Category: Banalities & Journaling

Caveat: The Sun Was Orange

Banalities & Journaling / My Photos

I was walking away from the Hugokmaeul neighborhood where I work after my early-ending Friday, over a foot-bridge across Ilsan-no. I looked west-northwest toward the Yellow Sea and China and North Korea off to the left there, in the haze, and the sun was orange. It looked very big, hovering there in the afternoon haze, but in the photo I took it doesn’t look very big. Or orange.

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I went to a bookstore and bought some EFL materials – I’ve been tasked with making a “Debate Textbook” at work, the first thing that resembles, vaguely, the “curriculum design” aspect of the job description I’d discussed with my boss before accepting the position. I’m excited about it – I hope I can do a good job.

I didn’t sleep well last night – not sure why. I’m feeling restless in a very undefined way. I’ve been getting more exercise. I walk 4 km. every day, mininum, in my round-trip commute to work.  Plus, I even went jogging in Hosugongwon (“Lake Park”) twice, last week. I have a little, approximately 3 km. long, route that I’ve been trying to follow. So far I’m still stuck with the extra kilos that seem to be one of my least-loved Yeonggwang legacies.

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Caveat: the metaphysic of the test

Banalities & Journaling / Less Banal Than Usual / Media (Texts/Music/Movies etc) / Philosophy & Cultural Criticism / Teaching & Methodology

Or: how I learned to stop worrying and love the test.

pictureThis blog entry emerges from a typo I found in a book I’m rather casually perusing.  The book is Formalism and Marxism, by Tony Bennett.  The book is one of those lit-crit books that I picked up out of my mother’s collection during my last visit to Queensland in January.  It examines the relationship between the Russian Formalists and more recent works – I was attracted to it because it discusses Althusser and Eagleton, specifically.

Anyway, I’m not reading it very deeply.  Some of it is familiar if somewhat stale territory, and certainly the fact that it’s now almost 40 years old dates it somewhat in the realm of lit-crit.  But actually I don’t want to talk about marxist literary criticism or Terry Eagleton (who would have been one of my marxist muses had I ever written that PhD thesis on Cervantes, perhaps, along with Frederic Jameson and Gilles Deleuze).

You see, on page 157 of the paperback edition of Bennett’s book, there is a typo.  Instead of saying “metaphysic of the text” it says “metaphysic of the test.”  And the thing is, I’ve been thinking about tests a lot lately.  Tests are a big part of work in education, and especially, Korean education, and more especially, Korean hagwon-based eduction.  The test is the thing – the only thing.

I have been developing a new feeling about testing.  Part of this is influenced by certain fragments of data emerging from the bigger world (see my  blog entry from a few weeks ago, for example).   Part of it is trying to make peace with the huge discrepancy between my dreams and ideals about education (which are vaguely Waldorfian and deeply influenced by my own unusual educational experiences in alternative “hippy schools” during my elementary years, during which tests were essentially verboten) and the reality-on-the-ground here in Korea (which is that testing is god and all bow down before it).

Running across this typo, in Bennett’s text, caused me to perform a bizarre mental experiment.  Instead of replacing the word “test” with “text” in the evident error, I decided to replace the word “text” with “test” in the subsequent paragraph.  Here is my sublime paraphrasing of Bennett’s idea, then, reframed as being about tests, rather than texts (I’ve italicized the original typo and bolded my substitutions).   Bennett is writing about the thought of Pierre Macherey, so my substitution game has inflicted on Macherey some thoughts about tests that I’m sure he never had.

More radically, Macherey breaks unequivocally with what we have called ‘the metaphysic of the test‘.  Urging that the concept of the ‘test‘ or the ‘work’ that has for so long been the mainstay of criticism should be abandoned, he advances the argument we have noted above: that there are no such ‘things’ as works or tests which exist independently of the functions which they serve or the uses to which they are put and that these latter should constitute the focal point of analysis.  The test must be studied not as an abstraction but in the light of the determinations which, in the course of its history, successfully rework that test, producing for it different and historically concrete in modifying the conditions of its reception.

The thing is, the quote mostly still works fine, despite this substitution.  This is because texts and tests are obviously related, from a metaphysical standpoint.  They both are functional, performative emissions of a broader cultural and ideological context.   And it leads me to an insight about my changing attitude to testing:  tests are not abstractions, but emerge from concrete cultural conditions and serve broad social purposes above and beyond just pedagogy:  they’re disciplinary systems and indoctrination engines as much as they are evaluative tools.

Here’s what I’m beginning to think:  it’s not so wrong to “teach to the test” as we say.  But let’s teach to the test in an enlightened way, making kids aware of the functions these tests serve, and openly discussing the role they serve in society and their strengths and weaknesses.  I recall, specifically, some concepts about “conscientization” in the context of Liberation Theology, to which I owe a huge debt to a certain professor Hernan Vidal at the University of Minnesota – one of those incredible teachers that leaves a permanent change with a person’s way of thinking about and seeing the world.

The idea of teaching to the test with an admixture of “conscientization” regarding the ideologies of the modes of production that are embedded in these tests, in the context of trying to be an elementary and middle school English as a Foreign Language teacher in Korea – well… let’s just summarize by saying:  “easier said than done.”

But… it’s possible.  With a modicum of humor, hints can be dropped.  Smart kids get it – I’ve done it before.  Now, I’m starting to feel I have a philosophical frame or justification for doing so.  And I’m making peace with the test.

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Caveat: Remember OK Soda?

