Category: Banalities & Journaling

Caveat: Extended Grumble

Banalities & Journaling

Yesterday was one of the worst days I've had in quite a while.

Part of it, of course, is that over recent weeks, I have been working far longer hours, and more intensely during those hours. First there was the pressure of the talent show. I finished that, pushing hard partly with the understanding that I was going to be getting an easy schedule shortly after that, due to the middle schoolers' exam prep schedule. That didn't happen, because Grace had to go back to Canada. So instead of a reduced schedule, I got a doubled one. I don't begrudge that Grace had to go, but it's been stressful.

I was supposed to post grades for the middle schoolers last week, but I was so busy with the extra classes, I got a deadline extension until Monday. I took the work home over the weekend, and yesterday I started working at 10 am. I finished my grades by the deadline (3 pm), and when I told the middle school director… not even a thank you. Just an impatient, "I already saw."

I worked 7 classes today, straight through, filling in for a class that another teacher had to miss, too.

Then I had to post all my homework assignments. 

I've been in burnout mode, lately, and my temper and mood are beginning to show it.

To top off the day, I heard some parent had complained for one of the classes in which I have been substitute-teaching for Grace. I'm too laid back, I guess, or something: I didn't make students who hadn't done their homework stay after class.

Pop quiz question – when, exactly, in my current schedule, am I supposed to find time to supervise students who have to "stay" to finish homework? Regardless, it also takes time to explain each student's "reason to stay" to some other teacher, so offering the services of another teacher is only a half solution at best. Frankly, the other teachers don't enjoy being hit with the "supervise the kids who stay" task, either.

The fact is that I despise and have always despised this whole "stay after class" policy, anyway. It's been a bugbear of mine ever since becoming a hagwon teacher. The practice of making students stay late who haven't performed adequately on homework or quizzes is bad pedagogy and a bad business practice too.

It's bad pedagogy because it's implemented unfairly – as it must be. You see, not all parents want their kids to be made to stay. There are sometimes practical reasons for this – their kids have some other obligation in the time directly after hagwon, i.e. another hagwon, a family home-by-8pm-rule, or whatever. And other parents just don't want to see their kids getting stressed out at age 10 over homework. 

Then, in contrast, other parents make a big deal that it's part of the hagwon's job, and insist that we should make their kids stay. Worst, there also inconsistent parents, who want their kids to stay sometimes, but not others. 

So now… let's look at this from the kids' perspective: what the kids see is that some kids have to stay, and others get a free ride, and it seems utterly arbitrary and unfair. Nothing de-motivates kids faster than the perception that they are in a situation where the rules are arbitrary and unfair. 

That's why it's bad pedagogy.

It's a bad business practice because it means some of your customers (i.e. the parents of the kids who stay) are getting more value for their tuition than others. That will seem unfair to parents of the kids who don't stay (and who sometimes can't let their kids stay, for the above-mentioned reasons). This drives away these customers, who are in fact the best customers for your business – these are the parents whose kids are "low maintenence." Further, it creates dissatisfaction and frustration among the staff – trust me, I'm not the only teacher ranting about this system. A dissatisfied staff impacts teaching quality.

TL;DR: I had a horrible day, and I'm still angry about it today.

[daily log: walking, 6 km]

Caveat: The Gentrification of Hugok

Banalities & Journaling / My Photos

The neighborhood where I work is called Hugok [후곡]. In some ways, it feels more like “my neighborhood” than where I live (Janghangdong [장항동], oftimes referred coloquially as Ra-peh [라페] after the mall nearby, Ra-peh-seu-tah [라페스타 ] i.e. “La Festa”), which has a more big-city, downtown feel. Where I live is kind of like “downtown Ilsan,” while where I work is more like a real neighborhood, somewhere. In fact, from a development standpoint, Hugok is marginally older than Janghang, the former dating from the late 1980s while the latter was built with the subway line extension in 1993. Parts of Hugok along Ilsan Road were already built and inhabited when I was here in 1991.

I’m writing this because although there are 3 or 4 different Starbucks stores in Janghang, serving as an index of the area’s “downtowny” character and internationalist orientation, there has never been a Starbucks in Hugok.

That, apparently, is changing. I snapped this photo last Friday, looking across the street from my hagwon’s former location, a few blocks east of the new location.
picture
picture[daily log: walking, 6 km]

Caveat: Invisible Platypuses

Banalities & Journaling / The Wonders of Work

Yes indeedy I am quite tired now. I feel a bit grumpy due to unfinished work I might do this weekend against my standard operating philosophy of "never take work home." 

Continuing the platypus theme started a few days ago ([broken link! FIXME] here), I was talking on the phone with my mother and sister this morning (sister visiting mother in Australia). My sister said she saw many invisible platypuses. 

Those are the most frequent kind, I explained.

I will do nothing now. Enjoying my memorial day.

[daily log: walking, here and there]

 

Caveat: More of me

Banalities & Journaling / The Wonders of Work

This week has been pretty difficult – I have been working a "double schedule" because my coworker Grace had to go home to Canada for two weeks. 

Today, Friday, will be the most brutal schedule of all. I actually have more "teaching hours" on my schedule than there are hours on the schedule. This is possible because several times we have cleverly "overlapped" the mis-matched elementary and middle-school schedules, such that I will leave a given elementary class slightly early, or show up slightly late to a given middle school class, and thus I'm actually "officially" in more than one class at the same time, several times.

I will not get any breaks. 

I will be tired.

I don't have to work tomorrow, for Korean Memorial Day holiday.

See you later.

