At work, at closing time (10 pm):
Ken: "I wonder if this is the real path to success…"
Jared: "What?"
Ken: "…this working everyday."
I didn't have an answer to that. I suspect maybe not.
[daily log: walking, 5 km]
Category: Banalities & Journaling
Caveat: 아는 길도 물어 가라
This is an aphorism from my aphorism book.
아는 길도 물어 가라
a·neun gil·do mur·eo ga·ra
know-PPART road-TOO ask-INF go-IMP
Ask too about the known road.
Ask the way, even though you already know it. Seek counsel from more experienced elders.
I’ll try.
We had 회식 (business dinner) after work to say goodbye to long-time Karma employee Gina, whose reliability and friendliness in the staffroom I will miss.
It was 회 (hweh = raw fish i.e. sashimi), which is hard for me for textural reason. I ate a piece of kimchi. It was too spicy, but just the fact of trying to eat it represents progress, of a sort, on the food front.
[daily log: walking, 3 km]
Caveat: the hollow sound of silent people
I took my standard Sunday internet holiday, but I did not accomplish much. I have these drawings I want to work on… and my writing, too. But I haven't progressed much. Mostly I graze various philosophy books and kill time with mind-numbing games.
What I'm listening to right now.
Kris Kristofferson, "Casey's Last Ride."
Lyrics.
Casey joins the hollow sound of silent people walking down
The stairway to the subway in the shadows down below;
Following their footsteps through the neon-darkened corridors
Of silent desperation, never speakin' to a soul.
The poison air he's breathin' has the dirty smell of dying
'Cause it's never seen the sunshine and it's never felt the rain.
But Casey minds the arrows and ignores the fatal echoes
Of the clickin' of the turnstiles and the rattle of his chains.
"Oh!" she said, "Casey it's been so long since I've seen you!"
"Here" she said, "just a kiss to make a body smile!"
"See" she said, "I've put on new stockings just to please you!"
"Lord!" she said, "Casey can you only stay a while?"
Casey leaves the under-ground and stops inside the Golden Crown
For something wet to wipe away the chill that's on his bone.
Seeing his reflection in the lives of all the lonely men
Who reach for any thing they can to keep from goin' home.
Standin' in the corner Casey drinks his pint of bitter
Never glancing in the mirror at the people passing by
Then he stumbles as he's leaving and he wonders if the reason
Is the beer that's in his belly, or the tear that's in his eye.
"Oh!" she said, "I suppose you seldom think about me,
"Now" she said, "now that you've a fam'ly of your own";
"Still" she said, "it's so blessed good to feel your body!"
"Lord!" she said" "Casey it's a shame to be alone!"
[daily log: walking, 1 km]
Caveat: Stinging
So tired.
As some of you know, my tongue is mostly numb since my surgery. Today, it was "stinging" – a hard-to-describe sensation that is halfway between pain and just discomfort. It's a bit like the feeling you get when your limb goes "to sleep" and then you shake it out when you shift positions. I don't know if this is a "ghost" sensation that is a consequence of the cut nerves, or some kind of restorative activity. Regardless, it's a bit … annoying.
More later.
[daily log: walking, 6.5 km]
Caveat: 소멸탈출
The song-title “소멸탈출” [somyeol-talchul] means, roughly, “avoid extinction.” This was my approach to life last summer. I feel as if extinction is still hanging over me. It occupies my mouth while I sleep, a kind of ghost-of-death that anchors itself in there when I cease my vigilance.
What I’m listening to right now.
Nell (넬), “소멸탈출.” This could be a hymn, almost.
가사:
고개 숙인 비겁함이 날 초라하게 하고
구겨버린 내 무릎이 자꾸 땅 속에 박혀
알 수 없는 목소리가 머리 속을 울리고
위태로운 내 믿음이 촛불처럼 흔들려
Lift me up, Lift me up
이 어둠 속에서
Lift me up, Lift me up
날 일으켜 세워줘
유혹이 든 위협이든 한 가지 확실한 건
난 언제나 내 진심의 반대편에 서있고
내 자신에 대한 연민과 혐오 사이에 갇혀
후회란 두 글자 속에 내 전부를 가둬
Lift me up, Lift me up
이 어둠 속에서
Lift me up, Lift me up
날 일으켜 세워줘
Don’t let me break down.
여기저기 균열이 간 내 마음의 틈 그 사이로
절망의 그림자가 말 없이 스며들어.
Lift me up, Lift me up
이 어둠 속에서
Lift me up, Lift me up
날 일으켜 세워줘
Lift me up, Lift me up
이 어둠 속에서
Lift me up, Lift me up
날 일으켜 세워줘
Lift me up, Lift me up
Lift me up, Lift me up
Don’t let me break down.
