Because today was the last day of regular class for the middle-schoolers (due to upcoming test-prep time, again – AGAIN!), we played some games in the “good” classes.
We were playing a version of the mafia game (a commercial version called Lupus in Tabula, Korean edition), which requires that the students dissumlate or “act” as I call it. They have to pretend they are not the ware-wolf, or pretend to know who the wolf is, etc.
After getting “killed” several times early in the game, one girl said, “I think I’m a good actor, but I think I’m not.” This was terribly funny, for some reason. It was pretty accurate, too – her confidence on how to the play the game was outstripping her “poker face.”
Anyway, it was fun. And now I will miss the middle schoolers, again.
Well, not severely, but it was a bit hypocritical of me to criticize Martin’s unforgiving Yale-fication of the Korean language (as I did, originally, here), and then commit the opposite sin of failing to provide transliterations for those who might not be comfortable reading hangeul. Shame on me – I’m a lazy linguist, too.
This was brought to my attention by my friend Bob, who commented on a recent entry of mine about phenomimes and psychomimes (his comment is attached to that entry). So I have gone back and revised that entry to include transliterations using the revised SK government standard for romanization.
He also wonders about the difference between phenomimes and psychomimes. I’m a little vague on that, myself, but of those listed in the previous entry, I would hazard to say that maybe 살금살금 [san-geum-san-geum = sneakily] borders on psychomime territory, since it conveys an attitude more than a phenomenon. The difference is hardly clear, to me. But I would look to that kind of thinking as the criteria.
A Korean child’s first birthday is a special celebration, called 돌 [dol = anniversary]. They celebrate with a sort of public party similar in character and atmosphere to a wedding reception. My coworker Danny had such an event for his daughter’s first birthday, today. I started out intending to take some pictures but then I didn’t, really. Here’s a few.
A candid, fuzzy shot of Danny’s wife, and him holding their daughter, who’s dressed up in some traditional Korean clothes.
A somewhat out-of-focus picture of the child choosing a small toy gavel – there’s a tradition where the child is presented with some items to choose, which serve as a sort of prediction for her future. Choosing a gavel makes her a lawyer, maybe, or a judge or future president (?). Note the presence of an MC at left.
Here’s a much better picture of another coworker of mine interacting with his very cute 5 year old daughter. The kept making faces at each other and they looked the same. It was entertaining.
[Daily log: walking, 7 km; walking-with-a-really-extremely-heavy-box-because-I-went-shopping-and-bought-something-big, 1 km]
Korea has this consumer product called “drinking vinegar.” You dilute it with water, and enjoy the acidity of it, I guess. Lately, I’ve been drinking it.
Is this another part of my periodic flirtations with “becoming ajeossi”? [ajeossi = “uncle” AKA generic middle aged Korean man].
Well, whatever. Today is Korea’s Memorial Day holiday, but I’m going to a work-related social function.
과부 사정 홀아비가 안다 widow circumstance widower-SUBJ confront The widower confronts [knows] the widow’s circumstances. I don’t really know what this means. Googletranslate, oddly, translate the whole proverb as “It never rains but it pours,” which is to say, it’s matching it proverb-to-proverb from some source, but it definitely doesn’t have a clue as to how the components therefore fit together. Maybe it’s kind of like “takes one to know one”? Being a widower, technically, myself, I’ve got to know! [Daily log: walking, 5 km; running, 3 km]
A number of sources (including the Wall Street Journal) report that someone has used the White House’s “We the People” website to start a petition asking it to create a “Do Not Kill” list similar to the “Do Not Call” list that has been reasonably successful against telemarketers. […] The president, who you may recall won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, then personally approves names on the “kill list” for execution targeted killing by drone. […]
There may be no need to worry, of course, if you think the government will never get it wrong and target somebody who’s actually innocent. And probably that never happens. In fact, it really can’t happen, because the administration has adopted a rule defining any “military-age male” it has blown up as a terrorist unless proven innocent:
[The rule] in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent. Counterterrorism officials insist this approach is one of simple logic: people in an area of known terrorist activity, or found with a top Qaeda operative, are probably up to no good.
All perfectly legal under the Fifth Amendment, of course, which provides that no person shall be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, unless he is probably up to no good.” And under the strike-zone rule, you also don’t have to worry about killing foreign civilians, because there aren’t any, at least not near your bomb.
