Category: My Photos

Caveat: The fly

Banalities & Journaling / My Photos

Sitting in meetings is the single hardest aspect of my job. Sitting, listening the rapid exchange of Korean dialog about students I know well and curricula I have opinions on, quickly evolves into a difficult exercise in quiet restraint and acceptance of a state of unknowing, in the face of the unbearable desire to be in control and have my strong ideas heard.

Yesterday, it occurred to me that it becomes exactly like a moment of sitting in quiet meditation, while resisting reacting to a fly walking across my face.

Yesterday, walking to work in a snowstorm, I took this "selfie" while waiting for a green light to cross the street at one spot.

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I look old. Or at the least, cold.

I like snow, though.

[daily log (1130 pm): walking, 5 km]

Caveat: thundersnow

Banalities & Journaling / My Photos

It's a little bit hard to see but there are fat slushy flakes falling… and I hear thunder, standing looking out the front entrance of karmaplus.

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[daily log: walking, 5 km]

Caveat: Time Is Powerful

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling / Kids / My Photos / The Wonders of Work

The topic is hair.

Yesterday, Wednesday, I had a lot of CC classes with the elementary kids. We play pop songs and the kids try to understand the lyrics and sing along – there's software that's pretty well designed to support this. Of course, the hardware resources (laptops and projectors) at the hagwon are always half-broken and still make this kind of technology-oriented class a challenge for us. But, well… it works out.

Mostly the pop songs are pretty recent: Adele or Katy Perry or whatever. But sometimes it seems like these really old ones appear. I was confronted with trying to present the Bee Gees "How Deep Is Your Love" to a group of 4th and 5th graders.

Students screamed and wailed in horrified protest. It was qualified immediately as "Old!"

Also, "느끼!" [neukki = greasy, sleazy, cheesy].

And finally, "Teacher! Too much hair!"

Indeed.

What I'm listening to right now.

Bee Gees, "How Deep Is Your Love."

Speaking of too much hair, I got a similar comment from a middle school student who goes by Pablo last week, when I happened to show him a very, very old photo of me that my brother had sent to me in my little care package.

Here is the picture.

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I'm pretty sure that is me and my brother near Minnehaha Falls in Minneapolis in the early 90's – I'm almost positive that's when it was.

Pablo gazed at the picture, and said, "Is that you?" Then he said, "Wow. Teacher, you had so much hair!"

"Yes," I agreed.

And then Pablo said, reflectively, looking me up and down now, "Time is powerful."

Indeed.

[daily log: walking 5 km]

Caveat: Expansion. Contraction. Silence.

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling / Cancer / My Photos

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There was something expansive in my illness. It forced me to open out into the world and confront things head on. Guilt and self-recrimination evaporated – there was no time for it. I took on the world, drew it into myself, embraced it.
This last month has felt like a sort of contraction – a narrowing, a closing-in upon myself. And there has been a resumption of guilt and self-recrimination.
It all seems to run like a stop-motion movie of a flower growing, opening, then wilting and dying and falling away. Cancer flower.

Seasons for the wrong reasons: spring becomes fall, through a summer of desperation.
Yet from a standpoint of my simple physicality, doesn’t it seem like the effect should be opposite? Shouldn’t I have plunged into a temporary field of decrescence only to rise out and emerge whole again afterward?
The psychology of this thing has me puzzled.
I have indeed been in a very strange mental place, this afternoon. I’ve been listening to classical music continuously. I guess what’s called “contemporary classical”: John Tavener, Arvo Pärt. Bobmusic, I have called it in the past. When is the last time I did that? Many, many years.
What I’m listening to right now.

Arvo Pärt, “Silentium.”

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Caveat: Just A Rainy Saturday

Banalities & Journaling / My Photos

Chilly, rainy autumn Saturdays like today are the reason I fight to stay alive.

Pictures from the walk to work and the walk home.

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What I'm listening to right now.

Lou Reed, "Perfect Day." Lou Reed passed away on Sunday.

