What was and what is

Every time I land myself in some situation, I seem to learn new words and phrases that relate to my predicament in class.

Over the weekend, I discovered something that has left me very shaken, to the very core. Maybe it’s karma. Thinking about it again makes my blood run cold.

I know you have no clue as to what I’m talking about, except for a select few whom I’ve confided in. But this being a public blog, I can’t say much. And I don’t want to bother with the hassle of maintaining a private and a public blog at the same time. I’m sorry that you have to play the guessing game. But at least if you know Korean, you get to learn new stuff from this entry! :)

The 속담 proverb for yesterday was: 열 길 물속은 알아도 한 길 사람 속은 알 수 없다. 
You may know the depth of water but you’ll never know the depth of a person’s heart/mind i.e. you can never really understand a person.
Coincidentally, or maybe not, this proverb also appeared in the chapter that we’re working on for this week in Yonsei’s 읽기 Reading Book #6.
According to the chapter, the meaning of this proverb is: 세월의 여과 과정을 거치면 관계의 실상이 이내 드러나게 된다는 소리이다. Through the filtration process of time, the real facts of a relationship will surface. 

The proverb was further explained by these:
인간관계의 뿌리를 이루고 있는 예절과 신의는 어느 한때만 가지고는 헤아릴 수 없다. 
시간이 지나가면 그 사람의 본바탕이 드러나게 마련이다. 
As time passes, it’ll only be natural that a person’s true colours will surface. 
아무리 그럴듯하게 생긴 상대일지라도 속에 든 것이 바닥나 버리거나 신의가 없으면 번데기처럼 시시한 대상이 되고 만다. 
그러나 지극히 평범한 상대일지라도 어느 날 문득 자신이 가장 소중하게 여기고 있는 일에 대해서 지대한 관심을 가지고 열정적으로 이야기를 나누게 되면 그가 새롭게 돋보인다. 

Oh, and to express “love is blind” in Korean: 맹목적인 사랑.

For people studying/living overseas who are separated from loved ones and friends or people in LDRs, these words are meaningful too:
진정한 친구란 두 개의 육체에 깃들인 하나의 영혼이란 말이 있다.
The definition of true friends is that a single spirit/soul dwells in 2 bodies.
그런 친구 사이는 공간적으로 멀리 떨어져 있을지라도 결코 멀리 있는 것이 아니다.
Even if these friends are separated by distance spatially, in the end, they are not far from each other.
바로 지척에 살면서도 일체감을 함께 누릴 수 없다면 그건 진정한 친구일 수 없다.
Friends who live in close proximity with each other and yet cannot share or enjoy everything together are not true friends.

I know my translation is not exactly up to mark, but this is the best that I could do! It’s pretty frustrating learning Korean at times because it doesn’t have hanyu pinyin like Mandarin so you can have a word with various meanings for different Chinese characters -.- and not know which is the correct meaning for the given context.

And so, the monsoon season 장마철 starts today. 2 weeks earlier than the norm!
Yesterday, I whacked my room light with a book to smack the flies and mosquitoes which had flown into my room within the 1-2 seconds I took to close my window and pull down the insect/mosquito net. They aimed right for the light and I smartly smacked the light only to have them all fall over me with almost no time for me to get out of their falling path. Haiz. Sometimes, I do things without thinking.
And then I had to pick up their body parts on the floor.

Hate summer because of the insects and my forever enemy- mosquitoes. I already have 4 vicious bites. These are mountain mosquitoes that I’m dealing with ok. No joke :’(

Everytime I decide to spend the day clearing my backlog of entries, something will crop up.
And tomorrow, I’ll be heading to Seoul to be with my relatives for the next few days :)
Not looking forward to the heat though.

These days, I have Koreans telling me to slow down and speak slower. Guess my speed of speaking in Korean is catching up with my English's, just like the way I play the piano too. My piano teacher used to ask me if I was catching a train because I would play my pieces really fast for no reason. That’s why I like the 빨리빨리 culture here in Korea. Just right for me!