I voted for Obama in 2008, at least in part because of his promise not to continue the Bushcheneyian business-as-usual vis-a-vis the loss of respect for due process and rule of law. It was that same promise that got him the above-mentioned Nobel Peace Price, I presume. So much for promises.
The above encapsulates why I am going to have a VERY difficult time voting for him again in 2012, despite my terror at the Romneyian alternative. I may just forgo voting altogether, so as to avoid the guilt. I know that’s very sad. I particularly like the blogger’s re-interpretation of the 5th Amendment.
I tried to go to the whitehouse.gov website and sign the above-mentioned petition, but the site complained that it was having technical difficulties. I wondered if that was due to my choice of petittion. But then, eventually, I was able to sign the petition.
Ilsan (the name of the new, western half of the municipality of Goyang, a Seoul suburb of about one million to the northwest of the metropolis) is not, in most people’s minds, a particularly glamorous place. Nevertheless, much the way Burbank is the “workaday world” behind the glamour of Hollywood, in L.A., with its many TV and movie studios and corporate offices, Ilsan has two major television studios, and it’s hard to watch Korean TV without recognizing neighborhoods and landmarks.
In that way, I feel as if I’ve landed in a sort of “parallel-universe” version of Burbank, sometimes (which is striking only because I lived in Burbank for several years in the early 2000’s). I was reminded of this when I was jogging and was struck by a view of the MBC studios building reflected in the lake at Hosu Gongwon. Here’s a picture.
Despite it being nighttime, pictures were easy – between the full moon behind the overcast sky and the city lights, it was plenty bright enough for pictures. Also in the park, I saw a 장승 [jangseung], a sort of traditional Korean totem.
I love jangseung. I don’t know what the hanja on this one says [Update: my friend Sanghyo provides info in his comment, below – the picture above is 지하여장군 = The Underground Female General – which frankly sounds like an awesome name for a blog or rock band]. She looks pretty scary, up against the swirling night sky.
의성어 [ui-seong-eo] is phonomime, which is to say, an onomatopoeic word, a word that imitates a sound. 의태어 [ui-tae-eo] is phenomime, which differs in that it’s a kind of “sound symbolism” of a feeling rather than an imitative representation. I’ve written about these things before: see here. One of the most common google search terms that brings internauts to my blog randomly is “phenomimes and psychomimes.”
I’ll admit, these things fascinate me. I frequently revisit them. I found a very brief one page pdf summary of them, this morning. And there’s a chapter in Samuel E. Martin’s exhaustive and exhaustingly Yale-ified Korean grammar about them, too (p. 340~344).
I was reading an article at the Atlantic by Robert Kaplan about Vietnam's complex, fraught relationship with China, and how that has made them much more receptive to US influence in the region, despite the legacy of the Vietnam War. Whenever I study Vietnam, I'm always struck by the cultural and political similarities with Korea.
One phrase that he uses to describe the millenia-long influence of China on its southern neighbor is: "the narcissism of small differences." This made me laugh, because it's so precisely the sort of phrase that could be applied to the interesting cultural dynamics at play between Korea and China, too, or between Korea and Japan, or between North Korea and South Korea, for that matter. And I suppose it could apply to most any cultural interaction between related neighbors, e.g. Canada and the U.S., too. That being said, although it's a thought-provoking phrase, I don't actually think it conveys much information. It's more poetry than political analysis.
I spent the day today reading and cleaning my fridge. Not at the same time. And I tried to study a little bit, too. I'm still feeling very distressed and annoyed with my knowledge that I need to reduce my blood pressure, and I'm manifesting a definite lack of self-discipline in tackling it – step one: I ate too much today. It was healthy food, mostly… but it was too much. Pasta and stuff. Sigh.
-Notes for Korean- [I'm resurrecting this "feature" of my blog from 2008/2009 – I think it helps me to organize my study efforts. I'm not sure why I ever stopped doing it, except that there have been periods when I've given up studying Korean.]
수영하다 = to swim (humans) 헤엄하다 = to swim (animals/fish) 모엄 = adventure 병아리 = chick (i.e. baby chicken) 시냇가 = stream, rivulet 건너다 = to cross 뛰다 = to run 마당 = yard 날다 = to fly 백설기 = a style of tteok that has a texture that resembles, in my mind, polenta 붐에 안다 = hug closely 알아차리다 = to realize (to come to know…) (so, 알아치리지 못했구나 = I didn't realize… ) 가리키다 = to point 영리하다 = to be clever, to be smart
How is it at all possible that I reached the age of 46 without realizing that there are pedants out there who like to distinguish between the concepts of acronym (a pronounciable grouping of first letters and sounds, e.g. NASA) and initialism (an unpronounciable grouping of first letters, e.g. FBI)? And to think that I was a literature major!
