Category: Banalities & Journaling

Today was a very long day. Karma had its talent show for elementary kids. I think it was at least moderately successful. I shot some video but I will have to edit through it see if any of it is of sufficient quality to post.

After work, the Karmites went out to eat. I tried to follow the conversation, but it wasn't always possible. I always recognize who is being talked about, and the general topics, but I still miss too much of the detail. So I just sat quietly and listened, mostly.

I'm feeling pretty good about work. The contract renewal is in progress – I'm staying another year. I don't think there will be any major complications. Anyway.

More later. Tomorrow is a holiday in Korea – it's called Children's Day. I'm going to get out of the house.

[Daily log: walking, 3 km]

Perhaps as a tribute to my one year anniversary in this Ilsan apartment, I tried rearranging my furniture a little bit. I have a desk and a sofa – those are my bulkiest items. I have no bed – I long ago fully adopted the Korean custom of throwing a blanket on the floor, for sleeping – I just fold it up and put in a corner during the day. A few times I have fallen asleep on my sofa, but although it's comfortable to lounge on and was worth every one of the 150 bucks I spent on it last May, especially reading a book, it's not a pleasant place to sleep.

So last night I had this idea to somehow get my desk closer to my window area, but that puts it close to the sofa. It makes for a more open, roomy apartment with all the crap crammed into one end of it. I don't think I like the feel of it. But now I'm too burned out to rearrange it again just yet. Maybe later. I do like sitting close to the window, now that it's suddenly summer – I can look out at the next building's rooftop garden thing and hear the city noises.

This is my second post for today. I feel lousy. I'm posting this to my blog because I have a rule, now, that I have two posts per day no matter what. So you can read this and think, wow, it looks like Jared posted something new to his blog again. But in fact, it will be disappointing, because this is just a kind of metatextual place-holder with no actual blogular content for you to enjoy or ponder or depreciate or ignore.

Over the last several days I’ve come down with a truly horrendous cold/flu (감기). My voice sounds low and gravelly and halting. It’s a good thing work has been relatively undemanding, as I still have a reduced teaching schedule due to the middle-schoolers’ mid-term test-prep time, but our upcoming first annual Karma talent show is demanding that I do a lot talking in the classes I do have – we’re practicing songs and skits with my elementary students. I end each day voiceless and hoarse.

I awoke to rain tapping on my window. Tippa. Tappa tappa.

I feel slow… that feeling when you wake up, that you're not sure who or where you are, for a moment. Reality takes time, re-integrating.

I've been reading a novel called Aquella Montaña Tan Lejana, which is a translation into Spanish of Korean novelist Wanseo Park's 그 산이 정말 거기 있었을까. Amazing, what can be found in Seoul's bookstores, eh? I haven't gotten very far into it, yet. I'll provide some thoughts on it, later, maybe.

Last night, at 1:20 AM, a very loud and scary-sounding alarm began to sound in my building. I woke up, startled. My first thought: I opened a window and listened to the world outside, to see if it was part of a broader civil-defense alert (e.g. North Korea finally going off the deep end). Relieved that that didn't appear to be the case, I figured two possibilities: 99%) somebody messing around and made a mistake; 1%) an actual fire in the building. I opened my door into the corridor, and exchanged blurry glances with a neighbor guy down the hall. We shrugged. I went back in, grabbed my little "documents" box and threw it into my backpack, slipped on some shoes, grabbed my cellphone and wallet, and went down the stairs, seven floors, to the lobby of my building.

There were many people loitering around. But no evidence of fire trucks, nor was the night-watch doorman/parking-lot dude anywhere in evidence. I exchanged meaningless glances with some deeply annoyed-looking women. The night-shift man in the 24-hour convenience store off the lobby (with whom I have a "nod hello" acquaintance since he's always starting his shift when I stop in there on the way home from work to buy my bottled cold corn-tassle tea or orange juice or milk) didn't seem to be noticing the alarm at all.

The alarm stopped. I went back up the stairs, because the elevators seemed stuck on some upper floor. I stopped and peered in a few of the floors on the way back to the seventh. Nothing really going on. I went into my apartment, and put down my bag. I figured if it was a real fire, the alarm would start again, but I was also feeling stressed because it seemed likely that it could go off again, if it was the result of someone's mistake. So I stayed awake. I fired up the computer and surfed the internet, and tried to watch an episode of the Daily Show. I thought about my "emergency response" plan. I actually have one – I keep all my important documents in a plastic box which I can grab easily (as I did this time). And my laptop sleeps in my backpack, too. And I have a detachable harddrive with file backups that I can throw into it easily. I looked around my apartment, and wondered if there was anything else I'd regret hugely to lose, in an emergency. Hm… I'm kind of a pack-rat, especially with books and papers. But … I'd let go of most of it without being plunged into depression, if it had to happen. And so… whatever.

I feel like I didn't get a very good night's rest, though.

It's 21 C (that's 70 F, approximately). First time even close to that temperature, since last Fall, I think. Well, time goes on. Spring is my least favorite season in Korea – it's often smoggy around Seoul, and that's when the Yellow Dust (from Mongolia, laden with Chinese characteristics) is worst. But it often has beautiful individual days, and seeing the flowers and trees bloom is often beautiful, too.