This song makes me remember my years living at my then-stepfather's on the edge the Arcata bottomland, in the late 1970's when I was young adolescent. The property backed onto the Lanphere-Christensen Dunes preserve (which is his half-namesake). I would explore the dunes on my own on rainy days when no one else wanted to be out there. I would sit in my room and read Ursula LeGuin novels, listening to the rain on the metal roof and playing Cat Stevens.
In the non-stop laugh-fest called the BISP1-M 반 class on the elementary side, we were attempting to read a painfully bowdlerized version of the Greek myth of how Zeus came back and killed Kronos. It's surprising the extent to which certain rarefied aspects of Western mythology permeate Korean pop culture – apparently, most of the kids already knew this story. There may be some song or video or "gag show" comic routine involved in their knowledge of this, but a truly bizarre moment came when, as I was explaining the bizarre facts of the Zeus myth, a fifth grader named Kevin burst out in song. I'm not familiar with the song.
I was talking about how strange it is that when Zeus give the poison to his dad, Kronos, the old man proceeds to vomit up his other children, whom he'd eaten earlier in the story. I'm miming the act of vomiting for the kids, since it's not a well-known vocabulary item. And fifth graders being fifth graders, this is profoundly entertaining, in a way few other things can be. So we're having fun. And then, right as I say, "and they're not even babies!" (talking about how the eaten children that Kronos vomits up are now grown-up siblings), a boy named Kevin croons, "Ahhh, Ohh, Casanovaaa!"
Huh wuh? Casanova? How's he fit in this story? One of the girls yells out, "Zeus was a Casanova!"
Well. I guess they know this story already. "Not really a normal Casanova," I try to amend. But it's really too late – they are all dissolving in tears of giggles. And that's how the class ended.
As a kind of nerdly incidental, I would like to point out that it is speculatively believed by many Indo-Europeanists that the Greek name Kronos and the Sanskrit "karma" share a common etymology, a sort of "cutting" or "inscription."
"Do you understand my question?" I asked. He was a fairly advanced student.
He shook his head.
I slowed it down, but I deliberately retained the phonological contractions, because I had an intuition as to the problem, and I was curious. "What cha doin?" I repeated. I was turning it into a lesson.
There was a long pause. Then he asked, "What is 'cha'?" He was perplexed.
Indeed. Here's the thing: he's not a beginning student. If ever there was a sign that the kids need more interaction with native speakers, this was it.
“You’re halfway!” “See the cup as half-full, not as half empty.” I’m think this proverb is meant in this vein, like as a way of encouraging people. But I could be misunderstanding it, and it might mean “Not worth the effort.” I have no idea. Then again, it might be neutral in meaning, indicating you could look at it either way.
Given my own pessimistic tendencies, I should take this kind of thinking more to heart. I’m much better at being optimistic toward others than I am toward myself.
The Nigerian author Chinua Achebe has passed away. I vividly recall reading his novel Things Fall Apart – it was something assigned in a university class of some kind, but it had an impact on me, and I returned to it and reread it many years later and it will pop into my mind sometimes. It's a great book.
I always felt some ambivalence about Achebe as a personality (as opposed as an author) because, like so many great authors from poor, post-colonial countries, he seemed to exist mostly in Europe and the US. I'm thinking in terms of the great Latin Americans whom I loved reading so much, but all of whom were living lives as academics in US universities: Carlos Fuentes, Octavio Paz, Gabriel García Márquez, Isabel Allende. Achebe was the same – he lived in New York and New England for most of the second half of his long life [UPDATE: shortly after posting this I ran across a very interesting meditation on Achebe that pursues this aspect in depth – it's not at all flattering to one's perception of Achebe, however].
I don't mean this despectively. It is simply a reality that talented writers will gravitate to places where they can be well paid for their talents. But it creates a certain ambivalence vis-a-vis their having crafted narratives critical of colonialism and neocolonialism.
… enough of uncharitable ranting.
What's undeniable is that Achebe was a great writer – one of the greatest of the 20th century.
A poem of his:
Pine Tree in Spring
(for Leon Damas)
Pine tree flag bearer of green memory across the breach of a desolate hour
Loyal tree that stood guard alone in austere emeraldry over Nature’s recumbent standard
Pine tree lost now in the shade of traitors decked out flamboyantly marching back unabashed to the colors they betrayed
Fine tree erect and trustworthy what school can teach me your silent, stubborn fidelity?
Last night I did something I don't normally do – I rejected a direct invitation to socialize with my coworkers. Since coming to Korea, I've always been pretty dedicated to participating in the 회식 [hoesik] custom of "work-related social gatherings." In principle, I think they're a good thing.
Perhaps, in reading between the lines, it's obvious to people that I'm less than satisfied with how things have been at work. I've had some singularly frustrating interactions with the hagwon management over issues related to teaching load, curriculum control and changes, etc., and I have been developing a sense that my karma may not indefinitely include Karma. So I just felt that a social outing at this juncture would be more of a complainfest than any kind of enjoyable interaction.
A coworker said that that was the point – he told me I had to let my frustration out of my system. But in my conception, the Korean custom of going out with coworkers, getting plastered with soju and then saying all kinds of inappropriate things that one later regrets… well, that never seemed like a good way to relax.
The same person told me to be careful: "You're isolating," he said. He was meaning that I was rejecting human contact. "I'm only isolating from my coworkers," I defended myself. I still spend more than 30 hours each week interacting, intensively, with children – who, by the way, are much more enjoyable company than my drunk coworkers. So… how, exactly, am I "isolating," in the psychological sense?