[daily log: walking, 5 km]
Caveat: Including the Kitchen Sink
I like to vary my path walking to and from work. Today I passed through a small fragment of a park-like area that adjoins the block of apartments directly south of my work – near the back entrance of Munhwa elementary school – and there is a an old man there that keeps one of the ubiquitous "recyclying carts." He's very neat and organized. There was no one to be seen nearby, but he had strapped a kitchen sink to his cart. It made me think of the English aphorism about the kitchen sink.
Now I've seen everything – including the kitchen sink.
Here, at right, are some blind alligators I drew for my debate 특강.
When I got home this afternoon, I crashed, and slept. I hate that I do that on Saturdays, as it always discombobulates my schedule, since afternoons are my normal working time. I can't help it – I was (and remain) exhausted. I put in my longest week (in number of hours, number of classes, amount of stress) of any week since my hospital stay last summer.
I will sleep a lot.
[daily log: walking, 5.5 km]
Caveat: creazy
My first-grade elementary student delivered this note to me quite secretively today. She came to where I was at my desk and put it face down on my desk and ran away.
It said: "Jread [my name: Jared] creazy but handsom but creazy"
I guess that's flattering.
[daily log: walking, 5.5 km]
Caveat: About Face (book)
I have always been only a half-hearted user of facebook. I've been really bad about staying in touch with it lately (and other social media too, like Korea's kakao, etc.). Nevertheless I view it as a valuable tool for staying in touch with people, and I was very grateful to have it as a means of staying in touch during my illness last summer. Lately I have neglected it, feeling both strongly anti-social and specifically anti-facebook.
I have decided to end the "feed" between my blog and facebook. I have two reasons. First, I feel it gives people a false impression of my level of participation in facebook when they see posts from my blog – people don't seem to realize that my blog "cross-posts" to facebook without my having to log into facebook. I think it's more "honest" for me to only post in facebook when I'm actually in facebook – then people can see how rarely I actually go there (hmm, maybe once a month, these days?). Second, the cross-posting function is unreliable and there are formatting issues that are hard to manage, sometimes. So rather than having to monitor it, I'll just go back to the old way: if people want to see what I'm up to, they can visit my blog directly.
Anyway, thank you to all my friends and acquaintances who have followed my blog because of these cross-postings to facebook.
[daily log: walking, 5 km]
Caveat: 8 Months Cancer Free
I feel as if I am counting down to something. But I really am only counting down to the past. There is nothing specific ahead, except "continue living." I feel as if I have abrogated all those sweeping "bucket list" goals I spent so much time outlining and meditating on during the depths of my illness last summer, and now there is only each day.
This isn't completely bad, of course. It's good to live "in the moment," as they say. I need those sweeping goals, though – otherwise, the aimlessness of life underwhelms me and leaves me feeling purposeless.
I am neglecting the social stuff – work is highly social, of course, and my schedule is very, very busy these days. Consequently, when I'm not at work I have no desire for human contact or interaction. I ignore the "social media" with the exception of this odd, one-way communication that is my blog. That's ok, I guess, but I know some of my friends and acquaintances become annoyed. If so… I'm sorry.
And… today was a really depressing day. Was it depressing because I was already depressed, and thus I only saw the bad parts? Or was it objectively depressing? I had a completely new schedule – meaning unfamiliar classes (although I know almost all the students well enough). I was inadequately prepared. I have huge pile of correcting and grading and evaluations hanging over me… undone. At the end, it was capped off by some unwanted, negative feedback conveyed from parents. Stupid complaints: the typical stuff, parents who think they know English better than the teacher and want to second guess what teachers say, or how they correct their students' work, or whatever. I have no time for that crap.
Without a doubt, I'm depressed, lately. Am I more depressed than I was last May, when I was sick with cancer and didn't know it, and when I was in constant pain and dissatisfied with work? Hm… I'm now recovering from cancer, rather than unknowingly sick with it. But I still have constant pain, I'm still dissatisfied with work, and now I have my new food miseries as well as the gloom of my mortality hanging over me more prominently than ever.
Overall quality of life? 30%. Has it been worse? Yes. Has it been better? Yes.
What I'm listening to right now.
Digable Planets, "Graffiti feat. Jeru The Damaja."
[daily log: walking, 5 km]
Caveat: Rudolph
Last Friday, it was a late Christmas for my Stars "Betelgeuse"-반 kids, who role-played a memorized musical "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" for their month-end speech. They didn't do perfectly, but they actually did much better than practice sessions would have led me to expect. Ah… the power of the pressure to perform.
