Just after dawn there were interesting layers of clouds out my east-facing window.
Category: My Photos
Caveat: Street Furniture
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.”
Lastly, there was a pavillion with some student works, and this keyboard-alligator leapt out at me.
[daily log: walking, 3 km]
Caveat: Just Walk
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.
Yesterday, Wendy and I walked around the lake in Lake Park.
Here are some pictures of the lake.
Today, we walked over to the Madu neighborhood and back.
Here is an idiosyncratic (and probably very expensive) home we saw there.
What I’m listening to right now.
Django Django, “Storm.”
[daily log: walking, 9 km]
Caveat: 흥국사
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.
A tourist map of Goyang on an announcement board.
The gathering area in front of the complex of buildings.
Looking up toward some of the buildings.
Bukhansan in the distance.
Eaves of two buildings, a hanging bell, and the peaks of Bukhansan in the distance.
A guy flying along.
A seashore scene.
A really nice painting up above the level where most of the panel paintings are, up under the eaves.
A dragon.
Some guys talking in what looks like a blue fog.
A guy riding a tiger.
Another nice panel painting.
Wendy is resting on some quarried stone for building curbs or steps. There was some construction going on at parts of the temple site.
Jared and the dragon.
Another view showing how unpopulated it was, there, and the western side of Bukhansan in the background.
Looking up at several buildings – Wendy is standing on the balcony on the building to the right.
Looking at the temple from the large gathering area in front of it.
A bored looking dog near the temple.
A hint of fall colors in the parking area.
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).
The sign for the temple at the main road where the bus stop is.
Then we got back on the bus and went back to the subway and I came home.
[daily log: walking, 3 km]
Caveat: Across the Street for Juk
My friend Seungbae came out on a whirlwind and we went out for dinner at the juk place across the street. I did not eat much.
I was pleased to see Seungbae, he was very gracious with Wendy. He travels to Sao Paulo and Mexico City next week for more than a month.
caveat: small orientation tour
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.
caveat: orange sunset over the han river
im riding the bus to the airport to meet my stepmother wendy – feeling a little bit numb and blurry.
Caveat: Friday the 13, September 2013
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.
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.
[daily log: walking, 9 km]
caveat: a good trip for bad reasons
i saw andrew and hollye off at the security gate. andrew’s final summation: “a good trip for bad reasons.”
Caveat: “호환”
Andrew, Hollye and I met my friend Seungbae in Seoul for dinner. I ended up ordering 온면 [onmyeon = warm noodles], but I didn’t eat very much.
I enjoy Seungbae’s company, though – he’s amazingly smart in his autodidact way. He says “I’m just a farmer” but he knows 5 languages and can easily keep up with my discourses on history or culture.
I took a picture of them outside the restaurant.
On the way back home in the subway, Andrew was looking at a box for a USB flash drive that Seungbae had given as a gift. It said, among many other things, “1.1호환” and I was trying to figure out what that meant. I put 호환 into the dictionary on my phone, and learned that 호환 [hohwan] means “disaster caused by tigers.” This is profoundly excellent information – but I suspect not really an accurate translation.
What, exactly, constitutes 1.1 disasters caused by tigers? How does one evaluate the concept of one tenth (.1) of a disaster?
This morning, I looked it up. The online dictionary at daum.net said the same thing: “호환 [虎患] a disaster caused by a tiger; the ravages of tigers.” What was funny, though, was that the automatically generated list of example usages following gave a hint of how the term is actually used: it’s used to mean “compatibility.” So why isn’t this meaning in the dictionary? Once again I raise that perennial question: why are Korean-English dictionaries so bad? Even my Korean-Spanish dictionary only has: “desastre causado por tigres”- clearly just a translation of the original Korean-English mistake (I suspect most dictionaries rely on some ur-dictionary created long, long ago, and just pirate and repackage the content from generation to generation, from book to translation to website to smartphone app).
This is one instance where the googletranslate gets it right, and says compatibility. It gets it right for the same reason the auto-generated list at daum is right – because it’s a statistical correlation of texts rather than a copy of some dictionary badly written (by humans).
Here’s another, tangential question, though: what does it say about Korean culture that they have a special word for a “disaster caused by tigers”? Or at least… that they used to?
