Most days, I am bored in Korean class, which is sad but true. I already know some of the grammar, so that’s part of it, but the class just bores me to tears. The class syllabus is very synthetic, meaning that we learn grammar points independently and are then expected to synthesize them ourselves for communicative purposes. Ugh, it’s so, so painful, but there isn’t much I can do. It’s too late to move to another level, and it’s not as if my Korean is really that good. I’m just bored with the format.

So it was exciting to go on a cooking field trip on Thursday where we made bulgogi and japchae in an instructional kitchen classroom. We also learned what a trashcan is:

I loved our teacher’s haircut. Should I cut my hair while I’m here? Thoughts?

It became immediately clear who had experience in the kitchen and who didn’t. I held my breath a few times, preparing to spring into action if a classmate chopped off her finger or spilled boiling water all over himself.

Pouring soy sauce is a job for four people:

Alright, Tarita, let’s sautée the shit out of these vegetables:

I kind of love the frumpy Korean-style aprons. I might have to get one.

Here are the fruits of our labor. I did not eat the bulgogi, but I heard it was tasty:

Here’s my whole class. Mercifully, my classmates are pretty cool, so if I have to suffer, at least I’m not alone. Sorry for the awkward cleavage shot.

Today, I did a fair bit of cooking as well in preparation for homestay dad’s mother’s (homestay grandmother’s) birthday. The apartment went into psycho mode, which was a little bit stressful to be a part of.

Homestay mom made a ton of food: bulgogi, pork, fried shrimp and vegetables, rice, noodles, salads, kimchi (many kinds), sponge cake, stir-fried sardines, etc.

Homestay mom asked me a few weeks ago to make the same yellow cake with chocolate frosting for the party. It was received with moderate success, though many people chose to leave some on their plates in favor of watermelon. (This is always going to shock me.)

As you can see, the dog was very helpful.

In case you have questions about the dog, imagine that we are having a face-to-face conversation about it. This is how I would look; hopefully, you know me well enough to read through the lines.

Tomorrow, I have to buckle down and learn a lot of vocabulary and review grammar points that I have forgotten because our midterm is this week. (Can I make it another six weeks? I might perish of ennui!)

No, that’s not true. In my free time, I’ve been dreaming up ambitious projects, planning my life for the fall semester, trying to sing songs from Wicked without knowing the words, and devouring books on my Kindle. Free crappy romance novel? Sure, I’ll bite.