Caveat: 보문사

Yesterday Andrew, Hollye and I went to 보문사 [Bomun temple], which is on Seongmo Island which is off the coast of the larger Ganghwa Island which is basically straight west of Seoul at the mouth of Han River. We took a long, slow, local bus from Ilsan to Ganghwa County Seat, thence on a different bus (after some confusion as to where to catch it) to Oepo-ri on Ganghwa’s west side, then a short ferry ride across the channel to Seongmo, and finally, after lunch of clam noodle soup and spicy herring salad, a last bus around Seongmo Island to the location of the temple.

Here are some pictures from this trip.

Waiting to board the ferry at Oepo-ri.

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Looking back at Oepo-ri from aboard the ferry.

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Many hungry seagulls freeloading off the “do not feed the birds”-disregarding Koreans.

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Looking back while walking up the steep driveway to the temple.

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The temple gate.

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Looking up at the temple area.

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Andrew and Hollye walking behind me.

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A large collection of statues regarding a stupa. I’m not really sure what this represents.

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Looking up the mountain at our ultimate destination.

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Looking down a big old tree.

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The entrance to the grotto temple.

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Temple details.

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Small figurines hanging out on some mossy rocks.

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Going farther up the mountainside, there was a cast bronze statue of a many-headed, many-tailed dragon.

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Looking back down the mountainside.

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At the top of the many, many stairs we found the famous buddha relief carved in the cliff-side looking out to sea.

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Then we found a back-trail back down the mountainside. This sign says “danger.”

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Looking out while waiting for the return ferry.

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Another ferry parking beside ours.

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Some views of boats upon our return to Oepo-ri.

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Here is a collection of temple-wall paintings thrown in here at the end of this here blogpost.

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caveat: unpleasant speculation

what if the main and most notable side effect of the radiation treatment was a generalized, unfocused grumpiness?

ive been feeling that feeling a lot lately. i suppose its connected to a correspondingly generalized, unfocused feeling of being "under the weather." but as i attempt to travel a day trip to ganghwa with my brother and hollye, i cant help but be conscious of how short my temper is, and how easily i succumb to feelings of frustration or annoyance.

why is it easier to find equanimity in a hospital in a radiation machine than it is on a bus with andrew? that doesnt seem logical.

Caveat: and other yummy alright people in my right mind hey

My friend Peter was playing with the auto-captioning feature on youtube, while watching the video I posted last week of my telling my cancer story to my 7th graders. Honestly, I had never played with this youtube feature before. I was vaguely aware of its existence but I had assumed that if the quality was anything like google translate, it wouldn’t be that useful.

I was right, but I’d underestimated its sheer entertainment value. Having watched my video in snippets with the captioning turned on, I’ve laughed several times.

Peter found and screenshotted one of the best, which he sent to me:

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I found this one, too, which matches up with me saying “I feel great.”

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I know the software is terrible, but seeing this nevertheless also induced some insecurities with respect to my enunciation, which of course is “re-learned” on my newly re-engineered tongue and vocal tract. I’ll keep working to improve on that. It’s important to me to provide comprehensible input to my students, and lately I’ve been worrying that they’re understanding even less than normal, and just being quiet out of pity or politeness. That’s a hard battle, in Korea.

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Caveat: A Saturday’s Banality

I woke up this morning with a very vaguely nauseated feeling. Probably something I wouldn't have even noticed, normally, or something I would have associated with feeling a bit tired or just unmotivated to eat breakfast as sometimes happens. But currently undergoing radiation treatment, it's natural to want to read more into it. I quickly magnified it into all kinds of half-hypochondrical fantasies, and found it hard to eat breakfast. I texted to Andrew and let him know that I was deciding not to try to do an overnight adventure this weekend, as we had somewhat discussed and half-planned.

Walking to work, however, the nauseated feeling seemed to fade.