Food for thought. And food for tigers…
Speaking of disasters…
What I’m listening to right now.
Someone on the internet decided to do Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” using some web-based emulator of Mario Paint. I guess this might be titled “Get Retro.” It takes existing at a certain strange confluence of cultural nostalgia and nerdiness to even “get” why this video is so entertaining, of course.
I took a picture of the moment before sunrise, this morning, out my window looking east.
Caveat: Two Months Cancer-Free
Two months ago on the 4th of July I had my tumor removed. Piece-of-cake.
This radiation thing, on the other hand… eheh.
But that’s the deal-with-devil I made, I think. 화이팅.
Last week I made a giant batch of pea soup – before what was left of my ability to taste food disappeared over the weekend. I finished off the leftover pea soup for lunch today with some cubes of ham cut into it, and imagined it was delicious.
I just make myself eat, because I know there’s a lot of concern about patients losing weight during radiation, and especially because of the sores in my mouth potentially disrupting my ability to eat solids. So far, I just kind of buckle down and push the food in, chew, swallow. It’s doable.
Talking is just as difficult as eating, now – in that respect, this is quite different from my experience last month with recovering from the tongue-reconstruction surgery, where I recovered the ability to talk almost effortlessly and painlessly, but re-learning to eat and swallow were quite challenging. Now, it’s just that everything is so sore – tongue, inside of cheeks, gums, inside of lips, throat, etc. – that eating and talking are equally difficult and unpleasant. But, as I said, it’s doable.
I took a longish nap, after lunch. I guess I needed it. I always get hit really hard by tiredness around noon on my radiation days. The result was that I didn’t go to work. I guess I could go now, but I had a talk with Curt on Monday about my not going in so much due to how I’ve been feeling about the treatment, and he was OK about it.
I’m not really sure I have the right mental constitution to handle having an entirely “optional” job, though. It’s easy to say, “Oh, I’m just not up for it.”
But then… my friend Seungbae wants to meet this evening for dinner, because it would be his chance to say goodbye to Andrew before Andrew goes back to the US at the end of this week. So that’s another reason to skip work. But I have that same guilty feeling skipping work and going to see a friend in Seoul as I used to get being “sick” from school as kid when in fact I was taking a mental health day of some kind or another.
I’m not sure I’m really going anywhere with all of this. Just rambling on, letting everyone know where things are at.
Document everything! …My life of obfuscating, radical transparency!
Eheh. Whatever.
What I’m listening to right now.
Parov Stelar, “If I Had You.”
Here is a picture of magpie (까치) I tried to capture while walking back from the hospital this morning through the park, with only mediocre success.
[daily log: walking, 5 km]
Caveat: It was all good, til the world came crumbling down
Here are some pictures, minimal comments, leftover from my superfast trip down south over the weekend.
The view from the bus window – sunset while driving down there.
My motel room.
The view from the window – Yeonggwang, 630 AM.
Walking down the street toward the bus terminal in Yeonggwang. On the right, about 2 blocks ahead, is apartment number 1 of the four distinct apartments I had during my year-in-Hantucky (they moved me around a lot).
On the high street in Hongnong town, looking back toward the bus terminal.
The county administration building for the township.
My school where I worked, Hongnong Elemenatry, still looks exactly the same.
We begin climbing the mountain behind town to the northwest and pass some overgrown graves, which are everywhere in rural Korea.
Climbing higher, looking through the trees.
Looking down the mountain.
At the first peak, a marker with too many Chinese characters for me to read.
A viewing shelter that was under construction the last time I was here in 2010.
A bug disguised as grass. Really – look carefully!
Trees.
A good, if hazy, panorama of the town.
More looking down – this time toward Beopseongpo.
Small blue flowers.
Andrew by a rock.
Finding our way (and ultimately failing – we got pretty lost).
Going downhill through the forest.
A happy sign of incomprehensible meaning.
Coming around a bend, first view of the beach.
Looking back the way we came.
Climbing some rocks looking at the tidepools.
And then I was tired. We took a bus back into town and didn’t do much else before coming back. Basically, we went to Hongnong, took a 10 km hike, and came back. Was it worth it? I’m not sure. Just an exercise in half-hearted nostalgia, for me, and for Andrew and Hollye, it was, perhaps, just a kind of random, not entirely enjoyable adventure.