Banalities & Journaling

Not much going on. The weather is turning summery – which I don’t like. I’m not really into summer, although I like it OK when it’s raining, which it does a lot during the summer in Korea.

pictureMonday is my hardest day, but yesterday because it was “end-of-month” the schedule was rearranged so they could give achievement tests to the middle schoolers. I still had a lot to do, but fewer classes. I spent my free periods preparing for my debate class – I want to do a good job on this, as it’s the only class I have that’s “mine” in the sense that I’m being allowed to innovate my own curriculum.  More of that will come with time – I knew there would be a lot of settling in, first. I have to see where things are before I can go somewhere else.

My apartment is a mess ever since I got my stuff. I unpacked everything but I don’t have a lot of storage. So… piles. Need to sort and organize. I always procrastinate on that.

OK. Nothing important to say. Remember OK Soda? That’s how I feel.

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Caveat: Fish & Furniture

Banalities & Journaling

I’ve been pretty stationary since starting my new job. I realized I haven’t even ridden a bus or subway in several weeks. Ilsan is so walkable, so I just walk places.

I decided I needed to go somewhere, and my friend Mr Choi invited me to Suwon, so I took the subway/bus combo down there yesterday. He met me with some of his friends and we drove to some middle-of-the-nowhere place on the west side of Suwon where we went to a restaurant-combined-with-furniture-shop. These hippy-ish Koreans making hand-crafted furniture and delicious food.

After it was over, I helped Mr Choi with proofreading the English of some materials that are part of his latest business scheme (he’s always got a business scheme or three going). One has to be non-perfectionist with these things – try to catch the worst of it, and let a lot of the less horrible errors go past. Otherwise it makes the correction proof a red blur of ink. People seem to have this misconception that the output of Google translate is good English, which it most certainly isn’t, most of the time.

Here are a few pictures.

Me in the restaurant with the delicious food.

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Some hand-crafted furniture.

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A functional reproduction of an 18th-century Korean crane thingy of the sort used in the construction of the famous Suwon fortress.

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Sunset.

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Caveat: What On Earth

Banalities & Journaling / Found Online / Life is a Dream

This short animated movie made a huge impression on me when I saw it, as a child, on the big screen, at the Minor Theater in Arcata. I’m guessing it was 1972 or 73, maybe. I never forgot it, although I forgot (or never knew) its title. And the other day, surfing the internet, I found it. It’s still awesome.

pictureI remember we used to go to movies at the Minor and then go to a restaurant called the Epicurean afterward, where I was strangely addicted to these peculiar vaguely counter-cultural sandwiches that included chopped lettuce, cream cheese, and olives.

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Caveat: Feeling Appreciated

Banalities & Journaling / Kids

pictureA month after leaving Hongnong Elementary, I am still receiving text messages (and picture-messages) from various former students almost daily. Sometimes I don’t even recognize the name – that’s frustrating, to imagine having had such an impact on students I don’t know that well. My heart is touched.

pictureAt left and right, some cute pictures from a pair of sisters who were evidently messing with their cellphone.  Below, a little message that appeared on my phone last night, from one of the fabulous 4th graders. A cultural note: Koreans use the phrase “I love you” quite freely – both in their own language and in English. I was told repeatedly by my group of semi-anti-social 8th-graders, last night, “I love you.”  There were elements of both irony and sincerity in these declarations. Nothing is quite so surprising to an American as having a guy who looks like a junior-varsity football player with a page-boy haircut making a “hand heart” and outright saying “Teacher, I love you.” Of course, I’d just given him a “pass” on his homework.

I’m still working on that project to scan some of the “goodbye letters” that the Hongnong kids made for me.

.

hi? im kim ji min .*”””*..*”””*.
* L O ♡ V E *
“* Y O U *”
.”*. ♥ .*”.
☆._.”**”._.☆

hi? im kim ji min .*”””*..*”””*.
* L O ♡ V E *
“* Y O U *”
.”*. ♥ .*”.
☆._.”**”._.☆

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Caveat: Truly Monday

Banalities & Journaling / The Wonders of Work

Yesterday was truly Monday.  Under my new work schedule, which has now started, I had seven classes, with a single one-period break, in the stretch from 3:30 to 10 pm.  I told Curt that it felt like I had finally had my "first day of work" initiation.  He laughed, and asked, "and how was it?" 

Not too bad.  One small class of 8th graders were just as I remember my most recalcitrant and obnoxious previous experiences with 8th graders.  It's like trying to teach a room full of lazy comedians suffering from severe sleep deprivation.  Wait… that may be close to accurate.  Other than that group – which I suspect I may be discussing further in the future – it wasn't bad.  Mostly I stuck to my lesson plans and stayed happy and calm.

The staff room was rearranged on Saturday after I left.  I knew it would be – they had to accommodate the other new teacher.  It's a pretty cramped space, but I was surprised to find my desk placed at the end of the double row of desks.  I was very surprised. 

Korean "office arrangements" are very interesting, and often deeply reflect positions within the explicit hierarchies.  I'd been given what any Korean would identify as a "second-in-command" position.  I felt awkward about this.   Was it a deliberate attempt to joke about or flout those conventions?  I sat down self-consciously and played at arranging things on my desk, and the office manager guy came in and asked if I would be happier if my desk were turned sideways (which would break the hierarchical feng sui).  I said, yes, maybe.  Then I joked, no, it's ok, this way I can be 팀장 [tim-jang = team leader].  All the other teachers laughed at this.  I still feel a little bit strange about it.  

