North South East and West Foreign Land is Right and Left

"Sloane dear, come to daddy." Honestly the first thing that entered my mind after taking this picture. People are asking if classes here are going well, so to all wondering, everything is fine. Taking a bit of getting used to the student life again, but it's been really fun for the most part and only slightly tedious at times.
The student here are a bit more diverse here than back home. My class is pretty evenly distributed between Japanese, Chinese, American, and Other. "I used to summer in Other but lately I haven't afforded myself the time."
Sometimes the only language we can efficiently (I use the word loosely) converse in is Korean. Which is excellent practice I desperately need. The teachers make you speak more than I was used to which at first made the lazy side of me a bit uneasy. But over the past few weeks I have become a lot more comfortable speaking in and to groups of people in a language I wield like a kid with his dad's gun.
Topics do not get very diverse unfortunately and if they do we all scramble for our electronic dictionaries. Most of time you can't speak as directly as you would like so you talk around the problem. For instance, instead of saying I am frustrated because I'm at a loss for words. I would say something like "Not being able to say what I want makes me feel bad." And while this is true I feel like a 6 year old when I say things like this.
I guess working in an unfamiliar environment or language makes you examine your behavior more closely. Similar to my first thought about how bizarre Korean advertising is or how pointless some of the news stories seemed. But then upon examining similar things I see on a daily basis in English I realized its about even.
The key is communication, if you get your point across nothing else really matters. The rest is just polishing up your words to make yourself sound smarter or more eloquent. (eloquence is directly related to your use of the word eloquence BTW) Unfortunately I am NOT yet at the point where I can get my point across.
Long pauses trying to think of a word you learned long ago, spitting out syllables in hope of somebody finishing the word for you, and wild hand gestures are common occurrences. Which makes class fun and that seems to be important in language study. I find I will remember words and sentences said long ago just because they were part of an interesting story or insane joke. Sometimes even just the manner in which it was spoken was enough to stick it to that tiny part of my brain that retains Korean.

Hopefully the time I have remaining here will be enough to remind me of most of what I have forgotten and teach me a few new things as well. It is far more fun than I had anticipated and therefore is going by so much faster than I would like. Makes me wish I was here for the full course.
The class had a get together after class today for lunch, coffee, and a mad scramble for class member's phone numbers and emails. Which should make for more such events in the future. The conversation flowed more freely than it normally does in class, and even students who had a language in common outside Korean stuck to Korean so that everyone present could stay with the conversation. They say that alcohol encourages conversation, but I think caffeine works equally well.
I am actually looking forward to class tomorrow. This will come as a shock to anyone who remembers my High School career. This might have something to do with my reacquainting with coffee addiction and the existence of a rather cheap and convenient vending machine down the hall from my class. "Delicious 15 cent instant coffee."
As for my out of class activities, photography has taken a rather serious hit until recently due to the 'colder I once thought possible' weather and the rather unpleasant air quality on still and cold winter days. Nothing is quite as boring as gray streets and building combined with overcast conditions and a healthy(unhealthy?) dose of air pollution. It would be great if I was making a film about the 'post-apocalyptic-world-of-tomorrow' but I am not... YET.

"Keep reachin' for that rainbow champ."