Classes and so...

Some long long time ago I wrote about how special my group is. And about what classes we have. Well, that was the beginning of semester, and I pretty much didn't know what we will study there.

And guess what? Now, after semester is over, I pretty much know what we studied. Not weird, ha?

Yea.

     Special/Regular    전공한국어 - Major Korean          
     Special/Regular    중급한국어 - Intermediate Korean          
     Regular    6-sigma(II)          
     Regular    PLC제어실습 - PLC Control Practice          
     Regular    도면해독 및 3D CAD - Drawing Info. And 3D CAD          
     Special    인문학강좌 - Liberal Arts          
     Special    창의공학설계기초 - Creative Engineering Drawing Basic          
     Special    기계부품설계 - Machine Parts Design          
     Special    기계공학기초 - Machine Engineering Basic          
     Special    프로젝트프레젠테이션 - Project Presentation        

So bold ones were my classes during last semester. As you know from my previous posts, what is written on paper, in Korea doesn't mean that it's really what's gonna happen, so you might wonder what we really did on those classes.

So Korean was Korean Korean. 

A lot of words to learn, not much speaking. Why would I need it anyway.

Damn. They are totally right: I don't need to speak. Since I've arrived in Korea, I didn't use Korean language. (And phrases like "Hello", "How much?","Thanks", "1,2,3..." etc. I do not count as language use. We can all agree that that is knowledge that can one learn without having more than 5 hours of language every week; without actually understanding the language.) So I guess they system works fine. I go to school a lot, I don't speak, and everybody is happy. The only thing they didn't think through (at least it's like that at my school) is that they teach the English the same way: they know hundreds of words, but if you ask them any basic question (like what you did today, tell me short story about whatever, what is weather today) they wont be able to say more than OK, yes, good. You can consider yourself happy, if they understood you. Anyway...

If my memory works like it should, we had 8 hours of Korean every week. Plus twice a week 3 hours at evening. So 14 hours altogether. Sweet.

Liberal Arts 

Thinking, thinking...

 Ah yeah, that was one hour a week, we called it Humanities and it was time when teacher asked us "How are you?". At the end of semester we prepared small presentation about "Human and car" and that's it. Wasted time.

Next classes next time ;] Go grab some beer!

New semester coming

As I mentioned before, Koreans got ~2 months of holidays after semester ends in December.

And damn, guess what, the March is coming and with it the end of holidays! Man, I will miss those times, when I needed to spend only about 4-6 hours a day at school. That's the holidays I like!

Yeah, kidding, BUT I hope I am not gonna spend that much more time at school during semester. And there is a hope!

As this program is relatively new, they are trying something different this time. The college picked 5 "best" students and will create mixed class of foreigners and Koreans.

So why "best"? Hard to say what was their criteria, as they picked me. I mean they did not picked the students with best results, so I guess I was picked because I am boy? We are suppose to study mechanical engineering, so that would make sense, ha? Student with best results was girl. Anyway, it doesn't ends here, we still got 3 girls and 2 boys. Weird.

We are to be moved to another campus.

So what's the deal? 

It's somewhere out of city, in the forest, no public transport (only school ones). We will get dorm for free, same with tuition (don't know if free or discounted). But we need to pay for breakfast and dinner, even we wont eat it. Yes, weird. And guess what, it's Korean food. I am dammed. Let's hope something will change (about food). Freaking toast bread and salami would do my breakfast - or at least better than paying for something I proly wont use. We are probably also getting change to take laptop for deposit. We will live with one Korean classmate. We should have shower in room. No kitchen. Boy and girl floors separated. 


And classes?


    Special/Regular    전공한국어 - Major Korean          
    Special/Regular    중급한국어 - Intermediate Korean          
    Regular    6-sigma(II)          
    Regular    PLC제어실습 - PLC Control Practice          
    Regular    도면해독 및 3D CAD - Drawing Info. And 3D CAD          
    Special    인문학강좌 - Liberal Arts          
    Special    창의공학설계기초 - Creative Engineering Drawing Basic          
    Special    기계부품설계 - Machine Parts Design          
    Special    기계공학기초 - Machine Engineering Basic          
    Special    프로젝트프레젠테이션 - Project Presentation          


    Special/Regular    고급한국어 - Advanced Korean          
    Special/Regular    한국기업문화 - Korean Enterprise Culture          
    Regular    3D CAD 실무 - 3D CAD Practice          
    Regular    생산관리 - Production Management          
    Regular    프로젝트 실무 - Project Practice          
    Special    응용역학실무 - Applied Mechanics          
    Special    창의공학설계실무 - Creative Engineering Drawing          
    Special    시스템설계 - System Design          
    Special    기계제작실무 - Machine Production Practice          
    Special    전기전자실무 - Electric & Electronic Practice     

Yea. I am "special". 

