Bell – Lee – Dan – Suh (벨리단스)

That was the first word I read in Korean, sitting in a Dunkin Donuts staring out at the signs on the street. Koreans will tell you over and over, in various ways, but all with the same amount of pride in their voice, that Korean is a scientific language. While frustrating to hear it’s true, at least for the reading part. It took me only 3 hours on a train back from Seoul to learn how to read.

After learning how to read I became addicted to learning Korean. We all have our different motivations for learning Korean, whether it be wanting to explain to our co-teachers that they should tell us before changing the schedule or describing that ham is indeed meat and taking it out after you make it defeats the propose of being a vegetarian. For me, I learned that the more Korean I knew, the easier it was to talk to girls.

Now, I can already hear, through time and space, the collective shaking of heads that is taking place. Well you know what, Korean girls are cute, and I plan on using more than my high nose bridge and gigantic double lidded eyes to attract them. I mean, I’m hilarious, with wit and charm that should be spread across cultural lines. (sarcasm)

I realized after a few months that studying on my own from a book wasn’t going to get me to the level I needed (Specifically, good enough to talk to Yuri from Girls’ Generation). So I started looking into more advanced options. I decided that when my contract was up I would become a full time student. Luckily Cheonnam University had the perfect program for me. For 2.2 million won I could study Korean 4 hours a day, 5 days a week, for about 6 months. They had levels from beginner, where they start by teaching you the alphabet, to advanced, where you basically just read and discuss the news.  

The class is taught all in Korean, which is scary, especially when I mostly knew how to say simple things to kids like “sit down!” or “be quiet!”. (This was rendered obsolete anyway, because of Korean’s frustratingly different levels of respect speech) After a while, though, the English in my brain faded away and I settled into a comfortable level of broken Korean. (“Teacher, Sorry late. Alarm no.”)

I had been a teacher for so long at this point (2 years) that I had forgotten how difficult it was to be a student. It’s also entirely possible that being a student in Korea is just simply harder than my fraternity member-partying-and-somehow-still-pulling-Bs college life in the US. I had to memorize around 200 words, comprehend 4-6 grammatical terms, do 50 pages from the workbook and take two tests every week. I used to tell my Korean students that sleeping wasn’t a hobby, but after a month of this schedule, sleeping became my number one hobby. 

Despite the difficulties, the class was actually pretty fun, and I could see my Korean improving by leaps and bounds. Every time I met a Korean person I was able to get more and more out of the conversation. I could finally have a conversation with a taxi driver that extended beyond “where are you from?”. By the end of the six months I could confidently handle most conversations that were thrown at me. My Korean was far from perfect, but it was approaching Sonyeon Shidae meeting level, I wanted to stay and learn more, but I had to go back to working for the ahjushi to make money.

This time around, though, when I had to give my introductory speech to the school at the beginning if the year, instead of staring blankly in my direction while I yammered on in Englishee, they grinned and made whispered ooh-waa. At the end of my speech I got a round of applause that would make Rain jealous. It felt really good.

The 4^th UNESCO Asian Youth Forum, co-hosted by the Korean National Commission for UNESCO, UNESCO HQ (Paris, France) and Chonnam National University, will be held at Chonnam National University, Gwangju. 120 young activists from 22 countries will gather and prepare a document under the name of ‘Practical Project’ to develop the local area and community. Furthermore, the 1^st Asia Youth Culture & Art Workshop is in session.

We would like to welcome anyone who are interested in meeting such passionate young people with professional knowledge in arts and culture.

