Day: September 21, 2017

Caveat: Those New Service Sector Jobs – Cactus Manager

Banalities & Journaling / Teaching & Methodology / The Wonders of Work / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

I was with my ES2-T cohort. They're really low level. We were talking about what their parents' jobs were (i.e. My dad is a building manager). A fourth-grader named Tim insisted that his mother was a "Cactus Manager." Of course, I had no idea what a cactus manager might be. I suspected a bad translation, but even after we messed with the dictionary on my phone for a while, that was all he could come up with. I think there might be some kind of hole in the dictionary's knowledge (not unheard of). I drew pictures of cactuses and stick-figure moms managing them, and Tim thought this was entertaining but I don't think he even realized what I was trying to say. 

The name of this blog post is a tribute to Tyler Cowen's economics blog – he's always finding "those new service sector jobs" that are strange or unexpected.

[daily log: walking, 7km]

Caveat: Random Poem #116 “Love sonnet”

A Daily Poem / Book 1 / My Poetry & Fiction / Sonnet

(Poem #417 on new numbering scheme)

An unrequited love is best of all
because there are no compromises urged
because no complications will befall
because right from the start all hopes are purged.
Imagined generosities prevent
the flowering of jealousies unreal,
and finally the heart's desires are spent
in crafting verse the voice must not reveal.
Yet all along, new meanings can be made:
from castles, pure and abstract, words are flung
and later when those ramparts start to fade,
an apophenic anthem can be sung.
It's easy, then, to pine for that that's not;
and simple, too, to leave it: just a thought.

– a sonnet in iambic pentameter.

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