[daily log: walking, 6 km]

Caveat: 용화꼰데 녜이보 쥬도 몰라소 미효니꼴로 보냬욤

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

My student sent me this message as the subject line when emailing an essay last week.
용화꼰데 녜이보 쥬도 몰라소 미효니꼴로 보냬욤
This is profoundly badly-spelled Korean. It is so bad, that it’s systematically bad. It took me about 25 minutes of work to figure out what she meant. Thus I theorize that it represents a kind of Korean version of “eye dialect“.
One thing I realized is that it systematically moves vowels around. Where standard Korean spells “어” she spells “오”
Thus 네이버 -> 녜이보 and the verb ending -서 -> -소
This change applies to her name and her friends’ name too:
영화 -> 용화 and 미현-> 미효니
Note in the latter she also doesn’t obey the morphophonological rules for dividing stem from suffix, but sticks to a strictly phonological division.
I don’t quite know what the -꼬- suffix is about, semantically. Something “cute” I suspect.
There is also a certain degree of systematic palatalization:
네 -> 녜 and 내->냬 … I never pronounce these distinctions quite right anyway, they are quite fine, but Korean ears perceive differences in palatalization  to a degree I can’t even hear with my English-trained ears.
My ultimate question is why did she do it? In a paranoid moment, I could just imagine it’s a kind of mocking of a “foreign accent” – several of the transformations, like the vowels and the palatalization, represent issues I have with my Korean pronunciation. But in fact I very much doubt it. Basically I think it must be a kind of “eye-spelling,” I’m almost certain, which emphasizes certain trends in Korean as spoken by teenagers – I have definitely heard 어->오 in slangy talk, especially girls. Kind of like the very common addition of the ending -ㅇ/ŋ/ to open syllables in clause final position, of which this text doesn’t have an example – but I frequently hear e.g. “안녕하세용” for “안녕하세요,” even by teachers.
That being the case, however, it’s puzzling that she would select me as a target for this strange spelling – the message was meaningful and specific to communicating the content of her email to me – it relied on me understanding it’s meaning, because what it says is: “Yeonghwa forgot her login password so Mihyeon is sending you her essay.” Thus the only way Yeonghwa gets credit for the attached essay is if I understand the subject line – otherwise Mihyeon gets credit for the essay, as except for the “sent by” field, it’s the only place any names occur.
Did she just “forget” that I wasn’t a native speaker? That’s probable. Or did she do it intentionally as a way to challenge me or be deliberately opaque? That’s possible too. Did she think I’d spend half an hour figuring it out, and then write a linguistic analysis about it on my blog? I doubt it. I tend to write about these things because there is very little on the internet, in English, about non-standard Korean – it’s extremely hard to find.
[daily log: walking, 6 km]

Caveat: Oats!

Banalities & Journaling / Food & Drink

pictureI have had cravings for oatmeal (just the regular old oatmeal in a quaker oats can, or those instant oatmeal packets that abound in the US) for a very long time. But unlike almost any other product imaginable, I have had difficulty running across it. I don’t even recall seeing it at Costco or at the foreigner’s grocery at Itaewon. I really want some variety in my porridgey foods, rather than just Korean 죽 and 누룽지, which are both rice-based.
Finally, the other day at HomePlus, I noticed this on the TESCO “foreign foods” shelf (the British TESCO is an international partner for HomePlus): “Scottish Oats” (at right).
I bought some, and had some. I am happy for the variety.
picture[daily log: walking, 6 km]

Caveat: Syntactical Hapaxes and Legosnakes

Banalities & Journaling / Kids / Language & Linguistics / My Photos / The Wonders of Work

Sometimes I find myself saying something where I suddenly feel aware that maybe this is the first time anyone ever needed to say that specific thing. I think of these as some kind of syntactical hapaxes (hapaces?). This awareness harkens back to the linguistic commonplace (due to Chomsky, maybe?) that one of the most remarkable features of human language and syntax is that they allow the creation of utterly novel meanings, on demand.
So yesterday, at work, I looked at the color printer on the desk in the staff room, and I observed: “There is a lego snake in the yellow printer ink.” How likely is it that someone needed to say this before?
You see, lego (the toy) includes a “lego snake” – it comes with some sets that include the lego crocodile (which I prefer to call a legogator). It is small – a single piece, intended for the same scale as the lego minifigures – about 2 cm long and 2 mm thick.
On my desk, there lives a small legogator with his lego snake – generally in the legogator’s mouth.
Meanwhile, the color printer includes a set of external ink containers that are a kind of universal post-retail hack that Koreans have turned into a business, that avoids the need to buy expensive ink cartriges for one’s ink-jet printers. The external ink reservoirs are openable and can be filled manually from bottles of ink, and small tubes snake (ahem) into pseudo-ink cartriges embedded inside the printer. This system is much cheaper and more practical than buying expensive replacement ink cartriges, though clearly not in the best financial interests of the printer-manufacturers, who have always been pretty honest about the fact that they make most of their money on selling refill cartriges rather than the printers themselves. But I have never seen an ink-jet printer in Korea that did NOT include this type of aftermarket add-on.
That’s a technical digression, for those interested. What I saw yesterday was my lego snake floating in the yellow color printer ink reservoir.
I took a picture after making my utterance, because I immediately felt the need to record this syntactical hapax for posterity.
picture
You can see the lego snake clearly, enjoying a swim in yellow ink.
I notified our technical/maintenance guy, Mr Park, and he popped open the ink reservoir (I was afraid to mess with it myself, not knowing the details of the device’s operation). I then used a pair of scissors to fish out Mr Snake, who was now altered from red plastic to a more orangish hue, understandably.
I suspected a young 4th grader named Chaejun of the crime. He spends a lot of time in the staff room, because his mom works at the hagwon. And he’s a little bit mischievous. Mr Park agreed when I suggested that Chaejun was the culprit.
So I asked Chaejun, later, when I saw him. “Did you put a lego snake in the printer ink?”
His English really isn’t that good, but he understood what I was referring to immediately, which was already immediate confirmation that he was the guilty party – what non-native speaker would know what that was about, if they hadn’t engineered the situation in the first place? For that matter, none of my coworkers could wrap their minds around what I’d discovered, even when I tried to explain it to them later: there were too many unexpected, strung-together nominal modifiers: lego + snake, printer + ink.
Anyway, Chaejun didn’t bother denying it. He simply nodded, grinning proudly.
picture[daily log: walking, 6 km]

