Category: Banalities & Journaling

Caveat: You set out each day / Never to arrive

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling

What I'm listening to right now.

Dr Dog, "That Old Black Hole."

Lyrics:

I put on my clothes like a body guard
I put the dogs on patrol in my own back yard
I don't wanna fight but I'm constantly ready
And I don't rock the boat, but it's always unsteady

There's an elephant in my head
And I tip toe around it
There are eggshells on the floor
Therefore I never touch the ground

It's like that old black hole,
No matter how you try,
You set out each day
Never to arrive

I got my eyes on the prize
But it looks just like a mystery
And it all goes by on the lonesome trail to victory
I'm drawing in the blinds, I got my own four walls
And the show really starts once the curtain falls

Take this thorn from my side
Fix this chip on my shoulder
Time is racing with the clock
And I ain't getting any older

It's like that old black hole,
No matter how you try.

It's like that old black hole,
No matter how you try.

It's like that old black hole,
No matter how you try,
You set out each day
Never to arrive

I put on my finest thread
And I wrap up my body tight
With the sun in my eyes
I step into the night

Like the mystery in the dark
Oh, it's just another kind of light

I don't expect you to believe me
But everything is alright
I don't make rules for a living
I don't do tricks for a dime

I was born on a good day,
Deaf, dumb and blind.
Who am I to tell the truth?
I don't even know what it is.

I don't know how to say it but I know that I can show you.
I don't know how to say it but I know that I can show you.

I tie my boots up tight
And I head straight for bed
There's a pistol and a crystal
Underneath my pillow

There's a tender heart
Inside that ugly armadillo
"These are tears of joy,"
Cried the weeping willow

There's a spirit in the air
And there ain't no way around it
I was not prepared to lose it
On the moment that I found it

It's like that old black hole,
No matter how you try.

It's like that old black hole,
No matter how you try.

It's like that old black hole,
No matter how you try,
You set out each day
Never to arrive

Caveat: 시도하지 않으면 얻는 게 없다

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

시도하지         않으면     얻는          게           없다
attempt-PRENEG not-be-IF get-PRESPART NOMINALIZER there-is-not
If nothing is attempted [then] there is no getting.
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” I was puzzled by the particle 게 for a long time, until finally I decided (perhaps correctly, perhaps not) that it was a contraction of 것이, which is a nominalizing particle (attached to the preceeding present participalized verb) with a subject case marker. The grammar was hard, but the meaning pretty obvious.
I’m going to gain nothing this weekend, because I’m venturing nothing. Bleah.

Caveat: Anarchist Calisthenics

Banalities & Journaling / Found Online / Philosophy & Cultural Criticism

I am aware of a rather glaring contradiction or even hypocrisy in myself: I declare myself sympathetic to anarchism on the one hand, but on the other I'm a huge defender of rule-of-law for rule-of-law's sake. Without getting overly analytical, I'll merely observe that I ran across some thought-provoking notions in a recent semi-book-review at Bleeding Heart Libertarians, of a book by James C. Scott entitled Two Cheers for Anarchism. Most notably, I like the concept of "anarchist calisthenics" – the idea that we should seek out and break irrational laws merely to keep our libertarian selves in shape, so to speak. And yet… I resist it. I'm one of those people who sees some inherent good in obeying the law for its own sake, and it's one of the things that I point to as a success in South Korea – the transition, in the last several decades, to a (mostly) rule-of-law based society. So how can I resolve this paradox?

Caveat: 세 살 버릇 여든까지 간다

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

세     살   버릇   여든까지       간다
three year habit eighty-UNTIL goes
A three year habit goes up to eighty.
This means that old habits die hard. I’ve been struggling with trying to drop old habits (mental habits) and gain new, better habits. For example, I had a habit of trying do something with Korean proverbs in this blog, for a while, but then I lost that habit. So I’m trying to bring it back. It’s hard.

Caveat: now Denver is lonesome for her heroes

Banalities & Journaling / Media (Texts/Music/Movies etc) / Politics, Economics & Current Affairs / Quotable

I didn't watch the debate between Obama and Romney, live. But, being the politics addict that I am, I have followed it through that innovative new medium called "live blogging." And the consensus seems to be that Obama blew it, and that Romney did quite well. I haven't formed an opinion, except to say that Obama likes to play the "adult in the room," which rarely plays well on TV. Romney, on the other hand, comes off as a patriarch high on meth – which might not be that inaccurate.

