Uncontrolled rambling from a tired mind
Mar. 9th, 2006 11:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tarigwaemirLowell House, on the Feast of St. Dominic Savio
For once, I've finished my homework for tomorrow before midnight. Of course, considering I have more than the usual amount this weekend not to mention the need to catch up on all the missed lectures, this small headway means nothing in the grand scheme of things. (I overslept through my classes again today. The fourth time this semester. It's too early in the semester to be burnout, so I don't know what's going on other than my erratic sleep schedule, which has never been the same since Gasshuku. I've decided to spend this weekend catching up, never mind getting ahead, which is an elusive dream that belongs back in the days of high school.)
My Korean class this semester has two non-Korean students, both of whom possess much more sophisticated vocabularies than the rest of us. One of them spent the past two years living in Korea and has a nearly flawless accent (at least, it's no more noticeable than your average second-generation who doesn't speak Korean often), to the point where someone remarked that it was like watching a dubbed film: you see the mouth move, but you can't quite believe that it's actually producing the sounds you hear. A testament indeed to the efficacy of immersion, not to mention the fact that some people really are born with a talent for languages. This particular person in question speaks confidently and fluently, and moreover, sounds more adult than I do because his language is that much more articulate. He also has this odd habit of laughing frequently during class--the laugh sounds to me a mixture of surprise and amusement--and it always disconcerts me because I don't know why he finds it funny. It's made more disconcerting by the fact that he doesn't laugh when the teacher does actually crack a joke. The other non-Korean student is also an interesting case because he's a Russian grad student majoring in East Asian studies who has apparently even studied in North Korea for a while. His accent is more pronounced but the real difficulty in understanding him comes from the fact that he tends to use academic language and sounds as if he's in a debate forum rather than an informal class discussion.
After a few weeks of observing them speak and write, I'm consumed by curiosity: how do they process Korean? Because they clearly use this language in an entirely different way than I do. The expressions they use and the sentence styles they prefer are radically different, and somehow I don't think it's just a stylistic matter. I know that I often unconsciously translate from English while I'm speaking Korean, so that I would use an expression that makes more sense or is more frequently used in English. But I don't think that's the case here. The one and only common point I've noticed in our use of language is that in writing the sentence structure tends to be very wordy and sometimes awkwardly complex, although the actual sentence style is again very, very different. (I've noticed that Koreans from Korea tend to keep their sentences and phrases short. Even newspapers tend to be clipped in tone rather than elaborate. Korean grammar is much looser in its restrictions on run-ons and fragments, but fragments are actually more common than run-ons.)
An opinion piece in the Crimson has "conscious" where the author intended "conscience", one of many common typos that drive me up the wall.
For the past couple of weeks, I've been suffering from shin splints in practice. Lately, I've been feeling the pain even when I walk, and yesterday during practice, I had a particularly bad attack that just wouldn't go away. So I've been reading up on treatment and prevention, and thus far the Internet has informed me to: (1) reduce training and rest, (2) stretch calves and ankles thoroughly in all planes of motion, (3) ice and elevate, (4) keep warm and massage, (5) increase calcium intake, (6) wear insoles. Well, (1) is not an option, (3) and (4) sound a little excessive, and as for (5), I've been drinking milk like medicine with all my meals. I've decided to switch to my other pair of sneakers which have more ankle support and start doing those stretches regularly in my room. If the pain doesn't go away by next week, then I'll have to see the doctor after all. In the meanwhile, any advice or suggestions?
Yours &c.
Post-script: In my in-between moments, I've been thinking of what sort of fake series to make for this month's Falsificatio challenge. Initial idea was to go with the series of mysteries at Basil House (because then I can make a page enumerating Lord Basil's endless collections) but then I realized I'd need to come up with a cast of characters, and the entire appeal of this premise is to make up stories about the House rather than any incidental people that may be associated with it. So then I thought, why not a fake K-drama? After all, that's what I've been watching for the past month. It occurred to me that while there have been horror series and comic series and action series and of course romantic series, there hasn't been a single science-fiction drama. Space opera wouldn't really fit the narrow scope of K-drama conventions, but why not cyberpunk? Mwahahaha.
Another possibility, the vaguely wuxia original fic premise about the Hwarang that everyone voted for but that I chose not to write on account of laziness. Hm...
For once, I've finished my homework for tomorrow before midnight. Of course, considering I have more than the usual amount this weekend not to mention the need to catch up on all the missed lectures, this small headway means nothing in the grand scheme of things. (I overslept through my classes again today. The fourth time this semester. It's too early in the semester to be burnout, so I don't know what's going on other than my erratic sleep schedule, which has never been the same since Gasshuku. I've decided to spend this weekend catching up, never mind getting ahead, which is an elusive dream that belongs back in the days of high school.)
My Korean class this semester has two non-Korean students, both of whom possess much more sophisticated vocabularies than the rest of us. One of them spent the past two years living in Korea and has a nearly flawless accent (at least, it's no more noticeable than your average second-generation who doesn't speak Korean often), to the point where someone remarked that it was like watching a dubbed film: you see the mouth move, but you can't quite believe that it's actually producing the sounds you hear. A testament indeed to the efficacy of immersion, not to mention the fact that some people really are born with a talent for languages. This particular person in question speaks confidently and fluently, and moreover, sounds more adult than I do because his language is that much more articulate. He also has this odd habit of laughing frequently during class--the laugh sounds to me a mixture of surprise and amusement--and it always disconcerts me because I don't know why he finds it funny. It's made more disconcerting by the fact that he doesn't laugh when the teacher does actually crack a joke. The other non-Korean student is also an interesting case because he's a Russian grad student majoring in East Asian studies who has apparently even studied in North Korea for a while. His accent is more pronounced but the real difficulty in understanding him comes from the fact that he tends to use academic language and sounds as if he's in a debate forum rather than an informal class discussion.
