#language intensive

[benningtonalumnirelations]

Come back to campus to study!  The Graduate Language School is offering a weekend intensive language workshop in French OR Spanish November 7-9, 2014 on campus. This workshop is designed for intermediate to advanced speakers who want to explore cultural issues while polishing their language skills. More here.

[thattealady]

What a week! This language intensive thing is no joke! Monday started with the equivalent of “ABC…" and today ended with sentence structure for basic functional conversations. We can completely and competently talk to people now. Actually that was homework on Thursday which is why we went to 명동 again but I’ll get to that later. 이선생님 is super sweet aside from the fact that she seems convinced that Arthur and I are destined for each other. That of course isn’t true. However, if circumstances were different Arthur and I would make a beautiful child. We talked about that on the walk home today. You know how you can take two photos of people and get another photo of what their baby would look like? Well we said we should do that for giggles since computer generated baby photos and our teacher’s imagination are the closest things the world will ever actually see to Ariel/Arthur children. Sorry world. Eat your hearts out. ;) Class gets a little crazy sometimes, and of course by crazy I mean fabulous. When we were first learning basic sentences we would go around using our limited vocabulary and introducing ourselves with signs like "안녕하세요 저는 마이클 잭산이에요." (If you can’t read Korean that was funny) I don’t understand why we don’t have billions of friends… (And that was sarcasm) After class on Wednesday we went to HomePlus to get some groceries etc. In general it was a fun time just mulling around the store until we got to the milk aisle. Something like lightening struck my fancy and I wanted banana milk. But I didn’t see it. I also didn’t feel like leaving my friends so I just said banana milk (which by the way is kind of fun to say. Try it) over…and over. Not loudly or anything but I hadn’t really thought about it until this older woman turns around and gives me the loudest WTF look I’ve gotten since I arrived in this country. I quickly turned to the next aisle and laughed until my eyes watered. Lesson learned- banana milk is good, some people suck.

[thattealady]

Monday started our Yonsei language intensive program. Our teacher is super sweet and very patient. This is a good thing because the three of us (Becca, Arthur and myself) are a little special. She can’t say my name but that’s ok. She tries, kind of. I think the most intimidating thing about the class is that she doesn’t speak English to us. At all. That being said, it is a good thing she is patient because sometimes we just sit there blinking like "…um…". She gives plenty of coffee breaks and I’m not sure those are all for us. I think she is the one needing to get away… from us. After today I’m sure she thinks we’re all (especially me) idiots who laugh at bad potty humor uncontrollably. I was having a hard time recollecting myself but in my defense she never heard Becca pop off with the original remark. Instead she thinks I’m the type of person who just bursts out laughing at the mention of pee. This is not my fault! I was framed! Now when she sees me sometimes she just says “hwaiting ari!" (Or her version of my name which I can’t really relay in text) and smiles uncomfortably. I’m a good student… Monday night we had delicious pork belly BBQ in 8 different flavors. My favorite was pine needle. Then Becca took us to Natuur Pop for dessert. The one we shared had coffee in it. :3 Observe magical coffee-ice cream-beverage-dessert above. It was awesome. It’s been raining uncontrollably lately. It’s as if someone poked a hole in a giant blow up pool in the sky. And of course being the smart kids that we are, we walked to school both days and have showed up soaked. Then have had to sit in our own wetness in a freezing air conditioned room for five hours. Yaaaay! (That’s my cranky “I’m covered in rain" face) God said let’s drown the desert rats it’s funny. And actually, it kind of is…