So far the best part was when Ta-Nehisi Coates, blogging at The Atlantic, quoted Alan Ginsburg. I feel compelled to do the same, though somewhat more at length:

…I had a vision or you had a vision or he had
a vision to find out Eternity,
who journeyed to Denver, who died in Denver, who
came back to Denver & waited in vain, who
watched over Denver & brooded & loned in
Denver and finally went away to find out the
Time, & now Denver is lonesome for her heroes,
who fell on their knees in hopeless cathedrals praying
for each other's salvation and light and breasts,
until the soul illuminated its hair for a second,
who crashed through their minds in jail waiting for
impossible criminals with golden heads and the
charm of reality in their hearts who sang sweet
blues to Alcatraz,
who retired to Mexico to cultivate a habit, or Rocky
Mount to tender Buddha or Tangiers to boys
or Southern Pacific to the black locomotive or
Harvard to Narcissus to Woodlawn to the
daisychain or grave,
who demanded sanity trials accusing the radio of hyp
notism & were left with their insanity & their
hands & a hung jury…

From his poem, "Howl." If you're not getting it, the segment of the poem is relevant because the debate was held in Denver.

Caveat: Pathos

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling / The Wonders of Work

An 8 year old girl writes this in her "essay book" – a kind of weekly diary entry for intermediate students. I present it uncorrected.

Today my mom is angry. Because I make my mom is angry, my mom is very angry. My sister and I am scary. My mom is angry I cry. When my mom is angry she hit something. So sister and I am very scary. I think 'I didn't make my mom angry.' And I really promise I didn't make my mom angry. ㅠㅠ

Note that the use of the past tense "didn't make my mom angry" probably is meant to reflect a hoped-for state, as "I wish I hadn't made my mom angry," as it seems to sometimes be used in Korean.

I feel some pathos for the girl's situation.

What I'm listening to right now.

Parov Stelar, "My Inner Me (feat. Phoebe Hall)."

Caveat: Do not go gentle into that zombie plagued night

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

I awoke this morning from a dream about zombies. It was like I was inside a zombie movie, in the dream – and not a very good zombie movie, for all that.

What’s with zombies in my subconscious brain? I don’t actually watch zombie movies. I don’t enjoy them. I haven’t made it through a single episode of Walking Dead. I suppose I’m exposed to some degree of zombie thematics from my zombie-obsessed students, but … why did I have a zombie dream, last night? I wasn’t meditating on zombie-related material yesterday, or over the weekend.

When I woke up, I googled zombie poetry, and guess what I found: “zombie haiku.” This is most excellent, at least as a type of humor.

Here are some samples.

pictureZombie Haiku by Dylan Thomas
Do not go gentle
into that zombie plagued night.
And take the shotgun.

Zombie Haiku by Edgar Allen Poe
Beside of the sea
I killed my Annabel Lee
because zombies do that.

I also found this rather entertaining short story by a guy named Isaac Marion.

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Caveat: Finished Novel

Banalities & Journaling

During all the talking while walking yesterday with my friend Peter, at one point the topic of my novel-writing came up. He said something like, "I thought you had finished one of your novels."

"I'm not really working much on anything right now.  More like, I gave up on it," I explained.

"That counts as finished," Peter said. It could be taken seriously or humorously. Or both.

 

