Today I moved on to the next level in my study of calligraphy. When I started back in September of 2004, I had to practice various brush strokes on pieces of newspaper.
Once I had mastered those strokes I moved on to writing various 漢字 on paper specifically designed for calligraphy. Again these 漢字 were learned systematically First were characters that used only horizontal and vertical lines (一, 十, 王, 士, ect.). Then came the characters that used a right angle (日, 曰, 田, ect.) I continued on in this manner, until today.
Today I was presented with massive reems of calligraphy paper and the book 千字文 (which is something akin to “The Thousand Character Text”). So I’m now working my way through that.
Additionally today at lunch my boss (a Korean-Canadian) proclaimed, “Let’s only speak Korean during lunch, so you can practice more.” So during lunch we had to rock conversation in Korean which was decent, since we talked about (in no particular order) the melting polar ice caps, how I wanted to be a palentologist when I was a child, and foreigners who don’t learn Korean (or like Korean food) yet teach in Korea.
My students were all really whiney today for some unknown reason, save for the kindergarten kids (who are usually the most whiney). All of my classes were like, “Mr. Dunn…..game! No homework!” Then I’d be like, “Get your notebook and pencil out of your bag,” and the kids would literally moan, “Hoo….싫어 (”I don’t like it,”). When the day was finally over, I headed home and practiced some calligraphy, and made a huge mess in the process.
So anyhow 유림 will be home soon, so I should probably clean up, do the dishes, and scrub the ink stains out of the sink.