Merry very belated Christmas. I'm very tired.
[daily log: walking, 5.5 km]
Caveat: 내가 지금 편한 이유는 내리막길을 걷고 있기 때문이다
This aphorism is not from my aphorism book. It was one that Curt was admiring and trying to explain to me, which he got, in turn, from the Kakao status message (Kakao is a kind of Korean facebook) of a student.
내가 지금 편한 이유는
nae·ga ji-geum pyeon·han i·yu·neun
I-SUBJ now comfortable-be-PPART motive-TOPIC
내리막길을 걷고 있기 때문이다
nae·ri·mak·gil·eul geot·go itt·gi ttae·mun·i·da
downhill-way-OBJ walk-ING there-be-GER reason-be
The reason I am comfortable now is because I am walking downhill.
I am comfortable because I am walking downhill.
This is not a way of saying “smooth going” but rather that you are not working hard enough. Which is to say, if you do not strive for something, you will just coast downhill.
“Coasting.”
Today was a holiday. I did nothing: I slept in, and then played a game on my computer. Day over. Today, I coasted.
[daily log: walking, 1 km]
Caveat: Carl?
I've commented before how it is possible to know and work with someone for years in Korea without knowing a person's name. This is due to the Korean custom of using job-titles in place of names in workplace situations. Hence, although I know my bosses as "Curt" and "Helen" in English (their "English names" which are really deployed, linguistico-semantically, as just a kind of specialized job-title), I would never, ever use their Korean names if speaking to them in Korean – I'd address them or refer to them exclusively by their titles: 원장님 and 부원장님 [won-jang-nim and bu-won-jang-nim, roughly "honored director" and "honored vice-director"]. Likewise, most of my coworkers have "English names" which are used as titles, often with an honorific suffix -샘 [saem = teacher] attached, e.g. Danny-saem or Gina-saem, and I don't know their Korean names (although in their cases, I know where to look to find out, should I need to know). But these English name/titles are only used for those who do actual teaching. For those coworkers who have other, non-teacher roles, they have job-titles in the the standard Korean. Thus, for example, there is 실장님 [sil-jang-nim = honored front-desk worker, more literally "section chief"] or 과장님 [gwa-jang-nim = honored assistant, more literally "department head"]. When one translates the terms, they seem inflated and unnatural, but they are truly natural and automatic in Korean discourse.
We got a new March class schedule today, and on it were the little two-letter abbreviations for the various teachers. I am "JW," Curt is "Ct," etc. There was an unfamiliar abbreviation: "Ca."
"Who is Ca?" I asked – the mysterious Ca was down for a few of what we call "online" classes – where kids complete work in the computer lab using the contracted online provider of web-based English practice exercises. It turned out Ca was the gwa-jang-nim – the assistant in charge of student transportation (the bus schedule) as well as a kind of jack-of-all-trades for the hagwon. "But what is 'Ca'?" I asked. "That's his English name," it was explained.
"What's his English name?"
Ken and I speculated: Calvin? We couldn't think of many English names that could be abbreviated "Ca." Finally, I asked the gwa-jang-nim directly: Carl. That's his English name. Because he's stepping into a teaching role, supervising the kids in the computer lab, suddenly he gets an English name, after knowing him for 2 years. Carl-saem.
It's weird. And then Ken and Gina and I reflected that we still had no idea what his Korean name was. He's always been only gwa-jang-nim.
Caveat: Alienating Debate
We did a completely unrehearsed debate today. On some slips of paper, I wrote some rather silly debate propositions about the family of aliens that I drew on the whiteboard (see picture, above). Then the students drew the propositions and whether they would be PRO or CON, randomly, and had 5 minutes to prepare their speeches. The three propositions were:
"Bob the alien is weird."
"For aliens, uniforms are wonderful."
"For aliens, playing is most important."
I wrote the propositions originally for a younger group, but these three older (7th grade), more advanced kids did really well with it and had fun too.
[daily log: walking, 5 km]
Caveat: I wrote this
I woke up.
I tried writing for a while.
I made breakfast and ate it. That took a long time.
I read.
I made lunch for myself – pasta with mushrooms and zucchini and mild tomato sauce.
I cleaned myself and some things in my apartment.
I went to work.
I did a passably decent job of teaching, but my heart wasn't really in it today.
I corrected a bunch of stuff.
I surfed the internet – French wikipedia, if you must know: somehow reading geographical entries in French makes them even more interesting. At the least, they're more challenging – my French is pretty lousy, although my passive French is still much better than my passive Korean.
I opened the window on my browser that allows me to write this entry, but then I didn't know what to say.
So I wrote this.