Later, at work, I felt that way again, however. Not bad, just sort of a background feeling of wooziness. Teaching was effortful – lecturing for a full hour with a dry mouth proved a bit of a challange, but I solved it by keeping a cup of water handy. And actually, both my classes today felt very successful and I was happy with them.

After work, I went over to my "old" apartment, where Andrew and Hollye are staying, and had a lunch of a very large and diverse salad, of the sort almost impossible to find in Korea except at higher end, very westernized restaurants maybe – the sort of restaurant I rarely frequent, anyway. I almost never make such salads for myself, because making salads for oneself always seems to lead to a lot of wastage of vegetables over the longer term. So it was good to have it, and delicious.

Then I packed up a suitcase and rolled it over to my "new" apartment, and here I am, posting to this here blog thingy. It's been a long break between updates – almost 24 hours, which, in recent times, I don't generally let happen.

I'm feeling far from the top of my game, but I'm hanging in there. More later.

Caveat: 왕따의 이야기

pictureI was correcting essays and came across this depressing, anonymous work. I know who Jack is – he’s a student. I know who Ken is – he’s a teacher.

There was a boy who called Jack And he was 10 years old and he was Wangg TTa [왕따]. Because he always says “I’m most handsome!!” So his classmates hit the Jack. Jack was so tired to that. So he suicided by a bottle of sleeping pills. But he’s mother wasn’t sad. So Jack became ghost, and killed his mother and Ken. So they became ghost, too so they killed Jack one more time. The End.

As usual, the above was transcribed retaining errors, punctuation and orthography. The word 왕따 [wang-tta] deserves some comment: the word means a kind of outcast, maybe a word like geek or nerd or weirdo or loser would be a better translation than outcast. In verb form (와따시키다), it is the act of ostracizing such a person. Although we associate bullying with the school setting in Western culture, the word 왕따 can apply to all social situations, including things like work environments (see comic, above right).

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Caveat: Lying Down

After my fourth session I walked with Andrew and Hollye through the park that’s behind the cancer center and that separates the hospital from where my new apartment is. I’m feeling pretty tired, though, so when I got back to my apartment they went on to my “old” apartment (which they’re occupying – and which by the way is working out really well, as it ends up being cheaper for me to maintain two apartments for a short time rather than trying to help them find a hotel).

I ended up lying down and actually napping for a while.

This is what they say happens with the radiation… just kind of a general increase of fatigue. But as usual, I have no idea what is really behind it – it could just as easily be the very busy day I had yesterday, hiking around Suwon with Nate and Andrew and Hollye.

The whole thing is vague and indirect enough to be endlessly speculative, uncertain and hypochondriacal.

Regardless of cause, I’m feeling some tiredness, definitely. I’m going into work soon, but I have no class obligations this evening so I might not stay there too long.

Here are some pictures from walking in Jeongbalsan park.

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caveat: zap-o-matic number 4

its a bit as if im lying on an altar, encased in a suit of plastic, my eyes and mouth sealed closed, and then these hightech priests sprinkled highenergy photons around my head like a kind of massless, ethereal holywater.

clickclickclick pause clickclick pause

my ears' stereo perception allows me to sense it as it moves around me in randomly paced arcs, always counterclockwise. . .

Caveat: Return to Suwon

I spent several months in Suwon in 2010, so it’s one of my Korean “homes” – I know the city pretty well and I like it a lot.

Today, I dragged Andrew and Hollye down to Suwon on the 2 hour subway trek, and met my friend Nate. We had lunch, walked around a lot, visited some temples and hiked to the top of Paldalsan, and hung out in an air conditioned cafe for a long time, too.

I’m pretty tired now, so I won’t write a lot. But here are a bunch of pictures.

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Nate took the above photo and posted it on facebook. What he wrote under it was very complementary:

Six weeks ago, Jared had surgery for cancer. Yesterday, he started radiation treatment. Today, he hiked up a mountain on the hottest day in Korean history and made me look like a baby. This is the toughest dude on earth.

I think Nate is tougher than me. But I very much appreciate the complement.

