The Geography of Europe: Part I - Introduction and the Nordic Countries

Let's face it--those of us who call the United States home tend to have a reputation for being extremely bad at geography. This notion is so prevalent that LastWeekTonight host John Oliver loves making light of it to hilarious effect:

While Mr. Oliver's bit is really quite funny, let's change this stereotype and start learning the locations of the rest of the countries in this world! We'll start with Europe--it might be the easiest as I would hope most of us know where at least some European nations are located. Since Europe has so many countries, I'll be breaking this up into a few posts in order to cover each region in depth. In this post, I'll introduce the continent and also delve into one region--the Nordic states.

I'm Still Here!

Apologies for the lack of posts.  I have not abandoned this blog!  I've been super busy the past few weeks - I have an 8 month old baby who is discovering her newfound ability to climb on things, is trying to crawl, and teething on top of all that - so I've been working on reorganizing my house to suit her better (and baby-proof). 
I promise, though, that I have been working on a new post as much as I can in those little moments of spare time!  I just have to work on getting my visual aids up to the quality that I want them, and then everything should be ready.  Plus, this upcoming post will be the start of a bigger lesson that will be broken up into smaller, easy-to-digest pieces.
Expect more in the coming weeks!  Thank you for your patience!  I have no intentions of abandoning this project - I really enjoy working on it and I hope you all like following along with me!

The Korean Alphabet (Hangul)

Today I’m going to focus on Korean language - more specifically, the alphabet (yes, Korean has an alphabet).  About four years ago, some Korean friends of mine taught me the Korean alphabet (called the Hangul) but I need to brush up my knowledge a bit.  I'll try to sum up what I can remember, and if I make any errors, please let me know in the comments!  Again, I am not an expert, I am just communicating what I remember and what I've learned.

Hangul was created by the court of King Sejong the Great in the 1440s.  You can actually see King Sejong on the 10,000 Korean Won bank note.  The Hangul was created to be very easy to learn, especially when compared to Chinese script, which was difficult to learn and used primarily by the aristocracy.  According to the Hunmin Jeong-eum Haerye, a document from the 1440s explaining the Hangul, "A wise man can acquaint himself with [the letters] before the morning is over; a stupid man can learn them in the space of ten days."  Since we're not stupid, let's go over the Hangul and learn it quickly!

Welcome!

Welcome!  Bienvenue!  Tervetuloa!  환영합니다!   Willkommen!  Aloha!  Karibu!  ласкаво просимо!  Välkommen! ようこそ!  Καλώς Ορίσατε!  Selamat datang!  Bienvenida!  歡迎光臨!  Karibu!  ยินดีต้อนรับ!

Welcome to my blog in which I aim to achieve one goal: to learn new things.  When I was in school - the time in my life when I could take advantage of a free system to challenge myself and push myself to gain knowledge - I wasted that opportunity by taking easy classes and only retaining information long enough to ace the test and then forgetting it all afterwards.  I'd say I didn't really start taking learning seriously until my senior year of college, and even then, I didn't place a high priority on my education.  Later, after college, I really discovered how much I enjoy learning, and how much I value continuing to understand new things constantly.  So now, over a decade after graduating high school, I'm taking it upon myself to further my own education, little by little.  I decided to start this blog as a medium to write about what I am learning; it will be kind of a journal to keep track of the things I study, as well as a mode to keep myself accountable and not fizzle out.

What will I study?  I'm not entirely sure right now.  I may or may not keep a schedule based on subject matter (such as foreign language Fridays, etc.); I haven't decided yet.  My interests include foreign languages and cultures, science, psychology, geography, and history.  Most posts will likely fall under those subjects, but if something else catches my fancy, then I'll write about that!

I'm not entirely sure where this will take me, but as long as I continue learning, I will have succeeded.