Date

Ø  Opening ceremony (Open session): 2010, Sep 7^th(Tue). 10:30 ~ 17:00

Ø  Closing ceremony and performance : 2010, Sep 11^th(Sat). 11:00 ~ 12:30

l  Place: Convention hall, Chonnam National University

l  Hosts: Korean National Commission for UNESCO, UNESCO HQ, Chonnam National University

l  Sponsors: Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism

l  Collaborators: Gwangju Convention and Visitors Bureau

Schedule on 7^th of Sept, Opening ceremony

10:30 ~ 11:00 : Opening comment

 11:00 ~ 11:30 : Rest

 11:30 ~ 13:00 : Lecture (By Sali Sasaki)

 13:00 ~ 14:00 : Lunch

 14:00 ~ 15:30 : First Special Session – ‘Hub City of Asian Culture’ Project

 15:30 ~ 16:00 : Rest

 16:00 ~ 17:00 : Second Special Session – Asian Young People’s Local Activism

For anyone who would like to participate in the opening ceremony, you simply need to send an e-mail to youth@unesco.or.kr.

Please include your name, organizatio, and contact number.

UNESCO authorities will offer a free lucnch for the first few people who register.

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When you think you know something you’ve got to look at it in a different way. It seems like it is the same landscape, but is it actually growing and changing its colors constantly. Now, go out and check what you can see outside and try to remember what you see, or at least take a photo of it. Then you can take another photo later, at the same spot. The differences are evident.

The main entrance of Chonnam National University is amazing. Redwoods soar up high along the road. The seasonal changes are stunning. Whenever I walk along the path, I am so happy to have this path in the university area. This time of year, it gets greener and greener, and the color gets clearer. When it comes to fall, it starts to turn to brown and finally leaves fall when winter comes. On cold snowy days the road is dressed up in a white coat.

www.mycong.com

http://cafe.naver.com/hasya.cafe

All year long, people living around my university come at night to enjoy the green space. Take yourself to this green university and enjoy a leisurely road. The main roads are well covered with shade and you will enjoy a cool summer day.

The 1966 film the 'Fantastic Voyage' relates the story of American and Soviet scientists competing to develop ‘miniaturizing technology’: technology which will allow them to shrink matter.

Scientist Jan Benes succeeds in developing the technology, but an attempted assassination attempt leaves him comatose with a blood clot in his brain.

To save his life a team of experts boards a specially designed nuclear submarine which is subsequently miniaturized and injected into Benes’ bloodstream.  The team must race to repair the blood clot and escape Benes’ body before an hour passes, otherwise the submarine and its team will revert to normal size and destroy Benes in the process.

Based on a short story by Otto Klement and Jerome Bixby, 'Fantastic Voyage' was honored with two Academy Awards and nominated for three more.  It inspired, amongst other tributes: two novels by Isaac Asimov; an animated television series produced by Filmation; a comic book adaptation drawn by comic industry legend Wally Wood; a painting by Salvador Dali; and the 1987 film 'Innerspace' starring Dennis Quaid.  Plans for a remake or sequel have been in discussion since at least 1984, and directors James Cameron ('Avatar') and Roland Emmerich ('2012') have both been involved with the project at one point or another.
 

James Cameron, Roland Emmerich:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Cameron and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Emmerich

But if either Mr. Cameron or Mr. Emmerich do decide to commit themselves to directing a remake or a sequel, they could certainly benefit from visiting Gwangju’s Chonnam National University first.

Really.

Chonnam National University researchers recently revealed that they have developed a tiny, miniature robot which can swim along inside human veins and clear blocked vessels.
The micro-robot, just one-millimeter wide, was navigated through the plugged vessels of a pig.

This marks the first time this kind of device was successfully tested inside a living laboratory animal.

The robot can travel through vessels up to fifty millimeters per minute, and once inside a clogged vessel, it can pierce through blockages and plaque with a built-in drill which can rotate up to 1, 800 times per minute.  It is piloted automatically to a specific point using an outside electromagnetic field, but it can also be controlled by a computer using joystick-like controls.

“The hardest part was developing a technique to precisely control the robot's movement, which was difficult due to the ever-changing nature of blood flow velocity and blood pressure. But our electromagnetic system has proved efficient... [It] allows us to steer the robot in any direction and monitor the movement in real time,'' lead researcher Park Jong-oh revealed at a presentation at Chonnam University.