After a few weeks of observing them speak and write, I'm consumed by curiosity: how do they process Korean? Because they clearly use this language in an entirely different way than I do. The expressions they use and the sentence styles they prefer are radically different, and somehow I don't think it's just a stylistic matter. I know that I often unconsciously translate from English while I'm speaking Korean, so that I would use an expression that makes more sense or is more frequently used in English. But I don't think that's the case here. The one and only common point I've noticed in our use of language is that in writing the sentence structure tends to be very wordy and sometimes awkwardly complex, although the actual sentence style is again very, very different. (I've noticed that Koreans from Korea tend to keep their sentences and phrases short. Even newspapers tend to be clipped in tone rather than elaborate. Korean grammar is much looser in its restrictions on run-ons and fragments, but fragments are actually more common than run-ons.)
An opinion piece in the Crimson has "conscious" where the author intended "conscience", one of many common typos that drive me up the wall.
For the past couple of weeks, I've been suffering from shin splints in practice. Lately, I've been feeling the pain even when I walk, and yesterday during practice, I had a particularly bad attack that just wouldn't go away. So I've been reading up on treatment and prevention, and thus far the Internet has informed me to: (1) reduce training and rest, (2) stretch calves and ankles thoroughly in all planes of motion, (3) ice and elevate, (4) keep warm and massage, (5) increase calcium intake, (6) wear insoles. Well, (1) is not an option, (3) and (4) sound a little excessive, and as for (5), I've been drinking milk like medicine with all my meals. I've decided to switch to my other pair of sneakers which have more ankle support and start doing those stretches regularly in my room. If the pain doesn't go away by next week, then I'll have to see the doctor after all. In the meanwhile, any advice or suggestions?
Yours &c.
Post-script: In my in-between moments, I've been thinking of what sort of fake series to make for this month's Falsificatio challenge. Initial idea was to go with the series of mysteries at Basil House (because then I can make a page enumerating Lord Basil's endless collections) but then I realized I'd need to come up with a cast of characters, and the entire appeal of this premise is to make up stories about the House rather than any incidental people that may be associated with it. So then I thought, why not a fake K-drama? After all, that's what I've been watching for the past month. It occurred to me that while there have been horror series and comic series and action series and of course romantic series, there hasn't been a single science-fiction drama. Space opera wouldn't really fit the narrow scope of K-drama conventions, but why not cyberpunk? Mwahahaha.
Another possibility, the vaguely wuxia original fic premise about the Hwarang that everyone voted for but that I chose not to write on account of laziness. Hm...
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-10 06:21 am (UTC)And I'd love to see a K-drama sci-fi series. That would rock. XD (I remember that poll! The Hwarang! ^_^)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-10 04:38 pm (UTC)I can't quite manage to think in French, so I have no idea what it's like to think in a language that I didn't learn as a child...::sighs::
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-10 06:28 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-10 04:43 pm (UTC)Although I think you might want to set your story in Unified Silla then because Silla during the Three Kingdoms period was considered to be more culturally backwards than Baekje or Goguryeo--its court would be much more militaristic than decadent in culture.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-10 06:44 pm (UTC)after three fetchquests, a boss fight and a cryptic battle you weren't allowed to win with the stupid villianand I think it might end up being around 1200 or so, the setting, I mean. I have to actually have time to sit down and read it while I'm AWAKE and have paper handy, though; it's a very good book but rather dry in parts.Hyun-woo, incidentally, could have probably gotten into the Hwarang by BIRTH, it's just you know, stuff happened and it sucked and now he's not. Also, Sung-min thinks they are a bunch of pansies.
Out of mild and probably vulgar curiosity, HAS there been anybody who's gone "...dude I could totally use that" for a man-wha? It seems like it would be an um obvious choice for a BL series.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-10 08:28 am (UTC)Re: falsificatio.
Just as long as you have no one dying of being hit by a truck.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-10 04:44 pm (UTC)I'll have a spaceship hit them instead.(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-10 06:56 pm (UTC)ROCKS FELL THEY ALL DIED IT WAS SAD. CONGRADULATIONS THIS STORY IS HAPPY ENDjoin the meg school of plotting, precious! jooooiiin itttt
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-10 11:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-11 12:56 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-11 04:21 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-13 02:30 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-13 07:19 pm (UTC)re: language-- yeah, it'd always sort of annoy me when the non-native spanish speakers would use these bigass words in class. because like, i already speak the language, and thus feel no need to work on my vocab. and i dont have this like, deep love for spanish that some people seem to have. i feel like you can't, really, if you've grown up speaking a language...you can't be obsessed with it. as a result, my vocab is def still a bit kiddie, with the advantage of cognates, which help tremendously. but i hear ya, i speak kind of like a retard with a geographically unplottable accent. woooo cultural displacement!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-14 03:58 am (UTC)I don't get annoyed by the nonnative speakers, but it really boggles my mind to realize that they have such a different grasp of the language than I do. I think part of the astonishment comes from the fact that there aren't many nonnative speakers of Korean to begin with, and I've certainly never met any that sound so sophisticated. Although I do wonder how they would speak in casual conversation. O_O;;
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-14 02:13 am (UTC)Good luck with everything!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-14 04:00 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-19 01:56 am (UTC)afterthoughts
Date: 2006-03-19 02:04 am (UTC)Last year, there was a white boy in elementary Korean, and hearing him speak was quite odd. The grammar was textbook perfect, but he just sounded odd. It was the first time I'd encountered a non-Korean person speaking Korean and something about it seemed off. I think the oddness came from the slow pace and the fact that he was textbook perfect - his Korean wasn't fast or loose grammatically.