[daily log: walking, 5 km]

Caveat: Perhaps too soon for svekolny or borsht

Banalities & Journaling / Cancer / Food & Drink / My Photos

Before my mom leaves on Thursday, I really wanted to go to my favorite restaurant and eat real food, instead of just eating around the edges of real food at various places which is my current capacity. So we went to Seoul and did some souvenir and gift shopping and also visited my favorite restaurant, which is the Russian place that keeps changing its name near Dongdaemun.

We ordered lots of things. I was more-or-less able to eat some svekolny and borsht, but having some dumpling and kefir where perhaps pushing a step too far. The biggest obstacle: my mouth's sensitivity to acidity and spice in foods is less than it has been, but it's still a big problem.

Anyway, we had some Russian food which was very delicious, we bought some books and other things in and around Insa-dong, and we walked around some.

Tomorrow I work, so today was really my last chance to be "tour guide" for my mom and Jacob. They'll fly back to Queensland on Thursday.

Here's a picture at the Russian restaurant.

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[daily log: walking, 2.5 km]

Caveat: 신선노리에 도끼 자루 썩는줄 모른다

My Photos / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean) / 한국어 속담 (Aphorisms & Proverbs)

This is a proverb from my proverb book.

신선      노리에    도끼    자루   썩는        줄           모른다.
sin·seon no·ri·e  do·kki ja·ru  sseok·neun jul         mo·reun·da
faerie   play-LOC ax     handle rot-GER    likely-fact not-know-PRES

[A man] at play with the faeries doesn’t realize [his] ax-handle is rotting.
The book explains that it is based on a fairy tale about a woodcutter who goes into the mountains and plays with wood nymphs or sprites and forgets the world, and only awakens from his reverie as a bent old man with a rotting ax-handle. It seems similar to the story of the lotus-eaters in Homer, but there are many stories of people losing track of their regular lives in lost reveries by falling under enchantment.
In looking up the proverb online, there seems to be a more common grammatical variation on this proverb that begins “신선 놀음에…” – this is just substituting 놀음 (a gerund of the verb “to play”) for the related noun meaning “play”.
I doubt this temple-panel picture has anything to do with the story, but it seemed to share something of the same atmospherics, at least to my mind.
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Caveat: Driving Around Ganghwa Island

Banalities & Journaling / Hiking & Travel / My Photos

I drove around Ganghwa Island (강화도) today with my mom, Jacob, Helen and May. First we went to lunch and had traditional galbi-style cook-at-the-table fare. Then we went to 전등사 [jeondeung temple], which I'd visited with my friend Peter [broken link! FIXME] exactly one year ago. Finally, we drove up and saw a site called 연미정 [yeonmijeong], an old fortress location where Joseon Korea surrendered to China in a humiliting historical moment in the 17th century, but where now you can also look across the Han River estuary at North Korea.

Here are some pictures.

First, the temple.

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Next, the fortress.

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That's North Korea in the far background.

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A picture of all of us, taken by a nice man who was looking at the North with some binoculars.

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After all that driving around, we were tired, but then my boss Curt invited us to dinner with his family – his wife Migyeong and his daughter Nayun and son Baegang. So we ate 칼국수 [kalguksu = homemade noodle soup] made with lots of mussels (바지락) for dinner. Jacob ate a very large amount today but he wanted ice cream when we got home. I think he has recovered his appetite. Now we are home resting.

[daily log: walking, 2 km]

 

Caveat: work and then worked

Banalities & Journaling / Cancer / My Photos

I walked to work and then worked. I'm feeling pretty tired – burning out some from work and visitors and all that, and really, really annoyed and sick and tired of how long it's taking for my radiation-damage to heal. I still can only eat soft things and there are still constant migrating sores in my mouth, and it's been over three weeks since the radiation ended.

Here is a picture the fall-colored trees along the middle of the street in front of work – KarmaPlus Academy is the yellow sign with blue and red lettering on the building that is in the dead center of the photograph.

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[daily log: walking, 5.5 km]

Caveat: Hiking some in Bukhansan

Banalities & Journaling / Hiking & Travel / My Photos

I will post some more pictures from Jacob's and my hike over the ridge at Bukhansan.