Caveat: he’s my nemesis. I have to show him everything

Banalities & Journaling / Found Online / Kids / Media (Texts/Music/Movies etc)

Yesterday, my students in my T2 middle-school class told me I needed to watch the cartoon called Phineas and Ferb, because of Perry the Platypus. “Teacher, you need to see that,” they said. “It’s important.”
In need of something mindless and escapist, I duly did so, and found it it pretty entertaining – it is pretty well-written for a children’s cartoon.
Perry the Platypus is a kind of James Bondesque superhero. There is an entertaining, vaguely central-European villain named Heinz Doofenshmirtz.
In one episode (season 1, episode 18), one of the evil villain’s colleagues asks, with respect to Perry the Platypus, “Does he have to come along?”
Doofenshmirtz answers, “Yes, of course, he’s my nemesis. I have to show him everything.”

I am feeling overwhelmed, even though it’s Sunday, because next week – instead of being the “calm after the storm” of our talent show last week – is going to be a hellish week with a doubled teaching schedule.
picture[daily log: 10 episodes]

Caveat: That Was Somewhat Disappointing, I guess

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling / My Videos / The Wonders of Work

I thought I would feel happy when the show was over. Instead I felt angry and depressed.

To the extent I was supposedly the show's manager, I felt the project was badly managed. So that's annoying. "No one to blame but myself," and all that. Perhaps the reason I so often resist being pushed into managerial roles is because I am incapable of deriving any sense of accomplishment – instead I pick apart what I've done and find the mistakes. I'm happiest as a worker drone, obviously, where I can feel a sense of accomplishment in surviving the mismanagement of others.

I might go into a more detailed "post mortem" at some point. Or just move on and forget it. I will post some video of it, when it becomes available.

There were no major disasters or failures – just A LOT of things that could have been done better, and a lot of unnecessary stress around all the small mistakes and failures.

I hope the kids had fun. And I hope the parents weren't too annoyed.

Anyway, I was exhausted last night and have to work today.

What I'm listening to right now.

Zeromancer, "Fractured."

Lyrics.

Can't you see my hands are clean
I'm as holy as can be
I will never do you harm

I am fractured
It can't ever be the same
Can't you see my hands
Are clean
Can't you see
I'm as holy as can be

What kind of life is this?
What kind of life is this?

Can't you see my hands are clean
I'm as holy as can be
I will never do you harm again
I am fractured
It can never be the same

What kind of life is this?
What kind of life is this?

I warned you a thousand times
It's like crying to the clouds

Why are you asking the questions
You already know the answer to?
Can't you see
My hands are clean

What kind of life is this?
What kind of life is this?

What kind of life is this?
What kind of life is this?
A good life

What kind of life is this?
What kind of life is this?
A good life

What kind of life is this?
What kind of life is this?

A good life
Is a quiet life
A good life
Is a quiet life

[daily log: walking, 6 km]

Caveat: I don’t feel well-prepared

Banalities & Journaling / My Photos / The Wonders of Work

Today is our show day for our annual talent show. Unlike last year, when my coworker Ken was the mastermind behind making it successful, this year (since Ken has left Karma) I’ve had to be more managerial and I’m not very happy with the result. I wasn’t preemptive enough with various issues and concerns – I’m worried about the timing, which is important because of the bus-shuttle schedule for the students. And I didn’t memorize my MC lines well, either. I think my students are better-prepared than I am.
Ah well.
Here is a bucolic, summery picture I took walking to work the other day. A bicycle parked in front of a senior citizens’ center in Hugok, with some flowers climbing behind.
picture
picture[daily log: walking, 7 km]

Caveat: 설마가 사람 죽인다

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

This is an aphorism from my aphorism book.

설마가 사람 죽인다
seol.ma.ga sa.ram juk.in.da
surely(-not)-SUBJ person kill-PRES
“Surely not” kills a person.

Don’t assume “it can’t happen here.” Be prepared for the worst. Never say never.
This is interesting because the adverbial 설마 seems to have the subject particle attached to it, which seems to function as a kind of citational. It is definitely an example of the fluidity of grammatical categories in Korean.
Should I prepare this for our talent show on Friday?
[daily log: walking, 6 km]

Caveat: Wah Wah Wah… the power’s going out!

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

I had a bit of a happy minor milestone with Korean this morning. 

My building occasionally makes announcements over the intercom system. A few of these, in the past, I have learned to identify, mostly on the basis of keywords combined with the timing (each month's electricity bill delivery, for example, comes on a certain weekday near the end of the month).

Mostly, however, I feel about these intercom announcements the way the peanuts kids feel about their teacher's talking. The sound quality is poor, and my command of Korean is lousy at best.

