Caveat: Best Class

This has been my best class so far. All smart. All interested. Almost all the time. Awesome kids: Ellen, Candy, Eunice (she came back!), Helen, Anastasia, Sydney, Steven.
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Caveat: The Space Emperor, Drawn to the Dark Side

Our future Space Emperor, BHO, is clearly not afraid to disappoint his fans. Whether this represents cynicism or realpolitik, I find hard to judge. I really, really enjoyed Maureen Dowd’s recent mocking of the situation vis-a-vis Cheney: “Dick twinkles. ‘Yes, we can.'”
pictureIn other news, I collected all my retired (read, broken) plastic alligators and brought them to class today, because this is the last week of the Spring term. Here is a picture after the Eldorado2 kids had arranged them.
Notes for Korean

야경= night view
-스럽다 = to seem like
사랑스러운 = love-like ~ “lovely”
올리다=raise up, [and many other meanings, maybe “begin”?]

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Caveat: Scooter

It seems I see more and more of these tricked out scooters. Scooters are everywhere, and always have been. But lately, there seems to be this influx of some kind of European or Japanese style high-end scooters. I saw a “Hello Kitty” themed pink scooter with a trendy-looking woman riding it, walking home from work the other night. And this thing was in the parking lot a block away, the other day.
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Caveat: Ambiguous

Most of the time, Korean t-shirts are funny because they don’t make sense. But Steven’s shirt was funny because it was exactly right:  it suited his personality perfectly.
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Caveat: 장수에 주말 여행했어요

On Saturday at 12 o’clock my friend Curt called me and asked if I wanted to accompany him to his home town, Jangsu, for a quick overnight trip. He had to go down for a “family meeting” and many relatives would be there. “It will be an adventure for you,” he commented.
I felt spontaneous, and said, “sure!” I met him at his hagwon at around 5:30, but at the last minute his daughter (who is 8) decided she wanted to come along, so we had to go collect her, and then he forgot to take a computer that he was going to give to his sister, so we had to drive back to the hagwon and get that. The result was that we didn’t get on the road until around 7:30.
The traffic wasn’t too bad driving down – most people who flee Seoul on the weekends do so earlier on Saturday, is my guess. We arrived at his home village at around 1 AM. The moon was full and the air was already summery, although fairly dry.
Koreans like to sleep in hot, stuffy homes, as far as I can determine, and Curt’s family homestead was no exception. But I was tired and slept soundly, and was awoken at 6AM sharp by the rapid, nonstop Korean of Curt’s mother’s voice. She is in her 70’s, but seems quite healthy and strong-spirited, like any good Korean matron.  She kept a running commentary the entire day. Curt, at one point, observed with a wry deference that his mother “loves to talk.”  I was enjoying the language input, without understanding more than a small amount. I perhaps would have tired of it, had I understood more, but as it was, it was just like being tuned to a Korean talk-radio station, but with all sorts of contextual clues to make it on the edge-of-comprehensible.
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We did a small sightseeing drive at around 7 AM, to see the new dam that rose above his old village. Here is a picture I took looking down from the dam into the valley – the village proper is in the foreground, and the family compound is just out of sight among the alfalfa fields behind the trees in the lower left.
We walked around and I took some pictures of the family using both their camera and mine. Keep in mind, this is not the whole clan – just those who happened to come along on the sightseeing drive: Curt, his older sister, his daughter, his niece, and his mother.
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After that, we drank some coffee back at the house, as more people showed up. Then at around nine, everyone went down to the restaurant that’s along the stream at the village turnoff at the main highway (highway 19). There were some 50 relatives there, quickly and systematically eating a typical Korean breakfast: rice, several kimchis (including a delicious and memorable cucumber kimchi I’d never tasted before), fish, other vegetable side-dishes, and a thin broth-type soup with some slices of what I thought was potato in it. After the breakfast there was to be the “family meeting.”
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Curt snuck away to smoke a cigarette beforehand, and hinted that I might want to go do something else (which was a polite way of saying I wasn’t invited, I suppose – I wasn’t offended). Here is a picture of the spot behind the restaurant by the stream and the highway across the stream, where we talked.
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So I walked back across the fields to the house. The house was swarming with children, who had no interest in practicing English with me (and who can blame them?), but they also seemed befuddled and frustrated by my poor Korean. I felt like I was embedded in a Kafka novel, for a while: lots of talking, but no communication whatsoever. One of the girls took my camera, and this is a picture I found in it later.
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Eventually, feeling exhausted by the language-overload, I went on a walk. I went into the village and looked at the Buddhist temple complex there – apparently Curt’s father, who passed away in 2007, had been a major philanthropist in the restoration and expansion of the temple. Here is a view approaching the temple, and another showing the intricate woodwork and painting on one of the buildings.
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Finally, the family meeting down at the restaurant was over, and Curt came and found me strolling around the village, along the river below the dam behind the temple complex.  “Do you want to come while I pay my respects to my father?” “Sure,” I agreed, amenably. I didn’t want to intrude or be the uncomfortable foreigner in what was no doubt an intimate and personal thing, but I was dreading spending the next several hours waiting for him with nothing structured to do.
The drive to his father’s grave was quite long, unexpectedly. Almost an hour, as he is interred at a veterans cemetery southwest of Imsil, which is some ways west of Jangsu.  We passed over a winding mountain road and into a much wider, more populated valley to get there.  Curt placed a lighted cigarette on his father’s grave.  “He loved to smoke,” he said.  He poured a bit of Soju onto the grass, and his sister placed a plate with some fruit on the grave stone.  Curt and his sister bowed deeply to the grave, and then his mother also bowed to her late husband.
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After the ceremony, and after making sure it was OK, I took a picture of Curt standing by his father’s grave.  He was teary and emotional. I felt awkward, and stayed mostly quiet, during the first part of the drive back to the house at Jangsu. We went back a different way, through Namwon and along a bit of the “88 Olympic Expressway” which reminded me in terms of feel and scenery of those odd, depression-era, two-lane tollways that snake around parts of Appalachia in Kentucky or West Virginia.
Returned to the house, we had a very quick but homemade lunch.  I especially liked the fried dubu (tofu) and kimchi – much better than restaurant varieties. And then it was suddenly over.  After some lounging around watching Korean music videos and listening to the grandmother lecture the granddaughters about who-knows-what, Curt, his daughter and I said our goodbyes and were back on the road at around 3 PM – although I embarrassed myself with some incorrect Korean in trying to say “nice to have met you.” I think I may have said something like, “That [romantic] date went well,” if it meant anything at all. But it wasn’t a date, was it?
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Caveat: Roadtrip

