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