically pleasing, and agreeable in decor. I might just have to find a way to extend my visa just for this room. Maybe I won't go that far, but you will see what I'm talking about when I post the pictures of it.

That's all I got for now, and I have lots of homework and studying to do before sleepytime hits.

For now,
Aron Huckaba International Vagabond

P.S. I have table tennis practice tomorrow as well, so the idea of updating tomorrow is still up int he air. I hope I remember to not play so late next time, but we'll see.

Video 2: Korean Medicine Market Adventure

Video 1: Korea

Mar. 7 (Haeinsa Temple: insanely beautiful, insanely insane

Sat 8:54am
Today turned out to be possibly the craziest day so far. Seriously, I felt like I was in National Lampoon's Korean Vacation or something.

The day started off basically as any other day has. I got up and ate breakfast while reading some more of my Einstein biography. About 10:30 rolled around, so I went and woke Kayla up to make sure we were clear on plans for the day. We decided to go to Haeinsa Temple, where the most complete and largest collection of Buddhist scriptures and teachings is kept. We weren't going to leave for an hour or so for lunch and then the temple, so I just kind of relaxed.

Finally the time came when we could start off our journey. We ate a boring meal at our downstairs cafeteria (pretty much every building on campus has one) and headed off to the bus stop. I had researched where we were going and how to get there, so it was fun translating the theory of traveling into the real thing when you have never been there before.

We caught a familiar bus into Daegu and arrived at the train station after about an hour's drive. We hopped on the subway bound for our next bus stop, and it wasn't long before we were at the sobo bus station. We ended up in the station somehow, and were very lucky in that a bus was leaving for the temple in the next ten minutes. So we boarded the bus and awaited our departure.

It was really neat getting the chance to get around for real on our own. We were able to cover a lot of distance without someone who knew korean or korea in general very well. Both of us have a drastic improvement over our attitude towards listening and speaking, it's really pretty great.

The bus departs for the temple, and we make it after about an hour and a half (which is crazy because on the map it didn't look very far away). We successfully made it to the Haeinsa Temple compound thing and were immediately overtaken by a feeling of peace and serenity. They had a smallish museum there, and for about a buck we got to see what was in there. They had lots of buddhist stuff in there, and even some replicas of the buddhist canon they are famous for (for tourist's picture taking).

The museum was just the start of the trek, though, as all the buildings were at least a kilometer away, and it was definitely uphill. The air was pretty cool and very crisp. Much to my surprise, and quite a nice twist of fate, the air was actually very similar to the air back home. Instead of a heavy, strange city air which bogs you down, it was clean, clear, and it put me in a good mood.

We made it to the Temple itself pretty easily. It was so beautiful. The buildings were absolutely stunning, and the painting underneath the roofs of them were gorgeously bright. There was a really interesting mix of historic atmosphere with religious tension there that is hard to put into words. It was almost like I could feel an unseen energy pulsing through me as I walked through it.
The main attraction, the Buddhist canon, was really neat. It was housed in its own special room at the top of the temple (which also means the holiest part). You couldn't take pictures of them, but when I saw Koreans breaking out the cameras, I had to snap one too. The shrines were absolutely beautiful, and the people there worshipping seemed as if they were in a trance. All in all, the place was breathtaking. I only regret that we hadn't enough time to look at the entire place. It started getting dark as we left the temple, so we decided to head back.

This may seem like the part where the story drops off, because the objective of the day has been reached, we got there without incident, and we were heading back. WRONG.

