Sinking Fast

I enrolled in a Korean for Beginners class at   (or "Kyung Hee Dae Hag Gyo"). Yeah, leave it up to me to start taking my studying seriously with three months left. Excellent! Anyway, I was really excited because I can finally read (though I'm guessing at a kindergarten level, though realistically below as I usually have no idea what I'm reading/saying) and I was really looking forward to being able to say more than your average greetings, ordering at restaurants/bars and asking price/directions. Yes - notice how I'm writing in the past tense. Uh oh! 


My co-worker/friend Kat and I left for campus straight after our school bell rang, we signed in at the front desk and were directed to the classroom. Since class didn't start for 15 minutes, we decided to wait outside so as not to seem too eager. As we sat we joked about the last time we were in a classroom, almost three years for me and only one for her; we hoped our professor to be a female or an unattractive/non-distracting male; most of all we couldn't wait to learn.

Our watches ticked nearer to 7:30 and we picked up our purses and headed inside. Much to our dismay, this dude who asked where the Conversational Korean class was was in the new classroom we were told to go into. Uh oh! Not looking so great. His name is Steven, he shows us his book and it's full of questions and answers - dialogue practice. Panic sets in slightly, but Kat and I reassure each other that it's Steven who is in the wrong classroom. A few more minutes and two Chinese girls come in the class. Then one more. Then the teacher...

From the moment the she walked in the classroom she's speaking Korean, and it's fast. Reeeeeeally fast, and seemingly advanced. I look at Kat with pure panic in my eyes. From her gestures we gather she wants us to open a book - a book which neither of us have. Steven offers to share. Kat is directed by the teacher (unbeknownst to me; I thought she was abandoning ship) to share with one of the Chinese girls. The teacher wants us to change things into the future tense, words/verbs that I do not know. I sink lower in my chair. So this is what it feels like to drown. I mutter to myself. I actually muttered it, and had Kat been sitting next to me I'm sure she would have said, "I know! Right?" but Steven was busy translating and my humorous despair was shared with no one.

Calculus wasn't as hard as this class was, and I couldn't even blend in behind a sea of heads as there were only six of us in the class. Anyway, so we're conjugating verbs for about a half an hour when the teacher asks us how long we've been studying and what we've studied. She tells me "Fighting!" when I reveal that I've only just learned the alphabet, and then there's 30 more minutes of her telling me "괜찮아요" ("kwen chan i o"/"It's okay.") then she finally leaves the classroom and brings back the Korean 1 book which is what I'm talking about!! Basic vocabulary and building on that. She took down our information and said she would try to move her schedule around to accommodate teaching Kat and I after our work (if not, I better get my money back as it was false advertising that led me to there in the first place, "All you need to know is how to read?"). Class ended, and I crawled onto shore sputtering saltwater and pulling seaweed from my hair; I didn't die. Let's hope it's more understandable second time around. I'll let you know.