Month: September 2013

Caveat: Ham! … no, psych: Harmonilan

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling / Cancer

pictureI took a walk and stopped by work – truly only stopped by, I didn’t do anything there except talk to Curt for about 10 minutes, and not about work stuff. I received my Chuseok gift set: ham!

Korean workplaces have a custom of giving some type of gift to each employee as part of the Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving) season, and last year and this year KarmaPlus is giving ham gift sets. Not spam, but the classier ham.

It looks like this – a box with “hand made” hams and some condiments, in a little carrying case. Koreans love packaging.

pictureThere is a little note with a poem attached.

picture

But.

I can’t eat ham – not right now, anyway. I took a picture of my breakfast earlier this morning.

picture

Mmm.

What I’m listening to right now.

Ingrid Michaelson, “Blood Brothers.” The video is pretty interesting, too.

[daily log: walking, 6.5 km]

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caveat: zap-o-matic number 25

Banalities & Journaling / Cancer

monday morning!
im actually looking forward to radiation this morning. why, you might ask? a pattern has emerged the last two weeks where i actually feel worst on days without radiation. i hadnt anticipated this, but in thinking carefully about whats going on physiologically, it makes sense. the radiation is wrecking my immune system. most of my worst symptoms – the feverishness, pus and sores in my mouth, inability to swallow. . . are consequences of my immune system fighting back. so of course the days when i dont do the radiation are the worst – theyre when the symptoms really take off, as my immune system struggles to recover from the previous weeks blasting.
so i guess it wasnt a blessing, after all, that my birthday fell on a photon-free day: yesterday was easily the absolute worst since my days in the ICU. it was mostly a blurry alternation of sleeping, coughing, daydreaming about when this will be over, and crying from pain. i took some breaks from this compelling routine to take a short walk, surf the web listlessly, write a few messages and emails, and clean my kitchen sink.
im not whining – i hope people understand – merely reporting.
two more weeks. im no longer looking forward to the 5 day thanksgiving (추석 chuseok) weekend, as the above insight should explain. a highlight is that my stepmother wendy arrives wednesday. i regret i may be pretty poor company.
beautiful fall-ish morning, sunny but a hint of dry, siberian crispness.

Caveat: The Anti-Yum

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling / Cancer

I celebrated this special Sunday by it being the first day of my radiation series when I was completely unable to eat solid food. I tried to eat nurungji this morning, but it didn't work out. So during the day I drank a couple of those gamey-smelling nutrition drinks I was prescribed a few weeks ago. Each time, I put in a drop of vanilla extract and a sprinkle of cinnamon, and pour it over ice. That gets it to seem vaguely like horchata.

It all sounds pretty bad. It is bad. But… most patients undergoing this type of therapy after my particular diagnosis and surgery would have been in today's situation two weeks ago. In that sense, I am still beating the odds handily. The doctor has commented frequently on my surprising resilience. I will make it through this!

I only have two weeks left.

What I'm listening to right now.

信近エリ[Eri Nobuchika] & Röyksopp, "Sing a Song" – Kramsnø Remix. Röyksopp is a Norwegian duo, and Eri Nobuchika reworks their popular "Vision One" with her own lyrics sung in Japanese. I like this version a great deal even though I don't understand the lyrics.

[daily log: walking, 2 km]

Caveat: 니 생각 All night

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling / Cancer

To all the people who want to call me, here is a widecast message. I’m not answering my phone – it HURTS for me to talk. Not psychologically… just simply physically – my tongue has sores on it, so talking is actually right now much more difficult than it was in the first days out of surgery in the hospital, in July. At that time, it was just numb. Now, each consonant is a burnnn. I can talk in only vowels, if you want…
My fingers still work, though: I’m happy to exchange emails and text messages. I’m really sorry, to be so blunt.

What I’m listening to right now.

김예림(투개월), “All Right.”
가사:

요즘 난 All right
너 가도 All right
이별 따위 All right
(한땐)
니 생각 All night
넌 내게 Delight
안갯속의 Some light
요즘 난 All right
너 가도 All right
이별 따위 All right
니 생각 All night
넌 내게 Delight
안갯속의 Some light
기껏 이거야 내 모든 걸 가졌던
너 없는 게 겨우 이거야
걱정 가득한 너의 마지막 굿바이
넌 그 정돈 아냐 난 All right,
All right
요즘 난 All right
너 가도 All right
이별 따위 All right
니 생각 All night
넌 내게 Delight
안갯속의 Some light
기껏 이거야 내 모든 걸 가졌던
너 없는 게 겨우 이거야
걱정 가득한 너의 마지막 굿바이
넌 그 정돈 아냐 난 All right,
All right
(Male) 우리 추억 영원히 잊지 못할 거야
Oh My Love Love Love
부디 좋은 사람 만나길 바랄게
Oh My Love Love Love
All right
짐작하지 마
걱정하지 마
안부도 묻지 마
진작 그러지
이제 와 뭐지
넌 언제나 그랬지
요즘 난 All right
너 가도 All right
이별 따위 All right
니 생각 All night
넌 내게 Delight
안갯속의 Some light
걱정하지 마 너의 그 잘난 이미지
내 입에 담길 일 없는 너
걱정 가득한 따뜻한 그 눈빛은
다음 girl에게나 줘 All right,
All right
요즘 난 All right
너 가도 All right
이별 따위 All right
니 생각 All night
넌 내게 Delight
안갯속의 Some light
짐작하지 마
걱정하지 마
안부도 묻지 마
진작 그러지
이제 와 뭐지
넌 언제나 그랬지
요즘 난 All right
너 가도 All right
이별 따위 All right
니 생각 All night
넌 내게 Delight
안갯속의 Some light

