All Words, No Action

I'm well into my second week of level 5 at Sogang University. Maybe I should explain what the program is like for those of you who, um, aren't within driving distance of Korea. Which, presumably, is all of you.

1) Location - The tenth story of the highest building on the Sogang University campus. I'm not technically a student of Sogang, since I'm attending the affiliated language program, but I do have a student card and have access to the various facilities there, including the gym and the library.

2) Schedule - I take classes four hours a day, five days a week, making it a pretty intense schedule. This doesn't take into account the homework, of which there's a considerable amount. There are also additional classes available to those who are interested and ambitious (I suppose I may fall into category) like a pronunciation class that I took today.

3) Material - The first hour of the day is a writing class. We review the material covered in the other classes and implement it in our own free writing assignments. Next is a video class, which focuses on improving our listening skills. Right now we're watching a movie called "Christmas in August." Finally is two hours of reading and speaking, which is where we get most of the new material, including vocab and grammar. Perhaps needless to say, all these classes are taught in Korean. Since I'm in level 5 out of 6, this isn't surprising, but even level 1 is taught entirely in Korean. I really can't imagine how that works...!

I'll add some more topics when they occur to me. For now, another picture - pretty good looking, huh?

Faces and Names

Lots of things have happened here since I wrote last. In fact, lots of things happened before I wrote last, things that I never wrote about for lack of time or energy or creativity or some such excuse, easy enough to find.

One of these recent happenings is a good one, both for my happiness here as a student in Korea and for your happiness there as my earnest, faithful readers. (Yes, that's me flattering you, even if you are neither earnest nor faithful, nor a reader.)

To cut to the chase - I finally broke down and got internet at my boarding house. This will cost me about $35 a month, not bad, considering the installation was free, the first month bill is waived, and I get a free MP3 player to boot.

(Another little something I didn't get around to mentioning was me losing my MP3 player.)

And now, allow me to recapture your wandering attention with a few PICTURES!



Some of my classmates from level 4 at Sogang University's Korean program.
(Another milestone: passed the class, moving up to level 5, as well as bigger and better things, one hopes, starting in December.)


I like her, and she...?


잘 있어! Chal issoyo! (Take care!)

David

Admittedly, Pictures Can't Express the Grave Insolence of Jazz

Last week, I did a big presentation for my class on a topic of my choice. The topic, as the title of this post and the three pictures may suggest, was jazz. It's actually been a while since I've thought about jazz at length, even though I spent a lot of time listening (and playing) the music a few years back. But seeing as there are a couple of good jazz clubs in Seoul, I thought I could kill two birds with one stone and hear some good jazz while preparing for my presentation. Here are a couple of shots from a place called "All That Jazz." The music, in case the pictures don't make it especially clear, was fantastic.

-David