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: Hypochondriac Daydreams
After sitting around for a while after getting home from yesterday afternoon's first radiation therapy session, I felt restless. Not energetic, exactly, but it was a kind of impatience. Part of the problem is that I sit there thinking and worrying too much.
"Is that little itch on the side of my neck a symptom of the therapy, or just a little itch on the side of my neck?" … "How about that strange feeling in the side of my mouth?" … "How about that momentary ringing sound in my ears?" These are the bodily "ghosts" and passing sensations that we experience all the time, if we sit and "listen" to our bodies at any time, but now, I have this giant thing to worry about, to wonder how it's affecting me.
It's not to say I'm not experiencing some symptoms. The slight burning sensation on my neck or in my mouth matches what was suggested. But even that, I have to wonder… am I feeling it, in part, because it was suggested? As a long practicing semi-pseudo-meta-hypochondriac (don't ask me what, exactly, I mean by that), this is going to prove a difficult time, I think.
So last night, Andrew and I ran some errands, and stopped in a 김밥천국 [kimbap heaven = Korean fastfood chain] for some 콩국수 [kongguksu = soy milk cold noodle soup with egg and veggies], which I had been craving. Not as good as at a "real" restaurant, but the fast food version satisfies the craving more or less.
We ended up walking a few kilometers, because Andrew wanted to buy a giant fan to compensate for the fact that we may need to get the air conditioning unit repaired in my new apartment. But this being Korea, with the summer season in full swing, giant fans seemed hard to come by. They're all sold out and not restocked, because why would someone wait until now to buy a fan? They'll re-appear next spring, right?
It was funny, because Andrew now seems to have the thankfully short-lived cold that I had last week. The consequence is that he was the one who said, "OK, let's stop walking," rather than me. He remarked that there was some irony that I would be the one to want to keep walking, being the alleged cancer patient.
I slept restlessly, waking up several times.
At one point, I dreamed I was trying interview some military official, but he refused to speak a language I could understand. I kept trying out snippets of different languages, and his language would shift, and become imcomprehensible.
Now it's morning. I have session number two in a few hours. I'll have breakfast and Andrew and I will head over to the hospital.
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: zap-o-matic number 1
at hospital. . going in for first radiation. see you later.
Caveat: The Hippocritical Response
Andrew and I were talking about hypocrisy and for some strange reason I drew this cartoon.
Caveat: Analog
This is worthy of contemplation, on radiation day one. Good morning world.
Caveat: Mind’s Eye
I was looking for something less taxing than going out and walking around in 90 degree heat with 100% humidity. I found my ink and brush and some paper and did this sketch – not a still life just from imagination.
I’m trying to recapture my various pre-illness hobbies and interests, and find my old routines and spontaneities.
Caveat: My Cancer Story As Told to Low-English 7th Graders
The kids only understand maybe 20-30% of what I say. But I repeat myself a lot, I draw a lot of pictures on the whiteboard, I've given them some key words ahead of time (cancer, surgery, etc.).
So I just talk. I actually teach this way a lot – providing kind of personalized "stories" or narratives. "Almost-comprehensible input" I call it. It's deliberately a little be above ability level. But this narrative was quite a bit longer than most I do – and more deeply personal, too.
Despite their limited understanding, their eyes were wide and they were utterly attentive throughout. They know the topic, they know it's REAL, they're fascinated.
I go off on a little bit of a political-leaning statement at the end, saying the kids should be proud of their country that they have better health insurance than in the US. I believe this, but it's also calculated – I often try to get my students to reflect that their country isn't as "poor" and "bad" as they like to believe. Koreans love to talk about how bad things are in their country, and I want them to recognize that they exist on a continuum where in some realms they're really quite well off.
I feel a little bit self-conscious posting this. It's not perfect, but it's very much how I tend to conduct a class, just on a more intensive subject than usual with a much longer "lecture" part. As I listen to it, I'm hyperaware of how much I use "filler" transition words like "so" and "and then." All of us do this, but stylistically this has become a bit of an affectation for me – I've "Koreanized" my sentence structure: I add transition words the way that Korean non-native speakers of English tend to add transition words. It sounds weird, to me, played back. But I have come to feel that especially for lower level students, it gives them something to "hang on to."
