Once again I've skipped a day of blogging. How boring I am. In my defense I felt not at all like doing anything when I got in last night. I had a pretty rough time at table tennis. We had a tournament and I played..... not very well is a good term here. Basically it was terrible, but, as I will explain later, I think it was for the best. That was my only table tennis for the week. The club is going to party tomorrow and I'm not really up to go out tomorrow, especially since there is going to be a korean food fair in Daegu that the university is taking us to.
Anyways, class yesterday and today went pretty well I think. yesterday was really good, and I easily understood everything. Today, however, my listener was broken again. Simple verbs sounded like gibberish, but oh well, tomorrow will be better. I will start studying more I guess and just hope it all comes. It will, I think, after all, I've only been studying a month or so.
Yesterday I found out exactly how my classes were going to transfer over to Murray. My language is all transferring, and I'm super excited for that. The literature and the culture and etiquette classes are also transferring, which is awesome. The philosophy class isn't transferring though, so that kind of sucks, but oh well. I will drop it and move on. It's a shame too, because I was really enjoying that class. Honestly, I'm just thankful to be getting 18 hours out of this semester. I'm pretty sure all but three of those hours is going to be pass/fail credit so it won't help my GPA any but it will be credit nonetheless.
So now on to what I'm reallyreallyreally excited for. Last night, right before I went to bed, I got an email from Mr. Kang, the international affairs coordinator guy. He is incredibly nice, and I told him a couple of weeks ago how I wanted to get in touch with a professor in chemistry, namely organic chemistry. Well, he held true to his word about helping me, because today I left the Korean Language Program early in order to go and have lunch him Mr. Kang and the professor.
It turns out that Mr. Kang was a former student of the professor, his name is Seung-Hyun Chang. He is very intelligent, and a very nice man. Also, his research is incredible.
I don't know if you have ever heard of contacts which keep your eye hydrated, but they are coming up with a method currently to make a good contact which does just that. After they develop the process, a company they have a contract with will manufacture them. He is also very interested in the type of work I did under Dr. Revell. It's truly amazing that I found a chemist here who is doing such amazing work.
The big question, was, though, if he would offer me a spot in his lab to research and use his AMAZINGLY well funded facility. Near the end of the lunch he did indeed offer me a position, and I now have a desk in his lab. I'm ecstatic.
I also understand now, I think, why I lost so badly last night in table tennis. Aside from not being very good, I think it was a sign. I know many people don't believe in signs, but I believe the best signs are the ones you don't realize are signs until they've affected you. I think I was shown today where my time should be committed to.
Hopefully I get some quality work and a unique experience form working in a foreign country, researching and producing a nice paper as well. Did I mention also that the chemistry department here is funded really well? They have an NMR on campus. I don't have to wait a week to see if my stuff worked! Oh the places I can go!
Oh yeah, I almost forgot that I met my buddy yesterday. I almost just walked out of the whole program thing at fifteen minutes past the start, a little discouraged that my buddy didn't show. However, he showed up in the door right as I was leaving, so we talked for a good half hour before I went to table tennis. His english name is Tim and he went to Murray State last year. He study economics and speaks pretty good english.
So, with the newfound energy a real project gives me, I am off. It's hard for me to focus on anything non-chemistry related right now.
Before I go, though, I just want to include a couple of things about the program here.
For any students planning to come here in the Fall of '09: Please get a hold of me.
For any students looking for a recommendation: I recommend this program. It's fun, and it's learning. The staff here is extremely helpful and they really do everything they can for you.
Until Later
Aron Huckaba International Vagabond
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