Caveat: Another Day Above Ground

Banalities & Journaling / Quotable

"Any day above ground is gonna be a good day." – unattributed quote seen at a blog by someone named alice on My Modern Metropolis – an arts and design blog that I've been spending a lot of time at recently.

I wish I could find the gumption to try to do more drawing and painting like I used to.  I looked all over my apartment, though, and there wasn't any gumption.  Maybe later.

Caveat: 53) 이 세상을 좋고 나쁨으로 분별하며 살아온 죄를 참회하며 절합니다

Banalities & Journaling / Buddhism & Zen / Found Online / Kids / The 108 / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

“I bow in repentance of any misdeeds lived and discerning this world good or bad.”

This is #53 out of a series of 108 daily Buddhist affirmations that I am attempting to translate with my hands tied behind my back (well not really that, but I’m deliberately not seeking out translations on the internet, using only dictionary and grammar).

…
51. 이 세상을 많고 적음으로 분별하며 살아온 죄를 참회하며 절합니다.
       “I bow in repentance of any misdeeds lived and discerning this world, more or less.”
52. 이 세상을 높고 낮음으로 분별하며 살아온 죄를 참회하며 절합니다.
        “I bow in repentance of any misdeeds lived and discerning this world high or low.”
53. 이 세상을 좋고 나쁨으로 분별하며 살아온 죄를 참회하며 절합니다.

I would read this fifty-third affirmation as: “I bow in repentance of any misdeeds lived and discerning this world good or bad.”

Maybe it should be “through good or bad.” I felt tired, last night, just looking at my new schedule. I have a lot of preparing to do in order to be able to approach all my classes confidently. I’m especially hopeful to do a good job with the single high-level debate class Curt asked me to put together – since it’s the one spot in the schedule where he’s decided to use me as an innovator as opposed to someone just going along with what’s already in place. I really liked the LBridge debate program, so I suppose that forms the basis of what I want to do, but I will have to make it “my own.”

Unrelatedly, another miscellany: my student Yewon misses me. I miss her too – she was one of the most awesome fourth-graders ever. Here’s her email.

to. jared teacher
Hello, teacher!! my name is jeeny (yewon)
Im very miss you ㅠㅠ
teacher how are you? im so,so+.+
teacher good bye~~
from. jeeny (yewon)
내 친구 은총이 이름으로 보내요!!

pictureLastly… maybe unrelatedly, again… here is a candid picture of Han and Chewbacca, at right, discerning the world through good or bad – legostyle.

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Caveat: The Work Schedule

Banalities & Journaling / The Wonders of Work

My “real” schedule has finally been created. It will make me busier. For anyone who’s curious. The start time is 3 pm, although I may come in earlier some days, if I have a lot of preparing to do.  And one reason I like the idea of working for Curt as that for the most part, he will be OK if I decide to leave early if I’m done teaching, so Tuesdays and Fridays I may be able to get out early sometimes.

2011년 6월 (JUNE) – | – T e a c h i n g S c h e d u l e
Class Time 월 화 수 목 금 Time 토
Morning… Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri   Sat
Period 1. 15:30 Boost-B / Phonics Boost-B / Phonics Boost-B / Phonics 14:10 PN1a+b-T / CC
Period 2. 16:20 ER1a-M / CC EP2-T / Listening 15:00 TP2-T / Debate
Period 2. 17:10 EP1-M / Listening PN1b-T / Listening EP1-M / Listening PN1b-T / Listening 15:50 PN2-T / Listening
Period 5. 18:00 PN1-M / Listening PN1a-T / Listening PN2-M / Listening PN1a-T / Listening ER1a-M / Listening 16:40
Period 6. 18:50 PN2-M / Listening TP2-T / Debate PN1-M / Listening TP2-T / Debate 17:30
Period 7. 19:10 RN1b-M / Listening 18:20
Period 8. 20:28 RN1a-M / Listening 19:10
Period 9. 21:15 RN1b-M / Listening RN1a-M / Listening PN2-T / Listening
Evening…    

Caveat: Angels Advertising Something-or-Other

Banalities & Journaling / Found Online / The Wonders of Work

I don't have much to say that could pass for interesting or deep or philosphical.  So here's a video I saw recently that I liked, a little bit.  I think it's an ad for some product or service.  But clever in the field of pubic, interactive, conceptual art, I guess. 

It's feeling humid and summery. So far, my new job has been stunningly un-stressful. I almost feel guilty. I get along with everybody – there are none of the complicated work personality tensions that I associate with my last two Korean jobs, at LBridge and Hongnong Chodeung. But further, my boss has been unable, to far, to give me a full schedule – so I have had a very light class schedule, so far, too. I suppose if there's been any downside, it's only that, just as I was expecting, I'm struggling to be a "good teacher" for the middle-schoolers – they're a whole different set of requirements compared to elementary kids, and I'm not sure I'm very good at connecting with them. Perhaps, deep inside, I'm too much of a stunted, fragile, perpetual middle-schooler, myself?

Caveat: Why is it dark?

Banalities & Journaling

I think I've managed to acquire that "new school flu."  I slept very restlessly, last night, and woke up wondering why it was dark, thinking it should be morning, at one point.

I spent the day yesterday unpacking and trying to sort through some of my "stuff" – I have a lot of books, but no book case yet.  Need to look into that.  I have all these papers I saved – lesson plans, kids' work – I'm sentimental, I guess.  I will look into paring this down to essential.  I want to get around to scanning and posting some of the "goodbye letters" that my students at Hongnong made for me – they're very cute and often touching.