I kind of fudge on a few aspects of the story – I leave out the complicating infection and attribute my second surgery to my own talking too much. There are other corners cut in the narrative – it's not for a medical journal. But overall I think it's sincere to what I experienced.
Caveat: Languagelessness
I really like this periodic table by a graphic designer named Alison Haigh. It’s utterly languageless, and I think, aside from the Mendeleev arrangement, it could be comprehended by aliens. I think if she had adopted the “wide periodic table” arrangement it would have been more “universal.”
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 rift of unremembered skies and snows
Clown in the Moon
My tears are like the quiet drift
Of petals from some magic rose;
And all my grief flows from the rift
Of unremembered skies and snows.
I think, that if I touched the earth,
It would crumble;
It is so sad and beautiful,
So tremulously like a dream.
– Dylan Thomas (Welsh poet, 1914-1953)
Dylan Thomas has evolved to become one of my “top 10 poets” – I find myself constantly seeking him out. Maybe sometime I should try to make that list of “most sought out poets.” I also should get around to making a separate category for quoted poetry on this blog – I seem to do it pretty often and it clearly needs its own separate category.
Below, a painting entitled “Dylan Thomas 4” by Welsh artist Peter Ross.
Caveat: 우리가 살고 있는 세상이 꿈인지 현인지 알 수가 없다
I was sharing another of my favorite Korean movies with Andrew, earlier today, so we watched 빈집 (“empty houses”). I really like this movie, but this time around, I was struck by how much of the movie was obviously filmed in Ilsan – I would guess about 50% of the outdoor shots were in neighborhoods and locations within walking distance of my apartment. That adds some interest to the movie, I guess. If you watch it, basically any scene in a flat neighborhood (i.e. no hills) would be Ilsan.
The movie concludes with an epigraph that goes:
우리가 살고 있는 세상이
we-SUBJ live-PROG-PRESPART life-SUBJ
꿈인지 현인지 알 수가 없다..
dream-be-IF presentmoment-be-IF know-FUTPART possibility-SUBJ thereisnot
We cannot know whether the life we live is a dream or incumbent [“real”].
This was kind of hard to translate – because I didn’t let myself go back and look at the translation given in the subtitles in the movie. But I think I got it right – the key is a grammar point on page 55 in my “grammar bible” (Korean Grammar for International Learners) about using two parallel clauses ending in -ㄴ지 with the verb 알다 to indicate “a choice between two uncertain or unknown possibilities.”
Caveat: Legal For Another Year
Curt and I got our paperwork in order, finally, and headed over to the immigration office to make it all official – my contract and work visa are renewed for another year.
Back at work, I scrambled to record and score some more speech tests – this was for some lower level students that were mostly quite unprepared, which was perhaps the fault of my not-so-successful substitute teacher. I coached and coaxed them through the process, but ended up taking too long and running into the next class.
They're finished now. I've scored and posted almost 50 student month-end speaking test videos in the last 2 weeks – that has been my main responsibility. This business of posting every single student speech is a new idea, one that I'd recommended quite a while ago but which they finally decided to implement while I was in the hospital. I'm pleased with the result, but unhappy with the fact that so far the youtube "unlisted" postings I've been doing are so slow to load it ends up being kind of chimerical for the parents (who are the intended audience of these postings) – they see that the videos are posted but can't get the videos to load to their phones (which is where most of them try to get the videos).
I wonder if the fact that I load the videos to my youtube account (me being an American) means the videos are being hosted somewhere across the Pacific without optimization for viewing here in Korea. I wonder if the videos were loaded under a Korean-based youtube account, would they load better over here? Or is youtube's infrastructure just weak in Korea right now? Popular public videos seem to load fine, but all my "unlisted" videos are really unreliable.
Here is my favorite speech of all the speeches I recorded and scored. My student Somin isn't the most advanced speaker but I like that she puts her own, original thinking into her speech rather than just following a formula. The topic for a lot of the students, this month, was global warming. I know she's really hard to understand, but I do feel really proud of how she's done.
