Is it just me or is it damn cold outside? I didn’t feel this cold in my apartment, last winter. I think last year was a mild winter. And it’s possible that the efficiency of my building’s heating system has been reduced in some way or for some reason, as compared to last year. The weather widget on my phone said -17 C this morning (that’s 1 F).
Here at right is a picture of the corner of my window frame this morning: see all the ice on the inside of the double-paned glass?
Regardless, I felt cold. And so for the first time since moving to Korea, I decided I needed supplementary heat. I’ve always been a “cold-blooded” person, in that being cold doesn’t seem to bother me as much as being hot. Hence I’ve never had issues with my apartment being 10 C or even lower. But maybe I’m getting older. Or maybe it was a lot lower than 10 C this morning.
So this afternoon I stepped out and took a brisk walk to the local Hi-Mart, in the snot-freezing cold. I shelled out 60 bucks, got complemented for speaking Korean by 3 different salespeople, and, in a very cheery mood, returned home and plugged it it. I feel better now.
What I’m listening to right now.
Laetitia Sadier, “Find Me The Pulse Of The Universe.”
So I suspect I might be able to mention Korean rapper and satirist PSY without too many people not recognizing him, at this point. I was slightly ahead of the curve when I posted about his “Gangnam Style” way back in mid August.
But I recently ran across something interesting. His current social satire is pretty mild. Back in 2003, he as was full-on radical. And angry-radical, too.
In this video, he’s performing a small part in a song called “Anti-American,” which is by the heavy metal band called “NEXT” and he’s smashing a toy model of an American tank. Apparently the song included lyrics such as the following.
싸이 rap : 이라크 포로를 고문해 댄 씨발양년놈들과
고문 하라고 시킨 개 씨발 양년놈들에
딸래미 애미 며느리 애비 코쟁이 모두 죽여
아주 천천히 죽여 고통스럽게 죽여
Kill those —— Yankees who have been torturing Iraqi captives
Kill those —— Yankees who ordered them to torture
Kill their daughters, mothers, daughters-in-law, and fathers
Kill them all slowly and painfully
I did not do the translation, and it seems a little bit rough, but I found it online and it’s close enough.
I do not condone, and never condone, violence as a response to violence. I dislike the ease with which people transition from violence they oppose to the idea of retributive violence such as that being espoused by the PSY and his metal-headed friends, above. Having said that, I, too, was deeply troubled by the US behavior in, especially, Iraq. I have long felt that Bush, Cheney, and subsequently the disappointing Mr Obama should be held responsible for war-crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan (and Yemen and Pakistan and other places where drone attacks are still being carried out). So without agreeing with his prescription for retribution, I do agree with PSY’s anger as expressed in 2003. And I actually find him more interesting, because he’s clearly a politically conscious animal – as indicated by both his recent, milder satire as well as this.
[Update added 2012-12-10] I just noticed that blogger Ask A Korean has a very brilliant post on this same topic. Please read it if you’re one of those people who are uncomfortable with PSY’s rhetoric. Or even if you’re not, but just curious about the context of South Korean anti-Americanism.
For my Korean movie of the week, I watched a movie entitled 인디안 썸머 [in-di-an sseom-meo = “Indian Summer”in transliteration – just sounded out and spelled in Korean letters]. A very slow-moving, slightly morbid romance between a lawyer and his death-penalty-eligible court-assigned client. I’m not sure I liked the movie that much. The courtroom drama was a little bit interesting, but the romance seemed implausible both because they talk so little but also because of their situations. But anyway. It doesn’t really have a very happy ending – the point of an “Indian Summer” is that it ends in winter quite quickly.
I tried to pay attention to the dialogue, and managed to understand some Korean. I guess that’s progress.
Good night.
I use a color printer and print out and cut up my play money which I give out to students as incentives and rewards. They can then spend their savings in my “store” or use them to buy the conventional “Karma” stamps that the other teachers use and which can go toward coupon books for local businesses (this is boring and not very incentivizing, in my opinion, which is why I started doing my play money).
My play money is called “Alligator bucks.” And long ago, when I was doing it at Hongnong Elementary, I became aware that there was a certain class of student who would use technology to try to increase his wealth. I have a student, currently, who took some alligator bucks home, scanned them, and then printed them out on a color printer of his own. Their quality is pretty good, and they are now in circulation. But they’re not perfect – and mostly I got lucky because I had preemptively taken to using a stamp with a fairly unique design to stamp the backs of the alligator bucks. Two-sided color copying is more challenging.