So we march back down the mountain, casually joking all the while, that since it's six o clock, the buses probably don't even run. What a funny joke. Too bad it turned out to be true. When we went back down, all the little vendors and everything had closed up shop and the only signs of life were two buses parked by the main pavilion area. We went up and asked the guy if they were going to Sobo, our bus station in Daegu. He immediately looked worried, and dashed off, talking to other worried looking guys.
That seemed a little strange, I thought. He rushes back to us, and in broken english explains he isn't going into Daegu. Ok, we say, no problem, we will just wait for another bus. That worried the guy even more, and he dashed off again, this time bringing back an order to follow him into the first bus.
On the first bus, there was a guy with a microphone standing up talking to the passengers. The worried looking man spoke to him, and he had a look like, "Are you kidding? Really?" It took a second more of unintelligible korean banter before the guy, looking slightly agitated, motions for us to sit in the first seat. This wasn't bad, I thought. these seats were special though, in that in getting the privilege of sitting there, one also got the privilege of holding all the trash of the bus. The worried man explains to us something about Daegu and highway, so I thank him a lot and try and get comfortable amongst the trash.
The bus (which we didn't pay for) started off and microphone guy starts singing. The lights get dim and he is just singing away, when Kayla recognizes that we're on a bus with built in Karaoke. It was then that I realized how unusual it was for them to give us a ride. They were a buddhist tour group (I knew they were buddhist because I saw many of them praying in shrines) who were now on their way back home from some sort of pilgrimage thing, and we were definitely just a couple of foreign hitch hikers.
So there we are, literally vagabonds on this bus, while microphone guy sings his heart out. We are offered soft drinks and try to get comfortable, when microphone guy offers for me to sing a song. With a little hesitation I accepted, and because I felt hurried and couldn't find a nice sounding song to sing, I sang "When I'm Gone" by Three Doors Down. I felt like a stupid American, because all the songs microphone guy sang were pretty and had to do with love. I sang a rock song. Boo me. Kayla got to sing one though, too, and got to pick Manic Monday by the Bangles (turns out I missed the majority of nice songs by a page turn), which was a nice change from my song.
When our songs were over, everyone clapped and cheered, and me and Kayla were having a blast on the bus. Microphone guy just kept singing and would come up to our little trash haven and dance with us. What a time it was. They even offered us food, and we had some neat rice cakes with bean paste in them. Boy were they tasty. Nothing in the world could ruin the way home.
Right as the thought of how great a trip we were having went through my head, traffic slowed down a little. Taking stock of what was going on around me, I noticed we were in a different lane than everyone else. At the same time, I see and hear the bus door open up and the driver says something to microphone guy. He takes the info, seems to curl it around in his brain a moment, and says to us, "This is the Highway outside of Daegu. Get a Taxi." Upon his last word, he used the international signal for please step off my bus.
Shocked, we grabbed our things and walked off the bus, getting a nice round of clapping and waving bye. So we stepped out onto the shoulder of the busy freeway and the bus drove off.

There we were. Kicked off our karaoke bus and left to fend for ourselves on the freeway. It was insane. We had to time sprints up on-ramps and other places where there was virtually no shoulder with an absence was cars. After what seemed like an eternity, we made it into Daegu, though. The only bad part of actually making it into Daegu is that I'm pretty sure that when people said, Don't go there at night, or Don't go alone, or Daegu can have bad parts of town. That was what they meant. It looked like I was in the Korean version of American Gangster. Needless to say, we power-walked it to the nearest bus stop, no telling how far away. Luckily the bus stop had a bus that took us to another stop that we could catch a bus back to campus. If we had been any later, the buses would have stopped running and we would have been in a bad way.

It was a crazy trip, and probably one of the more eye opening ones so far. Once again, I want to stress how nice the average person is here in Korea, after all, they let us hitchhike in their very nice chartered bus. Something else I learned: Koreans of all ages love Karaoke.

On a serious note it was wonderful seeing the Temple today. It was a UNESCO World Heritage sight, which means that it's deemed one of the most important places in the world, just like Stonehenge. Preserving treasures like that for future generations is very important, since, as a famous man once said, we can never know where we're going until we find out where we came from.

Until next time

Aron Huckaba Internatonal Vagabond

Mar. 8/9

Today and yesterday were a hodge podge of laziness and then rededciation. I was still getting over the ride home from Haeinsa yesterday, and I needed to do laundry, etc. All in all, it ended up being a good relaxing day, just what I needed before classes start.

That's pretty much all I'm going to say about sunday. Mainly just a rest day.

Mar. 9

Well, I started class today. The first task was to take a Korean proficiency test. I did really good on the grammar, or at least, I felt like I did. I did incredibly bad overall, though, because even though I know how sentences should look, I know not the vocabulary I should. It was all well and good, though. I am pretty confident that my course and a half here will make me be leaps and bounds closer to my goal of being fluent in another language.

Goals. That's going to be a theme of this note. Let's hold off on that for just a little bit though, while I recap today.

Anyways, after being completely and utterly stupefied by the proficiency test, there was an orientation. A very nice lady explained to us our probable schedule and let us know that the next day classes would start in earnest (I really want to make a joke about how I hope Earnest doesn't mind, but that would take too much thought right now).

After the test of doom and the orientation, we made our way back to the dorm until our culture class. I found a lot of cool things using StumbleUpon, and it's one of the reasons I am trying to rededicate myself the right way.