[daily log: walking, 5.5 km]
Caveat: Spinach and Smog
I really have this desire to eat more healthily than I do. In trying to do this, however, I am challenged by my constant frustration around eating, which constantly leads me down a path of least resistance, seeking out "comfort" foods (which nowadays mostly means foods easy-to-eat: pasta with some mild sauce, bland rice concoctions, etc.).
Today, inspired by a mound of spinach at the supermarket, I decided to try something, and made some quite passable blanched spinach with mushrooms and a few bits of zucchini and onion sauteed with garlic and butter. A whole bag of spinach wilts and reduces quickly to a single bowl full. I've always rather liked spinach, but previous recent efforts were frustrated by textural issues. This time, by de-stemming all the leaves and chopping it slightly and letting it wilt more, I achieved a squishy but still mostly fresh texture that was quite manageable.
Well, anyway. The days are warming, somewhat, from the depths of winter. They have been accompanied by the terrible smoggy haze I associate with early spring in Seoul, which is probably due to a combination of the fact that winds prevail from the west this time of year with the fact that yucky-smoggy China happens to sit directly to the west. The sun in the afternoon sky was just a pale, glowing, peach-colored disk.
What I'm listening to right now.
Warpaint, "Love Is To Die."
[daily log: walking, 2 km]
Caveat: Small Things
Walking home from work today I stopped at the GS Mart in the basement of the Taeyoung Shopping Center which is across the street from my old apartment. I don't go into that GS Mart very often any more, because there are other supermarkets closer to my new apartment. But it's kind of on-the-way home (only a slight detour) and they sell a better selection of some things (they have a small selection of imported Campbells Soups, for example) than the store right in my building.
Interestingly, when I went in there today, two different cashier ladies recognized me and greeted me, and what's more, one of them asked me how I was doing relative to recovering from the cancer. I had zero recollection of having told her all this, but she apparently remembered many details of whatever I'd managed to communicate to her last summer. She asked about my brother, she asked how the radiation had gone, she asked if my insurance had covered things well. I guess I'd told her quite a bit. And this time, as no doubt last time, it was all in Korean. Having such an involved conversation in Korean is always good for my sense of accomplishment. I feel like my vocabulary is improving – if not active vocabulary, at least passive vocabulary.
Small things.
What I'm listening to right now.
Two Harbors, "You Pulled the Rug Out."
[daily log: walking, 5.5 km]
Caveat: 所謂 佛法者 卽 非佛法
This is from the Buddhist dictionary.
所謂 佛法者 卽 非佛法
소위 불법자 즉 비불법
so·wi bul·beop·ja jeuk bi·bul·beop
so-called Buddha-teaching per-se nothing-but non-Buddha-teaching
The so-called Buddha's teaching [is] nothing but non-Buddha's teaching.
This is to say, do not become attached to Buddha's teaching – it is an attachment like any other.
Beware attachments. This is a philosophical something-or-other that I have been circling warily for about three decades now. I'm still not sure…
Grammatically, I was interested in the suffix (particle) 者 (-자 [ ja]) which seems to be a kind of hanja version of a Korean topic-marker (e.g. -은 or -는).
[daily log: walking, 5 km]
Caveat: Miscellany of Cats
The picture at right are some cats I drew on the board for my Copernicus반 elementary students today.
We had a 회식 [hoesik = business lunch or dinner, sort of] today for lunch, before work. It was at that buffet-slash-steakhouse that Koreans love so much: VIPS. I call it Korean wedding food. It's OK, I guess.
I ate some cream of broccoli soup that was good. Really, texture-wise I'm handling most things OK, as long as I take small bites, chew carefully, and down it with lots of liquids. I had a few bites of salad which is very hard to eat but that I miss eating.
At work I allowed my TEPS-M반 middle schoolers to "buy" a pizza party with their collected "alligator dollars" – for 100 (which they pooled among themselves) I ordered them pizza, and we skipped the vocab test (which may have been the highlight, for them). I ate a slice of the pizza, even.
Curt had asked me earlier how it is I get those TEPS kids to talk so much. I suppose buying them pizza helps – but to put it in more methodological/theoretical terms, I'm finding intrinsic motivator for them to seek out communicative proficiencies. Or, um, something like that.
[daily log: walking, 3 km]
Caveat: And here I sit
Yesterday evening, after taking a short nap, I traveled into Seoul because I had been invited to dinner by my coworker Ken. He is a fairly compartmentalized person – meaning, normally, he seems to keep the various aspects of his life (his jobs, his girlfriend, his family, etc.) all in separate spaces. So I felt flattered and compelled to socialize with him, as he doesn't reach out that way very often.
