Month: March 2012

Caveat: Hawking Radiation and XRay Telescopes

Banalities & Journaling

I have a really smart cohort of middle-schoolers. For our English listening-skills class, we use one of the highest level iBT (internet-based TOEFL / Test of English as a Foreign Language) test-prep textbooks. The topics on the actual TOEFL are often similar to the content of college-level coursework, and thus we end up talking about some pretty advanced material: geology, biology, 19th c. American literature, etc.

Today, we were talking about astrophysics. I was trying to explain Hawking Radiation, despite not being very clear on it, myself. The listening passage was one of those simulated college lectures. It was talking about XRay telescopes. One of my students was more clear on the issues than I was – XRay telescopes must be deployed in space, he noted. Like I said, these students are very smart.

Caveat: 중국산!

Banalities & Journaling / Kids / The Wonders of Work

[broken link! FIXME] ImagesYesterday in one of my elementary classes, we were playing a game. One of the 4th grade boys was so excited that when he raised his hand, he fell out of his chair. It was quite comic – it had the appearance of someone yanking up his arm so hard that he flew into the air and landed on the floor, but he did it on his own. The other kids laughed, and so he hammed a little bit after that.

The other kids began joking around (in Korean) that he was like a broken machine or toy, and someone said he was 중국산 (chung-guk-san = "product of China"). This was humorous, too. We all laughed. For the rest of the class, we had a little meme going, where anytime someone made a mistake, there would be a chorus of "중국산!" [Product of China]. I guess it was funny – it shows that China's reputation for mass-produced crap is not just confined to the US.

Caveat: Encyclopedias

Banalities & Journaling / Internet & Blogging / Media (Texts/Music/Movies etc) / Philosophy & Cultural Criticism

I am going to join those in the interwebs eulogizing the Encyclopedia Britannica's print edition – after 244 years, it's going online-only.

I actually own a print edition of Britannica. I don't have it with me here in Korea, obviously – it's in storage, with my 4 or 5 thousand other books. It's not exactly a recent edition. It's 1950, I think -  I bought it, used, from a Salvation Army thrift store in Minneapolis. I would estimate probably read about 40% of it.

Reading encyclopedias is an old hobby, for me. We had a World Book Encyclopedia when I was a child, which I'm fairly certain I read from A to Z when in my pre-teens – but not in order (which is why I'm not really certain if I read the whole thing). One thing I miss about paper encyclopedias, when using Wikipedia (which I also love, nevertheless), is the ability to just keep reading: the article following the one you'd come to the encyclopedia for, and the one following that, and the one after that. This is not, in fact, something that's not possible with Wikipedia – it's actually only a design choice, that could be easily remedied, by adding prominent (or not-so-prominent) "next article" and "previous article" buttons to each Wikipedia page. But they choose not to do that – and it's a loss, in my opinon. Nevertheless, I had another habit with my paper encyclopedias that's quite easy to simulate with Wikipedia: I would take down a volume at random, and open it to a random page, and begin reading; Wikipedia's "random article" button provides the same result. I use it many times every time I'm online.

A while back I began writing a blog entry about my weird relationship with Wikipedia. At the time, I wanted to focus on why it is I don't write for Wikipedia anymore. I used to. I had some writing associated mostly with geography topics, and even originated a few articles in English Wikipedia on Mexican towns and municipalities. The short answer as to why I quit writing for Wikipedia is that I'm lazy – their standards for reference and citation grew gradually more stringent than I was willing to work with. But the long answer (or rather, the psychologically more insightful answer) is that I got tired of writing what I thought were well-referenced and well-cited articles and having others changing what I'd written beyond recognition. So I'm happy at this point to read other people's writing. I've become a passive consumer of the output of egos less fragile than my own.

To return to the loss of the print edition of Britannica – I think it's a little bit sad, because of my history with encyclopedias. But I understand it, and I'm not going to launch into a luddist lament. I think that technologically, we're not far off from where we can turn any electronic content into a paper book whenever we have the urge to have a paper book – there are already automatic book-publishing devices out there (see this recent article and picture below).