I'm merely being selective in the scope of who I chose to not isolate with.
Many of my friends and family who read my blog read it because of the fact that at least half the time, I remember to check the little box on my blog publishing window that cross-posts my blog entry to facebookland, where they can run across my blog entries in their facebook news feeds. This may not be happening much, moving forward, because the facebook cross-posting feature here at my typepad blog host seems to be perpetually broken. Personally, I suspect it's more likely the fault of facebook than the fault of typepad, but the end result is the same either way: not many of my blog posts will be appearing on facebook. Based on surveying some help tickets at typepad, no one seems able or interested in fixing this problem.
This is a reminder to my friends and family who happen to read my blog that you'll see me much more reliably if you come to my blog directly. It's easy to remember or bookmark: caveatdumptruck.com
Meanwhile, I will cross-post this entry to facebookland manually, just to let everyone know.
I long ago lost any interest whatsoever in writing or editing for wikipedia. There was a time, in the early aughts, when I was making a concerted effort to author bits in wikipedia. Mostly, I wrote and edited articles related to Mexican and US geography. I gave up – mostly because I so frequently found my efforts rejected or altered beyond recognition by the wikipowers-that-be. Perhaps it was laziness on my part, or a certain vanity, but I didn’t feel I could meet the requirements. So I quit. But I still spend an inordinate amount of my online time with the vast wikithing, and I feel grateful to the many people who have stuck with content-creation, there, surpassing my own level of commitment and patience. I have even supported the wikimedia foundation with donations. I say this, proudly, while still acknowledging its faults. The wikithing most definitely has faults. Sometimes, if I stumble across an article with an egregious or blatent mistake or bias, I will “watch” it. I won’t edit it – as I said, I don’t do that anymore – but I will watch it, curious to see when someone gets around to noticing it.
About a month ago, I stumbled across this weird little stub about something called a Squeakinge Lisard. It struck me as a kind of hoax – either an outright fiction or some kind of clever, indirect effort at book promotion (via a link to a “source” which was a novel by some guy – but it turns out the link is dead, so in that case, um, not working so well as a book promotion). I decided to draw a Squeakinge Lisard (shown at right). I rather like this phrase, Squeakinge Lisard (especially with the archaic spelling). I would like to propose the phrase Squeakinge Lisard as a generic name for bits of information found in wikipedia that are not, in fact, true, but that have somehow managed to evade the editorial police for an unexpectedly long period of time.
I actually find the idea of bits of absurdist fiction embedded in encyclopedias to be a charming and appealing notion (e.g. Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, by Borges). But I am shocked that the wikithingers have let this Squeakinge Lisard survive so long, unedited and unobserved. I once had a quixotic fantasy of starting my own wikithing, from the bottom up, with a single requirement: that all the content be untrue. There are people who are making various efforts at this kind of thing: there’s uncyclopedia in the Onionesque satire category and there’s sorolpedia in the completely fictional orbistertiesque category. I wish them the best of luck. Meanwhile, how long will it take for the Jimmywalesites to do something about their Squeaking Lisard infestation? Let’s watch together, and see… What I’m listening to right now.
A Tribe Called Quest, “Award Tour.”
Lyrics.
[Chorus – Dove from De La Soul:]
We on Award Tour with Muhammad my man
Going each and every place with the mic in their hand
New York, NJ, NC, VA
We on Award Tour with Muhammad my man
Going each and every place with the mic in their hand
Oaktown, LA, San Fran, St. John
[Q-Tip:]
People give your ears so I be sublime
It’s enjoyable to know you and your concubines
Niggas, take off your coats, ladies act like gems
Sit down, Indian style, as we recite these hymns
See, lyrically I’m Mario Andretti on the MOMO
Ludicrously speedy, or infectious with the slow-mo
Heard me in the eighties, J.B.’s on “The Promo”
In my never-ending quest to get the paper on the caper
But now, let me take it to the Queens side
I’m taking it to Brooklyn side
All the residential Questers who invade the air
Hold up a second son, cause we almost there
You can be a black man and lose all your soul
You can be white and groove but don’t crap the roll
See my shit is universal if you got knowledge of dolo
Or delf or self, see there’s no one else
Who can drop it on the angle, acute at that
So, do that, do that, do that, that, that (come on)
Do that, do that, do that, that, that (OK)
Do that, do that, do that, that, that
I’m bugging out but let me get back cause I’m wetting niggas
So run and tell the others cause we are the brothers
I learned how to build mics in my workshop class
So give me this award, and let’s not make it the last
[Dove:]
We on Award Tour with Muhammad my man
Going each and every place with the mic in their hand
Chinatown, Spokane, London, Tokyo
We on Award Tour with Muhammad my man
Going each and every place with the mic in their hand
Houston, Delaware, DC, Dallas
[Phife Dawg:]
Back in ’89 I simply slid in the place
Buddy, buddy, buddy all up in your face
A lot of kids was busting rhymes but they had no taste
Some said Quest was wack, but now is that the case?