It's just so much incomprehensible input.

This morning, however, there was an announcement. It included the word for electricity, and it listed a specific time, and I was able to decipher it enough to realize: a) the power was going out, and b) I knew the exact times. I was thus able to actually plan my morning around this knowledge. 

Therefore, this represents the first time an intercom announcement influenced my behavior directly in a way closely connected to its intended meaning.

That's what language is for. So … I felt happy because of that.

I'm off to a very stressful week of work. Annual talent show, this Friday. Blog posts may be sparse… 

 [daily log: walking, 6 km]

Caveat: Not Memorial Day, But the Buddha’s Getting Older

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling / Español Aleatorio (Random Spanish)

Korea doesn't have Memorial day on the last Monday in May. So today isn't Memorial Day, like it is in the US.

But I get the day off anyway, because just coincidentally, the Buddha's birthday falls on this day, this year (it's calculated on the Lunar Calendar, so it moves around each year, like Easter or Chuseok). It's quite late this year.

I am so exhausted from work, I have little motivation to do something "interesting" with my extra day off.

I'm treating it as a bonus Sunday, meaning I'm trying not to pressure myself to do anything specific, and trying not to feel guilty about that. This is harder to do than to describe.

I have been messing with my imaginary maps, a lot – including a lot of sketching and story-drafting. Maybe I'll post an update on that at some point.

Meanwhile, here is something to listen to. What I'm listening to right now.

Moderatto's cover of "Volver, Volver."

Letra.

Este amor apasionado, anda todo alborotado ,
por volver.
voy camino a la locura y aunque todo me tortura,
se querer.

Nos dejamos hace tiempo pero me llego el momento de perder
tu tenias mucha razon, le hago caso al corazon y me muero
por volver

'Y volver volver, volver a tus brazos otra vez,
llegare hasta donde estes
yo se perder,yo se perder, quiero volver, volver,
volver.'

Nos dejamos hace tiempo pero me llego el momento
de perder
tu tenias mucha razon, le hago caso al corazon
y me muero por volver.

'Y volver volver, volver a tus brazos otra vez,
llegare hasta donde estes
yo se perder, yo se perder, quiero volver, volver,
volver.

[daily log: walking, 1 km]

Caveat: Somewhere a bit west of Daly City

Banalities & Journaling

For some reason I was struck, while surfing some map site, that my apartment is due west of Daly City, California – by… I’m not sure, maybe 8000 km?
Why is this striking? Well, Daly City (and San Francisco, just to the north, and the redwood forests of San Mateo County, to the south) were fixtures of my childhood, and probably I still conjure images from those places on a near-daily basis, as my brain churns its always-evolving autobiography.
pictureI grew up in Humboldt, of course – about 300 miles north, at 40 degrees latitude.
But my family made frequent road trips to the area just south of San Francisco that is now known as Silicon Valley. In the 1970s, during these family trips, it wasn’t yet known in the popular culture as Silicon Valley, although it already was – Apple was already operating, HP was there (and I think my parents knew some people who worked there), NASA-Ames was churning out high tech projects, etc.
I have very vivid memories of the stretch of highway 1 between the Golden Gate and Daly City, as it progresses down 19th Avenue, and crosses the city boundary from San Francisco at its southwest corner into the eerie, colorful ticky-tacky suburban homes of Daly City. To a hippie kid from the “sticks” such as myself, I was rapt by the idea of the City (which was, exclusively, San Francisco during my early years).
Anyway, I guess what’s striking is that I make my home at the exact same latitude, on the opposite side of the Pacific. What would my 8-year-old self have made of the idea that at 50 I would be living so far away?
picture
[daily log: walking, 1 km]

Caveat: disparo en la sien y metralla en la risa

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling / Not My Poetry / The Wonders of Work

The last two days have been truly exhausting and chaotic.

Yesterday, especially – we had rehearsal for our talent show next week. We also had a partial power failure at hagwon. I got to teach classes in the dark. It was like a weird dream.

What I'm listening to right now.

Silvio Rodríguez, "La Gaviota."

Letra.

Corrían los días de fines de guerra,
y había un soldado regresando intacto,
intacto del frío mortal de la tierra,
intacto de flores de horror en su cuarto.

Elevó los ojos, respiró profundo,
la palabra cielo se hizo en su boca,
y como si no hubiera más en el mundo,
por el firmamento pasó una gaviota.

Gaviota, gaviota, vals del equilibrio,
cadencia increíble, llamada en el hombro.
Gaviota, gaviota, blancura del lirio,
aire y bailarina, gaviota de asombro.

A dónde te marchas, canción de la brisa,
tan rápida, tan detenida,
disparo en la sien y metralla en la risa,
gaviota que pasa y se lleva la vida?

Corrían los días de fines de guerra,
pasó una gaviota volando, volando
lento, como un tiempo de amor que se cierra,
imperio de ala, de cielo y de cuándo.

Gaviota, gaviota, vals del equilibrio,
cadencia increíble, llamada en el hombro,
gaviota, gaviota, blancura del lirio,
aire y bailarina, gaviota de asombro.

Corrían los días de fines de guerra,
pasó una gaviota volando
y el que anduvo intacto rodó por la tierra,
huérfano, desnudo, herido, sangrando.

[daily log: walking, 6 km]

Caveat: Morbid Piles of Links

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling / Cancer / Found Online

I have a morbid habit, which I sometimes indulge. I read the blogs of people with cancer.

