A short update is better than no update. This has to be my new mantra, so you can feel like there might be something to see here next time you come by. It's my New Year's Resolution, if you'll stick with me :)
So, in my last post, I summarized 95% of my trip back to the US and I had just returned to Korea, enrolled in an intensive Korean language course, and planned to live in a glorified closet for $200/month. Most of you know how well that went, or didn't.
I was drowning in the classes, and I was only in level 2!! What was I going to do? I had the option of dropping to level 1, but I knew the material from the first few weeks of that level: phonics and the alphabet; simple present, past, and (a little) future tense grammar; basic everyday vocabulary... what a waste of my time and money that would have been. But level 2 had started with conditional past and future tense - might have been/might be/might try to be - and that was all just the first 2 days! (@.@) The instructor could tell I was way behind, so she'd not ask me to give examples or present my work until last, if at all, so I rarely got to practice.
So my second option would be try not to feel completely worthless in the 5 hour/day classes, work twice as hard/long on my homework, seek out a tutor (not free), along with teaching English privately to support myself. There just weren't enough hours in the day for this kind of work. The classes are intensive and fast-paced, even for those who come from level 1, i.e. are in the appropriate level course.
This leads me to my third option. I came to this conclusion while talking with 2 Japanese girls in my class who have Korean boyfriends and so want to make a life in Korea. I had thought that life was what I wanted, and eventually maybe I could open a restaurant and put my language skills to work... but... the more I talked with these girls, the more I realized I did not want to conduct my entire life in a foreign language. I had washed out.
I was told weeks earlier by many people that it was FAR different to study and live in Korea than it was to be an English teacher there, and I had waved them off. I mean, I had been living there for 5 years! I thought I knew what it might be like. But, I didn't. They were right. So, I quickly had a decision to make. The sooner I quit my class, the greater percentage of my tuition fee I could recoup, and I needed that money if I was to follow my third plan. I went to the office, filed my paperwork for withdrawal, and turned that money around into a plane ticket back to Minnesota.
Wow.
So within the first week, I had decided I couldn't make it. (Well, I'd been back for over 3 weeks, but hadn't been in the course long at all!) I was back in Minnesota by Christmas.