Today, I went to radiation. Later, in the afternoon, I saw Dr Ryu, who looked me over, and looked in my mouth. He pointed out all the little white sores I’m growing in there, and explained something of what was going on, which I appreciated. He said, “You need to stop eating spicy food.” Note that he said this before I had discussed with him my eating habits – something in my mouth tipped him off that I had been abusing my mouth in this way over the weekend – it was a kind of vaguely homeopathic undertaking, where I was eating spicy food because my goddamn mouth hurt like hell anyway, so what the hell, live it up, because at least I could feel something.
He said to stop pushing myself so hard. He’s said that, before.
I know.
I know. I went to work but stayed less than an hour. How’s that for not pushing so hard? I still walked a lot today – a round trip to the hospital in the morning and a big quadrangle back to hospital and work in the afternoon. But then I mostly did nothing, since getting home. Half napping, half reading. Listening to music. Trying to sleep but not really succeeding.
What I’m listening to right now.
Cold, “It’s All Good.” It’s from the album 13 Ways To Bleed On Stage. The lyrics to this song never made any sense to me – I’m not referring to their meaning, but rather to the weird mismatch between the published lyrics and the words as I hear them. There is NO WAY they’re singing “It’s all good.” Maybe it’s that strange North Florida accent? My theory is that half the band is singing “good” at the end, while the other half is singing “fine” – and you get that strange “it waz aooo gaaiiiine” that seems to be in the song’s audio.
Regardless… I keep returning to this album. I can’t even explain what the album, altogether, means to me. It is the soundtrack to too much of my life, since I acquired it in 2001. I used to drive for hours, running errands or roadtripping or just driving to drive, with this CD on repeat in the CD playter.
The songs are quite dark – this one is about drugs and depression and contemplated suicide, for example – but my overall response to them is uplift.
Lyrics:
Take another motherfucking hit of LSD
Let all the love inside the world belong to you
Well I can’t understand just why you went away
Too young to feel the pain and bitterness of love
Well I can never understand a motherfucking word you’d ever say
And all the people that you hurt came down on you
Well I can’t understand just why you went away
I sat and waited for the day you’d come back homeWell it was all good
Well it was all good
Well it was all good
Well it was all…Take a loaded gun and blow my fantasy away
Turn off the lights and shine the spotlight down on you
Well I could never understand a motherfucking word you’d ever say
And all the people that you hurt came down on you
Well I can’t understand just why you went away
Well I sat and waited for the day you’d come back homeWell it was all good
Well it was all good
Well it was all good
Well it was all…You are my hope, my god, my love, my fear, my gun
It’s over, it’s all good
Til the world came crumbling down
Oh well it’s all over
It was all good, til the world came crumbling down
Oh well it’s all over
It was all good, til the world came crumbling down
World came crumbling…
crumbling, crumbling, crumblingWell it was all good
Well it was all good
Well it was all good
Well it was all…
[daily log: walking 8.5 km]
Caveat: Pushed Too Hard
It was maybe too ambitious an undertaking, this weekend. But I really wanted to take Andrew down to Hantucky. It ended up being a whirlwind – less than 30 hours round trip, including 10 hours on one bus or another and the motel last night and a 10 km hike up and down mountains today.
Here’s an observation: exertion seems to make the pain in my mouth more severe. By a lot. Yet isn’t exertion supposed to be good for you? I have a dilemma. I don’t want to turn into a slug – not if my body and soul are cooperating in staying more active. I feel very lucky to have as much energy as I do, these days, given what I’ve been through and what I’m going through with the radiation treatments. But is working out (i.e. hiking up mountains) a bad idea? I felt pretty terrible today, afterward.
I’m not really expecting an answer, it’s just what’s on my mind. I’m going to sleep. I have to get up tomorrow to face the raygun, again. If I get the chance, I’ll post more pictures I took on our trip, later.
