My boyfriend is Lee Min-ho

Chapter Four - Are you kidding me?

My special term went by torturously. Miraculously, I managed to score Bs for both courses and earned a smile from the stern Professor Hong.

Hailey graduated in August and we were sad to see her go. She was returning to Taipei and had to clear her room space by end August before the next person came in. Cass and I helped her to pack up and promised to send her remaining books via shipping. We also sent her off at the airport. When we came back that day, none of us was more gloomier.

September marked the start of the new Fall semester and the campus was once again filled with students both old and new. Cass would be in her final year and she would be busy working on her fourth-year thesis. Despite that, she still volunteered to help out with my assignments. It was great thanks to her that I managed to submit acceptable essays which were at least legible.

It felt strange stepping into the once-deserted Art & Design Building where I had spent my entire special term pretty lonely. The building was now filled with film majors from all levels and the elevators were always full that I had to take the stairs a couple of times in order to get to class on time. The campus shuttle had also increased its frequency from the pathetic thirty minutes to a waiting time of merely five minutes. On the week of Hailey's departure, the Dream Hall was more than unusually lively with leaving graduates waving their goodbyes and new roomies coming in.

Even though my korean language had greatly improved over the last two months, I was merely coping through the classes. I couldn't believe that it had been two months since I arrived in Seoul. It seemed like just yesterday when I had first arrived! But I wasn't allowing myself to feel sad over it. After all, I still have four more months to go. Plus the white white winter which I was looking forward to. I had never seen snow in my life staying in the forever-sunny Singapore. So I was pretty excited about it. And December would be a good time because it was the start of the snowing season. I didn't want to get caught in the harsh Korean winter which could be pretty bad as I had heard.

I was actually looking forward to the Fall semester because the classes which I had signed up for promised more practical acting work. Method Acting, Script Practice, Character Acting and Scene Study. Be it film or stage, it was important for the actor to master the skill of acting. Even more so on stage, I felt. Because stage was live action unlike film where you could re-do scenes. But on stage, there was no re-takes. You spent months rehearsing just for that final performance. And on stage, you could not afford to be stingy with your acting. Since the space was limited, you had to display all your acting skills and ensure that your audience understood what you were trying to portray. Unlike film where the camera could zoom in even into how many pimples you had.

I had read from the course outline that all four courses were practical-based. So instead of the usual lecture room or classroom, I turned up at the Acting Practice Room where I found twenty other faces in the class. I was suddenly feeling nervous once again. In my special term, it was only me and a couple of students and the Professor. Here, I was facing a group of film majors and they weren't fresh undergraduates. Most of them were at least in their second-years.

The teachers taking these classes were real-life actors or film crew outside campus. They held actual jobs on film site. The Method Acting class was taught by an assistant director; the character acting class was taught by a stage actor which I was pleased and Script class by a producer. They were probably the less 'famous' people since I figured those 'famous' people probably had no time to be here. According to one my classmates, the teachers changed every semester. So students usually sign up based on the teachers. And it was told to me that we had good teachers this semester which explained the good turn up.

Apart from the local korean students, the classes were made up of ABKs (American-born Koreans), an exchange student like me from Japan (he was really a good-looking guy) who spoke fluent Korean, and a brave exchange student from Britain who like me was struggling with the language. I was so glad to have him around!