Caveat: A Process in the Weather of the Heart

Not My Poetry

A process in the weather of the heart
Turns damp to dry; the golden shot
Storms in the freezing tomb.
A weather in the quarter of the veins
Turns night to day; blood in their suns
Lights up the living worm.

A process in the eye forwarns
The bones of blindness; and the womb
Drives in a death as life leaks out.

A darkness in the weather of the eye
Is half its light; the fathomed sea
Breaks on unangled land.
The seed that makes a forest of the loin
Forks half its fruit; and half drops down,
Slow in a sleeping wind.

A weather in the flesh and bone
Is damp and dry; the quick and dead
Move like two ghosts before the eye.

A process in the weather of the world
Turns ghost to ghost; each mothered child
Sits in their double shade.
A process blows the moon into the sun,
Pulls down the shabby curtains of the skin;
And the heart gives up its dead.
– Dylan Thomas

[daily log: walking 4.5 km]

Caveat: Minneapolitan Abroad

Banalities & Journaling / Politics, Economics & Current Affairs

I am still, in a legal sense, a Minneapolis resident. My congressman is Keith Ellison, and it's a Minnesota absentee ballot that I vote on when I vote. After Arcata (Humboldt County), California, Minneapolis-St Paul is really my second hometown, and if I return to the US, it's at the top of the list of places I would choose to live.

Minneapolis is having a mayoral election, which is "wide open" this year because the fairly popular incumbent, Rybak, isn't seeking reelection. It's also wide open because they've implemented a new ranked voting system that changes the dynamics quite a bit. Basically anyone can run and there's no primary. So a lot of weird candidates are coming out of the woodwork. Apparently they're coming out of the lakes, too.

I wasn't planning to go through the rigamarole of voting in the election, as it wasn't that interesting or compelling to me, but the race is getting quite strange. Here's one possible candidate's ad.

So, how could I not vote, with such brilliant options as a foul-mouthed aquaman such as Jeff Wagner? Plus, he swims and drinks coffee at the same time. "The Legend of the Loch-Ness Mayor" begins…

Caveat: Friday the 13, September 2013

Banalities & Journaling / Cancer / Found Online / My Photos

Really, it could be the title of a sci-fi-horror movie. But it’s just the date.

Walking home from the hospital, it began raining so hard. I was splashed by a bus that zoomed past. Utterly soaked. Then I stepped in a giant river formed in one section of sidewalk. Less than halfway home, it was as if I had walked, clothed, into a shower. At first I thought, I should find a taxi. Taxis in rainstorms in Ilsan are a rare commodity, though. I reached a state of mind where I simply didn’t care. I couldn’t get any wetter, could I? I came home and put my clothes in the laundry and took a shower and dried out. I took a nap.

Later, I felt pretty lousy, but I ended up walking to work, only to chat with Helen and Curt for a short while each, and then basically walked home. So it was a long walk with a conversation in the middle. It wasn’t raining anymore, but the sky was full of grayness and clouds. I tried to take a picture to capture it, but not sure it really came out very well.

picture

After visiting work, seeing a few of my students in the halls, being told that several asked when I was coming back… I miss my students but I’m grateful at this point to have made the decision not to have tried to take on even an abbreviated teaching schedule – I wouldn’t be able to handle it at this point. Two classes each Saturday is just about right.

When I was a very nerdy teenager, I liked Monty Python. And the best Monty Python was The Holy Grail. I ran across this satirical (or rather serious, since the movie is satirical – if you take satire seriously, is that meta-satirical or just dumb?) movie trailer. It’s awesome.