According to the wiktionary, there are 3 meanings for acronym:
1. An abbreviation formed by (usually initial) letters taken from a word or series of words, that is itself pronounced as a word, such as RAM, radar, or scuba; sometimes contrasted with initialism. 2. A pronounceable word formed from the beginnings (letter or syllable) of other words and thus representing the phrase so formed, e.g. Benelux = the countries Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg considered as a political or economic whole. 3. Any abbreviation so formed, regardless of pronunciation, such as TNT, IBM, or XML.
I always, always thought that definition 3 was the main definition. For me, it was the only definition. But a usage note says, “The third sense is often criticized by commentators who prefer the term initialism for abbreviations that are not pronounced like an ordinary word.” So it turns out that these anonymous commentators would have judged me to be wrong, all these years.
My absolute favorite acronym, therefore, turns out to actually be an initialism (unless you are good at pronouncing the /tl/ cluster, as in the Nahuatl language): TLA = three-letter acronym. Properly speaking, it should instead be TLI = three-letter initialism. Somehow, it seems less compelling, that way. But that’s just because it shakes up my long-held habit. I’ll try to adapt.
Here’s a lingering question, however. Some potential acronyms are nevertheless typically “pronounced” as initialisms. Anyone could say /ukla/ for UCLA, if they wanted (and, in fact, Spanish speakers generally do exactly that, for example), but people typically spell it out in English, U.C.L.A. So is it an acronym or an initialism?
What I’m listening to right now.
Cat Stevens (AKA Yusuf Islam), “My Lady d’Arbanville.” He looks so very 70’s in that video.
But I’ve been realizing, when I heard it came around on the mp3 shuffle… Cat Stevens has been more consistently a part of my “life soundtrack” than any other composer or singer in my life – he was part of my parents’ soundtrack when I was child growing up, he was a major component of my own listening, as an adolescent, and unlike other musical manias and fads I’ve had, he’s always been on the short rotation. If I had to guess a single album that I’ve listened to more times than any other, it would almost undoubtedly be Mona Bone Jakon (the disturbing origin of this album title is slightly NSFW – interestingly, this latter term is an acronym [pardon me, initialism] which was being written about by Alan Jacobs at the Atlantic wherein I first learned of this aforementioned acronym/initialism distinction – thus, full circle).
I was reading the third story in my first grade A1 reader. It’s about a little baby chick trying to cross a stream. The chick gets advice from a duck (swim!), a rabbit (hop across!), a bee (fly!), but she’s very sad because she can’t do these things. And then the mama hen comes along and says: just walk across the bridge!
Oh! There’s a bridge… The chick says, “이렇게 쉬운 걸 가지고…” […like that, it’s easy].
For some reason, I found this intensely funny. What a stupid chicken. Cute story.
웃는 낯에 침 뱉으랴 smiling visage-AT spit spit-PROP Shall we spit at a smiling face? This is basically a proverb saying that someone is being ungrateful. It’s in an ironical propositive verb form of some kind, at least as best I can tell from my grammar. Let’s be grateful, then.
I felt some tweegret when I ran across this tweet, by someone named Dan K. Here’s what he said:
History of the universe: Hydrogen is a light, odorless gas, which, given enough time, turns into people and ends up thinking about itself.
Now that it’s June, I don’t feel different than I did yesterday. That is a pointless observation. But it’s just hydrogen, right?
What I’m listening to right now.
Woven Hand, “Dirty Blue.” Interesting video, too.
Lyrics.
