I spent the day with my computer in the off position. I have been trying to get back to reading more, as I know it improves my affect some.
I read about 300 pages of David Halberstam’s The Coldest Winter, a history of the Korean war that seems focused on the bizarre and erratic personality of Douglas MacArthur – as is appropriate I suppose.
It ended up being riveting and novelestic reading.
[daily log: um. . . no]
Yesterday Peter and I hiked along the northern stretch of the Seoul city wall, that runs up a small mountain called Bukaksan, behind (north of) the Korean presidential palace, called 청와대 (blue-roofed house). The wall is militarized – i.e. it basically forms part of the defensive perimeter for the high security areas around the presidential palace and offices even today, and thus runs through what is effectively a military base. Consequently, to hike the wall we are required show our IDs and there are soldiers and CCTVs everywhere, and some things are not permitted to be photographed.
Anyway, it was interesting.
Here are some pictures.
The wall.
Some people blithely picnicking next to a “do not enter” sign.
A tree with bullet holes in it from a 1960’s era commando raid that the North Koreans launched against the presidential palace (and one of the reasons the mountain behind the palace is still so fortified today).
Jared at the peak of Bukaksan.
One of many gates in the wall… this one, however, appears to be an at least slightly older restoration than the others, which are not weathered at all and hence have a sort of disneyesque feel to them.
A statue of a weird chicken-creature in a plaza near the Blue House.
The Blue House (Presidential Palace).
Old Seoul, foreground, New Seoul, background.
Lunch – the most I’ve attempted to eat in a long time.
[daily log: walking, 5.5 km]
Today was Korean memorial day, so I had the day off. I worked a lot this week, though, and I don't get Saturday (tomorrow off), so it's a bit of an anticlimax, as holidays go. Just an extra day off.
I met my friend Peter and we hiked along the militarized bit of the old Seoul city wall in the southern part of Bukhansan park, behind the Blue House (Korea's presidential house, 청와대, cf. the US's Whitehouse). I will post some pics tomorrow, I was too lazy to get them off my phone today, as I came home about 3 and crashed.
What I'm listening to right now.
Smoke City, "Underwater Love."
Lyrics
This must be underwater love The way I feel it slipping all over me This must be underwater love The way I feel it O que que é esse amor, d'água Deve sentir muito parecido a esse amor O que que é esse amor, d'água Deve sentir muito parecido a esse amor Esse amor com paixão, ai Esse amor com paixão, ai que coisa After the rain comes sun After the sun comes rain again After the rain comes sun After the sun comes rain again After the rain comes sun After the sun comes rain again This must be underwater love The way I feel it slipping all over me This must be underwater love The way I feel it O que que é esse amor, d'água Eu sei que eu não quero mais nada Follow me now To a place you only dream of Before I came along When I first saw you I was deep in clear blue water The sun was shining Calling me to come and see you I touched your soft skin And you jumped in with your eyes closed And a smile upon your face Você vem, você vai Você vem e cai E vem aqui pra cá Porque eu quero te beijar na sua boca Que coisa louca Vem aqui pra cá Eu quero te beijar na sua boca Ô que boca gostosa After the rain comes sun After the sun comes rain again After the rain comes sun After the sun comes rain again Cai, cai e tudo tudo cai Tudo cai pra lá e pra cá Pra lá e pra cá E vamos nadar E vamos nadar e tudo tudo dá This must be underwater love The way I feel it slipping all over me This must be underwater love The way I feel it, oh...
[daily log: walking, 8.5 km]
Some 6th grade girls in my Newton1-T반 were explaining the concept of 카사노바 (kasanoba i.e. the Casanova type of man). They did so in a way that struck me as algebraic: I guess “A” is Mr Casanova, while B, C, D and E are his various romantic interests.
Here is a picture.
[daily log: walking, 5 km]
Almost a year, then.