Picture – a view from my window at sunset.

picture

[daily log: walking, 9 km]

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caveat: zap-o-matic number 24

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling / Cancer

the last few days have been continuous overcast and sporadic downpours with much drizzle between. its been like a monsoon 2.0. late summer bliss.

last night helen called wanting me to come to work for a "birthday party" and out-to-dinner. this is a longstanding karma custom. but i wasnt up to it. i knew i wouldnt be able to eat anything and these days i have permanent fever sensation (not actual), random coughing fits, exhaustion. i felt bad about saying no, but simply couldnt.

i want to be clear to everyone about something, though: although i feel physically horrible, my mental state is not that bad. im "documenting" this experience here, and so i am not sparing details of symptoms. but i am not just my symptoms.

i am not that depressed at all. i would compare my state of mind to the last few weeks of army basic training in 1990. i was exhausted, permanently pissed off, and struggling. but it had become clear to me by then that i would complete the training successfully – even near the top of my class. i just had to put my face to the grindstone and cope until graduation day.

its the same now. ill make it, but right now, each step forward is a bitch.

what im listening to right now.



the cure, "last day of summer."

Caveat: no soy piedra, sino camino

Banalities & Journaling / Español Aleatorio (Random Spanish) / Not My Poetry 
picture
Unos cuerpos son como flores,
otros como puñales,
otros como cintas de agua;
pero todos, temprano o tarde,
serán quemaduras que en otro cuerpo se agranden,
convirtiendo por virtud del fuego a una piedra en un
hombre.

Pero el hombre se agita en todas direcciones,
sueña con libertades, compite con el viento,
hasta que un día la quemadura se borra,
volviendo a ser piedra en el camino de nadie.

Yo, que no soy piedra, sino camino
que cruzan al pasar los pies desnudos,
muero de amor por todos ellos;
les doy mi cuerpo para que lo pisen,
aunque les lleve a una ambición o a una nube,
sin que ninguno comprenda
que ambiciones o nubes
no valen un amor que se entrega.

- Luis Cernuda (poeta español, 1902-1963)

… no tengo nada que decir. estoy cansado… enfermo.

mi momento urge paciencia.

[daily log: walking, 4.5 km]

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caveat: zap-o-matic number 23

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling / Cancer / Life is a Dream

sometimes i regret having stumbled upon the heading "zap-o-matic" for my radiotherapy session postings. it implies a certain joking trivialization of the process that lacks gravity. on the other hand, the whole situation sometimes strikes me as so absurdly flash gordoneaque that i wanted to capture that, and the moniker seems apt.

i thought of this, this morning, awaking from a dream in which i had been abducted by aliens, who had decided they could "help" me by rearranging my body into a more "optimal" configuration. transparently symbolic, eh?

the thing was, it wasnt at all nightmarish. my dream-self was remarkably blase about the prospect. "have at it," i seemed to be saying. "good luck with that. ive been trying for years. . ." which makes me think of an old talking heads song, "seen and not seen." maybe i will add the link to that when i get home.

[update]

What I'm listening to right now.

Talking Heads, "Seen Or Not Seen."

Lyrics:

He would see faces in movies, on T.V., in magazines, and in books….
He thought that some of these faces might be right for him….
And through the years, by keeping an ideal facial structure fixed in his mind….
Or somewhere in the back of his mind….
That he might, by force of will,
cause his face to approach those of his ideal….
The change would be very subtle….It might take ten years or so….
Gradually his face would change its shape….A more hooked nose…
Wider, thinner lips….Beady eyes….A larger forehead.

He imagined that this was an ability he shared with most other people….
They had also molded their faces according to some ideal….
Maybe they imagined that their new face would better suit their personality….
Or maybe they imagined that their
personality would be forced to change to fit the new appearance….
This is why first impressions are often correct…
Although some people might have made mistakes….
They may have arrived at an appearance that bears no relationship to them….
They may have picked an ideal appearance based on some childish whim,
or momentary impulse….
Some may have gotten halfway there, and then changed their minds.
He wonders if he too might have made a similar mistake

Caveat: Ability without concomitant ambition

Banalities & Journaling / Found Online / Philosophy & Cultural Criticism / Politics, Economics & Current Affairs / The Wonders of Work

So, it’s been a long time since I thought much in this mode, but I ran across something on the Marginal Revolution economics blog that was interesting to me.

There was a time, between about 2004 and 2007, when I was very close to going to business school and getting an MBA. Some people don’t know that about me. I took the GMAT, got a pretty good score (good enough to get unsolicited, pre-filled-out admissions documents from some first rate schools), and I even started the application process.

I was fascinated by the field of project management, and the idea of building teams to solve “business systems problems” such as I’d been involved in with ARAMARK and the IBM and Oracle consulting teams that were working on the comprehensive IT overhaul there (projects that ultimately failed, to the best of my knowledge, and about which I have no small number of strong opinions as to why). Then there was my work later at HealthSmart Pacific and their pharmacy division. I genuinely thought I had the ability – but I had doubts about whether I really had the drive.

“Ability without concomitant ambition” has been my curse (and motto?) since grade school. I wrote exactly that phrase on the cover of a journal I kept in high school – really.

The conclusion, obviously, was that I didn’t go to b-school. I made the decision that what I wanted instead was to follow my heart’s ambition and return to my previous career track, into teaching. Nevertheless, I sometimes think of these “paths not taken.”

