Productive Mode

Man I've been productive the past few days.

Emergency freezer defrosting in an hour.
Packing my lunches and dinners.
More than a few loads of laundry (augmented by item number 1).
Boiling peanuts and experimenting with plum cobbler (as I'm trying to clear out fridge...).
Resumes.
Dry cleaner.
Blogging.
Actually answering my Kakao talk.
Finishing reading a book (Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In, if you were curious).
All the while going to the gym like the loyal exercising trainee I should be.

I'm sure I'm missing something here.

The weeks sure are flying by, which is a blessing and a curse. I'm getting a lot of things done, but it also feels like some of the looming things like securing my next job are at a standstill. Arguably, they're not, but it feels that way.

My first grand resume push was last week, and I actually got a few responses. Follow ups after the first few responses have been weaker, but I at least find it encouraging that I'm getting more attention this time around than when I had first tried job seeking after graduation. I must have been doing my resume all wrong then! Or something.

But the bottom line is things are moving, and I got my feet put to the fire in one of the first responses I had. One company had called back the next day and spoke with me about taking a written test as soon as possible. The woman spoke to me in Korean the whole time (note that I intentionally sent resumes and cover letters in English, unlike when I sent bilingual documents after graduation). Gladly I would take this written test, I said.

I was expecting a copywriting test, like when I had done interviews before. Alas, the next morning, bright and early, I received the file by email, opened it, and saw that it was in fact a translation test. Two articles, one English, one Korean. Directions: You have an hour. Translate.

No time to waste on panic, I just started. It took me a solid hour to translate to English. Forget putting it into Korean. Times up. I obediently sent in my work after an hour. Two minutes later the phone rings.

"You didn't get to the Korean? Not at all?"

Sheepishly, I reply, "No..."

"Okay, I'll give you more time. Work on that and send it in as soon as you can."

It was a relief and a bombshell at the same time. I wasn't automatically disqualified, but I had a mountain in front of me. And... work to go to in 2 hours. I toiled and toiled and managed to send it off and I ran to work.

I wish I could tell you how it turned out, but I myself am waiting by the phone. That's a figure of speech these days, I couldn't live without my cell phone within an eyeshot even when I'm not expecting news.

Part of me wants to show my test to my friends to see how horrible my Korean is. But at the same time, I don't want to because I don't want to actually know how horrible my Korean is. I'm going to have to get over that and just force myself to practice knowing that I'm making mistakes, but to keep being corrected. It's a new stage--when you first learn a language, you're afraid of people fixing your pronunciation, then your grammar in speech. I've gotten over that, but now I have to humble myself again and accept criticism of my writing.

My Korean writing is only for my own personal use talking to friends on messengers or leaving short notes for people. I speak decently enough, but writing is completely different animal. Having skipped out on learning Korean in an educational setting, I have no confidence in my writing skills at all (don't tell my employers that). I do, however, have confidence that I can get better.

Just gotta establish a no-exceptions study hour to my day and dive back in. Wish me luck!

By the way, here's my Instagram feed if you would like to follow my day-to-day life a little closer. I'm just so proud of my kimchi veggie wraps that I packed for lunch today. Yumyumyum.

Seoul Happening

This past week has been a relatively busy one. With a lot of things in the air, I've been doing a lot of goal setting and resume reviewing. Luckily, I was able to talk to some great Seoul veterans who could give me advice on getting off the ground.

Basically, they were able to show me that I was panicking for no reason. Panicking might not be the right term. Slow self implosion is more accurate. But anyhow, now that I have some goals in place, I have to put my feet to the fire and get some serious discipline in to my routine--if you could consider myself not disciplined before. I suppose this new plan will map my schedule down to the minute.

Because of all of the stress trying to get some solid plans and the sudden hurdles I've had at work, I have to admit it's taken a toll on my health. In the course of two months, I have been sick from one thing or another for a moderate total of 3 weeks. (Yes, I have been neglecting my gym and diet duties. Terrible.) Now that I'm not death warmed over, I can start to sift through what I need to do.

There are a few projects that I have coming up, and this serves as a preview.

Photo blog content will be uploaded, including a recap of the trip to Gwangju last weekend with Robert Koehler and the RASKB, a walking tour of Hyehwa and Daehakno with Dr. Rob Fouser of the RASKB, and recently discovered pictures from my trip to Chungju last August... never got to that. Oops.

I will start working on translating Korean articles to share. Translating is not something that I can say that I have really spent a lot of time on, so I'm taking a dive and starting now. Seems like it will be challenging, but also pretty fulfilling. Any and all advice/input/criticism/requests welcome. 

And a healthy restructuring of the blog is probably in due course...

Lots to do! Don't let me slack and hold me to this project with feedback. Many people mention the blog to me in private conversation, and I am always surprised to hear that I have so many readers. The empty comments section would imply a ghost town! Please drop a line here on the blog and keep a dialogue going.

... in the meantime, here's a picture of Lee Myung Bak's old kitchen. Explanation in the next post. Stay tuned!