Caveat: Inertial Reboot

What is an inertial reboot? Well, I "rebooted" my contract, yesterday. We had to go and officialize an alteration to my work visa because of the recent (well, two months past) merger between Karma and Woongjin. And because I was being wishy-washy about my future, and because I was "going with the flow" we "rebooted" my contract: Korean teaching contracts are almost universally 1 year long, and mine with Karma was May-to-May, but now it's September-to-September – that means I'm committed until September.

It's really just inertia. I wasn't really thinking of going off and doing something else, come end-of-contract, next May. It's just that it was a rather un-pondered decision. I just did it. This is good in the sense that I'm comfortable enough with how things are to do it. It's bad because I have, in fact, been struggling with feeling like I should be developing some kind of alternate plan for my life. This latter is a consequence of the recent visit back to the US, when more than one person close to me was at least somewhat critical, in one way or another, of my expat lifestyle. That's hard.

Caveat: LA Timeless

The Los Angeles Times is the last of the major "metro" US newspaper websites that I frequently visit. I'm a news junkie, as many know, and I used to visit 3 or 4 different newspaper websites, daily. But first the Washington Post, and then the New York Times disappeared behind complex paywalls that, as a relatively impecunious international reader, weren't worth my trouble to overcome. That left, basically, only the LA Times. Perhaps my frequent deletion of cookies prevented me from noticing it, or perhaps they've only changed its implementaion recently, but the LA Times' paywall has been popping up more often, now, too. And the consequence is that basically I quit going there, just as I quit going to the NYT or WP in the past.

I'm not opposed to paying for web content in principle – I consume NPR as a donating "sustaining" member, and I've donated to other websites that use that "donor-based" pay model, where I value the content. But I much prefer the "voluntary donor" model of pay-for-content than the "sneakily block some content while teasing other content" model that has become nearly universal at US newspapers, for example. So my reaction to being repeatedly harrassed by these paywall widgets is to go find my web content elsewhere.

I have no idea if my reaction is anywhere near typical. But my own reaction can't be unique. And my consequential, rather low-key boycott of the paywalled media can't be unique, either. And so I am really not surprised at the sustained, long-term decline of US newspapers. Like Hollywood and the music industry vis-a-vis the pirates, this is really an example where the industry itself, in its retrograde movements to protect its traditional revenue streams, is destroying itself rather than adapting.

Caveat: I am a brief flash, the abstract

Dang if I’m not utterly blown-over-infatuated with this track, at the moment.

I basically have been listening to it all day. More than that, I’ve been reading the lyrics, too – like I would study a new, compelling poem. This is rap/hip-hop at the level of lyric poetry – in my opinion, of course: musical tastes are entirely subjective. But even if you don’t like the track, read the poetry. It’s good. That good, in my opinion: half cinema-noir, half lucid gnostic fantasy, a kind of philosophical dreamscape littered with the detritus of too much living.

What I’m listening to right now.

Doomtree, “Beacon.”

Doomtree is from Minneapolis. There’s an official video that goes with the song, but I don’t actually like the video, so I found a non-official recording with just the album cover for the youtube, above. I would urge you NOT to watch the official video, until after you’ve listened a few times, and read the lyrics, and formed your own opinion about what the song is about – the video cheapens the narrative. It doesn’t fit. I’m very glad I didn’t watch the video the first time I heard the track.

Lyrics.

[Dessa]
I took it for a kiss, but it couldn’t have been, could it?
I see now what it is, we were just biting the same bullet
You called it in the air
it landed it on its edge
when the crowd gathers around
you turn tail
I turn heads
Shavin down the puzzle piece
tryna make a clean fit
Take what is lovely
leave before the rain hits
It’s a heartbreaker for starters, as you age not too much changes
practice doesn’t make perfect, just makes the game more dangerous

[Stef]
Start repo
negative sleep nauseous
barf party for sure
intelligent creep stalking awkward
Flush flustered rush for doors
advance fire-plan
handy with the way out
routes explored
Cover catching up
careful with your care
We don’t go there, naw
We keep locks and keys steadily swallowed
never be followed, none of em dare
Channel up your anger leave it here
kindly disappear
Mind your mannerisms
I can’t be flattered back
The patterns the concern
lessons prolly turned to fact
By now you’d surely drown yourself
before you’d help me with this sail
I’m the wind
crossed fingers for the win
Up to ten til they hammer in the very last nail
Challenging like every last stalemate
Deal… with it
No mission ends
Precision lack of friends
Happily recommend nothing to no one, ever

[Cecil]
I know, I know
I know, wake up, wake up
But I don’t go there, go there
She knows the way home
I know, I know
I know, wake up, wake up
But I don’t go there, go there
She knows the way home

[Cecil]
You know your way home?
You gonna be all right?
Yeah, but I had faith that you’d see the light
and ride with me or kiss me goodbye
Now you got me feeding kites into the night sky
Covered them with nightlights – like, did you see the beacon?
I swear I let those kites fly around all weekend, no?
Well someone must have cut the lines or something, no?
Or maybe something, oh, you weren’t looking
…Ok Plan B just panic
run up the stairs and shut the door to the attic and don’t come up for air
until you’re torn from her fabric completely…
and just like magic, you’re all in one piece again
But, I’m nothing like I used to be…
elusive and reclusive
Now I’m just both times a hundred… exclusively
Truthfully, I was blind to the deep end
until that piece of us went and died that weekend