I'm really just making this post only for completeness – I have kind of lost my desire to "celebrate" these monthiversaries. Doing so compels me overmuch to reflect – even more than I would otherwise – on how transformed some aspects of my life are, and to reflect on how in other respects my life is utterly the same. Neither reflection is flattered by the scrutiny. It might be better to just try to live life, with less reflecting upon it.
I will post next month, and then be done with this "feature" on This Here Blog Thingy™.
What I'm listening to right now.
José José, "Almohada."
[daily log: walking, 5 km]
Science
Man, introverted man, having crossed In passage and but a little with the nature of things this latter century Has begot giants; but being taken up Like a maniac with self-love and inward conflicts cannot manage his hybrids. Being used to deal with edgeless dreams, Now he's bred knives on nature turns them also inward: they have thirsty points though. His mind forebodes his own destruction; Actaeon who saw the goddess naked among leaves and his hounds tore him. A little knowledge, a pebble from the shingle, A drop from the oceans: who would have dreamed this infinitely little too much? - Robinson Jeffers (American poet, 1887-1962)
[daily log: walking, 5 km]
More and more I simply feel rooted to this place. I think, often quite seriously, of quitting or escaping or trying to do something else, and my poor health gives me both compelling reasons to stay (the reliability and cheapness of the healthcare) and compelling reasons to go (the difficulty of my work situation vis-a-vis my poor health).
Nevertheless every time I sit down to sort out my feelings, I end up concluding that I will stay here. I was in this long daliance with Korea before my cancer, but the cancer was like a shotgun wedding and now I feel utterly committed to staying. I feel I will simply stay until I die.
I do not mean that morbidly – I mean it as a statement of what feels like inevitable fact, at some level. There are things I don't like about my life here, and I am deeply disappointed not just with my health but with my failure to somehow "make something" of my "second chance" (and really, if you know my biography, this is more like a "fourth chance," isn't it?).
But what, exactly, would I or should I be making of it? When I analize what is important to me carefully, those things are tied to my creativity and my teaching and my growth as a person. As such, where else could I have a better chance to make progress in any of those things than here in this place? If i quit my job, I probably would simply not have one – that's what seems likely. I cannot imagine that would cause me to feel less lazy or more productive about something like my art or writing – it's not like I don't have time for those things right now. That's what I believe, anyhow.
I'm just rambling. Reflecting.
Lo que estoy escuchando en este momento.
Maná, "En El Muelle De San Blas." I've posted this song before, but this is one of my favorite songs, I think. So I'm putting it again. It is simple but tells a memorable story. She just stays on the dock, waiting, for the rest of time, like a García Márquez novel or something. "Se quedó hasta el fin" – She stayed until the end.
Letra
Ella despidió a su amor. El partió en un barco en el muelle de San Blas. El juró que volvería, Y empapada en llanto ella juró que esperaría... Miles de lunas pasaron, Y siempre ella estaba en el muelle, Esperando... Muchas tardes se anidaron, Se anidaron en su pelo Y en sus labios. Llevaba el mismo vestido y por si él volviera no se fuera a equivocar. Los cangrejos le mordían Su ropaje, su tristeza y su ilusión... Y el tiempo se escurrió, Y sus ojos se le llenaron de amaneceres. Y del mar se enamoró, Y su cuerpo se enraizó En el muelle. Sola, Sola en el olvido. Sola, Sola con su espíritu. Sola, Sola con su amor el mar. Sola... En el muelle de San Blas. Su cabello se blanqueó Pero ningún barco a su amor le devolvía. Y en el pueblo le decían, Le decían la loca del muelle de San Blas. Y una tarde de abril La intentaron transladar al manicomio; Nadie la pudo arrancar, Y del mar nunca jamás la separaron. Sola, Sola en el olvido. Sola, Sola con su espíritu. Sola, Sola con su amor el mar. Sola... En el muelle de San Blas. Sola en el olvido. Sola con su espíritu. Sola con su amor el mar. Sola, Sola en el olvido. Sola, Sola con su espíritu. Sola, Sola con su amor el mar. Sola... En el muelle de San Blas. Se quedó... Se quedó... Sola, sola. Se quedó... Se quedó... Con el sol y con el mar. Se quedó ahí, Se quedó hasta el fin. Se quedó ahí, Se quedó en el muelle de San Blas. Sola, sola, sola.