Caveat: Not Really a Complication In My Opinion
That sore throat I woke up with the other morning has progressed into a full-blown head-cold: runny nose, sneezing, coughing, etc. Andrew is a bit worried about it, and I recognize that it is a bit taxing on my immune system so shortly before the start of the radiation.
But I find the whole thing oddly reassuring. It's like the world is telling me: "you're still just a regular guy, you get to get colds because you work with children, so deal with it."
The Cancer isn't a special superpower, it's not an exemption from regular life, it's just something I've had to deal with.
Does that make any sense?
And my thinking is, it's better to have the cold this week, during my "between-horrible-treatments holiday," than next week or the week after that, when I'm doing the radiation and my immune system is weakened. If this is a normal cold, I'll have worked through it before things start next week. If it's not, or if it's persistent, well, the doctors will recognize that and can make a judgement about whether or not to postpone the start of radiation, if it merits that.
In other words, I don't feel worried by it – just annoyed by it, the way having a cold is always a bit annoying.
I've taken it as a signal to back off my "10 kilometers a day" commitment to adventure. I'll let Andrew explore on his own, and just focus on doing whatever work has for me and relaxing and resting the rest of the time. I am reading almost 10 different books-in-progress now. It's time to actually start finishing one. Heh.
To return to one other point: frequent colds are an automatic part of teaching kids, in my experience. Having received a dozen "oh teacher I miss you!" hugs from second and third graders over the past week, if something was floating around it's inevitable it will glom onto me in my weakened state. Frankly, the hugs were worth it.
Caveat: You’ll have to find your own pictures
Table in the Wilderness
I draw a window
and a man sitting inside it.
I draw a bird in flight above the lintel.
That's my picture of thinking.
If I put a woman there instead
of the man, it's a picture of speaking.
If I draw a second bird
in the woman's lap, it's ministering.
A third flying below her feet.
Now it's singing.
Or erase the birds,
make ivy branching
around the woman's ankles, clinging
to her knees, and it becomes remembering.
You'll have to find your own
pictures, whoever you are,
whatever your need.
Caveat: Tell The World
Over the last several years at Karma, I’ve developed my own EFL debate curriculum. I’m quite happy with it. The working title for all the readers and workbooks I’ve created is Tell the World, with various subtitles, such as Tell the World: Debate Workbook or Tell the World: Debate Topics Reader 1.
Today, Curt set up a meeting between me and a friend he has who works for a Korean EFL publishing house. Does this mean what it seems like it might? Yes it does. We didn’t sign anything, but we agreed to meet again in September, and meanwhile I have some “deliverables” including a draft of my “Debate Topics Reader Level 1” and a “roadmap” of how I see a fully-fleshed debate curriculum working.
The upshot is that I might be publishing a book, soon – for the Korean EFL market.
[UPDATE some years later: This never happened, except to the extent I self-published using the copy machine at work to support my own teaching. It had been a great idea, though.]
Caveat: Brian Williams Busts a Mash-up
This is funny.
Comic relief is important, right? That song is old… 1989! It dates me. [In case of future link-rot, it’s a video shown on the Jimmy Fallon show wherein a mash-up of clips of Brian Williams reading the nightly news ends up having him speak the lyrics to Young MC’s classic song, “Bust a Move”.]
Caveat: 백옥이 먼지속에 묻힌다
Here is a Korean proverb from my book of proverbs.
백옥이 먼지속에 묻힌다
white-jewel-SUBJ dust-pile-LOC be-hidden-PRES
A white jewel is hidden in the dust.
The book says it means a person of integrity retains his integrity even in misery.
I always liked the proverb about integrity that goes:
Integrity is what we do when no one is watching.
Caveat: the dust drowns the dark clouds
I went to work, and felt some productiveness, but then my work computer was
annoying me (Windows XP, in 2013? Seriously?), so I went back home – because I have no classes. Andrew and I went up the block to the Japanese place I like, and had cheap sushi. But then I
ended up going back to work because I still had some things to do – I
needed to record and score some make-up speeches for July month-end
testing. So I worked twice today, with a very long break. It was OK.
I hope I can sleep well tonight – I'm suffering, a little bit, because the sensation is beginning to return to parts of my neck, which up until now has been mostly just numb, due to the nerve damage from the major surgery. I've taken some painkiller today, for the first time since discharge from the hospital.
