Caveat: Bracketed Dreaming

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / Life is a Dream

I was all achy and exhausted yesterday, after staff volleyball. At least, I availed myself somewhat decently, taking into account my non-athlete status and the fact that the last time I made an effort to play volleyball was probably in the 9th grade at Arcata High PE class. I was watching soccer, Chile vs Honduras. I suppose I've always associated Chile with being "into" soccer, because the time that I lived there, in 1994, was the only time in my life when I followed soccer in a dedicated manner – because I had friends who were into it and it gave us something to talk about, and because I actually had opportunities to attend games. I have a vivid memory of a Catolica vs U Chile match (they are the great #1 and #2 rivals in Chile pro soccer), eating hotdogs in the stands (with mayo and tomato and avocado, as a good Chilean). It was by far the most intense sporting event experience I've ever had.

So I was watching Chile play against Honduras, and fell asleep. I began dreaming of World Cup brackets (because, since having been remonstrated – justly – for not being a "real" soccer fan because I didn't understand the brackets, I had been studying them). And then at 11 pm, I woke up in a burning sweat. What's this, a fever? I turned off the TV. The night outside my window was loud and the air in the room felt sticky. I turned on the air conditioner – only the second time since moving into this micro apartment that happens to have air conditioning. I went back to sleep. Dreams!

There was some kind of tournament going on at Hongnong school, where I work. It was structured like the World Cup. That makes sense, but I never saw what sport it actually was. Anyway, some North Koreans showed up and were participating (or trying to participate), and the locals were resentful. They weren't bothered by the North Koreans' ability, but their behavior – they were being prideful and insensitive.

So the local kids started sabotaging the competitions. It became a big deal when the media became aware of it and began discussing it on Korean news television. But it's not that it was a scandal – more like it was being admired admired, as if it were a sort of kids' "green revolution protests" like had happened in Iran, or something.

Then the dream shifted, and I was living on the streets in some big city. It was definitely an American city, maybe Chicago or Los Angeles. I was looking for a bathroom (such is life on the streets in an American city – a Korean city wouldn't have that issue – Korea is the "land of the convenient public restroom"). I went through a police station, but chickened out about using the criminal-dominated public restroom there to clean up. Then this guy comes up to me on the street, randomly. He's a big guy – like 300 lbs. – but he's clearly well off. He asks me what I want, and he works out that I'm "homeless," although I manage to elide over this a bit in the conversation. Generously, he takes me to his apartment. For some reason, I trust him. He's extremely wealthy, with very eccentric apartment – inside, it looks like the set to Blade Runner or something. I finally go to use his bathroom, after he has told me some about himself, and then I see the bathroom has moldy walls and damp, dirty laundry on the floor. He comes in and says, "I thought maybe you could help me clean this up." There I am, dreaming about cleaning filthy bathrooms again – clearly I was traumatized by my first two apartments in Yeonggwang. Fortunately the dream doesn't go on. What's with my subconscious, anyway?

Then, the dream shifts again, and I'm teaching some kids – 3rd graders. I seem to have developed some fairly high level of rapport with them, in actuality, and I guess the dream reflects that. But… there is another foreign woman "observing" my class, along with me and Lee Ji-eun (which doesn't make sense since Ryu Ju-hui is my coteacher with the 3rd graders). This foreign woman is haughty and detached, but she keeps trying to change the lesson plan, as if she's dissatisfied. Finally she just says something to Lee Ji-eun, and I'm told to sit down, while this woman, apparently named "Pat," takes over our class. Weirdly, she has brought (in a bag!) several of these pre-schoolers – including some toddlers. She puts them out on the desk and begins her lesson. Very weird. Actually, she's doing some very interesting things with them, but I'm feeling grumpy about having my class pre-empted.

I'm not really paying attention… I'm contemplating World Cup brackets again. Then my student Sally comes back to where I'm sitting, and she's looking bored and deeply annoyed with the goings-on (which is generally how she always looks). She whispers, "Pat said you must leave now!" I'm pissed, and I think maybe that's not true – maybe Sally is just being manipulative or trying to trick me. It wouldn't be the first time, for that. So I say, "Fine, but you're coming with me." I pick Sally up and leave the room.

And then we're back on the street of the big city from before, and Sally, far from being angry at having been taken out of the class by me, seems oddly pleased that she's gotten both of us out of there. I realize that that was her plan – so it she had been lying, after all. Somehow, though, she knew how I'd react, and she'd played me to get out of the class herself. Instead of feeling upset, I reward this behavior: I decide it's time to go get some ice cream, in the store I'd noticed next to the police station earlier.

Yes, weird. And then I woke up. 5 AM. I turn off the air conditioner. I open my window – a thick fog has rolled in to Yeonggwang, which seems really common here – not sure if this normal early summer in this part of Korea, or something specific to the relatively dry weather (compared to what I think of as normal Korea summer), which renders things a bit California-y.