Automatic-Flexo-Printing-and-Book-Stitching-Machine-LYRDT-930-

Caveat: El Aparato

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling / Español Aleatorio (Random Spanish)

El grupo mexicano Cafe Tacvba siempre era un favorito. Tienen una canción sobre el tema de abducciones de extraterrestres que se llama "El aparato." Mientras caminaba a casa esta noche, salió la canción en mi mp3. Miraba hacia el cielo, y ví unas luces detrás de los altos edificios, en el cielo coreano…

Lo que estoy escuchando en este momento.

Café Tacvba, "El aparato." La letra:

[broken link! FIXME] DownloadAyyyy
Que hombre que maneja el aparato
cuando voltié lo tenía arriba
es una luz

Algun tiempo me dejó inmóvil
solo me quedó el zumbido
de la luz

Lo escuchaba en mi  cabeza
en lengua extraña me hablaba
pero entendí

Lo juro que no había tomado
solo estaba encandilado
la hora perdí

Ay yo sé que vendrá por mi aay
y me llevará a un jardín aayy

Ayyyy
cuando me encontré con Pablo
fue que me contó esta historia
no le creí

Eso fue algunos meses
desde entonces que no lo vemos
mas por aquí

Ya no se ni que pensar
desde que llegó una carta
del hospital

Pablo tiene quemaduras
y ceguera permanente
no quiere hablar

Ay yo sé que vendrá por mi aay
y me llevará a un jardín aayy

Ay yo sé que vendrá por mi
y me llevará a un jardín aayy

Caveat: It is a dogs

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling / Kids / Media (Texts/Music/Movies etc) / The Wonders of Work

I have two students who are sisters. The younger goes by the English name Sally and is in one of my lowest elementary-level classes, and the older goes by Emily and is in my most advanced middle school class.

Today Sally drew a picture to accompany some practice/review material that I had put together in a "comics frame." I really like the picture that she drew, just because it's really cute… and in my subjective opinion, it shows that Sally really, really looks up to her older sister – it shows in how the two figures are drawn, it shows in the fact that she decided to use herself and her sister in an otherwise free exercise (I gave them no instructions about who should be saying these things to each other).

[broken link! FIXME] Dogs 001

Anyway… there's no broader pedagogical intent in my posting this here. I just like the picture. The little dogs are very cute.

Meanwhile, what I'm listening to right now.

소녀시대, "소녀시대 (노래)." Girls' Generation (KPop girl-group), self-titled song from self-titled song.

Here's the lyrics.

태연: 날 아직 어리다고 말하던 얄미운 욕심쟁이가
서현: 오늘은 왠일인지 사랑해 하며 키스해 주었네
윤아: 얼굴은 빨개지고 놀란눈은 커다래지고
써니: 떨리는 내입술은 파란빛깔 파도같아
티파니: 너무 놀라버린 나는 아무말도 하지못하고
제시카: 화를 낼까 웃어버릴까
제시카,태연: 생각하다가 (yeah!)

모두: 어리다고 놀리지 말아요 수줍어서 말도 못하고
어리다고 놀리지 말아요 스쳐가는 얘기뿐인걸

유리: 날 아직 어리다고 말하던 얄미운 욕심쟁이가
효연: 오늘은 왠일인지 사랑해 하며 키스해 주었네
수영: 너무 놀라버린 나는 아무말도 하지못하고
태연: 화를 낼까 웃어버릴까
태연,제시카: 생각하다가

모두: 어리다고 놀리지 말아요 수줍어서 말도 못하고
어리다고 놀리지 말아요 스쳐가는 얘기뿐인걸

제시카: 조금은 서툰 그런 모습도 어쩜 그대 내맘을 흔들어 놓는지
태연: woo~ 바보같은맘 나도 모르겠어
모두: 그저 이맘이 가는 그대로
윤아: 어리다고 놀리지 말아요
제시카: woo~ 날모르잖아요
수영: 어리다고 놀리지 말아요

모두: 어리다고 놀리지 말아요 (태연: 놀리지말아요)
수줍어서 말도못하고
어리다고 놀리지말아요 (제시카: 놀리지말아요)
스쳐가는 얘기뿐인걸 (Yeah!)

