Friday, September 3, 2010

SNU Class and a Desk

September 3rd, 2010
I went to a class at Seoul National University (SNU) this morning. It’s taught in Korean, a grad seminar called 한국생활사 Korean Lifestyle(?) basically it is about the way people lived during the Joseon Dynasty. I wanted to audit a class like this so that I would have a chance to practice reading, speaking and listening to academic Korean. However the professor has assigned a RIDICULOUSLY heavy reading load and the week by week breakdown leaves me wondering how interesting it will be. Good thing about auditing, I can bow out later if I decide it’s not working for me. I suspect the professor is younger than I am and she’s never taught this class before.

We were supposed to have dinner with our friend, but she got sick, so it was a pretty uneventful day. The excitement consisted of going to the 아현가구상가 Ahyeon Furniture Market and buying a table approximately four and a half feet long and a little more than two feet wide, Karjam and I are sitting on opposite sides of it as I type, there is room behind his computer for some of my stuff and vice-versa. We also got a small (very) bookshelf and two chairs that match, it’s all an unfinished blond wood. I already feel more productive just to be able to sort of organize my work area. We also bought one more cup today. A couple more purchases and I might feel like a little house-warming party (or two, I think one for Yonsei/academic friends who are going to be both English and Korean speakers and one special one for my 개전연 Gaejeonyeon and other performance friends.)

2 comments:

Bonnie said...

생활사 is "life history" (confusing because so is "생애사"). I audited a course at Chonbuk Dae called "민중생활사."

CedarBough said...

The English course catalog lists it as Korean Lifestyle, your title perhaps is better, but neither is as accurate as some phrase about details of how people lived during the Joseon Dynasty esp. if they were yangban leaving records behind...