Personal development
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Earthquake
Korea was hit by a pretty strong earthquake yesterday. The second strongest ever measured in history. It happened in Pohang, which is around 300 km south of Seoul, but the tremors were felt all over the country. I felt it in my office and immediately thought to myself “huh, wonder if that was an earthquake?”…
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Taking on a new Korean challenge
I had originally planned on enrolling in Sogang Korean level 7, but unfortunately, there was only one sign-up aside from myself, so they had to cancel level 7 this fall semester. Well, each cloud has a silver lining and in this case, it means almost unlimited time for self-studying Korean. And in all modesty, I…
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What language learning and martial arts have in common
This week I tried something I’ve never done before. Prompted by a friend I registered for a Krav Maga class in Itaewon. In case you haven’t heard about Krav Maga, it’s a self-defense technique originally developed by the Israeli army to be used in combat. It’s now gaining traction worldwide and is being praised for…
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Open your books
I once had a brilliant lecturer who told us that “you don’t get smart from just leaving the books on your shelf – you have to actually read them”. Wise words indeed. Way too often I find myself buying books with the intention to read them, and then just letting them collect dust in my…
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Korea: A year in the life
“525,600 minutes, 525,600 moments so dear. 525,600 minutes – how do you measure, measure a year? In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee. In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife. In 525,600 minutes – how do you measure a year in the life?” Well, the cast from the musical “Rent” didn’t…
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Getting back on track with Japanese
As regular readers of my blog will know, I gave a pitiful attempt at learning Japanese in the fall. Then I got busy with my Korean studies at Sogang, and I didn’t really feel like studying languages in my free time since I felt that it was all I did during the day. I never forgot…
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My biggest Korean challenge yet
This week I embarked on my biggest Korean challenge yet. A few months ago, the Danish embassy reached out to me with a request. They told me that a delegation of Danish politicians from the employment committee together with the minister of employment would visit South Korea for one week in early March, and that…
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Happy 2017
I’m a week late, I know, but this first week of 2017 has just been extremely busy. Getting up early again every day definitely took some getting used to after the holidays, but now I’m back in shape! I’ve also spent the first week setting a few goals for myself. I’m not big on new…
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What makes you happy?
This may seem like a mundane question, but how often do you really think deeply about this? As we go about our lives, it happens much too often that we fail to pause and really think about what truly makes us happy. In the end, finding out which things make you happy and putting in…
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How I’m learning Japanese
As I mentioned in my previous post, I’ve taken on a 90 day Japanese learning challenge. I’m learning a little Japanese everyday (obviously in addition to my never-ending Korean studies), and then we’ll see how far I’ll have come by the end of those 90 days. For me that’s until December 17. So, basically, I’ll…
Sofie to Korea 