Tomorrow, I start training in earnest, every day until Saturday, for the big tournament in Gumi. I'm getting my game face on early. It's important to me, especially since I performed so poorly at the tournament held by the club before.
I attempted to wake up early, but it wasn't happening, so I woke up at a decent time, and was off to class. Today we had a large review session of the last three lessons. It was definitely needed, that's for sure. It seems like we have just been blazing through our current book, and it's certainly difficult to keep up some times.
A good thing I'm able to take out of the whole deal, is, though, that I'm able to find out exactly what I need to study, each and every night.
Something interesting happened to me in class, today, as well. One of my classmates, and desk neighbor, Ning, gave me a book today. Ning is from Thailand, and is a buddhist. She's 36 and has a ten year old child. She is a marketing manager for a medical distribution company which is owned by koreans and has establishments in her home country, but I digress. Ning asked me in one of the early classes if I had a religion, because I took an interest in what she believed. When I told her I was undecided but open to any and all philosophies at this point, she told me she had a book for me.
Last week, Ning went back to Bangkok to take care of some things at her workplace. Evidently she also picked up the book for me, and now I have a book called Dharma Moments. It has an introduction written by the Dalai Lama himself, so how could I not give it an honest chance? I have been reading it, and the things in it are very interesting to me.
Yet another thing I never thought would happen to me here in Korea has already transpired, as I am truly able to explore my own set of beliefs by getting to know much better the ideologies of the eastern world. The most beautiful thing about it is that I wouldn't have gotten the chance if I hadn't come to Korea.
After class, I walked out of the building to grab lunch and realized that I was enveloped by a massive yellow cloud. It smelled really strangely, and reminded me of fog in many ways. I thought initially that it was yellow sand, and even bought myself a protective mask just for the sole purpose of not inhaling large amounts of it. Mr. Travers, my culture teacher and resource man in the international affairs office, explained to me that the crazy yellow monstrosity that was floating through campus aimlessly was actually just pollution (what a relief) which came as a result of farmers burning their fields in order to replant them. Something that was incredibly neat, though, was that the cloud rendered the sun, at this point close to its highest point in the sky, a brilliant red ball, which was neither bright nor dim. It was, however, aptly described as eerily fluorescently red.
I ended up obtaining some Jjimdak (a spicy chicken dish with glass noodles and rice), and then headed off to meet Dr. Chang. Unfortunately, I had class an hour later and couldn't start work today, but I at least found out what I would be doing. I'm going to be working with porphyrin, and will be attempting to both institute some functionality into the compound, as well as attempting to give it ionophoric properties. I'm really excited to start work, and it will be sunday when I can finally get to the wonderful discipline that is chemistry research.
Afterwards, we had culture class, which is always fun. We discussed Korean foodstuffs today, which included teas, food, alcohol, and table manners. It was really very fascinating, especially the tea ceremony. I think it would be so fun to take a tea set up into the mountains, brew up some boiling water, and perform the tea ceremony.
After the last class of the day (learning anyways), I moved onto my first and last class of the day that I teach. I righted a lot of nonfactual information, mainly that Americans are difficult to make friends with, and definitely helped them understand family life in America much better. Only one of them decided not to complete their homework, and one student didn't show up again, so three out of four participants and 2 of 3 homeworks was pretty good I think. They seem interested in what I'm trying to teach them, at least, and, as I have said before, really seem to be nice people. They are so enthusiastic about developing themselves and helping me understand Korea.
We ate dinner together, and I headed back to the dorm. I really meant to do the homework, but couldn't do it. I will definitely be a studyholic though whenever I can, especially since my midterm exam is this friday. Honestly, I am a little afraid, because everything I write in Korean is so grammatically wrong. In my homework I try and push the limits of what I can do, linguistically, but they are always, at best, completely wrong. I'm not discouraged at all, as I have a pretty good grasp on the things we have been explicitly taught so far. It's just a matter of studying, of speaking more often in Korean (outside of class), and of writing more often and learning through failure. I'm confident in myself.
For Now,
Aron Huckaba International Vagabond
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