"Rice tone again" will be the NEXT thing to say.
But "Rice tone again will be the FINAL thing to say.
This will make sense in a bit.
Today was the first *real* day of class, excluding sylabus day that was Tuesday. Not having experienced Korean University classes I was a bit apprehensive about the prospect of two three hour classes in a given day. Some of this uneasiness was justified, but others refuted.
In the history class, we were given two chapters and an introduction to read, totaling around 40 some pages. I read the intro and the first chapter and leafed through the second. Mistake. The teacher drudged through the intro and first chapter with the speed of an army of ants pushing a brick across the desert. This was accompanied with powerpoint slides, but they really were not that engaging and didn't offer much except for a placeholder for where the instructor was in the material (though that was nice, it really didn't help incredibly much). So, I relaxed as my classmates were falling asleep due to her slow pace and monotone voice. This class, though maybe not incredibly engaging, would be alright.
Then came the questions. She split us up into six groups of four and answer questions about the second chapter before we covered it. Oh crap, thinks I to myself. I hope someone else in my group did the reading. Though it appears as my hope was in vain as when I turned to my group, they looked at me with blank faces. Sighing, I selected the first question for our group which I was somewhat familiar with and we got through it without too bad of an incident.
However later groups were torn apart by the teacher. It was difficult to watch. She also seemed much harder on the Korean students than the American ones. I guess she assumed that they already knew the history or at least the stories and as a result judged them at a higher level. But, that's only speculation on my part.
Lunch afterwards was an interesting affiar. We put money in a vending machine and chose either A, B or C, which June explained to me. The problem was that when I got into the cafeteria, the names of the meals for A, B and C were in Korean, which I can't translate yet. So, I got into the wrong line and gave my ticket to the wrong cafeteria worker for meal C...realizing my mistake, she hurriedly took me to the other station for meal B (which I wanted) and put me at the head of the line (she couldn't find my ticket so this was the least confusing way of doing it) which almost assuredly made people whisper "stupid foreigner" under their breath, which I desereved.
Language followed and I'm really enjoying that. The teacher is so bubbily and cheerful. Her English isn't fantastic, but then again I can't think of a time when I didn't understand her. We burned through some more vowels and twelve or so more consonants which, I believe, only leaves us about five or so more vowels (and also letters) in the Korean language. I'm pretty pumped.
Also, to help us learn the combination of vowels and consonants, we played a Bingo style game where a person would fill out the board with the twenty five words we were given and when said word was called we X off the square, so it tested listening ability and reading as well. Very nice, Teach. The prize? These small snack cakes, which were distributed around the class by the winners. Very nice, Teach. Food= good.
It's funny, I thought the language course was going to be very difficult and while it is a deal of work (I didn't go out last night as a result) it's not as grueling as the history course (which I thought wouldn't be so bad). Turns out a history course is a lot more difficult when you aren't familiar with the material, like my experiences with Western Civ and US history. Whoops. I still find the material interesting in History class, but the teacher...eh. However, that language course makes me smile and look forward to it tomorrow.
After class, I signed up for this experiment for linguistics. They wanted students from Ohio and I qualified. So, what they had me do was sit in a recording studio and read sentences such as:
"Rice tone again" will be the NEXT thing to say.
But "Rice tone again will be the FINAL thing to say.
Everything in quotes needed to be grouped together (like "ricetoneagain") and anything in CAPS needed to be ennuciated. It took me awhile to get the hang of it as I unintentionally ennuncatied some words natrually, but by the end I was a pro. There were other structures of the sentences, but the above should give you an idea.
Apparently the researchers, some students at Hanyang, wanted to compare the accents and pitch changes of people from various US states. I was more than willing to comply. Also, the W25,000 I was paid for my service was excellent as well. I signed up for two more experiments, one for W25,000 and one for W80,000. So, I'm excited- I got paid roughly $25 for just reading words over an hour and a half or so. So nice...so very nice. I could do experiments for the rest of my life...
As for the evening, I worked out with Brian, which while the dorm we are in had decent weight machines and treadmills, it had no airflow! So, that means that it was incredibly muggy in there with me, him and a few other Korean people just lifting weights or running. It got better when a few people left, but the air just hung in front of us. It was kinda rough, but at least we got to work out.
After slogging though the next chapter of Korean history (which is a horrible pun), I'm going to either get breakfast or work on my language stuff. That's the only downside of the language class- the homework. We got five pages of it last night and I've only gotten through three. Still, the teacher is really nice, so I can't complain that much. Life is good.
-Reven
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