What was funny about all of this was how they did the process of deciding and letting us know. Korean way, at least our experience, is that they always let you know kinda like "as late as possible". They told us who is gonna be in better group saying "Send me questions, and let me know your decision tomorrow morning." It was 5PM.

Yea, let's finished this with one more info, if anyone still reading: NO E-ZONE for me.

Damn, I am wrong, we will have, but only once a week.

If by any chance someone still reading, time for you to get drunk!

Winter Holidays II.

So do you know how to find out you're on holidays mode?
You spend only up to six hours at school. 


Anyway, last time I wrote about trip to some city, name I can't remember. Thing is, we also visited Seoul, the capital of South Korea. By cheapest train about 20 bucks, and about 4 hours (not sure about this one).

Seoul is pretty much like any other city, I did not find anything spectacular to blow my mind. I enjoyed walking around small street and tiny houses, watching people (girl crying next to her (ex)boyfriend was funny), but nothing special indeed.

street art?

     yea, they're watching






But back to school, we kinda have winter holidays, so school took us to trip last week. Don't ask me where, I ain't got idea. Just know somewhere around Busan, or however it is spelled in latin.

We needed to supply diary for Gov (the trip is sponsored from Gov money), so let me just copy that for y'all:

Last week I have joined trip organized by our college to Busan and around Busan.

The trip started 14th January 2013 in the morning when we took bus from College.

After about 2 hours we arrived to Busan. In there we took walk around coast and visited some

Famous beaches in Busan. We also traveled around Cities and places.

Very interesting was first day lunch, which we took in restaurant where you have to pay if you do not

Everything that you took on your plate. It is really great idea how to make people take only as much

As they can really eat. There is no trash, or at least minimum and people can really think about their

Eating habits.

Other places that we visited and I enjoyed were UN Cemetery and Island with kinda botanical garden.

We traveled by ship and for many of us it was first-time experience. Island was incredibly beautiful, even

It's still winter.

We also visited Museum, where we could learn more about local history from early ages.

I hope I will be able to visit those places in summer again, and not only once.

Sounds like fun? (Yea, damn my creative writing and bad-ass English!)

I enjoyed visit to island, really nice place and McDonald's (they took us there for the first time, when talking about all school trips). I would never go to McDonald's in Slovakia, but here, damn it's like food from my mum.

I guess you wanna pics..

Yea, looks kinda boring on pics, but trust me, whatever Island it was, it's good place to visit.

So get drunk whatever you do, you might find some island on your way home!

So the first semester is over.

Indeed. Today I finished last exam, from 5 I had: c++, accounting, Korean language (2 exams) and AutoCAD.

A lot of people asked me what-the-fuck am I doing here, so let's talk about this. And by this I mean my typical week during the first semester.

First the shit ones do everyday: 
- wake up: 7-8 in the morning - that's because you need to take shower and eat, right? I wont do a hack without shower.
- sleep: about midnight usually. At least for me the less I sleep, the better I sleep. If I go sleep like 11, I will wake up every hour. I would prefer to go sleep like 3 o'clock to have the sleep like one should have, but here, ain't a crap to do.

To school I can go by bus (8.30, 8.45) or walk like 15 minutes. From school I have to walk.

Monday

10-12 classes of Korean Culture. Teacher ain't speaking English. In the begging of semester every class she gave us tons of words to learn. Later she gave up,because we said to the right person how she explain us "Korean culture", so she started to play some documents about Korea. Guess what? In Korean language. Yes, time well spend. Last few weeks of semester she found out that there's such a thing as subtitles. Too late, but still - plus point.

12-1 and 1-6 E-ZONE - place where Korean students can come and talk to you in English - yes, they come, no, they mostly do not speak English.

7-9 another class of Korean language. Teacher speaks English, cool like pizza with beer, but.. but we are tired like hell - so the most of people don't care. Once again the way they do it is wrong.

Tuesday

9-11 c++ classes. Easy like ... too easy. They are primary schools where they teach kids to code. We go way slower than them. Total waste of time. Even for people that never had any coding classes, because what we learned in here is like one hour of payed programming course anywhere on this planet, maybe less.

11-1 AutoCAD.

2-6 E-ZONE.

Wednesday

9-12 Korean language with same teacher like Korean culture. No use for me, I don't understand her, so would be better for me to just stay home and try to study by myself. I need to do it anyway, so this class is just another 3 hours well wasted.

12-1 then 2-6 E-ZONE.

7-9 Korean class again.

Thursday

10-12 Accounting.

12-1 then 2-6 E-ZONE.

Friday

9-1 Korean class with 3th teacher, she is the same cool and speaking English. But having 4 hours of Korean language in a row is just another nonsense, from a lot nonsense I've seen in here.

2-6 E-ZONE.