This blogpost I ran across referenced, in turn,  a short post at kottke.org which in turn pointed to a powerpoint (posted as PDF) by someone at Stanford. The topic is “getting things done” – but within the Silicon Valley Biz-School “Creative Destruction” discourse paradigm. The Coveyesque title is: “The Five Cognitive Distortions of People Who Get Stuff Done.” As a person who eternally struggles with getting things done, this was immediately interesting me. What do the b-school gurus have to say about it?

Here they are:

1. Personal exceptionalism
2. Dichotomous thinking
3. Correct overgeneralization
4. Blank canvas thinking
5. Schumpeterianism


pictureSchumpeter was (I think – not going to check) the originator of the “creative destruction” idea in economics, as an engine of progress and growth.

Which of those “cognitive distortions” do I have? Should I try to score myself? How do I rate, 0~10, on each of these axes?

1. Personal exceptionalism – only on good days: 4/10
2. Dichotomous thinking – terribly: 10/10
3. Correct overgeneralization – hard to judge, but I’ll say: 7/10
4. Blank canvas thinking: I’m an artist at heart: 8/10
5. Schumpeterianism: this is where I fall down: 1/10? I’m too chicken to “creatively destroy” things. I instinctively lean toward consensus-driven models of work, which, as anyone who’s tried to be a Quaker knows, is nigh impossible. I’m not clear on the theoretical relationship between a consensus model of organizational change and Schumpeter’s concepts (they’re slightly different semantic domains, clearly), but my intuition is that they’re in conflict.

So under this discourse frame, do I have a chance of getting stuff done? I’d say not excellent, but something, anyway.

Something to think about. (Picture at right: Schumpeter.)

What I’m listening to right now.

Fitz and The Tantrums, “Out of My League.”

[daily log: walking, 6 km.]

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caveat: zap-o-matic number 22

Banalities & Journaling / Cancer

after several days of struggling to stay awake (partly i know its the new higher powered pain medication i started last thursday), this morning at 4 am i woke up with one of my "cant get back to sleep" insomnias. generally if i get insomnia its of this type. really, the two insomnias need different names – i hate that whenever i talk about insomnia i have to clarify what type. . . anyone have suggestions for a clearer name for them?

actually, in the end it wasnt so bad – i was free to transition to consciousness unhurriedly. i meditated some, "successfully" for the first time in a while; then i had a very slow breakfast of nurungji [burnt rice porridge] (slow is the only way i can eat these days – the bowl of porridge took me a good 45 minutes), and by the time i was walking to the hospital i was even smiling to myself in pouring rain.

admittedly the rain helped. im very weird, and show my northern california origins: rain is without fail comforting.

Caveat: Drizzly Dusk

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling

So I went to work to rectify the situation with the uncorrected essays that I’d messed up (as mentioned in my previous post). I ended up staying about 4 hours. I still didn’t finish them – Ken and I worked out a kind of assembly line and so I left the pile on his desk for his finishing touches and final scores. I felt really badly.

I walked home in the drizzly dusk. Here’s a damp pedestrianway along the way home, just northeast of my old apartment.

picture

What I’m listening to right now.

Har Mar Superstar, “Prisoner.” Note that Har Mar Superstar takes his performance name from the Har Mar Mall, of Roseville, Minnesota. I used to go to that mall during my first year of college in St Paul.

[daily log: walking, 8.5 km]

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caveat: zap-o-matic number 21

Banalities & Journaling / Cancer

despite the auspicious feeling at the start, yesterday morphed into a rather bad day. i felt a bit gloomy when i got home after my session yesterday, for reasons that can only be chalked up to the chance firings of neurons connected to dark memories.

and so i lay down to take a nap, as i sometimes do. maybe at one PM i awoke to a feeling that could be described as severe flu symptoms. . . runny nose, congestion, coughing, and most noticebly, fever. i took medicine.

none of these are unwarranted given my current treatment. . . after all, the immune system is what is driving these symptoms, as my body does its best to fight the radiation burns appearing all over its insides. but the net effect was i felt like a zombie. i tried and failed to eat some pasta for lunch, and finally drank one of those nutrition drinks ive been given.

even without the sense of taste, they are vaguely offputting. . . i think they have a not-so-delicious aroma. i added a drop of vanilla extract and drank it. i was in a bit of a haze, but gave myself permission not to go to work.

that was a mistake. after napping again from 6 to 9, i got a call from ken at work. he was asking about the pile of written tests i has taken on thursday to be corrected. guiltily i realized i had utterly forgotten them. ken asked if the radiation was burning brain cells too. it was jokingly, and good natured, but i felt really badly about it. . . i take pride in my responsibility and work ethic. i screwed up.

i doubt im burning brain cells. . . but my brain is attached to a body that is struggling a bit lately. i think the brain is therefore detaching a bit. . . letting itself exist in the bodiless ether where things arent so frustrating. this leads to an inattentiveness vis-a-vis reality. sigh.