These abound on the internet. More often than not, I come across pointers to such blogs in other places, in other contexts, but I will take a moment to add the pointer to a little pile (file) of links I have of "cancer blogs." Then, sometimes, when the mood strikes or I'm feeling mortal or hypochondriac or unlucky, I will read one. 

Many people seem to take the decision to start blog, upon learning they have cancer. 

I was different only in that I long ago started my blog as a coping mechanism to deal with different, unrelated issues (stepping away from my hermetic life and trying to document my efforts to jump-start my career). 

Perhaps I'm a bit different too, in that, since I was blogging before the cancer, now that I'm basically past it successfully (fingers crossed and knock on wood and all that), I continue blogging reliably – many "cancer" blogs "die" not just when their authors die, but also when their authors fail to die, but  instead just get on with life. 

Recently a blog I've visited a few times (a linguist and thus someone whose non-cancer writings also had at least some appeal for me) announced the death of its author after a fairly short (6 month) battle. 

There, now I'm not feeling unlucky anymore.

What I'm listening to right now.

Andy Williams, "House of Bamboo."

Lyrics.

Number fifty-four,
The house with the bamboo door,
Bamboo roof and bamboo walls,
They've even got a bamboo floor!

You must get to know – Soho Joe,
He runs an Expresso,
Called the House of Bamboo.

It's a made of sticks.
Sticks and bricks,
But you can get your kicks
In the house of bamboo.

In this casino, you can drink a chino,
And it's gotcha swingin' to the cha cha
Dance the bolero in a sombrero.
Shake – like a snake!

You wanna drop in when the cats are hoppin'.
Let your two feet move a to the big beat;
Pick yourself a kitten and listen to a platter
That rocks – the juke-box!

I'm a telling you, when you're blue,
Well there's a lot to do
In the House Of Bamboo.

You must get to know – Soho Joe,
He runs an Expresso,
Called the House of Bamboo.

In this casino, you can drink a chino,
Let your two feet move-a to the big beat;
Pick yourself a kitten and listen to a platter
That rocks

I'm a telling you, when you're blue,
Well there's a lot to do
In the House Of Bamboo.

Number fifty-four,
The house with the bamboo door,
Bamboo roof and bamboo walls,
They've even got a bamboo floor!

In the House Of Bamboo.

[daily log: walking, 6 km]

Caveat: Extreme Trolleyology

Banalities & Journaling / Found Online / Philosophy & Cultural Criticism

I have covered trolleyology before. Twice.

I ran across this excellent satirical extension on the trolleyology theme, here.

You have to have a certain philosophical bent to enjoy these, probably. Definitely, if you start to read them and don’t understand what’s going on, you need to first make sure you understand the background trolleyological tradition. But I definitely laughed at them.

[daily log: walking, 6 km]

CaveatDumpTruck Logo

Caveat: Quite Rude

Banalities & Journaling / Kids / The Wonders of Work

The other day, I was talking with my often mentioned student, Sophia, about her upcoming role as an assistent MC for our talent show. 

We were planning a kind of skit for a moment near the beginning of the show. In this context, I suggested she could interrupt me – which she does often enough. 

"…but, I can't be rude on purpose," she protested.

I said, "You don't have to be rude. Just be your natural self."

Without pause, she said, "But my natural self is … quite rude." Then she made a funny face, realizing what she'd just admitted.

[daily log: walking, 6 km]

Caveat: One Mountain

Banalities & Journaling / My Photos

The place I live is called Ilsan. That’s not actually the name of the city – the city is officially called Goyang, but Goyang is more like a consolidated city-county, in US terms, as there are several urban clusters with intervening agricultural land within its boundaries.
There are two city districts (boroughs), West Ilsan (Ilsan-seo-gu) and East Ilsan (Ilsan-dong-gu) which together form the area informally known as Ilsan. The name Ilsan, itself, comes from the train station, I suspect, which is on the main northwest Gyeongui line (Gyeongui means “Capital-to-Sinuiju”, Sinuiju being the city in the northwestern corner of North Korea – so this was the main rail line between Seoul and the Chinese border, prior to Korean partition in 1945).
I remember actually spending time at the Ilsan train station in 1991, when I was garrisoned a few stops northwest of Ilsan at Camp Edwards, in the US Army. At that time, Ilsan was a village-like entity surrounding a single-room wooden structure that was labeled as Ilsan train station.
Now, of course, “Ilsan” has half a million residents – it is one of Korea’s most successful “new cities” (신도시 or planned cities).
I’m writing about this because there seems to be some doubt as to where the name “Ilsan” comes from, even among Koreans. “Il” just means “one,” so the name of the city is “One Mountain.” But there is no mountain nearby called “Ilsan” – and most of Ilsan is pretty flat, actually, although just to the north there are some ridges and peaks in the area called Jungsan and Gobong, and within Ilsan there is a very low hill called Jeongbalsan, where I walk frequently, and on the northeast flank of Jeongbalsan is the Cancer Center.
Both Gobong and Jeongbalsan seem like candidates for the “One Mountain” of the name, but I have decided that seems implausible. Neither of them are positioned quite right, relative to the train station that originally bore the name.
On the other hand, a much more distant mountain, called Simhaksan, seems a likely candidate. On Saturday, on the pedestrian footbridge next to my work, which is a few blocks from Ilsan train station, I snapped this picture.

picture

Looking northwest along Ilsan Road, it shows clearly the single, noticeable peak of Simhaksan in the somewhat hazy distance, about 10 km down the road. I [broken link! FIXME] once went up Simhaksan, from whence you can see North Korea easily – basically it is the only mountain between Ilsan and North Korea, in that particular direction.
That’s definitely One Mountain, I thought.
picture[daily log: walking, 6 km]

Caveat: Olive Therapy

Banalities & Journaling / Cancer / Food & Drink

As many know, I still have some issues eating "normally." Aside from the fact that I don't have much sense of taste, which means that food just isn't as interesting as it used to be, I also have some issues around the fact that major portions of my tongue lack a sense of touch – it's permanently numb, like it will get after a visit to the dentist when local anaesthetic is used.

