Another dismal attempt today to expand my Korean language knowledge. After seven months in this country, I’m afraid I’ve grown in every area except Hangul vocabulary. I am language stupid. I can cook rice like nobody’s business. But I cannot tell the Korean vowel "o" apart from the "ew."

On the suggestion of a guy who I barely know (that’s how it is here in Korea; you randomly meet someone at some cultural spot and then you add him or her to your Facebook profile. You get bored one night. You message. You get jealous about all the cool things the other person is doing. You sulk.), I ventured out to a new area of Seoul to attend a beginner’s Korean class. I’ve tried this all before. About four months ago I joined a class at Sogang University (a reknowned language school here) but dropped out after only three weeks. The class was full of Asian women who knew so much more than me. The teacher would ask me a question in Korean. The women, feeling sorry for me, would whisper me the answer.

This new class is purely for beginners, he promised me. Ok. It’s also in an area of town which hosts an incredible amount of salons and gelato cafes. I stopped at a cute second-floor cafe to warm up. A place called Special Coffee in Yongsan-gu near Sookmyung Women’s University. I didn’t make it to the class. I wandered around the university, walking in and out of the frames of pictures taken of graduates on the granite steps, beaming and full of promise for a new future. White girl found an interesting gallery full of white sculptures. No Korean class.

I wonder: did I sabotage myself? This friend gave me little direction. But I should know better in Seoul. I used to get lost driving around Carson City, Nevada. Of course a university has many buildings and many classrooms.

Just to prove a point to me, that grim God directed me to the subway station at exactly the right moment. There is my friend, fresh from his Korean class. "How did I like mine?" he asked. I am forced to admit that I’m here, but I didn’t find it. It wasn’t at the university, he explained. Didn’t I check out that website he sent to me? He gave me such a disappointed look, almost to say, "You are such a stupid girl."

I wanted to smote my princess forehead. Yes, the website. I had forgotten about that.

But then he changed. He looked a bit down, too. He questioned whether he’ll use this language in his next life, his real one, back home. All said before he jumps on the train going in the opposite direction.

I think that’s how we all feel — we’re going in the opposite direction of all our friends back home. We left careers. Or we couldn’t find a job after college. Our friends work at Starbucks. Or they had to stay in their careers because debt threatens to swallow them. They gained a spouse and a house. But not us because we’re here. We came here because we didn’t know what else to do with ourselves. And here we don’t belong either — but that’s a different story.

I have to admit it — I like being an outsider looking in. I am an island in this urban market.

But the experience could be so much richer if I wasn’t so solitary, if I could understand the Koreans. We profit off the Korean culture. Why am I not motivated to learn the language? Many Westerners do. And they love it here. They stay. I have many friends who use Korean every day.

I know of others who live here for years and can’t say one sentence.

So which am I?

I sit in a coffee shop and read a two-month old Economist. So this is me, a girl whose mind is elsewhere.

But I’ll try again anyhow. Next week. I have five more months in Korea and I would feel sad if I gave up already.

Becky Ann Bosshart