This is all par-for-the-course when dealing with a large and diverse group of grade-schoolers. But what’s interesting and funny to me, today, is that I saw this enterprising young future mafioso passing out his counterfeit alligator bucks to his friends for free, and he was signing each one – like little works of art. This seemed to defeat the purpose of counterfeiting them, but it was very cute. He was buying status with his fake alligator bucks, just winning the admiration of his peers for having tried to make them. He signed one on the back and gave it to me, grinning. “Do you like it?” he asked. “I like it so much.”
It was a schadenfreude moment when I ran across this blog post about how the marketers at Rosetta Stone language-learning software are bad at translating, the other day – because I’d decided I didn’t like Rosetta way back shortly after I’d acquired it. I’d decided I’d wasted my $300 and had forgotten it, basically.
Apparently, the marketers were putting German or Dutch or Swedish noun forms in place of the English verb form for “snow” in a multilingual play-on-words based on the song line “Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.” Which, of course, indicates a rather poor apprehension of the grammatical issues at play. But then there was a comment on the blog post that made me reconsider, and decide that the criticism of the Rosetta marketers was irrelevant: the commenter (who went by Breffni) wrote:
I don’t get the idea that mixing English with German, Swedish and Dutch is an acceptable conceit, but using nouns for verbs is an incongruity too far. ‘Let it Schnee’ is wrong, all wrong – but ‘Let it schneien’, that would be fine? It’s bilingual word-play, from start to finish.
And so, my schadenfreude moment quickly faded. Because… here’s the thing: I totally agree with this point – if you’re going to play with mixing languages, what does it matter whether you’re getting the grammar right – it’s like complaining that the pieces don’t go together when playing with Legos and Lincoln Logs at the same time (which I did as a child, and I’m sure there are more contemporary equivalents). The point is, you’re mixing things up, so just go with it. That’s what makes it “playing with language,” and not, say, Chomsky’s “government and binding” theory or abstract grammar. In fact, it’s the over-emphasis on grammar vis-a-vis communicative efficacy that I dislike about Rosetta, and thus internet grammar peevers are criticizing from the wrong end, as far as I’m concerned.
So regardless, that doesn’t change the fact that I deeply resent having wasted $300 on Rosetta. But I’m not blaming the marketers. I’m blaming the designers’ poor grasp of foreign-language pedagogy and methodology. The only thing the marketers did wrong was successfully convince me to shell out $300.
My boss earlier was talking about me to another teacher, in Korean. I understood only fragments of what he was saying, but, as will happen when someone is talking about you, I was trying hard to understand. Eventually I interrupted, saying, "what?" and interjecting myself into the conversation, because I was feeling self-conscious.
One phrase he was using was using was "어리버리한" [eoribeorihan] which would be a derived participle of a verb form ending in -하다. He was at a loss to explain what this word meant in English, and at the time the best I could puzzle out was that it meant vague or hazy. He was using it to describe the way that I was when he first met me. Recall that my current boss has been my boss before – he was in 2008 at LinguaForum. So he's seen my evolution in my latest career as EFL teacher in Korea for most of its length.
I decided to try to puzzle out the meaning of this word he was using to describe me, but it's not a dictionary word as best I can figure out. One slang entry I found says it means "sucker." The google agreees. Another slang entry I found says "someone who is easily taken advantage of." This would make it like the English word "rube," maybe.
I think what Curt was meaning was that I was insecure in my teaching, and not showing a lot of confidence. Since the word was being applied to me, I might charitably prefer to translate it as something like "newbie" or "newb."
I got up early and went to the US embassy this morning. I have to renew my passport – which means it’s been almost 10 years since that panicked moment right before my departure for my 2003 trip to Australia when my passport wasn’t showing up and I had to change my schedule at the last minute, which is why I came to Korea as a tourist as part of a layover on that trip to Australia which is why I considered coming to Korea to teach in 2007 which is why I’m still here 5 years later. And my passport is full of stamps.
I went to the embassy once before, here – it was in 2008, when there was some quirk of my visa situation at that time that required a visit. The embassy is in an oldish (1970’s? – that’s old in Korea) building a block south of the restored Gyeongbokgung (Joseon Dynasty Palace), but until the 1990’s it was the location of the Western-looking, German-designed, Japanese-built capitol. I actually rather liked that old building, but amid much controversy it was torn down as a lingering symbol of the Japanese colonial period, the palace that had formerly been on the same location was restored. I remember the capitol vividly from when I was in Korea in 1991.