I have a quest to have a mic in my hand
Without that, it’s like Kryptonite and Superman
So Shaheed come in with the sugar cuts
Phife Dawg’s my name, but on stage, call me Dynomutt
When was the last time you heard the Phife sloppy
Lyrics anonymous, you’ll never hear me copy
Top notch baby, never coming less
Sky’s the limit, you gots to believe up in Quest
Sit back, relax, get up out the path
If not that, here’s a dancefloor, come move that ass
Non-believers, you can check the stats
I roll with Shaheed and the brother Abstract
Niggas know the time when Quest is in the jam
I never let a statue tell me how nice I am
Coming with more hits than the Braves and the Yankees
Living mad phat like an oversized mampi
The wackest crews try to diss, it makes me laugh
When my track record’s longer than a DC-20 aircraft
So, next time that you think you want somethin’ here
Make something def or take that garbage to St. Elsewhere
[Dove:]
We on Award Tour with Muhammad my man
Going each and every place with the mic in their hand
SC, Maryland, New Orleans, Motown
We on Award Tour with Muhammad my man
Going each and every place with the mic in their hand
Chinatown, Spokane, London, Tokyo
We on Award Tour with Muhammad my man
Going each and every place with the mic in their hand
Houston, Delaware, DC, Dallas
We on Award Tour with Muhammad my man
Going each and every place with the mic in their hand
New York, NJ, NC, VA
Seven times out of ten we listen to our music at night, thus spawned the title of this program
The word maraud means to loot
In this case, we maraud for ears
My BISP1-M class had been making me upset. Every time I keep points in the class, or we play a game, they nearly come to blows arguing about rules and turns and points. I don’t have this problem with other classes, but because of this, I had told the class that I was no longer “keeping points” (i.e. in-class, game-based points) and no longer paying “dollars” (my private currency I give to students so they can shop at my “store”). Further, my minneapolitan rainbow monkey (used in the popular sport of “monkey darts“) was banned from class.
This made the class quite sad, but we’ve been limping along since then.
Today, not intending to, I brought the minneapolitan rainbow monkey to class. He was sitting on the podium at the front of class, and, upon seeing it, a fifth-grade girl who likes to go by the name Laracle (which is Korean pig-latin-analog for Clara: 클라라 -> 라라클) jumped up and grabbed the small toy monkey and danced down the middle of the classroom, like in a reunion in a romantic movie.
“Oh, Monkey!” she exclaimed in a sing-songy voice. “오래만요!” [long time no see].
It was cute.
During the vocabulary quiz in the same class, another boy somehow managed to forget the Korean word for “wing” (날개) – either that or he was making a pointless (and point-losing) joke. He drew a picture of a wing, showing he understood the meaning, and perhaps for another class I’d have given credit for his answer – but I wasn’t feeling charitable. See the picture of his test paper at right.
I had another typical hermetic Sunday, yesterday. I successfully shut off my computer and phone and tried to exist on my own. It was hard. It was starting to rain, and I didn't take a long walk.
I read some parts of Paradise Lost. I don't really like it, but it's one of those gaps in my literary background that I feel needs filling in. So then I was trying to study Korean. That frustrated me, too.
My mother and I traded some emails recently on the topic of pronoun mis-use. Apparently in my blog in a recent entry, I'd written "a picture of my friend and I" when, grammatically, it should have been "a picture of my friend and me." This is use of "I" in the object case is called "hypercorrection" because it has in the past been perceived by linguists as some kind of response to too much correction by teachers of students' mis-use of "me" in the subject case: it is long-established that colloquial English allows "Me and him went to the store," while grammar teachers abhor it.
Here's what I wrote in my email to my mom.
I had one idea (thought? observation?) about it. Some languages mark
something like noun case on the basis of things other than grammatical
role. As a relevant example, Korean includes grammatical role in its
case marking particles, but these particles also include things like
conjunctive and topical markers that are added to words on the basis of
things like psychological saliency-to-the-speaker. I have been
speculating that a lot of the "drift" we see in colloquial English
around the "mis-use" of pronoun case (e.g. "Me and him went to the party,
but that's a secret just between you and I") is that English's case
system, being so weak and "unmarked" in most situations (i.e. nouns
don't show it anymore, and some pronouns don't either – e.g. "you") that
the grammatical underpinning of the system has begun to float around,
and other aspects that can influence a case-marking system, such as
saliency (in e.g. Korean or Japanese), are coming into play.
If
in just a short 1000 years English can evolve a grammatical system more
similar Chinese than its indo-european brethren, why couldn't it just as
easily begin to evolve a case-marking system similar to Korean (I'm not talking about the particles/agglutinative aspect, but just that there might be something evolving like a "topic" case where the grammatical role plays no part in its deployment)?
What I'm listening to right now.
King Crimson, "Elephant Talk." But what case are their pronouns in?
To paraphrase Palin (I think it was her): How's that popey-changey thing working out for ya? I couldn't resist.
Habrá Papa argentino. ¿Que significa eso? San Francisco de Asisi fue partidario de la humildad. ¿Sería posible que habrá humildad en el Vaticano? No soy católico, pero hubo un momento en mi juventud, viviendo en América Latina, cuando me ocurrió la idea seria de convertirme – estuve bajo la influencia de la teología de la liberación de Leonardo Boff. Al fin y al cabo, no aguantaba la fantasía. Este nuevo Papa fue parte de la retroguardia en contra de la teología de la liberación en los años 70. No me suena bien…
Unrelatedly (or only semi-relatedly?), I have been thinking about that maxim that we should live each day as if it were our last, or live each day as if it were crucially important to us, and only be "in the moment." This isn't really such a good idea, though: if I lived that way, for example, I wouldn't really be very good at keeping a job. I wouldn't have savings for if I lost my job. I wouldn't have such intense loyalty to my friends while at the same time being so bad at staying in touch with them. It seems to me that existing only in the moment is a bit of a cop-out, vis-a-vis what the world is really about or for. And it feels like a recipe for flakiness. I'm enough of a flake without making it even worse.
Having said that, I think a constant evaluation of "what's really important" is perhaps crucial. So, for me, what's really important?