[daily log: walking, 5.5 km]
I weighed myself this morning and the number was 69 kg. That’s 152 pounds. I have not weighed this little since my early 20’s.
As I’ve commented before, as a person with a history of both anorexia and obesity (at different times), I cannot deny that I probably have somewhat chosen to go ahead and just let this eating problem turn into a permanent weight loss program. Still… I think there is coming a time when I will have to confront this situation more rationally.
I joked with someone last week that eating, nowadays, is a chore on par with cleaning my toilet. To test this, later this morning after eating a breakfast of ramen noodles (with half the spice removed to make it more bland), I knelt down and cleaned my toilet right then, thinking of this comment specifically.
Sure enough, the toilet was less unpleasant.
So there you have it.
The Jains of India have a tradition called santhara. It is a sort of slow-motion suicide-by-self-starvation – sometimes drawn out up to 12 years. The practice is in line with other ascetic practices of the Jains, whose historical predecessors were likely the ascetics referenced by Gautama Siddhartha when it is said he tried asceticism and failed it, before he ennunciated his “middle path” which became Buddhism. This type of asceticism has a sort of fatal appeal to me, and I feel as if my post-cancer-imposed eating regimen is evolving into a kind of unintentional santhara.
In any event, my peak weight of about 265 pounds isn’t quite cut in half literally, but I’m feeling that way. Half the man I used to be…
For reference, here are two interesting pictures from my archive. One picture is from near my peak weight, from February, 2005, with my friend Bob (he’s on the left) in Utrecht, Netherlands.
The second picture is from 1986, when I was 21, near my current weight, I think (or a little less even, maybe 140 pounds). It is a scan of a picture (it was in poor condition, so sorry for the poor scan) that was taken near La Libertad, El Salvador, in September, 1986.
My student Hyo-geun had me make corrections to a speech she is composing for a competition of some kind. There are some fairly minor stylistic or grammatical issues, but thematically the work is excellent. I think she may very well become the writer she says she wants to be.
Here is a reproduction of the pre-corrected speech she wrote.
Introducing my unique hobbies
Hello, my name is hwang, hyo-geun. Today, I want to introduce about my unique hobbies. To begin with, I will tell you about my simple profiles. I live in Ilsan, Goyang, and I am third grader at Deogi Middle School. Because I am in the third grade, I usually concered about entering high school. So, I relax my body and soul by my hobbies; listening to people's talking , scribbling on my notebook, and looking at the sky.
Firstly, listening to people's talking is my new habit since I moved to this new apartment. Now, I live in fourth floor so I can hear many different sounds which a variety of people are making. When I came home after school, I could hear kids yelling adn laughing each other. Their laughs were full of enjoyment and made me look back over my youth. Not only after school but also at night, especially in summer, many people come outside and talk with their families and friends. Sometimes when I can not sleep, I listen carefully to the outside. Then, I can hear people murmuring. When I am lucky, I can even hear what they're talking about. I like to listen carefully outside in my quiet bed room because it makes me comfortable.
Moreover, my another favorite hobby is scribbling on my notebook or writing down some novels. It is not bad to write down some stuffs in my study room, but I prefer lying down on my bed and scribble to writing in my study room. Anyway, writing is a good activity to get rid of stress or to kill time when I am bored. When I write some novels, I can feel the hundreds of feelings. I usually make these feelings get calm naturally. On the whole, I want to feel many feelings in the world so that I can easily sympathize with a person. When it become easy to appeal to someone's emotion, I want to be a writer.
Lastly, I really love to look at the sky in my bed. Especially, in autumn, the sky is blue and high, so I think it is so beautiful. Thus, when I lay in my bed, listen to my favorite music, I can feel my mind become peaceful. If I had more time, I would take a nap under the sunlight. the sky is beautiful at night too. Even though other apartments block the sight, I can still see the moon and the shining stars.