모두: 어리다고 놀리지말아요 (티파니: 난 모르잖아요)
수줍어서 말도 못하고 (태연: 말도 못하고)
어리다고 놀리지 말아요 스쳐가는 얘기뿐인걸
어리다고 놀리지 말아요

Caveat: Like Seinfeld After Time Spent At Burning Man

Background Noise / Media (Texts/Music/Movies etc)

I recently saw the first episode of a show called Portlandia. It has a bit of a Seinfeldian vibe, in the abstract, but cross-pollinated by a lot of hippies and hipsters and other hip-related-objects. I've never lived in Portland, but I grew up in a kind of rural extension of Portland's culture-sphere known as Humboldt County, California. The show is an utter exaggeration, but the germ of the cultural factors parodied in the show is to be found in Humboldt, there's no doubt.

What I'm listening to right now.

Portlandia, "Dream of the 90's." Arguably, this video is NSFW – for semantic content.

Incidentally, I think I recognize that neighborhood in LA where they're walking around, in the video.

Caveat: Petals

Media (Texts/Music/Movies etc)

Petals

Life is a stream
On which we strew
Petal by petal the flower of our heart;
The end lost in dream,
They float past our view,
We only watch their glad, early start.
Freighted with hope,
Crimsoned with joy,
We scatter the leaves of our opening rose;
Their widening scope,
Their distant employ,
We never shall know. And the stream as it flows
Sweeps them away,
Each one is gone
Ever beyond into infinite ways.
We alone stay
While years hurry on,
The flower fared forth, though its fragrance still stays.

– Amy Lowell

Caveat: Karmameter

Banalities & Journaling / Found Online

I've been spending a great deal of time on visual arts websites like my modern metropolis or empty kingdom. I love sites like these.

I'm not sure what I'm doing or looking for, exactly. I have certain vague aspirations in the field of visual arts, undeniably, but they've been largely dormant. I find striking images or ideas on these sites, and enjoy the variety of them. Just as an almost random sample, here below is a graphic image I rather liked for its visual simplicity and yet difficult-to-understand referentiality, by an artist named Aaron Hogg.

Design-KARMA1

 

Caveat: 영광법성포 굴비

Banalities & Journaling

OMG flashbacks.

I was walking around Ilsan near Juyeop subway station, and heard a man advertising Yeonggwang Gulbi on a loudspeaker. This gave me flashbacks to last year, when I lived in Yeonggwang. Here's a picture of his truck.

[broken link! FIXME] Gulbi 001

It says Yeonggwang Beopseongpo Gulbi on it – Beopseongpo was the next town over from Hongnong, where I taught at the elementary school. Weird to run across this in Ilsan.

Caveat: No hay amor ilegítimo.

Español Aleatorio (Random Spanish) / Media (Texts/Music/Movies etc) / Quotable

Siempre me han gustado los aforismos. Hoy encontré una colección de aforismos del escritor chileno Vicente Huidobro. Algunos sobresalientes:

Las creencias religiosas tienen como origen la ley del menor esfuerzo.

Es incomprensible que un individuo que haya estudiado profundamente la sociedad actual no sea comunista.
Es incomprensible que un individuo que haya estudiado profundamente el comunismo, no sea anarquista.

[broken link! FIXME] ImagesEn nombre del Arte.
En nombre de la Belleza.
En nombre de la Verdad.
En nombre del Orden.
En nombre de la Ley.
En nombre de la Bondad.
En nombre del Deber…
Palabras, palabras.

Finalmente:

No hay amor ilegítimo.

[Imagen: Huidobro por Picasso.]

Caveat: Optimists

Quotable

LightbulbHow many optimists does it take to change a light bulb?

Who says it's dark?

Wa-ape-changing-light-bulb

Caveat: Riceball & Tortilla

Banalities & Journaling / Food & Drink / Life in Korea

[broken link! FIXME] Rt 001Frankly, "Riceball & Tortilla" sounds like the ill-conceived name of a 1970's TV dramedy with a politically-incorrect ethnic twist, perhaps in the buddy-cop genre (e.g. Starsky and Hutch, Cagney and Lacey).

