I am now officially a baboizer – Ellie sent me this candid photo, retouched some way or another using her cell phone. Note that “babo” in Korean is “fool” or “idiot.” I don’t actually ever call my students “babo” – or “idiot” for that matter. I get the impression from the pragmatics that babo is fairly mild in most social contexts, though it’s far from polite, obviously.
I other news, I tried to be like the Space Emperor BHO today – by killing a fly with a single hand in mid-air. I wasn’t successful. But I did it in two tries, against the wall. The kids reaction: “disgusting, teacher.”
Normally, I don’t bother voting in shareholder actions… I own enough different stocks that I get quite a few opportunities to vote one way or another on various things. Everything’s electronic, of course, but I rarely feel sufficiently informed to bother voting one way or another. But today, for the first time since coming to Korea, I voted: I gave a “for” vote in the action for Sun Microsystems to merge with Oracle. Not that I think it makes much of a difference, but it was empowering to feel as if I had an opinion worth having and to be able to act on it, whether an accurate one or not. If the merger goes through at the declared price, I will more-or-less break even on my Sun investment. And we shall see if Oracle is able to make the merged result profitable or not.