[daily log: hiking 10 km – I was keeping a daily walk/run/hike log a year or so ago but then I stopped; I decided Sept 1 was good time to resume.]
caveat: 가마미
we took the bus to hongnong, ate breakfast in the seven eleven, walked past my school where i used to teach, then did a three hour hike over the mountain, past the nuclear power plant, to the beach at gamami.
caveat: return to glory
its always strange to come back to a place where one has lived and had intense experiences, after a long absence. walking around yeonggwang (which translates to “glory”, among other meanings), where each street in this small, workaday city is still familiar, where most of the stores are unchanged, feels heavy with a kind of ambivalent nostalgia.
i had been a little worried about finding a decent place to stay – i always lived here, before – meaning i had an apartment – and never have returned as a tourist until now. but just a few blocks east of the bus station we found a more or less quaint motel called 귀빈장모텔 (gwibinjang motel = roughly “honored guest place motel” or maybe more loosely “VIP motel”) for 30000원 per room per night (25 bucks), which is entirely reasonable for korea.
the tile work in my oddly shaped bathroom looks brand new, and had this kitchy but appealing artwork embedded (below).
actually, the town feels marginally more prosperous than it did in 2010 when i lived here – there are fewer abandoned storefronts, and more cafes – always an indicator of gentrification in korea. but the town is utterly dead on a saturday night, just as i remember. i think everyone goes to gwangju to have fun.
tomorrow i will show andrew and hollye hongnong and my favorite walks there – hopefully over the mountain to the beach and around to the waterfall south of town, then the odd “buddhist theme park” (my own made up designation for it) in beopseong.
caveat: sunset from a bus window
green korea of the summertime, grids of mature rice, china yanking down the sun beyond the yellow sea.
caveat: hantucky bound
on the way down south to glory county. crossing the bridge at pyeongtaek port.
Caveat: Right Across the Street
Right across the street from my new (and very former) apartment building is a rather authentic Italian restaurant – the menu is in Italian and Korean with barely a handful of English on it anywhere.
Back when I lived here before, the same location was some kind of mass-seafood joint that was open 24 hours, but during the intervening years between 2009 and now, the neighborhood has upgraded quite a few establishments.
So I’ve been meaning to eat there. This evening, Andrew and Hollye and I went there and had one funghi and one rucola pizza, and a largish seafood salad thing. Here is a picture.
The place has a slightly cheesy decor – which, if anything, makes it seem more Italian in some ways. On the bench seat behind us, there were some cushions and some teddybears. Andrew befriended one of the bears. Maybe.
caveat: zap-o-matic number 6
i caught an unexpected hint of approaching autumn just now, walking to the cancer center. it hasnt cooled off any, but the humidity seems less severe. i actually pulled a sheet over myself in a predawn moment in my un-air-conditioned apartment, this morning.
here i go for number 6.
argle bargle derp.
Caveat: 보문사
Yesterday Andrew, Hollye and I went to 보문사 [Bomun temple], which is on Seongmo Island which is off the coast of the larger Ganghwa Island which is basically straight west of Seoul at the mouth of Han River. We took a long, slow, local bus from Ilsan to Ganghwa County Seat, thence on a different bus (after some confusion as to where to catch it) to Oepo-ri on Ganghwa’s west side, then a short ferry ride across the channel to Seongmo, and finally, after lunch of clam noodle soup and spicy herring salad, a last bus around Seongmo Island to the location of the temple.
Here are some pictures from this trip.
Waiting to board the ferry at Oepo-ri.
Looking back at Oepo-ri from aboard the ferry.
Many hungry seagulls freeloading off the “do not feed the birds”-disregarding Koreans.
Looking back while walking up the steep driveway to the temple.
The temple gate.
Looking up at the temple area.
Andrew and Hollye walking behind me.
A large collection of statues regarding a stupa. I’m not really sure what this represents.
Looking up the mountain at our ultimate destination.
Looking down a big old tree.
The entrance to the grotto temple.
Temple details.
Small figurines hanging out on some mossy rocks.
Going farther up the mountainside, there was a cast bronze statue of a many-headed, many-tailed dragon.
Looking back down the mountainside.
At the top of the many, many stairs we found the famous buddha relief carved in the cliff-side looking out to sea.
Then we found a back-trail back down the mountainside. This sign says “danger.”
Looking out while waiting for the return ferry.
Another ferry parking beside ours.
Some views of boats upon our return to Oepo-ri.
