Last Korean Grammar Point!

Today was another hot day... I think it got up to 92 here. It's supposed to stay this hot for a couple days. One nice thing, though, is that it really cools down at night. Mornings are also cool. Walking to class a little before 9 it is still in the mid 70s.

Anyway, today in Korean class we celebrated learning our last grammar point (at least for the class). Pretty epic! I can't believe our orientation is almost over. I am really going to miss language class every morning, despite how hard it was! We learned so much and got such a great education!! We also gave our 2 minute self introduction speeches today. I feel like mine went really well. I had a couple split second pauses while I remembered what I was supposed to talk about next, but I think everything came out well. I'm satisfied, and that's all that truly matters. ^_^ I feel like our class on a whole did really well. Some people used a lot of words that we hadn't learned in class, and I really didn't appreciate that, nor did I think that they fulfilled the point of the exercise. (If they don't really know what they're saying, and the audience/class doesn't know either, what is the point?) I'm proud of us all, nonetheless. I hope the final goes well!! It is on Monday. I'm debating whether I should do a day trip to go hiking on Saturday... I think I will, as I won't spend all weekend studying anyway.

Lunch was just ok. The fish was good, but there wasn't much of it. So Anne and I went to get mandu dumplings again. We also went to Lotteria (aka McD's) to get the cheap ice cream cones. I had a weird situation occur: We walked up to the counter and Anne ordered hers. As I was ordering mine and handing the money to the employee, some middle aged woman comes up and says "mi an he oh (=excuse me)" and starts placing this $100 order! I'm completely confused as to what is going on. It takes about 5 minutes to get it all punched in and the money all sorted out. All the while I'm standing there, having already handed my money over, being like WTF? Anne had eaten her entire ice cream cone by the time I got mine. I was really wishing my Korean was as good as my Spanish so I could say something back to the woman for being so rude to me. I'm sure that's not OK in this culture though, like it would have been in Spain and Argentina. Anyway...

We had another workshop this afternoon from 2-4:30. (Workshops make for very long days. I leave the dorm at 8:40ish and get back around 4:45) I went to a discussion about lesson planning. Then we heard from a co-teacher from here in Korea! He was sooo cute and friendly!! I really hope my co-teacher is at least half as cool as him!! ^^ I'm anxious to see how my school situation will be.

I finally got to Skype with Ike today! We had been playing "skype" tag the past few days. I hadn't talked to him since he was still in Texas. We actually talked for about an hour, even though it was 3-4am his time. He must love me. :-) Supper was amazing as far as the cafeteria goes. It was sweet & sour pork!! Yum!! We of course went for Patbingsu later in the night and then we had dance practice. We are about 10 seconds from finishing the dance! YAY! I hope everyone performs well. We'll kick butt! (By the way, our dance is the dance to OK GO's "Million Ways" -- you should youtube it!)

I spent quite a bit of time this afternoon researching our Korean textbook. I emailed Knox to strongly recommend the book for their Korean language classes, that is if they still have them this year. This is a great book! (Hey, it's published by Korea University, so of course it's amazing) And our teacher told us that the second level of this book should be coming out in about a month. I'd definitely like to pick it up for future study. I also spent some time this evening looking into buying some books that have been recommended to me:
The Koreans
Korea Unmasked
And Ike randomly wants me to help him learn about some basic applied statistics as prep for grad school. I actually am looking forward to teaching him!! :-D I was looking around for free materials online for him to study, but didn't have much luck.

Anyway, I've been reviewing tonight in anticipation of the final exam coming up. Hope all is well back home and that it isn't too hot!!!

PS-- Bush was/is in Seoul to meet with Korea's President Lee -- talking about NK, China, the FTA, etc etc. I hear there were pro and anti protests in Seoul.