Instead, it's the name of a fast-food joint in my neighborhood. One of my coworkers brought me something from there – a 주먹밥 (which I've [broken link! FIXME] blogged before) but coated in something vaguely resembling corn meal instead of seaweed – I guess that's the "tortilla" part of the name. In Korean, it's named 주먹밥&또띠아 전문점 [ju-meok-bap & tto-tti-a jeon-mun-jeom = riceball & "tortilla" specialty shop].

Here's a picture of the container. I ate the actual riceball before taking a picture – sorry.

It's not bad. I like the kind with seaweed on the outside, better.

Caveat: 뜻이 있는 곳에 길이 있다

Quotable / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean) / 한국어 속담 (Aphorisms & Proverbs)

뜻이       있는        곳에       길이      있다
will-SUBJ exists-ADJ place-LOC way-SUBJ exists
Where there's a will there's a way.

This proverb translates almost exactly to the English. I was almost shocked when it dawned on me that it was equivalent. Mostly, proverbs aren't so easy to translate.

Not very useful advice, to someone such as myself who seems to be suffering primarily from willpower issues.

Caveat: When I Trip With Doctor Who

Banalities & Journaling / Quotable / The Wonders of Work

I'm not, personally, a big Doctor Who fan. I was always a trekkie, when it came to inordinate otakuosity vis-a-vis sci-fi shows (and by the way, I just invented the word "otakuosity" so don't complain – look up the Japanese slang term "otaku" and you'll understand).

Nevertheles, I couldn't help but be very impressed and pleased to see an 8th grade Korean girl write the following speech composition for me in 2012 (and note that, as always, I will type what she wrote verbatim – without corrections – I think she did very well for her level):

[broken link! FIXME] ImagesHello my name is Yeongeun. I'm going to talk about my plan for camping trip. I want to go to Tardis. Because Tardis is a very interesting spaceship. Tardis can go anywhere even future and past, too. If I go to Tardis, I have to bring some food, water, a sleeping bag and clothes. I have to bring weapons, too, because when I trip with doctor, that I have many happens. Also, I will have to see many aliens, and they will attack me and doctor and I will be scared. But maybe doctor can't kill them. So, I have to attack aliens with weapons. This is my plan for camping trip. Thanks for listening.

Please note, I did not in any way plant this idea in her mind. It emerged utterly on its own, and in the hostile environment of Korean hagwon-based English education, which for the most part stultifies imagination and creativity and discourages interest in unusual cultural artifacts from foreign cultures, such as Doctor Who.

Caveat: No one smiles when using the dictionary

Banalities & Journaling / Teaching & Methodology / The Wonders of Work

My students were writing essays in my RN2T cohort. When I have them write, I have no problem allowing them to use dictionaries – I will be going through and correcting their writing with them, anyway, and I think it can be valuable because it encourages them to be more creative with language, which in turn allows them to become more engaged in the learning process.

Allowing them dictionaries in this day and age means allowing them to pull out their cell phones – that's where the dictionary apps live, along with online (internet) dictionaries and such like. I don't have hang ups about this. It's part of the world as it is, today.

One student, Hojin, had his phone out and was grinning at it.

"[broken link! FIXME] DiodictI said you could use your phones for dictionaries," I said to him – "Not to surf the internet or play games."

"Teacher!" he objected. He turned the screen away so I couldn't see it. Then, thinking… "How did you know?"

"No one smiles when they're using the dictionary, Hojin," I explained, sardonically.

"Oh. You're so clever!" He laughed. And he put his phone away.

 

Caveat: I felt absurd but my mind was light

Philosophy & Cultural Criticism / Politics, Economics & Current Affairs / Quotable / The Wonders of Work

[broken link! FIXME] Sj_html_m431c1c69I recently gave my most advanced class of middle schoolers a speech assignment, based on the idea of interviewing some famous person. I have gotten some very interesting and well-thought-out results. One student imagines interviewing the late Steve Jobs (there are plenty of Apple fans in Korea). He actually did quite a bit of research, apparently, into Jobs’ biography. He asks the following question:

What did you feel when you were fired from Apple?

His answer isn’t exactly perfect, idiomatically, but it’s clear and deeply insightful, if not downright philosophical:

I felt absurd but My mind was light.

It’s worth recalling that Jobs was a practicing Zen Buddhist. This invented “Jobs quote” on the part of my student is even more insightful when considered in that light.