I got to meet his girlfriend and a friend of hers while we had dinner in the Itaewon, Seoul's notorious and unusual "international" neighborhood (imagine somewhere slightly downscale in Brooklyn, with Korean policemen, maybe).
It was interesting. I ended up on the last train back and got home shortly after midnight, and was tired today. The main thing I accomplished was chopping up the entire box of Seollal [Lunar New Year's] gift apples (from work) and rendering it into a rather mediocre applesauce – so I can eat them and not end up throwing them away.
What I'm listening to right now.
Joan Baez, "Diamonds and Rust." The song is about Bob Dylan, with whom Baez had a relationship. The song is a little by dylanesque, too. I actually really like these lyrics, and my semi-pseudo-hippie upbringing left me with a congenital weakness for Joan Baez.
Lyrics
Well I'll be damned
Here comes your ghost again
But that's not unusual
It's just that the moon is full
And you happened to call
And here I sit
Hand on the telephone
Hearing a voice I'd known
A couple of light years ago
Heading straight for a fallAs I remember your eyes
Were bluer than robin's eggs
My poetry was lousy you said
Where are you calling from?
A booth in the midwest
Ten years ago
I bought you some cufflinks
You brought me something
We both know what memories can bring
They bring diamonds and rustWell you burst on the scene
Already a legend
The unwashed phenomenon
The original vagabond
You strayed into my arms
And there you stayed
Temporarily lost at sea
The Madonna was yours for free
Yes the girl on the half-shell
Would keep you unharmedNow I see you standing
With brown leaves falling around
And snow in your hair
Now you're smiling out the window
Of that crummy hotel
Over Washington Square
Our breath comes out white clouds
Mingles and hangs in the air
Speaking strictly for me
We both could have died then and thereNow you're telling me
You're not nostalgic
Then give me another word for it
You who are so good with words
And at keeping things vague
Because I need some of that vagueness now
It's all come back too clearly
Yes I loved you dearly
And if you're offering me diamonds and rust
I've already paid– Joan Baez
[daily log: walking, 1.5 km]
Caveat: Aliens Proliferate
My routine of drawing aliens on the whiteboards in class is having an effect. I spotted this alien on a student's workbook in the middle school section earlier today.
Clearly it is a direct descendant of one of mine.
[daily log: walking, 6.5 km]
Caveat: The Wine-Dark Pie Chart Slices of My Mortal Soul
I've been pretty depressed lately. The never-ending cold [update: by "cold" I mean the flu-like symptoms, not the outdoor temperature, which doesn't bother me in the least] on the one hand, combined with the PTSD-like experience of emerging from the cancer treatment, on the other hand, has lead me into a slough of despond. Layered on top of that is the fact that the same frustrations as I've always had with respect to work continue unabated despite my renewed commitment.
I can't maintain the somewhat artificially enforced optimism of the crisis period, and I feel frustrated with the quality-of-life issues, post-treatment. Things that I enjoyed and took for granted seems sabotaged or inaccessible: food, an ability to talk unceasingly, etc.
I don't have any easy solution. And so… I have been meditating overmuch of my mortality. Here is something I ran across the other day – a sort of interactive chart about the survival rates for various cancers.
You can hover over the body part in question, and see what it is. The pie charts show survival rates, with wine-dark slices representing 5 year mortality rates. For oral cancer, the rate appears to be around 40%. That matches another source, which puts 5 year survival for my type of cancer at 59%. At the moment, I seem to be beating the odds. Yet I can't help feeling frustrated and bitter – at this quality-of-life, is it worth it?
[daily log: walking, 5 km]
Caveat: Difficulter
Today was a bad day. I had one of my coughing fits this morning that was worse than usual, and then I was late to work. At work my difficult T1 cohort was more difficult than usual.
[daily log: walking, 5.5 km]
Caveat: Gathering Procrastination
After all that snow falling yesterday, when I looked out my window at dawn this morning I saw only a little snow.
I did very little today. I didn't correct those things for work, either. Now I will have a stressful day tomorrow getting caught up.
[daily log: walking, 1.5 km]
Caveat: Flakey
I am so sick. Just a really bad cold – but it's impairing my desire to interact with the world.
So, to those who seek interaction, I'm sorry I'm neglecting modes of communication.
I got up, went to work, came home, went to sleep.
It snowed all day, as far as I can tell – but it didn't stick. It's what I call a "flakey" day.
I have piles of things to correct. This is overwhelming. I have a long-standing policy of not bringing work home, but I didn't have the stamina to stay at work to finish the correcting, so now it's at home. I am studying the piles of student writing that needs to be corrected with a wary eye.
More later, I guess.