Caveat: at the crest of jeongbal hill

A Daily Poem / Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling / Book 1 / My Poetry & Fiction

(Poem #14 on new numbering scheme)

at the crest of jeongbal hill
the trail levels off among pines
i pause
no one is around (but i feel
the city's there trolling the sky
just beyond the trees and rocks)
a nearby magpie tilts her head
whooshing her blue-green tail feather
as if angry or confused
while a brown cicada's husk
falls discarded from above
the air is heavy and flat
michelle's ghost touches my cheek
i look around unsurprised
she asks if i'm not prepared
to join her (sometimes she asks
things like that or follows me
as if no time had passed since)
no, i explain, i have things
various things still to do
like a fish in a deep stream
she moves away

What I’m listening to right now

David Lanz, “Green Into Gold.” This song came around randomly on my mp3 player while I was walking home from the hospital this morning. It is from the album Christophori’s Dream, which happens to be Michelle’s “suicide music” – it was what was in the CD player when she took her pills. That’s likely why her ghost visited.

picture[daily log: walking 5 km]

caveat: zap-o-matic number 20

Banalities & Journaling / Cancer

i awoke exhausted from my day of hermitism and genuine rest. lassitude engenders more lassitude. yet despite the physical tiredness, i felt a stronger psychic vitality than in some time. a kind of potential as opposed to actual optimism. in this way i can confirm that the solitude recharges me.

now i begin week 5 of 7 – although 30 sessions should mean 6 weeks, due to holidays it becomes 7.

fall is come to jeongbalsan.

picture

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Caveat: 萬物博士

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

This is one of those four-character Chinese phrases, called 성어사자 (四字成語). I was introduced to it by a friend a while ago. I kept meaning to put a little blog entry about it so here it is.

萬物博士
만물박사
man-mul-bak-sa

I actually had an impossible time trying to figure out the meaning of the individual characters. I think my focus and energy was insufficient to the task. I dinked around the online hanja dictionary for awhile and gave a sigh and gave up. So I’m just going to throw the expression out there in toto.

But it’s overall meaning is something like “jack of all trades” or even “polymath” or “walking dictionary.” My friend was applying it to me, shaking his head ruefully. I guess I get his point. I’m flattered, though.

[daily log: what? it’s Sunday.]

Caveat: Relish Solitude

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling / Cancer

Yesterday evening my friend Seungbae came out to Ilsan. He really is a good friend. He gave me a hanja lesson, I helped him with deciphering a Spanish-language email he had received in connection with his work, and we walked around Ilsan.

I felt really tired but I enjoyed hanging out with him. He's worried that with Andrew gone I'll get isolated and into a negative rut, but really I don't think that's the case. I worked hard to convince him of that. I actually feel that I derive some energy from my solitude. With Andrew gone, this day, Sunday, is going to be my first day of utter solitude since before I went in the hospital, and I plan to fully relish it. With lots of doing nothing, reading, napping, or whatever.

I slept in this morning, and it was foggy outside. I had had some unpleasant dreams about hospitals, which I don't remember the details of. I tried to eat some fruit for breakfast but it wasn't very fun to eat – flavorless and the textures weren't working. So I had some yogurt. And I made coffee. Which I smelled but basically didn't drink.

What I'm listening to right now.

Alt-J, "Matilda" from B&B on Vimeo.

Caveat: 3 Miles From Damascus

Banalities & Journaling / Found Online / Politics, Economics & Current Affairs

I played a game called Where’s Damascus?

It’s a really short game. You find on a map where Damascus is – I guess this is relevant given the US might start bombing there sometime.

I got within 3 miles, from a satellite map with no borders. I feel very… geographical. Here is my result screen – I trimmed the screenshot so you can’t see Damascus – I wouldn’t want it to be too easy.

On my way to Damascus, I experienced no epiphany.

picture

[daily log: walking, 6 km]

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Caveat: We has created premium happiness condition

Banalities & Journaling

Before leaving Andrew bought some souvenirs at the HomePlus store. What better souvenir than some really atrocious Engrish on a hat? I took a picture Thursday night before they left Friday.

picture

I think that’s a great hat for Andrew.

I went to work this morning, rather than to radiation. Classes went OK, though my talking seems slurred and my energy is low.

Now I feel very tired.

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Caveat: 참고 또 참으며 경계하고 또 경계하라

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


pictureI have a book entitled Myeangsim Bogam, which is an annoying romanization of 명심보감. The “proper” romanization (meaning following the official “Revised Romanization”) would be Myeongsim Bogam. I guess it’s only the first syllable that’s off.

Anyway, it’s a parallel translation of a Confucian “reader” of sorts that was widely printed in circulated in pre-Modern Korea (meaning during the Joseon dynasty). The reader, of course, originally circulated in Chinese – which is what educated people were expected to read in the Joseon time. So this translation I have is three-way: it has Chinese, Korean, and English.