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caveat: zap-o-matic reprieve

To celebrate the liberation of Korea from the yoke of Japanese Imperialism, I will not be bombarded with high-energy photons today.

I had intended to sleep in, but as those who know me are aware, I'm not always very good at sleeping in. So… good morning.

Perhaps a nap, later?

I definitely have enough of a headache to assume it's residual of the radiotherapy and not just something unrelated, especially as unlike most headaches it seems rooted in my jaw. I don't want this to become a litany of whining or complaint, but I did set out to document my "cancer experience" as best I could, so I'm trying to present things as they happen.

More later, then.

Caveat: 파전과 막걸리

Andrew’s girlfriend Hollye arrived this evening. We went out to dinner along LaFesta and had 파전 [pa-jeon = a sort of savory omelettish pancake] with 막걸리 [makkeolli = rice beer]. These are foods that traditionally go together.
Then we took a walk around the lake and now I’m home and very tired. Ready for bed.

Caveat: over the boulders at night


pictureHow Poetry Comes to Me

It comes blundering over the
Boulders at night, it stays
Frightened outside the
Range of my campfire
I go to meet it at the
Edge of the light
– Gary Snyder   (American poet, b 1930)

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Caveat: Immobilization

I have DSL now, in my new apartment! Yay. Now, we just have to get the A/C repaired. Heh.
After my radiation this morning, I experienced a very severe dry mouth. That’s the worst symptom so far, that I’ve experienced that can be clearly attributed to the radiation therapy sessions. I bought some Gatorade, but since then the dry mouth keeps recurring – i.e., it doesn’t seem to respond to efforts at hydration. And it’s accompanied by a runny nose. Which, as Andrew observed, seems a bit unfair, to have both at the same time.
Anyway, it’s not so bad. I feel pretty high energy, still. I spent a good portion of this afternoon cleaning and scrubbing in my new apartment, while waiting for the internet guy to show up. And then he did, and I felt happy about that too because I communicated with him entirely in Korean. Not that there was much to say: I’m here waiting; come in; put it over there; does it work? etc.
Are you curious what I look like, encased in plastic and immobilized for the radiation? I was curious, so I had one of the technicians take some pictures of me after I was strapped in. He did a good job. Here I am. Don’t I look happy-as-a-buddha? Eheh.
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caveat: zap-o-matic number 3

“another day, another xray. . .”

theyre switching my internet DSL from my old apartment to my new apartment, so i may be posting to the blog less than ususal. . dont worry about me.

i walked to hospital this morning. it was hot and humid, but the air was clear and luminous with the sun and well-formed clouds. i took a picture of the longest-lived vacant lot in ilsan. most vacant lots last a year or two at most, but this has existed since i came here six years ago.

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caveat: kinda like camping out

im in my new apartment rather than my old one. consequently i have no DSL yet. so im back to posting from my phone like i was doing in the hospital.

my neck and mouth have a sort of burning sensation, half itchy half achey – thats the only thing i can point to as a likely side effect of my first two days of my 3d conformal xray tomographic radiotherapy. im guessing my headache is just tiredness from a long, busy day.
my new apt is sparse, still. its like camping out. the DSL will transfer tomorrow.

meanwhile for your entertainment, i present a photo of a tableau i composed using my small collection of lego. it is meant to represent my current situation.

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Caveat: my “Summer 2013 Cancer Theme Song.”

Just now, I have a bit of headache, and that weird sunburned mouth sensation, again. But other than that, nothing horrible at all. Less headache than yesterday – I didn’t have to clench my jaw so much as they tightened the chin section of my strap-down apparatus better this morning.

I was answering a question to someone on facebook about risks associated with therapy and I will repeat here for clarity and access. She asked about how the radiation therapy might impact my vocal cords. I wrote:

I’m not aware of any specific significant risk to other parts of my talking ability, i.e. the vocal cords you mentioned. There is some general risk connected with any type of radiation therapy for lasting damage. I’m more concerned about pharynx/larynx as opposed to vocal cords specifically. The scariest risks mentioned in pre-therapy counseling were: hearing loss, eye damage, and bone cancer (or bone necrosis) in the jaw(!). Percentages are low, however.

