Potential Plan For Upcoming Semester Break

What a frustrating day I had yesterday!

Okay, firstly it has got something to do with my application for the Korean language program in Seoul National University. My passport, certificate and academic transcripts were needed as part of the application so I had to go to school to scan them since I don’t have a scanner. The scanner in school was the huge multi-purpose photocopying machine in which you can photocopy, scan and print. I had such a hard time scanning the documents because once I scan them, they will be saved into my usb but then I can’t see if they were scanned properly. The only way is to get a computer and check the images. After scanning all my documents the first time, I went to check them on the computer and realised only 3/4 of each document were scanned properly. So I had to go back…. This happened a few times, so I made many trips back and forth- scanning and then finding a computer…. It was so frustrating!

I knew it was the problem of aligning the documents properly so the machine could scan the entire doc. But the first time I did it, it was properly aligned and it turned out only 3/4 of the docs were scanned. After so many attempts, I finally got them properly scanned. Frustrating!

Anyway, I manage to apply for the program yesterday. It was quite a hustle because I had to sign in, register, etc… AND I had to upload a photo of myself onto my profile page which I presume an official resume kind of photo was needed, but damn I didn’t have such a photo. Thus, in my desperation I went to Facebook and find a photo of myself, download it and crop it. Haha… Well, I have no choice!

For the Korean language program, if I manage to get accepted, I will be there for at least ten weeks because that is how long the program will take. That means I will be there for most of my holidays…!! I cannot even celebrate Chinese New Year at home… It took me some time to think about applying because of these aspects and more, but I really hope to fast track my learning progress for my own abilities and for the translation thesis I’m doing right now. There is also the matter of my speaking ability which has not seen much progress… Even though I may have a Korean boyfriend, his English is better than my Korean, so I end up speaking English to him when I can’t express myself in Korean. That’s something which will NOT help in my speaking abilities because I have to push myself in speaking Korean if I want to get better. I’m sure my speaking abilities and confidence will improve heaps when I study in Korea.

Skip spring and move on to summer instead!

Typical weather of Brisbane… From winter, skip spring and bring in summer instead. The temperature heated up to 33dc yesterday, bringing in serious bushfires around Queensland causing the entire city to be engulfed in haze today. Well, I’m not sure about the city but suburban areas and UQ were definitely affected.

Surprisingly, I was not really use to wearing summer clothes again today. Especially exposing my legs without stockings and jeans… maybe after all the time my legs were hidden under the long pants and stockings, it was weird looking at them bare. haha. >.< But it felt good to be wearing summer clothes, lighter and less clothes, more comfy!

Although the sun can be blazingly hot, unlike the humidity in SG, Aus weather is much drier so I don’t feel as sticky. The good sides of Aussie weather~ minus the blazing hot sun. ;)

I just hope the weather won’t go overboard before I head back to SG. On that, the future is quite bleak….

Already half-way through the semester.

 

As the title says, September is here, I’m halfway through the first semester of honours. A very very overwhelming first half and I doubt that will change for the rest of the semester! Although overwhelming, I find myself absorbed into a quicker pace for learning Korean, because I have to do translations which are, sad to say, most of the time beyond my abilities. It is saddening and stressful at times, but I get to learn a lot of things along the way, practicing and hopefully, advancing my Korean abilities. I try not to let stress get in my way and positively take up the challenges as this is the only way to improve!

One of the greatest challenges I’m facing right now is having to translate a Korean novel for my translation thesis (for my honours, lazy to elaborate right now).  

Yes, I have this novel! It’s called <우리들의 행복한 시간> AKA “Our Happy Times".

A gave it to me last year when he was still in Brisbane! :D I tried to read it last year but it was soooo difficult that I gave up after a couple of pages. Haha. Now I have to face it because it’s going to be part of my translation thesis wherein I have to translate about 15,000words of it. I chose this on my own accord, of course. It has also been adapted into a movie, which some of you may be familiar with:

Kang Dong Won!! Hehehe.

I haven’t get down to watching it yet but I will do it very soon. A told me that the contents in the movie should be almost the same as the book’s.

The thing about translation is I have to be good in Korean and even better in English. I may be translating something but I am also writing it in English, and it has to be at a novelist level since it is going to be treated as an English novel. This is another aspect which I’m struggling with- WRITING IN ENGLISH! WRITING. WRITING A NOVEL. Sad to say, I’m not very good at writing and I think this is an area which I have to work on as well.

