140930 Kick-off Meeting

     It was first time to meet someone with Skype. I've used Skype for calling my friends in USA to chat, but meeting a new person with Skype felt really strange. Since I'm not fluent in English, I was nervous before the meeting, and my teammate, Kyoko, too. Nayoon was absent because she couldn't reschedule her part-time job for the sudden meeting. My team 9 was 2nd turn in meeting, and Kyoko and I was worrying about the absence of Nayoon, very good English speaker. When our turn came around, we started talking with our names, and kept conversation with topics like the system of each university(they said after the 3rd year in university, they go to company and learn the real works, and then come back to university to finish studying), the city we live, and our future plans. It was really hard to understand their words, because of my poor English and the quality of sounds, but Kyoko really helped me well, and I also hope I was a help for her. After the short, but long talk with them, I realized that the conversation with another culture is really hard, and difficulty of communicating without facing each other(though we were facing each other through camera and IT technology, it never feel real or great). During the project, we will have to communicate with them lots of times, and face the difficulty again. I think I need some time and experience to be used to it. 

     I noticed that I have not written about my teammates. It's Kyoko and Nayoon, who are older than me, and have foreign experience. Kyoko is from Nagoya, Japan, and Nayoon have been in foreign countries(I don't know the detail yet). I believe that they will be a good teammate for the global studio, and I will make an effort to support their competence. More than that, they are earnest in their works and studies, and also tender for other people in private relationship. I can feel that we will be able to get along well, though this is the first time we have a same class and work together. 

+ ) 141005

     After I wrote my self introduction on the blog, Erik commented and I was a bit surprised. In Korea, since we have different way of counting someone's age, we always say 'I'm ~ years old in Korean age, and ~ years old in Western age'. But Erik was not aware of this, and asked me what does mean by that. Something I take for granted and be used to can be a new and confusing concept to someone in the different culture. When communicating with people in other cultural area, I have to be more considerate, and maybe I have to ask myself whether this is also same for the other people.