K.I.P.

it all started when i got a 60 on my first (surprise) quiz two weeks into Korean Level II. this shocked me into realizing that i wasn't doing well and that there was a very real chance that i could fail the class.

i got sad and depressed because, very simply, i don't want to fail at anything i do. i want to try to excel in whatever i'm doing, for my own pride and sense of intelligence.

instead of going back to Level I, or giving up completely, I set a goal.

my goal was, and still is, to not fail Korean Level II. by not fail i mean (depending on the day) either one of two things. that i get a final score which is either,

1. sufficient enough not to have to take the placement test for Level III (i think it's between 70 and 75) regardless of whether or not i plan on going to Korean Level III, or
   
2. above what was considered a failing score back in the day when i was last a student, i.e. 60 or above.

i don't ~need~ to pass Korean. but at the same time, if i can influence the outcome wrt failing or not, then my choice is to try to influence that outcome. those who know me well, understand why this is my choice.

once i had my goal in place i devised a plan and executed it to achieve my goal. my plan, which i called my Korean Improvement Plan, consisted of the following:

• listening to Korean songs; i got the top 35 popular songs - my favorite is called 이바보 (This Fool) by 원더걸스 (Wonder Girls)
  


• watching Korean drama; this is the one i watched because it's online, called 컾프린스 (Coffee Prince)


• making countless flash cards for memorizing vocabulary


• finding an English-Korean language exchange partner and meeting with her on campus twice a week
  


• going through my Korean book ahead of time and looking at each of the grammar rules and having a Korean friend help explain in English what each means and matching to an English equivalent if one exists so that when we get to it in class i'll be half way ready to understand the teacher's lesson for that grammar rule


• following the syllabus and studying in advance for the upcoming lessons just to keep afloat in class


• practicing / reviewing my homework with my hiking buddy in the mornings at the top of Mt. Namsan


• accepting help whenever my Korean friends offer, sending out emails and text messages with questions in all directions


• cutting down on distractions by logging off chat tools and putting the phone on vibrate


• studying several hours a day (average, 4 hours)

i did all this in preparation for my mid-term exam which i had the week before last. i finally got all the scores and i'm pleased to say that my extra efforts paid off. i didn't fail my exam. here are the results:

	Korean I mid	Korean I final	Korean II mid	Korean II final
reading/writing:	84	70	84	hopefully >60
listening:	87	72	65	hopefully >60
speaking:	86	?	65	hopefully >60

this is a good sign, means i have a better chance of not failing my final exam and therefore, not failing Korean Level II. ending up with a final grade sufficient enough not to have to take the placement test for Korean Level III, well ... we'll see. that's the goal anyhow ... on some days.

now that the stress and pressure of the mid-term is behind me i have a break to reflect on some things...

it's easier to understand korean when you study a lot! LOL. i find myself bumping into word after word now saying to myself, "oh, i know that word. and i know what that one means too. wow, i can read korean!"

the day before my exam i had my first korean dream. it wasn't anything special ~ it was just me practicing with my vocabulary cards in my dream. i was saying the expression for catching a cold: 감기에 걸리다.

nowadays i find myself making english sentences based on korean grammatical structure. the other day i said: "Yes, on Saturday before 3pm i can meet." this cannot be good for my English but great for my Korean. everyone else in my class already thinks in the correct order since their native language is structured the same way as Korean (well this is true for Japanese), and they don't have to reorganize the words they want to say when they go from their native language in their head to korean language out their mouth.

but i'm still struggling to memorize some basic sentence patters like the "more than" sentence pattern. the other day teacher asked us to compare Korean men (or women) to men (or women) from our home country using the "more than" sentence pattern. but, because i haven't fully memorized the way to do it, i ended up saying that Korean men are stronger than American men. and it frustrates me to no end not to be able to accurately communicate and convey my thoughts and feelings ~ feels like a disability, like i'm trapped and silenced by my own limitations. i wanted to stop the class and make an announcement, that i had made an error in my statement, that in fact i thought American men were stronger than Korean men.... but even this i could not communicate. so i just sat there in my own disappointment.

it's one thing when people think you think differently than you actually do

it's an entirely different thing when people think you think differently than you actually do because that's what you told them.

i will never underestimate the strength and value that can be gained by "sticking with your own kind". being the only American in my class (and one of only a few in the entire Korean Language Program at my school) has been the most isolating experience. not being able to commiserate in my own native language about my teacher, the homework, the lessons, the difficulties, the tests, the scores, the other students and so on, with someone who is on the inside, along with me, is like being deprived of air. there's no outlet for this frustration that i have. telling friends about it is helpful but if they aren't going through it too, it still feels like i'm at a party of one. i have no support group in the trenches. every day i'm the first one to leave class because i'm suffocated by the loneliness of it.

i have gone days and days feeling like i washed ashore to an aboriginal island, the only one of my kind surrounded by a community of like-minded folk, able to understand only the kinds of expressions that can be conveyed with body language, gestures, facial clues, and drawings. this is why i feel blind when listening to korean recordings of conversations, because i have grown to rely so heavily on watching for these nonverbal clues to get the overall meaning of what's being communicated.