I had a pleasant experience at the embassy, but it’s always such a strange experience visiting a US embassy. The US is the closest thing, in today’s world, to a world-spanning empire. But the imperialists treated me much better at this outpost than they do when I’m actually at home in the country itself. Very friendly, organized and courteous, despite the massive amount of security involved – entering the embassy is a bit like getting on an airplane in this TSA era.
Here’s the embassy.
Turning the other way (about 90 degrees counterclockwise), you can see the statue of Sejong the Great, who reigned in the 15th century, the pinacle of Joseon civilization. Behind him, the palace gate and behind that in the distance, Bukhansan.
It’s pretty rare for the weather to get colder after snow, in Korea. Normally, in Korea, after a snow, it warms up – because moisture (and thus snow) always comes from the south. So snow-followed-by-bitter-cold is more Minnesota-style. After a lot of snow today, however, things have gotten quite cold. I love how that makes the snow go crunch crunch as you walk, and the way that cars make a muffled skwunka-sound as they drive past.
I have a sixth grade student who goes by the English nickname of Johnson. He is the absolute lowest-scoring individual currently enrolled at KarmaPlus English Academy. He has some weird behavioral issues. He chose his English nickname, for example, fully aware of its slang meaning, which I needn’t elaborate upon here.
The other day, I was making the kids in the class – the lowest level class that I teach – memorize a dialogue from our book. I was making them write it out. Johnson decided to add pictures to his version, which I reproduce below. I realized his pictures are pretty faithful to the pictures in the textbook, except he’s introduced a plethora of middle-finger gestures, to liven things up. The boy on the skateboard in the first frame is clearly presenting his middle finger proudly to the other person. And in the second frame, the one person is clearly meditating on a whole string of F-U icons.
Such is life with adolescents immersed in our fabulous global culture. I don’t really find it that offensive. I often pretend to be more offended than I am, if only in an effort to convey to the students that there might be some limits to inappropriate behavior. Mostly, I hope that showing them kindness and tolerance can induce them to pursue the same values. I’m not always successful. But I try. And I like to document their oddly entertaining quirks and foibles.
My intention had been to make a simple blog post of this bit of music I'm listening to, as I often do, these days. Nowadays, approaching 3000 posts, I do a quick search of my posting history before making a new post, because I have some rules: never post the same video or piece of music twice, and never post the same title, twice (though I may have broken that one a few times).
So the piece of music I wanted to post was by the band with the euphonious name of "the the." One of the absolute best band names of all time. So I searched my blog for "the the" – it seemed like a weird enough thing – I'd either posted something by them, or not.
Lo and behold, I never posted anything by that band. Unfortunately, my search for "the the" got 3 pages of google hits. Why? Because apparently in Jared-typo-ese, it's quite common: I like to type the the when I mean the. So then, being the slightly OCD person that I am, I decided I needed to fix all these typos. That took a long time. Fortunately, I had a "The The" soundtrack to accompany me. Heh. Heh.
서울에 가야 과거를 급제하지 Seoul-TO go-GOAL civil-service-exam-OBJ pass-TAG […like] passing the civil service exam in order to go to Seoul. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” This proverb is easy to understand in the conext of the meritocratic system that existed in the pre-modern period, when one of the few avenues of social mobility open to “regular” people was to ace the civil service exam. It was viewed as a way to get ahead. And so, if you want to go to Seoul (i.e. become successful), you have to try to take the exam. You have to try to get somewhere. The image at right, found online without authorial attribution, is described to have been taken at a “Joseon civil service exam reenactment” – wow, talk about too much excitement.
I think winter has arrived. I checked my friendly local news website (naver.com) for the weather. Here’s the five-day forecast.
So. Winter.
Yesterday, walking around, I saw banners strung across Juyeop plaza, for the upcoming presidential election (December 19). The two main-party candidates are on the two banners: top is Park Geun-hye (conservative) and below is Moon Jae-in (liberal). The daughter of the dictator versus the former student activist (who was once jailed and barred from politics for his activism). I think either candidate would be a milestone for Korea, and both have their merits. But I predict Park will win.
Most of the fiscal cliff stuff is just media making news.
But, well, I found this funny cartoon thing, at left. The creator’s website is called longliveirony – how can that be anything but a fabulous website? She writes, of herself: “Sarah Lazarovic is a person. A person with a portfolio. A portfolio that you are now looking at.”