Now… don’t get me wrong: I’m still the ultimate anti-Apple-fanboy. But Steve Jobs as a business persona has always interested me more than the particular strategies and style that he adopted for his company, and they’re something I’m more inclined to look upon favorably.

Caveat: Further Allegations

Banalities & Journaling / Teaching & Methodology

I've made allegations [broken link! FIXME] before. Allegations are what alligators do, right? Um… no?

Alligators are my "brand" as a teacher, in a way. I have my alligator schtick, which comes in handy especially with younger students. To recall a conversation I had some years ago with a student: "Teacher! Why do you like alligators?" "Because you like alligators!" But the fact is, there's no reason at all – I don't have any reason to like alligators. It all came about by accident.

Here is a doodle that I had to retire from my desk. Rather than just throw it away, I decided to immortalize it on the interwebs, first. Isn't that exciting?

[broken link! FIXME] Al 002

Go ahead, make your baseless allegations.

Caveat: 말보다 증거

Banalities & Journaling / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean) / 한국어 속담 (Aphorisms & Proverbs)


말보다      증거
word-THAN evidence
Evidence [is better] than words.

Evidence for what?

I had a list of proverbs I was trying to go through them in order but I skipped about 5 of them, because they were too difficult to figure out. Seeing evidence of my poor Korean Language skill (and doing nothing about it) is better than learning new Korean vocabulary. There, that really confounds the intended meaning of proverb.

And here is the best explanation of this kind of problem.

I was hoping to get some stuff done yesterday, too.

Caveat: Creating

Banalities & Journaling / Found Online / Quotable

Here's Ira Glass (who I'm not always a fan of, but, well…) on the topic of creativity, with a creative accompanying animation by someone named David Shiyang Liu.

Is it possible for me to follow this advice? I did some writing today, but when it comes to the recommended focus on volume, I'm not really doing that well. My perfectionism (or my "taste" as Glass calls it) is too annoyingly interfering.

Caveat: Dream Delivers Us to Dream

Background Noise / Life is a Dream / Philosophy & Cultural Criticism / Quotable

"Dream delivers us to dream, and there is no end to illusion. Life is a train of moods like a string of beads, and, as we pass through them, they prove to be many-colored lenses which paint the world their own hue… Temperament is the iron wire on which the beads are strung." – Ralph Waldo Emerson

What I'm listening to right now.

Humberto Pernett, "Cumbia galáctica."

Caveat: Stop Talking

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling / Found Online

Here's a scary technology – some Japanese company is developing a device that can be pointed at someone, gun-like, and stop that person from talking. Here's a discussion of it, at Language Log.

Walking home I stopped by my bank's ATM to take out some cash, and it occured to me that I hadn't updated my bankbook in a long time. I don't receive mailed bank statements for my Korean bank account(s), and I don't have online banking configured, although I reckon if I tried, I could get either of those things set up. I just never bothered to. So if I need to get a list of transactions, Korean ATM's have a function where you insert your savings/check-card passbook into the machine and it prints updated transactions into the passbook. I stuck my passbook into the machine and it printed 5 months' worth of transactions. There weren't any surprises – the only reason I'm mentioning this is because it was really surprising to me that I'd not done so in so long – time has really been flying by quite fast since I came back to Ilsan from my sojourn in Yeonggwang.

What I'm listening to right now.

Morphine, "The Night."

Caveat: 55

Banalities & Journaling / The Wonders of Work

I had a group of 7th-graders who didn't know my age (either they were relatively new students who hadn't been through an "introduction" class with me, or else they'd completely forgotten).

I had them attempt to estimate my age. I do this when they ask how old I am, unless I make a joke and say something outlandish, like "I'm 647." Kids are notoriously unreliable in estimating my age, but I nevertheless feel discouraged that the average age estimate was almost 10 years too old: 55. Normally the average, at least, comes out not that far off, despite some outlying individual estimates.

Am I looking old, lately? Acting old? Is my ennui showing?

Sigh. Again.

Caveat: Frontier Psychiatrist (with Curry)

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling / Food & Drink

What I'm listening to right now.

