What’s your name again?
It’s been 5 days since I decided to learn all (almost) the names of the teachers and staff at the elementary school where I work. Normally, remembering names of 45 peeps can just take a few hours, but that’s with English names. 45 Korean first and last names is a bit hard to remember. Names like Kim Hye-jeong and Pak Ju-cheol don’t exactly roll of the my English tongue. And I can’t associate those names to anything or anybody I know so that they sit in my brain.
Five days ago I stuck these names into my SRS program. The program then gave me around five new names a day to remember. Right now, the names are dangling by a thread in my memory but they’re all there at least. It took little effort really, and maybe an average of 15 to 20 minutes a day. I just let the program decide what to show me and after a while I just learned them. If I see the written name I can recall the face and the room number of the staff member ( with a little muscle strain in the face). I can’t say the names of the teachers if the room number or face is given, but I expect that will come to me in a week or two more and by then, instead of dangling, the names will be sitting comfortably.
Some questions might come to mind. Why would I do something like this? Why learn all the names of the school staff?” I have a couple reasons. It’s been more than a year since I began working at this school. It’s a bit depressing, embarrassing, and disrespectful that I don’t know all of them by name. I see almost all of them everyday and they greet me by my name but I just say “hello” in English or Korean. The second, and more selfish reason is, it’s Korean practice. I want to become familiar with Korean names so that in the future I can remember names with less struggle. And, I figure, if I start calling people by name they would be hit with shock and perhaps a short Korean conversation would follow.