Unrelatedly… sometimes, maybe once every 3 months, I actually begin to feel nostalgic for LA. Fortunately, the feeling passes quickly… but see below.

What I’m listening to right now.

Daft Punk, “Lose Yourself to Dance.”

I posted this song before. Not that long ago, even. But I don’t care. It’s my “Summer 2013 Cancer Theme Song.”

Caveat: Hypochondriac Daydreams

After sitting around for a while after getting home from yesterday afternoon's first radiation therapy session, I felt restless. Not energetic, exactly, but it was a kind of impatience. Part of the problem is that I sit there thinking and worrying too much.

"Is that little itch on the side of my neck a symptom of the therapy, or just a little itch on the side of my neck?" … "How about that strange feeling in the side of my mouth?" … "How about that momentary ringing sound in my ears?" These are the bodily "ghosts" and passing sensations that we experience all the time, if we sit and "listen" to our bodies at any time, but now, I have this giant thing to worry about, to wonder how it's affecting me.

It's not to say I'm not experiencing some symptoms. The slight burning sensation on my neck or in my mouth matches what was suggested. But even that, I have to wonder… am I feeling it, in part, because it was suggested? As a long practicing semi-pseudo-meta-hypochondriac (don't ask me what, exactly, I mean by that), this is going to prove a difficult time, I think.

So last night, Andrew and I ran some errands, and stopped in a 김밥천국 [kimbap heaven = Korean fastfood chain] for some 콩국수 [kongguksu = soy milk cold noodle soup with egg and veggies], which I had been craving. Not as good as at a "real" restaurant, but the fast food version satisfies the craving more or less.

We ended up walking a few kilometers, because Andrew wanted to buy a giant fan to compensate for the fact that we may need to get the air conditioning unit repaired in my new apartment. But this being Korea, with the summer season in full swing, giant fans seemed hard to come by. They're all sold out and not restocked, because why would someone wait until now to buy a fan? They'll re-appear next spring, right?

It was funny, because Andrew now seems to have the thankfully short-lived cold that I had last week. The consequence is that he was the one who said, "OK, let's stop walking," rather than me. He remarked that there was some irony that I would be the one to want to keep walking, being the alleged cancer patient.

I slept restlessly, waking up several times.

At one point, I dreamed I was trying interview some military official, but he refused to speak a language I could understand. I kept trying out snippets of different languages, and his language would shift, and become imcomprehensible.

Now it's morning. I have session number two in a few hours. I'll have breakfast and Andrew and I will head over to the hospital.

Caveat: 방사선구역

pictureThe first session is done.

It went fast. I spent about 25 minutes strapped down, of which 20 minutes was under the rayguns. That 20 minutes was divided into 10 minutes for calibration (low intensity) and 10 minutes for therapy (high intensity).

The hardest part was clenching my jaw and staying still and trying not to swallow.

Post-therapy impressions:

I have a strong headache, which could be just as likely due to clenching my jaw while being strapped down as due to what they did with their x-rays. I have a sort of slight burning or tingling on the inside of my mouth and along my gumlines – it’s like the inside of my mouth spent too much time in a tanning booth. I have some dryness in my throat and mouth – which isn’t even bothering me, since ever since my surgery I’ve felt exceptionally and unpleasantly slobbery. I have a sort of itchiness along my neck, which may be due to how the plastic strap-down apparatus makes contact with my skin there, or it might be due to the “burn.” All of these are symptoms that are listed as common, none are indicative of any major problem.

It’s just the first session, and some side-effects will be cumulative – e.g. the predicted possible hair loss, fatigue, etc.

The picture (above right) shows me about 5 minutes after I emerged from the treatment room. The sign says (roughly), “Radiation therapy zone: unauthorized entry prohibited.”

