Overwhelmed.

Just when I think I'm getting the hang of this language thing they go and throw a million more things at you. I know I can handle it all, it just feels like an incredible amount of information all at once and it's hard to process. I've taken to letting it sink in over the course of the day, and after that it doesn't seem so bad. I can't imagine what it's like trying to learn English once you've reached a certain age.

Today we started easy, we reviewed the number system for counting (yes the Koreans have two number systems). That not being bad enough, math is mind blowing. Instead of the American system that runs off the 1,000's place, here it is the 10,000's place. So you don't say Eleven thousand, you would say 1 10,000 and 1 1,000. This is gonna be tough to reprogram my brain. Luckily I'm not majoring in math or engineering here. Next up was some more verb conjugation with the (으) 세요 ending. Se Yo means please in Korean. So you can take off the Da of every verb form and end with either Se Yo or Eu Se Yo and turn something like 'to sit' into 'please sit'. Pretty cool and simple.

Then we moved onto food and how to ask how much things cost. This isn't so hard, but learning about the different quantifiers is ridiculous. Akin to learning how to say 1 bottle of beer, 1 apple, 2 bowls of soup, 3 glasses of milk in English, well the Koreans also have different words for each.개, 병, 잔, 그릇 are just the 4 main quantifiers. There are plenty of others that we didn't even go over. Combining the counting numeric system with these quantifiers at the same time while worrying about sentence structure and tags was blowing my mind. I think after letting it stew in my brain the rest of the day I'm feeling better about it though.

I was in a pretty good mood today however. I'm making friends with the other American guy in our class. He's an interesting guy, and almost polar opposite of me I would say. He likes photography and seems to be pretty much a loner. I offered to help him though because he is struggling pretty hard, and I could use some reinforcement of the language myself. Otherwise, one of the Mongolian girls told her brother I was cute in class today. He was sitting next to me and leaned over and whispered that she said I was cute. Pretty cool stuff. I like Asia haha.

Moving on, I have been trying to setup a Skype session between some of our students here, and some of the students from the Concordia Wisconsin Bethesda College. Sam, who is an aid at Concordia and I have been connected on just about every social media platform trying to figure this out. First it was venue, then it was date, now it's turning to permission. Tomorrow I have to stop by the K-PACE office to ask the manager of the program if it is ok that we do this. YJS told me that's what I should do, I didn't even think about it. I thought we could just get some of the guys together in my room and bada bing bada boom we're Skyping. Guess not.

I think we'll end up able to do this just fine, but it's certainly an added pressure/worry to my already blown mind. Beyond this today was pretty relaxing. There was no fitness center (alas my lobby Yeo Ja) so I was able to get my homework done and hang out with the students. I am learning more and more names. Man just thinking about how much I've learned in the month that I've been here blows my mind too. My mind is just being blown all over the place.I love it.

The dorm always has some fun things going on. I caught Heavy G using what appeared to be a jack-in-the-box. Well it ended up being a Korean coffee grinder. I'm posting a short video of that. Also, An Hyo Sang the Bae Shin Ja himself bought a fanny pack for their trip to America. I think I gave him enough grief that he decided not to take it though haha. Poor guy.

An Hyo Sang and his fanny pack!

Oh! Last but not least I saw a picture of an aerial view of Daegu University in our classroom today. I had to get a picture of it to show you guys cause it looked so cool. Here it is!

Aerial view of the new Daegu Campus!

That's all for today folks, thanks for stopping in and I'll see you tomorrow!

Korean Word/Phrase of the Day: 좋아해요 (Joh Ah Hae Yo) Used as a verb this can mean I like something, which includes romantic meanings. As an adjective it can mean "Good".

TL:DR I'm in Korea.