I haven't blogged much music lately. But I'm listening to a lot of music – and, now that Andrew has received his massive harddrive-full-o-musictracks in the mail, I'm listening to a lot of new stuff from my brother. That's a good thing.
What I'm listening to right now.
Devendra Banhart, "Cripple Crow."
Lyrics.
When they come from the over the mountain
Yeah we’ll run we’ll run right around them
We’ve got no guns no we don’t have any weapons
Just our cornmeal and our childrenThe dust drowns
The dark clouds
But not us
But not usWhile we pay for mistakes with no meaning
All your gifts and all your peace is deceiving
And still our pain dissolves with believingThat peace comes, their peace comes
That peace comes, their peace comesNow that our bones lay buried below us
Just like stones pressed into the earth
Well we ain’t known by no one before us
And we begin with this one little birthThat grows on, that grows on
That grows on, that moves onCripple crow say something for our grieving
Where do we go once we start leaving
Well close that womb
Or else keep on bleeding
And change your tune
It’s got no meaning
Caveat: SharkCat
I'm not, normally, a person to post "cat videos" with abandon. But… I was watching this, a while ago, and laughing hard, and Andrew insisted that I blog it, because of that.
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 Pair of Dreams
I woke up twice this morning. The first time I woke up was around 5:30 AM. I was restless, as I'd been having a difficult dream.
Someone from the US Army had come to my apartment and told me I had two hours to get packed up and moved – everyone had to move out of the country. Some kind of war scenario – many of the Koreans were going around doing crazy things, too. But it was all very vague.
Two hours is not a lot of time to pack up my apartment. Especially given the fact that I kept finding new rooms full of stuff. I would get stuff thrown into boxes only to discover a new room. Piles of knickknacks on shelves, bookshelves creaking under the weight of too many books like in a used bookstore, plastic containers of who-knows-what piled on the floor, like in my storage unit in Minnestoa.
Some Army guy came around and said I couldn't bring it all. "Take what's important," he said.
I found many things that I didn't even recognize as mine, yet it all seemed important and precious. I found bins of ceramic figurines, mountains of paper with drawings on each page, collections of coins and stamps and price tags. It was a hoarder's fantasy world, and I was being perfectly hoarderish within it.
But time was running out. People would come through and offer to help, but I kept rejecting it. Then Karen came by – Karen is my (ex-) mother-in-law (Michelle's mom). She said, with a sigh, "This was all Michelle's." I sat back in shock – that explained both why I didn't recognize the stuff and why I still felt compelled to save it all.
It was too late, though. The Army guy came by and said to stop packing, we were moving out. Karen was crying, as we left the unpacked stuff behind.
I held only a few boxes in my arms. I didn't even want them. I threw them aside, as we marched, a group of random Ilsan foreigners, toward some waiting buses.
Then I woke up.
I couldn't get back to sleep, so I read my history book for about an hour.
Then I finally fell asleep. This time I dreamed that I was trying to explain to my EHS students that they were very smart and had great potential, but they were complaining they were stupid and lazy. I was trying to motivate them. It makes sense – that's the class I did a substitute gig in last night.
Somehow, the four EHS students and I were in a supermarket. I was trying to cheer them up by clowning around, but, like the incipient adolescent 6th graders that they are, they seemed to mostly find this embarrassing. I said I would stop embarrassing them if they would cheer up. So they tried their best, and we sat down on some benches in a park to try to have class.
It was too hot to study, though. We sat around swatting flies and mosquitoes, as the sky grew dark. "Teacher, my book will get wet," one of them said, as raindrops started to fall.
I woke up again. 9:30 AM. That is the latest I've woken up since coming home from the hospital, I think. I have a sore throat – that is worrying – the last thing I need is to get some kind of cold or flu, leading into the radiation next week.
I ate some vitamin C with my breakfast. Maybe I should take it easy today, and stop having so many adventures.
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: Health Update
I should post a health update.
Yesterday I visited Dr Ryu at the clinic before going to work. The infection that has been so problematic in my neck appears largely to have cleared up, but due to scheduling issues and wanting to be sure of everything, I will start the radiation next week (Monday, August 12).