Very spontaneously, my friend Curt called yesterday and invited me along on a drive with him down to his hometown in Jangsu (near Namwon, in Jeollabuk province). It’s a 4-6 hour drive, depending on traffic (we managed about 5 hours down, not counting time to go back to his hagwon for something he forgot).
So, I met his family, ate a lot, and saw a very different, rural part of Korea, all in a whirlwind that got me back home tonight at 10 pm. Just as it was starting to rain.  I’ll write some more details later… I’m feeling exhausted, partly because after getting in very late last night we all rose at the crack of dawn this morning.  It was a kind of annual family reunion (“family meeting” he termed it).
So, my thought for this evening, after a total of 12 hours in the car in just around 28 hours, is only this: tollway rest areas are roughly the same everywhere in the world. See picture.
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Caveat: Koreagraphy

I had a student write “Koreagraphy – study Korea” for the vocabulary word (said out loud) “choreography.” I thought that was clever.
I’m feeling very scattered, lately. Today is a holiday: 어린이날 = Children’s Day.  Pues, ¡feliz cinco de mayo!
The children were out in force, and being spoiled hither and yon, all over Seoul. I’ve never seen so many hyperactive children using public transportation. It was sunny and summery. I went on another long walk (as I suggested I might try to do, in my execrable Korean post from yesterday). And I came home, turned on my fancy new fan, and got crazy/creative in my little kitchen.
Always dangerous. I started out with a plan to make some stir-fry rice (bokkeumbap) but ended up using very unconventional ingredients: to the Korean standards (rice, onion, garlic, sesame seeds, red pepper) in some olive oil, I threw in peanuts, curry powder, dried cranberries, and in a moment of inspiration, half a can of pre-cooked lentils that I’d found at Homeplus a week or so back. Delicious.
Okay, then.  Here’s a picture taken during my wanderings the other day:  a view from the Guri subway station.
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Caveat: 블로그!