This creates eating problems because it's surprising the extent to which we rely on our tongues to manipulate food in our mouths during the process of chewing and moving the food to the back of our mouths in preparation to swallow it. I can't always do this as easily or as successfully as I might hope. That is why my favorite foods now are the sort of soupy or sloppy things, pasta with sauces, soups, porridge, etc., that are "swallowable" without too much tongue movement. 

A month or so ago I bought a can of olives, because I like to chop them into my pastas sometimes. But I made a mistake – they were unpitted olives. I nearly threw them out, but in fact, I do like olives, and I can still enjoy the bitter/salty flavor of them somewhat. 

So I decided to try eating them. 

Things with seeds or pits or bones that end up in my mouth are things I normally dread – if you think about the gymnastics you do with your tongue when you find a watermelon seed or a fish bone, you will understand what I mean.

But sitting at home, I would nibble around my olives and eventually I got brave and, looking at it as a kind of physical therapy, I would try to eat the olive and spit out the pit, in the "normal" way. 

It's kind of like forcing myself to do exercise that is unpleasant but hopefully good for me. I have this idea that I can build up my tongue coordination through diligence and practice. 

So I sit at my desk in the late mornings, with a bowl of unpitted olives, and exercise my tongue. 

It gets sore, on the tip, where there are still some nerve endings (which is what the doctors so miraculously saved, and which is why I am not handicapped in talking, for the most part, despite the loss of nerves in most of my tongue). 

[daily log: chewing, 6 olives]

Caveat: Sausageology?

Banalities & Journaling / Kids / The Wonders of Work

Sihyeon said, "Teacher, do you like sociology?" We were doing a listening question in my TOEFL class, with a lecture on a sociology topic. 

"Sure. It's interesting, sometimes," I equivocated.

"I don't like sociology," he stated, categorically. Continuing, quite serious-toned, he added, "I like sausages." 

In Korean accent, these two words have essentially the same initial sound. Did he think they were related? 

For some reason I laughed a little too long at this. The rest of the class time was not used very effectively.

[daily log: walking, 6 km]

Caveat: 50 Years Dead

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

A few months ago, I missed mentioning the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X, which was on February 21, 1965. It was one of those blog-posts I start to write but never finish. It seems apropos to think about it, however, in light of “Baltimore” and the many other events reflecting the dysfunction of racial and racialized politics in the US.
I don’t visit The Atlantic website on a daily basis, as I used to. At some point, I became fed up with the their constant efforts to pander to the lowest common denominator in the new internet-driven culture industry – so much in the same vein that I boycott the Facebook, I have been in a “soft boycott” (meaning not absolutist, but merely trying to avoid it for the most part) – I have stopped visiting The Atlantic website for the most part. Their recent reformats of their website were especially annoying, as it was all re-written to be “mobile-friendly” I guess, which is fine – but programming a website to have a “mobile” version and a “computer” version is technically trivial (well, not trivial, but certainly within the abilities of a competent IT department). So why “dumb down” one on my computer screen, too, making it more difficult to see all the different content they have?
Oops, OK, that was a digression (or a rant). I was intending to write about Mr X.
I mentioned The Atlantic because there is one editor / blogger at The Atlantic whom I nevertheless seek out and read on a regular basis. That is the journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates. He recently mentioned Malcolm X in passing when discussing the way in which Obama’s rhetoric on personal morality (of “people of color” – e.g. Baltimore) versus his rhetoric on issues of government policy forms a kind of “bait and switch.” This is cogent and uncompromising reasoning – as is almost always my experience with Coates. Anyway, I will let you read his thoughts, here.
However, Coates’ mention caused me to revisit X’s “The Ballot or the Bullet” speech from April, 1964.

Some people might find it dissonant that Malcolm X is one of people whom I most admire in history. I am neither black, nor a muslim, nor a revolutionary. I am not, arguably, American anymore, either. Furthermore, I have strong philosophical opposition to nationalisms of all flavors, and there is no denying Malcolm X’s nationalist bent.
I think I admire him because he seemed devoid of hypocrisy and self-deception, which is possibly the human failing I most dislike – both in myself and in those around me. Malcolm X called out hypocrisy wherever he saw it. His was a righteous righteousness, therefore.
It’s possible, too, that I admire him as a rhetorician. Certainly now, when I am, in essence, a teacher of rhetoric (if you want to reframe middle-school EFL in as grandiose manner as possible), I am very conscious of and inspired by his control of the spoken word. Even before my current career, however, I was quite drawn to talented speakers.
Regardless of why I admire him, I will merely conclude with an acknowledgement that I consider him one of the greatest Americans – something I’ve commented [broken link! FIXME] before on this blog, admittedly.
[daily log: walking, 6 km]

Caveat: We are smart

Banalities & Journaling / The Wonders of Work

I was sitting in the staff room last night, busily completing my class logs and doing some essay editing, and Seyeong and Seunghyeon walked by about 20 minutes before the end of the last class.

The two 9th grade girls popped their heads into the staffroom and said goodbye. 

"Why are you leaving early?" I asked, surprised. It's not common for one of the middle-school teachers to release kids early.