I once found (or perhaps myself invented) a counter-maxim to the "in the moment" maxim: Live each day as if you will live forever. This alternative maxim has complications and problems of its own, to be certain, and may be just as bad, as advice, as the other one. But I like to say it, because it forces people to consider all the possibilities.
This morning, kind of early, I went all the way to Dongducheon. It's about 2 hours by subway: you go southeast from here on line three to downtown, then north-northeast from there on line one.
Why did I do this? I was meeting a sort of "friend of a friend" – a former coworker of mine has a friend who's in the US Army, and that guy recently got posted to Camp Casey, which is HQ to the 2nd Infantry Division that I was attached to as a US Army mechanic while at the 296th Support Battalion at Camp Edwards in 1991.
Because Camp Casey is one of the largest and longest continuously operated US Army bases in Korea, the surrounding town has a distinctive "US Army town" feel, that is utterly unlike any other part of Korea. It's both nostalgic and depressing to see, on the one hand, but on the other, I think about how its being a little bit frozen in time serves to underscore the amazing changes in the rest of the country, by way of contrast.
I talked with this friend-of-friend for a few hours. He's only been in-country for a few weeks, so I took him to a Juk restaurant figuring he hadn't had that yet – he hadn't. He's not that familiar with Korea yet, but he's very open minded, having served long bits in Afghanistan, Alaska and Honduras among other places. He's already mastered hangeul, which is pretty rare even among non-GI Americans in Korea, much less soldiers. Apparently, he's really good in Pashto, too (from his time in Afghanistan). As point of fact, he blogged about his experiences in Afghanistan, and he's a damn good writer, too. Because of identity issues since he's still active service, I'll not talk about who he is in public forum such as this blog. But he's an interesting personality, and good for many hours of conversation.
You know you're in "the Ville" (the once and current slang nickname that US soldiers have for the Dongducheon outside the gates of Camp Casey) when the waitress at the Juk joint drops US quarters as change (they are near identical in heft and size as Korean 100 won coins). I only noticed when I got to work and emptied my pockets looking for some change to buy some lunch later in the day – see picture above right. This is the first time I've ever received US coin as change in Korea (except back when I was soldier myself, probably).
Here's a picture of my new friend and me at the Bosan train station a few minutes south of the Casey gate 1.
The week isn't over yet, but, despite promises that the workload would lessen with the advent of the new school year and a new schedule, I've put in more hours this week than at any time since I was covering for both Grace's schedule and my own last summer – and that was only temporary, whereas this state of affairs is looking more and more permanent.
And I have a full day's of work ahead of me tomorrow, too. I'm burning out. This was the kind of stress-driven burnout that lead me to abandon LBridge, in 2009. I'm considering long-term options.
Meanwhile, I came home craving something disasterously caloric. I made a cheese, mushroom, onion and tomato omelet. It was really good. Not really very healthy, though. This is why I get fat when I'm stressed (and hit 260 lbs while being a computer programmer, last decade), and why having a high-stress job doesn't work for me, health-wise. It's not workable for long-term sustainability.
The song below (and referenced in the blog post title) isn't really related to the anecdote below, except that they both involve crying.
I have this one class where my patience runs thin. The ISP72-T 반 (which is mostly 8th graders) has some boys who really lack the ability to control their actions in class. They mouth off (in Korean, and half the time I have no idea what they're saying, I just know it's inappropriate, partly just by watching the reactions of the kids around them), they complain and protest every single assignment, they find excuses for un-done homework, they play footsie under the desks.
I selected one of the ringleaders today and lost my temper, a bit. I put a desk in the hallway, where I could see him out the door, and made him sit there. He's a "class-clown" and always happy-go-lucky, never doing much of anything in the way of homework (though he's not the worst by far in the class), though he's genuinely funny many times – he has a good sense of humor. But I'd just had enough of his constant acting up and not paying attention, mostly because he pulls away the attention of the other students.
His reaction, sitting there at the desk in the hall, was unexpected. He cried.
I thought about something I wrote last week: that I hope never to be the teacher that students remember with fear or loathing. I hope I'm not one of those teachers. I misjudged his resiliancy and wounded his complacency, clearly. It's one thing when a 2nd grader bursts in tears. It's a bit disconcerting when it's an 8th grader who's as tall as I am.
So he had a hard day. And I have a day when I question my effectiveness as a teacher.
I had a dream that I was driving around Illinois collecting pennies in exchange for teaching debate. It was like a cross between a) my current job, b) some kind of replay of Lincoln-Douglas that involved stopping at truck stops and Wal-Marts, and c) a winter road trip.
At each stop, after teaching a debate class to involved or unfocused or somnolent children (all a blur), I was paid a single penny. I had a jar on the seat in my car, beside me. I would drop the penny in the jar, and then drive in lightly falling snow down the highway of some dream-version of Illinois (that mostly looked like the real Illinois, because, although far in the past, I've done my fair share of driving around Illinois and other midwestern states).
What does this dream mean? Why do I have so many "driving around dreams"? – I haven't even owned a car in half a decade.
I've been teaching my annual unit on "All people have a right to self-determination" to my various debate classes, over the last few weeks. The pacing and level of detail with each class has been sligthly different, because each class has different levels of interest, motivation, and ability. Mostly, I time the unit to coincide with 삼일절 (Korean Independence Day, March 1), because one of the readings I give to the kids is an English translation of Korea's declaration of independence. The translation I have is really well written, for one thing, and it talks about self-determination of peoples (in the context of Wilson's Paris Declaration and the end of WWI).
One of the ironies of teaching this unit is that I have ended up teaching the kids a lot of history, and, more specifically, we often – depending on the direction of the class discussion – delve into Korean history, specifically. This evening, I had a rather interesting experience.