There are too many things to work on…… 

(MUST-READ) My translation of a news article in relations to A’s achievement!!!

KUT, two students awarded with the Director’s Award at the Campus Patent Strategy Universiade.
Ranked 6th among 89 Universities in the Pre-existing Techniques Investigation segment.
Students from the Korea University of Technology and Education (hereinafter referred to as KUT) were awarded with 2 Patent Director’s Award, 1 excellence award and 1 participation award in the Pre-existing Techniques Investigation segment at the 2011 Campus Patent Strategy Universiade Competition.
In this competition, KUT students Choi Sang-Jin (3^rd year in the school of Mechatronics Engineering) and Yoo Seung-Mok (4^th year in the school of Energy, Materials and Chemical Engineering) were awarded with the Patent Director’s Award, while Kim Dong-Ha (4^th year in the school of Mechanical Engineering) and Lee Byung-Cheol(3^rd year in the school of Mechatronics Engineering) were awarded with the excellence and participation award respectively.
The competition, divided into the segments of Pre-existing Techniques Investigation and Patent Strategy Groundwork, had large companies lay down questions in the areas of power/electronics, shipbuilding/mechanical/metal and chemistry/biotechnology. It comprised of patent strategies, in accordance to the questions set, proposed by undergraduates, post-graduates and their advisors.
In the Pre-existing Techniques Investigation segment, a total of 2393 students from 89 universities nationwide entered this year’s competition. They then submitted their answers to 29 questions, wherein 1153 students passed the writing evaluation. After which a total of 169 students passed the presentation round and advanced to the finals where students Choi Sang Jin, Yoo Seung Mok and Kim Dong Ha were awarded accordingly.
Although KUT, producing 4 winners in this competition, ranked 6^th place after Kyonggi University (12 winners), Chungnam National University(10 winners), Inha University(8 winners), Yonsei University(6 winners) and Kumoh National Institute of Technology(5 winners), the institute was praised for having 2 winners awarded with the Patent Director’s Award through the achievement of excellent results.
Park Keom Jin, the technology support team leader, said, “From last December, over a period of 10 weeks, there was progress for more than 40 student patent representatives that extended over patent concepts, law in relation to patents, methods of invention, ways of searching pre-existing patent information and lessons from visiting professionals. The students’ responses were extremely good.” (t/n: Not too sure about the translation for this paragraph. ^^’’ )
Yoo Seung Mok and Choi Sang Jin who received the Patent Director’s Awards revealed, “Since last summer vacation, we attended lectures about Patents during our spare time and familiarised ourselves with the basic concepts. Until the competition in May, we prepared for it diligently with the help of Patent lectures and visiting instructors.” They added, “In order to solve the problems, we always consider them through the stance of the companies, and that helped us a lot.”

Patent Director’s Award- Choi Sang Jin, Patent Director’s Award- Yoo Seung Mok, Excellence Award- Kim Dong Ha.
Original article from: 충청일보

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Bolded name, Yoo Seung Mok, is A's Korean name. ;)

OMG, it took me ages to translate this article. Actually I’ve been practising translation for the past few weeks on shorter articles and this was the longest I’ve ever did. Of course I HAD to translate this, it’s about A’s achievement in the recent Patent competition he participated in.

Last week I posted on my facebook status about his photo appearing on naver.com, it is because of this article! :) There were several other shorter news articles and I heard the article was published in the newspapers too! But since this was the first one listed on Naver with his photo included, I chose to translate this article! It’s just mediocre translation as there are certain parts which I’m not too sure of but I try to make the article sound coherent and logical.
Anyway, I am SO SO SO proud of him! ^^The award he won, the Patent Director’s Award, was the second prize after the Minister’s Award (1st prize). There was prize money and it is quite a lot! He said that his school even made some sort of a banner (with the photos above) that showed off their achievement.
This sure reflects how hardworking and diligent a student he is… ㅠ.ㅠ He’s my role model…

New semester, honours year… Tougher than I thought

It’s already the third week into the 1st semester of my honours year. There is definitely a level of intensity that is beyond the normal undergrad level. Because I’ve taken the challenge to do a translation thesis, it requires high proficiency of the Korean language. Right now, I’m trying to improve my proficiency level and at the same time practice doing translations which can be immensely challenging. But I welcome the challenge as it is always better than it not being a challenge. At least I will learn something out of it.

These days though, I feel a bit of a motivational-drain… I want to study, but I keep getting distracted by things and by the end of the day my to-do list will always be incomplete. That is very annoying and it kills my motivation even more. But oh well, I just have to keep fighting…!!