[daily log: walking, 5.5 km]
Caveat: Dreaming Mishmashes
I awoke from a dream this morning where I was at some kind of camp/training/retreat. It involved children (my students), but it was half vipassana retreat and half something like the jeollanamdo training at gwangju 2010.
I had decorated my room with crepe paper for some reason, and my roommate was fellow teacher Ken from work. Curt was in the room next door. There were kids running around everywhere. The setting was like some kind of Korean Buddhist temple complex. We were running classes and activities for the kids, but also had to attend other classes ourselves.
I was out walking around on a break between classes and I was looking for Jello. I don't know why I was looking for Jello – maybe that was related to my mouth and eating problems. I paused when I heard a surprisingly deep-voiced girl – maybe 6th grade – giving a speech over a loudspeaker in the courtyard. She stumbled over some of the words. She came into a foyer area and cried because she'd messed up those words. I was trying to reassure her. She looked familiar to me be I felt mortified because inside the dream I was unable to remember her name.
That was the dream.
[daily log (11 pm): walking, 5 km]
Caveat: 선방
Somewhat to my own surprise, I actually finished a book last night. I always have so many books in progress, but I've become so bad at finishing them, so when I do finish one, I feel surprised.
The book I finished is called Diary of a Korean Zen Monk, by an author named simply Jiheo, and translated by Jong Kweon Yi and Frank Tedesco.
It's a very understated little volume, written in the 70's by a monk during a winter meditation retreat (which he calls by the idiomatic term 선방 [seon-bang], which literally means "meditation room" or "zen room").
He's quite well-educated, and it shows through his reflections – he mentions not just a great deal of deep knowledge of Korean Buddhism (and hence Chinese Buddhism, particularly the Zen (called Chan [Chinese name] or Seon [Korean name]) current within the Mahayana tradition) but also western theology. He quotes Sartre and Nietzsche in his conversations with other monks.
Here's a quote I liked where he is obliquely referencing the "middle way" – that is, avoiding the temptations of extreme asceticism. He's talking to another monk who seems overly obsessed with denial of the body.
There's an old saying "nothing is more important than your body, live first and then you can do everything." This may sound very materialistic and egoistic. If you look into it very carefully, though, you'll see that it expresses the universal truth of all beings very well. "I" can be found when I realize that I'm merely one of the countless beings appearing and disappearing through the endless functioning of infinite space, eternal time and inexhaustible energy. While searching for "I," I have to take good care of myself, and to do this, I'll have to practice. When I finally find myself on the path, there is no "I" but nirvana. This being so, do you really have to make a fasting retreat in your poor health? – p. 128
I connected with this particular conversation because of my own current preoccupation with my health and my uncooperative body, and my ascetic temptations (or tendencies).
I liked the book. It was well written and well translated.
[daily log (11 pm): walking, 5.5 km]
Caveat: The questions themselves
I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed with work, lately. I'm trying to be more organized, but such organization doesn't always come naturally to me. We have grading and student evaluation comments to finish, and since I didn't touch any of that stuff during the 4 day holiday, I had a huge pile on my desk Monday, that I'm still wading through.
Anyway. I'm also sleeping a lot, lately – another sure sign that my cold relapsed, or I got a new one, or something.
I like this quote.
"We should try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue." – Rainer Maria Rilke (Austrian poet, 1875-1926)
My question: which questions?
Indeed.
[daily log (11 pm): walking, 5 km]
Caveat: 7 Months Cancer Free
눈길
이제 바라보노라.
지난 것이 다 덮여 있는 눈길을.
온 겨울을 떠돌고 와
여기 있는 낯선 지역을 바라보노라.
나의 마음속에 처음으로
눈 내리는 풍경.
세상은 지금 묵념의 가장자리
지나온 어느 나라에도 없었던
설레이는 평화로서 덮이노라.
바라보노라. 온갖 것의
보이지 않는 움직임을.
눈 내리는 하늘은 무엇인가.
내리는 눈 사이로
귀 귀울여 들리나니 대지의 고백.
나는 처음으로 귀를 가졌노라.
나의 마음은 밖에서는 눈길
안에서는 어둠이노라.
온 겨울의 누리를 떠돌다가
이제 와 위대한 적막을 지킴으로써
쌓이는 눈더미 앞에
나의 마음은 어둠이노라.
-고은 [출전: "현대문학"(1958)]
The Snow Path
Now I am gazing
at the snow path that covers up what has passed.
After wandering through the whole winter,
I am gazing at this foreign territory.
The scene of snow
falls in my heart for the first time.
The world is at the edge of meditation,
a world covered with exuberant peace
no country that I have traveled has ever seen.
I am gazing at the invisible movements of all things.