Sports and gallantries, the stage, the arts, the antics of dancers, The exuberant voices of music, Have charm for children but lack nobility; it is bitter earnestness That makes beauty; the mind Knows, grown adult. A sudden fog-drift muffled the ocean, A throbbing of engines moved in it, At length, a stone’s throw out, between the rocks and the vapor, One by one moved shadows Out of the mystery, shadows, fishing-boats, trailing each other Following the cliff for guidance, Holding a difficult path between the peril of the sea-fog And the foam on the shore granite. One by one, trailing their leader, six crept by me, Out of the vapor and into it, The throb of their engines subdued by the fog, patient and cautious, Coasting all round the peninsula Back to the buoys in Monterey harbor. A flight of pelicans Is nothing lovelier to look at; The flight of the planets is nothing nobler; all the arts lose virtue Against the essential reality Of creatures going about their business among the equally Earnest elements of nature.
There are some direct relationships between birthrates and immigration rates. But it is also true that in economically prosperous countries where there are high levels of prosperity and education (which the US still is, despite recent downturns), immigration can be a substitute for lower birthrates to ensure continued growth. Setting aside sustainability issues (i.e. is growth even the right way to go, in the long, long run), and ethical issues (i.e. my long-declared position that immigration is, in fact, a human right) immigration still becomes a critical factor in determining an advanced economy's health.
Apparently the US birthrate has recently plunged. No one is sure what exactly is going on – it's tied to lower immigration rates (which in turn are tied to the poor economy and high unemployment), but there seem to be other things going on too. Ezra Klein at the Washington Post writes:
A key contradiction in American public opinion is that many people simultaneously think that immigration is bad for the economy (“they’re taking our jobs!”) and that a low birthrate is bad for the economy. But they basically lead to the same economic problem: too many old people, not enough young people.
This really does capture the cognitive dissonance behind anti-immigration thinking.
바하의 선율에 젖은 날이면
잊었던 기억들이 피어 나네요
바람에 날려간 나의 노래도
휘파람 소리로 돌아 오네요
내 조그만 공간 속에 추억만 쌓이고
까닭모를 눈물 만이 아른거리네
작은 가슴은 모두 모두워
시를 써봐도 모자란 당신
먼지가 되어 날아가야지
바람에 날려 당신 곁으로
작은 가슴을 모두 모두워
시를 써봐도 모자란 당신
먼지가 되어 날아가야지
바람에 날려 당신 곁으로
상상과 실지와는 딴판이었다 imagine-AND reality-AND-TOPIC great-difference-is-PAST Imagined [thing] and reality were a great difference.
“Reality differs greatly from what’s imagined.” This proverb has a different provenance from those previous ones I’ve posted. I’m not sure it can even be properly called a proverb – it’s just a sentence I found in my dictionary on my new phone, as an example of usage for the word 실지 (reality, practicality). But I like a lot of the example sentences I’ve run across there, so when I run across one I’ll use it. My spreadsheet full of aphorisms and proverbs isn’t used up, by any means, but I’ll vary the source I guess. I’m sleepless at 430 am. Not sure what’s going on – I woke up wide awake in the middle of the night. Sometimes, that just happens. I can’t identify a pattern to it, really, but many years ago, I decided that the best strategy was to get up and do something rather than lie there and be insomniac. So I’m surfing the interwebs, listening to music, and contemplating the differences between reality and my imagination. The little illustration’s quote: “Everything you can imagine is real.”
… and look at Iceland now – the country most heavily striken by the 2008 global financial crisis, and now it’s healthy and happy as can be – not perfect, but it weathered the storm much better than Europe or even the US. Read about it at Washington’s Blog.
That’s a cool picture I found by randomly searching the interwebs, too.
You came to my show And I saw you in the crowd I didn't know your name I didn't know your name
I asked all my friends who you were And your story They told me the same They told me the same
I've left my heart to you but it's not fair Cause you're taking me for granted, baby I made a start with you but it's not fair Cause you're over the Atlantic, baby
One journey for you but it's worth it One life here with me and it's magic
One journey for you but it's worth it One life here with me and it's magic
You stayed at my head while I saw you all the time I didn't think you cared I didn't think you cared
I found you one day With a mouth full of attitude and You stole me away You stole me away
I've left my heart to you but it's not fair Cause you're taking me for granted, baby I made a start with you but it's not fair Cause you're over the Atlantic, baby
One journey for you but it's worth it One life here with me and it's magic
One journey for you but it's worth it One life here with me and it's magic
'Cause you're over the Atlantic, baby 'Cause you're taking me for granted, baby 'Cause you're over the Atlantic, baby
One journey for you but it's worth it One life here with me and it's magic
One journey for you but it's worth it One life here with me and it's magic
One journey for you but it's worth it One life here with me and it's magic
One journey for you but it's worth it One life here with me and it's magic
One journey for you but it's worth it One life here with me and it's magic
One journey for you but it's worth it One life here with me and it's magic
You either get this or you don't. I'm not even going to begin to try to explain it, if you don't. It's a chipophone – for lovers of old-school 8-bit computer-generated music. As one commenter said, on the creator's website: "ubernice."