I must admit I have apprehensions about starting radiation – who wouldn’t. They make you contemplate a truly horrific list of possible complications and side effects: OMG radiation causes cancer! blindness! death!
You have to sign that list.
Well, I’m trying to stay positive. Sticking to the percentages. I survived the surgery swimmingly, where the percentages were much worse than the list of percentages on the radiation. So everything should be just fine, right?
But it’s hard to stay positive, sometimes.
I’m going to try to really enjoy this week of “pure healthiness,” such as it is. I’m definitely healthier than when I had that tumor – despite my various disfigurements (neck, wrist, thigh) I feel healthier and more vital than I have in maybe a year. It’s become clear to me, over the past month, how much that tumor was
grinding down my health and sense of well-being long before I was aware what it was or what it was doing.
I will survive this.
At right is an image found online of an immobilization apparatus in use that is very similar to the one I was “fitted” with two weeks ago, what will be used for my therapy. The plastic webbing over the face is essentially rigid, but custom-moulded to the contours of the head. In my set, there is a second set of webbing that goes down over my upper torso and neck, and then there is an insert that goes into my mouth, a bit like an orthodontic retainer but serving to immobilize my jaw and tongue.
Caveat: 미치지 않으면 미치지 못한다
I stayed at work for basically the regular schedule – 2:30 to 10:00. I didn’t teach any classes, but I did some useful things, discussed some things with the boss, finished editing and posting the speech test videos from last week, talked to a lot of students in the corridors. I didn’t, in fact, feel compelled to surf the internet, although I did experience some boredom.
So there I was, sitting at work, and a little bit bored, because I was waiting on something that I needed to do later on but I didn’t have much to do right at that moment.
Looking for something to do, my eye landed on one of the aphorisms Curt has posted on the wall near the door.
미치지 않으면 미치지 못한다
michi-ji anh-eu-myeon michi-ji mot-han-da
be-passionate-PRENEG not-be-IF reach[something]-PRENEG can’t-do-PRES
This expression relies on the double-meaning of the verb 미치다, which can mean both “to be crazy” (i.e. passionate) as well as to reach some goal.
Hence, quite loosely, “If we are not passionate, we will never reach any goal.“
Caveat: Elected Silence, Sing to Me
3. The Habit of Perfection
Elected Silence, sing to me
And beat upon my whorlèd ear,
Pipe me to pastures still and be
The music that I care to hear.
Shape nothing, lips; be lovely-dumb:
It is the shut, the curfew sent
From there where all surrenders come
Which only makes you eloquent.
Be shellèd, eyes, with double dark
And find the uncreated light:
This ruck and reel which you remark
Coils, keeps, and teases simple sight.
Palate, the hutch of tasty lust,
Desire not to be rinsed with wine:
The can must be so sweet, the crust
So fresh that come in fasts divine!
Nostrils, your careless breath that spend
Upon the stir and keep of pride,
What relish shall the censers send
Along the sanctuary side!
O feel-of-primrose hands, O feet
That want the yield of plushy sward,
But you shall walk the golden street
And you unhouse and house the Lord.
And, Poverty, be thou the bride
And now the marriage feast begun,
And lily-coloured clothes provide
Your spouse not laboured-at nor spun.
– Gerard Manley Hopkins (British poet, 1844-1889)
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.
Caveat: One Month Cancer-Free
Today is the one-month "anniversary" of my massive surgery, which was on July 4th. The tumor was removed, and so far no metastasis.
That means by the logic of our gregorian calendar, this day Sunday, August 4th, is the mensiversary (a real word) of my cancer-freedom. I have always had a strange fascination for the calendrical recyclings of dates and numbers, and I suspect this monthiversary (another real word, but much more etymologically abominable) will henceforth hold a deep meaning for me.
To celebrate, I woke up, ate nurungji and a large, fat Korean plum and coffee for breakfast, and stared at the internet for half an hour.
Caveat: What If Garfield Was Just a Figment of Jon’s Imagination?
Somebody’s already worked out the answer to that question, through the publication of “garfield minus garfield” – a re-rendition of Garfield comics with the cat removed.