When I lecture on Korean history, I'm venturing into fraught territory: I know a lot of history, I've read a lot, but I'm by far an expert – especially in Korean history. All it takes is a few history-buff kids among my audience to point up various mistakes or glaring omissions in my observations. I have a student who mostly sleeps in my classes, although she will occasionally wake up to deliver a slightly-more-than-mediocre speech, if she's in the right mood. But she never prepares or does homework of any kind. Well, tonight, she woke up. She was very engaged, and paying attention. She was interested in Korean history in a way that clearly has never been interested in English. She wanted to argue with me, about the Jeju uprising of 1948.
I was stating, somewhat out of my ass, that the 1948 uprising was at least in part about the Jeju people seeking self-determination. I know enough to talk about how Jeju was originally "taken" by Goryeo in the year 938, when it was called Tamna and had its own culture and language, and how over the subsequent 1000 years it was thoroughly Koreanized. You might say its history resembles Wales in that respect. And I've always felt that, in the background, a yearning for self-determination must have at least had some part in the uprising in 1948, which was so brutally repressed by the American-sponsored president of South Korea, Rhee Syngman, that it's sometimes described as genocide. But the more overt causes of the uprising were, logically in that point in history, communist sympathizers and activists trying to subvert the nascent South Korean anti-communist regime.
So this student wanted to underscore that although the near-genocide in Jeju was undeniable, it was most definitely not about self-determination, in her view. It was a bunch of rabble-rousing communists who provoked an overreaction on the part of the government. She was struggling to explain this, in English, and she lingered after the class ended, to argue with me. She said, "you're wrong," and shook her head. "But I can't explain."
"Explain it to me… try. You can." I have always sensed that she was one of those students who hates English mostly because it doesn't allow her to express herself easily, because it's so hard to be eloquent. She has confirmed this.
"I can't. Not in English." She was almost crying. She really wanted to make her point.
The issue ended unresolved – she had to run, because it was 10 o'clock, the hagwon was closing. But I have this idea that that is what I really want, more than anything else: to turn English class from a boring memorization of canned phrases or vocabulary or grammar into an intrinsically motivated conversation, where suddenly students want… need to express themselves in English. And then English won't be a boring subject, but they'll start to see what language (any language) is for: communicating ideas effectively.
Almost 4 years ago, I posted a list of 11 things that, in my humble opinion, would make for a better (and possibly more successful) hagwon – for those of you not in Korea, remember that “hagwon” are the ubiquitous and nearly universal after-school extracurricular academies that Koreans send their children to, as a supplement to an otherwise rather poor public education system. Most of my time in Korea, I have worked for various EFL specializing hagwon (there are many other types including math, and multiple subject hagwon for example), and these comments are intended solely to pertain to EFL hagwon.
That list from 4 years ago was written at my one-year anniversary at LBridge (which was the biggest and by far most successful hagwon I’ve worked for – though “successful” means only “at that time” as it later went bankrupt). I think all the items on it still pertain, and I wouldn’t really adjust any of my thoughts from that time. But I’ve decided, all these years later, to begin make this “list” a “feature” on This Here Blog Thingy™. So, I’ll add some new items for the list, now or later, as they arise or cross my mind. I’ll called it: IIRTH (if I ran the hagwon) – maybe make it a category on the blog if it grows enough.
So here comes item number 12.
12) Teachers should have fixed classrooms. In every hagwon I’ve worked at, except the first one under some circumstances, the student cohorts have fixed classrooms and the teachers pass from classroom to classroom. This is perhaps convenient in some ways, administratively, and there’s less confusion and bustle from the problematic of having the students change classes between teaching periods. However, I think it has a lot of disadvantages. One of the foremost is that the teachers don’t have any incentive to personalize their classrooms, and very little impetus or motivation to keep their classrooms clean and well-maintained, etc. The kids write grafitti, things get broken, etc. This doesn’t happen in public schools where teachers “own” their classrooms. Besides, I’d so very much love to have a space I could call my own, to decorate, to personalize. You can put posters, bulletin boards, maps… anything you need or want for teaching.
Some of the most productive time I’ve felt that I’ve spent teaching in Korea were the several months of the summer school session I had at Hongnong, when I had my own classroom to decorate and maintain as I wished – and I did!
This evening, I made a remark about this idea to one of my fellow teachers. She sighed and agreed it was a good idea, but she gave a reason I actually had never heard before for as to why hagwon don’t do it that way. “Hagwon owners and managers like to have all the staff in a single room so they can communicate better.” I laughed. “Really? I would say my gyo-gam [vice principal] was a much more effective communicator than any hagwon boss I can think of – we simply had meetings all the time.” I gazed at our boss’s office as I said this. My coworker laughed. “I mean, when was the last time he communicated with us, here in the staffroom?” We laughed some more. (These are paraphrases, not exact quotes.)
Here is a picture of my Hongnong classroom from August, 2010.
I spent yesterday in one of my internet holidays. When I woke up, I found myself sitting down at my computer. I made a blog post and then, feeling disgusted with myself for obsessively surfing blog sites, I unplugged my DSL modem, which is a little bit hard to reach behind a pile of stuff along one wall. That provided a sufficiently diffiuclt "barrier to entry" that I managed to stay offline all day. It was a little bit of psychological self-manipulation, I guess – pretending my internet was broken. I just had to forget I had a smartphone, too – but I always keep the ringer turned off on that (so it doesn't interrupt when I'm in class), but that wasn't too hard, as I just stash it on a bookshelf with the charger plugged in when I'm at home, sometimes.
