Winding Down

It's late Saturday night, just after Thanksgiving, and I finally feel like the semester is winding down. I haven't been posting as much lately because I've been so busy. Wednesday night, me and the boys went out shopping for a potluck Thanksgiving feast here on campus. We just finished remodeling the student kitchen below the cafeteria, doubling the cooking and seating space, so it was nice to break it in with a Thanksgiving dinner.  The next day, I ran out again to get some more pots and pot holders, and since I'm not a cook, I helped do the little things like clean the tables outside and set up.  After it was over, I went back to my room for a short break and ended up crashing out until almost 5:00pm (the feast was at noon).

Friday I got back to work on a big annotated bibliography project I have to do for one of my classes.  I was having trouble finding resources for my chosen topic (my thesis topic)--Missionary Activity in Modern Korean Buddhism.  But I found a few things.  Today, I hit the mother load after an email from my Dharma Master, Seongwon Sunim.  The link he sent me led me to another site that had a long bibliography on Korean Buddhism, so I found a bunch of new things there I didn't know about.  I've more than doubled the size of my bibliography, so I've made progress on this project.  I just hope I can actually get hard copies of most of what I've found so I can actually use it next semester.

I also mailed a bunch of copies of Mediators and Meditators, a new book on Buddhism and peacemaking from Blue Pine Books, founded by Seongwon Sunim.  He had some copies in a storage facility here as he's in Hawai'i so I could mail them for him to other places in the States.  I will probably use some of it in my thesis, as well as some sections of a few other books from Blue Pine.

This evening, I had my Korean lesson as well.  We did a short review of all the chapters I've done so far. It was mostly a reading quiz.  It was nice because I could see my progress.  Hangul (the Korean script) is becoming less a mass of symbols and more a real language that actually makes sense.  I'm convinced, however, that Korean grammar is more complicated that Japanese.  There seem to be more exceptions to the basic rules than Japanese, and even the basics seem more complicated.  I'm sure once I get there next summer I'll get the hang of it pretty quickly, though.  The prep I'm doing now will help.

Tomorrow, I have to start writing my final research paper for the semester.  I will probably write on conventional and ultimate reality in the Prajnaparamita and Vimalakirti Sutras, a topic suggested to us by the instructor, Dr. Long. 

I've also chosen my classes for next semester.  I plan to take "Buddhist Thought and Philosophy" and "Women in Buddhism."  My credits will be rounded out with my thesis.  It's going to be even busier than this semester, what with a full-time job, but I'll survive it.  I can't believe how quickly time has flown by here.  Before I know it, I'll be on a plane to South Korea.

If anyone has any thoughts on missionary activity in modern Buddhism, let me know. I'd love to hear your thoughts.