Anyway.  More later.

Caveat: Stuff!

Banalities & Journaling

My stuff arrived, today. Rather than going and fetching it, I paid to have some 택배 (delivery) people to bring it to me from lovely Hongnong Town. It was easy to arrange with my friend Mun-chan mediating the interaction. Here is a picture of my stuff, in my apartment.

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Now, with all this stuff, my apartment isn’t so bare.

I have a sofa, too. I bought a used sofa. It is comfortable. Does this symbolize my commitment to staying in Korea for the long term? Maybe.

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That’s a quilt that my mother made, that she sent back with me from my visit to her in January, from Australia. My mother makes nice quilts. It’s thrown over the back of the sofa. My apartment will become very homey, I think.

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Caveat: More Random Linguistics

Banalities & Journaling / Language & Linguistics

I like to pick up those free community newspapers when I see them lying around, like in the lobby of my apartment building. I will scan through, looking for examples of Korean that I might actually understand.

Opening at random, I found an advertorial alongside an ad for an English hagwon that was actually quite intriguing – a discussion of that question that utterly fascinates Koreans: “why is English so freaking difficult?”

The answer, according to this particular hagwon owner, is that it’s all about grammar and sentence structure. This is a commonplace, and hardly controversial, although it’s a rather one-dimensional argument. English and Korean essentially have maximally divergent sentence structure, on the spectrum of all the world’s languages. In syntactical terms, one might generalize that Korean mostly builds its (chomskyan) parse trees right-to-left, while English builds its parse trees left-to-right, or maybe center-out (English is more complicated in that it has trees growing in either direction, in this matter, but it shares this trait with all of its Indo-European siblings).

What intrigued me were a pair of graphics, which showed mappings of Korean phrases to various other languages. The first graphic shows how all the phrases had to shift position in the movement from Korean to English, but how those phrases and grammatical elements essentially “stay in position” in the mappings between various European languages. The second graphic shows how the phrases and grammatical elements “stay in position” between Korean and Japanese. The take-away is that, for Korean speakers, European languages, including English, are therefore more difficult, while Japanese is easy. This is an observable phenomenon, but I’m genuinely impressed with how clearly these simple graphics illustrate what is a difficult concept to explain.

Here is a picture I took of the article – you can click it to see a larger image and hopefully make out the two graphics I’m talking about.

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I mean, if you’re interested. I’m kind of weird.

And since I was unloading my camera, here’s a random picture of some springtime blooming trees in a parklike area not far from here.

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Caveat: Híŋhaŋni wašté!

Banalities & Journaling / Language & Linguistics

The phrase "Híŋhaŋni wašté!" means "good morning!" in the Dakota language, one of the Siouan dialects spoken historically by the Native American people who live in western and southern Minnesota.

Back in 1992~93, I studied the Dakota Language.  There's an actual community of speakers in Minneapolis (a city that has a Native "name" that's different from it's modern name:  Bdeota – a term etymologically connected with the name "Minnesota," believe it or not).

The University of Minnesota had (still has?) a department of Native American Languages that teaches not just Dakota but also Ojibwe as living foreign languages.  As a habitual language geek, how could I resist?  So I took Dakota as a night class, for a semester.  Dakota is a rich and complex and, in my opinion, beautiful language, and I have often thought that someday I would like to return to studying it.

Yesterday, I spent part of Buddha's Birthday online, researching Dakota pronunciation – as I sat on a rainy holiday Tuesday in my apartment in South Korea.  Why was I doing this?  The story is a bit complicated.

My best friend, Brother Bob, is a music teacher and choral conductor in Wisconsin.  Sometimes, he sends me these "Ask A Linguist" styled emails, where he tries to get my insights on things that will relate to a piece of music he's working with.  Over the weekend, he sent me an email about a choral music piece that included some bits in the Dakota Language.

The unfortunate thing about Dakota is that is part of a broad spectrum of Siouan dialects, which are very different among themselves.  Further, much extant Dakota and Sioux literature was written down by non-experts.  The consequence of these two factors is that spelling is quite non-standard, if not downright obscure (somewhat like English spelling, right?). 

So Bob was asking me about how to pronounce the snippet of Dakota he had.  Here's the original text he sent me.  It includes a close translation by the transcriptist.

Sioux Ghost Dance Song, transcribed by Louis Ballard

ÄH-THE HEY-EY OO-YOU,
MÄH-KOH CHĒ-WU W’SH-TE CHĒ’CH’OO (p)BĒ-CHÄ,
YÄH’-NEH BEEKT’EH OO-YOU,
ÄH-THE HEY-EH OO-YOU.

When Ballard gives the translation, he omits the diacriticals and prints the text in lower case. “Vocables” refer to non-sense syllables that are common in Native American songs.

ah-teh (father) hey-eh-oo-you (vocables) mah-koh-che-wu- (the earth) w’sh’te (good) che’ch’oo (p) be-cha (which I gave you) yah-neh beekt’eh oo-you (you’re going to live again) an-teh (father) hey-eh-oo-you (vocables).

Bob followed up with a different version/spelling of the same song, yesterday morning.  Here's what he sent me.  I've "activated" his link.

I found a reference to a recording of a song that may be the one used by Louis Ballard:  
 
 
Now I'm trying to find the actual recording. Chances are it's available online somewhere, or at a library near me, but I haven't located it yet. Anyway, on p. 11 of these lp liner notes (which is what's available from loc.gov online), the song is transcribed thus:
 
Ate heyelo, Ate heyelo
Makoce wan waste ni cu
pi ca yamipika
 
meaning
 
Father said, Father said,
A Country that is good is given to you
So that you will live.
 