The girls laughed and said in strange unison, "We are smart."

They ran off.

I puzzled as to what this meant. At first, I interpreted it to mean that they had somehow cleverly escaped their teacher's clutches. If it had been some other student, this would have been the logical answer. But they are diligent students – this seemed unlikely. Instead, I decided they merely meant they had gotten some exceptionally good score on something, and thus the teacher had allowed them to go early.

[daily log: walking, 7 km]

Caveat: Rent-an-Alligator

Banalities & Journaling / Kids / The Wonders of Work

The other day, I had a student who really wanted to buy one of my alligator pencil cases (which I buy at the stationery store and sell to the students for alligator bucks). 

"It's cute," she said.

We settled on a price of 50 alligator bucks. She named it 'Albert.'

She ran away contentedly to play with it.

When I saw her 2 hours later, she handed me the alligator pencil case.

"I'm done with it," she explained. "I want my 50 dollars."

"Wait a minute," I said. "You can't do that. Now it's used." 

I had to explain the concept of used. "Who's going to buy a used alligator pencil case?" I asked.

In fact, Albert had managed to get noticeably dirty during his two hour fling. I pointed at the dirty white underside.

She would have none of it. "I don't want it." 

After some debate, I finally agreed to give her a refund but with an "alligator rental fee" deducted, in the amount of 3 dollars. So I counted out a refund of 47 dollars.

She seemed happy with this. 

I wonder if this could be a business model, moving forward? 

[daily log: walking, 6 km]

Caveat: On Loneliness

Banalities & Journaling / Quotable

People think I'm weird because I don't seem to suffer from loneliness. Sometimes I feel gloomy or restless or bored, but I almost never experience loneliness. 

I guess that's weird.

I make sure I get a good dose of sociality through my choice of career. And kids make better company than adults, in my opinion. They are "high intensity" social experiences, so you get lots of sociality in a short time. Then I can go home and be alone-but-not-lonely.

"If you are lonely when you're alone, you are in bad company." – Jean-Paul Sartre.

[daily log: walking, 7 km]

Caveat: Los tijuanes de tucana

Banalities & Journaling / Español Aleatorio (Random Spanish)

Ayer fue el cinco de mayo. Por eso me hice una celebración que incluyó no hacer nada pero hacerlo muy bien. 

Lo que estoy escuchando en este momento.

Los Tucanes de Tijuana, "El tío borrachales."

Letra.

Escuchen señores
aqui esta la historia
del tio borrachales
la gente le apoda.

Le encanta la peda
siempre anda en la bola,
no distingue marcas
ni le hace la cruda.

Le gusta de todo,
nomás que atarante
con el primer trago
se siente cantante.

Tequila o cerveza,
coñac, wiskhy o vino
Charanda o tepache
alcohol o tejuino.

El tio borrachales agarra parejo
por eso es que siempre se pone borracho
El tio borrachales no tiene remedio
siempre anda de fiesta es mas que bohemio.
el tio borrachales siempre anda contento
disfruta la vida al ciento por ciento
El tio borrachales siempre anda diciendo:
Salud mis amigos por este momento.

Arriba y abajo al centro y pa' dentro.

Salud tio…(Salud mijo).

Escuchen señores
aqui esta la historia
del tio borrachales
la gente le apoda.

Le encanta la peda
siempre anda en la bola,
no distingue marcas
ni le hace la cruda.

Le gusta de todo,
nomás que atarante
con el primer trago
se siente cantante.

Tequila o cerveza,
coñac, wiskhy o vino
Charanda o tepache
alcohol o tejuino.

El tio borrachales agarra parejo
por eso es que siempre se pone borracho
El tio borrachales no tiene remedio
siempre anda de fiesta es mas que bohemio.
el tio borrachales siempre anda contento
disfruta la vida al ciento por ciento
El tio borrachales siempre anda diciendo:
Salud mis amigos por este momento.

Arriba y abajo al centro y pa' dentro.

Salud tio…(Salud mijo).

[daily log: ps… ¿caminá x día festivo? x naaaa… 6 km]

Caveat: Hi Kids!

Banalities & Journaling / My Drawings & Paintings

Today is that peculiar Korean holiday, “Children’s Day,” which works ironically for teachers, since we don’t work, and therefore do not see children on children’s day, unless we have our own.
I drew this on the whiteboard yesterday, with my trademark phrase.
picture
picture[daily log: walking, 1 km]

Caveat: Later

Banalities & Journaling / Kids / The Wonders of Work

I have this one student, Sophia, who talks and talks and talks and talks and… you get the picture.

She is the closest to a native-speaking student I have ever had in Korea, I think, and she is quite verbal, too. She is in the 4th grade of elementary school, and has never studied abroad, so she is a bit of a prodigy – I'm sure I've mentioned her before.

She is also a bit "needy" and is constantly asking for things, wanting me to do things, needing my attention or time. I have a habit, with native-speaking kids, that I am hardly aware of, where I will say something that perhaps a lot of English-speaking parents or teachers say to kids. To these ongoing, persistent requests I will often respond, simply, "Later." If I listen to myself saying it, I hear my father's voice, clearly.

Today, Sophia came about 20 minutes early, before her class was scheduled to start. I was working in the staff-room.

She wanted to look at videos on my computer. I said, "Later."

She wanted to play a game on my phone. I said, "Later."

She wanted to "borrow" a board game from my drawer. I said, "Later, you have class soon."

"You always say 'later'," she whined. She has an amazing capacity to go from laughter to tears in less than 30 seconds.