[Cecil]
I know, I know
I know, wake up, wake up
But I don’t go there, go there
She knows the way home
I know, I know
I know, wake up, wake up
But I don’t go there, go there
She knows the way home

[Sims]
Then it flashed forward, but I asked for it
Rip out the doubt, I’m way too south
I gulped it up, I laid back
peeling off the layers
the mantra saying “fear can’t stay here – self, see you later”
Fire chakra dissolve to ether
I have to meet her, I know she knows the way
I’ll have to die twice, no novocaine
See the Eye of Horace, I am Osiris
I meet the devil, it ain’t the first time
He kills me quick like I am nothing
Scream St. Peter, I need you now cousin
I see the owls coming, they float me safe
I learn their grace, they help me heal
under stars, peeling off my skin to rid my scars
it’s the first time I am reborn, but I am not me
No identity, and I am finally free< /span>
I am my brother, I am my father
I am the sun, I am the water
I am an ion, I am everything
I am the vapor, a cloud of smoke
I am a cheap laugh, but I get the joke
I am a brief flash, the abstract

I’ve been feeling more creative, lately.

Firstly, I made a rather creative dinner tonight, that came out quite deliciously: a tricolor rotini pasta alfredo with brocolli and cranberry and nutmeg. An unusual combination that I was quite pleased with.

Secondly, I’m trying to draw something every day. I’ve been messing with my pastels. Today, in about 10 minutes, I did the below self-portrait, while listening to this song. So now, every time I see this picture, I will think of this song.

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Caveat: Property is a form of theft

Although I have some sympathy at the ideological level with anarchism, I probably would never be a very good anarchist, because I like rules too much. I'm perfectly happy, most of the time, to live in a semi-fascistic (pseudo-fascistic?) state, like South Korea.

My feelings about Chomsky are conflicted, at best. Most people will say that the guy is a genius in the field of linguistics, but his politics are crazy. I'm perhaps unconventional in that I would be much more likely to appreciate his contributions to politics than his work in linguistics – and I say that as someone with a graduate degree in linguistics. It's not that he hasn't brought genuine insight to linguistics, especially the realm of syntax, but I have always found him to be stunningly hypocritical in his approach to his profession vis-a-vis his approach to politics. His pronouncements and conduct as the "founding father" (those are irony quotes) of modern syntax theory and much of analystical descriptive linguistics are strikingly authoritarian and patriarchal, which is, frankly, unbecoming of a self-proclaimed anarcho-syndicalist.

Having said that, I have strong sympathies to anarcho-syndicalism. I even sometimes will list my political affiliation as "moderate anarcho-syndicalist" which is deliberately ironic – to capture that I have sympathies to it without actually practicing it (i.e. ironic as to say "moderate radical").

Why am I writing about any of this, right now? I ran across a video that was a mash-up of a Chomsky speech from the 1970s and some hip-hop. It made me think about my views of revolutionary politics and of Chomsky in particular.

Do I believe property is a form of theft? Perhaps in the strictly marxian sense, sure: as a philosophical starting point. But it's theft within the framework of a broader social contract that "allows" such theft, and I'm all about contracts and rule-of-law – even in the case of essentially "unjust" laws.

The key to reform must include not just ignoring or protesting unjust laws, which is the fairly typical anarchist-left approach (e.g. Occupy! etc.) but also working hard to create societal consensus about changing unjust laws (a good recent example of that would be the emerging, truly revolutionary, new social consensus with respect to the issue of marriage equality). Most  forms of social protest tend to stridently alienate those in opposition (cf. Tea Partiers vs Occupiers) and as such, actually work against building the kind of longer-term societal change that would be of the most benefit. That, in a nutshell, is why I'm not an Occupier despite my ideological proclivities.

Caveat: And Stone And Moonchild

"One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries." – A. A. Milne.

I discovered a poem I had tried to write a few years ago. In a box. In Korea. Forgotten. So I wanted to work on it again. But it's not very good.

What I'm listening to right now.

Cibo Matto, "Stone."

… and …

Cibo Matto, "Moonchild."

Caveat: 망했다

I have a student who says this one phrase all the time. It seemed to indicate a kind of fatalistic and pained attitude with respect to assignments, tasks, homework, etc., as today when she took a look at a page of “paraphrasing” exercises we were working on and exclaimed “망했다” [mang-haet-da]. Finally, I broke down and asked, what does this mean. She said without pause, “ruin.” This was funny, but I suspected it wasn’t a very good translation.

Some research shows that the underlying verb, 망하다, does include a meaning of “ruin,” as well as “perish, die out, destroy, go bankrupt, crash” as well as “to be ugly, to be unbecoming.” But the googletranslate also gave me a hint when I found one fixed expression where the verb, with a slightly different ending, was translated as “damn.” In an online dictionary, I had found the example phrase “망할지 오랫동안 살아남을지 누가 알겠는가?” which is given with the translation “Who knows if it may sink or swim in the long run?” But the same Korean phrase in googletranslate gives “Long damn that would survive, who knows?” – which is undeniably utter nonsense, like most of googletranslate’s output – but it nevertheless provided that “damn” as a clue.