It’s a kind of book of aphorisms and proverbs along with some parables, I guess. It was intended and read as an instruction book of virtue for Joseon’s Confucian society – it was often the first book students read after mastering the basic “1000 characters” of Chinese.

So here is an aphorism from that book that intrigued me a little bit – maybe because it was one I thought I could translate from Korean more easily – in fact, I felt as if I could maybe do a little bit better job than what the book offers, which is: “Bear and bear again, care and care again. I you do not bear and care, then trivial things become important cases.” That translation is not really inaccurate, as far as I can judge, but I think a close translation would better serve the intended meaning.

참고 또 참으며 경계하고 또 경계하라.
be-patient-CONJ too be-patient-WHILE be-vigilant-CONJ too be-vigilant-IMPER.
참지 못하고 경걔하지 않으면 작은 일이 크게 된다.
be-patient-PRENEG cannot-CONJ be-vigilant-PRENEG be-not-IF be-small-PPART thing-SUBJ big-ADV become-PRES.
Be patient, be patient and meanwhile be vigilant, be vigilant. If one cannot be patient and one is not vigilant, small things become big.

This is perhaps true. I’ve been troubled by my lack of patience, recently. I will work harder.
Here is the original Chinese, for reference (note that I am merely copying this – I am not able to read it) – with the syllables rendered in hangul to aid in reading or looking them up:

得忍且忍 得戒且戒 不忍不戒 小事成大
득인차인 득계차계 불인불계 소사성대

명심보감

[daily log: walking, 5.5 km]

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caveat: waiting for the 3300

Banalities & Journaling

in the picture below, andrew and hollye are waiting for the #3300 bus that goes directly and conveniently from in front of my apartment to the airport.

these past two months are the longest sustained time andrew and i have ever spent together. . . maybe not counting the half year at san marino (pasadena) in 1992 – but back then he was only 10 or 11. but certainly it is the longest time together as adults, then.

so we have definitely bonded this time. when i mentioned this to andrew, he pointed out that he had left me with some superglue, too – for more bonding, of course.

picture

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Caveat: La cité des enfants perdus

Banalities & Journaling / Media (Texts/Music/Movies etc)

pictureAndrew was urging me to watch a movie that he thinks highly of, entitled La cité des enfants perdus (The City of Lost Children). So to celebrate (mourn?) his impending departure, tomorrow, we watched this evening. It was kind of a creepy movie, but quite surreal, as the blurb promised, and with some interesting stuff going on symbolically. Overall, I’d rank it at least as high as the movie 헨젤과 그레텔 (Hansel and Gretel [2007]).

In any event, it was a good distraction – as long as I don’t end up having a nightmare from it. Nah…  I don’t generally have that problem.

Tomorrow, Andrew and Hollye fly back to L.A. I’ll be on my own for a few weeks. I’ll be alright.

[daily log: walking, 9 km]

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Caveat: Love Is a Bourgeois Construct

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling / Found Online

I believe the song is meant tongue-in-cheek. I especially love the opening verse, with the third line: “Speaking English as a foreign language.” Somehow, I can relate to that. That’s really the language that I speak, nowadays.

What I’m listening to right now.




picturePet Shop Boys, “Love Is a Bourgeois Contruct.”

Lyrics:

I’ve been taking my time for a long time
Putting my feet up a lot
Speaking English as a foreign language
Any words that I haven’t forgot

I’ve been thinking how I can’t be bothered
To wash the dishes or remake the bed
What’s the point when I could just doss instead?

I’ve been hanging with various riff-raff
Somewhere on the Goldhawk Road
I don’t think it’s gonna be much longer
Til I’m mugging up on the penal code

Love is a bourgeois construct
So I’ve given up the bourgeoisie
Like all their aspirations, it’s a fantasy

When you walked out you did me a favor
You made me see reality
That love is a bourgeois construct
It’s a blatant fallacy
You won’t see me with a bunch of roses
Promising fidelity
Love doesn’t mean a thing to me

Talking tough and feeling bitter
but better now, it’s clear to me
That love is a bourgeois construct
So I’ve given up the bourgeoisie

Bourgeois, Bourgeoisie

While the bankers get their bonuses
I’ll just get along with what I’ve got
Watching the weeds in the garden
Putting my feet up a lot
I’ll explore the outer limits of boredom
Moaning periodically
Just a full-time, lonely layabout
That’s me

When you walked out you did me a favor
It’s absolutely clear to me
That love is a bourgeois construct
Just like they said at university
I’ve been taking my time for a long time
With all the schaudenfreude it’s cost
Calculating what you’ve lost

Now I’m digging through my student paperbacks
Flicking through Karl Marx again
Searching for the soul of England
Drinking tea like Tony Benn
Love is just a bourgeois construct
So give it up, the bourgeoisie
Until you come back to me