"I'm a little bit busy," I said, by way of apology.

She made a kind of harrumph. She sat down in a chair near my desk and folded her arms, looking quite serious.

"What?" I asked, as she waited there with a grimmace.

"We need to discuss what 'later' means," she announced. Those were her words, exactly. I think she watches too many American TV shows, maybe.

 [daily log: walking, 6 km]

Caveat: 눈치 없는 사람

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

I learned a new Korean expression from an elementary 2nd grader today – which is perhaps my preferred source of new Korean expressions.
She was describing another student as 눈치 없는 사람 [nun.chi eop.neun sa.ram], with a sigh of resignation. I said, what do you mean? She took the time to patiently explain it to me. This is why I like learning things from kids – they are more patient than adults in explaining things to clueless foreigners.
I had learned 눈치 as meaning something like “notice” or “telltale clue”. But apparently it also means “common sense” and “tact.” So a 눈치 없는 사람 is a tactless person, or a person with no common sense. For that matter, it might be a close match for American slang “clueless”, which seems capture the other valences of the word 눈치 well.
This is a very useful expression. A lot of kids have this issue.

Last night, after work, we had a 회식 (work dinner) to celebrate the end of exam-prep time. I wasn’t feeling very celebratory – I feel stressed, as we have looming month-end tests for elementary and the upcoming prepartion for our talent show thing at the end of May.
[daily log: walking, z km]

Caveat: Draw, Scan, Edit, Print

Banalities & Journaling / My Drawings & Paintings / The Wonders of Work

Yesterday I finally did something I have been meaning to do for quite some time.

I took the time to scan one of my alligator pictures, "trace" it into a graphics application (Inkscape, which I'm trying to learn how to use), touch it up a little bit, and then convert to a scalable graphics image (e.g. a .PNG file in this case). 

I think the result went well. I printed out a bunch of these cloned alligators on our color printer at work, and immediately had tribes of elementary students bidding to "buy" these pictures with their alligator bucks. Helen said I should charge what the market would bear. I didn't charge – I gave them away. Socialist: alligator illustrations to each according to their need.

I will try to do a few more, I guess. This alligator is specific to our upcoming talent show. 

Karmagator3

[daily log: walking, 6 km]

 

Caveat: The deep fragrance and impressive taste of coffee beans have just roasted

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling

2015-04-26 11.56.20I was laughing at the slogan on a lovely cardboard coffee tote from a local coffee shop (picture at right).

The deep fragrance and impressive taste of coffee beans have just roasted.

A coworker asked what was wrong. "Is it bad grammar?" she asked.

"No. It's … grammatical," I explained. "But…  I don't think it means what they think it means."

If a fragrance and a taste get together one night, and roast, what is the result?

What I'm listening to right now. A whole new genre: "country hiphop."

Yelawolf, "Til It's Gone."

Lyrics.

[Verse 1:]
I'm not the table you can come and lay your cup down on, now
I'm not the shoulder for a bag. The one that carried a heavy load
I'm not the road that you take when you looking for a short cut, uh
I ain't the stepping stone to be stepping on
I ain't nobodies crutch
I ain't the money man, with your money, man
You ain't looking at me
I'm not the cheap one, looking at me son
You ain't looking at free
I ain't the dish rag to come clean up all the shit that you dish out
Ain't got no check for em'
If you checking in, mothafucka, check this out

[Hook:]
Ain't much I can do but I do what I can
But I'm not a fool there's no need to pretend
And just because you got yourself in some shit
It doesn't mean I have to come deal with it
You handle your own when you become a man
And become a man when you handle your own
Ain't much I can do, but I do what I can
But what can I do if I do till it's gone? Oh oh
Till it's gone. Oh oh [x3]
What can I do if I do till it's gone?

[Verse 2:]
I'm not the the trash can. Not the last man at the finish line, now
I'm not the new kid on the block that you can just follow and push around
I'm not the fucking needle in the hay stack that you finally found
This ain't no free rent. Come and pitch a tent
You ain't tying me down
I'm not a bus ride you can hop inside and just roll away clean
Like the wheel on the wagon you wanna break
Cause I hold up the weight for the team
I'm not the gold watch and the new truck that your scheming to check out
Unless your looking to check out (powpowpow)
What a mess, now (come on)

[Hook:]
Ain't much I can do but I do what I can
But I'm not a fool there's no need to pretend
And just because you got yourself in some shit
It doesn't mean I have to come deal with it
You handle your own when you become a man
And become a man when you handle your own
Ain't much I can do, but I do what I can
But what can I do if I do till it's gone? Oh oh
Till it's gone. Oh oh [x3]
What can I do if I do till it's gone?

[Verse 3:]
I jump to the sky for my people
I walk through the fire. I give love when it's equal
Don't tell me not to complain about my money and fame
When you come around me telling me I've changed
Damn, right I've fucking changed
When there's fucking change in my pocket hit the bucket
It was a rocking all a sudden
I went from shopping without nothing
To going shopping for my cousins
Now that the cops know that I'm buzzing,
They wanna drop me in the oven
Pull me over just to say "I'm a fan"
Hip hop; gotta love it, but fuck it

[Hook:]
Ain't much I can do but I do what I can
But I'm not a fool there's no need to pretend
And just because you got yourself in some shit
It doesn't mean I have to come deal with it
You handle your own when you become a man
And become a man when you handle your own
Ain't much I can do, but I do what I can
But what can I do if I do till it's gone? Oh oh
Till it's gone. Oh oh [x3]
What can I do if I do till it's gone?

[daily log: walking, 1 km]

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