Back in Korea Again

It has been way too long. However, I have also been way to busy and away from working computers and internet. My time before Mexico was filled with getting caught up with all the new downpour of information in level four, and making sure my level 3 knowledge was to par. Mexico was glorious. One of the shortest holidays I have spent in Mexico, but still felt like an eternity, in both good and bad ways, and ended at that right time, so that I could get back here and continue to soak in Korea.

I saw a new side of Mexico City that I had never gotten the chance to explore before, that is, most of the actual city. In Mexico City I have a very sweet, however very insufferably overprotective grandmother, and I swear my age decreases by five years whenever I am at her house. Well, it seems that 19 is finally an age where I can try out my city legs and explore, and I was astounded by the amount of art and culture that I knew Mexico City had to offer, but that I had never really taken advantage of. So in my two weeks there, I saw as many museums as possible, checked the all the films that don't make it to Korea, and spent a lot of time with my little sisters and my wonderful mom of course. A perfectly restorative holiday season.

Now back in Korea, the weight of the midterm is upon me. I am actually not too concerned. The only thing that is going to be somewhat of a challenge will be the sheer amount of new vocabulary. I have been endowed with a superb memory, however, so all should be well. The test is this coming Tuesday. The grammar is pretty straight forward, and it is mostly stuff that I had figured out on my own a while back form sheer deductive reasoning. I find that that is the only way one can really learn a language. I mean that's how a small child learns a language. And whenever, I think of Japanese, the non-native language that I dominate the most, I can remember certain instances that were the basis for my understanding and assimilation of various words, same as with certain words and concepts in English or Spanish. That is the beauty of language, it isn't book smarts that matter, but life smarts.

The way I have been explaining it lately is that just like any other essential ability that all human beings possess, language is a survival mechanism. If you check out a recent book about the human genome project, published a few years ago, called, I think, Genome, it dedicates an entire chapter to the language gene. It is a gene that turns off after a certain age, and that is where the myth of sponge like child comes from. My theory, although, I'm sure that someone has already figured it out, is that the only way to really learn another language is to make that language necessary for your survival, and I believe that that gene will turn back on, for sheer subsistence. That is precisely why I only take up a language if I am able to fully envelop myself in the language or culture, ideally for the period of at least three months to an entire year. With this kind of time period, the language creates a viable linguistic foundation fit for survival in the brain, and from that point on, the rest of one's life, one simply polishes out the language, if one wishes, to accomplish less practical, however equally worthy exploits, poetry, literature, etc. In my case, I think that I have delayed the turning off of that gene in my own DNA, due to several things, being raised bilingual, and not having a time ion my life where I wasn't arduously learning a new language. Well whatever all this jibber-jabber may be, it may most likely be a justification for my facility in learning languages, something that makes me less friends than one would think.

Anyway, thanks to my leaps in Korean, that I also fail to understand at times, I am in fourth level now, and the next few days will be filled with fair amounts of studying. I am going to do something I haven't done ever, and that is go to a study group, a Korean language one, of course. I can't get ahead of myself, and I shouldn't underestimate the impending test either, who knows, I may see myself writing in a few weeks that I am repeating 4th level. I hope not, but I would be where I should have originally been, so no harm done I suppose.

One last thing. My honeymoon period was over in about a month. The time leading up to Mexico, I was in the worst part of the cycle of the love-hate relationship that is studying and living abroad. However, coming back, I have been seeing things in a different light (no pun intended). I am making very suitable progress, I have a good set of friends, and despite the terrible cold and continuous snow, I am accomplishing most of the things I hope to accomplish on a day to day basis. And my documentary is due out on national TV this month, so I'll see if I can't find a way to put it up on YouTube, and if not, Light Fellowship will definitely be getting a copy. Hasta Luego.