Culture class was pretty good. I am going to love that class. Discovering the unspoken laws and the customs and historical reasons for an entire population's actions and outward attitude is really interesting to me. there might be lots of people in there our there might be only me and Kayla. The teacher isn't sure yet. We will find out next week though, that's certain.

After class we ate our dinner and trudged back to the dorms wehre I had a less than stellar night in the table tennis arena.

So back to goals. I firmly believe that I am incapable of sticking to my goals unless I write them down. Since i have no really good medium with which to do this, Im going to use Facebook to try and keep myself to my Korea-related goals.

Ultimate Goal (Stretch)
=Become reasonably proficient in Korean by the time I leave
Small Goals which will help achieve the stretch goal (short-term)
-Learn 5 new Korean Words a day
-Pass my current Korean Language Program with High Marks
-Study Korean for 1.5 hrs a day (outside of class)
-Use my language buddy to help conversation skills
-Every week hold a real conversation with 7 people (in Korean) [1 a day?]
-Write a paragraph in Korean about a current issue in Korea every day

Ultimate Goal (Stretch)
=Reach 2000 level status in table tennis by the time I get back
Small Goals which will help achieve the stretch goal (short-term)
-Practice at least 3 times a week
-Practice good form every time I play
-Win one of the monthly tournaments offered by the table tennis club
-Use good manners and etiquette, allowing me more practice time with club members

Ultimate Goal (Stretch)
=Gain a healthy appreciation for Korea and its culture
Small Goals which will help achieve the stretch goal (short-term)
-Pass my Culture class with High Marks
-Make a cultural visit to a famous site in Korea once a week
-Visit every UNESCO World Heritage Site in Korea
-Use my language buddy as a chance to learn about the culture

Ok, so some of the short term goals are less concrete than they should be. Oh well. I can definitely reach them I think. These are just the ones for this trip and the ones I hope to achieve by the end, not the ones I hope to achieve on the timeline of my life.

For Now,
Aron Huckaba International Vagabond

Bloggenstein (Mar. 4)

Wednesday, March 4, 2009 at 8:37am
Well, today has been much better. For a variety of reasons. Let's begin with the first.

It's not square root day anymore, but let's talk about the root of all evil: MONEY. Today my money came in, and I got sufficient funds for a few days. It seems really complicated because it's sitting in a global account right now as dollars, but I need to get it transferred to my real account in won. By the way, the exchange rate is pretty darn good, and I want to time the transfer into won with the best possible gain.

To spice things up, let's counter the good news with some hilarity.

Today I was in my restroom, minding my own business when I accidentally hit a button I'm not suppose to.
Before I tell what happened, let me explain how the bathroom is laid out. Walking in, there is a sink in front of you, and directly next to the sink is the toilet, and on the wall next to the toilet is the shower fixture. My entire bathroom is the shower. There is a drain in the floor and the walls are waterproof. It's pretty neat, I think. How is this really super neat shower operated is what you're wondering I bet. Well that's simple. Right at elbow height is a metal button, and once you push that button, water comes out for a few second, so that you don't waste water.
On to the story. So I'm in the bathroom, lost in thought, when I accidentally lean against the shower. I didn't realize it though, so a very unfortunate series of events occurs in a matter of seconds, or, as dogs would call, minutes (I know that dogs would probably call seconds ruf-ruff or wow-bow-wow or something else, but it's a timeline joke so let's carry on). At first, I heard the shower kick on. However, like most things, there are some steps which can help explain human behavior when the action happens.
1. Denial- I heard the shower kick on, but in the milliseconds before I discovered the truth, I thought maybe the person in the next room was showering too.
2. Shock- All I felt in the world was coldness. Wet, moist, slippery, uncomfortable coldness. However, this soon gave rise to:
3. Anger- So once I figured out what happened, all I could do was scream something that probably sounded like I was coming to terms with an unexpected shower. The sound wasn't pretty.
4. Depression- I had all my stuff in my pockets, regular clothes on and no expectation of a shower so early in the day. It was the saddest moment of the day. Luckily, as soon as the water shut off, it all melted into:
5. Acceptance- Let's face it, when you are in the bathroom and accidentally get a nice cold shower in your street clothes, it's funny when it's all over. I couldn't change that I was wet and cold, so I just laughed and laughed and changed clothes.