As a result of this research, combined with the evident usage by my student, I’ve decided that the pragmatics of the phrase are essentially, “Damn!” or perhaps “Crash and burn!” as it was used in certain programming circles I worked in, when some task was essentially impossible.

In any event, I like the phrase. Perhaps I’ll try to be brave and use it at the appropriate moment, sometime.

I finally used another phrase today that I’ve been hearing for ages and understood the pragmatics of, but which intimidated me because of how disconnected its literal meaning was from its pragmatics: 들어가겠습니다. The pragmatics seem to be, “take care,” in the way we use that phrase to say “good bye” in a familiar way. But the literal meaning of the underlying phrasal verb, 들어가다 is “to enter.” How does saying, “[I] will enter” end up meaning “good bye”?

Enter what? I’d like to know. One coworker explained, somewhat brokenly, that there’s an elided, never-stated, “my home” home in the phrase: “I will enter my home now.” I suspect it’s a little bit like Mexicans saying “andale” which literally means “walk on it,” but has the pragmatics of “that’s right,” or even “take care.”

But I used it and everyone just said other similar good-bye noises in an utterly unremarkable way. It works. Language is weird.

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Caveat: I am ADHD Zombie!

Fifth-grader Junyeol jumped up in the middle of class for no good reason. He does this quite frequently. Sometimes he will make outlandish announcements – most often, in Korean, but occasionally he'll get ambitious and say something in English.

This time, he said the following: "I am ADHD Zombie! So," and he proceeded to mimic a pretty convincing case of severe cerebral palsy, that ended with him simulating a sort of epileptic seizure on the floor. I am NOT kidding.

I was of two minds about this. On the one hand, his disruptions are frequenly annoying. And I was, as usual, growing tired of Junyeol's utter inability to focus. On the other hand, the kid has hilarious comedic talent. Finally, I laughed, and ran out of the room. I brought back my video camera, and after convincing Junyeol to come out from under Hongseop's desk, I said, "I'd like you to do that again."

"Why?" He said, insolently. Korean students say this often, but they mean "What?" They're directly translating the idiomatic Korean "왜?" which literally means "Why" but has the pragmatics of "What" in English.

"The ADHD Zombie thing," I eleaborated.

"So funny!" he commented on his own performance. "OK. One hundred dollar." He held out his hand.

"I'm not going to PAY you for it," I said. I thought about it. It was a pretty good performance. "OK. One dollar," I offered.

"Nooo," Junyeol said, folding his arms stubbornly and looking very serious, sitting back in his seat, finally.

Interestingly, having the video camera present in the room prevented further outbursts from Junyeol for the remainder of the hour. Unfortunately, another student named Jeongyeol decided the simulated epileptic seizure was good schtick, and tried his own version after accidentally falling out of his chair while combatively protesting that he was not, in fact, handicapped. I didn't feel compelled to film it – his version was more pathetic and less over-the-top comedic.

Caveat: Thank God Eh?

pictureDid you know that Canada has a strategic maple syrup reserve? Well, I didn’t either. I found out because I read on The Atlantic that someone has stolen some of its contents: $30 million worth. That’s a lot of maple syrup.

I turned to my coworker and commented on this. This was pertinent because my coworker, being Korean-Canadian, was possibly interested in this tidbit of trivia.

I said, “Canada stockpiles maple syrup. Who knew?”

Without missing a beat, he said, “Yea, but, I mean, thank God, eh?”

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Caveat: karma w/ odd icons

pictureThis image (at right)  was shared by a friend of mine in facebookland, and I “liked” it there, but it’s grown on me, so I decided to curate it here, too.

The concept is awesome, if somewhat simple. I don’t really like the “cleanse” metaphor – it is part of what I call the “purity ideology” that I view as damaging to human mental health. But I like the individual suggestions.

It’s the icons that have grown on me.  My aunt Janet said they were odd. I agree. But they’re also interesting. They’re thought-provoking. A cloud for greatfulness? The heart for love is simple enough, I guess. But lightning for checking motives? How’s that work? What’s it mean? And a price-tag for attitude? Priceless! Uh… maybe.

The best is an umbrella for “forgive.” How perfect is that?

Now when I open my umbrella, I’ll think of forgiveness.

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Caveat: 또 하루 멀어져 간다

Another day. Melancholy.
What I’m listening to right now.

김광석 – 서른즈음에
[UPDATE 2020-03-22: link rot repair]
가사.