We entered the park with my mother at 진관사 [jingwan temple] on the western edge, near the Gupabal subway station. Ann accompanied us through the temple and a few hundred meters up the trail until it suddenly got very steep on a rock face, then she went back down and waited for us while we went all the way up to 비봉 [bibong = bi summit]. Jacob actually went up to the summit but I was feeling a bit acrophobic after the trail up, so I waited for him.

Then we proceeded down from the ridge to the other side, where 승가사 [seungga temple] was. That temple is much more inaccessible than most temples, since it requires a minimum of 2 km of hiking. It was quite beautiful. Then we walked down the long driveway (closed to traffic) and exited the park in a neighborhood called 구기동 [gugi neighborhood]. From there we took a 20 minute taxi ride back around to where we had started and re-met my mom.

Here is a map, where I tried very roughly to estimate our route by following contour lines.

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Here are some pictures (unlabeled / roughly in order).

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[daily log: walking, 4 km; steep hiking, 5 km]

 

Caveat: Catching Up

Banalities & Journaling / My Photos

I said I'd post some more photos from the Sokcho trip. Here are few from my camera (i.e. phone) – somewhat out of order but from 낙산사 and 속초.

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Mostly, I wasn't taking pictures because my battery was running down too fast and I'd forgotten my charger. So I have "borrowed" some pictures from Jacob – who is the person who should be credited for the excellent photography, not me. Here are some of his from 낙산사 and 진전사.

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At work today things went OK, but the atmosphere was a bit tense and I ended up feeling pretty gloomy about it. I wish there was a way for me to help solve the problems of those around me, but basically I'm helpless. My efforts and work are not good for much, and furthermore I'm a bit handicapped at the moment, by my pain and the limitations of my own capacity for teaching and working. Helplessness is a hard feeling to struggle with.

[daily log: walking, 6 km]

Caveat: Dragging More People Up a Mountain to a Temple

Banalities & Journaling / Buddhism & Zen / Cancer / My Photos

I dragged Ann and Jacob up Gobong mountain to 영천사 [yeongcheon temple]. I felt guilty about it afterward because I always like tromping along the trails more than most people I know and care about, but my mother felt it was a positive experience and Jacob said it was interesting too. I was glad she could see the little temple there – I find it very peaceful there.

Ann and Jacob are watching a cute chipmunk that was leaping around the kimchi pots on the hillside.

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Later, I went to work but I didn't have to teach any classes. I had a few pleasant conversations with coworkers and talked for far too many hours with Ann this evening. I really enjoy the conversations I can have with my mother more than most any other conversations I have – she and I, for obvious reasons, have a lot of common interests talk about and similar ways of talking about things even if we don't always agree. But… well, the only but is that my mouth isn't in the right condition for so much talking. So the end result of so much talking was that I felt like I should have shut up hours ago – it aggravates the post-radiation sores in my mouth to flap my tongue so much.

Harrumph. And so I whine at the internet and call it a night.

[daily log: walking, 7 km]

Caveat: KFV

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

Today my friend Helen (a current coworker) invited Wendy and me to go to a "Korean Folk Village," located in Yongin, which is on the southeast perimeter of the megalopolis (whereas I live in the northwestern part). Another friend, Kelly (a former coworker) with her son who is 8, came along too. So the five of us drove down there and spent about 6 hours being tourists. It was fun.

Here is a whole bunch of pictures. I won't caption all of them, but provide comment on a few.

Wendy and I posing in front of some jangseung near the entrance.

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Some little ceramic statues of peasant people.

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Two Chinese tourist kids held rapt by a Korean potter demonstrating his art.

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Some dancing / samulnori performers, marching out.

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A giant pile o' people, spinning around impressively, to excellent rhythms – the medieval Korean breakdancing tradition.

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Kelly with her son jumping rope.

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A very pleasant looking reading room in a "mansion."

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A kitchen with a lot of garlic.

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We all ate lunch. Pictured are Kelly's son, Kelly, Helen and Wendy.

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A really calm, beautiful courtyard in a structure.

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Some ducks in the lake.

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A run-down looking pavilion highlighted by the afternoon sun.