So to speak, I introduced about my unique hobbies. To outline the main points, I love looking at the people who are talking, scribbling or writing novels, and looking at the sky in my bed. These hobbies make me calm and peaceful, so I love them. I wish it could be a useful information for you to understand about me. Thank you for listening.
[daily log: walking, 1 km]
ME ESTOY RIENDO Un guijarro, uno solo, el más bajo de todos, controla a todo el médano aciago y faraónico. El aire adquiere tensión de recuerdo y de anhelo, y bajo el sol se calla hasta exigir el cuello a las pirámides. Sed. Hidratada melancolía de la tribu errabunda, gota a gota, del siglo al minuto. Son tres Treses paralelos, barbados de barba inmemorial, en marcha 3 3 3 Es el tiempo este anuncio de gran zapatería, es el tiempo, que marcha descalzo de la muerte hacia la muerte. - César Vallejo (poeta peruano, 1892-1938)
Confieso que no entiendo muy bien este poema. Probablemente me atrajó sólo por su clara temática de muerte.
[daily log: walking, 5.5 km]
There was an interesting article over at The Atlantic the other day, pointing to someone who was mapping global cities based on their Starbucks locations. Seoul, apparently, has more Starbuckses than any other city – even New York or, um, Seattle. I like these compartive "same scale," simplified maps of urban areas, for some reason. It's interesting to see the contrasts in density, for example: e.g. the circle for Seoul metro represents 25 million and the circle for, say, Portland represents 1.5 million.
I am not necessarily a huge fan of Starbucks, but I'm not one to put it down, either – I don't view it as an "evil corporation" or any such thing. Does the fact that I have Starbucks stock in my IRA (what's left of it, post cancer liquidation) perhaps bias me?
What I'm listening to right now.
Flaming Lips, "Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell."
[daily log: walking, 5 km]
There is a Korean folktale called The Farting Lady (방귀쟁이 며느리). It’s pretty well-known, apparently, though I hadn’t heard of it before. There are some English discussions of it here and here.
The series of “roleplay” books we’re using for our Stars-level (younger elementary) students, called A*List, includes a lot of interesting stories, and our recent talent show (“verbal contest”) last Friday included pretty-well-done musical adaptations of Simba and the Tigers, The Wedding Mice, and this Korean folktale, The Farting Lady.
Frankly, I cannot imagine a better topic for a musical performance for first and second graders than a folktale about a farting lady. The kids thought it was fun, although their too-serious demeanor during the performance in the video below somewhat belies that – that’s the pressure of the final show, I guess.
I think it’s interesting that the likelihood of such a drama being performed in a US institution seems to me rather low – unless I’m misjudging my own culture – given the peculiar puritanism in US education that might be wary of frankly addressing the topic of a farting lady.
Preparing for the performance was a little bit difficult, because my Betelgeuse class has been shrinking and currently only has 2 students. So with seven roles in the story, we had to be creative and not really do it as a full-fledged dramatic performance, making it instead more of a dramatized reading with singing. I think they did an excellent job at the talent show, and the judges (some parents) did too – they got 3rd prize.
Here is the video of their performance, with Ken and me as MCs beforehand.
Here are some sample pages from the materials provided by the publisher of the roleplays, called A-List. It is one the best ESL curriculum publishers in Korea my personal opinion – their product is high quality and pedagogically sound.
[daily log: walking, 5 km]
Yesterday (Wednesday), I had a brief discussion, via Kakao chat, with my friend Peter over the nature of the recent spate of deadly "accidents" and disasters that seem to be befalling South Korea. There was the ferry boat sinking last month, there was the fire at the bus terminal on Monday here in Goyang, and yesterday another fire at a nursing home or something. There were some subway crashes, too, last month.
The public sentiment seems to be that there is a big problem with corruption as being an underlying cause or correlate of the neglect of public safety in these events. I pondered this after our brief chat, because I decided it might make an interesting debate topic.
