Midterms and a somewhat late reflection on last term

I have gotten through midterms. I did much better than I had expected. Now I just need to get through my speech. Which I believe needs to be 20 minutes long. I need to turn in a script of the speech tomorrow, and I will be presenting it next Tuesday. I believe I will do a speech on the Beatles. a very universal subject that I believe everyone in my class will be able to appreciate, and I also wanted to choose a lighter topic for once.

I am well into my second term at Sogang, after skipping a level, and it is going well, but I never really wrote any closing words about my first term at Sogang.

The first term at Sogang was an interesting mix of old and new for me, material wise. After having come off of a summer with zero Korean, my Korean was nowhere near the level it was in May of 2007, so through a stroke of fate, I was put into level 2, which, now in hindsight, I believe was the best possible level for me at that point. The beginning of the term was mostly review for me, but then we finally started moving into uncharted territory, and it is very true that in the Sogang program, level 2 is the keystone that holds all of your Korean together, so it is a very important level to have done well. I ended up completing the level with a final percentage somewhere in the 90s, can't remember exactly now. I had great teachers, all very special in their own way, however my favorite was my male speaking teacher, I still go downstairs to say hi to him everyday.

I also had a great class. I made 10 friends and 2 enemies. The enemies came about on their accord. I did nothing but be myself. And, honestly, the only source of stress last term came from these two individuals' antagonism towards me. However, I a not one to really let this sort of thing worry me, so it was not much more than a footnote concerning my first term at Sogang. I was indeed bored most of the time, so my this is the reason my teachers, realizing this, encouraged me to skip level three and move right in to the next step in Korean language study at Sogang. The jump between 3 and 4 is huge, day and night. However, given the fact that the first three months in any new place are the hardest, having a relatively easier time at school was very beneficial in making sure that the foundation I created for the rest of my stay in Korea was suitable. Now, school has become a much bigger part of my experience here, just given the new challenges of fourth level. We are actually reading real things now, talking about real issues, debating, and there is simply a much higher level of competency in Korean which makes the class atmosphere a lot more engaging. I am not going to lie, it is still often a little slow for me, but I continue to find ways to challenge myself if Sogang won't do it for me. I am half way thru my second term, so about half way through my entire experience here. It has been a remarkable journey thus far, and I am very excited about what lies ahead.