Yesterday I attended the first meeting for the Basic Korean Language Class that I signed up for weeks ago. It’s offered by the Korean Cultural Center here in the Philippines for free, and you only have to pay PHP 500 for the materials.
Actually, I’ve already taken up Basic Korean twice — first was in 2009, when Ateneo started offering classes for it every Saturday. The thing with that is I wasn’t able to finish the course because I ended up having several events to attend and was absent majority of the meetings. The second time was during my last semester of college. Ateneo finally included it as one of the Foreign Languages offered, and so I took the class, which I realized was a wrong move on my part. I already had full units for the semester, and because I wanted to take the Korean class, I had to overload. Add my Senior’s thesis plus several other core subjects, which kept me so occupied I did not have enough time to focus on learning the language.
Imagine my glee when KCC announced that they were offering Korean classes! There were different schedules like MWF and Saturday classes. Basic Korean was only offered on Saturdays, 9AM-12NN. Apparently it was such a big hit that all the slots were filled out in less than a day. Haha. (I did encounter a bit of a problem with the payment though, because I keep forgetting to go to BDO / did not have time for it, good thing Meg unnie helped me out^^ Thank you unnie!)
So for our first day yesterday, I was lucky I got there on time. It was raining really hard too! When I got to KCC, one of my friends from Ateneo, Joyce, was there as well. We were asked to proceed to the classroom and take our seats. I saved a table for Meg and Gab unnie who were running a bit late.
After a while our other classmates started arriving, as well as my unnies and class started as soon as the staff and our teacher were finished setting up the projector. Our 선상님’s name is Vicky and huuu she is soooo nice and adorbs. (LOL Joyce would know how much I was squeeing, because she seriously is so cute!)
She checked attendance and distributed the book we’ll be using. The book is Ganada Korean for Foreigners: Elementary 1. It also comes with free CDs that go with the lessons. I’m looking forward to begin studying! Also, the book costs 20,000won, which is about 800 pesos, and waah remember we only had to pay 500 pesos for it *_*
After that we started with self-introductions in Korean, and then the lessons. We covered the basics like the consonants, vowels and numbers. We played group games too. The class was casual and had a nice atmosphere. (And aaah our teach is adorable!!!) LOL
Next week we’ll be using the KCC’s very own noraebang! ^^ Really looking forward to that~ I hope this time I really, really do get to finish the whole course and be able to speak Korean properly. Haha.
After class I ate lunch with Meg and Gab unni at Reyes Barbeque~ It’s so nice that there are tons of restaurants and cafes in that area to try out! We still have several Saturdays ahead of us and well you tend to get hungry after 3 hours of class. Gab unnie had to leave after lunch, so we waited with her til the bus came~ We met up with Chi and GD, two of our staff members from BBPH to check out some stuff, and then later on had a quick meeting at Starbucks. Meg unnie also had to leave early, because she was scheduled to watch Transformers with her family. I stayed for a while more, AND THENNNN it began to rain really hard. So I stayed with the girls for a bit, and when the raining sort of died down a bit, I decided it was time to go home.
I had to walk from Shell to Serendra, because it was so hard to get a cab *_* Good thing I had my Cassiopeia Philippines Umbrella with me! (GO GET ONE! I designed that umbrella lol) And I was also lucky that there were a lot of cabs at Serendra, and I got to go home before it got dark.
I’m seriously crossing my fingers for a better weather in the coming months! It’s such a drag having to commute when it’s raining so hard~
Yesterday was fun yet tiringg (I still got to eat dinner and watch the UAAP opening before I passed out)! Will write about next week’s class, too : )
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