Weekend

Bored (or tired) like hell. The most of weekends I can remember was a waste of time. Usually there's nothing interesting going on: you can go see something around or go see some concert (and I really mean see- sober, sitting, watching). Your best chance is to go get some beer, if you are not tired of seeing the same people.

Well, not positive post at all, but that's how I see it. 
Get drunk if you can ;]

In EDUCATION we trust!

And let me tell you that I do not mean my homeland - Slovak Republic, but the country where I actually am - South Korea.

It's not secret that people (and I mean young and kids) spend unhealthy time at school: from morning to evening. It's not anything unusual to see kids and youngsters go from school at 9-10-11 pm. Crazy, ha?

Well, this seems unhealthy to me, because in beautiful lands of Slovakia, I've been used to came back from school 11-12am-1-2pm depending whether it was primary or secondary (high) school.

And University? Well, you know, one does not simply have so much free time as while being at University. (Slovak ones)

Kids in here have normal school, I guess, and then do some random-whatever-after-school shit. Study or that kind of things, you proly know it. They parents are probably still at work, so need to be home-alone (judging by what I've seen while working for Korean company in Slovakia).

Not a single idea, what does those youngsters think about spending all time at school (even Saturdays in some cases!)...

But few ideas what older kids (18-30y) think about it - as I am in college (seems like something between University and secondary school, kinda more practically oriented, taking like 2 years of ones life).

They like it. They believe education is the most important for them. They wanna study and be successful. Once we asked one student: "What do you thing is the best thing you got from your parents?". And answer? "Study hard!".

I really can't understand that kind of thinking (one should not just accept whatever society puts into ones head, but do critical overview of general ideas and then decide whether wanna follow mass-population principles. I say it because they seems to me they ain't got idea why they say so), but I see sense in there: teach your kids to have no free time, and they wont know what to do in case they have some, so they will do whatever they been doing just a second ago, in this case some school stuff. You won't need to worry about good workers later, they will be used to the fact, they they never spend they time home, they parents don't spend time home, they don't need either, let's just work some more hours.

It's nicely closed circle. I see similar situation with elder people in Slovakia: they are used to always do something and they can't just do nothing (watch TV, read book, or some random philosophy-thinking-wasting-of-time). Kids will spend all time in school, when they grow up at work, when dead in cemetery. Eventually.

Good for economy, ha?

Will you try to abuse our Slovak shitty social welfare system, if you can't just stay home and do nothing? Nope, you will go and find job, make some business or do some volunteering.

Don't believe? Change the following charts to be able to see more years and believe.


Source: tradingeconomics.com

Source: tradingeconomics.com

They (Koreans) know what are they doing. And they do it well.

I am not gonna make analysis of how much are we (in Slovakia) investing into education and research and compare it to Korea, because everyone know how it would end up. The Korean education system is one of the best in the world.

But back to business: poor kids (and adults). From my point of view I can't imagine my kids having this way of studying. And in general, people in here are expected to be the best in everything. Sometimes they want them to be perfect too much, and some can't work it out. Korea leads the suicide rates worldwide.

Difficult topic, not so simple as I presented. but anyway, life is not that easy in Korea.

From my point of view, not for Koreans thought, they have never seen any other way of living (at least the most of them).

It's been a week

Been some time, but I actually spent one week at school already. And to get rid of common misunderstanding of myself as very bad student, I am gonna write this:

Nearly every day I spent at school from 9am - 6pm.

Ha! You see? Damn I am awesome student. I mean, for sure, going to school is not enough, so I also study at home. (Haven't had time to do it thought, but it's surely on my to-do list.)

So what I study? So far we had damned lot of Korean language. Would be good, but the thing is that the teacher doesn't speak English, so we can't ask her and she can't answer as well. But 4-hour class that we have on Friday, the teacher speaks understandable English (and she is funny as hell). As far as I remember we have about 15 hours of Korean in week. We shall see, from tomorrow their adding 4 more hours of Korean language (for every week, i mean).

Other classes? Accounting, C language, CAD. Maybe also something different, I don't know, reading schedule in language you don't understand is not that way funny. Anyway, I'd rather find those subjects easy, because we are going from begging as we are students from different fields in here.

Other thing we do is E-zone: we got kinda office where Korean students can come and talk English with us. I am there with Martina. It's fun, I would say, except moments when students don't talk in English. I'm not saying that they are stupid or sth like that, what I mean is rather it's really difficult. One needs to talk to them like to kids, and even that is not enough, because you can easy see when they do not understand you.

But we had also folks that speak understandable English, so not bad at all.

The weird thing, at least for me, is how they like our games. For example: we play game in which you take paper with some random English word and then have to explain it, so the others can guess it. Man, it's so much fun for them.

And some pics from trip we took somewhere today. Take bus 300 and you can get there also ;]

There was panorama of whole Daegu, but fuck, for some reason I ain't got single pic. And I tell you, it's freaking big city.

Or not.