What is the sky where the snow is falling?
Listening closely, through the falling snow,
I hear the grand earth’s confession.
I can hear for the first time.
My heart is the snow path outside,
and darkness within.
After wandering though this world of winter,
I have come now to guard the great quiet,
and, in front of the piling snow,
my heart is darkness.
– Ko Un (Korean poet, 1933- )
The poem and its translation from the excellent website called Korean Poetry in Translation. I have a book of translated poetry by Ko Un, too. Ko Un spent many years as a Buddhist monk. Here is a short one from that book that I liked (note that kalpa is a long period of time, like an eon or an age or an era, or sometimes means a human life-span).
Meditation Room
Try sitting
not just for one kalpa
but for ten kalpas.
No enlightenment will come.
Simply play for a while with agonies, illusions,
then stand up.
– Ko Un
The problem with books of translated poetry is that it is hard to find the originals, sometimes. Hence I have no original Korean of this poem.
Today is seven months since the surgery. I had a fever last night. I think my immune system is still pretty weak from the radiation treatment, and so I fall prey to every virus that ambles along. Or something – my speculations of yestermorning's blog post strike me as naive or ill-informed, at this moment. Still, I have a lot of work.
[daily log (11 pm): walking, 2.5 km]
Caveat: Lapsing into convalescence
As I've observed before, my body (under the always unpredictable guidance of my mind) seems to "get sick" on my days off – it seems to be a way that I have of convalescing from my cancer treatment while at the same time maximizing my ability to work. It's as if I have these rigid controls, but on days off I let go of the controls and the immediate result is coughing, exhaustion, congestion and other cold symptoms: immune-system-on-demand.
Anyway, I say that by way of preamble to the story of my long, holiday weekend. After seeing Peter off last Thursday, and doing some minor household chores on Friday, I lapsed into total convalescence on Saturday and Sunday. I had, perhaps unwisely, started visiting some cheesy flash game sites on my computer, which didn't help (or helped, depending on one's view of getting-nothing-done): I spent a number of hours playing a stupid, scrabblesque word-making game called bookworm, for example. When not on my computer, I read books, and even studied some Korean – but overall it was a singularly sick-feeling weekend.
I'm not writing here to complain, really – rather, there are people who follow my life via this blog who can thus know how I spent my long weekend. Let's just say: I imagined I was recovering from cancer and exhausted and in need of recuperative rest, and did precisely nothing.
I had a lot of strange dreams from sleeping more than usual. I didn't even write most of them down.
[daily log (11 pm): walking, 2 km]
Caveat: 선날떡국
Yesterday, I spent the Lunar New Year’s day alone. I wasn’t invited anywhere and wasn’t in the mood to go out exploring on my own – I think I’ve got a relapse of that cold I had through much of the first half of January.
But I didn’t feel depressed or left out. I was happy to spend some quality time with my own soul.
The Korean tradition is that you should eat a bowl of 떡국 [tteok-guk = rice cake soup]. I decided to fulfill this tradition even though I was alone. I had on hand some 사골곰탕 [sa-gol-gom-tang = bone marrow broth] which several of my Korean acquaintances are always insisting I should be consuming for my “health” (in the broadly interpreted, pre-medical conception common in Korean discourse) and of course I always have the plain white 떡 [tteok = rice cakes] on hand because their soft and can add calories and bulk to a broth or soup. So I put the two together with some custom seasoning of my own and some chopped onion and parsley, and voila, rice cake soup al gringazo.
Eating this on New Year’s morning is supposed to give good luck for the year.
What I’m listening to right now.
Erasure, “Gaudete.” This is technically a kind of Christmas Carol, or sacred song from the Advent calendar which fell on December 15 last month for 2013. So posting it now is a bit late. I suppose Asian Lunar New Year is a kind of secular Advent, meant to celebrate the same Winter principles of renewal and beginnings.
Lyrics.
Gaudete, gaudete! Christus est natus
Ex Maria virgine, gaudete!
Tempus adest gratiæ
Hoc quod optabamus,
Carmina lætitiæ
Devote reddamus.
Deus homo factus est
Natura mirante,
Mundus renovatus est
A Christo regnante.
Ezechielis porta
Clausa pertransitur,
Unde lux est orta
Salus invenitur.
Ergo nostra contio
Psallat iam in lustro;
Benedicat Domino:
Salus Regi nostro.
[daily log (11 pm): like a log]
Caveat: Farewell 2.0
Two months ago I bid [broken link! FIXME] farewell to my friend Peter, who was returning to the US. I perhaps neglected to mention in this here blog thingy that Peter came back to Korea, around 3 weeks later, because he just couldn't resist enrolling in an intensive Korean language class for January. So he was here through January, but I didn't see him much because, of course, an intensive Korean language is intense, and he didn't have much free time. And I was working.