또 하루 멀어져 간다
내 품은 담배 연기처럼
작기만한 내 기억 속에
무얼 채워 살고 있는지
점점 더 멀어져 간다
머물러 있는
청춘인 줄 알았는데
비어 가는 내 가슴 속엔
더 아무것도
찾을 수 없네
계절은 다시
돌아 오지만
떠나간
내 사랑은 어디에
내가 떠나
보낸 것도 아닌데
내가 떠나
온 것도 아닌데
조금씩 잊혀져 간다
머물러 있는
사랑인 줄 알았는데
또 하루 멀어져 간다
매일 이별하며
살고 있구나
매일 이별하며
살고 있구나

점점 더 멀어져 간다
머물러 있는
청춘인 줄 알았는 데
비어 가는 내 가슴 속엔
더 아무 것도
찾을 수 없네
계절은 다시
돌아 오지만
떠나 간
내 사랑은 어디에
내가 떠나
보낸 것도 아닌데
내가 떠나
온 것도 아닌데
조금씩 잊혀져 간다
머물러 있는
사랑인줄 알았는 데
또 하루 멀어져 간다
매일 이별 하며
살고 있구나
매일 이별 하며
살고 있구나

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Caveat: Athens vs Sparta (Kid A vs Kid B)

I frequently have "if I ran the hagwon" fantasies. And I'll admit, I've been somewhat disappointed in the putative "curriculum development" aspect of my job description – both due to my own failings and and due to the lack of genuine opportunities offered to do so. The constraints on what I can do about the curriculum at "KarmaPlus" are even more constrained than under pre-merger Karma, tool

But I still think about it a lot.  Lately I've been thinking, especially, about what might be characterized as the "fun vs work" dichotomy in parental expectations.

Some parents send their kids to hagwon with the primary intention that it be mostly "fun" or that it be educational but not, per se, stressful or hard work. I'm speaking, here, mostly about elementary-age students. At middle school and high school levels, the situation is substantially different, at least here in Korea. It's mostly about raising test scores, at those levels. But at elementary levels, it's definitely the case that many parents aren't looking for an academically rigorous experience so much as a kind of enriched after-school day care.

But then there are the parents already looking for the hagwon to inculcate discipline and hard work habits and raise test scores, even at the lower grades. They get angry and feel they're not getting their money's worth when their kids don't have a lot of homework, for example.

This creates a dilemma in managing the hagwon, because you have kids from both groups side-by-side in your classroom, and you have to be aware of that. I have exactly this, every day: Kid A and Kid B didn't do their homework. Sometimes, when kids haven't done their homework, we have a custom of making  the kids "stay late" (after the end of their particular schedule of classes) to finish their homework or do some kind of extra work to make up for  the missed homework. And the problem becomes manifest when Kid A's mom complains that we're not making her stay often enough, while Kid B's mom complains that we're making her stay at all. You can see the conflict, right? It creates inequalities in how we treat different students in the classroom, that eventually the students themselves become aware of. And that leads to complaints or classroom management issues, too. Eventually, there comes a moment when  Kid A is asking me why I'm not making Kid B stay. I can't really come out and say, "well, her mom complains when I make her stay, but your mom complains when I don't make you stay."

So earlier today, after my morning debate class and waiting for a middle schooler to come see me about a missed debate speech test, I began daydreaming a solution. Here's how I think it should be solved.

The hagwon should have two parallel "tracks" – a "fun" English and an "un-fun" English. Tentatively, because it's marketing gold, I would call these "Athens" track and "Sparta" track.

The Sparta track would be about what we have now: lots of grammar, daily vocabulary tests, long, boring listening dictation work, etc.  The Athens track would be my "dream curriculum" with arts, crafts, cultural content, karaoke, etc. There would be some shared or "crossover" classes, like maybe a debate program for the advanced kids or a speech program for the lower-ability ones, to ensure everyone gets some speaking practice.

The advantage of these two parallel tracks is that kids could be placed into either track based on parental preference. Further, parents could move their kids back and forth between them, depending on changing goals or needs. And lastly, the kids themselves would be aware of the dichotomy, and there could be substantial incentives related to the possibility of being able to be "promoted" to the fun track or "demoted" to the un-fun track. It would require careful design, but I think it could be a strong selling point when parents come in to learn about the hagwon. That we have not one system, but two, enabling a more individualized style of English instruction.

Caveat: Time Flew

5 years ago this morning, I arrived in Ilsan, South Korea, to start my English teaching job. I never would have imagined I’d be living in Ilsan 5 years later. But here I am.

I’ve been having a lot of ambivalent thoughts, lately, about my continuing stay here – mostly induced by circumstances and awarenesses raised by my recent quick visit back to the US. It is undeniable, though, that I’ve stumbled upon a lifestyle that mostly “works” for me – as strange as that might seem to others.

Here’s a photo I posted 5 years ago that I took of Ilsan’s Jungangno (Central Avenue, which I called Broadway for about year until I figured out its name), about a block from my old apartment (and about a kilometer from my current one).

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Last night we went out to dinner after work – all the coworkers and I. It was goodbye for a couple of departing teachers. People come, people go. I was laughing with Curt yesterday over how many different employers I’ve had since coming to Korea (6), yet mostly working with the same group of people in the same neighborhood (except for the oddball one-year-long fling down in the rural south, at the public school at Hongnong).