Does this make me an anti-social person, that I take such holidays?
I read some good short stories and even worked on my writing a little bit, but it wasn't a very productive day. I went grocery shopping and cleaned cleaned my apartment a little bit. I felt domestic but not very content. A bit restless. I should have taken a long walk, but this persistent sore throat I've had urged me not to go out into the cold.
I'm back "in the world" today. It's hard to stay away from it, isn't it?
Desirat ai, enquer desir E voil ades mais desirar Que tener ma dona e baisar E luec on m'en pogues jausir ! Qu'eu l'am e dic ço que dir déi. E dels cinc non m'entendon tréi, Anz diran "Ben vos es esprés". Si mon joi non avia, Als bons fa piez. – Pèire Cardenal (poem written maybe 1201 AD).
Cardenal was poet and troubador of the middle ages from what is in modern times the south of France, but at that time was called Pays d'Oc (the land of people who say "yes" by using the word "oc", roughly). In contemporary times, their language is called Occitan and is still spoken by several millions. It's closely related to Catalan.
J'ai désiré ma dame, je la désire encore et je veux la désirer toujours et davantage plutôt que d'obtenir de la serrer, de l'embrasser, en un lieu où d'elle je tirerais grand plaisir. Car je l'aime et je dis ce que je dois dire. Trois sur cinq ne me comprennent pas mais diront " Vous êtes bien épris !" Et si d'elle je n'avais pas une vraie joie d'amour, c'est qu'aux meilleurs elle réserve ses rigueurs…
So I attempted my own translation – it's a tossup whether I find the Occitan original or the French translation easier – my work with medival Spanish actually makes the Occitan pretty easy to sort out.
Couplet V
I wanted my lady, I wanted her more And I want to want even more Holding my lady and kissing her Where I would give her pleasure! Because I love her and I say what I have to say. Three out of five do not understand me But say "You are just infatuated" If I did not have joy, At best she'd take it easy on me…
If anyone harbored any doubts, this blog post should be clear evidence of my genuine eccentricity: on some days, this is my hobby.
What I'm listening to right now.
Claude Marti, "Pèire Cardenal – Razos es qu'ieu m'esbaudei." The poetry is 13th century (another work by Cardenal), but I suspect the musical setting is modern.
Lyrics.
Razos es qu'ieu m'esbaudei E sia jauzens e gais E diga cansos e lais E un sirventes desplei, Quar leialtatz a vencut Falsetat, e non a gaire Quez ieu ai auzit retraire Qu'us fortz trachers a perdut Son poder e sa vertut.
Dieus fa, e fara e fei, Aissi com es Dieus verais, Drech als pros e als savais E merce, segon lur lei. Quar a la paia van tut, L'enganat e l'enganaire, Si com Abels a son fraire. Que-l trachor seran destrut E li trait ben vengut.
Dieu prec que trachors barrei E los degol e los abais Aissi con fes los Algais, Quar son de peior trafei. Quez aisso es ben sauput: Pieger es trachers que laire, Qu'atressi com hom pot faire De convers monge tondut, Fai hom de trachor pendut.
De lops e de fedas vei Que de las fedas son mais, E per un austor que nais Son mil perditz, fe qu'ie'us dei. Az aisso es conogut Que hom murtriers ni raubaire Non plas tant a Dieu lo paire Ni tant non ama son frut Com fai del pobol menut.
Assatz pot aver arnei E cavals ferrans e bais E tors e murs e palais Rics hom, sol que Dieu renei. Doncs ben a lo sen perdut Aquel acui es veiaire Que tollen l'autrui repaire Deia venir a salut, Ni-l dons Dieus quar a tolgut.
Quar Dieus ten son arc tendut, E trai aqui on deu traire E fai lo colp que deu faire: A quecs si com a mergut, Segon vizi o vertut.
It was mostly just incidental that I happened to learn that Joseph Kasun passed away recently – I'm not in touch with any of my onetime high school teachers, but someone's posting on facebook caught my attention and so I came to know that my high school history teacher, Mr (Col) Kasun had died. His obituary is here, in the Times-Standard, Humboldt's newspaper-of-record. Here's an internet picture (right) showing him with ice-cream in front of a recognizably Arcata High Schoolish building – perhaps even his classroom (at the windows)?
I didn't have much of a personal connection with Mr Kasun. As a student, I remember not thinking much of him – he seemed theatrical and reactionary and prone to pendantic declamations that suited his record as a veteran and former Army officer perfectly. As a disconsolate youth with hippie-commune parents, to me he seemed both dangerous and buffoonish, like the bizarre uncle in the movie Harold and Maude. But he was, in fact, a fairly effective and most definitely memorable teacher, and he was principled enough not to spout his extreme conservative agenda too blatently into the classroom – I knew he was conservative (his wife was a major figure in the Humboldt pro-life movement and a Reagan activist) but I didn't ever feel he was trying to convince me to be conservative.
And here's the thing – I think of old Col Kasun often. Not quite on a daily basis, but he comes to mind several times a week, and in fact he'd been on my mind the same evening that I got home and saw the facebook post reporting his death. How is it that this should be so?