This fear is only the beginning
All for the loving hand
Yes I smile and I agree
It is a good night to shiver
A good tongue might make it right
All I’ve said above a whisper
There is a sorrow to be desired
To be sorrow’s desire
There is a sorrow to be desired
To be sorrow’s desire
What they say is true
It is a dirty blue
This color around you
You’re curled up warm
In your own little corner of Sodom
Did you agree to believe
This fall has no bottom
There is a sorrow to be desired
To be sorrow’s desire
There is a sorrow to be desired
To be sorrow’s desire
All we move by the book of numbers
I’m held together by string
I hear not the voices of others
The bells of Leuven ring
Fear not the faces of brothers
And I, I’ve come apart it seems
I see not the faces are covered
And I, I’m in your amber ring
Your amber ring…
What they say is true
It is a dirty blue
This color around you
There is a sorrow to be desired
To be sorrow’s desire
There is a sorrow to be desired
To be sorrow’s desire
UCTSWLM. According to a graph being shared by business blogger Derek Thompson (at the Atlantic), there is some measure of economic"dispersion" – I'm not sure what that term really means in economic terms – according to which the countries in the Eurozone have a higher "dispersion" than a hypothetical Union of Countries That Start With the Letter M. And supposedly, this "dispersion" is a bad thing, if one is considering undertaking a monetary union – e.g. the Eurozone.
Better candidates for monetary union – besides the UCTSWLM – include the Market Economies of Latin America (who is being excluded, there? – Venezuala? Cuba? it doesn't say) and the Asian Tigers, among others.
Well, anyway. I like the idea of a UCTSWLM. We could just call it the M's, for short. Or maybe… Mmmmmmm. Imagine the headline: "Mmmmmmmm economy in crisis again! Will Malawi and Mongolia ever work out their differences?"
Starting on the first of May, I started keeping a “daily log” in this blog of how much I’m walking and/or running (aka jogging). Each day on the last entry for that day I put the daily log in square brackets at the bottom of the entry – see below for today’s. I’m trying to increase my motivation and consistency. So I’m keeping data, here in this blog, the same way as I keep other sorts of daily banalities. Living the public, transparent lifestyle, out there on the internets.
The results are “just in time”: today, I learned I’m borderline hypertensive, because of my blood pressure, which was taken during my drug screening / health checkup that I had to get for the provincial education office (which I’d been procrastinating on).
I found it depressing – I walked 120 kilometers in the month of May, and jogged another 49, for a total 169. Combine that with the fact that I spend most of my working day on my feet (in the classroom) and that I almost always use the stairs (7 floors at home, 5 floors at work), and I don’t think I’m really that sedentary.
And yet… and yet… my weight is frozen with the extra “Yeonggwang 5 kilos” I picked up in 2010, and here I find I have high blood pressure. What’s going on? What am I doing wrong? I don’t think my diet is that irresponsible, either – I’m semi-vegetarian, I’m mostly avoiding alcohol… Well, just plain arghh.
Here’s a graph of my data. You can see how I get lazy each weekend – I knew this, and even accept it – it’s part of the routine I’m trying to establish for myself.
Here’s the data, in summary. Can you tell I used to work as a data analyst?
제 눈에 안경 my eye-LOC glasses […like] glasses on my eyes. “Through rose-colored glasses,” basically. Looks good, as I see it. This is simple, and useful. I will sometime use it. I slept very strangely last night. Longer than usual. I don’t remember anything after lying down, though I know I must have read for a while. And now I feel hollow, strangely not-fully-present. What’s up?
… Thusly a certain blogger named Chris Sims characterizes that most beloved of the “Saturday Morning Cartoons” from my childhood – Scooby Doo: “the lopsided rhombus of unrequited love orbiting a talking dog.”
He’s writing about the philosophical underpinnings of the original series, vis-a-vis complaints (valid, in his opinion – and mine, too) about the introduction of “real” ghosts and “real” paranormal events in later incarnations of the series. He explains that this later derationalization of the series and of its iconic characters is utterly against what the series originally “meant.”
He says it was originally about teaching kids to think. I very much agree. Looking back on it, I almost wonder if it had some kind of marxian agenda (remember, marxian is not marxist – it’s about the philosophical methodology of the dialectic, not about politics, per se). I recall a graduate seminar in which we were discussing liberation theology, and about the possible ways to leverage pop culture in a project of “conscientization.” This is it, a priori.
Near the conclusion, Sims states:
To paraphrase G.K. Chesterton, Scooby Doo has value not because it shows us that there are monsters, but because it shows us that those monsters are just the products of evil people who want to make us too afraid to see through their lies, and goes a step further by giving us a blueprint that shows exactly how to defeat them.
Amen. Or as Scooby might say, rrAmen. I’m so glad people out there are writing at this level about these kinds of things. [Daily log: walking, 4 km; running, 2 km]
So after all the procrastination associated with renewing my visa, I thought I'd have a break from the procrastination-guilt after it finally got renewed.