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Caveat: 아니, 맛없다

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The middle-schoolers were taking a test today. They are mostly multiple-choice tests. Students have various strategies for coming up with random numbers when they don’t know the answer – i.e., how to choose a), b), c) or d). My favorite is using their pen as a sort of die – throwing it down on the desk surface and letting how it points determine which letter answer to choose.
But another method is to use the Korean version of eeney-meeney-miney-moe, which goes as follows, in it’s most complete version (the kids mostly seem to use various abbreviations of this):

코카코라 맛있다
맛있으면 또 먹아
또 먹으면 배탈나
딩동댕동댕!
척척박사님 알아
맞혀주세요
딩동댕동댕

The content of the rhyme is something to do with the deliciousness of Coca-Cola, drinking it, and getting indigestion. How did the Coke Corp manage this bit of viral advertising? Is it beneficial to them? Who knows…
Referencing this rhyme is a short-hand way to reference the fact that students are overwhelmed by the test and thusly using random-number-generation to fill in the answers.
One of my students was saying, “Oh, Teacher! I can’t.”
I said, “코카코라 맛있다” (i.e. the first line of the rhyme: ko-ka-kol-la mas-siss-ta = Coca-Cola has great taste).
Quick as can be, the student came back: “아니, 맛없다” (a-ni, mas-eops-da = No, [it] doesn’t have great taste).
Indeed.
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Caveat: Always Departing

Today at work I learned that one of my favorite students (and one of my most long-term students, having had this student in class a few times even when I was working at LBridge in 2008~2009) is departing Karma. I've seen this person "grow up" and it's always amazing and remarkable to see.

At one level, I completely accept it – there's constant churn and turnover in this business, as parents all struggle with their own highly individualized decisions about that's best for their children, what they can afford, whether they feel they're getting their money's worth. And I was impressed with hearing that in this particular case, it wasn't just a parental whim but something that apparently resulted from a fairly long dialogue between the parent and the child. That's pretty rare in Korean families, still.

But at another level I'm wounded, as always when a well-liked student departs. I wonder if there was something I could have or should have done differently to help the student better. And it's in moments like this that I feel the resentment for the unbridled capitalist nature of this market and job, that seems to grant so many choices and so little of anything else of value.

The news left me moody, and then there was an ad hoc half-hour-long staff meeting after classes ended, as we try to solve scheduling conflicts that are resulting from departing teachers (yes, that too). The meeting transitioned me from moody to pissed off, as I struggled to understand, made an effort to contribute only to reveal my failure to understand, and ended frustrated beyond belief at why it is I subject myself to this bizarre existence. Why don't I get my butt in gear and learn this language?! Why. I'm trying. But it's just not easy.

Caveat: Details

During yesterday’s staff meeting, I listened carefully. Really, I should take my dictionary to the meeting – as it was, I didn’t take very useful notes. In fact, here are the notes I took during the meeting. All of them.

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The agenda for the meeting looked like this.

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You can see why I have no idea what’s going on. Although I can generally make out the topic-headers and try to pick out things I might need to ask about later, as pertaining specifically to me.

Really, this weekly experience builds my empathy for my students, who sit stone-faced and politely incomprehending, as I prattle on in class.

Curt likes to put little sayings and aphorisms on his meeting agendas. The one on this one says,

내가 원하는 사람이 되기 위해서는…

당신이 되고 싶은 사람이 되기 위해서는
하고 싶지 않은 일을 해야 하고,
듣고 싶지 않은 말을 해야 하고,
만나고 싶지 않은 사람을 만나야 한다.
워치 않은 일을 하지 않고
진정 원하는 일을 하는 사람은 없다.
우리는 누구나 당장 하고 싶지 않은 일,
어려운 일보다는
편하고 쉬운 것은 찾게 됩니다.
그러나 당장 하고 싶은 일,
편한 일부터 찾아하는 사람은
자기가 되고 싶었던 원래 모습과
가장 멀리 있는 자기 모습을
발견하게 욀 가능성이 그만큼 높아집니다.
– 조정민, ‘사람이 선물이다’에서

I may have made some typos in transcribing it. I wanted to try to translate it, but I haven’t, yet. Maybe sometime. I tried googling a translation (as opposed to googletranslating, which is utterly bad) and failed – so if you want a translation effort, you can plug it into googletranslate but don’t trust the result.  The author, 조정민 [jo-jeong-min = maybe Cho, Jungmin] wasn’t even particularly googlable – I think (but I’m not sure) he’s a preacher or pastor. I can’t sort out the search results on Korean websites very well.

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Caveat: Typhoon Holiday

I went to work today, and because of the typhoon, classes were canceled. We still had a long staff meeting, and everyone had some stuff to work on – I worked on my debate class materials for a while: since I have no textbook, I have to put my own materials together.

Sitting in staff meetings is quite stressful for me – perhaps the most stressful aspect of my job. They are conducted in Korean. I can only understand the broadest aspects of the content.  I compare it to taking a listening test that is too far above my ability level.

I got out of work early and walked home in the wind. I still think this typhoon is pretty wimpy, although there was plenty of leaves and branches being blown around.

Caveat: Wheee

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According to the locals, this is a big deal. Some schools are closed in Ilsan. But… no notice that Karma is going to be closed today. And looking out my window, so far, it seems kind of wimpy for a typhoon. I’ll get back to you.

