Tony CP #3 @ TP #2

Again i find myself befuddled with the task to engaging in conversation with a guy in a way we dont both feel profoundly awkward. Sitting across each other in a resteraunt somewhere starting into each others eyes and taking about out lives just isn't the venue for me. So as i mentioned in my last blog i was condidering the possibility of inviting Seongbong over to view the weekly feeding of the boa. Again i invited Hunwoo over to join in the gladitorial festivities as well (plus having both of them there stimulates more convo). On the car to the pet store i decided to ask them a few questions about Seoul Korea (Seongbong's home town) that i had generated throughout the week. Interestingly enough they told me that the gas prices are about 6 dollars a gallon over there and that the cost of living is actually a bit higher than America. They also mentioned that most signs in Korea are in English and Mandarin which segwayed into talking about the size of the Chinese army. Here i was shocked when Seongbong told me that he and Hunwoo had completed their two year manditroy miltiary service. i had no idea that military service was compulsary in Korea, and had a hard time imagining these two guys in military service. Of the actual training Seongbong only remarked that it was unpleasant. We brought the mice back to my apartment and fed them to Asclepius(my boa). The seemed to expect something other that strangulation as the mode of killing the mice and were were deeply fascinated and excited by the whole process. When the snake had eaten his fill i changed the language of my Xbox to Korean and left Seongbong to play Tekken 6 (which, unlike halo is apparently quite popular in Korea) and took Hunwoo to the living room to commence the evenings lesson.

CP#2

Hunwoo's English is rather polished already and has only a few difficulties. In particular English phrases escape him and he always has a list of about 20 or so prepared. Being an aspiring novelist and poet I'm quite avid about the essence of a word or phrase and Hunwoo always about remarks on the labors i take to explain them very clearly. Afterward we read through a few articles together (in English of course) and afterwards i had him summarize each paragraph and point out any words/phrases that require my explanation. Finally i listen to several voice recordings from his ESL class and correct any grammatical errors. Only two seem to recur. One is his use of plurals nouns which is sometimes incorrect. The other is number agreement. for example that the word much indicates volume and many indicates number. He understood quickly with a few examples.

Anthony Junco