I did something I haven't done much, so far, but I consider it to be the ultimate objective of my debate teaching: I went from "chosen topic" to actual debate in a single class period. At the start of class, I explained the topic, which immediately grabbed the kids attention because it was topical. I then crafted a proposition on the fly, which was something like this: "The recent spate of disasters in Korea (ferry sinking, fires, etc) indicates a problem of pervasive corruption."
We brainstormed some as to what would be some PRO and CON reasons, and I ran to my desk for a moment, went online, and found a recent and older editorial from the Korean English-language press on the topic of corruption, which I printed out. We did not read these exhaustively – rather, I presented the materials as a sort of instant research resource. Then we assigned sides and I said, "OK, 20 minutes." After the kids had prepared their ideas, we had our debate.
Normally the class has four students, which is perfect for debate – 2 to each side. However, one student was absent, so I stepped in and took a position in the line-up. When I do this, I handicap myself by denying myself the opportunity to adequately prepare – I have to speak completely off-the-cuff. As such, I would say my 2 speeches are less well organized than those of my students, even if they are, obviously, of higher quality in terms of referentiality and nativeness of the English.
So here's the debate. I think these students did really well with short notice and a difficult topic. Even though I'd told my friend Peter I thought there was, indeed, corruption, notice that I'm taking the CON side of the debate below, with my student James, against the girls Jisoo and Andrea.
Just this instant, coming back from my last class of a very busy day (Wednesday is currently my busiest schedule), a former middle school student was visiting – he's 11th grade now and he seems vaguely "broken" – in the broken-spirited way that high school students so often seem.
I felt a little bit sad – and he was feeling sad for me having heard about my cancer. So we commiserated, briefly. I think that Korean students often project that "broken" feeling – it's similar to soldiers in the midst of boot camp, maybe.
Well, anyway. It's nice to see former students.
[daily log: walking, 5 km]
I have a student named Clara – a third grade elementary student. She's quite smart and charming and has a better focus than most 3rd graders when she wants to. But she also is a bit morbid and strange sometimes – a kind of proto-goth-girl, personality-wise.
She will say these unexpectedly morbid things, sometimes. I was going through some drawings we did in class last month, cleaning out a folder on my desk, and found this picture. It seems innocent enough, until you study the caption ("every where is Fun Fun Fun Fun Fun Fun Fun Fun Fun and Die Die Die Die Die Die Die Die Die Die") and try to puzzle out any kind of meaning at all to the sequence of symbols at the bottom. It strikes me as a kind of accidental surrealism, and I was compelled to an outburst of [broken link! FIXME] apophenia in reaction, as is intended in surrealism, I suppose.
[daily log: walking, 5 km]
Apparently there was a giant fire at the Goyang City Bus Terminal earlier today. Seven people died. It's weird when disaster strikes somewhere that is intimately familiar to you – you think: I could have been there.
The bus terminal building has a HomePlus store in it – it's a few subway stops away from here.
What I'm listening to right now.
Depeche Mode, "Never Let Me Down."
[daily log: walking, 5 km]
I had diffuse but unpleasant nightmares this morning waking up. I do not actually have nightmares that often, but these dreams had me convinced I was dying or having some kind of paralytic attack in my bed, and I could not escape. As a result, I felt unrested and eerie all day, and the strange misty weather added to the atmospherics, making for a grim mood. I tried to escape by playing simcity, which I havent played in ages, but I ended up angry at the game. Heh.
The "verbal contest" was a successful event, with the main failing being that, since we failed to a full start-to-finish dress rehearsal we underestimated how long it would go – which is always the case with such things, I suppose.
I was co-MC. Ken was the Korean-speaking MC while I was the English-speaking MC. So not only was there the job of preparing the students for their many various speeches, songs, roleplays and debates, but also there was the matter of being on the ball and saying the right introduction at the right time.
Anyway, I think it went pretty well. Certainly, the parents were for the most part pleased with it and we got some positive feedback.