I'm a teacher. I'm not a high school teacher, but I teach gifted middle-schoolers, which is close enough. And even though I am, primarily, an EFL teacher, my methodology is deeply wrapped up with teaching "subjects-but-in-English." Specifically, I often find myself being a history and social studies teacher, such as was Mr Kasun. It's inevitable when talking about topics such as democracy, fights for independence, or social policy, that Mr Kasun's passionate and sincere style will sometimes come to mind. He would stand up at the front of the class and gesture his pointing finger while making oratory on the topic of our hard-won American freedoms or American exceptionalism. What's weird is that I can unintentionally channel Mr Kasun in gesture or tone, while the topic is, instead, Korean hard-won freedoms or Korean exceptionalism, while the kids stare up in that perfect teenage mixture of awe and boredom. And I find myself thinking to myself, 'jeez, that was a fine Colonel Kasun you just did, wasn't it?'
And I go home to read that he has died. I never had been in touch with him, since high school.
There are teachers you really like, in school. But as a teacher, those aren't always the teachers you think about, much less the ones you channel or become.
I really liked Mr Mauney, and Mr Meeks, and Mrs Williams (who had a different name, maybe, later, due to divorce or remarriage) and Mme Dalsant. But I rarely think of them in my teaching. Instead, I meditate on Mr Kasun or Mr Dohrman (sp?), both of whom I find myself channeling, sometimes to my own deep chagrin. Or I contemplete Mr Allan Edwards, who terrified me so much as a high school freshman that I never really recovered, and all these years later, I sometimes remind myself that, whatever else I may have as positives or negatives as a teacher, at the least I'm not terrifying my students to the extent they contemplate suicide. At least… I desperately hope not. I admit I've caused the occasional first or second grader to burst into tears – who hasn't? – but that's a far cry from inducing so much fear and loathing in a 15 year-old that he still has nightmares about you 30 years later.
That's a little bit off track, vis-a-vis a sort of obituary on Mr Joseph Frank Kasun. But the point is, I think of one past teacher or another almost every day – especially those teachers that left indelible impressions, be they good or bad. I think there may be something to the aphorsim that goes something like: it's better to be remembered as a teacher, even if disliked, than to be forgotten.
Cold, "Sick of Man." This song is from the album 13 Ways to Bleed On Stage, which was on my constant replay in maybe 2000 or 2001 – around the time of Michelle's death. So I tend to think of her when I hear it. It's bittersweet memories, and the darkness of this album suited the epoch well.
Lyrics.
Gave all the vampires back To God that day No one got raped here But the pain's still inside I'll never love you But I've got words to say No one betrayed here But the memories lie I said don't go away Turned off the lights and then you Said please don't follow me And you cared
You stole my passion Burned my everything There all the same here Locked up change deep inside I'll never love you But I've got words to say You killed the feeling But the pain's still alive
I said don't go away Turned off the lights and then you Said please don't follow me And you cared
You kept your feelings hidden Like a psycho Burned it all down Take me with you Won't you let me go
So sick of man
Lately, I've been feeling kind of nostalgic for my year in Jeollanam (2010-11). I found this really great picture of Gwangju from halfway up the side of Mudeungsan – I don't think I've posted it before.
I made [broken link! FIXME]two predictions when Andrew Sullivan announced he was taking his blog independent: 1) that I would end up paying a subscription, in appreciation for what I get from his website, which I visit every day; 2) that once the meter kicked in, my use of the site would decline, out of annoyance at being pestered to log in, having to remember yet another username and password.
The first prediction came true – I subscribed. The second prediction hasn't come true – but not for the reason one might expect.
I was worried I would find the need to repeatedly log on annoying. I expected the need to repeatedly log in would arise because I clear cookies from my computer every time I close my browser, and I assumed the meter would rely on cookies to track log-on status. I think this is true, but I failed to take into account another aspect of the cookies thing: the meter also keeps track of (makes use of) cookies in order to work at all. So by clearing cookies, in effect I reset the meter every time I close my browser. I tested this, yesterday (and again this morning), and found that if I do, in fact, click seven "read on" articles in a row in one sitting, the meter kicks in and asks me to log on. But all I need to do to bypass the meter is close my browser and re-open it. Voila – I've hacked the Sullyblog, without even intending to.
That solves my problem, neatly, but I suspect it reveals one for Sullivan. He was puzzling, recently, about the seemingly large number of subscribers who have never used their log on. I'm one of them. Are we the technically sophisticated, internet-security-conscious crowd (which is probably overly represented in his libertarian and educated-leaning audience)? The ones who sweep cookies in their browsers?
I think this reinforces my earlier point – I think Sullivan would be just as well off under a strictly voluntary, "donate here!" model, rather than a meter wall as clearly permeable as his is. The meter just creates a sort of sense of exclusivity and annoyance in some subset of his fan base, without really technically preventing parsimonious fans from accessing his content without paying. A pure donation-driven model seems risky, but it works – look at Wikipedia or NPR, which both, in their highly different ways, produce extraordinary content (and I've personally donated to both).
An 8th grade girl: “Teacher! You look like a baby ostrich!”
I looked at her, unable to muster any kind of response.
She waited three beats. Four beats. “Very cute,” she clarified, in the same tone of amazement.
Was this a quick recovery, or a pre-planned joke? No matter. I will take compliments… such as they are.
Here is a picture I drew while a student in a lower level class was preparing a test (she’d failed to bring her pre-prepared speech from home, so I gave her time to rewrite it and practice it a bit before her speech test). It came out pretty well. Some characters my students will know, combined with a sort of happy-go-lucky feel.
A prepper is someone who essentially makes a hobby of preparing for doomsday or the apocalypse. They like to worry about TEOTWAWKI ("The end of the world as we know it"). We used to call the severe cases of this mode of social (or anti-social) behavior "survivalists" (and in wikipedia, for example, the article "prepper" redirects to "survivalism"), but this new term seems to be more inclusive of people who have survivalist tendencies but may not be as extreme in their efforts or interpretation. The concept of prepper takes a thread traditional American frontier survivalism and knits it together with the kind of clubby, fuzzy-warm, after-work enthusiast style of hobbies like scrapbooking or homebrewing. Take a look at this prepper website, which not only tells how to start a fire using three distinct, non-technology-dependent methods and how to survive the inevitable currency collapse, but also has apple pie recipes.