Caveat: Camp Edwards and 법륜사

Banalities & Journaling / Hiking & Travel / Life in Korea / My Photos

I went on a really long, multi-modal journey today. I walked to Daehwa station and met my friend Peter who works in Bucheon. We walked (yes, walked) together to Geumchon (about 15 km), to make a visit with the old demons at Camp Edwards – the US Army base in Paju where I was stationed in 1990-1991. Camp Edwards no longer exists, having been abandoned by the US Army in the late 1990s, I think. In the last year or so, the old, decrepit buildings have been torn down – the place is now just a vacant lot and in a few more years it will likely be a housing development.
After that, we caught a number 92 bus to a town called Jeokseong (적성면), which is near the northern tip of Paju (Paju being the northwesternmost city/county in South Korea, up against the DMZ at Panmunjeom. From Jeokseong we walked up a winding mountain highway to a monument to British soldiers fallen in the Korean war, where we had a picnic lunch, and then we walked a few kilometers more to 법륜사 (Beopryun temple), on the flank of Gamak mountain. We had been intending to hike up the mountain, but my legs were feeling sore already from the walk to Geumchon, and so I wimped out. We hung out at the temple for a while and then walked back down to the highway and caught a number 25 bus to Yangju, where we got on the number 1 subway line.
We went south into Seoul and in the Russian neighborhood near Dongdaemun we went to a Russian restaurant for dinner – I had borsht (which was good) and a chicken thing called “a la Moscow” that was not-so-good. But it was interesting, anyway. Then parted ways with my friend Peter, and I took the subway home. I was tired.
Here are some pictures.
Peter saw a cloud, near the Unjeong Sindosi (New City), on the way to Geumchon. He said, uncharacteristically, “That looks like an American cloud.” I laughed, as I wasn’t sure what a specifically American cloud might look like.
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A few kilometers farther on, beyond the Sindosi, we found a very run-down, rural looking area, and this very un-Korean-looking truck on a junky-looking farm. It had a rather Appalachian feel.
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A mere hundred yards from the Camp Edwards front gate, I saw this contrast of an old-style Korean house with a modern school building behind it.
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At the front gate for Camp Edwards (now unlabeled and unguarded – the military-related nature of the location has been erased by history, which keeps on happening), I mimed standing at the non-existent guard shack showing my ID to exit the base. I lived here for a year in 1991, and I have many vivid memories. But the barracks buildings and shops are torn down now.
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At the north end of Camp Edwards, I took this picture of the pastoral scene.
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After a 45 minute bus ride, this is the quaint town of Jeokseong.
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And the town has one of those unfulfilling Korean rivers in it.
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A few kilometers south of town, there is the “Gloster [Gloucester] Valley Battle Monument.” The battle was in 1951, during the Korean war. Many British soldiers died against the Chinese. There were many Koreans here having a Chuseok Sunday picnic. I don’t know why – it was a pretty good location for a picnic, I guess.
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After our own picnic lunch, we continued walking down the highway (well, up the highway, climbing higher into the mountains but southward. We saw chicken and some geese at a vacant lot. I don’t know what they were doing there – no one was around, there was no house or farm. Peter commented that it was the world’s worst petting zoo.
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We finally arrived at the temple, after a hard slog up a very steep road.
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One of my favorite aspects of the typical Korean temple is the panel paintings on the outside walls of the buildings. I took some pictures of these.
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I looked in the temple door. No one was there. The place was mostly deserted, except for a few hikers passing through. The monks had better things to be off doing on a Chuseok Sunday – Chuseok is not, per se, a Buddhist-related holiday – it’s connected, rather, with Confucian ancestor-rites and what you might call Korean native religion. I suspect Chuseok weekend is a slow one for the monks, and many of them go visit relatives or suchlike.
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The view down the valley from the temple was pretty spectacular.
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We walked down to the main road, partly along a little stream.
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After the bus ride to Yangju, the train ride into Seoul at sunset induced me to take a few blurry pictures from the train.
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Borsht!
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Caveat: A Day for a Wandering Foreigner

Banalities & Journaling

Today is Chuseok, the Korean harvestmoon "Thanksgiving." It's one of the biggest holidays of the year, here, and, just as in the US, there's a feeling that you're being "cheated" out of a holiday having a major holiday like this fall on a Sunday.

Most Koreans travel to their ancestral home-town (고향) for Chuseok. It's the kind of day when there are a lot of foreigners wandering around the country, with nothing to do. I'm going to go be a wandering foreigner.

Caveat: Not really an octopus, a Wax Tailor Octopus

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling

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It only has four legs. It’s a quadropus. Maybe. It’s kind of cute, though. Cool video.

What I’m listening to right now.

Wax Tailor (aka Jean-Christophe Le Saoût), “Time to Go (feat. Aloe Blacc).”

Also, by the same artist, this amazing track:

Wax Tailor, “We Be (feat. Ursula Rucker).”

