Affirmations of a linguaphile

I realized this weekend that I think maybe I am in love with learning languages. I've felt pretty confident with my comprehension of the Korean alphabet for the past couple of weeks, but further progress in Korean sort of stagnated, aside from the slow accumulation of food dishes that I'm learning. But on Sunday I went out with two of my Korean coworkers, and got them to help me with some key phrases. And then I reviewed numbers with them, and for the first time tried sounding something out in order to write it down, and it turns out I'm actually ok at doing that. Heh, my Korean friends were really impressed, actually, which of course felt great. I bought the little notebook in the picture while with them, I want to build up a collection of key phrases and its going to be great!

The day before, I met up with some friends for dinner, and to my delight, one of them had brought along a couchsurfer of theirs - a young guy from Colombia who got to Daegu about a week ago, and will be here for 6 months to study Korean! First of all I was pretty surprised that he was here - it seems like a very random language for any non-Korean to learn - but he told me he is a taekwondo student, which this was some of the impetus for this trip. Anyways, I have a bit of a thing for Latin American culture and an itch to get good at Spanish (I was taking Spanish classes for the 3 months before coming here, have I mentioned that). So I told him yo gusto practicar espanol con tigo" - which he responded positively to, albeit really too fast for me to understand. Mas despacio por favor. I'm pumped.

This language learning energy got me thinking I wanted to download some novels in french and brush up on that too...but then it occurred to me that I'm already confusing vocabulary in the different languages I know, and how really it would be so much better to just pick one, focus, and become reasonably fluent before moving to the next. But that's my problem always isn't it - picking one thing only.

I live for the weekends

I went running for the first time in over a month Monday morning. It felt good. Especially because 60% of that run was a trail run on a dirt path through the forest. I haven't been trail running since I left Alaska two summers ago and how I have missed it. Running felt so good - just stretching my legs, waking up muscles that haven't been used, getting my lungs so thirsty for oxygen, reminding my body that sometimes it needs to work hard. And doing all this, not with the jolting impact of foot to pavement, not with the struggle to breathe while avoiding car exhaust fumes, but in poofs of red dust, crunches of leaves, and frenetic, bounding leaps to avoid rocks, roots, and other potential ankle-spraining hazards. There is something really liberating and primal about trail running - like my body is remembering life as a prey animal running from saber-tooth tigers or velociraptors. The only problem is, before getting out there, I have to build up the motivation to brave to weather. I had every intention of running again this morning, but after a poor night of sleep, here I am writing instead of bundling up for another frosty winter jog.

I discovered this trail last week - I live to the west of a big mountain park - in fact of I have a nice view of it from my classroom/office.

Work is alright, its pretty easy aside from the two classes of middle school boys I deal with, and I've got a lot of free time. So really, what's been most exciting about being here is outside of work. Well, outside, period. I'm pretty stoked about the fact that even though I live in a typical densely populated Asia city, where skyscraping condos line the streets I walk to work, I can find dirt and trees.

My first sojourn to this neighborhood mountain was over the weekend, where I first discovered that a 25 minute climb up out of the traffic led to a panoramic view of the city -- of a bustling, working, urban hub nestled innocuously in the crook of a rolling mountain landscape.

There were some burial mounds along the trail, and I decided that if I were to die, a final resting spot affording such a view wouldn't be such a bad place to spend eternity.

Back, and hungry

Last month I got the chance to talk to my ex-grad school advisor for the first time since I jumped that ship. I was feeling rather apologetic about doing so, and was talking to him about going to South Korea, telling him about the Spanish classes I'd been taking this fall. He said to me "Tala, you're just a curious person" and said something about how I have so many interests. This is certainly true, and extremely relevant to the reasons why I've pressed the paused button on the whole grad school idea. I lamented to him that I this was exactly my problem and he laughed, and said that he couldn't wait to hear from me 10 years from now, that when I finally pick something I'm going to be this machine at it and rocket into space.

That felt really good.

But it also makes me wonder if I will - if I will find one single thing to focus on. That sounds so boring at the moment. Here I am in South Korea, and at the moment, I'm still filled with wide-eyed wonder for this new adventure. Apologies for the long silence, I've been so busy experiencing things and honestly I just didn't want to take time from that to record them.

But it's been going great so far (and I haven't even mentioned my pre-Korea travels yet). There are small challenges - my first night I couldn't figure out how to get the hot water going, for example.

But so far, the newness outweighs the frustration. My current "project" is trying to learn as fast as possible how to read menus. It's pretty intimidating, and also frustrating, to sit in a restaurant with a growling stomach, surrounded by all these people happily digging chopsticks into sizzling plates of stir frys, slurping steaming bowls of soup, and in front of you is this menu of gobblygook.

I stole this menu from C's local diner, so I could practice at home (yep, I'm that serious).

Thankfully, I started teaching myself hangul (the Korean alphabet) a few weeks before I came here. Thankfully, hangul is a pretty easy language to learn to read - it's all phonetic, and the characters are clustered into syllable groups, which helps with pronunciation. So my challenge right now really is learning the names of dishes. Hopefully one day I'll be good enough at hangul that I can recognize words, and not have to sit there slowly sounding out each character like a 5 year old. At the moment I survive by keeping print outs of websites like this and this in my purse. The problem comes when I'm hungry and haven't thought to bring my cheat sheets along.