Yesterday, therefore, I bid farewell to him once again. This time, he may be away longer – but who knows.
We had lunch at a Japanese place in Sinchon. I was brave and had tonkatsu, and it went OK. Here is a picture, although I feel I look weird in this picture – my face and neck look swollen.
After lunch I was heading home on the subway but decided on the spur of the moment to stop at the bookstore at Gwanghwamun, having not been there in a long time. I bought some Korean poetry in translation and yet another "teach yourself Korean" book for my neverending collection. Walking out of the bookstore I was struck by the contrast of the statue of Admiral Lee and the highrises and crane behind him, so I took a picture (right).
Today is Seollal – Lunar New Year. Everything will be closed, and many Koreans have gone to greet the new year with their ancestors.
[daily log (11 pm): daily nothing]
Caveat: Burnamore Lambert and Shakespeare, but the things themselves are all right, so who cares?
I had all these fragmented dreams, because I kept waking up. Discontinuities.
First, Burnamore Lambert. I was looking for someone named Burnamore Lambert. I was in a nameless town, that resembled a cross between Wisconsin Dells and Hornopiren, Chile – I should note that I don't have particularly positive impressions of either of these places, the former being a crass, comercial "tourist trap" and the latter being the singularly most depressed town I have ever visited on 5 continents. I was in some hotel, which had weird Daliesque statuary in the hallways and rooms. The hotel went on and on, and I would go outside and wander around the town then back into the hotel to find new rooms and galleries. I never found Burnamore Lambert.
Second, I was in Folwell Hall (at the University of Minnesota). The whole hagwon was there – we were using the classrooms for our classes, but college students and professors kept interrupting us. It was inconvenient. At one point, the vice principal from Hongnong Elementary walked in, and caused me to feel chills down my spine.
Third, Curt called me into his office and wanted to talk about his new brilliant strategy: he wanted to have a Shakespeare-themed hagwon. Ken also thought it was a great idea. I told them it might be good marketing but the kids wouldn't like it. Curt said everyone likes Shakespeare. I asked him if he'd read any Shakespeare, and sheepishly he admitted it was too difficult for him to understand. "That's where you come in," he said.
I woke up. It's raining.
Unrelatedly, I ran across this the other day. Stick towers!
[daily log (10 pm): walking, 2.5 km]
Caveat: 생각이란 생각하면 생각할수록…
생각이란 생각하면 생각할수록 생각나는것이 생각이므로 생각하지않는 생각이 좋은 생각이라 생각한다.
I decided a while back to do a series of Korean tongue-twisters, in the same way I have been doing aphorisms and proverbs. Here is one that I have had on queue for a long time but was feeling intimidated by the grammar. I made a stab at it finally.
생각이란 생각하면
saeng·gak·i·ran saeng·gak·ha·myeon
thought-AS-FOR think-COND
As for thoughts, when [I] thought them
생각할수록 생각나는것이
saeng·gak·hal·su·rok saeng·gak·na·neun·geos·i
think-THE-MORE recall-PROB-PAST
the more I thought the more I recalled
생각이므로 생각하지않는
saeng·gak·i·meu·ro saeng·gak·ha·ji·anh·neun
thought-be-SINCE think-NEG-PRESPART
since it’s thoughts, unthought
생각이 좋은 생각이라 생각한다
saeng·gak·i joh·eun saeng·gak·i·ra saeng·gak·han·da
thought-SUBJ be-good-PASTPART thought-be-PROP think
thoughts being thoughts that are good think
As for thoughts, when I think them, the more I think the more I recall, since being thoughts, I think unthought thoughts are good thoughts too.
Seems like there is a lot of thinking going on. I think.
This was really a puzzle, grammatically – it’s not so much a meaningful sentence as it is a “showcase of endings” – a single word, “thought” is nounified and verbified at least 9 times in 9 different ways, that I can count. I don’t have a lot of confidence on my guessed-at meaning, but, like a Dr Seuss rhyme, I’m not sure that that really matters – possibly, something equally non-sensical but more poetic or farsical could be derived for the English, that wouldn’t violate the spirit of the original.
In any event, I spent about an hour puzzling through my grammar bible and even recoursing several times to Martin before settling on this interpretation.
What do you think? I really like it. 재밌당.
For the next three days, it’s a giant holiday here: the lunar new year. I’m not planning on any trip or major activity, so I mostly will focus on trying to get lots of rest and improving my habits.
I’m such a homebody these days.
[daily log (1130 pm): walking, 5 km]