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The lake, held back by a small damn across the stream along which the KFV is built.

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A group portrait.

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It was a good day.

[daily log: walking, 4 km]

Caveat: Antiques

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling / Cancer / Hiking & Travel / My Photos

I had a kind of lazy morning, viewing this as my last day of my “radiation holiday” – although I’m only returninig to work part-time, tomorrow, October 1st, I still feel that the pressure will begin to mount to return to full-working status. I both look forward to it (because I like my work and I miss the kids) and dread it (because if I’m feeling like I am still, currently, work is going to be pretty hellish).

Then I got fed up with sitting around, so despite the burning horrible pain in my mouth and neck, Wendy and I took the subway into the city to a neighborhood I hadn’t visited before, called Janghanpyeong. There we visited some “antique markets” that I’d read about. Much less ambitious than the vast flea market area I visited with Andrew and Hollye some weeks ago, but very focused on pre-20th-century antiquities. True antiques – the kind that would be illegal to buy and take home outside of Korea without a government permit.

Here are some pictures from the antiques market.

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One of the amazing things about living in the outskirts of Seoul is that it is so vast that I could conceivably go into the city and explore a different, completely unfamiliar neighborhood like this one that I went to today, every week for the rest of my life, and not run out of new places. It’s spectacular. I disagree with those who say Korean neighborhoods are “all the same” or that they lack individual character. Certainly there are patterns, and certainly there is some sameness to the architecture, with the vast majority of it being that post-Korean-War, on-a-tight-budget style. Even still, there are all kinds of things that make each neighborhood different, like the presence of these antique markets in this one we explored today.

My evening since getting home has been pretty uncomfortable. I had felt earlier today that maybe I was “over the hump” as far as discomfort, but yesterday and this evening are the worst I’ve felt since that horrible Sunday 2 weeks ago. The reason is obvious: I had quit taking the hardcore pain medication because I felt that it was making me unnecessarily depressed (as a kind of side effect). But… I may have given it up too soon. I may decide to resume it tonight.

I really don’t like this cancer thing. I know I’ve “got it beat” – at least for now – but I really wish I could just get past all the side effects of the treatment, and get back to something resembling “normal.”

Speaking of antiques…

What I’m listening to right now.

John Prine, “Some Humans Ain’t Human.”

[daily log: walking, 3 km]

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Caveat: Street Furniture

Banalities & Journaling / My Photos

Today has been a hard day. Just too much discomfort to really do anything at all. I made the mistake, too, of looking into my mouth in the mirror. That was depressing. Mostly, I’ve avoided that kind of self-regarding contemplation in the wake of this cancer situation and its slowly unfolding aftermath.

I took a shortish walk with Wendy, and read a bit, and napped, and that’s about it.

More later, then.

Here are some pictures from the Lake Park today, where we found an exhibition called “Street Furniture.”

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Lastly, there was a pavillion with some student works, and this keyboard-alligator leapt out at me.

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[daily log: walking, 3 km]

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Caveat: Just Walk

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling / Cancer / Hiking & Travel / My Photos

My brain isn’t very functional these days, balanced as it is on the ridgeline separating pain and medication. Sometimes it’s the pain, sometimes it’s the medication, but either way, my brain is immersed in syrup.

So I sit at my computer a lot. Reading blogs or playing my game. Or just sit, zoning out, listening to NPR.

But I still walk a lot.

Every day, I walk to or from the hospital, or both.

Yesterday, here are Wenday and I at the observation platform at the top of Jeongbal hill, taken on the way home.

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Yesterday, Wendy and I walked around the lake in Lake Park.

Here are some pictures of the lake.

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Today, we walked over to the Madu neighborhood and back.

Here is an idiosyncratic (and probably very expensive) home we saw there.

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What I’m listening to right now.

Django Django, “Storm.”

[daily log: walking, 9 km]

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Caveat: 흥국사

Banalities & Journaling / Buddhism & Zen / Hiking & Travel / My Photos

I’m really not up to day-long trips, right now. My energy-level is limited. However, it’s still important to get out of the house and I want to show at least some things to Wendy, too.

