PC Bang

So, I thought I was being absurdly long-winded in my posts (which may still be true...I'm not ruling it out), but Sara has requested that I add details as she's claimed to be living vicariously through my experience.

I guess I'll start with the PC bang that I've been visiting around the corner. There's the PC area, which is pretty large and kept dark so as not to dim the screens. There are 7 sections of 8 computers with very nice gaming chairs (swiveling, head rests, the whole nine!) and there are cushy leg rests underneath. Communication is pretty simple here...I just hold up the appropiate amount of fingers for the hours I want, saying "juseyo" (please) and pay 1000 won per hour. I should start saying the numbers, though. I'll only learn Korean based on my efforts--as the British expat, Chris, I met yesterday stated "it's not like staying in Paris and picking up a bit of French. To us, it's sounds like alien noises and you've really got to put effort into it." Another expat, who's been here for 18 months, said that about a month ago, he was able to hear the separation between the words...doesn't know what the words mean, but that they are words. He's been taking Korean lessons and considers himself an "expert beginner."

While the plasticity of the human mind is astounding, language learning does not seem to be my forte. I spoke German as a child (until about four, maybe four and a half) and I remember the day I told my dad "I'm an American now and will only speak English" although I can't remember what prompted the statement. Being exceedingly dramatic, even then, I ran into the yard, crying, and sang a few bars of "Proud to be an American." As, um, unpatriotic as I am now, that seems nigh on Glenn Beckian to me, but I was adjusting to a lot of new things at the time (my dad had just remarried) and that seems to be how I chose to stabilize my identity. The loss of a language, however, is regrettable. I'm not sure how well I would have kept it up, though. My dad's grasp of German grammatical structure was tenative at best and I doubt my speaking a separate language with my dad would have been very good for my then new relationship with my mom. All of that being said, I did take German lessons in college (it was my minor, starting out) and while many people reassured me that it would magically reappear because "it's in there somewhere," it didn't happen. At least not then. Translating a paragraph for my homework took close to four hours and my vocabulary was abysmal. I see now that I didn't expend nearly enough effort on memorization.

A friend sent me the first Harry Potter book in German while I was on leave from school and I laboriously translated the first 3 pages. I was ecstatic to read my first sentence in German that I understood without translating. Chalk full of cognates, "Er starrt an der Katze und die Katze starrt zurück," is not very impressive. Well, try harder I must.

So, returning to the PC bang, adjacent to the PC area is an arcade encircled by 6 Noraebang (Karaoke) rooms. I can hear the singers warbling (i.e. not getting a record deal any time soon...) while I'm online and the other night, I peeked in on some as I went to check out the video game selection. Being foreign, I get a lot of stares (children gape without shame...the university students try to be pretty cool about it), so they looked pretty startled to see me somewhat invasively peering in the booths. Then, I played a few (dozen) rounds of 20 second spurts on EZ2DJ, an arcade game compared to Beatmania (which I've never played) and similar in structure to Guitar Hero, Rock Band, etc.

It's very difficult. Hence my failing every 20 seconds.

I had a silly little plan to use the transition to Korea as a means to quit smoking...being allowed to smoke in here, not helpful. Neither was expending the effort to purchase cigarettes in the first place, haha. Well, if I don't have to spend too much of the day doing footwork for my alien registration card on Thursday after getting my medical exam Wednesday evening, I plan to hike a nearby mountain that day. Maybe barfing up a lung will be persuasive.

Well, my time here is almost up. I'm going to go another few rounds with EZ2DJ and then....dunno. Maybe photoshop more slides? Could use some adventure, though. Pity I got such a lazy, late start (damn you, Oprah!)...could have hiked today.

-Tamz