So after all that, almost immediately actually, one of the guys who works in the international affairs office came by and told me that he had contacted a chinese girl about playing ping pong. Not only was she good, she was supposed to be the best on campus. Boy was I pumped. Only problem was that the ping pong room I knew of now had health fair stuff in it because they had a health fair going on there until the eleventh. However, (the guy's name is Hang) Hang knew that my dorm has a ping pong table in the basement. I was even more pumped, because the girl wanted to play at seven. It was six! I went and ate dinner and then it was ping pong time.
It made me feel pretty good that she wasn't much better than me. When I concentrated and performed like I should, I didn't lose many rallies. She was good though, I can't take that from her. Long story short, I had a great time playing my favorite sport for about three hours. Now I think I have a solid group of people who like to play too, and that's practically invaluable because I should be able to get much better by the time I leave.

For tomorrow's plan I think I will go and check out some second hand stores in Ha Yang, or in Daegu, wherever they may be.

Oh, before I forget:
I want to thank Kayla Baker for letting me borrow money from her while mine was in transit. It was a good 4 or 5 days so for her to take on my food costs (which is plenty) and my dictionary is truly a testament to her kindness and the caliber of person she is. Thanks Kayla, you helped make my trip happy thus far.

Until next time,

Aron Huckaba International Vagabond

Mar. 5!

Thursday, March 5, 2009 at 7:27am
Today started out pretty slow but had some sweet parts to it.

The plan for today was to go thrift store shopping. Our friend Angela wanted to go as well, so we said, yeah sure, after lunch then. Our lunch time was -1200. Too bad that was EVERY single other person in the world's lunch time too. We visited 5 restaurants on campus before finding one without a really long line. Thank goodness it took a while, too, because what we found was great. It was a restaurant on campus whose prices were higher than the rest, but it was traditional korean dining. They had a smorgasbord of food for us, lots of little things, and we also got our main course. All in all, it was a great meal.

After that, we went back and looked for Angela some more, but she was gone (turns out she had an unexpected class). So we went to Hayang before the rain started up. We got there and found the thrift store market place, and also found the presbyterian church, it was huge!

The street with all the thrift stores was just what I hoped, a smallish street, with a market, not covered, but it was a market nonetheless. the thrift stores looked especially shady and full of 70s era clothes, so we only checked one out. We did find a covered food market, however, which turned out to be the highlight of the trip.
We turned a corner and there was a guy lying down on a bench just smiling at us in a really funny way. I wanted that picture, so I went back, but he was outside and posed for us in front of some dried and salted flounder. We thought nothing of it and walked on after the picture was taken.
Turns out Hayang is even smaller than we thought, so we decided to go back into the covered market for pictures of all the neat korean produce and fish they had for sale there. The guy was there again, except this time he seemed really excited to see us. When we got closer, he motioned towards me with the universal motion meaning, come in here please.

However, I was 6 years old once, and my mom specifically told me about the stranger danger rule, so I was pretty weary of this middle aged Korean man wanting to show me something inside of his fish store. Going in there kinda seemed funny at first, and Kayla was having none of it. She was determined to make sure that she wasn't going to get snatched or something so she let me brave the peril on my own.
When I got in there, though, I felt silly for the assumptions I made about this guy. All he wanted was to give us some coffee and talk to us. It turns out, this was probably one of the nicest guys we had met yet. We sat in his fish store office for a good hour, just stumbling through conversation and listening to him talk. The best part was, I understood a lot of what he said, and I could even say things back. It was pretty much at the same rate a small child would, but I was having what appeared to be a real conversation.

What I learned about random korean fish market guy:
1.His name is actually Song Yang Lee, not Korean Fish Market Guy. Guy is a french name and we are in South Korea.
2. He owns the fish store, but he has only been there for 9 years (2001-2009).
3. His last job was as the manager in a department store in the women's high fashion department.
4. He has a daughter in elementary school, who he homeschools, and a daughter in middle school (8th grade) who goes to regular school.
5. His wife works at the fish store too.
6. He gave us apples, for free! When he saw we were leaving and had no umbrella, he gave us one!
7. He taught us Korean! We learned all kinds of stuff, but mainly how to say ok, thank you, and no thank you in a really polite way.

It's this kind of thing that really helps keep faith in humanity. Who would've thought that random korean fish market guy would turn into Mr. Lee?

We came back and I read and stuff, but the cap on the day was surely meeting Mr. Lee.

Until next time,
Aron Huckaba International Vagabond