Unfortunately, I've found a new thing to procrastinate on – I have to go get a medical check-up / drug-screening, now – it's a requirement for the provincial education office for all hagwon teachers (not just foreign ones). I have to go to a hospital and get the screening, but I keep not going to do it. This morning, I had resolved to finally go and get it done, but then I woke up, and in my blurry morning routine, immediately consumed two cups of coffee and a bowl of rice. Unfortunately, you're supposed to fast for the screening. Um. Oops. Was that a freudian avoidance-thing going on?
My friend Bob sent me a link to a Lego movie on the Lego website. He has son who is fascinated by these things, which is why he sent me the link. I watched Lego movies – I’d embed one here, but they don’t let you embed their movies (which is poor marketing, in my opinion). But here’s the link.
I like the episode where the prisoners escape by jumping into the prison toilet with scuba gear on. The prison administrators try to get the prisoners back using a toilet plunger. See screenshots.
I think these videos would be extremely useful in an elementary language classroom, because there’s something salient about them – they’re produced without any dialogue whatsoever. Thus they could be used as prompts for story-writing, similarly to wordless comic-strips.
Today is Buddha-Came-Along-Day (부처님 오신 날). So, THAT man came around – as opposed to the other man who didn’t come around. A holiday. As is my usual behavior on most Korean holidays, I’m just going to stay home – I hate battling crowds in public transport, as everyone seems to want to go somewhere on holidays.
It matches up with U.S. Memorial Day, this year. That’s just coincidence – Buddha’s birthday follows the lunar calendar, and seems to fall kind of late, this year.
Now that I’ve renewed my contract, I’ve embarked on an apartment-improvement spree. I bought some soft mosquito-netting type stuff and I’ve rigged it over my window. The problem with this is that when the window is closed, the handle wants to push through where the netting wants to go. This has been solved because this netting is removable – it’s velcroed the window frame and when I want to close the window, I peel back the netting. It works. I’m happy – there are a lot of mosquitoes breeding in the swamp in the alley down below, and worse, there is a disgusting pigeon infestation on the side of my building somewhere, and they have a lot of flies, which fly through my open windows most discourteously. Now, problem solved – I can keep my window open without inviting in the small-brained denizens of the building’s exterior.
Some Dalits in India are making a new "Goddess of English" according to something I saw at BBC. She's not a Goddess of English people, but English as a subject of study – because Dalits (who are India's "untouchable" caste) feel they need Engish even more than other Indian people. I think, actually, she should be called GOEFL – Goddess of English as a Foreign Language. This suits our language's current affinity for acronyms.
Wouldn't it be funny if, hundreds of years from now, anthropologists were trying to figure out how, exactly, GOEFL arose? I think if there's a Goddess, there needs to be some holy literature to go with her – I mean, seriously, if there was going to be a new "religion of the Book," this is the candidate. It should be a dictionary, maybe? Or a grammar textbook. That would be awesome.
I think the GOEFL could be serious candidate for FSM-type status. (FSM stands for Flying Spaghetti Monster.) I won't try to explain – but I recall the anecdote of the Kansas science teacher who tried to get the "FSM creation myth" into the classroom, based on challenging the vague wording of a new pro-creationist education law in that retrograde state. Properly, the religion is called Pastafarianism. I do not make this comparison this to mock GOEFL – I genuinely and sincerely hope she's a successful and widely adopted goddess.
To celebrate GOEFL Advent, I met my friend Basil who was up from Gwangju visiting, and we went out to that Indian Restaurant in the LaFesta shopping center (about a block from my old apartment). Actually, we didn't know it was GOEFL Advent. But we had some Naan and I had Aloo Palak and Raita, anyway. There were thunderstorms but the rain was sparse and we mostly walked between the raindrops.
It's probably not interesting to most people, but I find it fascinating: a scientist has decided that cities are different from anything else in the biological sphere (i.e. cities are, after all, collective organisms), because they experience "superlinear growth." Which is to say, cities grow faster as they grow bigger – whereas growth in every other biological system slows down as it gets bigger. What are the implications of this? Is this like comparing apples and oranges? Read a NYT article here, or another article by Stewart Brand here.