I did not take any video or pictures, because I was in it, up on stage most of the time. I'm hoping that next week I can get copies of the video files that Curt and Razel made and post some pictures or videos from it. Meanwhile, I can only discuss it.
My efforts to have the kids have a less-than-fully-scripted debate for my "Newton 반" classes was pretty disappointing. Razel had more success with just working out a scripted debate and making the kids memorize their appointed roles in the PRO or CON teams. I still remain committed to avoiding fully scripting debates, however.
The best successes were the Noraebang-style (karaoke) song-and-dance to pop songs – those are always entertaining and Irene did a great job working out some clever little choreographies for them. The little ones from the Phonics and Stars classes were the absolute best in my opinion – they did such a great job memorizing and putting on their little shows – which were actually pretty long. Maybe next time we should combine these classes into and do a single larger production.
I will make a separate entry about the play my two lonesome "Betelgeuse 반" kids did. It's culturally interesting, too. I'll leave that in suspense until I can get some video of it.
It was hard because I was so tired – I have been more tired than usual, I think, because Spring is fading into Summer, and because I'm eating so poorly (which is my own fault, I guess, but, as Ken commented recently, "Eating really is just a chore for you now, isn't it?" and I had to agree). Anyway I guess I did OK.
We went out for "meat" hoe-sik (회식) after. So I was out late after work and then ended up going to bed at almost 1 am. That is a problem because Saturday morning I actually have to wake up early and teach in the morning, rather than the week-day afternoon and evening schedule.
That's my journal for the KarmaPlus 2014 annual talent show "verbal contest."
[daily log: walking, 5.5 km]
We did our show today. It was huge and exhausting. I'll give a more detailed update this weekend.
[daily log: walking, 5.5 km]
I already knew this, and knew it deeply. It is integral to how I prefer to teach, given the opportunities to follow my own inclinations. Nevertheless, it's nice to see it confirmed: children write better when they can draw.
I will only add that it seems just as effective and important with respect to foreign language learning.
[daily log: walking, 5 km]
This Friday, we are doing an annual talent show at KarmaPlus, for the elementary kids… except that they think it's bad to call it a talent show, which I guess is a term that has some negative or at the least insufficiently academic connotations for a presumeably rigorous after-school English academy. So it's being called a "verbal contest" – which personally I think sounds much dumber. But whatever.
We are doing a lot of practicing. All the time. Extra classes and extra hours. Basically the last week or so I have had zero downtime or break at work.
So I've been very busy last week and this week. Hopefully we'll have a good result on Friday. I'll try to post some video or result when it's over.
[daily log: walking, 5.5 km]
This is an aphorism from my aphorism book.
내가 중이 되니 고기가 천하다
nae·ga jung·i doe·ni go·gi·ga cheon·ha·da
I-SUBJ monk become-SO meat-SUBJ be-plenty
I become a monk and meat is everywhere.
If you need it, it is rare, if you don’t need it, it is everywhere. Monks don’t eat meat, so once you become a monk, suddenly there is meat everywhere, whereas normally in Korean society, until very recently, meat was uncommon.
Last night my coworkers went out for meat for hoe-sik. I chose not to go, because I was very tired and because it was late and because eating meat didn’t sound very appetizing – I wanted something soft and neutral.
Noodles.
Shall I become a monk?
[daily log: walking, 5 km]
Yesterday, on Sunday, I was thinking about Teacher's day again, because I was trying to eat one of the gifts I had been given. Most of the sweets the students gave me, I regifted to others, but this "Hallabong roll cake" that Minseo gave me I kept and tried to eat because I have a sentimental attachment to this orange-flavored roll cake, because in 2007 I'm pretty sure it was this kind of roll cake that was the very first thing I ate in Korea, given to me as a housewarming gift by my new employer at that time.
The name Hallabong is a reference to Jeju Island, famous for its mandarin oranges and hence various orange-flavored things. It was hard to eat the cake. I probably shouldn't have tried to eat it – it ends up being dry and difficult and I have to wash it down with coffee or something.
On Saturday, however, I received a note from a student in commemoration of Teacher's day, too. It was a touching note.