The Avalanches, "Frontier Psychiatrist." This song was on the radio in 2001, I think. I associate it with living in Burbank, California, and driving on the 134 toward Pasadena to visit my dad. I imagined going to visit a frontier psychiatrist, who would help me in some difficult-to-define but appropriately frontiery way. The video is pretty entertaining, in and of itself – I can honestly say I never saw it before right this moment.

[broken link! FIXME] Ck 002I made a Tomato & Yogurt Curry from a pre-mix ("seasonings only") package, earlier. This is quite adventurous, since the directions on the package are entirely and solely in Korean (see right).

So it was a cross between a Korean Language lesson and a cooking class. I wonder if this has potential as a means of motivating me to study Korean better. I kept confirming my understanding of instructions and vocabulary with a dictionary and/or googletranslate, worrying I wasn't making it right. But the basics: veggies and potatoes (I left out the meat called for in the recipe), boil in the first packet of mix, add the second packet, then the third, serve over rice. Here it is.

[broken link! FIXME] Ck 003

Dot dot dot. Life, it turns out, goes on.

 

Caveat: The Hill and The Mall

Banalities & Journaling / Hiking & Travel / Life in Korea / My Photos

Yesterday I went with Curt to go on a small hike up a mountain (well, really just a hill). His daughter came along, who's just entering 4th grade. The mountain we chose is called 심학산 [simhaksan]. It has a view of North Korea, like many mountains around here – it was hazy and not very distinct but I'm always very aware of it – I guess it's just my geographical interest kicking in.

[broken link! FIXME] Simhaksan_html_m3cae732e

After the mountain we went to a brand new giant mall and had dinner and bought his little one-year-old a Pororo-branded toy. It was fun. Here are some pictures. I didn't get a picture of the boy with the toy. I should have.

This is near the top of the mountain.

[broken link! FIXME] Hill 005

Curt and I.

[broken link! FIXME] Hill 007

A view southeast, toward Ilsan. Somewhere near the center of that vast cluster of buildings is my apartment and workplace.

[broken link! FIXME] Hill 014

Here I am looking dazed with the community known as Geumchon hidden directly behind me. Geumchon is important because it's where I lived in 1991 when I was in Korea, as a soldier in the US Army.

[broken link! FIXME] Hill 021

And here's the striking view looking North – I've added some useful labels to this picture – you can click the picture to enlarge it.

[broken link! FIXME] Hill 028

Anywhere in Northern Gyeonggi Province, if you go hiking on the hills and mountains, you will run across military structures – fox-holes, fortified hill-tops, bunkers and concrete tank traps and hidden installations. Here's a covered "tank-parking-space" amid the trees on the side of the mountain.

[broken link! FIXME] Hill 032

Curt's daughter (and my sometime student at Karma, too), looking focused and tired on her way down the mountain. She was angry because Curt had promised a snack at the top of the mountain and he'd forgotten, and she failed to complain about it. We had a snack when we got back down to the bottom.

[broken link! FIXME] Hill 033

Here's a turtle-based monument seen along the trail.

[broken link! FIXME] Hill 034

At the mall.

[broken link! FIXME] Hill 043

Lurking in the dusky haze beyond the freeway interchange, there lies the Han River Estuary and the point of North Korea. I wonder what the Northerners think, watching this massive monument to blatant brand-name consumerism through their high-powered binoculars.

[broken link! FIXME] Hill 044

 

 

Caveat: 삼일절

Banalities & Journaling / Politics, Economics & Current Affairs

Today is a holiday. March first commemorates the 1919 uprising against the Japanese colonial rule. I’ve blogged about it [broken link! FIXME] before, but I read something interesting in the wikithing article on the topic today: “A delegation of overseas Koreans, from Japan, China, and Hawaii, sought to gain international support for independence at the ongoing Paris Peace Conference. The United States and Imperial Japan blocked the delegation’s attempt to address the conference.” (Emphasis added by me).  Not to be a hater, but, looking at the historical record, ain’t it wonderful how my own country stands up so consistently for human rights?
I spent the day with my sometime friend / sometime boss Curt. I’ll post more later.

A delegation of overseas Koreans, from Japan, China, and Hawaii, sought to gain international support for independence at the ongoing Paris Peace Conference. The United States and Imperial Japan blocked the delegation’s attempt to address the conference.
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