… but the song said he would. I’m referring to the Johnny Cash song based on the Book of Revelation (St John’s Apocalypsis). It’s rather dylanesque. Kind of intense in a not-sure-that’s-relevant way.
What I’m listening to right now.
Johnny Cash, “The Man Comes Around.”
Lyrics.
And I heard as it were the noise of thunder One of the four beasts saying come and see and I saw And behold a white horse
There’s a man going around taking names And he decides who to free and who to blame Everybody won’t be treated all the same There’ll be a golden ladder reaching down When the Man comes around
The hairs on your arm will stand up At the terror in each sip and in each sup Will you partake of that last offered cup? Or disappear into the potter’s ground When the Man comes around
Hear the trumpets, hear the pipers One hundred million angels singing Multitudes are marching to the big kettledrum Voices calling, voices crying Some are born and some are dying It’s Alpha and Omega’s kingdom come
And the whirlwind is in the thorn tree The virgins are all trimming their wicks The whirlwind is in the thorn tree It’s hard for thee to kick against the pricks
Till Armageddon no shalam, no shalom Then the father hen will call his chickens home The wise man will bow down before the throne And at His feet they’ll cast their golden crowns When the Man comes around
Whoever is unjust let him be unjust still Whoever is righteous let him be righteous still Whoever is filthy let him be filthy still Listen to the words long written down When the Man comes around
Hear the trumpets, hear the pipers One hundred million angels singing Multitudes are marching to the big kettledrum Voices calling and voices crying Some are born and some are dying It’s Alpha and Omega’s kingdom come
And the whirlwind is in the thorn tree The virgins are all trimming their wicks The whirlwind is in the thorn tree It’s hard for thee to kick against the pricks
In measured hundred weight and penney pound When the Man comes around.
Close (Spoken part) And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts And I looked and behold, a pale horse And his name that sat on him was Death And Hell followed with him.
I heard this as I was walking around Ilsan earlier today – I went to the HomePlus store over by Kintex – it’s actually closer than the other one that’s near my old apartment. (HomePlus is a kind Korean Target store, roughly – it’s a step up from E-Mart which is Korean Wal-Mart, and, much as I prefer Target to Wal-Mart, so I also prefer HomePlus to E-Mart.)
I walked by the Juyeop Children’s Library, which is rather cool, architecturally.
I walked by some springing flowers in front of Hansu Elementary School.
It felt like early Summer. Wait – it’s early Summer. That must be why.
My current children’s-book-in-progress is 이야기책A1 – it’s a 1st grade “reader” and the title means “A1 Storybook” (cover picture at right). The stories are fairly easy to read. The second story is about why the cat washes his face after eating, but not before (which is what Korean children learn to do almost universally, I think – though that doesn’t mean they actually do it). It’s told in an “oral tradition” style. Here’s how it goes:
여러분, 고양이가 세수하는 것을 본적이 있나요? 고양이는 항상 밥을 먹고 나서 세수를 한답니다. 왜 먹기 전에 하지 않고 먹은 후에 하는 걸까요?
[Hey, everyone, have you ever seen a cat washing himself? Cats always wash themselves after eating. Why do they do that after eating but not before eating?]
And so it goes. It turns out the cat got tricked one time by a sparrow.
가는 말이 고와야 오는 말이 곱다 going word be-charming-IF coming word be-charming If outgoing words are charming then incoming words are charming. Speak well and kindly to others, and they will return the favor. This is the Golden Rule, applied to words, anyway. It’s also the converse of the famous dictum “garbage in, garbage out.” I certainly think this true. It’s not always easy to keep to it, in practice, but I’m always and forever trying.
When I posted yesterday that I had renewed for another year, several people commented to me in one medium or another that I seemed to be being a bit masochistic in doing this. That's not true at all. If you read this blog, of course there are some complaints about one thing or another. But I don't think there is an overall negativity to this blog. Is there?
The facts: this is the best job I've ever had. Even the best job has challenges, hard or frustating days, whatever. But teaching, in general, is the first career (of my dozen or so careers) where I end my day, on average, happier than I start it. So if I can combine that with a non-psychotic boss and being in a country and city and culture that I've grown to really like, if only as an outsider, and this makes for a pretty good job.
"The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or hostile universe." – Albert Einstein.
Without being theistic, I definitely believe we live in a friendly universe. Call it a weird sort of "stealth" optimism.
