Wow, that was an awesome lecture for me~~~

I got an email from Jay saying that he wanted to skate this morning. If I really want to do something in the morning, I can do it but I chose sleeping a bit more and going to take Phonetic lecture with Benji in UofT at 2 pm.
I met Benji a prior to the lecture but we were a bit late, we sat down at the back, it was kind of the second floor classroom. The funny thing happened a moment later.
The professor couldn't show his slides all of sudden, and called somebody to get it fixed. That was a dejavu of the previous attempt to sit and listen to lecture. Last time, a week ago, I went to another lecture with Benji but we couldn't get anything because of the same problem. Benji and I laughed and telling it's time to get up and leave. Fortunately, it turned out the best lecture I've ever had in Canada. After Benji took off for his class at 3 am. I finally solved my mysterious phonetic curiosity. As a Korean, the English /r/ sound is very difficult to pronounce. I've read many books and articles on the internet and asked many teachers and friends. They said different stories. Some couldn't figure out how to pronounce it simply because they just say it and can't see their inside of mouth. During the lecture, the prof showed us the video clip about /r/ pronunciation which was stunning to me.
There are two version of /r/ sounds. Some pronounce it this way, some do the other way. When I learned pronunciation from Eileen, who was my tutor two years ago. She taught me one of /r/ sounds which didn't work for me. So, I was trying to figure out why I had a trouble when I pronounce /r/. That's why I have read a lot of books and articles and asked many friends and teachers. Today, I finally figured that out simply by seeing that video clip. It showed us the vocal folds and the side view of tongue, which was black and white as same as the one when you see a baby inside women's body, and lips of a native English speaker when he pronounces /r/ sound. It really works for me, really. I felt like I found gold and the textbook they use for that lecture is the book I would like to read about phonetic. Two years ago, Richard, who is my skating buddy in the club, gave me a bunch of books which he studied English with here many years ago. One of books is named 'Teaching pronunciation'. It is a very good book and I got a great deal of Phonetic knowledge from it but it is published in 1980's. So, I need a new book about Phonetic so that I can get contemporary knowledge of it. After the lecture, I went to the U of T bookstore to check the price of that book. Gee, it's almost $50. Why books in Canada are so expensive. I will check out Amazon website to buy it, anyway.

The Sounds of Language : An Introduction to Phonetics Henry Rogers The Sounds of Language provides an accessible, general introduction to phonetics with a special emphasis on English. Focusing on the phonetics of English, the first section allows students to get an overall view of the subject. Two standard accents of English are presented: RP (Received Pronunciatio...

There is another thing which I found very interesting. The prof is a Russian native speaker. He is very fluent in English. I thought he is a native English speaker. He is teaching Phonetic of English in U of T, so I realized that non native speakers can teach English even in university in English spoken countries. That's what I would like to dream of.

Thanks Benji for taking me there. I really appreciate that.

I will go home soon to see Emily and Andre. They will drop by my place to give blankets and pillows on the way to the airport. They will fly to Macao tonight.

the long busy Sunday..

Since I have started working again, I get up late like 10 or 11 am. However, yesterday, Sunday, I woke up at 7 am and had quick breakfast and meet Ed at around 8 am. He picked me up at Yonge&Sheppard where I live. We planned to skate 80k with Jay.
When we got to Hamilton beach path, Jay was already there and a couple of minitues later, we saw Scott and Eric. While many skaters were in Duluth, I didn't expect we could see other skater folks there. It was nice to skate with more people. We put skates on and started skating after chatting a bit. Honestly, I had not skated for the last 10 days for some reasons, I felt like I was so weak and out of shape. If I am out of shape, my right leg is always troublesome. I can't support myself when I setdown with my right leg. Two laps of skating on the path was O.K. but I couldn't pull as much as Scott and Ed did, though, They did a great deal of work. After skating on the path, Ed, Jay and I got out of the path and started skating on the road. Scott, Beth and Eric were with us for a couple of km's. When they turned around and I wanted to tell Ed I couldn't skate any more but I just kept going I thought I could manage to finish 80k, but shortly after, I started feeling I couldn't support myself with my right leg. So, I had to tell Ed and Jay that I needed a rest. Because of me, we stopped skating and turned around. It was a bit early than we planned. I felt sorry about it. On the way back to the path, I got a bit better but still uncomfortable pushing with my right leg. Ed and Jay pulled me all the way back there so thankfully I got back to the path without any mishaps, Thanks guys. Ed and Jay skated again to complete their goal, 80k of skating. Meanwhile I took my skates off and got changed and lie down on the bench and enjoyed the weather. The breeze was so good, that was the moment of happiness for me. Even though, I had a bit hard time to skate but I skated with my nice friends and laying down and enjoying the weather. I don't remember when was the last time I felt that kind of feeling. I gave a hi-five to Ed and Jay when they finished their skating. Good job guys~.
We had lunch at Lick's which is my favorite hamberger place, I love the hamberger there. Every time I go there with Ed, he buys me a hamberger, he has a buy one get one card. It's so nice of him. I bought Ed a french fries instead, hehe.