I will not be the first to say that this seems brilliant.
Will anyone remember me when I’m gone?
The answer for the fictional Jon, at least, is an unqualified “yes.”
Caveat: Los Güeyes Gangnam Stylin
I took my brother to Gangnam today. Somos los hermanos Güeyes (Ways, because of our family name, get it?), y fuimos gangnam stylin.
We ate tacos at a pretty good taco joint, called Dos Tacos, that I like to visit. I ordered fish tacos. Milestone: I ate spicy food for lunch. First time in 4 months.
Amazingly, when I sat down, a poster from my hometown (more-or-less) was facing me.
We went to the bookstore which caused me to spend money. Then we walked between raindrops in an afternoon rainstorm.
We had some coffee at a very crowded cafe, and I showed Andrew the Korean Language hagwon where I studied Korean full-time back in 2010. Then he said, “I’d be open to going to a museum.”
Using my smartphone, I found the closest museum to where we were, and we went there. It was the “South Branch” (“남” = nam) of the Seoul Museum of Art. It was kind of small but the price was right (“free”) and it was not that amazing, but it had some interesting decorative art / interior design stuff. Pictures weren’t allowed inside.
Here is a chair sculpture I saw outside, though.
And I was looking through the columns of the lovely old pre-Japanese building (it was once the Belgian Embassy to Joseon Korea around 1900) at the sun.
At home for dinner I had kimchi with some rice among other things. I’m almost back to my pre-horrible-symptoms (i.e. at least 4 months ago) eating capacity and range. This is pleasing.
Caveat: Dichotomia; i.e. 이분법(二分法)에 대한 경계(警戒)
I don’t know why I feel the urge to try to understand such difficult things in Korean when I can still barely communicate my needs in a restaurant. I guess it’s just more interesting to me.
I was somewhat randomly poking around in my Korean-English Dictionary of Buddhist Terms and ran across this phrase:
이분법(二分法)에 대한 경계(警戒)
dichotomy-LOC face-PASTPART caution
I would translate this, roughly, as:
Beware of Dichotomies
Which is awesome, as it could be caveat dichotomia in Latin.
The context was an entry on 시비구불선 (是非俱不禪) on p. 645 of my dictionary – the mistake of meditating on right and wrong, more or less.
Here’s what the rest of the Korean says:
시비는 참선과 거리가 멀며,
right/wrong-TOPIC meditation-WITH distance be-far-WHILE
시비가 있는 곳엔
right/wrong-SUBJ have-PRESPART place-AT-TOPIC
진리가 있을 수 없다.
truth-SUBJ have-POSSIBLE-NOT
The English on the same entry isn’t really a translation – it’s its own thing:
Meditation has nothing to do with arguments: Where there is an argument about right or wrong, this and that, there is no wisdom or truth.
The gist is the same, but the detailed meaning seems widely variant.
Here is a random picture: the luminous November sky in Hongnong, 2010.
Caveat: ya no hay pluralidad
Identidad
Tat tuam asi.
(Tú eres esto: es decir, tú eres uno
Y lo mismo que cuanto te rodea;
Tú eres la cosa en sí).
El que sabe que es uno con Dios, logra el Nirvana:
un Nirvana en que toda tiniebla se ilumina;
vertiginoso ensanche de la conciencia humana,
que es sólo proyección de la Idea Divina
en el Tiempo…
El fenómeno, lo exterior, vano fruto
de la ilusión, se extingue: ya no hay pluralidad,
y el yo, extasiado, abísmase por fin en lo absoluto,
¡y tiene como herencia toda la eternidad!
– Amado Nervo (poeta mexicano, 1870-1919)
Caveat: Is it just me?
A joke for your consideration:
"Is it getting solipsistic in here, or is it just me?"
I had some strange dreams involving misplacing my shirt while in the hospital. I was mystified, and the doctors and nurses were mystified, since misplacing a shirt while having an IV in your arm, is not, in fact, a simple task – it's really hard to take off a shirt over the IV tube and saline-bags, etc.
Andrew wasn't any help. He had misplaced his shirt, too.
What's that all about? Who knows.
I slept a full night, however, with no insomnia. That's a good feeling.