Lyrics:

Watts Prophets :
I look at the moon so full and so bright
And then at the fireplace with it flickering light
And realised why this world would never be right
Then I through another lump on the fire

Ursula Rucker :
We be, uh huh
We be, hmm hmm

We be
Travelling down the highway of the enemy
We be
Joining the endless convoy of cultural hegemony
We be
Missing the forest for the trees ’cause
We can’t see the evils that men do on TV
In the movies, overseas and right here on our streets
We be
Opting for vain glory over humility
We need, we need to break the convoy line
Get the hell off the highway
Take the road less travelled
‘Cause that moral fiber you thought was so tightly woven
It’s unravelling, it’s unravelled
I hate to tell y’all, it’s unravelled

Watts Prophets :
Why do you insist on keeping us caged
You know all that does intensified rage
The world know this is the time
And all power to the people
Power to the people

Ursula Rucker :
We be
Say, I’m standing on my soapbox again
Say, I’m one of those conscious artist
Talking that “change the world” shit again
Say, I might be just a bit too dramatic
Slash overzealous about what I see
As the human spirit’s dive into uncertainty
Say what you like, say what you like
‘Cause I’ll be all those things you say
All night and all day
Before I allow myself and soul
To wither away into, indistinctness
Live a half-life of blissfull ignorance
Never take another chance, another chance
Do the latest dance with the devil
And lose my dreams for all we could be
Lose my dreams for all we could be
We be

Watts Prophets :
Why do you insist on keeping us caged
You know all that does intensified rage
The world know this is the time
And all power to the people
Power to the people

Ursula Rucker :
We be
Many, so many
Many, like the number of death threats
That now come used to get

We be
Many, oh so many
Many, like the multitude of souls lost in the wars of men
Over gold, over power, over die and hate

We be
Many, so so many
Many, like the lies of pell the truth
The coward lies of profits and power bungers
Told to a cryer faith
To steal land to oppressed people
We be, the oppressed peoples

We be
We be
Why can’t we be
More peaceful
Why can’t we be
Nicer to one another
Why can’t we be
We be
What we were meant to be
Love

Watts Prophets :
Why do you insist on keeping us caged
You know all that does intensified rage
The world know this is the time
And all power to the people
Power to the people

Ursula Rucker :
We be
We be, uh huh, hmm, hmm

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Caveat: karma ledger Dream

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

It’s the beginning of Chuseok [Korean Thanksgiving] weekend. I received the following text message from my boss last night on my phone.

넉넉하고 풍요로운 마음으로 카르마 가족 모두에게 감사의 인사를 드립니다. 짧은 연휴지만 소중하고 사랑스런 가족 친지들과 즐겁고 행복함만 가득한 한가위 되시기를 진심으로 기원합니다  카르마원장 드림

I more or less understood it, but this morning I sat down to decipher it in detail. I plugged it into googletranslate and got this:

Karma family to say a special thank you to all generous and prosperous mind. A short holiday, but a dear and loving family and friends filled with happy and joyful Chuseok become is my sincere hope that karma ledger Dream

Which is somewhat approximate, but the conclusion, “Karma ledger dream,” is a bit of a howler.

Here is my own effort at a slightly more systematic translation. First, a word-for-word breakdown.


넉넉하고       풍요로운           마음으로          카르마  가족
generous-AND abundant-be-PART heart-THROUGH Karma Family
모두에게      감사의     인사를          드립니다.
everyone-TO thank-GEN salutation-OBJ give-FORMAL
짧은        연휴지만
brief-PART holiday-BUT
소중하고        사랑스런       가족    친지들과
important-AND beloved-PART family acquaintance-PLURAL-WITH
즐겁고      행복함만         가득한     한가위
joyful-AND happiness-ONLY full-PART harvestmoon
되시기를                        진심으로            기원합니다
become-DEFERENTIAL-GERUND-OBJ sincerity-THROUGH wish-FORMAL
카르마원장       드림
Karma-director give-SUBST

pictureAnd finally, a roughly idiomatic translation, with an effort to reflect the idiosyncratic phone-text-based lack-of-punctuation of the original.

We give a salutation of thanks to everyone in the Karma family with a generous and abundant heart. Though it is but a brief holiday, we sincerely wish you a harvestmoon [Chuseok] filled with only joyful and happy beloved family and friends from Karma’s Director

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Caveat: Rain from the West

Banalities & Journaling

Rain in Korea almost always seems to from the South. It comes as part of tropical storm systems rising up the east coast of Asia, similar to the way the Eastern US gets hurricanes and hurricane-related lesser weather systems in the summer. Today, though, the rain came as a kind of blurry, non-cyclonic blob from the northwest. This is interesting – it's rain on a cold front instead of on a warm front, for one thing – so the weather actually cooled as the rain arrived, whereas normally here the weather gets warmer when the rain arrives. This cool, northwestern-origin rain felt like midwestern or Pacific northwest rain in the US. Refreshing.