Anyway, I learned lesson from yesterday's skating. I will keep in mind that lesson.

Jay dropped me off at Islington subway station which is close to his place. Thank you Jay, and I headed downtown. I met Shery who came here four months ago from China.
She has a very interesting background. She is a Korean Chinese Canadian will be(make sense?). She's from the area in China where many Korean people live called Yeonbyun.
A hundred years ago when Japan invaded Korea, they forced some people to move to that area. I don't know exactly why( I need to learn more about Korean history ). So, she speaks Korean with her mom and also speaks Chinese, as well and she said she studied Japanese in school. So, she speaks Japanese, too. But, I don't know how fluent her Japanese is. Anyway, she goes to high school now which she said is very overwhelming and stressful because her English is not enough to keep up her study in school.
A couple of days ago, she asked me to teach her English which is very funny to me.
What she said, basically, is she can't take tutoring from Canadian because she can't understand what they say, so she needs Korean English tutor so that she can study English in Korean. Gee, I never thought about that I teach English here. I couldn't say yes or no. I just promised that I would meet her. I spent time with her for about two hours and helped her writing and speaking which was very basic. At this point, I am not sure I can keep helping her English.
While I was there with her, I got a call from Emily. She wanted to had dinner with me and others. She and Andre are leaving here on Wednesday. I will talk about them later. They are very interesting guys I met here. Anyway, I wanted to buy something for them, so I went to the bookstore near Bay&Bloor and bought one book which I read all. I found it very useful for Emily because she wants to learn Korean. The book is about effective and practical theories to learn foreign language. I hope she enjoys reading that book.
I met them in one of restaurant near Bathurst subway station. Emily, Andre, Nenry and I have nice dinner there and moved to Emily's place which is sold a month ago. So, there are not many things left there, it's almost empty place. Two more friends came over there and we had snack and talked till 12 when one of us told us, she was very tired. I said to them 'See you in Korea' because some day not too long from now, I will leave here too and can see them in Korea. I was a bit sad but not as sad as when I sent off other friends who I can't see them any more.

It was a long day. I was able to fall asleep without any difficulty to sleep

What language should I speak?

I'm kind of in a pensive mood since yesterday.
I do a language exchange every Wednesday, so we gathered yesterday as usual.
Since it has been chilly, some wanted to have a lesson inside rather than at the park where we usually do. The confusion had started. We tried the community center near Christie subway station and were told that we were not supposed to have a lesson there. One member offered one restaurant which is less busy that time of day. We walked there rather long time but there wasn't enough space for us. We tried one of bars near there afterward and asked the owner to keep the music down, but he told us that he didn't want to do it because he wants to keep their atmosphere as usual. After wandering for 30 mins, two people took off. We decided to just have dinner and talk about the place for the next time. We got two new people but they were headed home after short staying at the restaurant. I felt sorry for them. Anyway, I wasn't in a good mood but practically as a leader of that meeting, I couldn't express my feeling directly. I hid my feeling and I was heading the place where one offered to check out for the next meeting. He is a Korean and wanted to speak English with me, so we were talking in English, then I got an unexpected call from my friend, who is a landed immigrant from Korea and I talk with him in Korean, actually he is the only person I speak Korean with. I had spoken in English all day long, so I started talking English with him simultaniously over the phone and a moment later, I realized we speak Korean each other but I though it wasn't a big deal speaking English even though he spoke to me in Korean. He wanted to hang out with us. So, I just wanted to let him know that I was with someone who is Korean but we had been speaking English and if we speak Korean, it might have been awkward. But on the way to the place we were going to meet, I talked to the guy that I and my friend talk in Korean, so if he wants to speak Korean, we should speak Korean.
As we got there, I got very angry and sarcastic reaction from my friend. He talked to me in Korean that he got pissed off because I kept speaking English during the call and he might have to speak English with us. He thought I intended to avoid him and that's why I spoke to him in English. I was just a bit disappointed about his reaction at first but tried to calm down myself and explained what we were talking about on the way there.
As an international student, we are here to learn a new language and trying to speak a target language as much as possible even with Korean speakers, Time is limited for us, I don't have many close korean friends here, anyway. Yesterday's is very rare occasion for me. However, for him, he is a landed immigrant, he's not serious about a language; he always speak Korean to us without any consideration which I found it a little annoying. He has a plenty of time to pick up a language unlike us. He may not notice about this and has a different standard of it.
Anyway, I hid my upset feeling and had chatting with them for two hours, trying to make it up. When I got home, I was so stressed out and depressed about what I experienced before. I have no idea how I can handle that situation. I guess it would be better to speak Korean with Koreans. I don't have many chance to hang out with them anyway.
Did I make a mistake or that is just the thing every student face with every day.
Spending time with Korean is the most challenging thing here which seems to sound
weird because I am Korean and like Korean.
It is time to throw my skates on and forget about it.