I guess I’ll make like a Republican-in-Tampa, and adopt a more somber-but-still-upbeat tone.

The sky is full of fast-scudding clouds and luminous orange gray at 7 am. I’ll give it that. It’s a lot worse down south where I used to live in Jeolla-nam. I’ve heard about downed powerlines, etc. But here, I’ve seen worse on an entirely nondescript, average January afternoon in my hometown of Arcata.

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Caveat: what’s wrong with this article?

In class earlier, I had a student giving her considered opinion on a rather difficult article we’d read.

“It’s not good,” she said.

“What’s wrong with it?” I asked. “There’s something wrong with this article,” I agreed, elaborating. In fact, the article was a rather exaggerated rant that I’d adapted from a US newspaper website editorial about the horrors of government regulation. I expected the students to eventually figure this out, and express it somehow. “What do you think is wrong with this article?” I probed.

“I think… ” she began, thoughtfully. “In my opinion… after thinking about this a lot,” she continued. I was expecting her to nail the problem in the article at this point – she seemed to be on to something, anyway. But then, she concluded, “It’s too long.”

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Caveat: Memorializing the Time Travelers of London

I ran across the image below of what looks like a memorial plaque somewhere in London.

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It’s funny.

I also experienced this funny cartoon, below.

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These things are unrelated, except as being basically nerd-humor. I guess today, I’m nerdier than usual.

I’m predicting a very lazy Sunday for myself.

What I’m listening to right now.

Cephalgy, “Du bist das Licht.” Why do I listen to German goth-rock? I can’t answer that.

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Caveat: 영영

What I’m listening to right now.

나훈아, “영영.” [yeongyeong = forever].
[UPDATE 2020-03-22: link rot repair]
picture가사.

잊으라 했는데 잊어달라 했는데
그런데도 아직 난 너를 잊지 못하네
어떻게 잊을까 어찌하면 좋을까
세월가도 이직 난 너를 잊지 못하네
아직 나는 너를 사랑하고있나봐
아마 나는 너를 잊을수가 없나봐
영원히 영원히 네가 사는 날까지
아니내가 죽어도 영영 못잊을꺼야

잊으라 했는데 잊어 달라 했는데
그런데도 이직난 너를 잊지못하네

아니 내가 죽어도 영영 못잊을꺼야
아니 내가 죽어도 영영 못잊을꺼야

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Caveat: Bob Knob’s Daddy-O

Someone attempted to comment on a recent blog entry of mine – the one about PSY’s “Gangnam Style” song. The commenter was what I would I consider a troll – mostly by virtue of the fact that he (or she, but I suspect he, since he called himself Bob Knob – a very troll-like name, too) declined to provide a means for contacting him (i.e. the email address provided was invalid).

Because of the troll-like nature of the comment, I didn’t approve it. Yet I feel compelled to address his criticism, which struck me as nevertheless having some validity. Here is what Bob Knob wrote:

Ehhh… 오빠 (oppa) is what young Korean girls call guys that are slightly
older, in particular their boyfriends. The literal translation is “big
brother” (but guys don’t use it to refer to their older brothers), so
“Daddy-O” isn’t all that accurate.

First and foremost: duh. I know what 오빠 [oppa] means. I suspect that Bob Knob doesn’t know what ‘Daddy-O’ means. ‘Oppa’ literally means a woman’s older brother, but it’s used to address older men affectionately and also (and this is important) it’s used to address boyfriends. Daddy-O is not really current American slang, but in the 1960s it meant someone in authority but who was being addressed informally, and it also was used by some “hip” women to refer to their boyfriends. I seem to remember seeing it a lot as a form address between prostitutes and clients (and or pimps) during a particular epoch, too.

The term ‘Daddy-O’ thus means “informal flirtatious term of address directed by a woman toward a man, with vaguely incestuous connotations.” Which is exactly how I would define ‘oppa,’ too.

In that way, by translating ‘oppa’ as ‘daddy-o’ I try to capture that same semantic field (since in Anglophone culture there is nothing that resembles calling a boyfriend “brother”); but also, because the term ‘oppa’ is clearly being used somewhat ironically (same as the ‘manly man’) in the song in reference to the middle aged man singing it, I figured using an out-of-date slang term like daddy-o would serve that purpose well.

I was tempted to use the term ‘papi’ which is used in hispanic culture to address older men and espeically boyfriends – ‘oppa’ works similarly in Korean culture.

Well, anyway. I doubt the troll named Bob Knob will read this, but I felt compelled to respond with this cultural/linguistic observation. I should also note that this same “Gangnam Style” video has gone sufficiently viral in the US that there’s an extensive write-up about it at one of my favorite US news websites, The Atlantic. Max Fisher, the article’s author, himself pointed to an extensive write up by Jea Kim at her blog My Dear Korea (a blog which looks interesting enough in general to be someplace I may return to regularly). She further returns with a comment on Fisher’s article, in which she takes issue with just how revolutionary the video’s satire is – and in that, I’m inclined to agree with her – to see the video as revolutionary in a Korean context is to be rather myopic vis-a-vis Korean cultural history.