Here is a collection of temple-wall paintings thrown in here at the end of this here blogpost.
caveat: downhill through a forest
after visiting a temple and a famous buddha on the island we walked back down the hill along a forested trail. more about the temple and the buddha later.
caveat: 석모도
riding the short ferry to 석모도 [seongmo island].
Caveat: Lying Down
After my fourth session I walked with Andrew and Hollye through the park that’s behind the cancer center and that separates the hospital from where my new apartment is. I’m feeling pretty tired, though, so when I got back to my apartment they went on to my “old” apartment (which they’re occupying – and which by the way is working out really well, as it ends up being cheaper for me to maintain two apartments for a short time rather than trying to help them find a hotel).
I ended up lying down and actually napping for a while.
This is what they say happens with the radiation… just kind of a general increase of fatigue. But as usual, I have no idea what is really behind it – it could just as easily be the very busy day I had yesterday, hiking around Suwon with Nate and Andrew and Hollye.
The whole thing is vague and indirect enough to be endlessly speculative, uncertain and hypochondriacal.
Regardless of cause, I’m feeling some tiredness, definitely. I’m going into work soon, but I have no class obligations this evening so I might not stay there too long.
Here are some pictures from walking in Jeongbalsan park.
Caveat: Return to Suwon
I spent several months in Suwon in 2010, so it’s one of my Korean “homes” – I know the city pretty well and I like it a lot.
Today, I dragged Andrew and Hollye down to Suwon on the 2 hour subway trek, and met my friend Nate. We had lunch, walked around a lot, visited some temples and hiked to the top of Paldalsan, and hung out in an air conditioned cafe for a long time, too.
I’m pretty tired now, so I won’t write a lot. But here are a bunch of pictures.
Nate took the above photo and posted it on facebook. What he wrote under it was very complementary:
Six weeks ago, Jared had surgery for cancer. Yesterday, he started radiation treatment. Today, he hiked up a mountain on the hottest day in Korean history and made me look like a baby. This is the toughest dude on earth.
I think Nate is tougher than me. But I very much appreciate the complement.
Caveat: Immobilization
I have DSL now, in my new apartment! Yay. Now, we just have to get the A/C repaired. Heh.
After my radiation this morning, I experienced a very severe dry mouth. That’s the worst symptom so far, that I’ve experienced that can be clearly attributed to the radiation therapy sessions. I bought some Gatorade, but since then the dry mouth keeps recurring – i.e., it doesn’t seem to respond to efforts at hydration. And it’s accompanied by a runny nose. Which, as Andrew observed, seems a bit unfair, to have both at the same time.
Anyway, it’s not so bad. I feel pretty high energy, still. I spent a good portion of this afternoon cleaning and scrubbing in my new apartment, while waiting for the internet guy to show up. And then he did, and I felt happy about that too because I communicated with him entirely in Korean. Not that there was much to say: I’m here waiting; come in; put it over there; does it work? etc.
Are you curious what I look like, encased in plastic and immobilized for the radiation? I was curious, so I had one of the technicians take some pictures of me after I was strapped in. He did a good job. Here I am. Don’t I look happy-as-a-buddha? Eheh.
caveat: zap-o-matic number 3
“another day, another xray. . .”
theyre switching my internet DSL from my old apartment to my new apartment, so i may be posting to the blog less than ususal. . dont worry about me.
i walked to hospital this morning. it was hot and humid, but the air was clear and luminous with the sun and well-formed clouds. i took a picture of the longest-lived vacant lot in ilsan. most vacant lots last a year or two at most, but this has existed since i came here six years ago.
caveat: kinda like camping out
im in my new apartment rather than my old one. consequently i have no DSL yet. so im back to posting from my phone like i was doing in the hospital.
my neck and mouth have a sort of burning sensation, half itchy half achey – thats the only thing i can point to as a likely side effect of my first two days of my 3d conformal xray tomographic radiotherapy. im guessing my headache is just tiredness from a long, busy day.
my new apt is sparse, still. its like camping out. the DSL will transfer tomorrow.
meanwhile for your entertainment, i present a photo of a tableau i composed using my small collection of lego. it is meant to represent my current situation.
caveat: zap-o-matic number 2
here i am, looking a bit dazed and confused in the waiting room for radiation therapy session number two. sooo exciting. . . every other business day, now, for next six weeks.
Caveat: 방사선구역
The first session is done.