Radio K is the University of Minnesota's radio station. They do things that I listen to, sometimes. The world is very interconnected these days, isn't it? I live in suburban Seoul and I listen to internet radio from Michoacan or Minnesota or Santa Monica.
What I'm listening to right now.
Fire in the Northern Firs, "Flavor Savior." The sound reminds me of something vaguely Afghan Wiggish or U2ish. Or something.
It’s official. I signed my contract for another year in Korea, today – about 3 weeks after the renewal took effect from a de facto standpoint (the start date is May 1st), but such are things. We spent about an hour playing with our cellphones while waiting for our number to be called at the posh new Goyang City Immigration Office – our municipality finally has its own (as befits a city of over one million); the new office is near the city hall, instead of it just being a branch office of the Uijeongbu office, which is always what it’s been during my previous visits there.
As is usual in such moments, after the process was done I felt both giddy and yet at the same time gloomily reflective in a “buyer’s remorse” sort of way.
I’m happy that this stressful moment – the moment of decision and worry about if something might go wrong – is past, but I’m also wondering if I made the right decision. There are many things I don’t like about my position, some of which have, in fact, been highlighted this week – my lack of control over the curriculum is greater than I had hoped for, and I often feel that my strong opinions about students’ abilities and needs are essentially ignored. But… I have strong reasons to stay in Korea, and this provides a stable, safe, predictible environment in which to do so.
In good news, too, today, my student named Nemesis (not his real name, but you get the idea – picture at left) was extracted from my EP1 class, which made them a genuine pleasure for a change, despite their hyperactivity and disinterest in actual English. Ah well.
Teaching is such a strange thing to be claiming to be trying to do, isn’t it?
열 길 물 속은 알아도 ten gil [of] water inside know-BUT 한 길 사람 속은 모른다 one gil [of] a person inside don’t-know One can know ten gil of water,
but one can’t know even one gil of a person. A “gil” is a traditional measure, maybe 10 or 11 feet, but used as a “fathom” in English. People are unfathomable. Um. Yeah.
Walking home, I heard Nik Kershaw’s song “Don Quijote” come on my mp3 player’s shuffle. This made me think of Rocinante. But not the Rocinante who was Don Quijote’s horse, rather, the Rocinante that was the name of my giant M816 wrecker, US Army tow truck that I operated in Korea in 1991 as part of the 296th Support Battalion of the 2nd Infantry Division. In fact, I had nothing to do with why the truck was named Rocinante, although I approved of the name. It had simply come that way, already named.
Nik Kershaw’s album, The Riddle, which included that song, was one of only a half-dozen cassettes that I had for my Walkman, during my time stationed in Korea. As a consequence, the tape was on heavy rotation. When I was off duty, I would retreat from the barracks – where I despised some of my roommates, and most of all, where I genuinely feared my squad sergeant – and I would climb the hill on base to the helipad. I would sit down in a ditch and listen to my Walkman and read Dostoyevsky or Gogol. I consumed an immense amount of Russian literature that year – because the tiny Camp Edwards battalion library had a weirdly complete collection of Russian classics in translation. Perhaps this was a by-product of being so close to the DMZ (North Korea was less than 10 miles away), and an artifact of the Cold War era.
I don’t have any pictures from that epoch in my life. But here’s a “web pic” I found of an M816 tow truck. It’s a very useful tool for flipping over Humvees that have been stranded upside-down in rice fields by hotshot sergeants.
What I’m listening to right now.
Nik Kershaw, “Don Quijote.” Lyrics:
your mind can play tricks makes you what you want to be just like superheroes you saw them on tv
coast to coast, wall to wall got to go, duty calls here i am superman, lois lane saved the world, back again here i am
in my old, red saloon i’m a knight in shining armour if i were asleep, man i couldn’t be much calmer
hit the road, on the run faster than anyone here i amone for all, all for one shake the fist, shoot the gun here i am
don quixote what do you say? are we proud? are we brave? or just crazy? don quixote what do you say? are we shooting at windmills like you?
common sense, is as good as a cafe’ on the moon when man and machinery come to their high noon
beat the clock, punch the wall fix’d in no time at all here i amradio on the blink kick the cat, hit the drink here i am
don quixote what do you say? are we proud, are be brave or just crazy? don quixote what do you say? are we shooting at windmills like you?
Because today was the last day of regular class for the middle-schoolers (due to upcoming test-prep time, again – AGAIN!), we played some games in the “good” classes. 
