mgedwards – Page 332

Striking a Balance

Finding a balance in life is hard. It seems we never have enough time anymore and always have too many things to do. When someone calls and asks how I’m doing, my standard reply is usually, “Very busy!” We’re always so busy, busy, busy. Where does the time go? Why do I have so much to do? I suppose that the transition period before moving to Korea exaggerates the amount of work we have to do–moving from an old life to a new life while trying to live day to day. I keep hoping though that life will be different once we arrive in Seoul and settle in, but who knows. I may just be someone who thrives on multi-tasking. I can’t live without that trusty personal digital assistant (PDA) to help manage my schedule. If something doesn’t get done today, I can always move the deadline out to tomorrow or later.

Sometimes I get nostalgic thinking about the way life used to be. Life used to be simpler, no doubt about it. I read somewhere that Americans today work about 80 more hours per year now than they did in the early 1970’s. In fact, according to the International Labour Organization, Americans work more hours than workers in any other industrialized nation. It leaves us with a lot less time to do other things outside of work. Another factor is choice. We now have so many choices to make, far more than we ever had. It makes life utterly more complicated. Take the media, for example. In the 1970’s our media choices included ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, and the local newspaper. With the advent of cable and the Internet, however, our choices have multiplied infinitely. Life has become too cluttered.

Do I advocate going back to a simpler time? No, but I want to simplify my life and strike a better balance. I want to spend more time with my family and less with a language learning book, more time developing spiritually and less time micro-managing the day to day, and spend more time doing activities and less time in front of a computer. Can I do it? Time will tell.

Royalty-free image courtesy of Storyblocks.

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This Darn Korean Language

Today is a beautiful day, and my family is out and about shopping for Christmas, but I am here studying Korean. (OK, well I took some time out to write on my blog.) I stayed here by choice. Our second Korean language progress test is next Tuesday, and I need all the preparation I can get. My wife is taking the same course, but she doesn’t need to study as much as I do. She is a natural when it comes to learning languages. She is also a native Chinese speaker, and it definitely helps her when Korean uses so much Chinese vocabulary. About 60% of Korean words are derived from Chinese. What sets Korean apart from Chinese is the grammar and structure. Chinese is a Subject-Verb-Object language, whereas Korean is Subject-Object-Verb (as is Japanese). Korean, like Japanese, also uses numerous levels of speech politeness, whereas Chinese uses far fewer levels. In this respect, Chinese is much closer to English. In Korean the grammar patterns used when speaking to an elderly person is far different (and longer) than patterns used with children (short and blunt).

Unlike my wife, I am struggling in Korean. Much of it is plain old rote memorization. Word association (using English to easily remember a word) only goes so far, and after awhile all the words start looking and sounding alike. Fortunately, the Korean language system is alphabetic, so it’s much easier to write than either Chinese or Japanese. Nevertheless, Korean pronunciation may among the most difficult for native English speakers. The U.S. government classifies languages by level of learning difficulty vis-a-vis English, and Korean is one of the four most difficult languages for English speakers to learn (as well as Arabic, Chinese, and Korean). It requires you to contort your voice in ways you may have never done before. That, and the pronunciation of a word changes depending on what word follows it. For example, water is pronounced “mul” by itself (물). If it is a subject it is pronounced “muri” (물이), and if it is an object it is pronounced “murir” (물을). Speaking Korean is a verbal gymnastics exercise for a native English speaker. I have even more respect now for those who master Korean and Japanese. I often whine about learning Korean, but I know I’ll make it through. I just want to be able to communicate adequately once we’re in Korea. I don’t need to be a Korean scholar.

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Our New Blog

Today I signed up to join MSN’s new beta blogging site. It looks like a pretty cool tool so far. Free is good. It’s yet another way for Microsoft to compete by extending products (e.g. MSN/Windows) with cool new features. Considering that the word “blog” was just nominated as the word of the year, it’s probably good that Microsoft is riding this wave. I’ve been putting my journal online, but it’s a static one. Over Christmas, I’ll migrate over this blog so I can easily add entries.

Enjoy, Dear Reader!

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