The thing is, if you look at the movement broadly (and not just at that crazy website, which is just an example), there are clearly a lot of preppers in the US, and even in the world. There are people I know in my current workplace who have the mentality of American preppers – they think the end of the world is nigh, and this influences their lifestyle and behavior.
Is it perhaps derivative or connected to all the millenarianism circulating in Christian evangelical circles, which the US and Korea share culturally, these days? Yet even in my own very non-Christian evangelical family, I can point to a half dozen family members which strong "prepper" tendencies – in some cases very strong. Even I have inclinations that way, though in my case I don't really act on them – instead, in my own case, the "prepper" tendencies are expressed in my "minimalist" lifestyle, perhaps, and what's missing is any interest or obsession with TEOTWAWKI, as the preppers like to call it.
This, from a student who I had back in 2008, that I happened to see today. Did it really turn that much greyer? It was already pretty grey in 2008 – but it's hard to see the change in myself.
Korea inaugurated a new president today. I have ambivalent feelings about Ms Park, but I really don't see how she could do worse than Lee Myung-bak's charmless tenure, and I have come to respect the process whereby she became president – it's certainly no less democratic than what we have in the US – not that that's necessarily saying very much.
There was an interesting article at the Ask a Korean blog, ranking the past presidents of South Korea. Despite his dictatorial grip on power for almost 2 decades, Park Chung-hee, the current new president's father, received a high ranking, mostly because he propelled South Korea from "poorest of poor" to "Asian tiger" in a generation. I can see the logic of that. At the end of that article, the Korean (as the author of the blog idiosyncratically likes to call himself, always in the third person) remarks that depending on historical circumstance, Ms Park has the possibility of ending up near the top of that list, too. Arguably, that's true for any leader stepping into leadership, at any time, but I get his point – she seems to have a lot of potential to be a great president, but also just as much potential to be a sort of climax of Saenuri (conservative party) mediocrity, too (which is to say, 2MB [Lee Myung-bak] 2.0).
The Korea Herald posted a translation of her inaugural speech, which I read. It's a long speech, but here's a part that stood out for me, given that I work in Korean education, currently.
Fellow Koreans,
No matter how much the country advances, such gains would be meaningless if the lives of the people remained insecure.
A genuine era of happiness is only possible when we aren’t clouded by the uncertainties of aging and when bearing and raising children is truly considered a blessing.
No citizen should be left to fear that he or she might not be able to meet the basic requirements of life.
A new paradigm of tailored welfare will free citizens from anxieties and allow them to prosper in their own professions, maximize their potentials, and also contribute to the nation’s development.
I believe that enabling people to fulfill their dreams and opening a new era of hope begins with education.
We need to provide active support so that education brings out the best of an individual’s latent abilities and we need to establish a new system that fosters national development through the stepping stones of each individual’s capabilities.
There is a saying that someone you know is not as good as someone you like, and someone you like is not as good as someone you enjoy being with.
The day of true happiness will only come when an increasing number of people are able to enjoy what they learn, and love what they do.
The most important asset for any country is its people.
The future holds little promise when individual ability is stifled and when the only name of the game is rigid competition that smothers creativity.
Ever since childhood, I have held the conviction that harnessing the potential of every student will be the force that propels a nation forward.
Our educational system will be improved so that students can discover their talents and strengths, fulfill their precious dreams and are judged on that bases. This will enable them to make the best use of their talent upon entering society.
There is no place for an individual’s dreams, talents or hopes in a society where everything is determined by one’s academic background and list of credentials.
We will transform our society from one that stresses academic credentials to one that is merit-based so that each individual’s dreams and flair can bear fruit.
It goes without saying that protecting the lives and ensuring the safety of the people is a critical element of a happy nation.
The new government will focus its efforts on building a safe society where women, people with disabilities, or anyone else for that matter, can feel at ease as they carry on with their lives, no matter where they are in the country.
We will build a society where fair laws prevail rather than the heavy hand of power and where the law serves as a shield of justice for society’s underprivileged.
It's also remarkable that someone considered to be the Korean equivalent of a Republican would offer such a spirited (and well-argued) defense of the welfare state. But isn't it always the case that in truth, conservatives in most economically advanced countries are typically somewhere to the left of the US's Democrats?
The 강선 (Gangseon) elementary school, which is the elementary school closest to my apartment building, has a motto over its entrance. Most schools have mottos over their entrances, but this one, because I see it every day, sticks with me.
바르고 슬기롭게 honest-AND wise-ADV Honestly and wisely
That's a good motto. I do ok at honest, most of the time. I'm not so wise. I think most people have more trouble with that, maybe.
Los Fabulosos Cadillacs, "En mis venas." Es del album Bares y fondas, que fue el primer CD del conjunto argentino que compré.
Letra.
En mis venas hay alcohol, y en tu cara hay deseo en tu cara hay deseo y en mi cuerpo hay dolor Pero no te vas y te quedás atrás y me pisas y me pisas me pisas el corazón me aplastás hasta el final…. En mi cara hay dolor y en tu cuerpo hay deseo en tu cara hay deseo y en mi cuerpo hay alcohol Me gusta gritar pero no me dejas, y me cerrás, me tapas, el corazón, me aplastas hasta el final.