내일은 어린이날이에요. 재가 일할 필요없어요. 어쩌면 다시 긴 산책할 거예요. 이번 저녁에 파스타를 먹고 있고 맛있어요. 그리고 음악을 들어요. 한국어를 연습하기 위하여 저는 이것을 쓰고 있어요.
A random picture from a bus ride: the National Assembly (legislature) building on 여의도 (Yeouido Island).
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Caveat: Goyang City Limits; Happy Birthday, Buddha

I went on a really long walk. North from Ilsan to the edge of the Goyang Municipality (Ilsan is just a borough, or district, within Goyang City). I took some pictures, and then rode the #90 bus back. The bus was very crowded, because today is Buddha’s Birthday – everyone is going somewhere else.
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Here is a road disappearing into the newly tilled rice paddies:
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Here is a view of Geumchon in the afternoon haze (or actually, a fog was maybe rolling in off the Yellow Sea – the breeze smelled vaguely of salt):
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Caveat: 東 / 西

It was an overcast day, and chillydamp, in the wake of yesterday’s rain. I went on a long walk. I was going up the east side of Jeongbalsan.
The pictures (below) were both taken at the exact same spot. I simply spun on my heels between pictures. The first picture is looking west. It’s a bit blurry, but you get the idea.  The second picture is looking east. I thought the contrast was interesting.
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Later, I walked down the plaza south of the hill, after my long walk, and bought a few things at HomePlus – it’s impossible to find good imported cheese lately, though, and Korean cheese is scary.  All the stores that I habitually found cheese at no longer seem to carry it.  But I found some canned lentils — I was missing lentils. Maybe I’ll make something with them.  I bought a new electric fan, too, as I know it will get warm, soon, and my last fan died last summer and I never replaced it.
I went home and dropped my things at the apartment, but then I went and sat in a Starbucks (gotta do my small part to boost that stock price, right?) and studied some hanja for a few hours.  I’m making a list of about a hundred and copying it. It’s hard to get the sequence of strokes right.
The hanja in the title to this post:   동 / 서  = east / west.
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Caveat: Little Mexico on the Prairie

I’ve been kind of trying to follow the Coleman v Franken thing in Minnesota, as they keep arguing and battling and trying to out-maneuver one another. Does “democracy” come down to this?  It seems like it so often does… one can be reminded of the 2000 Gore v Bush debacle, but I’m actually more reminded of the Calderon v AMLO mess in Mexico a few years back.  The way that the losing side kept hanging on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on… In comparison, Gore’s “graceful” exit was full of class and probably better for the health of the system. Of course, whether it’s a system whose health is worth preserving is questionable, too.
Anyway, the Minnesota senate race makes me think of Mexico’s last Presidential election. Nuff said.
In other news, it’s spring around here. And Iris drew a funny picture of the Goldrush 1d class that I liked alot. Here are some snaps with my cellphone.
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Caveat: The Good. The Bad.

I had a really bad day.  A really, really bad day.  But it had some good moments.  Here are some pictures.  Highlights.
Below, little Dahye, and half of Paul.
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Below, some of my Goldrush kids:  Stephanie, Jamie, Christine, Daisy, Sarah, Gina (in front of me), Nick (the poor lone boy in a class full of girls).
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Caveat: Thank you, I don’t want to do that

I told my student David today that he explained some vocabulary words so well, in English, today, that he should be an English teacher. He smiled politely, and said, in almost perfect pronunciation and intonation:  “Thank you, I don’t want to do that.” I was pleased.
It’s the last week of the Winter term. As has become my habit, I tried to take pictures of my some of my classes, to remember my students by. I don’t try to force them… some classes are more enthusiastic than others, and I feel uncomfortable insisting. But here’s a few who cooperated, to one degree or another.
The Goldrush2b kids: Thomas, Dexter, Kevin, Alex L, Peter P,  Peter H (in front), Tommy (way in back), Silver, Jenny, Stephany, Lisa, Sophia.
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Sydney, waxing eloquent, and Eunice, saying something funny (undoubtedly).
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Eldorado1a kids: Sincere, Ellen, Julia (in back), Joseph, Mad Steven, Small Steve (NBA Steve).
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Caveat: Chupacabras and other fine tropes