Bourgeois, Bourgeoisie
Bourgeois, Bourgeoisie
Bourgeois, Bourgeoisie
Bourgeois, Bourgeoisie
Bourgeois, Bourgeoisie
Bourgeois, Bourgeoisie

Talking tough and feeling bitter
We’re better now, it’s clear to me
That love is a bourgeois construct
So I’ve given up the bourgeoisie

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caveat: zap-o-matic number 18

Banalities & Journaling / Cancer

if i were to write a book about my cancer experience right now, i might as well subtitle it "the sputum chronicles." i realize its gross, but if you look through for a unifying leitmotif, that is what is there.

my congestion has been worsening, my phlegm and sinus drip is annoying as usual but exacerbated by my difficulty swallowing, etc. my dry mouth phenomenon is entirely perceptual and mostly has been from the start, as ive observed before. the fact is my mouth is full of yuck.

one of the most disgusting habits i have never gotten around to forgiving in my fellow humans is the habit of spitting on the ground in public. it is prevalent to the point of universality in korea, and is one of those small "things i hate" here. but now. . . im the one doing it, four or five times on my 20 minute walk. gwack.

the doctor said its "thick saliva" rather than sputum, to be precise. whatever. its just unpleasant.

Caveat: “호환”

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling / Found Online / My Photos / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

Andrew, Hollye and I met my friend Seungbae in Seoul for dinner. I ended up ordering 온면 [onmyeon = warm noodles], but I didn’t eat very much.

I enjoy Seungbae’s company, though – he’s amazingly smart in his autodidact way. He says “I’m just a farmer” but he knows 5 languages and can easily keep up with my discourses on history or culture.

I took a picture of them outside the restaurant.

picture

On the way back home in the subway, Andrew was looking at a box for a USB flash drive that Seungbae had given as a gift. It said, among many other things, “1.1호환” and I was trying to figure out what that meant. I put 호환 into the dictionary on my phone, and learned that 호환 [hohwan] means “disaster caused by tigers.” This is profoundly excellent information – but I suspect not really an accurate translation.

What, exactly, constitutes 1.1 disasters caused by tigers? How does one evaluate the concept of one tenth (.1) of a disaster?

This morning, I looked it up. The online dictionary at daum.net said the same thing: “호환 [虎患] a disaster caused by a tiger; the ravages of tigers.” What was funny, though, was that the automatically generated list of example usages following gave a hint of how the term is actually used: it’s used to mean “compatibility.” So why isn’t this meaning in the dictionary? Once again I raise that perennial question: why are Korean-English dictionaries so bad? Even my Korean-Spanish dictionary only has: “desastre causado por tigres”- clearly just a translation of the original Korean-English mistake (I suspect most dictionaries rely on some ur-dictionary created long, long ago, and just pirate and repackage the content from generation to generation, from book to translation to website to smartphone app).

This is one instance where the googletranslate gets it right, and says compatibility. It gets it right for the same reason the auto-generated list at daum is right – because it’s a statistical correlation of texts rather than a copy of some dictionary badly written (by humans).

Here’s another, tangential question, though: what does it say about Korean culture that they have a special word for a “disaster caused by tigers”? Or at least… that they used to?

Food for thought. And food for tigers…

Speaking of disasters…

What I’m listening to right now.

Someone on the internet decided to do Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” using some web-based emulator of Mario Paint. I guess this might be titled “Get Retro.” It takes existing at a certain strange confluence of cultural nostalgia and nerdiness to even “get” why this video is so entertaining, of course.

I took a picture of the moment before sunrise, this morning, out my window looking east.

picture

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Caveat: Two Months Cancer-Free

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling / Cancer / Food & Drink / My Photos

Two months ago on the 4th of July I had my tumor removed. Piece-of-cake.

This radiation thing, on the other hand… eheh.

But that’s the deal-with-devil I made, I think. 화이팅.

Last week I made a giant batch of pea soup – before what was left of my ability to taste food disappeared over the weekend. I finished off the leftover pea soup for lunch today with some cubes of ham cut into it, and imagined it was delicious.

picture

I just make myself eat, because I know there’s a lot of concern about patients losing weight during radiation, and especially because of the sores in my mouth potentially disrupting my ability to eat solids. So far, I just kind of buckle down and push the food in, chew, swallow. It’s doable.

Talking is just as difficult as eating, now – in that respect, this is quite different from my experience last month with recovering from the tongue-reconstruction surgery, where I recovered the ability to talk almost effortlessly and painlessly, but re-learning to eat and swallow were quite challenging. Now, it’s just that everything is so sore – tongue, inside of cheeks, gums, inside of lips, throat, etc. – that eating and talking are equally difficult and unpleasant. But, as I said, it’s doable.

I took a longish nap, after lunch. I guess I needed it. I always get hit really hard by tiredness around noon on my radiation days. The result was that I didn’t go to work. I guess I could go now, but I had a talk with Curt on Monday about my not going in so much due to how I’ve been feeling about the treatment, and he was OK about it.