It went fast. I spent about 25 minutes strapped down, of which 20 minutes was under the rayguns. That 20 minutes was divided into 10 minutes for calibration (low intensity) and 10 minutes for therapy (high intensity).
The hardest part was clenching my jaw and staying still and trying not to swallow.
Post-therapy impressions:
I have a strong headache, which could be just as likely due to clenching my jaw while being strapped down as due to what they did with their x-rays. I have a sort of slight burning or tingling on the inside of my mouth and along my gumlines – it’s like the inside of my mouth spent too much time in a tanning booth. I have some dryness in my throat and mouth – which isn’t even bothering me, since ever since my surgery I’ve felt exceptionally and unpleasantly slobbery. I have a sort of itchiness along my neck, which may be due to how the plastic strap-down apparatus makes contact with my skin there, or it might be due to the “burn.” All of these are symptoms that are listed as common, none are indicative of any major problem.
It’s just the first session, and some side-effects will be cumulative – e.g. the predicted possible hair loss, fatigue, etc.
The picture (above right) shows me about 5 minutes after I emerged from the treatment room. The sign says (roughly), “Radiation therapy zone: unauthorized entry prohibited.”
Talking to Andrew just now, I said I felt a little bit like I had just come out of the dentist.
“Oh, you mean distrustful of all humanity?” he asked, rhetorically.
I laughed.
Caveat: Bobo County Redux
It was a very long and busy day.
I taught two actual classes – meaning officially assigned classes for which I had to have lesson plans, take attendance, etc. Although I did some substituting and visits to classes this past week, these were my first real classes since the Thursday prior to entering the hospital, which was at the end of June.
In both classes, I made part of my lesson a presentation of my cancer surgery experience. Over the years, I’ve learned that most middle-schoolers are utterly enthralled by the health problems of others, especially when conveyed as “true stories” – and nothing could be truer than pointing to my still very visible bandages and scars and saying “here” and “here.” So as far as captivating attention, I’ve rarely had a better lesson plan – but it was essentially a one-off success, in that respect.
I made a video recording of one of my presentations – to my “special Saturday” 7th graders. If it’s appealing enough, I might edit and post it – we’ll see. I really like those kids – they are what I describe as my “not advanced but always interested” class. They’re fun without being inclined to burnout, like more intense, high-level students can get sometimes.
After that, I talked with Curt and some other teachers for a while. Then Curt and I drove over to see my new apartment.
“Whaaa?” you might say.
Yesterday, out of the blue, Curt said, “Hey Jared. Do you want to upgrade your apartment?”
I said, “Of course.” I’d been recently experiencing apartment envy, after seeing my friend Peter’s apartment in Bucheon.
Next thing I know, we’re planning for me to move into an apartment in the Urim Bobo County building. It’s definitely a nicer building – newer, cleaner, and the apartment is marginally bigger (3.2 meters x 4.8 meters versus my current 3.0 meters by 4.2 meters) but more importantly, has a much better floor plan and more closet and storage space than my current apartment. Furthermore, I like the location better – it’s more “urban” and downtownish, being in the heart of what passes for downtown in Ilsan, which has always been my tendency. As a small bonus, it’s about 1 km closer to the cancer center, which is of course convenient given my new lifestyle as a cancer patient.
The fascinating irony is that this exact same Urim Bobo County building was my first apartment building when I came to Ilsan in 2007. Life keeps spinning me in circles.
Here is a picture of my new (old) apartment building, taken in September, 2007 – it was literally the first picture I took, my first day in Korea – really! The building still looks exactly the same. My new apartment is on the 9th floor (1 down from top). I will move there very slowly over the next several weeks, between cancer radiation treatments, I guess.
After spending some time with Curt preliminarily checking out and cleaning the new apartment, I came back home, collected Andrew, and he and I went there and cleaned a little bit and evaluated some more. Then we met my friend Peter for dinner – Thai food – and then that was more like the end of our evening, walking back first to my new apartment and then after a pause there to inspect it with Peter, back to my old apartment.
Interesting things keep happening. Life is good.
Caveat: The Thing About Trees
(Poem #13 on new numbering scheme)
The thing about trees
Here’s the thing about trees: they are always trying to escape the groping gravity of the earth.
