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newandexcitingshapes hi hello would you like a recap of what my korean class orientation was like tonight? sure you would.
i applied to join the spring semester adult beginners class at this language school near me in september - like, accidentally a month and a half before the class was actually taking students, whoops. but that should give you an idea of how long i've been waiting, nervous and excited, for classes to begin this month.
the class is mostly virtual via zoom, but we'll have a few in-person outings to take in culture and food during the semester. we kicked things off tonight with an in-person meeting for orientation and, i guess, a get-to-know you sort of experience.
we met in a shop inside an h-mart shopping/food court. because of who i am as a person, i showed up first, and early. our instructor gave me my textbook and an h-mart branded desk calendar (!) and we chatted a little bit before other people came in.
(i should mention i was nervous to begin with, because everything makes me nervous, but especially new experiences, new people, the vulnerability i feel is inherent in trying to learn anything, especially as an adult...and the way my brain is convinced that of all the humans on god's earth, i am the most cringeworthy of all. so i was starting at a disadvantage.)
once everyone had filed in and accepted their textbooks and h-mart branded calendars, we all sat around a couple of small tables. i did not catch everyone's name, but to be fair, it was also kind of loud in the adjoining food court. the instructor introduced herself, and showed us some of the stuff in our google classroom, and told us about what we could expect from the semester, including explaining the in-person outings by giving examples of what she'd done with classes in the past. one of these examples was an outing to go see a movie!
well, i love movies, so: "ooh, what movie did you go see?"
"past lives!"
"oh my god, i love past lives!" (this is true. it is a favorite.)
"it was so good...all the girls cried and it made all the boys in the class crazy."
incredible. i should mention the instructor was sitting across from me, so often she would make eye contact with me and engage me directly, and because i'm weird about eye contact (how much is too much is she not talking to everyone am i being a freak right now) i started to feel self-conscious. great! normal stuff.
so she keeps talking and other people make comments or ask questions. fine!
then she wants us to go around the table and introduce ourselves and our reasons for wanting to learn korean. i have sort of practiced, in my head, a Normal Response. i am self-conscious, for some reason, that wanting to learn korean because i got into k-pop is Freak Behavior, even though this is normal and happens literally every day and it's not like i'm the first white guy to do it. and yet.
so of course i'm first and i don't know what to say about myself, so i mumble something about working from home in dallas and then i just kind of get going. i got really into k-pop last year, i've been reading more korean books in translation (here i name-drop anton hur and bora chung to try and get some kind of? intellectualism points?) and i mention that i love movies so i've been trying to watch more movies in korean, etc. i want to engage with the culture on a deeper level,
and then the instructor starts asking me questions. who's my favorite k-pop group? bts. am i army? you bet i am. and she keeps engaging with me so i keep. talking. and i'm self-conscious about how much i'm talking but if she's not winding it down with me i don't know how to cut myself off well so i just keep saying shit. she says one time a student who was into bts asked her to translate a song and it was hard. i start talking about kim namjoon's song "trivia: love" and the wordplay in that. (i call him RM, because i'm in mixed company and they don't know him like that.) finally i shut up.
for the record, here are the other students' reasons, in order:
1. korean husband
2. korean wife
3. likes k-dramas and k-pop (okay, so it's not just me)
4. is half-korean, wants to learn korean again to speak it with her mom and teach her kids. beautiful, weeps, etc.
5. i don't remember what she said
6. is a korean adoptee and looking into dual citizenship
and to be fair, the instructor engaged with everyone on their reasons and talked to them, but i went first! i didn't know it would be less weird than the level i set! i could not get myself to stop blushing!!!!
more talk ensued, and then we had snacks (cuties, some kind of walnut cookie ball thing, and gimbap) and folded paper so we could play some kind of old korean game that everyone else seemed to know from squid game, a show i have not watched. but it was fine!
it was all fine, is the thing! everyone seemed nice, if not super talkative, and it's super normal for a human being who isn't korean to want to learn korean! and yet! i felt SO freakish and anxious, like, the whole time. i would love a day when my brain is normal to me and i can pretend to be a normal human guy.
anyway. i volunteered to go first in the one-on-one learning sessions, so i'll be doing that on jan. 29th, which is also lunar new year i think? so we may have an outing. that should be fun!
also i forgot to mention, but she wants us to choose korean names to go by in google classroom. can anyone explain why this fills me with fear, other than the whole "everything makes me nervous" thing? does anyone have any name ideas that aren't names of men i'm parasocial about and/or actively lusting after? i guess i should mention i'm having to do girl-mode in class because i don't feel like explaining gender to everyone.
i should clarify that i am super excited to learn and grow, i am just also extremely mean to myself in my brain half the time. as alice pointed out, i am really prone to inventing problems for myself.they literally just texted me that i'm shoving myself into lockers for no reason and they're right lol. i'm sure it will get better once we're in the groove!!! me @ me: no one thinks you're a freak!!! these people don't have any way of knowing how bad you lust after kim seokjin!!!! and they never will.
wow, it's been a long time since i've come home from something and immediately blogged about it. the nostalgia...and then i remember i'm going to want to write all this down in my personal offline journal again too. ah well, a task for tomorrow while i'm pretending to do my job.
i'm going to post this pretty quickly and then get back to twitter and whatnot, but hopefully this was an interesting read.
goodnight!
i applied to join the spring semester adult beginners class at this language school near me in september - like, accidentally a month and a half before the class was actually taking students, whoops. but that should give you an idea of how long i've been waiting, nervous and excited, for classes to begin this month.
the class is mostly virtual via zoom, but we'll have a few in-person outings to take in culture and food during the semester. we kicked things off tonight with an in-person meeting for orientation and, i guess, a get-to-know you sort of experience.
we met in a shop inside an h-mart shopping/food court. because of who i am as a person, i showed up first, and early. our instructor gave me my textbook and an h-mart branded desk calendar (!) and we chatted a little bit before other people came in.