Talking to Andrew just now, I said I felt a little bit like I had just come out of the dentist.

“Oh, you mean distrustful of all humanity?” he asked, rhetorically.

I laughed.

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Caveat: Analog

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This is worthy of contemplation, on radiation day one. Good morning world.

Caveat: Mind’s Eye

I was looking for something less taxing than going out and walking around in 90 degree heat with 100% humidity. I found my ink and brush and some paper and did this sketch – not a still life just from imagination.

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I’m trying to recapture my various pre-illness hobbies and interests, and find my old routines and spontaneities.

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Caveat: My Cancer Story As Told to Low-English 7th Graders

The kids only understand maybe 20-30% of what I say. But I repeat myself a lot, I draw a lot of pictures on the whiteboard, I've given them some key words ahead of time (cancer, surgery, etc.).

So I just talk. I actually teach this way a lot – providing kind of personalized "stories" or narratives. "Almost-comprehensible input" I call it. It's deliberately a little be above ability level. But this narrative was quite a bit longer than most I do – and more deeply personal, too.

Despite their limited understanding, their eyes were wide and they were utterly attentive throughout. They know the topic, they know it's REAL, they're fascinated.

I go off on a little bit of a political-leaning statement at the end, saying the kids should be proud of their country that they have better health insurance than in the US. I believe this, but it's also calculated – I often try to get my students to reflect that their country isn't as "poor" and "bad" as they like to believe. Koreans love to talk about how bad things are in their country, and I want them to recognize that they exist on a continuum where in some realms they're really quite well off.

I feel a little bit self-conscious posting this. It's not perfect, but it's very much how I tend to conduct a class, just on a more intensive subject than usual with a much longer "lecture" part. As I listen to it, I'm hyperaware of how much I use "filler" transition words like "so" and "and then." All of us do this, but stylistically this has become a bit of an affectation for me – I've "Koreanized" my sentence structure: I add transition words the way that Korean non-native speakers of English tend to add transition words. It sounds weird, to me, played back. But I have come to feel that especially for lower level students, it gives them something to "hang on to."

I kind of fudge on a few aspects of the story – I leave out the complicating infection and attribute my second surgery to my own talking too much. There are other corners cut in the narrative – it's not for a medical journal. But overall I think it's sincere to what I experienced. 

 

Caveat: Languagelessness

I really like this periodic table by a graphic designer named Alison Haigh. It’s utterly languageless, and I think, aside from the Mendeleev arrangement, it could be comprehended by aliens. I think if she had adopted the “wide periodic table” arrangement it would have been more “universal.”

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Caveat: Bobo County Redux

It was a very long and busy day.

I taught two actual classes – meaning officially assigned classes for which I had to have lesson plans, take attendance, etc. Although I did some substituting and visits to classes this past week, these were my first real classes since the Thursday prior to entering the hospital, which was at the end of June.

In both classes, I made part of my lesson a presentation of my cancer surgery experience. Over the years, I’ve learned that most middle-schoolers are utterly enthralled by the health problems of others, especially when conveyed as “true stories” – and nothing could be truer than pointing to my still very visible bandages and scars and saying “here” and “here.” So as far as captivating attention, I’ve rarely had a better lesson plan – but it was essentially a one-off success, in that respect.

I made a video recording of one of my presentations – to my “special Saturday” 7th graders. If it’s appealing enough, I might edit and post it – we’ll see. I really like those kids – they are what I describe as my “not advanced but always interested” class. They’re fun without being inclined to burnout, like more intense, high-level students can get sometimes.

After that, I talked with Curt and some other teachers for a while. Then Curt and I drove over to see my new apartment.

“Whaaa?” you might say.

Yesterday, out of the blue, Curt said, “Hey Jared. Do you want to upgrade your apartment?”

I said, “Of course.” I’d been recently experiencing apartment envy, after seeing my friend Peter’s apartment in Bucheon.