I’ll conclude with this fascinating bit of Americana. Watch it through to the end for some original Daddy-Os.

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Caveat: August 23rd

A spell of slightly cooler weather compelled me  to throw open my windows last night and sleep with the windows open. I slept much better, as I always do, when I do that.

My motivational deficit persists – I'm not doing any of the various projects I set for myself upon my return from the US, although I'm keeping up with work, if only just barely.

I guess this is a pretty pointless blog entry. I'm feeling very discouraged by life, lately.

Caveat: 22 2e E2 Ee

The mathematical phrase '22, 2e, E2, Ee' forms a sort of tongue-twister in the Korean language, because the English letter 'e' (used in e.g. natural log functions, etc.) and the number/digit '2' are pronounced the same way: /i/ (IPA).

So the phrase as a whole would be read '이의이승, 이의이승, 이의이승, 이의이승,' [i-ui-i-seung, i-ui-i-seung, i-ui-i-seung, i-ui-i-seung = two to the second power, two to the e power, E to the second power, E to the e power]. But there are added complications, too.  First, the genitive '의' [ui] is normally reduced to '이' [i] in rapid speech. The second problem has to do with the evolution of modern standarrd Korean versus regional dialect: middle Korean (i.e. around 1400 AD) was a tonal language, while modern Seoul dialect is devoid of tones. But some regional dialects retain the tones, and in those dialects, the number '2' and the English letter 'e' are assigned different tones. This makes the phrase less of a nightmare of pure homophones, but it ends up sounding quite odd and singsongy, and is difficult to sort out, if you try to get the tones right – not to mention sounding like a country bumpkin.

The real miracle of all this is that one of my students explained this to me. Pretty well, too.

Unrelatedly, this very smart student said to me today: "Teacher! I am very, very, very, very, very humble."

I laughed, and suggested she was maybe unclear on the concept of humility.

Caveat: 포켓몬

picturePokemon cards are harder to find than I thought they would be. One thing I discovered when I was visiting with my nephews in Arizona two weeks ago was that they were utterly absorbed, both of them, by Pokemon. They keep these organized little binders of cards (their mother’s influence), and it turns out the thing they would most like “from Korea” is Korean Pokemon cards (meaning the character’s names and stats are in Hangeul – the characters themselves are still the same Japanese ones, presumeably.
I found some finally yesterday (slightly out-of-focus picture at right). I’m not sure they’re specifically what was requested (they had a particular character in mind), but they are definitely Pokemon.
Also, I got my giant box of books that I mailed to myself. So it was a productive morning.
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Caveat: The Witch Must Be Killed

“Facebook isn’t Google; it’s Yahoo or AOL.” – Michael Wolff, at MIT’s Technology Review.

I find this observation to be almost obvious. The similarities with AOL’s “walled garden” of the 1990’s is especially notable, although in that case, at least AOL had a revenue stream in subscribers that facebook doesn’t have. And that being the case, facebook isn’t the next step forward in the internet’s technological revolution, but, in fact, a small step backward, which is probably temporary. The real revolution will come when the “social network” that facebook has universalized is successfully propelled out of that “walled garden” and into the wider internet. Google as tried with google+ (and failed, so far, in my opinion). Apple or Microsoft may give it a try, or facebook itself may pull it off somehow. But whoever does that will destroy facebook’s already shaky business model, and new revenue streams will have to be found fast, or the empire will collapse like a house of cards.

What I’m listening to right now.

Black Boned Angel, “The Witch Must Be Killed.” This is a “drone metal” group from New Zealand. My tastes are so weird.

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Caveat: Quick to Hope

I know people probably don’t wan’t to hear my thoughts on politics. But I’m feeling discouraged. Reading blogs like Stop Me Before I Vote Again doesn’t help. Here’s a writer named Al  Schumann (who sometimes gets on my nerves), capturing some of my thoughts with his extreme sarcasm:

The “nice” brand of advocacy has to take the form of pleas to participate in deranged comparison shopping. This is not just any lemon, ladies and gentlemen, this is a genuine proletarian lemon, certified by veterans of Students for a Democratic Society. It’s far superior to the bourgeois wingnut lemon. It enhances your unique sense of self. The neighbors will feel like fools when you drive off the cliff in style.

Does it matter how you look when you drive off a cliff?!

Is it that bad? Am I just in a bad mood? I like the phrase “deranged comparison shopping.” Now that’s US politics.

Here’s a meme-picture I ran across. Perhaps it resonates because I was one of those guilty of feeling hope – despite my evident lack of youth.

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“On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people.”

“Odd,” said Arthur, “I thought you said it was a democracy.”

“I did,” said Ford. “It is.”

“So,” said Arthur, hoping he wasn’t sounding ridiculously obtuse, “why don’t the people get rid of the lizards?”

“It honestly doesn’t occur to them,” said Ford. “They’ve all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they’ve voted in more or less approximates to the government they want.”

“You mean they actually vote for the lizards?”

“Oh yes,” said Ford with a shrug, “of course.”

“But,” said Arthur, going for the big one again, “why?”

