September 2009 - During my first semester back in my college days, I was contemplating between taking Chinese, Japanese, or Korean introductory class. I thought it'd be awesome to learn another language so that's the reason why. I took Japanese back in secondary school for three months but I had to quit since I had to move to another school that didn't offer the course. For Chinese, I have zero experience except the words from my dad that it is not a simple language if you're trying to learn writing in Chinese. He used to learn Chinese before so I took his words. For Korean, I noticed that the writing system is a lot simpler than the other two languages so that was a huge plus point that has got me started taking KOR101- introductory Korean class.
My professor's name is Choi Yoon Hwa (최윤화) and seriously if you could ever get into one of her classes then you're lucky. She's very helpful and she'll help you all the way as long as you put your effort in the course. Too bad she's not teaching at University at Buffalo (UB) anymore.
This picture was taken during the traditional game session. We played yunnori (윷놀이), a game where you throw four sticks that act like dices and move your tokens across the board towards the finish.
January 2012 - So I went all the way from first year Korean to third year Korean (first semester). Too bad I could't get into third year Korean second semester due to some conflicts in my schedule. But lucky me I was offered the chance to be part of the UB team for the Korean speech contest in Toronto, Canada. I just couldn't think 'no' as an answer.
There are four categories: beginner, intermediate, advanced, and open. I was trying to get into the intermediate category but then prof said that I've had more than 300 hours of class time so that means advanced category. I just couldn't say no too at that time. And so, the journey began!
The speech!
Mid February 2012 - I had to memorize two pages of speech (and understand everything of course) and that was about 4 minutes of presentation time. Nope, I didn't write the whole speech. I only wrote the content in English, tried to translate it halfway but then suddenly prof and her assistant came up with the Korean version of the speech. Lucky me again!
Taken right in front of Toronto Eaton Center.
March 24th 2012 - The competition day. Prof came right in front of my house with Terris and gave me a ride from my house at Amherst all the way to the bus terminal at Downtown. It was 4.30am, early spring so it...was..cold. Oh and in case you don't know who's Terris, I'm gonna talk about him pretty soon. I think we took the bus really early and arrived at Toronto around...7 or 8 something? The competition wasn't gonna start till 12.30pm so we had so much time to....eat and..find our way to University of Toronto.
Picture of Shuyu. I think she was taking a break from memorizing her lines. This is one of the pics that I love most. I think it looks just natural.
When we finally found our way to the university (well we just took a cab. it's that simple), had some light meal, took our seat and changed into the appropriate dress, the competition finally began!
My name tag.
If I'm not mistaken the Japanese girl won the 2nd place and the other one won the 1st place. Well I placed third out of three but they decided not to give anything to the second runner up :p
참가증서 - Certificate of participation, or sijil penyertaan.
Well too bad I didn't get anything but that courage of standing in front of everyone in the hall and giving speech in my third language is something that will stay in my mind for a long time.
The best thing about the competition? A guy from UB won the grand prize! and his name is...
Terris Brown! This guy is just so good he deserved it! You can watch more of him speaking in Korean here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sp8q-lSj4Mo
Well it was a great experience. When I first got into UB, I never imagined I'd be part of the team but I did. Thanks everyone! Now after leaving Buffalo I barely use any English or Korean and I think I am getting worse. That's why I'm trying to use as much English as possible in this blog (unless I'm in the mood to write in another language) because being good at a language means having tons of practices! But what happens to my Korean? There's Kakaotalk and a community on Google+ for that.
LOL just some random conversation but this is what keeps me learning Korean these days.
Just some personal thoughts here. Learning different languages opens up so many new experiences. You'll get to know new people, learn new culture and try new things you never did before. Demolishing the Great Wall of Communication Barrier is something everyone should try, because only then you'll start to see the other side of a society-good or bad.
So long. I'll be out of town to shoot another wedding this weekend and I'm really looking forward to it!
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