Next thing I know, we’re planning for me to move into an apartment in the Urim Bobo County building. It’s definitely a nicer building – newer, cleaner, and the apartment is marginally bigger (3.2 meters x 4.8 meters versus my current 3.0 meters by 4.2 meters) but more importantly, has a much better floor plan and more closet and storage space than my current apartment. Furthermore, I like the location better – it’s more “urban” and downtownish, being in the heart of what passes for downtown in Ilsan, which has always been my tendency. As a small bonus, it’s about 1 km closer to the cancer center, which is of course convenient given my new lifestyle as a cancer patient.

The fascinating irony is that this exact same Urim Bobo County building was my first apartment building when I came to Ilsan in 2007. Life keeps spinning me in circles.

Here is a picture of my new (old) apartment building, taken in September, 2007 – it was literally the first picture I took, my first day in Korea – really! The building still looks exactly the same. My new apartment is on the 9th floor (1 down from top). I will move there very slowly over the next several weeks, between cancer radiation treatments, I guess.

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After spending some time with Curt preliminarily checking out and cleaning the new apartment, I came back home, collected Andrew, and he and I went there and cleaned a little bit and evaluated some more. Then we met my friend Peter for dinner – Thai food – and then that was more like the end of our evening, walking back first to my new apartment and then after a pause there to inspect it with Peter, back to my old apartment.

Interesting things keep happening. Life is good.

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Caveat: the rift of unremembered skies and snows

Clown in the Moon

My tears are like the quiet drift
Of petals from some magic rose;
And all my grief flows from the rift
Of unremembered skies and snows.

I think, that if I touched the earth,
It would crumble;
It is so sad and beautiful,
So tremulously like a dream.
– Dylan Thomas (Welsh poet, 1914-1953)

Dylan Thomas has evolved to become one of my “top 10 poets” – I find myself constantly seeking him out. Maybe sometime I should try to make that list of “most sought out poets.” I also should get around to making a separate category for quoted poetry on this blog – I seem to do it pretty often and it clearly needs its own separate category.

Below, a painting entitled “Dylan Thomas 4” by Welsh artist Peter Ross.

painting titled Dylan Thomas 4 by Welsh artist Peter Ross

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Caveat: 우리가 살고 있는 세상이 꿈인지 현인지 알 수가 없다


pictureI was sharing another of my favorite Korean movies with Andrew, earlier today, so we watched 빈집 (“empty houses”). I really like this movie, but this time around, I was struck by how much of the movie was obviously filmed in Ilsan – I would guess about 50% of the outdoor shots were in neighborhoods and locations within walking distance of my apartment. That adds some interest to the movie, I guess. If you watch it, basically any scene in a flat neighborhood (i.e. no hills) would be Ilsan.

The movie concludes with an epigraph that goes:

우리가 살고 있는 세상이

we-SUBJ live-PROG-PRESPART life-SUBJ
꿈인지 현인지 알 수가 없다..
dream-be-IF presentmoment-be-IF know-FUTPART possibility-SUBJ thereisnot
We cannot know whether the life we live is a dream or incumbent [“real”].

This was kind of hard to translate – because I didn’t let myself go back and look at the translation given in the subtitles in the movie. But I think I got it right – the key is a grammar point on page 55 in my “grammar bible” (Korean Grammar for International Learners) about using two parallel clauses ending in -ㄴ지 with the verb 알다 to indicate “a choice between two uncertain or unknown possibilities.”

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Caveat: Legal For Another Year

Curt and I got our paperwork in order, finally, and headed over to the immigration office to make it all official – my contract and work visa are renewed for another year.

Back at work, I scrambled to record and score some more speech tests – this was for some lower level students that were mostly quite unprepared, which was perhaps the fault of my not-so-successful substitute teacher. I coached and coaxed them through the process, but ended up taking too long and running into the next class.