Caveat: The library is answer key

Banalities & Journaling / The Wonders of Work

Sally’s essay.

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Hansaem’s paean to the book is pretty typical of the students in Korea that I’ve interacted with. It’s clearly part of the Korean cultural value system, and it’s one of the reasons I feel deeply optimistic about Korean culture and society, despite its dysfunctions.

Lucy’s essay.

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I was deeply touched by her message at the bottom – that’s the main reason I’m putting it here. Is it conceited of me to post it? Keep in mind that this blog has ended up functioning as a kind of “scrapbook” for my own memories over the years of teaching, too, in an unexpected way.

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Caveat: People Skills

Banalities & Journaling / The Wonders of Work

Work has been kind of unpleasant lately. It's not because of the kids – mostly, I enjoy my time in the classroom, as always. But the staff room has been awkward and tense ever since the merger – the disparate "company cultures" of Karma and Woongjin trying to come together. But my boss's shocking lack of "people skills" (an admittedly Western concept that may or may not even be relevant in Korean culture) seems to create more tension than is strictly called for. The native Korean staff just buckle down and deal with it (which is why I say it may not be relevant in Korea), but for me, and perhaps even more so for the various gyopo (Korean returnees – ethnic Koreans born and raised in other countries, including Canada and Australia in the case of the current staff at Karma)… well, it's hard to have to listen to the boss's various rants and complaints and carrying-ons.

Yesterday was really bad. I don't like going in the staff room.

Caveat: Image going down, down, down

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling / Media (Texts/Music/Movies etc) / Teaching & Methodology / The Wonders of Work

pictureTiktok is the clockwork man of Oz. I read all the Oz stories when I was younger – actually mostly as an adolescent rather than as a child – and they influenced me profoundly.

Recently, having finished Wind in the Willows in my story-reading section too quickly (relative to the assigned syllabus), I was forced to find some short text to function as filler for the class. I settled on something from Oz. Most of the Oz books are available online, even with original illustrations: there’s a collection of shorter Oz stories at the Project Gutenberg website.

So we’re reading “Tiktok and the Nome King,” a story of about 10 pages when you print out the HTML. The language in these original, un-bowdlerized versions is pretty challenging for a group of 5th and 6th grade Korean ESL kids, but they seem to find the story compelling enough, especially given the pictures, to plow through it. Tiktok was always one of my favorite Oz characters, and there’s something especially fascinating by this thoroughly futuristic clockwork man having been conceptualized 100 years ago (I believe this particular story is exactly 100 years old this year).

I have been trying to teach the kids how to write a coherent summary. Sort of approaching it as a paraphrasing exercise with subsequent condensing and shrinking. I think that paraphrasing is, in some ways, the single most important writing skill a teacher can impart, and goes to the core of what competency in a foreign language represents, too. Well, actually, not just in a foreign language – in fact, I’ve reached the conclusion that it’s actually easier to teach paraphrasing in ESL than in native-language language-arts classes – because the students have the ability to sort of do a “round trip translation” in their heads – they can translate from English to their native language and back again, retaining the sense or meaning of it. This is a mental processing tool not available to monolinguals. I’ll have more to say about this, later, sometime. It’s been on my mind a lot, lately.

What I’m listening to right now.

[Update 2017-06-02: Link rot repaired.]

America, “Tin Man.” It matches the above theme, and also fits in with the nostalgia kick that this weekend has been – old music and reading history books all weekend, as I battle this really annoying flu-like-thing that attacked me last week.

