Survival Korean

I have now finished about 14 hours of Korean and sadly I am still stumbling over flashcards depicting such important items as teddybears, hair ribbons, and crayons. Part of this is because my only contact with the language (Korean cinema aside) is when I am actually in class, but most of it is because I am very bad at languages (as evidenced by my inability to speak the previous 5 I have studied) and this one is really really hard.
Although I am not learning much Korean, I am learning some other things. First of all, it seems that after 2.5 years of stay-at-home-momitude I still have career hang-ups. My classmate, a lovely young woman, is a capable, ambitious, and well-put-together (Read 7-feet-tall, impeccably dressed, personal-trainer-trained tri-weekly, power-bar-eating, huge-office-with panoramic-view-having, multilingual etc.). Short, frumpy, mommy-brained, frazzled after a day with the kidlets, leaky-breasted, "if I don't have second dinner soon I will die" me gets along with her surprisingly well, probably because Korean is really really hard and we are currently in the same boat with the teddy-bear flashcards. There is a problem, however, with the curriculum. Since this is "survival Korean" we learn the things our teacher thinks we will need to know to get by. I learn vocabulary for school, hospitals, playgrounds and baby-talk for hugs and kisses, mommy and daddy. She learns words like power, rich, red wine, and honorific forms of address. When we were practicing introductions, she got a long sentence about her job title etc. and I was told "Aki-shi, you can say you are a housewife." Oddly, I was so troubled by this difference that I stumbled quite a bit over the declaration, and learned that I could just say I am a wife-u, and they will all understand. It seems that I am still not comfortable with the fact that over the next three years (like the last almost-three) I will be primarily known as Jamie's ah-ma or Brian's wife-u.
The compensation, I suppose, will lie in the second thing that my teacher is trying to convey. Namely that everything in Korea is better. According to my songsangnim Korea is paradise, but the apples are better and the snakes won't bite. Whenever a flashcard appears, watermelon say or grapes, we learn that it will be better in Korea. Yes, the watermelon will cost us over $12, but it will be sweeter and juicier because the water in Korea is so pure. The grapes - they are so good, and the wine - very good wine in Korea, not many people drink it, but very good quality. Korea is a shopping paradise - yes, things maybe a bit more money, but it will be worth it - the service impeccable, the wrapping sensational, the quality unsurpassed. Cars? better. Baby food? healthier. Ice-skating? everyone is doing it. We had a flashcard for bows and arrows: "Is archery popular in Korea?" I asked. "well, not really." Aha! I thought. "But," teacher continued "we always win all the medals in competition." My classmate asked about the availability of brown rice. "Oh, everywhere, everyone is eating more grains for health; barley, wild rice, now it's hard to find white rice in Korea." Yeah, right. Can I find good coffee in Korea, of course and the tea houses are sensational. Do they recycle in Seoul, yes, they are very strict about garbage, everything is recycled. Are there mosquitoes in Korea. No, no, well, not like here. They are very small and they don't bite. I am beginning to suspect slight exaggeration (no, really), but it's entertaining to try and trip her up (apparently dog meat is very tender and delicious and they are special dogs raised only for eating). At any rate, conversations about the utopia that is Seoul distracts sonsangnim from trying to teach me more of that language, which although perfect in every way is really really hard.