Language Ambushes

I’m auditing the university's Korean 2 course this semester, along with my Australian friend Tracey (of Centipede Tapping and Horse Poo fame).  We generally hide behind the 10 students from Taiwan, the Philippines, China, Rwanda, Russian, Palestine and Holland.  It's a hard course. And I am not above admitting to an unseemly attitude toward the Chinese students who blithely ace the weekly quizzes despite their compulsive napping and texting during class. I am learning, but besides the teensy amount of Korean that manages to stick, I have also gained two strikingly unoriginal insights into the human condition.

First, brains are tricksy devils. I once owned an agreeable brain that kindly helped me learn without much required by my conscious bits. I thought we were fast friends, my brain and I, but now I realize that it did most of the work while I just reaped the good grades and winning scores in Boggle, Scrabble, and other pivotal life contests. Perhaps I did not thank the brain enough, for our relationship is no more. It's as though the band of happy brain elves has been decimated by petty secessions, leaving behind a huddled mass of downtroddens. What remains seems merely amused by my own floundering efforts to vacuum up new vocabulary or to distinguish between "mah-shee-dah" (tasty) and "maw-shee-dah" (handsome).  When I get called upon to recite aloud or answer questions, I fight the urge to plead for mercy. Yet at the very same time, I dread my young classmates' exchanged glances, the ones that say, "Isn't she cute, trying so hard to learn Korean at her age?"as though they are patting a frail old dog.

To add insult to the brain-rant, I cannot CANNOT follow my teacher's notes.  I believe she has, to put it as nicely as I can, poor board hygiene.  She uses just a small section of the board, writing over and under and through her earlier notes, sometimes adding underlines or new colors while rattling right along in Korean.  I would like to believe the resulting confusion is 95% her fault, but a tiny, irritating brain-elf voice suggests that I underrate my own mental sluggishness. Here is a picture--you be the judge:

The second unoriginal insight I have gained is this: English is a truly horrible language. (If one day I emerge from a coma not able to speak, please teach me Spanish. Or sign language. Or caveman grunting.)  English, that traitorous shark, likes to adopt any old made-up or foreign word that knocks on its door then bites the new learner with arbitrary usage and spelling rules.  (Brian Regan, one of my favorite comedians, makes much of this fact.) Even for highly-educated, native English speakers, clear communication is hard.  For example, a few weeks ago I was talking with an American friend/professor and got lost in a pretty simple conversation. “Wait," I interrupted, "you said students are stressed during Culture Week because they have a lot of booze??  Isn't this a dry campus?” No, no, he said, a little amused, “Not booze; I said boobs.”  What? WHAT??  In response to my puzzled astonishment, he barely refrained from stamping his foot: “Booths!  BOOTHS!”  Oh.  Of course. Culture week booths. Stupid English.