At first, I thought maybe she had been inspired to write the letter by something her father said about my recent grumpiness – because it just so happens that her father is a teacher here at Karma . Pete is a teacher with whom I have had my difficulties in the past (difficulties which I commemorated, perhaps coincidentally, in a [broken link! FIXME] blog entry for Teacher's day, 2008) but who is no problem now – probably mostly because we don't interact much because he is a high school teacher, which I don't teach.
After asking both him and Habin about about, it, however, I'm pretty sure it was her own idea, and not influenced by any parental promptings.
Regardless, it was an uplifting note to receive from a student. It helps me feel less glum about teaching.
She mentions my character drawings, so I will conclude with some recent snapshots of some whiteboard characters here.
[daily log: walking, 5.5 km]
They are not native to Ilsan, but they are planted everywhere: Chinese "dawn redwoods." They create their own little eco-niche wherever they cluster. They are both exotic yet familiar to me, given my own upbringing amid the the redwoods of northern California. At left is a picture taken along a path to and from work among the high-rise apartment blocks.
[daily log: walking, 3km]
Sometimes it takes a friend to give us back our own wisdom and allow us to see it. My friend Mark, with whom I only have the most fleeting contact most of the time but who is nevertheless still one of my closest friends, wrote this email to me earlier today.
I saw your blog and decided to send a note. I know we all have down times. You probably have had some in Korea, but I have been impressed at how much you have enjoyed the entire experience, and how worldly you are compared to me. I think bad times are a natural part of life. And then something happens and it turns around. I certainly believe in the ability of people to just decide to be happy. I've done that. But the time has to be right. I guess people need to wallow in their sadness for a while first or something.
…
Take these words as your inspiration, you may recognize them:
I have made the realization that happiness is not a mental state. It is not something that is given to you, or that you find, or that you can lose, or that can be taken from you. Happiness is something that you do. And like most things that you do, it is volitional. You can choose to do happiness, or not. You have complete freedom with respect to the matter.
Hope you have a great day, and know that we love you.
He quotes the thing I wrote some years ago and had sitting here at the left side of this here blog thingy.
What I'm listening to right now.
The Arch, "Let It Beat Us."
[daily log: walking, 6 km]
There is a website called “Spurious Correlations.”
These are quite amusing. For example:
Just remember – data without context is worse than useless.
[daily log: walking, 5 km]
Today is the day Koreans call 스승의날 [seuseunguinal], "Teacher's Day." There was even a googledoodle dedicated to it.
I received some gifts from a few students – all food… which is, arguably, a bittersweet type of gift at best given my difficulties eating.
And… I guess it's all ironic since I've been feeling like I'm decaying into a bad teacher.
The thing that has me most disturbed is that I seem to be experiencing some kind of cognitive dysfunction – I'm forgetting things a LOT, and I'm losing my flair for keeping organized. This is impacting the quality of my teaching substantially – the other day I gave the wrong lesson to a class – and Korean teenagers being Korean teenagers, the kids said nothing for almost 20 minutes – perhaps puzzled what was going on, perhaps finding it mildly entertaining, or I-don't-know-what.
I've always had something of the "absent-minded professor" in me, but this is not sustainable, and it's the primary reason I say (as I said in this blog the other day) that I don't enjoy teaching anymore – because I feel like I'm getting bad at it.
I'm constantly forgetting things, repeating myself, losing my place, worrying that I'm making a fool of myself in front of my students. The hypochondriac in me fears some kind of creeping new disability, either consequent to the radiation, for example (it's possible – cognitive difficulty is a listed possible side effect), or else some other unrelated thing (e.g. proto senility or alzheimers, etc).
[daily log: walking, 5 km]
DESPAIR IS NOT THE END OF THE WORLD
Despair is not the end of the world
We go on in all our hopelessness
and all our frustration and all our pain
We go on-
Because what alternative
Do we have really?