It started out, because I was wondering, how does an originally Puerto Rican (and now naturalized Mexican, Brazilian, and even Texan) goat-sucking monster end up as a trope in a Japanese cartoon series? See the youtube, below, where the chupacabra creature is introduced in the Negima!? (the exclamation point and question mark are important parts of the correct spelling of the show’s name) series.
[UPDATE 2020-04-07: The video link here no longer worked, and I have been unable to find a replacement for it. So I guess just take my word for it.]
But then I began investigating, and found this most amazing, time-sucking website. A sort of intellectual chupacabra of my very own: tvtropes.org. Not only do they have these amazingly well-written, tongue-in-cheek meditations on everything from Hamlet to Battlestar Galactica to Chupacabras (of course), but they have such fun little time-wasters as the amazing “story generator“. I will never be able to spend my free time in only wikipedia. I’ve found something better.
So, that was yesterday. Today, I went exploring in Seoul, a little bit. Parts of Seoul seem like a very cold, temperate version of L.A., in terms of the urbanist style at work: these desolate mountain ranges push down into the heart of the city without really attracting development because of their steepness, so only a few subway stops north of downtown you can find a neighborhood that looks like this.
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Caveat: Among the redwoods in Ilsan

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Redwoods in Ilsan?  Well, I’m pretty sure.  They’re not Sequoia sempervirens… I believe they’re Metasequoia glyptostroboides, Chinese “dawn redwoods.”   They’re quite common as ornamentals throughout the temperate climes, now, because they are hardy and grow fast.   Here in Korea, they’re not actually that far from home — I think their native area is within 500 km or so.
Unlike California’s sequoias, they’re deciduous — they get naked for the winter.  But they have very redwoody bark, and the needles are strikingly similar.   See the picture I took, at right.
I walked down to the lake park, and took this picture, below, of the arranged rocks in the frozen lake, with the bridge in the distance over the lake.  It seemed beautiful.
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Caveat: Birthday Cake at the Galbi Joint

Monday a few of us went out to dinner after hagwon closed at a Galbi joint, to celebrate Christine’s birthday. Here’s a cellphone pic of Jenica, Christine, and Joe. Joe and Christine are a couple who were hired together, from Indiana. Jenica’s from New Jersey.
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Caveat: Symbols

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What does it mean that a mostly Buddhist and Christian nation lives nationalistically under a flag composed of Taoist and Confucian/Pagan symbols?
The giant flag at Juyeop plaza, one subway stop west of my “home” station at Jeongbalsan, and a short 7 minute walk from my place of work. I took the picture after leaving work early on New Year’s Eve. The day was bright, windy,  and very, very cold. Maybe around 15 F (-10 C).
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Caveat: 새해복많이 받으세요

My student Eunice sent me a text message sometime after midnight last night (above). Roughly, it means “Happy New Year,” of course. Don’t my students have anything better to do? Hah… no, seriously, it was nice of her to do that, I guess. I haven’t had a very productive day today, though.
The random picture shows sunset in Gangnam.
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Caveat: 13 Stone

I have a bathroom scale I bought for 12000 won at the Home Plus store. Apparently it was a leftover something originally intended for the U.K. market, as the weight is marked in stone and kilograms, but not pounds. According to that scale, I started the year 2008 with a weight of just a little over 13 stone, and I’m ending the year roughly the same.
That may seem inconsequential. And 13 stone and a fraction (it’s about 84 kg or 185 pounds, I think) is still more than my ideal weight, probably. But it’s really a major accomplishment for me to have kept my weight so stable this year, given it was only a few years ago (I think 2003 or 2004) when I peaked at around 245 pounds, and that my long-term year-from-year weight hasn’t shown a lot of stability, having mostly fluctuated between 200 and 250 over the last 15 years. So keeping it so stable, and at well under 200, feels like a major accomplishment to me. And basically, I have only one rule: “Eat less than you want. Always.”
Anyway, that’s my observation for this last day of the year. I have tomorrow off. No big plans, though. I ran across the following quote in an old file of snippets and notes of mine, but can’t figure out where I might have found it… I’m pretty sure it’s not mine. But I definitely think there’s something to it.
“Forget about all those years of therapy, just pretend you’re okay and you will be.” – unattributed.
The random picture below shows the changing of the guard (i.e. change of drivers) at the Jichuk station on the Orange Line of the subway, on a Daehwa-bound train – which is what I take from downtown Seoul to my home.
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Caveat: 고맙습니다

