My nephew James made a Flat Stanley and sent him to me. I brought the Flat Stanley to my 2nd grade after school class and we gave him a small tour of our school.
I didn't edit the video much at all – I took out a bit where a kid had a stunningly disgusting runny nose, but other than that, it's just as it happened.
I've been trying to just keep an attitude of living like a monk, lately. A way of coping with feeling out of control of my home-life, and partly, too, a way of coping with my ongoing lack of "productivity" vis-a-vis my various "life projects."
I felt this monkish feeling very strongly as I huddled, this morning, awake before dawn, eating plain rice for breakfast in my unheated apartment.
People might ask, why is your apartment unheated? Because I'm afraid to ask my school (my employer, my landlord) to repair it. Two reasons: 1) the heating system is hugely expensive to operate, so I probably wouldn't use my heat much each even if it worked (the other foreign teacher, in another unit in this building, had a $600 heating bill last month); 2) my school doesn't really respond very well to requests for help – they tend to question why it is I have a right to complain about such things.
So, for the last month or so, since about a week after moving in to this new place, I've lived without heat. Most of the time, it doesn't bother me that much – I've always prefered to keep my living space cool in winter – but sometimes I have thought of investing in at least a little space heater. But then I remember I only have a few weeks left, here. Hopefully, whatever place I get in Ilsan will be like my previous places in Ilsan – well-maintained and problem-free. Also, of course, the cold time of year is nearly over.
Why am I eating plain rice? That's just a matter of … a lot of times, I like to have a "Korean breakfast" which is rice and kimchi, but it turns out, I have no kimchi, and I was lazy yesterday and didn't go to the store.
I look out at the foggy dawn, it reminds me of high school: living in Arcata, the foggy predawn when I would get up and do my homework and get ready for school – I never did homework except in the mornings.
I listen to Minnestoa Public Radio, streaming online, and forget where in the world I am. There's a "winter storm warning" for the Arrowhead (northern Minnesota). I miss Minnesota mostly for its natural features – it's understated geography, its seasons, its weather.
Over at the Atlantic – probably my favorite website – Alexis Madrigal blogs about what he calls "the Gold-Plated Age of Web Design" (namely, the mid 1990's). He does this under the guise of a rant about April Fool's day, which I am mostly too earnest to enjoy.
I, myself, was guilty of making websites of the sort he describes – most notably, the website I made for the AP Spanish class I was teaching in the fall 1997, which I wish I still had the materials for, as it was awesomely bad from a design standpoint, although I remain marginally proud of the content (it was, thematically, meant to be a sort of "internet of fictional places from Latin American literature" – I had called it Macondonet).
Madrigal's blog entry includes the following quote, which I simply must reproduce.
This was also back when designers still mostly made fancy chairs and clothes, so web page design was a little like a bunch of nerds getting together to critique each other's tucked-in t-shirts and faded black jeans. It wasn't, "Maybe you should wear a suit;" it was, "You need more robots on your t-shirt."
For some reason the nerd-critique, such as he describes it, made me very very LOL.
Many of you know, I have an intense relationship with books. They are a passion. They are a hobby – I collect them, and I’m unable to let them go. I sometimes joke that I even own many books in languages I will never learn, including – as collector’s items – my 1920’s Lithuanian Dictionary and my 1880’s Welsh Bible. My proudest is perhaps a first edition Spanish translation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ “Dioses de marte [Gods of Mars]” – printed during WWII in Franco-era Spain, and made to look like a prayer book, to get past the censors.
Books have been a vocation, too: I worked several years in a book bindery (a book manufacturing facility), where I also learned “book arts” (the artisanal hand-manufacture of books); and then later, I worked several years at a bookstore, where I developed some degree of expertise in the wholesale used-book market.
Twice now, at Hongnong Elementary, I have turned this passion/avocation/vocation of mine into an extended lesson plan. The first time was during last Fall’s afterschool class for my fifth/sixth graders, and the second time was last month’s afterschool class for my fourth graders. The kids (not all, but many) really run with it.
Last Fall, I gave the kids, as an example, a copy of Junie B’s Essential Survival Guide to School. This is a great kid’s book, anyway, and the fifth and sixth graders ran with it, making humorous “school diaries” with lots of humorous creative illustrations.
Last month, and ending a week ago, I gave the kids some of the previous works as examples, but they took the task more literally (as 4th graders might) and so provided fairly accurate accounts (with less humor) of life at Hongnong Elementary.
Here are some pictures of the books they made. The did all the writing and illustration, and used tape, glue and thread to help hold the books together. I used my bindery book-making skills to make nice paper-covered covers for the books, giving them a “real book” feel, which the kids then drew on some more.
Da-yeon (a now-departed fifth-grader), who insisted her English name was “Messy,” was by far the most talented artist. Here are some images from her book.
Ha-jin, a fourth grader, created a simple record of life in school here. Note that it’s “Ethics” she hates, not “Ethies” as she wrote it. Somehow this seemed appropriate – I like Ha-jin a lot, but she’s definitely one of the more Machiavellian 8 year olds that I’ve met in my life.
Chally (I can’t recall his Korean name off the top of my head) made a great book with some flights of imagination – including this great page where he commutes to school by airplane or by pole-vault (“long stick”).
Da-eun (Da-yeon’s sixth grade sister, also departed) meditated on what it would be like for her in middle school, where she now is.