Let me know if this jogs your memory of Dakota phonetics further!

So the question is, how are these things pronounced?  Neither of the above matched my recollections of canonical contemporary Dakota orthography such as it was taught to me during my study of the language at the University of Minnesota.  So I wasn't very helpful.  I remembered, vaguely, some things about difficult consonant clusters and de-voiced (whispery) vowels.

Bob finally sent me the phrase "Híŋhaŋni wašté!" which means "good morning," along with the link to its pronunciation that he'd found.   I remember this phrase from my Dakota class, vividly.  You can hear the de-voiced vowels clearly, at that link – it sounds like Japanese, a little bit, which makes sense, since that's another language with prominent de-voiced vowels (think of the final -/u/ in a phrase like 元気です [genki desu = "I'm fine"]).

I sent him some of my observations, which I've repeated above.  I wish I was in Wisconsin – I want to hear how this piece sounds when he performs it.

That's the story up to this point.  And this is the strange way I spend some of my free time.   Habitual language geek, indeed. 

Thanks, Bob.  Love ya.  Good luck with that piece of music. 

Caveat: 부처님 오신 날

Banalities & Journaling / Buddhism & Zen / Life in Korea

[bucheonim osin nal]: literally, “the Day the Buddha came.”

So.  Happy Buddha’s Birthday, everyone! Or…  “Vesak,” as it’s called in South Asia. Kind of a Buddhist Christmas, conceptually, but celebrated in a more low-key day.

pictureIt’s my second holiday in less than a week (after Children’s Day, last Thursday), but not terribly easy to exploit, given that I had to work on the interleaved days.

I felt useful at my new job for maybe the first time, last night – and it wasn’t even for my teaching, which is still reliant on the old schedule and therefore random substitutions. I was helping with a spreadsheet. Shades of my last career.

It’s pouring rain and feeling summery, here. There are pigeons battling in the puddles on the ledge outside my window – I’m not sure if it’s a territorial battle or something related to pigeonish procreation. Or maybe both.

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Caveat: Never doing anything

Banalities & Journaling / Found Online

“I don’t know why you want to live in the city.  You never do anything.” This is what my friend (and now boss), Mun-chan said to me, once, when I was telling him about the trials and tribulations of my life in exile down south.

And.  He’s right.  Now that I’m back… I don’t do much.  I sometimes develop a plan to do something, but then, I don’t do it. Yesterday, it was raining, and I lost my motivation to go out and about.  So, what’s the point of life “in the city”? I like the accessibility of things. And, I’ve come firmly to believe that urban life – especially high-density urban life – is actually a lower-impact, higher-sustainability type of lifestyle. That means something to me, I guess.

pictureOn that note, I found the most awesome webcomic (called “pictures for sad children” [NOTE: The original comic is offline, but is archived by US Library of Congress]), while surfing, earlier. And this little two-frame (at right) really puts the idea animal rights and veganism related movements in perspective. It’s totally accurate – the things we do in “building and maintaining” our civilization has just as much impact on animals’ lives as our specifically food-producing activities – and on a much broader range of species, too, I’m sure. I’m not meaning to turn this into a rant – it’s just a funny, thoughtful little comic.

So I guess I’ll get back to not doing anything.

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Caveat: No Children

Banalities & Journaling

Today was that remarkable Korean holiday called "Children's Day."  Families spend time with their children.  It's charming.  I have no children – only the surrogates, who are my students.  But it being a holiday, I didn't see my students.  Hence that sad, ironical experience:  I saw no children on Children's day.

Caveat: Walking Home in the Dark

Banalities & Journaling

A defining feature of working at hagwon on an afternoon/evenings schedule:  walking home in the dark.

So far, it's been pretty unstructured.  My new job mostly has involved me being a substitute teacher for my overworked and stressed out fellow teachers.  That's OK.  It gives me a chance to get to know the students a little bit, and get a feel for how things work.  But there are all these snippets of familiarity, of course – unlike any "new" job I've ever had, before.  I know my boss, he's a friend.  I know all the other people who work there, from my many visits over the years.  And even some of the students know me – some were my students way back at LinguaForum, and there's even a refugee from LBridge's apocalyptic collapse. 

I was reflecting as I walked home tonight, that this business of coming back to a job in such a familiar context is, in itself, something new for me.  Normally, once I abandon a job and "move on," I never go back.  This business of circling back… well, I do it a lot in my travels, but almost never in my career.  Experiment. 

Caveat: … as usual

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / The Wonders of Work

No first day at a new teaching job in Korea is complete without at least one schedule change and/or at least one unplanned-for new class.  These types of things don't really bother me, actually.  But it's worth noting that all other differences aside, some things are always the same, this being Korea, and all.

Jus' sayin'.

Actually, I'm in stunningly high spirits.  We'll see how that pans out in the face of actual students.

Caveat: Gaack!

Banalities & Journaling

pictureI woke up feeling congested and flu-ey. And then, looking at the local weather online, I saw why: 황사 [hwang-sa = yellow dust] – Seoul’s spring scourge, fresh from the Gobi Desert. See the cute, yellowish, disgusting cloud icon, at left?

The sky definitely has a yellowish cast to it. I closed my window.