Look at them. They strain and push up toward the sky, in their slow-motion way. You can see, easily, how they are trying to escape. The leaves have no other purpose but to reach for the sky.
Sometimes, the trees even need to be tied down. You see how people have applied ropes or wooden structures to the trees, to keep them from flying away when unobserved.
You see, the trees know when we are watching, too. They know that if they succeed in escaping, they have to be careful not to get caught – no one will trust a tree, anymore, if people see one running off into the sky.
So the trees wait until no one is looking. Trees, as might be expected, are amazingly patient.
In the depth of the night, when no one is around to see or hear, a tree will succeed in escaping. The branches will finally reach and thrust with sufficient force to pull the roots free of the grasping, jealous earth, and they will rise rapidly into space, finally finding their freedom. All that is left is a small upturned mound of earth, puckered like a small wound, where the roots pulled out.
A strong wind can help, but if the weather is too stormy, the trees can be injured and then they will fall back to the brutish earth, broken and shattered.
Sometimes, after a storm, you can see the evidence of this – broken trees thrown over, as if by wind. What is not so clear to us watchers is that some of that violence is self-inflicted by the trees upon themselves, in their desperate efforts to escape the unkind earth.
[UPDATE: This is tree # -1]
Caveat: A Random Adventure And Random Usefulness
Earlier today, after breakfast, I was feeling energetic and restless, and I said to Andrew, I’m going to take a walk. He came along, of course.
We walked over to the new “Onemount” mall that’s been built on the west end of Lake Park, a few blocks from my apartment. There is a waterpark inside the mall. That’s pretty common in Korea – waterparks, I mean. But there is also a “snow park” in this mall – ice skating, manufactured snow, an indoor sledding slope. That’s not so common. I think some hot day I’m going to pay the entrance fee and try it out.
Then we walked into Lake Park. That’s a common enough walking route for me. The air was stormy and thundery and deep gray overcast. It was beautiful. And there was enough of a breeze that the heat wasn’t so stifling.
I knew there was a “toilet museum” inside Lake Park – I’d seen it before. But I’d never actually visited it, although it’s a kind of famous (or infamous) landmark in Ilsan. Today it was open as Andrew and I walked past, so we visited the Toilet Museum.
Then we saw some men running one of those sewer-exploring robots – just something in maintenance going on unrelated to being next to the Toilet Museum. We watched them for a while – they seemed disorganized.
We walked toward the southeast end of the lake. That area looking toward the highway bridge over the lake always reminds me a little bit of Minneapolis’ Uptown area.
Then we walked around the end of the lake and ended up going to HomePlus, where I bought some vitamins and exotic tea and a few other things.
Then spontaneously I said, “How about instead of going home for lunch we go to that Indian Restaurant that I like that’s near here?”
Andrew seemed to like this idea.
So we had Indian food for lunch: samosa, vegetable raita, malkhi dal, some mutton curry, lots of garlic naan bread. Very delicious.
It was pouring rain so hard when we left the restaurant that we stopped in a cafe and had coffee and talked for a long time.
When the rain had let up and we finished our coffee, we hurried home and I quickly got ready and went to work.
Work felt good today: I felt useful. I did a substitute teaching in one class, because of a scheduling mistake. Then I corrected some student essays and helped fixed the scheduling mistake.
I like feeling useful.
Caveat: 명동과 남산골한옥마을
Brother Andrew and I went to Myeongdong to meet my friend Seungbae Lee. We met in front of the old cathedral – mostly because it’s an easy-to-find landmark.
We went for lunch at a Japanese place, where I had 돈까스 [don-kka-seu = Japanese fried pork cutlet]. I didn’t used to like donkkaseu but after my time in the hospital when I discovered that it was easy to eat with my broken mouth, I fell in love with it for sentimental reasons. So I had it and it was good.
Here are my brother and my friend at that restaurant.
Then we went over to a place called 남산골한옥마을 which is a kind of tourist-oriented “Korean folk village” reconstruction thing right on the north end of Namsan Park on the southeast end of the Myeongdong neighborhood.
It was really too hot to behave very touristy, but we tried, and I took some pictures.
Finally we gave up since it was too hot, and we spent over an hour sitting around in an air-conditioned convenience store drinking cold drinks.
Then we came back home.