(i should mention i was nervous to begin with, because everything makes me nervous, but especially new experiences, new people, the vulnerability i feel is inherent in trying to learn anything, especially as an adult...and the way my brain is convinced that of all the humans on god's earth, i am the most cringeworthy of all. so i was starting at a disadvantage.)
once everyone had filed in and accepted their textbooks and h-mart branded calendars, we all sat around a couple of small tables. i did not catch everyone's name, but to be fair, it was also kind of loud in the adjoining food court. the instructor introduced herself, and showed us some of the stuff in our google classroom, and told us about what we could expect from the semester, including explaining the in-person outings by giving examples of what she'd done with classes in the past. one of these examples was an outing to go see a movie!
well, i love movies, so: "ooh, what movie did you go see?"
"past lives!"
"oh my god, i love past lives!" (this is true. it is a favorite.)
"it was so good...all the girls cried and it made all the boys in the class crazy."
incredible. i should mention the instructor was sitting across from me, so often she would make eye contact with me and engage me directly, and because i'm weird about eye contact (how much is too much is she not talking to everyone am i being a freak right now) i started to feel self-conscious. great! normal stuff.
so she keeps talking and other people make comments or ask questions. fine!
then she wants us to go around the table and introduce ourselves and our reasons for wanting to learn korean. i have sort of practiced, in my head, a Normal Response. i am self-conscious, for some reason, that wanting to learn korean because i got into k-pop is Freak Behavior, even though this is normal and happens literally every day and it's not like i'm the first white guy to do it. and yet.
so of course i'm first and i don't know what to say about myself, so i mumble something about working from home in dallas and then i just kind of get going. i got really into k-pop last year, i've been reading more korean books in translation (here i name-drop anton hur and bora chung to try and get some kind of? intellectualism points?) and i mention that i love movies so i've been trying to watch more movies in korean, etc. i want to engage with the culture on a deeper level,
and then the instructor starts asking me questions. who's my favorite k-pop group? bts. am i army? you bet i am. and she keeps engaging with me so i keep. talking. and i'm self-conscious about how much i'm talking but if she's not winding it down with me i don't know how to cut myself off well so i just keep saying shit. she says one time a student who was into bts asked her to translate a song and it was hard. i start talking about kim namjoon's song "trivia: love" and the wordplay in that. (i call him RM, because i'm in mixed company and they don't know him like that.) finally i shut up.
for the record, here are the other students' reasons, in order:
1. korean husband
2. korean wife
3. likes k-dramas and k-pop (okay, so it's not just me)
4. is half-korean, wants to learn korean again to speak it with her mom and teach her kids. beautiful, weeps, etc.
5. i don't remember what she said
6. is a korean adoptee and looking into dual citizenship
and to be fair, the instructor engaged with everyone on their reasons and talked to them, but i went first! i didn't know it would be less weird than the level i set! i could not get myself to stop blushing!!!!
more talk ensued, and then we had snacks (cuties, some kind of walnut cookie ball thing, and gimbap) and folded paper so we could play some kind of old korean game that everyone else seemed to know from squid game, a show i have not watched. but it was fine!
it was all fine, is the thing! everyone seemed nice, if not super talkative, and it's super normal for a human being who isn't korean to want to learn korean! and yet! i felt SO freakish and anxious, like, the whole time. i would love a day when my brain is normal to me and i can pretend to be a normal human guy.
anyway. i volunteered to go first in the one-on-one learning sessions, so i'll be doing that on jan. 29th, which is also lunar new year i think? so we may have an outing. that should be fun!
also i forgot to mention, but she wants us to choose korean names to go by in google classroom. can anyone explain why this fills me with fear, other than the whole "everything makes me nervous" thing? does anyone have any name ideas that aren't names of men i'm parasocial about and/or actively lusting after? i guess i should mention i'm having to do girl-mode in class because i don't feel like explaining gender to everyone.
i should clarify that i am super excited to learn and grow, i am just also extremely mean to myself in my brain half the time. as alice pointed out, i am really prone to inventing problems for myself.they literally just texted me that i'm shoving myself into lockers for no reason and they're right lol. i'm sure it will get better once we're in the groove!!! me @ me: no one thinks you're a freak!!! these people don't have any way of knowing how bad you lust after kim seokjin!!!! and they never will.
wow, it's been a long time since i've come home from something and immediately blogged about it. the nostalgia...and then i remember i'm going to want to write all this down in my personal offline journal again too. ah well, a task for tomorrow while i'm pretending to do my job.
i'm going to post this pretty quickly and then get back to twitter and whatnot, but hopefully this was an interesting read.
goodnight!
no subject
Date: 2025-01-18 03:21 pm (UTC)