The midterm sucked. It was definitely the worst test of my Sogang Korean Language Institute career. I'm not looking forward to the results.

I shared part of my train ride to work yesterday with Father Joseph, one of the triumverate of African priests who are well known through our little language school community, both for being from Africa and for being so gentle and mild. Peter and Joseph, from Kenya, and Tamlat, from Ethiopia.

Joseph and I had two classes together, but I didn't know until yesterday that before he became a priest, he used to be a park ranger in one of the nature reserves in Kenya that they take tourists to for safari trips. My old college roommate and Forever and Always Bond Girl, Masha, went on safari last year with her husband. There's no chance, then, that they crossed paths with Joseph, but I amused myself by thinking that if they'd gone a couple years ago, they might have.

I wouldn't mind going on safari myself someday, but say, but some freak of time and space, I did go, and Joseph was a park ranger, and I met him there. We could have a similar conversation as the one we had on the train yesterday, but there would obviously be a distance there that wasn't present yesterday. The problem with being a tourist is that you never really get to know the people who live there. I don't feel like I've gotten to know Joseph, but we've shared the same experience of being in a bewilderingly different society, and struggling to learn a bewilderingly difficult language, and we talk as friendly equals and classmates. I never felt that in any of the three weeks I spent in Southeast Asia, and really, how could I? That's just a part of traveling. But it's frustrating. Unsatisfying.