“Because if they didn’t vote for a lizard,” said Ford, “the wrong lizard might get in.”

– Douglas Adams, in So Long, And Thanks For All the Fish

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Caveat: Egotistical Hogwash

I thought I was over my jetlag, but I awoke this morning at 5 am, wide awake – yesterday, I'd slept an entirely normal night. It's always weird how the jetlag sleep patterns resemble neither the origin nor the destination. I was dreaming that I was lost in a forest. Not particularly scary, but devoid of reason. Just… drifting. I felt like a ghost, almost.

Sometimes I'm a ghost. It's a good metaphor for me – it emphasizes those feelings of alienation and powerlessness that haunt me. My visit with my relatives back in the states gave me too much to worry about; too much to cogitate on. I want to just forget it, and drift away. This Ilsan bubble is safe. Comfortable.

OK. That's all egotistical hogwash. Sorry.

Caveat: Balloon Debate

Today in my debate class we were doing an activity called the Balloon Debate. I had the students each choose a list of 7 famous people to ride in our fictive hot air balloon. Then we had to discuss who gets thrown out. There were some humorous suggestions. In one case, Einstein was a passenger in the balloon, and he was thrown out. The student said: "He's a scientist. I don't like science."

In another case, Jisung Park (a famous Korean soccer player) was thrown out. The student responsible said, "He's healthy. He might survive." That's optimistic thinking.

Anyway, it makes for a great conversation class activity. I was very impressed with how the students got into it.

Caveat: Suffering That is Familiar

"People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar." – Thich Nhat Hanh

This seems to me to be a definition for depression. I just found it interesting – not sure that I mean to go anywhere with is.

Work has been sucking up my energy, once again. Getting back into the routine is hard, and I'm feeling some post-travel existential restlessness that saps my motivation.

Caveat: Right Turn Clyde

What I'm listening to right now.

Bloodhound Gang, "Right Turn Clyde." This song is definitely NSFW. So don't listen if you think you're easily offended. Please. Despite that, there was a period in my life, about 10 years ago, when Bloodhound Gang, laced as their songs are with obscenities to the point of very poor taste, was major soundtrack in my life. Listening to the song as it came around on my shuffle, I smelled honeysuckle and asphalt – the taste of the Los Angeles air. Odd that it should come around and bring up those memories just so soon after having been there.

The video… I have no clue what it has to do with the song. Seems random.

Caveat: tl;dr

picturetl;dr is a txt-speak abbreviation that means: “too long; didn’t read.” It’s what you write in response to a facebook post or blog post or email that wasn’t worth your time to consume.

During my recent visit in the US, I had a conversation with a person very close to me whom I shall not name, who essentially said this was why my blog was pointless and useless as a means of keeping those close to me up-to-date about what was going on in my life. My posts are either utterly impersonal, or they end up in the “tl;dr” category.

I suppose so. To be utterly frank, I didn’t really have a great visit back to the US, this time around. There were highlights, seeing people I care about. But … I got a lot of what I can only say is dismissive or frustrated feedback over my choice to transform what was intended to be an “adventure” into a lifestyle choice. Sigh.

Am I making a mistake, staying in Korea? If I were a good Confucian (which is not, by the way, my ambition – I’m just saying), I would return to the US, to be closer and more accessible to my family, so that I could “do right” by them. Instead, I camp out half-a-planet away, doing my own thing. Yes, it’s personally fulfilling. Yes, it’s what I want to do. But under a good Confucian, filial-duty ethic, it’s wrong.

Wow, that got deep fast. Ooops. I just meant to write about the tl;dr thing. And maybe I did: you can now respond, dear reader, with a succinct tl;dr. kthx bye.

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Caveat: A Banal Declaration of Lesser Banality

When I was visiting Whitewater, Wisconsin, two weeks ago, my bestfriend Bob made a suggestion which I have decided to take up: he said that my blog needed a "best of" category – something to for me to flag the more meaningful or better entries to stand out from the rest. I have sometimes used the "Life is a Dream" category in this way in the past, but that category was really meant to be for my dream journaling, such as it occurs.

Some categories definitely have pretty reliably higher-quality content. I would specifically call attention to what I've labeled "Kids & Cutenesses" and, of course, "My Poetry & Fiction." But these, too, may not have very consistently better writing. It's just that it seems to have worked out that way.

So I have created a new category which I have tentatively called "Less Banal Than Usual" to use to flag my "best of" blog entries. Unlike my other categories, I will only apply this category in retrospect – where, upon review and reflection, I think a particular entry is a "keeper" as some people say. I'm not sure it will work out. It will require me actively curating older blog entries, especially at the start. If anyone has any suggestions for things I've written that should be added to the category, let me know.

In other news… I slept 11 hours last night. This is unheard of. I finally let the double jetlag of my whirlwind North American tour catch up to me, and combined with the rainy day-off yesterday, I just let myself crash and sleep. Normally I sleep about 7 hours, regardless of when, exactly, this occurs. I guess I was tired.

Unrelatedly, I ran across the following humorous quote on somebody's facebook: "If I had a dollar for every time I got distracted, I wish I had some ice cream." This is very appropriate for me.

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