Day: May 27, 2012

Caveat: Oh, THAT Man Came Around

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling

Today is Buddha-Came-Along-Day (부처님 오신 날).  So, THAT man came around – as opposed to the other man [broken link! FIXME] who didn't come around. A holiday. As is my usual behavior on most Korean holidays, I'm just going to stay home – I hate battling crowds in public transport, as everyone seems to want to go somewhere on holidays.

It matches up with U.S. Memorial Day, this year. That's just coincidence – Buddha's birthday follows the lunar calendar, and seems to fall kind of late, this year.

Now that I've renewed my contract, I've embarked on an apartment-improvement spree. I bought some soft mosquito-netting type stuff and I've rigged it over my window. The problem with this is that when the window is closed, the handle wants to push through where the netting wants to go. This has been solved because this netting is removable – it's velcroed the window frame and when I want to close the window, I peel back the netting. It works. I'm happy – there are a lot of mosquitoes breeding in the swamp in the alley down below, and worse, there is a disgusting pigeon infestation on the side of my building somewhere, and they have a lot of flies, which fly through my open windows most discourteously. Now, problem solved – I can keep my window open without inviting in the small-brained denizens of the building's exterior.

What I'm listening to right now.

The Arch, "Kafkaia."

Caveat: GOEFL

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling / Philosophy & Cultural Criticism / Politics, Economics & Current Affairs

Some Dalits in India are making a new "Goddess of English" according to something I saw at BBC. She's not a Goddess of English people, but English as a subject of study – because Dalits (who are India's "untouchable" caste) feel they need Engish even more than other Indian people. I think, actually, she should be called GOEFL – Goddess of English as a Foreign Language. This suits our language's current affinity for acronyms.

Wouldn't it be funny if, hundreds of years from now, anthropologists were trying to figure out how, exactly, GOEFL arose? I think if there's a Goddess, there needs to be some holy literature to go with her – I mean, seriously, if there was going to be a new "religion of the Book," this is the candidate. It should be a dictionary, maybe? Or a grammar textbook. That would be awesome.

I think the GOEFL could be serious candidate for FSM-type status. (FSM stands for Flying Spaghetti Monster.) I won't try to explain – but I recall the anecdote of the Kansas science teacher who tried to get the "FSM creation myth" into the classroom, based on challenging the vague wording of a new pro-creationist education law in that retrograde state. Properly, the religion is called Pastafarianism. I do not make this comparison this to mock GOEFL – I genuinely and sincerely hope she's a successful and widely adopted goddess.

To celebrate GOEFL Advent, I met my friend Basil who was up from Gwangju visiting, and we went out to that Indian Restaurant in the LaFesta shopping center (about a block from my old apartment). Actually, we didn't know it was GOEFL Advent. But we had some Naan and I had Aloo Palak and Raita, anyway. There were thunderstorms but the rain was sparse and we mostly walked between the raindrops.

What I'm listening to right now.

Cafe Tacuba, "Las Flores."

[Daily log: walking, 6 km]

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