They're finished now. I've scored and posted almost 50 student month-end speaking test videos in the last 2 weeks – that has been my main responsibility. This business of posting every single student speech is a new idea, one that I'd recommended quite a while ago but which they finally decided to implement while I was in the hospital. I'm pleased with the result, but unhappy with the fact that so far the youtube "unlisted" postings I've been doing are so slow to load it ends up being kind of chimerical for the parents (who are the intended audience of these postings) – they see that the videos are posted but can't get the videos to load to their phones (which is where most of them try to get the videos).

I wonder if the fact that I load the videos to my youtube account (me being an American) means the videos are being hosted somewhere across the Pacific without optimization for viewing here in Korea. I wonder if the videos were loaded under a Korean-based youtube account, would they load better over here? Or is youtube's infrastructure just weak in Korea right now? Popular public videos seem to load fine, but all my "unlisted" videos are really unreliable.

Here is my favorite speech of all the speeches I recorded and scored. My student Somin isn't the most advanced speaker but I like that she puts her own, original thinking into her speech rather than just following a formula. The topic for a lot of the students, this month, was global warming. I know she's really hard to understand, but I do feel really proud of how she's done.

Caveat: Not Really a Complication In My Opinion

That sore throat I woke up with the other morning has progressed into a full-blown head-cold: runny nose, sneezing, coughing, etc. Andrew is a bit worried about it, and I recognize that it is a bit taxing on my immune system so shortly before the start of the radiation.

But I find the whole thing oddly reassuring. It's like the world is telling me: "you're still just a regular guy, you get to get colds because you work with children, so deal with it."

The Cancer isn't a special superpower, it's not an exemption from regular life, it's just something I've had to deal with.

Does that make any sense?

And my thinking is, it's better to have the cold this week, during my "between-horrible-treatments holiday," than next week or the week after that, when I'm doing  the radiation and my immune system is weakened. If this is a normal cold, I'll have worked through it before things start next week. If it's not, or if it's persistent, well, the doctors will recognize that and can make a judgement about whether or not to postpone the start of radiation, if it merits that.

In other words, I don't feel worried by it – just annoyed by it, the way having a cold is always a bit annoying.

I've taken it as a signal to back off my "10 kilometers a day" commitment to adventure. I'll let Andrew explore on his own, and just focus on doing whatever work has for me and relaxing and resting the rest of the time. I am reading almost 10 different books-in-progress now. It's time to actually start finishing one. Heh.

To return to one other point: frequent colds are an automatic part of teaching kids, in my experience. Having received a dozen "oh teacher I miss you!" hugs from second and third graders over the past week, if something was floating around it's inevitable it will glom onto me in my weakened state. Frankly, the hugs were worth it.

Caveat: You’ll have to find your own pictures

Table in the Wilderness

I draw a window
and a man sitting inside it.

I draw a bird in flight above the lintel.

That's my picture of thinking.

If I put a woman there instead
of the man, it's a picture of speaking.

If I draw a second bird
in the woman's lap, it's ministering.

A third flying below her feet.
Now it's singing.

Or erase the birds,
make ivy branching
around the woman's ankles, clinging
to her knees, and it becomes remembering.

You'll have to find your own
pictures, whoever you are,
whatever your need.

Li-young-Lee

Caveat: Tell The World

Over the last several years at Karma, I’ve developed my own EFL debate curriculum. I’m quite happy with it. The working title for all the readers and workbooks I’ve created is Tell the World, with various subtitles, such as Tell the World: Debate Workbook or Tell the World: Debate Topics Reader 1.

Today, Curt set up a meeting between me and a friend he has who works for a Korean EFL publishing house. Does this mean what it seems like it might? Yes it does. We didn’t sign anything, but we agreed to meet again in September, and meanwhile I have some “deliverables” including a draft of my “Debate Topics Reader Level 1” and a “roadmap” of how I see a fully-fleshed debate curriculum working.

The upshot is that I might be publishing a book, soon – for the Korean EFL market.

picture

[UPDATE some years later: This never happened, except to the extent I self-published using the copy machine at work to support my own teaching. It had been a great idea, though.]

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