Because it’s that day.
Misty rainy cold day, and man squats under umbrella working at a manhole.
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These are the Indigo kids:  James (with alligator), Kelly K, Olivia, Brian, Amy, Flora, Sally, Jessica (강도!), Kelly L (from LF!), Crazy David.
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Violets: Gina, James, Jin, Stephanie (from LF!), Paul, Tammy.
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The Awesome E2M2: Jimmy, Max, Andy, Willy, Sally, Irene, Scarlet, Cindy, Sarah, Floating Jay (in front).
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The E1bM2: Anastasia, Kevin (hiding), bad-boy David, whats-my-homework John, Jack.
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The Library Zombies: Richard, Annie, Ella, Hana (boggle boggle sorinae!).
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The boys from “Worst Class Ever”: Yosep, Pete, Cooper.
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The girls from “Worst Class Ever”: Minerva, Ellen, Jenis, Lynn, Ally, Lydia.
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Caveat: Stab it with your kkochistick

pictureI was walking home with Basil and we were going to stop and buy some chicken-on-a-stick (kkochi), and I saw this decimated kkochistick, with its tiny napkin-banner blowing in the wind, stuck into a tree like the spear of some insane tribesman, leaving a warning to unwary travelers.
I took a picture with my cellphone.
Today was “first snow,” although there wasn’t much… and it kept turning back to rain, so of course nothing stuck.  It sure is beautiful, invigorating weather, though.  I really love it.
Koreans view “first snow” as a significant event.  The kids celebrate it with excitement, and one of our coworkers ran out and bought treats for everyone.  I think it’s a fabulous tradition.
I came home and had some rice with spicy instant soup for dinner, and made some ginger tea.
I’ve been thinking about respect.
In the West, respect is something that’s earned.  And it can be easily lost.
In the East, I think, respect is something each person is due based on his or her position in the social hierarchy (basically matters of age and, in employment, the chain-of-command). Thus, no one can “lose” respect, ever. Perhaps it could be summed up with a phrase such as, “I have been utterly shamed [or hurt, wounded, etc.] by you, but I still must respect you.”
I think that misunderstandings of how respect works differently may be one of the main causes of disillusionment on the part of Westerners working in Korea, and may be one of the main reasons why Korean bosses view Western employees as impudent, rude, or downright lazy, too. I have never seen my boss more confused and at a loss as when I was trying to explain to him the idea of “earned respect.” And he’s someone who has, in fact, spent time in the U.S. How must it be for Koreans who have never had that experience?
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Caveat: Rainforest

The picture is of a quilt made by my mother. She explains that it is “a copy (interpretation / based on) an illustration by William T. Cooper from Visions of a Rainforest by Stanley Breeden, I suspect you need to attribute it to him.”
So there’s the attribution. I like it… and it shows she’s pretty talented, too; it’s hard to imagine that that is a quilt, from the picture. Pretty cool.
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Caveat: 떡볶이 Yum!

I worked for about 4 hours today. I walked to work amid the crisp air and fall leaves, and took this picture on the path amid the apartment blocks where typically go. When I was walking home, I stopped at a stand and bought some 떡볶이. This particular variety included the basic sliced tubular-shaped rice-cakes, in a slightly sweet red chili pepper sauce with 오뎅 (sliced fish cake, a kind of fish sausagy thing, same as 어묵?).  I took it home and ate it with some real cheese I’d bought the other day. Unconventional combination, but delicious.
I then went off to surf comedy web videos. I witnessed the following scene, in which Governor Palin is played by none other than that spiffy satarist, ObamaGirl. I realize that now that the election has occurred, this is old news. But after the little clip ended, I laughed for a long time. Not sure why.
Putin: I’ve come to take Alaska back, for Mother Russia.
Palin: Not on my watch!  [She does brutal judo moves on his ass, giving him a bloody nose – this is ironic, given that Putin holds a black belt in judo]
Putin: [grinning] You have strooong thighs, like Russian bear.
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Caveat: Foggy… Guilty… Gold, Falling Leaves.

It’s a rare foggy night in Ilsan. And somewhere along the way, it suddenly became deep autumn: the trees are all turning yellow and gold fast, and leaves are piling up on the sidewalks.
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I dreamed about my cat (ex-cat?) Bernie, last night. It was sad, as yesterday I’d gotten an email from my brother (who shares partial custody of her, I guess you might say, with my father), saying that she was seeming sick, and so he’s taking her to the vet.
In my dream, I was visiting some people (unspecified people), and they had cats. The cats were all very friendly with me. But then I noticed that Bernie was there, too.  But she wasn’t being friendly. She was sitting very quietly, looking at me in the distrusting way cats have of looking at you. A fairly transparent dream – my guilt over having left her when I came to Korea, right?
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Caveat: the neon fruit supermarket

“What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon. / In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!” – Alan Ginsberg, in his poem “A Supermarket in California,” 1956.
Completely unrelated to that, here is a picture of some people at Bukhansan National Park that I saw yesterday, doing things on ropes that I don’t know that I would have the courage to do.
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