Annyong haseyo

Annyong haseyo! (How are you?)

Yesterday I signed up for night classes three times a week at the Seoul Korean Language Academy. It's been a challenge to find a Korean Language Institute. There is only one in Cheonan and it is affiliated with a university. The focus is on training high-school graduates so they can apply to the university. There are several institutes in Seoul but some are university courses, others are quite expensive and in a part of Seoul that is far away.


As it is, I will take a bus from UBE to Cheonan (about 35 minutes), another bus that takes just over an hour depending on traffic to Seoul, and two subways to the institute. Because I studied some Korean before, I have some knowledge of the language. The institute doesn't have a night class at my level, so I have to start at the next level and do lots of "self study". So, it seems that climbing the mountain (learning Korean) will not be easy. There are many obstacles to learning Korean!

Rather than focus on the obstacles, including my poor grasp of the language at this point, I'm going to create a goal for myself--in three years I will be able to speak in Korean and make a presentation to a group of people about Brain Education. Without some kind of goal or challenge, my brain would have no reason to awaken.

Then, I'm going to tell my brain why I want to learn Korean. All of my courses at UBE will be in Korean so I want to be able to learn more and to communicate better with my fellow students and professors. I also want to be able to communicate better with my colleagues in Brain Education to help in the work of disseminating it around the world. And finally, I'm going to keep sending positive messages and encouragement to my brain.

So, I better get busy...I can't expect to achieve my goal by thinking about it! I'm going to do some "self-study" now :).

Annyonghi keyshipseyo! (Good-bye, which literally means 'Stay in peace').