So I’ve been thinking of shorter half-day or several-hours-long trips we could do. I’ve long thought I should make more of an effort to visit things that are close by – landmarks, temples, parks, etc., that are right here in Goyang City. So many things are nearby that I never visit because it’s always that phenomenon of “I’ll be able to visit that any time I want” which boils down to never visiting it.

With that in mind, today we went to a temple called 흥국사 [heung guk sa] which is on the eastern edge of Goyang, up against where the city touches Seoul at the western end of Bukhansan National Park.

It turned out to be a rather rustic temple – not polished for the tourists, at all, just a working temple, a bit run down in areas. I actually like seeing places like this.

It took about an hour to get there: subway to Gupabal Station, then bus number 704 up the road that parallels the city limit between Seoul and Goyang for about 20 minutes to a rather rural-looking spot. Then walking up a one-lane road, up a narrow valley between two arms of a small mountain, to the temple.

Here are some pictures.

At the top of the road, here is the temple parking area.

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A tourist map of Goyang on an announcement board.

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The gathering area in front of the complex of buildings.

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Looking up toward some of the buildings.

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Bukhansan in the distance.

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Eaves of two buildings, a hanging bell, and the peaks of Bukhansan in the distance.

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A guy flying along.

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A seashore scene.

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A really nice painting up above the level where most of the panel paintings are, up under the eaves.

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A dragon.

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Some guys talking in what looks like a blue fog.

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A guy riding a tiger.

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Another nice panel painting.

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Wendy is resting on some quarried stone for building curbs or steps. There was some construction going on at parts of the temple site.

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Jared and the dragon.

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Another view showing how unpopulated it was, there, and the western side of Bukhansan in the background.

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Looking up at several buildings – Wendy is standing on the balcony on the building to the right.

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Looking at the temple from the large gathering area in front of it.

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A bored looking dog near the temple.

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A hint of fall colors in the parking area.

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Crossing a small stream on the small road near the main road (I think this stream is the city limit between Seoul and Goyang, but I’m not positive).

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The sign for the temple at the main road where the bus stop is.

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Then we got back on the bus and went back to the subway and I came home.

[daily log: walking, 3 km]

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caveat: small orientation tour

Banalities & Journaling / My Photos

my energy levels arent that great, but wendys arent either. so i took her into downtown seoul for about an hour (plus 40 minutes each way on the subway). i showed her gwanghwamun and the jogye temple.

most places were closed. we just walked a bit. i suffered more from my anability to stop talking than from walking.

here is wendy at the temple.

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Caveat: Friday the 13, September 2013

Banalities & Journaling / Cancer / Found Online / My Photos

Really, it could be the title of a sci-fi-horror movie. But it’s just the date.

Walking home from the hospital, it began raining so hard. I was splashed by a bus that zoomed past. Utterly soaked. Then I stepped in a giant river formed in one section of sidewalk. Less than halfway home, it was as if I had walked, clothed, into a shower. At first I thought, I should find a taxi. Taxis in rainstorms in Ilsan are a rare commodity, though. I reached a state of mind where I simply didn’t care. I couldn’t get any wetter, could I? I came home and put my clothes in the laundry and took a shower and dried out. I took a nap.

Later, I felt pretty lousy, but I ended up walking to work, only to chat with Helen and Curt for a short while each, and then basically walked home. So it was a long walk with a conversation in the middle. It wasn’t raining anymore, but the sky was full of grayness and clouds. I tried to take a picture to capture it, but not sure it really came out very well.

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After visiting work, seeing a few of my students in the halls, being told that several asked when I was coming back… I miss my students but I’m grateful at this point to have made the decision not to have tried to take on even an abbreviated teaching schedule – I wouldn’t be able to handle it at this point. Two classes each Saturday is just about right.

When I was a very nerdy teenager, I liked Monty Python. And the best Monty Python was The Holy Grail. I ran across this satirical (or rather serious, since the movie is satirical – if you take satire seriously, is that meta-satirical or just dumb?) movie trailer. It’s awesome.

Picture – a view from my window at sunset.

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[daily log: walking, 9 km]

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