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I’ve been pretty busy recently with my studies and I’m back in that normal one-presentation-or-a-group-work-meeting-a-day-plus-all-the-normal-classes -routine. At least I’m not bored anymore here!

Anyway, one big part of my workload is to study more or less about the economic situation in China with Yuchen although we haven’t even started yet. I already spent few weeks glancing at that topic but its so damn wide that I just feel that the more I study the less I know. Therefore our strategic goal is do something else, like Lumene mud masks:

k’ttee k’ttee (that’s what a Korean would say right now)

Btw, next month there is a Finland – China Cooperation Seminar held in the University of Joensuu and Kuopio. The schedule looks really interesting, but its my bad that I can’t participate since the event takes place as early as from 9.6. to 11.6.

Wow, somehow I managed to gather my courage to go back to our tae-kwon-do class.

It was so great! I just can’t realize why I didn’t go earlier, why?!

This time we did some easy joint locks (damn, I love them) and Sam Jang and Sa Jang a couple of times. Eventually the new students don’t know those well enough yet and we old ones have already forgot everything. We did also some ukemi practice and, since my ukemis were anything but straight, I ended up playing tag with Tim and chasing him with my uncontrolled rolls.

The guys were planning a tae-kwon-do performance and I was asked to join them. Actually, I’d rather be lazy and skip that but on the other hand my body is becaming round and soft way too quickly here, so some extra excercise wouldn’t be too bad. The performance also takes place on 6th June and I’m not totally sure whether I’m going to visit Busan that weekend or not. Anyway, I refuse to participate but I think I still can sign up on next week class, too!

Heini wanted to know my score in this semester’s course lottery. Now, after one month of hard studying it’s good time to evaluate what I got. My game didn’t go that badly, which is great and gives me a lot of motivation to study here and I’m also looking for new opportunities to continue my studies back home. I even sent my application for my major subject to Lappeenranta Univ. of Technology (let’s hope that my letter will be there on time!)

Anyway, this is the shared 1st place of my favorites:

• Korean language practice 2
  We’ve been going throught a lot of that same stuff we did last semester, but this course concentrates on speaking and interaction more than grammar of such boring things. We have the same teacher the other group had earlier and she tells funny stories in Korean very often. That’s the most efficent language course I’ve ever attented. I really love the classes and so do everyone else – even Azad seems to be studying seriously now!
• Principles of international business
  This course introduces the basics of doing international business. The professor is an American who had been living in Thailand for a while before coming to Korea and he tells a lot of good examples from real life. Although the classes are held in the evening (which makes everyone sleepy and super-tired) they are usually bearable. Last time the professor show us some hotrod car racing movies from Youtube and that WAS related to the topic! I think this is the best course I have.
  
• Business, society and the Individual
  We are talking about business ethics here. Usually we have few cases that we discuss in groups and then we have powerpoint lecture torturing every now and then. Anyway, I like philosophy and it’s amazing to talk about ethics with people from different countries and cultures.

2nd place:

• Theory of internationa trade
  That’s pure maths. The approach to international trade theories on this course is extremely mathematical. It’s kind of boring, especially because the pace we are going on is really slow. Still, we have plenty of time for general bullshit (if it anyhow related to the topic) during the classes.

Time-wasters:

• Korean history
  Even though Mr. Finch [Pfinz'chi] strickes back with Korean history now, the jokes are the same and there’s nothing I’m learning in the class. It’s a pity since I’d really like to study Korean history, but I just can’t stand anymore that attitude that “everyone from Europe should know British history and speak Latin fluently”, blah. He also assumes that I know everything about Vikings and stuff like that. Honestly, I don’t even know if there were Vikings in ancient Finland. I though that they lived in Norway or Sweden.
  
• International management
  Surprise, surprise: international trade theories again! This time not so well presented and mostly all the stuff is pretty outdated. We need to keep a presentation about one company, and other students’ presentations are the only reason to attend the classes for me.