Lyrics:

Sometimes late when things are real and people share the gift of gab between themselves
Some are quick to take the bait and catch the perfect prize that waits among the shelves

But Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man
That he didn’t, didn’t already have
And Cause never was the reason for the evening
Or the tropic of Sir Galahad
So please believe in me

When I say I’m spinning round, round, round, round
Smoke glass stain bright color
Image going down, down, down, down
Soapsuds green like bubbles

Oh, Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man
That he didn’t, didn’t already have
And Cause never was the reason for the evening
Or the tropic of Sir Galahad

So please believe in me
When I say I’m spinning round, round, round, round
Smoke glass stain bright color
Image going down, down, down, down
Soapsuds green like bubbles

No, Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man
That he didn’t, didn’t already have
And Cause never was the reason for the evening
Or the tropic of Sir Galahad

So please believe in me

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Caveat: “Hard To Say I’m Sorry”

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling

Lately I’ve been feeling my age. This is especially hard when I spent most of my days in the company of junior high and elementary students. Nothing hammers home to me how long I’ve been around as hearing some kind of retrospective on the radio and realizing that a song that was number one on the billboard charts 30 years ago is part of my mental soundtrack – yes, I listened to a lot of pop radio in high school. And I had bought this album – it was part of my record collection that I later abandoned in my apartment in… Chicago – when I moved to Mexico City in 1986.

What I’m listening to right now.

Chicago, “Hard To Say I’m Sorry.”

Lyrics:

Everybody needs a little time away
I heard her say, from each other
Even lovers need a holiday
Far away from each other

Hold me now
It’s hard for me
To say I’m sorry
I just want you to stay

After all that
We’ve been through
I will make it up to you
I promise to

And after all that’s
Been said and done
You’re just the part of me
I can’t let go

Couldn’t stand to be kept away
Just for the day, from your body
Wouldn’t wanna be swept away
Far away from the one that I love

Hold me now
It’s hard for me
To say I’m sorry
I just want you to know

Hold me now
I really want to
Tell you I’m sorry
I could never let you go

After all that
We’ve been through
I will make it up to you
I promise to

And after all that’s
Been said and done
You’re just the part of me
I can’t let go

After all that
We’ve been through
I will make it up to you
I promise to

You’re gonna be the lucky one

[This below is the part that was always cut off on the radio-play – a bit dissonant with the rest]

When we get there
Gonna jump in the air
No one’ll see us
Cause there’s nobody there

After all, you know
We really don’t care
Hold on, I’m gonna take you there

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Caveat: 전설의 고향

Banalities & Journaling

I’ve been in a strange mental place, lately. A little bit aimless, for one thing. And I think I’ve got some kind of fall flu, or maybe it’s an allergy of some kind.
I spent a lot of time today doing something I almost never do. I was watching TV. I have the ability to watch a slightly fuzzy version of Korean basic cable – I have a cable plugged into my computer from the wall. I don’t pay for cable, but for whatever reason, I can get low-resolution basic cable from my wall socket in my building. This has been true in every building I’ve lived in (except in Hongnong). But mostly, in recent years, I never watch TV.
But today I did.
I watched low-quality stuff, too: re-runs of iCarly, Lego cartoons, Korean historical dramas that I don’t even know the name of – some guy with an evil laugh and a funny hat. And then I watched several episodes of something called 전설의 고향 (literally ‘home of legends,’ but translated as “Korean Ghost Stories), which appears to be a cross between a Korean historical drama and the Twilight Zone, but with cheesier production quality. I love the sound effects, especially. Here’s a trailer for one of the seasons that I found on youtube.

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Caveat: History Before Dawn

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea

pictureI woke up at 4 am and couldn’t get back to sleep.

I read about 100 pages of the 2nd volume of my Korean History survey (I mentioned the first volume here), which I recently acquired.

I was struck by how technocratic the Joseon state seems, as described. I suspect that is as much an ideological phantom of the present era from which the author is looking back on it, as it is a genuine characteristic of the medieval Korean state. But nevertheless, it’s interesting.

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Caveat: Mysterious Squiggle Jamo

Banalities & Journaling / Language & Linguistics / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

When I went to the museum last weekend, I saw a strange jamo.

<digression>
Most of you will say, what’s a jamo? A jamo is a single letter of the Korean alphabet, which is called hangeul (or hangul, if you don’t like to follow official romanization rules and want to just wing it, transliteration-wise, or hangle, if you’re a 5th grader with a seussian penchant). So, for example, ㅅ is a jamo. Or ㅎ is a jamo – my favorite, because it looks like a little man with a hat. The jamo are gathered together to make blocks (모아쓰기 = gather [and] writing), so ㅎ + ㅏ + ㄴ becomes 한.
</digression>

The jamo I saw was the one on the left in this image:

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Which is extracted from this monument of names of deceased soldiers from the Korean war (squiggle jamo found in center):

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The mysterious squiggle jamo is not one that is taught when learning Korean, so I wondered what it was. It’s very hard to research. When I tried to take the image above and do a ‘google image search’ I just got pictures of naked people in strange positions – so much for google.