Today is my first day of actual teaching, at my new job. I will have middle-schoolers – I haven’t taught middle schoolers since I was at LinguaForum, in 2008. I remember that my success with this age group was much less of a sure thing than with the elementary students – so I feel some anxiety, I suppose.

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Caveat: 48) 나만을 생각하여 하늘과 땅을 더럽히며 살아 온 어리석음을 참회하며 절합니다

Banalities & Journaling / Buddhism & Zen / The 108 / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

“I bow in repentance of all the stupidity which comes alive to dirty heaven and earth [by] thinking of only myself.”

This is #48 out of a series of 108 daily Buddhist affirmations that I am attempting to translate with my hands tied behind my back (well not really that, but I’m deliberately not seeking out translations on the internet, using only dictionary and grammar).

…
46. 세상의 공기를 더럽히며 살아 온 어리석음을 참회하며 절합니다.
        “I bow in repentance of all the stupidity which comes alive to dirty the world’s air.”
47. 세상의 물을 더럽히며 살아 온 어리석음을 참회하며 절합니다.
        “I bow in repentance of all the stupidity which comes alive to dirty the world’s water.”
48. 나만을 생각하여 하늘과 땅을 더럽히며 살아 온 어리석음을 참회하며 절합니다.

I would read this forty-eighth affirmation as: “I bow in repentance of all the stupidity which comes alive to dirty heaven and earth [by] thinking of only myself.”

I’m not sure about the “[by] thinking of” in the above. The ending -여 is most likely a simple finite verb ending – normally 하여 is contracted to the extremely common 해, but I seem to recall reading somewhere that in formal discourse (such as Buddhist affirmations?) it stays uncontracted. The real question is, how does such a simple serial verb, tacked onto the front, function semantically? – at the very least, I didn’t really see how it fit in with what follows, syntactically. But the “[by]” is the only interpretation that broadly makes sense, philosophically, to me. So I made it a sort of “adverbial of manner” from a semantic standpoint.

Or maybe I’m thinking too much of only myself?

Lately, here, heaven and earth have seemed mostly dirtied by the vastly huge quantities of rain we’ve been receiving. Over the long, long winter, one always forgets how much rain falls in Korea during the non-winter parts of the year. I mostly associate the deluge-like rainfalls like we had yesterday with high summer – but I guess the monsoons are starting early this year.

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Caveat: Courage and Conviction [Not Really]

Banalities & Journaling / Politics, Economics & Current Affairs

This morning, it dawns rainy and thundery.  I sit in my new apartment and watch the water droplets pattering on my windows.  I may go to work today, although my contract doesn't actually kick in until Monday, because I'd like to have as much advance notice as possible with respect to my teaching schedule.

So.  Meanwhile.

Typically, if I follow the upheaval in the Arab world, I do so with quite a bit of distance.  I love the Arabic Language, and would someday hope to study it more (I did pursue it, briefly, while in grad school).  So I've long held a lot of interest in the culture and the region, but it's often been tempered by a feeling of despair with respect to politics:  the chances of ever flourishing what one might term progressive dreams.  The never-ending stream of news about repressions and demonstrations and military interventions and resistances all seem circular and futile.  To be frank, I don't spend a lot of time following the region's news, because it's generally depressing.

In my web-surfing last night, I happened across a blog entry that moved me to hope, however.  Hope for humanity and progress and genuinely ethical (meaning unhypocritical) behavior.  I recommend reading it – if you care about rational political discourse (amazing), if you care about human rights (very human), if you're interested in questions of true human equality regardless of religion or gender or sexual orientation (each of these relevant and addressed), if you believe in the possibility of genuine unconditional love of a parent for a child (stunning).

The Syrian woman's conclusion showed such a degree of personal courage and conviction that I felt moved almost to tears:

"So, when my father says he will not leave until either democracy comes or he is dead, I have no choice but to stay. Not because he is making me, but because he is not making me."

I have hope for Syria.  I've long thought of it as a much more nuanced place than it is typically portrayed in the Western media.  Read it – be inspired. 

[UPDATE 2011-06-13:  I have learned that this woman's blog was a hoax – the author was not a woman, not Syrian, and not gay.  The compelling nature of the writing remains, but one feels a bit bit less inspired, eh?]

Caveat: Returned From Exile

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea

My self-imposed one-year exile in Hantucky is officially ended. 

The incontrovertable sign of this:  I have internet DSL in my new apartment.  Instead of the almost 2-month waiting period I was subjected to in Hantucky, metro Seoul does these things in about 12 hours, from moment of request to installation.  Admittedly, the delays in Hantucky were due to my employer, not due to the internet provider. 

Nevertheless, these differences are meaningful and worth comparing – my employer here is on my side.  That's really the difference.

Nevertheless, I'm really missing my Hongnong kids, at the moment.  I received the following message on my cellphone, last night.  Charming.  Heh.

안녕하세요~

Caveat: Coming Home

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / My Photos

Moving back to Ilsan is like moving home, a little bit.

The new apartment isn’t perfect. I knew it would be very small – it’s marginally bigger than my last Ilsan apartment and it’s about the same size as my Yeonggwang apartment, but it’s older and a bit more run-down on the edges than either of those. Smallness, per se, doesn’t bother me at all. I wholly desire and approve a compact lifestyle, for the most part – the only reason I can think of to want a bigger apartment would be in the event that people came to visit me that wanted to stay with me – but in my almost 4 years in Korea, only one person has ever done that.