I’m not really sure I have the right mental constitution to handle having an entirely “optional” job, though. It’s easy to say, “Oh, I’m just not up for it.”

But then… my friend Seungbae wants to meet this evening for dinner, because it would be his chance to say goodbye to Andrew before Andrew goes back to the US at the end of this week. So that’s another reason to skip work. But I have that same guilty feeling skipping work and going to see a friend in Seoul as I used to get being “sick” from school as kid when in fact I was taking a mental health day of some kind or another.

I’m not sure I’m really going anywhere with all of this. Just rambling on, letting everyone know where things are at.

Document everything! …My life of obfuscating, radical transparency!

Eheh. Whatever.

What I’m listening to right now.



Parov Stelar, “If I Had You.”

Here is a picture of magpie (까치) I tried to capture while walking back from the hospital this morning through the park, with only mediocre success.

picture

[daily log: walking, 5 km]

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Caveat: and the half-true rhyme is love

Background Noise / Not My Poetry

Now it’s high watermark
and floodtide in the heart
and time to go.
The sea-nymphs in the spray
will be the chorus now.
What’s left to say?

Suspect too much sweet-talk
but never close your mind.
It was a fortunate wind
that blew me here. I leave
half-ready to believe
that a crippled trust might walk

and the half-true rhyme is love.

– Seamus Heaney, poem fragment from The Cure at Troy: A Version of Sophocles' Philoctetes

What I'm listening to right now.



Nerve Filter, "Beneath a Bed of Wet Leaves."

Caveat: Envying Easy Anarchism

Banalities & Journaling / Philosophy & Cultural Criticism

After my radiation, which ran late due to a previous patient, I went and bought a cake and delivered it to the 10th floor east ward nurses, because I’d forgotten to yesterday. I try to go visit my old ward every week, as long as I’m on campus at the cancer center. Showing gratitude, I guess.

I took this picture of the panorama of Bukhansan, looking out the lobby window by the elevators. Much clearer than during the monsoon, when I was inpatient.

picture

Seeing the mountains so close and so clear made me think about my brother: Andrew and Hollye went to Bukhansan to go hiking yesterday, and they camped there. Camping in Bukhansan is illegal, as far as I can figure out – it’s a National Park – yes – but it’s too close to the city to be the sort that allows camping, and nothing on any website says anything about allowing camping.

I’m not sure what to make of that. On the one hand, I definitely envy Andrew his easy anarchism – my anarchism is strong in certain theoretical respects, but vary rarely so bold in practice. In fact, on the other hand, I often worry about these things too much, and knowing he intended to try this, it was easy for me to lie awake and imagine getting some telephone call from the Korean Police in the middle of the night. In my day-to-day life and imagination, I make a big deal of “rule of law” and wish there was more respect of rules, not less.

Ultimately, it’s a difficult-to-resolve conceptual tension, for me, between a libertarian anarchism grounded in political theory and philosophy, and a belief that the social contract (a la Rousseau?) requires that we follow the rules that exist in a society, otherwise we are doomed to social fragmentation and broken polities (viz. USA, or even more so, Mexico).

I feel like I’m turning into a grumpy old man, ranting on about these things: “Those kids, what are they thinking!?” There’s always been that dynamic between Andrew and me, he being so much younger and of such a more “free-spirited” bent than I.

What I’m listening to right now.

Nerve.Filter, “Sea.Lab.” Nerve.Filter is a side project of one of the leads of the group Assemblage 23.

[daily log: walking , 3 km]

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caveat: zap-o-matic number 16

Banalities & Journaling / Cancer

i am aware of the negative turn my recent blogthought has taken. to be clear, i retain my core optimism about surviving this process. ultimately, it may be the long, drawn-out nature of radiation that is most difficult for me. the constant waiting for it to finish, for new predicted symptoms to appear, for existing symptoms to worsen.

my personality type is better adapted to quickly-finished challenges like catastrophic surgeries, that i can push through and beyond with short bursts of energy.

and as weird as this might sound, i prefer terrible pain to chronic discomfort, if the pain has a sooner end than the discomfort. discomfort with a long-term benefit at the end is equally meaningless to me. . . hence my fraught relationship with most forms of exercise, for example.

walking and hiking are the huge exceptions that i take as proof of that "rule of discomfort." i meditate while i walk, letting the rhythm of my footfalls structure my phrases and affirmations ("mantras"). ive so much come to rely on the calming effects of my solitary walking that my heart falls slightly when people offer to accompany me. i really do seem to have a solitary soul.

having said all that, my heart fell, too, when i was compelled to take a taxi to session this morning due to running late, which is a result of my seeming slow-motion approach to breakfast these days.

here i go. . . radiation therapy session number 16 of 30.

may all metastases be nonmalignant.

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