Good thing I also like cooking.

Tonight I made a killer coconut curry.

Asian phones ^_^

Speaking of texting (see last post) - yesterday I got a new phone and its adorable. It's a Filipino number so I'll be able to text my parents - when I'm in Korea it'll be roaming so it'll be slightly more expensive for me to contact them but they will still be able to contact me for super cheap (1 peso for 1 text. Current exchange rate: $1USD to 44.4 pesos). Its tiny:

Its a touch screen, it even has a little stylus if I feel like my fingers are too fat haha. This is especially nice because the US phone I've had for only a year has been pretty broken for the past 3 months.

When I start working in January, I also plan on getting a Korean phone. I imagine they will have equally cute (if not more cute) phones there. That will be good because as cute as this phone is, it won't be getting much use. Good thing phones and communication are so cheap in Asia. Really, its rather frustrating - I'd been using this totally janky phone for 3 months because it was too early on in my phone plan to upgrade without it being a total rip off. Here, we just go to the electronics market get a really nice phone, buy a SIM card, and its done.

Church, State, Christmas

This article in today's local paper, the Philippine Star, caught my eye. One, because its such a classic example of how unseparate church and state are here. Not that the film industry can at all claim to be part of the government but my hunch is that the type of censorship described in that article would not be permitted in the States given that thing we call a First Amendment. (Although I have to admit I'm not government/history/politics expert by any stretch so I'm probably toeing the line of informed discussion here who knows). Two, I'm really amused that something reported via text message is considered legitimate enough to be publishable.

Back in 2009, I wrote a little about the Catholic church's role in the Philippines. I mentioned the Reproductive Health bill. As it was mentioned in that article today ("RH Bill" - in the cartoon) I'm guessing it hasn't been passed. There are a lot of things I could comment on about this, but it's pretty standard liberal politics and I feel like it's enough to say "hey check this out."

And just now, I was google searching for the picture I have at the top of this post, and discovered another interesting article. Upon seeing the headline I thought it was going to be an article about something really absurd, but you know I think what the dude is saying is legitimate. I'm pretty ok with someone pointing out that Christmas has been taken over by consumerism. Except I don't think Santa is to blame for that.

Thinking about thoughts

When I originally created this blog, the idea was to create a space to share my adventuring with people I was leaving behind. Then I went dormant for a while (I guess that's not unexpected given that I was doing graduate level coursework). Now I'm back. I currently have two other blog posts waiting to be completed, and neither of them are about travel. I'm finding myself wanting to use this space for more diverse expression.

I've been reading a lot of other peoples' blogs lately, I want people to read mine. I have ideas and things I want to share.

So I'm all for expression - I think it's an important part of learning and growing - which in turn seems to be an important part of being a post-college 20-something - but expressing in the format of a public blog is something with which I struggle a bit more. How much do I feel comfortable putting out in this public space? Who is reading this? What can I say, without sharing too much? Does it even matter if I'm sharing thoughts with strangers if I don't know that I'm sharing thoughts with strangers? I don't think the information I'm sharing is putting me at risk for say, identity theft. But hopes, dreams, beliefs, ponderings - where does those fit in between the public and private spheres? I don't know.

Onward and forward

So I've been battling with another blog entry for most of this week, and as I continue to sort out what it is exactly that I'm trying to express (in that particular entry, I am delving into less familiar territory - deviating from my normal subject matter of travel) I thought I might give you all an update.

I'm currently digging through the corners of my apartment and sorting out all of my belongings (useful vs not useful; wanted vs not wanted; sentimental vs meaningless) because I'm off again in a week. I'll be at the airport, passport in hand, visas at the ready, dragging two huge duffel bags out of the country for an as of yet unknown period of time. Probably about a year.

My first stop in this next leg of my travels will be a return to the Philippines (it is the Christmas season after all - for my loyal followers you will should see a seasonal pattern here). However, I won't be there that long - this year, my immediate family has decided to escape the chaos of festivities in the PI for a remote beach vacation in Bali. Obviously I wasn't going to miss out on that. I pretty much have no idea what exactly I'm in for - all I know is that we've rented a vacation house in a less touristy area, so I'm sure I'll have more about that later.

But the main thing here (besides "blah blah I'm a jetsetter and like to flaunt my ability to spend holidays in tropical paradise) is that I am employed again! In South Korea. As an English teacher. Its all very silly. And it has been a ridiculously absurd process. But I'm excited. I really enjoyed Korea when I was there in September (despite the challenges of the extremely spicy food) and someone there is eagerly awaiting my arrival which makes it even better. Hooray for travel, and adventures, and a classroom full of little kiddies, and making money for even more future adventures!

There is a lot more to say about what I'll be doing, where I'm going, how I got to this point, etc etc etc, but I think this is enough for now. I'll leave you all to eagerly await my next entry...