Some time ago I arranged to do a language exchange with a student at Kangwon University in town. His name is Yoon Hyun-sung but he goes by his family name of Yoon for short. A friend of an acquaintance works in the English Department on campus and she found Yoon for me based on his English language skills, which are superior, and his interest in improving them - he's studying to take the TOEFL test for the third time. This is an important English language benchmark test which is used, among other things, as a university placement tool in Korea. His scores have been excellent the previous two times he's taken it but he wants to take again to further improve his chances of transferring to a better school.
Now for a list of things we have in common - they're spooky. Like I did, Yoon is majoring in English, and based on his appreciation for Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott, he adopted, long before we met, the English name of Richard! Wow! That's the list. I never said it was a long list, just a spooky list. S P O O K Y !
Our plan is to meet twice a week for an hour at a time - one hour studying Korean and the other studying English. I'm thrilled at our fortuitous meeting as we share the common interest of English literature and it appears our alliance is already bearing fruit: today he helped me find and register for a beginning Korean language course which will be taught on the Kangwon University campus twice a week, for 1 hour and 40 minutes at a time, for twelve weeks, for 140,000 won (about $112). I'm full of optimism.
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