Death is not a happy option
And loneliness at this stage
Even worse pain-
Tolerance is now the holy word
Forbearance Patience
Stoic quiet –
Despair is not the end of the world
But it’s not lovely either
We go on thinking maybe some day some how
It will be better
It will-
But not that much.
– Shalom Freedman (American-Israeli poet, b 1942)
[daily log: walking, 5 km]
I don't know. I am not enjoying teaching anymore.
[daily log: walking, 5 km]
I know that lately, I have had a shorter temper than usual, and that I haven't been doing well with managing conflicts at work. Last week I had kind of lost my temper with someone with whom I normally get along fine, because I was angry about something else. This pattern has been happening a lot, though I'm pretty confident it doesn't carry into my classroom conduct.
Nevertheless, it's made for some tension in the staff room, and today I had the impression I was confronted about it. I say that I had the impression because with meetings in Korea you never really know what the main purpose is – was my conduct something that came up incidental to other things discussed, or was my conduct the main reason for a meeting where other things were discussed the majority of the time? One never knows.
Regardless, I can only acknowledge my mistake and apologize. Unfortunately, I'm not even sure what's going on, except to say that on the one hand, I've been depressed and that surely affects how I behave, while on the other hand it seems that communication downward to me as staff, especially at the middle-school level, has been even worse than the usual bad that is typical of Korea.
What to say? I'm miserable and everyone can tell, I guess.
What are my options? The Korean approach is to say: cheer up. This is in the command form – which is to say, just do it. The Jared approach is to quit and do something else, but my recent cancer and health issues mean I don't have the freedom of movement that I used to have. I am "married" to the Korean healthcare system, now, for better or for worse, and because of that, I am "married," too, to my job.
Curt says I need to deal with my stress better. He's right, of course.
I have been having problems with my old bicycling crash injury with my foot (when I shattered my 2nd metatarsil bone in 1993 using the perfect combination of exceptional velocity on Bloomington Avenue in Minneapolis, with an open manhole and my bike). This pain flares up every several years (last time was summer of 2012) like a kind of proto-arthritis in my right foot. The consequence is that one of the few things I do to work off stress – take long walks – isn't working as well lately. I'm still walking to work and home every day, but it goes slower, and I feel less motivation to go out exploring on weekends or in the morning.
There have been times since the cancer surgery when I have wondered if it was even worth it. This is one of them.
[daily log: walking, 5 km]
Whenever the weather is overcast and drizzly like today, I am taken back to my early years, growing up in Humboldt. Actually it isn't necessarily dreary, as there is a certain enveloping comfort to this weather too. Nevertheless, today was dreary – perhaps more on the inside than on the outside. I am really unhappy with my writing (err, lack of writing), with my Korean study (err, lack of study), with my health (err. . . you get the picture). I am constantly tired and reliably unmotivated. I don't even look forward to maintaining this blog, lately. As with work, I keep at it mostly for the structure it provides.
[daily log: walking, 1km]
Adam Yauch, known as MCA, was lead of the legendary Brooklyn rap group Beastie Boys. He was also a devout Buddhist – which I actually remember knowing at one point. For "MCA day" recently some Buddhist monks celebrated Yauch and his art.
MCA-DAY "Buddhist Monks" from KNARF® New York on Vimeo.
[daily log: walking, 5.5 km]
My student Sunny, who has a characteristically sunny disposition to match her English nickname, ran into my classroom and, using a red marker, wrote on the whiteboard the phrase shown in the picture below.
2098년 지구 멸망
2098: end of the world
Her writing that wasn’t intended to be a reaction to the phrase Sally had written earlier (as part of an effort to give herself prompts for a speech she was working on), “When you get all that new homework,” but the conjunction proved humorous.
I’m not at all sure why Sunny thinks the world will end in 2098 – it’s some local pop culture reference, clearly – a movie or TV show or webtoon that the kids are all soaking up. She took the time to explain that it didn’t matter to her personally, because she would be dead by then. I asked her if she really thought so, and she said confidently that she would only live to age 83 – which, given her birthyear is 2003, puts her demise a decade and a half before the deadline.