And good luck trying to search a term like “mysterious squiggle jamo” – perhaps now that I’m blogging this, future mystified foreigners will be less stumped.

OK, so, conclusions, after extensive searching? The squiggle jamo is an alternate ‘s’ (i.e. the jamo ㅅ). My friend Curt assured me it was. And I finally found something where the squiggle jamo is clearly transcribed as ㅅ- it’s the cover of an 1880s New Testament (note that in 1880s using hangeul, as opposed to Chinese script, was pretty radical).

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The large characters are clearly transcribed below as 예수셩교, with the squiggle jamo in the 셩 (an old spelling of 성 = ‘saint, holy’). So now that I have seen the internet says so, it must be true.

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Caveat: Oldschool KRap

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling

KRap is what I call Korean rap. I just like that it comes out that way, I’m not making a value judgment.

What I’m listening to right now.

서태지, “컴백홈” [Come Back Home]. This is from 1995, which in Korean pop musical terms is about 200 years ago. Note how the Cypress Hill-y cadences have carried over into Korean quite well.

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Caveat: The Pizza and Bungee Museum

Banalities & Journaling / Teaching & Methodology / The Wonders of Work

I had some students in my E1 cohort design their own museums today. It went really interestingly.

One girl designed a pizza museum. It had a giant pizza, a meat section, and a vegetables section. And there was the bungee jump – it wasn’t clear how this related to the pizza.

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Another girl designed a monkey museum. There was a shy monkey, a happy monkey, a crazy monkey.

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A serious boy designed a rather eleborate Goguryeo museum (which he seemed to spell Khoygureo – Goguryeo is the ancient Korean kingdom from before 500 AD). I thought his drawing was the best.

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But the most entertaining museum was the Karma museum. The picture wasn’t very good (below). But the girl didn’t say it was a Karma museum. She just set out to describe it, and over time, one realized that the museum was an exact simulacra of our Karma language school – there was a classroom where you could go and watch the E1 kids studying English, for example. I thought it was a little bit like a Borges story – the idea of a map exactly the size of the thing mapped.

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Caveat: Suck!

Banalities & Journaling / My Drawings & Paintings

pictureThe teacher asked, “What do you think of the Korean hagwon system?”

The student answered, “Suck!”

“Suck? That’s not really a sentence,” the teacher pointed out, ever the stickler for ‘answers in full sentences.’

“It sucks!” the student offered, as a revision on her first answer.

In other news, the doodle at left is the sum total of my notes from the staff meeting on Tuesday.

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Caveat: Listless Hint of Fall

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling

I’ve been feeling listless the last few days. Not much energy, despite sleeping more than usual. Perhaps it’s the transition in seasons that one can sort of feel in the air – lower humidity, slightly cooler weather, despite the hurricane (aka typhoon) at the beginning of the week.

What I’m listening to right now.

Röyksopp, “The Girl and the Robot.” The video is kind of weird, and seems to have a strange 80s vibe to it – perhaps it’s the woman’s hairstyle or something.

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Caveat: Anti-Occam

Banalities & Journaling / Philosophy & Cultural Criticism / Quotable / Teaching & Methodology

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." – Einstein, elaborating on (caveating) Occam's Razor.

I was talking about Occam's Razor in my debate class last month. I should bring this quote from Einstein up. as couterpoint, when we start again after the test-prep period.

– Notes for Korean –
따르다 = pour, fill (e.g. a cup)

Caveat: Dreaming on the Command Line

Banalities & Journaling / Databases, Smartphones & Computers / Life is a Dream

I awoke from a frustrating dream.

I had returned to college. I was at the University of Minnesota, but the campus was so radically changed I couldn’t find my way around. The library was a stunning architectural marvel (which can’t be said for any of the U of M libraries I actually spent so much time in). I had to go into a dormitory that resembled Holworthy Hall from my summer at Harvard (1982). I was on a campus tour with my coworkers from Karma. They were making snarky, insulting comments about the university, most of which I felt sympathetic with.

pictureAnd then I was trying to do some homework for a computer class. I was trying to get linux command lines to work. I’m not sure I really did that while in university – if I did, it would have been VAX/VMS, not linux or unix. But these were definitely linux command lines, because I kept pulling up ‘man’ pages to try to get the flags right.