I that in heill wes and gladnes,
Am trublit now with gret seiknes,
And feblit with infermite;
Timor mortis conturbat me.
Our plesance heir is all vane glory,
This fals warld is bot transitory,
The flesche is brukle, the Fend is sle;
Timor mortis conturbat me.
The stait of man dois change and vary,
Now sound, now seik, now blith, now sary,
Now dansand mery, now like to dee;
Timor mortis conturbat me.
No stait in erd heir standis sickir;
As with the wynd wavis the wickir,
Wavis this warldis vanite.
Timor mortis conturbat me.
Above is excerpt (first 16 lines) from “Lament for the Makers” by William Dunbar, who lived 1456-1513. The Latin, “Timor mortis conturbat me,” means “Fear of death disturbs me.”
The picture below is “Parable of the Blind” by Bruegel the Elder (1568).
Recently there’s been some media hype about Peter Jackson’s upcoming first installment of his Hobbit movies, to follow up on the Lord of the Rings series. And it got me to thinking about the books. The Hobbit had a major influence on me as a preteen. I remember my dad reading it to me and and my sister, in chapters when we were only maybe 6 or 7 years old.
I attempted to read the Lord of the Rings series in junior high and it bored me – in the field of fantasy literature, I was much more interested in Herbert’s Dune, on the one hand, or LeGuin’s Earthsea books, on the other. But returning to it a few years later, I genuinely appreciated Tolkien, and moved on to consume the Silmarilion voraciously and repeatedly. That’s my favorite of them – I’m into mythopoeia, obviously.
But thinking about the Lord of the Rings, though, lead me to recall the work in the genre that is most impressive to me, despite it’s deeply flawed mythopoesis: E.R. Eddison’s The Worm Ouroboros. The text is available online. So I began reading it, again. There’s a strange tonal and linguistic authenticity – a lack of anachronism, perhaps, vis-a-vis the fantastic, high-medieval material – though in fact, the material is almost pre-medieval, but rather classical or Homeric. Regardless, it works. But it’s not an easy book – a novel written in the 1920’s that is in almost flawless 17th century English.
I’m feeling pretty frustrated and even angry, the last few days. I guess hoesik (business dinner) brings it out, slightly. But it’s not like you would think. What’s got me frustrated and angry? My inability to understand what the heck is going on around me. That’s the language issue.
It’s not even a cultural problem – less and less am I of the opinion that the alleged Korean “communication taboo” that I’ve ranted about before is a real thing – it really boils down to certain naive conceptions of how language works, especially in communities of mixed-ability adults with multiple native languages (by this I mean e.g. there are native Korean speakers with lousy English. native Korean speakers with good English, native English speakers with lousy Korean, and native English speakers with good Korean, in an ideal mixed-ability community). In a work environment, an immense amount of communication takes place that is not explicit: people know what’s going on not because they are directly told, but because they “overhear” what’s going on. It enters their background consciousness. But with my limited and lousy Korean, I miss out on that channel. And then it feels like I’m being singled out for “noncommunication” because I don’t know what’s going on. It’s an artefact of my situation.
The solution is to get better at Korean. Argh. No comment. I’m trying. Really. But obviously, not with a great deal of success. I think my coworkers are deceived that I am better than I am, because I sometimes pick up on things quite easily. But other times, I have literally zero idea. It’s a limitation of adequate vocabulary, more than anything else.
So there. I get frustrated in social situations, which make them stressful for me.
I get frustrated at work, because I have no idea what’s going on, and no one will tell me when I ask – they are too busy, or they don’t know themselves.
I’m frustrated when I try to study, because I feel stupid and inadequate. I guess on the bright side, I have a lot of sympathy for my most boneheaded students – I’m one of them.
But I’m so depressed with this whole situation, lately, that I’m on the verge of tears.
</rant>
OK.
I came home in the cold and made a big bowl of “Spanish rice” with my leftover rice. It’s not really Spanish. It’s just rice with a vaguely Italian-style vegetable and tomato-based sauce added to it.
Last night we had a sort of less-formal-than-usual 회식 (hoesik = work-related meal/meeting event).
