Dateline: Phoenix
…
I had a rather domestic day. I ran one errand in the morning and then spent the day watching my younger nephew, Dylan (starting 3rd grade this fall), since he's still on summer vacation, although his older brother Jameson has already started 6th grade.
Dylan and I finished a wooden model boat he was working on – I glued on some sails and tied some string. We played with his legos. And then he announced he wanted to learn hangeul. That was interesting, that he was interested, but his attention only lasted for about 10 minutes. And then he announced he was bored and decided to watch television.
Now, I've said before, I don't own a television, in Korea. Mostly, I watch some shows on my computer: streaming programs such as Jon Stewart's Daily Show, for example; downloaded TV series or movies; download Korean programming with subtitles. But I don't watch much. And… I don't get to see the commercials.
Wow, the commercials. I watched a little bit of the Olympics while at Mark and Amy's in Minnesota, but watching afternoon children's TV is a whole different level of commercials.
Dylan was fixated by a Nickelodeon show called Rags. It actually wasn't bad – I thought some of my students would be interested in it, the same way they're rapt by High School Musical, for example. I liked how the show inverted the Cinderella plot and updated it in a vaguely plausible way. And then we watched animated Lego Ninjago characters, which was entertaining.