And that was the rest of the dream. I mean, a really long dream, that mostly consisted of me trying and re-trying variations on command lines to do some kind of compile on a LISP program I was trying to run (well, that part was like my time at the U of M, anyway).

Why am I being revisited by this depressing stuff?

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Caveat: Catgroovy Sunday Banality

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

I went out to lunch with a friend today and we had a kind of Thai fusion food at a restaurant inside the "New Core" mall that's between Jeongbalsan and Madu stations on the subway, here in Ilsan. It wasn't bad, but it left me mostly craving more authentic Thai cuisine. My friend and I decided maybe next time, we could go to the Thai restaurant I remember at the WesternDom mall.

I tried to study Korean today, for a good portion of the day. I'm not feeling very diligent, though.

Supposedly, we're getting another typhoon tomorrow. It looks big on the weather map, but after the last one I'm sceptical. The rain has already started.

I recently discovered some new music that interests me. It seems to be related to (or descended from?) a 90s trend that was called Chicago Swing House, a sort of re-imagining of 30s era swing music combined with contemporary electronica house or club music production styles. One artist that I was liking is called Parov Stelar. And then I was looking for a track to put here on this here blog thingy and I found this wacky amazing dancing guy in his basement.

What I'm listening to right now.

Parov Stelar, "Catgroove."

Caveat: 서울에 갔다

Banalities & Journaling / My Photos

I went into the city today to buy books and hang out with my friend Peter who lives in Bucheon.
We went to the war memorial museum at Yongsan, and walked over the far west end of Itaewon and went to a middle eastern restaurant there. I ate falafel. The impeding-typhoon sky was very spectacular, so I took some pictures.
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Caveat: The Missing Institution

Banalities & Journaling / Teaching & Methodology

There is a very insightful blogpost over at Bleeding Heart Libertarians about education and teaching reform. I think I agree. Definitely, the idea that teaching is a performance art, and not an academic discipline, strikes me accurate. A good teacher is like a good musician or a talented athlete or actor or a martial artist. A good teacher is not like an intellectual or researcher or typical PhD professor.

Now, as to whether or not I, personally, am a good teacher? I have no idea. I have good days and bad days. I'm not sure. Today, I was correcting a student essay book, and a little second grader who goes by the English name of Lucy wrote, under her essay, "I love Jared teacher." And she drew a picture of a smiling alligator. That made my day.

Caveat: Spagga aka El Presidente de hip-hop

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling / Internet & Blogging

Just now, I received a comment on a youtube video I’d made a few years back to go with a track that I liked, by a New York latin-rap group called Spagga & La Raza, that I hadn’t been able to find online. Here’s what the comment said:

wow…..That was one of the first songs i wrote. Thanks whoever you are for bringing me back to reality!
Spagga

This seems to indicate that the actual artist commented on my youtube piratification of his song, in a positive way. I’m deeply impressed. He’s just acquired a much more dedicated fan. This is the spirit in which I wish all artists would view the youtubification of their work.

pictureWhat I’m listening to right now.

[UPDATE: myspace is broken (go figure). Unable to find replacement track online. Yay internet.]

Spagga aka El Presidente de Hip-Hop, “la vida.” De su myspace – warning: it opens a new tab or window if you click it. The myspace player is a little bit annoying. But it’s ok.

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Caveat: Out of Thyme

Banalities & Journaling

pictureI was cooking, after I got home this evening. I was making a sort of fusiony Italian-fried-rice concoction – vegetables and Italian seasoning, to which I add chopped fresh tomatoes and cooked rice. Kind of like veggie-and-pasta but with rice instead of pasta. Some Americans might call it “Spanish rice,” but I have no intention of offending any Spaniards. I was adding the spices: oregano, parsely, coriander, sage, red pepper, black pepper. And then, I reached for the last thing on my mental checklist: “Oh, crap. I’m out of thyme.”

And then I laughed at myself. I felt like a character in Bruce Willis movie, where the bomb was going to go off.

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