It’s also nice to have “full kitchen” which this place, like the Yeonggwang apartment, doesn’t have. But I can cope. I will buy some inexpensive furnishings that can help make up for that. Once I get the rest of my stuff here, it will feel like home. As it is, it’s pretty “bare” – I told Curt I would buy my own furniture, so I have to do that. Not going to buy a bed – I’ve gone native on that, and have no issues sleeping on the floor. It’d be nice to have a sofa of some kind, but that’s not super high priority. A small table or desk, and some shelves, I definitely need. I already bought a hanger-thing for my clothes – there’s no closet, which I may miss a bit – the thing I liked best about my previous Ilsan apartment was the relatively generous closet and storage space.

Okay. Enough of all that. No complaints – it’s entirely within the parameters that I was expecting. And of course, it’s in Ilsan. That boils down to the old dictum: location, location, location. Going across the street to the “Orange Mart” is like an entire day-long trip to Gwangju, as far as shopping opportunities. I bought some french whole-grain mustard, spinach and tricolor pasta, and cheddar cheese this morning. Plus the infinite variety of more typical Korean things that are buyable.

The building is about a kilometer northwest along Jungangno from my previous Ilsan apartment – which places me about 2 blocks from the Juyeop subway station and about 1.5 kilometers from my place of work.

Here are some pictures. The first one, I’m looking up at my building from the outside, from in front of the Orange Mart – I’m standing on the southeast corner of the intersection of Jungangno and Gangseonno (and isn’t it amazing, I know the names of all these streets now, which I once-upon-a-time didn’t, for several years, even).

I drew a giant green and gold arrow pointing at its location on the 7th floor – that’s my window that you can see open, there.

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Here is from that little window, looking almost straight down and a little toward the street (note the “rooftop garden” on the next building across).

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Here is a view from a less precipitous angle, looking toward the Orange Mart and the intersection (roughly east-north-east).

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Here is view from the corner by the window, looking toward my kitchen and the entryway – bathroom door is open on the left middle.

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Here is a self-portrait of me sitting on my bedding in the corner by the window, pirating an unreliable wifi connection. I’ll get internet of my own soon, I hope – meanwhile, this is uploaded from a wifi in a nearby cafe.

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Caveat: Hangoogopolis (Capital City)

Banalities & Journaling

I came to the capital.   Tomorrow, I will hopefully get to see – and move into my new apartment.  For tonight, I'm hotelled – my standby "love motel" in Ilsan was full! – so I had to use a different one around the corner… slightly higher price, no wonderful view of Jungangno.  How aggravating – must be springtime or something, so everyone's using the love motels.  Ha.

Word of advice:  don't give your cell phone number to 200 first through fourth graders if you have any issues whatsoever with a constant stream of phone calls that consist primarily of "hi teacher!… what?  OK, bye teacher!" and mysterious text messages in Korean with many emoticons.  Actually, I don't really mind.  It's sweet, in a way.

Caveat: 얄러뷰

Banalities & Journaling / Kids / Less Banal Than Usual / Life in Korea / My Photos / The Wonders of Work / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

Two of my first-grade students, Min-gyeong and Dan-bi, wrote “I love you 얄러뷰” in a big heart in their good-bye message.
I was trying to figure out “얄러뷰” – but it’s not Korean. I think “yal-leo-byu” is a transliteration of “I love you” – sound it out!
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I got portraits of the fourth-graders today. Here they are.
4-1:
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4-2:
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4-3:
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The 4-2 class did some role-plays today, and I took a few pictures.
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I am going to miss Ye-won especially (on the left, below).  The other day, she said to me:  “I will hate the new teacher, already, because you are the best teacher.”  That’s way too good for my ego.  Plus, her English is pretty good, eh?
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Here I am goofing around with some fifth- and sixth-graders during recess today.  Note that the girls provided me with a disguise – can you tell it’s me?
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Here are some memento photos of the cafeteria during lunch time.
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My lunch tray, and my co-teacher Ms Lee across from me.
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Here are some boys hamming for the camera.
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Finally, here are some kids brushing their teeth at the communal teeth-brushing place:
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I am going to miss this school so much. Should I have stayed?  Maybe.
I will not miss the feeling of isolation, which was exacerbated by a school administrative office that is xenophobic and stunningly incompetent, and which conducted itself without exception with utter disregard for my status as a fellow human being, despite my substantial dependence upon them for my outside-of-work day-to-day living.
I think that one way to put it is that I will miss the weekday 9am~5pm part of this experience intensely, but I will not miss the weekday 5pm~9am part of it not at all. And that, when you get right down to it, is not a good proportion for a sustainable lifestyle.
I have learned hugely, this past year – about myself, about teaching, about children and about what’s important in the world. I hope I can keep these lessons alive in my heart and carry them back to Ilsan and my next job.

Caveat: Countdown, 24 Hours

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / My Photos

Today is my last teaching day here at Hongnong. The feeling is bittersweet. I hope I’ve made the right choice, in deciding to move on – one always has those moments of second-guessing oneself.

I was originally planning to jump on a bus tonight, but because some of my coworkers wanted to take me out to dinner tonight, I have decided I’ll be leaving tomorrow morning.  So the countdown to leave Hongnong is 24 hours. I will be back at least once, to fetch the rest of my stuff – I’m only taking what I can carry on the bus, tomorrow – I’ll have to fetch my boxes of books and kitchen stuff (meanwhile stored with a friend here in Hongnong) with a car (maybe a friend’s, or worst case, rental) over some weekend in the near future.

A view of the alley on which my apartment building (owned by the school) is located.  My student Seon-yeong actually lives in the farmhouse on the right – it’s one of the old-style courtyard farmhouses.