No title...

I haven't post any since the early August. I feel like I've got to write down something. August for me, it was uneventful month while others go somewhere out of city for vacation. However,there are something I can write down about. I have started doing two language exchanges, one of which is with one person, the other is the group of people through the website called 'Meetup'. It is very new for me. I am learning new language, so I know how hard it is. But I didn't know how hard it is to teach the language I speak. I had no chance to speak Korean before that because, firstly, I don't want to, secondly, I don't have to. Make sense? I'm here to explore new language and culture. What is the point I speak my first language in Canada as long as I can interact with people. Sometimes, I don't understand what my friends say but they are so nice enough to say that again and explain to me. Sometimes, I meet Korean, it is quite challenging not to speak Korean.
Anyway, I am teaching Korean, so I have to speak it sometimes which I found it not a big deal but difficult.

There is one more thing I can mention about. I've got back to work. My company, technically, I quit before I came back to Toronto, asked me a week ago. The boss and manager there are my old coworkers which got fired from the company which we worked for together for two and half years. They struggled for about one year and started new company. When I went back to Korean, their business was on the track. The day I visited, the boss asked me to work for him. I wanted to teach English at that time, despite my lack of confidence of teaching English. I said yes to him and I worked there for one year, accomplished nothing, hehe, until I got on the plane to Toronto again. The relationship between my boss and I is not the same as the relationship between a boss and an employee. We sometimes fought and argued about the project in the late night which I am still working on. You can not fight with your boss unless you are a friend with him.
We are so close to share our feelings and everything, we both have a hot temper but are warm-hearted person, maybe I'm not.
Anyway, We made a deal before I came here, I promised him that I work four hours a day from Sunday to Thursday. However, something happened to my company about two months ago. My company has online stock investment system which is quite different from others. However, the new stock system prevent my company to do it any more. The profit from the business model was not only only source of money but also cash-cow for my company. Since they lost it, they have been suffering from that change, it also caused me not to work. I did not work for the last two months because of that. There are some people out there who are optimistic and enthusiastic. My company has some like that people. For the last two months, my company has been trying to make new business models and waiting for the result now. One of my coworker who is in charge of what I do asked me to get back to work after finishing other projects, but he said that I am not going to get paid until the company makes profit. Since I got my new study permit which allows me to stay until this year, I am so relaxed and not doing anything special to write TOFEL test to take TESOL course. I felt like I needed some pressure to balance my life which is so relaxing. So, I'm working now. I feel like I am alive and do something for someone, hehe. That's a good feeling. Since I've begun working at mid-night, I get up late again. Sometimes, my skater friends ask me to skate somewhere on the weekend but the time they want to meet me is so early in the morning, I had to say that I could not make it. Once I really wanted to skate, so I stayed overnight after working and was able to meet them to skate in Hamilton. It was quite tiring, but it is always good to wake up early and do some skating.

I haven't decided when I take TOEFL test again and try to apply for the TESOL course in University Of Toronto. Everything is up in the air, but there is not much time left, I ought to decide sooner or later. Every time I am asked about my plan , I make an excuse like learning language is different from learning other subjects. It needs more time and efforts to put every pieces together I have learned. If I study TOEFL for 8 hours a day, I might be able to get high score in a couple of months and take the course but my point is even though I am able to get high score soon, if my English is not enough to understand and get as much as possible from the class, it is kind of waste of money. $15,000 is big money for me, so I am just waiting for the right time to go for it. I am unsure about it, though, but I am the only one who should decide everything I need to here which is sometimes so overwhelming to me. However, except that, I can not complain about my life here, it's once in a life time opportunity for me. Before I came to Canada, I was an ordinary person, doing the same thing everyday, get fed by salary every month, not passionated and enthusiastic about my work. But now, at least, I am doing what I should do for what I love to do in the future, which keeps me going to approach to my goal.

What a wonderful time in Toronto~