I genuinely like my coworkers, but even when it’s clear they like and respect me, too, I never feel like I can settle into my “real self” at these kinds of things. It’s complicated – everything about me is so “constructed” – so “intentional.” Who am I, really? It’s hard even to decide what kind of person I’m trying to be, much less to be that person consistently while drinking alcohol. I feel like I stick with that “quiet observer of my fellow humanity” role, but it no doubt disconcerts people: my failure to speak too much, my failure to become raucous or candid. And inside, I’m just a little bit lonely, and a little bit confused, and frustrated with my many shortcomings, and second-guessing each utterance, as I always have. As I always have.
I got home late. Or early. 4 am. I tried to sleep. I woke up. I drew something, as if it had come to me in a dream, but without that actually having been the case. I slept some more.
Mud-ox from the bottom of the ocean running away, holding the moon in his mouth;
Stone-tiger in front of boulder is sleeping, holding a baby in his arm;
Iron-snake is passing through Diamond-ball;
Mount-Sumeru riding on elephant’s back, being pulled by the sparrow.
My boss frequently likes to hand out these massive photocopied booklets of vaguely pedagogical value.
I say vaguely, because I really can’t judge, seeing as they’re in Korean. To me, their value is vague. But I do see them as an opportunity for a Korean lesson, sometimes. So I stuff them in my backpack and bring them home, and on lazy weekends, such as the one just ending, I pull one of them out and spend some time attempting to make sense of it.
Curt likes pithy aphorisms and inspirational snippets. They appeal to me too – partly because they’re less overwhelming to try to read than whole dense paragraphs. Hence my neverending series of efforts to translate various Korean proverbs and aphorisms.
Anyway, he has a page in one of his recent booklets that lists the (alleged) qualities of a good teacher. Here’s that list, with my effort at translation following.
학생들이 좋아하는 교사의 특성 1. 교수법이 능숙하다 2. 열심히 가르친다 3. 온순하다 4. 운동을 좋아한다 5. 명랑, 쾌활해라 6. 공평무사 7. 머리가 좋다 8. 지식이 풍부하다 9. 유익한 이야기를 한다 10. 판서를 잘한다 11. 잘 돌봐 준다 12. 최미가 다양하다 13. 실력이 있다 14. 연구심이 있다 15. 친절 16. 정돈되어 있다 17. 유머 18. 건강하다 19. 언어가 명확하다 20. 나이가 젊다 The Characteristics of Teachers That Students Like 1. Proficient in teaching 2. Works hard at teaching 3. Is humble 4. Likes to exercise (or practice – this is ambiguous) 5. Cheerful and lighthearted 6. Fair 7. Good head (or good hair! – given Korean cultural obsession with “good hair” this might be the meaning) 8. Has a wealth of knowledge 9. Informative conversation 10. Good at writing 11. Takes good care 12. Variety of hobbies 13. Has skill 14. Has a spirt of inquiry 15. Kind 16. Organized 17. Humor 18. Healthy 19. Uses clear language 20. A youthful age (as in “young for his/her age”)
Most of these I can agree with and understand. I’m a little worried about the “good hair” one, though. It might mean the ruin of my teaching career.
I watched a remarkable movie entitled Travellers and Magicians. The movie is from Bhutan. For me, it had a large number of literary resonances, everything from the Welsh myths of the Mabinogion to Rulfo’s Pedro Páramo (which itself is perhaps at least partly rooted in Aztec mythology). I guess this points up the universality of myth.
I spent a good portion of the day reading the middle part of Henri Bergson’s Creative Evolution. I like his conception of the living thing (including humans) as a thoroughfare for evolutionary forces. At the point I am now, he is saying that a living thing isn’t really a “thing” at all – it’s just an eddy in a flow, a locus of conservation and retrograde hesitation in a maelstrom of neverending change and growth. I like that.
“…there’s no country on Earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders.” – Barack Obama, November 18, 2012.
He was talking about Israel, vis-a-vis Gaza. However… How’s that work, vis-a-vis the drone war being conducted by the US in countries like Pakistan and Yemen? It’s why I was unable, within the scope of my own moral compass, to vote for the man, despite his accomplishments and the symbolism of it.
Is it just me or is it damn cold outside? I didn’t feel this cold in my apartment, last winter. I think last year was a mild winter. And it’s possible that the efficiency of my building’s heating system has been reduced in some way or for some reason, as compared to last year. The weather widget on my phone said -17 C this morning (that’s 1 F). 