Sometimes I feel that I can be a little too ambitious too, wanting to be fluent in Korean in an instant and then getting frustrated when I realise my Korean isn’t as good as I want it to be. I want to really sit down and mug, just like a Korean high school student –studying 20 hours or so a day. LOL. Okay that’s too intense for me, I still need to cook, do laundry, clean, wash, drink bubble tea, etc… Hehe. But I’ve done quite a fair bit of studying when it’s only the third week. I just feel that I need to study even MORE. Yeap, I need to but knowing me, I get distracted so easily.

I realised that in the recent months, I’ve absolutely no inspiration or  (the word again) motivation to blog about anything…….. When I look at my blog, I’ll go “ok I’ll blog another time” and it’s the same all the time until now. One thing is I guess I can easily pour out my feelings through twitter, in an instant! Also, right now I feel that I need to put more effort into blogging well, language wise. Write well to improve my writing skills… that thought alone sort of kills my motivation by 80% already. LOL. And this blog post is like… almost close to effortless because I don’t want to care anymore…. I need to revive this blog!! ><;;

끝.

Winter Break is coming to an end

Winter break is coming to an end soon! I’m actually more happy than sad because it’s going to be a whole year of intensive Korean language!! I’ve been revising my Korean during the holidays, although not as much as I wanted due to the holiday mood I have. I still have so much to study but I’m only left with a weekend before the new semester starts! But I find myself actually quite disciplined in revising my Korean, it’s the passion I guess! hee~ ;p

Besides studying, I’ve been enriching myself with skills and knowledge! Utilizing the time I had, I started learning how to…

KNIT! :) The photo shows a practice patch I knitted out while learning how to knit two colours together. I haven’t knitted out anything useable so far as I’m still practicing. There are so many different kinds of pattern stitches to knit and each pattern requires a different method of knitting. But I’m taking it slow as I have a lot of time before December comes!

And today I FINALLY got down to making the Korean sushi, Kimbab! I’ve wanted to make kimbab for so long but was too lazy to find out which Korean mart has the ingredients I need as not all Korean marts have kimbab ingredients!

For a first attempt, it’s quite successful although I need more practice with rolling the kimbab! ;p

It’s been quite a purposeful holiday, travelling with sister and cousin, studying, reading, knitting, cooking, hanging out with friends and saying goodbye to some. Soon I’m going to embark on my honours year!! OMG excited.

Semester 1, 2011.

Results for sem 1, 2011 were released few days ago and as I expected, my results were not on par with the previous semesters’. Definitely no Dean’s list this semester!

Can’t say I’m not disappointed because I expected at least one 7 for either MSTU or POLS. But I also expected to see a 5 for COMU, good thing it’s not! My first grade 5 in my whole uni life received in the last semester (for my normal BA). What a pity I could not keep my results purely 6s and 7s. Argh, Buddhism. From the first moment I learn about this course, I knew I would not do so well if I were to take it. It’s religion, it’s philosophy. The stuff that makes my head go haywire. Alas! I proved myself right. I worked quite hard for Buddhism, did lots of reading which is required actually, if not you can’t write shit. But well, other courses were quite as time-consuming with looooots of readings to do. I guess for this semester, without a Korean course, I was kept busy on my toes just like a “more” normal uni student. Every week, tons of readings to do.

The thing is, although my grades are not as good as my previous semesters, I felt that I learnt the most for this semester. Perhaps it’s because of the readings, but I would also credit my Buddhism prof (oh the irony!). Throughout the semester, he stressed on the importance of reading and writing. Reading is essential for everyone because it is through reading that we gain knowledge (mostly), which of course is true. Besides learning from lecturers, profs in school, we gain most knowledge through reading (be it textbook or other academic books). Besides that, having taken the political science course has made me realised how little I know about Asia. I reckon that I should not only focus on Korea and expand my knowledge to other parts of Asia as well, especially SEA which shamefully I have the least interest in. >< Because of this course, I am cultivating the habit of updating myself with current affairs around the world (especially Asia, since I’m majoring in Asian Studies). There are actually so much more that I’ve learnt this semester but I’m just too lazy to type it all out… lol.

So, now I’m officially a Bachelor degree holder and moving on to another year of honours! I’m sooo excited for the new semester to start! Only two weeks of holidays left, I have to take this time to study and revise my Korean due to the lack of Korean practice last semester. ><