A Little Korean

For anyone interested I would like to show how to write and say the days of the week in Korean. Unlike the names of the days in english, which mean nothing anymore, everyday of the week in Korean has a different meaning. there meanings are: Sunday (Sun), Monday(Moon), Tuesday(Fire), Wednesday(Water), Thursday(Trees), Friday(Gold), and Saturday(Land). So here they are in English, Korean, and Chinese. Enjoy!

Sunday.....일요일.....Ir-yo-il.....日曜日
Monday.....월요일.....Weol-yo-il.....月曜日
Tuesday.....화요일.....Hwa-yo-il.....火曜日
Wednesday.....수요일.....Su-yo-il.....水曜日
Thursday.....목요일.....Mok-yo-il.....木曜日
Friday.....금요일.....Keum-yo-il.....金曜日
Saturday.....토요일.....T'o-yo-il.....土曜日

My Family

I am going to be very random in this blog. So if you see me chronicling my life then just throw in a post like "Here's my new shoes", don't be surprised. Here is all my brothers and sisters, my grandma on the left, and our pet polar bear....Whitey( yes, I know it's creative). From left to right we are: William( yours truly), Augustine, Lena, Sara, Ethan, Virginia, Ronald and Alex. Altogether eight of us. We took this picture at Brookfield Zoo when we went for Virgie's birthday. If you would like to see more of them please visit the family blog at http://www.dyckmannews.blogspot.com

My Grandma

Few people experience the blessing of living with a grandmother. I'm blessed enough to live with both of mine. But my Grandma Ginny (pictured above) will be moving out this weekend and I want to take a second and tell her that I had a great year with you here and will miss you. I am excited for her since she will be moving in with my aunt and uncle. They've been preparing her a room and are all awaiting her arrival on Saturday. So she doesn't get too used to the peace and quiet, we plan to steal her back from time to time come her retirement in August. God bless you grandma, we'll miss you.

A little Korean

Korean, as you may know by now, is one of the languages that I have (maybe brashly) chosen to learn. One question I get is"How do you read those weird characters?". Well, Korean writing is much easier than Chinese in that Koreans use an alphabet, while Chinese use individual characters to represent sounds or ideas. While the picture 龍 means dragon in Chinese, in korean it is 용 [ㅇ(silent) + ㅛ(YO) + ㅇ(NG) = 용 Yong, which is Dragon in Korean. So when you make a character in Korean, you simply put 2 to 4 letters together to make a character. I inlcuded a chart to give an example of what some letters are. Here are some basic phrases for anyone who's interested:
안녕하세요=an nyeong ha se yo= Hello, How are you, good morning/afternoon/evening
안녕히계세요= an nyeong hi gye se yo= Good bye (You say to person your leaving)
안녕히가세요=an nyeong hi ga se yo= Good bye ( Say to person who's leaving)
감사함니다= kam sa ham ni da= Thank you

I just got a new laptop from my parents for graduating. I'm really happy because my old one was aging rapidly, while this one's great for everything I need. My parents are the reason I had my first computer, and I can't thank them enough for that then, or this now. I'll be blogging in style now : )

Olympic Logos of this century.

I really love the Olympics. It's funny since I have only seriously watched one summer and one winter games. Seeing the 2004 Athens games really changed me. I saw what you could do in sports and it inspired to pursue a sport of my own. Later on, in the fall of that year I joined Tae Kwon Do, now a huge part of my life. I am not athletic to begin with so I need to work hard at what I achieve, and I do get discouraged sometimes, but seeing olympic athletes strive for perfection only helps me to strive for it as well. I hope that someday I will be up to par with other athletes of the world. Until then, practice makes perfect, so I'll keep working to glorify God and represent the United States well through Tae Kwon Do.

HAPPY FATHERS DAY!!! To the best dad in the world.

Yes, that's my dad, He is the best in world and I love him very much. He has always been a great father and provider, and I don't know what I'd do without him.

Black Belt Test, May 26, 2007 (2007년 5월 26일)

No, that's not Jet Li. Just one of the many excercises I had to do that day.
Another hard one, squats. after you do running, this is only harder.
Here is me, looking relieved with the excercise part of the test over.
I was getting ready for sparring to begin.
Newly minted Black Belts.

Yes, Here it is, my home "Chicago".... the Windy city, Chi-town, the Big Apple (and all this time you thought that was New York.). Many names for one of the most beautiful cities in the world. And yes I will have much more prettier pictures of the city than this, all in due time. With over 6,000 restaurants, great diversity, the ultimate sports teams, an unmatched downtown area, etc. etc. It's a great place to live.