미국 사람 이에요

When talking with people, it's always smart to start with the bad news first - especially if there isn't much of it. On that note, I failed my first Korean quiz. Allow me to set the record straight - a 65% (aka 13/20) or below on any of our Korean language quizzes constitutes a failure by Fulbright's standards. Part of our quiz was dedicated to dictations meaning we listened to our teacher speak six words and we had to write them down in hanguel. Not as easy as it sounds. For obvious reasons, this is the part of the quiz that killed me. Our orientation coordinators are pretty serious about us keeping our Korean grades up. Mandatory study hall with them and our Korean language instructors is in effect if we can't bring up our grades - a small price to pay at this point if the return is getting to live in Korea.

I started calligraphy class last night with a handful of other people from my group. We didn't end up doing any calligraphy this time since our instructor wanted to introduce us to the history and basics of the art. This dude is VERY Korean. One of our orientation coordinators and couple of Fulbrighters had to translate because he literally spoke zero English. He would speak for about 45 seconds to a minute in Korean and the subsequent translations would last 10 to 15 seconds. I don't think I'm wrong for thinking something got lost in translation? It's hard enough to pay attention in class when you understand the language the professor is speaking. Overall it sounds like it's going to be a pretty engaging class. The artistic, personal, and spiritual pieces that make up calligraphy sound especially interesting to explore.

Patrick Linehan, Minister Counselor from the American Embassy in Korea, came to speak to us today. He was a pretty interesting guy and had some good tips for us related to getting the most out of our year in Korea. Also, we apparently have Thanksgiving dinner and a pool party at the Ambassador's house later in the semester?! Not on the same day of course. I was hoping to get a chance to chat with Linehan afterwards (he's a native Bostonian!) but they whisked him away about as quickly as he arrived.

On an unrelated note let's hope David Ortiz can bring some of that power from last night to the second half of the season hmmm???