111 Biweekly Journal #1

[Seokjoon Han]

This semester, I am going to try to repeat what I did last semester as I seemed to be able to retain my Korean proficiency last semester. Things that I will be doing would be talking to my language partner in Korea, talking to my mother in Korean whenever we chat over the phone, listen to Korean songs, and watch Korean Dramas. I found out that Rachel Lim is my language partner and we had our first meeting this week. We discussed what I wanted to do and what my goals were this semester. I basically told her what I did last semester with my language partner, Somyung Kim. Last semester, we made a rule that during our weekly sessions we would try to only talk in Korean. We would also read Korean news articles, learn some Korean history and discuss/watch Korean entertainment together. So this semester, Rachel Lim and I will be doing more or less the same things. During our first session, we got to know each other by having conversations in Korean. We discussed where we both came from. I told her that I was originally born in Korea, but then immigrated to the U.S when I was around eight. I also told her that I live in Ohio. Rachel told me that she was born in the U.S in Texas but she moved to Maryland when she was younger. However, her family moved to Korea and she attended an international high school in Korea. We also shared why we both chose the University of Richmond as our undergraduate school. I told her that I primarily chose the University of Richmond because they offered a generous financial aid package. Funny enough, she also chose the University of Richmond due to financial aid reasons even though she was accepted into other good undergraduate colleges. We also talked about our schedules and what we are studying at the University of Richmond. I shared with her that I am currently conflicted in deciding what I want to major in. I told her that I am considering majoring in either Music or Computer Science. I told her that I am currently working on making an album with Professor Brohening for my MUS 307 class. I told her that my plan is to make an album and submit it to some record companies to see if I could get a record contract. I also told her that If this plan fails I will be majoring in computer science. Rachel told me that currently, she is thinking about majoring in accounting, but she is still not absolutely certain about it. We also decide on a Korean tv series together so we have topics to discuss during our sessions. We were talking about some of the dramas we have watched and I remembered that a friend of mine, Ephraim, recommended that I watch this thriller Korean tv series called Kingdom. Although Rachel said she is not too fond of horror films, we both agreed to watch Kingdom for our sessions. I am looking forward to bettering my Korean this semester.