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Caveat: Lotus Flower, Paper Boat

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / My Photos / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

pictureNo, I mean nothing Buddhist.

I’m packing. I’m listening to Minnesota Public Radio’s “The Current” (dumb name, great programming). Radiohead’s “Lotus Flower” comes on. Nice track.

So. Where did I get all this crap? Wait… don’t answer that. I’m packing.

I went to Gwangju for a few hours, today. It was stupid – I needed to get some cash, and my bank has no local branch in Yeonggwang County. So I used it as an excuse to say “goodbye” to the City of Light, and procrastinate on some packing.

Inside the Gwangju subway, they post poetry. At the 송정공원 station, I saw this poem (above, right).

I had brief feeling of linguistic victory, as I managed to parse the first two lines of the poem without having to resort to a dictionary. The poem’s title is “Paper Boat.”  I think that’s what it’s about. The narrator launches a paper boat into a stream from a bridge.  Etc.

The Gwangju subway is desolate and not very useful. It only has one line. Mostly old people ride it. Here is the context of the poem I saw on the wall – note – there’s no one in the subway on a Sunday morning.

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When I was leaving my home (well, my apartment, and only for two more days!) earlier, I walked past the school’s playground, and took a picture of some springy trees.

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What I’m listening to right now.

Radiohead, “Lotus Flower.”

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Caveat: Roleplayings

Banalities & Journaling / Kids / My Photos / Teaching & Methodology

Yesterday was my last day with the third graders. It happened to coincide with “role play day” – a once-a-chapter event (about every two weeks given the current curriculum) that I very much have cherished. So some pictures were taken. This year’s third grade group lacks the charm and grace that I felt last year’s cohort had (who are now my beloved fourth graders), but they’re still a lot of fun.

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Some of the third graders came to visit me later at lunch, and showed me an earnest, unexpected tribute – they’d written my name on their hands.

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Also, I was visited by some fifth graders during lunch, one of whom had a hamster (there’s some kind of hamster fad plaguing the school’s student body, currently). I think it would be a very stressful life (and perhaps a rather short one, too) to be a hamster in a Korean elementary school.

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Caveat: More Food… No, More Food

Banalities & Journaling

Last night, I went out to dinner with my friend Mr Kim.  I wasn't really in the right state of mind to go out to dinner, but since I'm leaving Yeonggwang County in a matter of days, I wanted to get together one last time. I struggle with the Korean fetishization of food, sometimes – we went to a gulbi place in Beopseong (what else?).  So much food gets wasted, since any "true" meal requires zillions of side dishes, most of which are only sampled.  It's a weird food fetish, that works differently from the flat-out gluttony embedded in American culture:  you must be willing to eat anything, and keep eating, but it's not as volume oriented.

Mr Kim, nuclear engineer, is struggling with the fact that in order to get promoted at work, he has to transition to being able to present his training materials in English.  Now that I'm going, he's losing an English practice friend.  Likewise, I'm losing one of my better Korean Language teachers.  I'm sure I'll see him again, as he comes up to Seoul at some point or I make a trip sometime to Gwangju.

It's raining today – you could taste something almost summery in the air last night, and in Korea, summer means rain.   I have two teaching days left, and a weekend in which to try to pack my stuff together.  I'm feeling a little bit stressed by that, and sad at all the kids saying goodbye.

Caveat: Don’t Look Now…

Banalities & Journaling / Life is a Dream

I had dream in which I was riding around Ilsan in a minivan with some people I didn't know.  The streets were dirty, more like Yeonggwang than Ilsan, and there was a row of decrepit and unhappy-looking palm trees along the street, such as you see in 2nd tier urban aglommerations here at the southern end of the peninsula but almost never in Seoul, where the few-degrees-colder climate seems to put a stop to such fantasies.  I said I needed to stop at a bank.

We stopped at a bank, but it was only a collection of ATM machines – there were no employees inside.  I went to an ATM machine, but there was nowhere to put my ATM card – no slot.  The machine was very new and large touch-screen display.  But how could I use it without knowing where to put my card?  I couldn't find an "English" choice on the screen, either.  I walked to the next machine – same problem.  I turned around to see that one of the men from the minivan was following me around as I tried to find an ATM that had a slot for my cash card.  He had a black and white beard (beards are very unusual in Korea).  I tried to explain my problem, and he smiled sympathetically but had no useful advice. 

I decided, in my dream, to go back outside.  I walked over to the minivan with the bearded man, but some policemen had showed up.  They were "inspecting" the minivan, and arguing with the driver.  Suddenly, a man jumped out of the back of the minivan and took the policeman's wallet and ran off toward the bank.  As the policemen turned around, the back of the van opened and 3 or 4 Mexicans (yes, Mexicans) jumped out and ran off among the apartment buildings of Ilsan.  One of them was a grandmother.  Whaaaa? 

That's when I woke up.  What does this dream mean?  It means I shouldn't go to sleep listening to NPR with reports on Arizona immigration enforcement and the financial crisis. Or maybe it was the pizza I ate.

Yesterday I had dinner with my fellow foreigners-in-Yeonggwang at the Pizza Club in Yeonggwang.  Dan is also leaving, returning home to Oregon.  Donna (the other f-in-YG from my April "cohort") has renewed at her school, and is therefore staying.  I will miss these people, although I acknowledge I didn't socialize with them that much.    Perhaps some of them will come visit with me, some weekend, in Seoul.

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