Caveat: Corea, Colbertized.

Found Online

Thanks to fellow Jeollanam teachers Sam and Matt (who I met at orientation in April) for pointing out this clip in facebookland. I couldn’t resist embedding it here – especially given Rain came up in this blog just two posts ago. Cool. Funny. Funnycool.

[UPDATE 2024-04-18: There used to be an embedded video here, but that link rotted some time in history, and I have no replacement.]

CaveatDumpTruck Logo

Caveat: Knowing Korean (or not)

Banalities & Journaling / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

Some people seem to be under the mistaken impression that I've learned Korean.  Not hardly at all.  I'm making an effort to post here at least once a week in Korean, but it's just a way to give myself some struture and discipline in my efforts.

You'll notice that what I post is quite short.  My last Korean post was exactly 1 sentence, with a title.  And it took me 15 minutes to write, using both a dictionary and a reference grammar.  And I ran it through google translate just to be sure (although frankly that program has a lot to be desired – quality machine translation is still a long ways off).

I still feel no sense of fluency, and when I went out to dinner spontaneously with co-workers this evening, I was pretty depressed at how little of their conversation I still understood.  My vice principal gave me a little speech, of which all I understood was something to the effect of "if you have a problem, talk to someone" but there was a lot more to it than that.  All I could do was nod stupidly.

The problem boils down to:  vocabulary, vocabulary and vocabulary.  I'm just no good, it seems, at memorizing vocabulary.  Why wasn't Spanish or Russian this hard?  Is it really that much about cognates?

Caveat: Pet Pop Star

Kids / Quotable / Teaching & Methodology / The Wonders of Work

We were in the 4th grade class. We were practicing the following simple dialogue pattern: “Who is he/she?” “He/she is ___. He/she is my ___.” For example: “Who is she?” “She is Mary. She is my sister.”

My co-teacher has put up some possible “people” and some possible “relations”: for the “people,” there were pictures of various famous people or characters the kids were sure to know the names of, including Einstein, Hermione (as in the Harry Potter character), and others; for the “relations,” she provided “aunt” “uncle” “brother” and “sister.”

So there is a 4th grade girl who has the English name of Hannah. The teacher pointed at the picture of 정지훈 (Jeong Ji-hun), a Korean pop star and actor who sings under the pseudonym of “Rain” but also uses his real name for action movies. He’s considered quite handsome in Korea. The girl’s English is excellent – probably the best in the class.

The teacher asked, “Who is he?”

Hannah said, unhesitatingly, “He is Jeong Ji-hun. He is my pet.”

정지훈

CaveatDumpTruck Logo

Caveat: Waiting for the secret police

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / Politics, Economics & Current Affairs

How long until they come knocking on my door. I was online last night, and I was following a trail of articles about North Korea’s soccer team, which is playing in the World Cup in South Africa this year, in the championship for the first time since 1966. We had been talking briefly about it in my 6th grade after-school class yesterday afternoon.

정대세This got me onto the subject of 정대세 (Jeong Dae-se), the North’s star player (see picture). He is, in fact, Korean-Japanese, and has never lived in North Korea (except for recent stints training with the national team). He plays for a pro team in Japan, has done television ads and product sponsorships for South Korean media, and is very publicity-savvy. A fascinating member of the “Chongryon,” which is a weird semi-for-profit pro-North-Korean organization in Japan, that runs everything from businesses to schools to functioning as the North’s de facto embassy to the Western world (since the North has few formalized diplomatic relations). I guess this soccer player grew up attending Chongryon schools.

So I was looking at Chongryon in wikipedialand, and getting all fascinated. And so, curiously, I decided to follow a link to Korea University, which is the Chongryon-run university in Tokyo (hence a training-ground in the North’s official ideology of Juche, among other things. Juche has always fascinated me.

And there, instead of viewing the Korea University website, I was looking at a very scary “police warning” page (in Korean, of course), saying the site was deemed dangerous and banned. Hmm….

One doesn’t run up against the Korean national police firewall very often (at least in my experience). I wonder if they’re going to come looking for me, or open a file in Seoul? Will they come knocking on my door?

CaveatDumpTruck Logo

Caveat: Ooh… Regulation! Now there’s a clever idea…

Politics, Economics & Current Affairs

I was listening to Harry Shearer, who always has some scathingly sarcastic things to say about current events.  And he said…

In Canada, apparently, there is a regulation (a simple regulation such as could be implemented in the U.S. without even the approval of Congress, since it's at the level of the sort of thing the EPA could do by decree) that says that when an oil well is dug, a "relief well" must be added within the same season.  If such a regulation had been in place – and obeyed, obviously – in the Gulf of Mexico, then BP's "missing solution" to the oil leak problem would have already been in place, and the oil would not currently be flowing into the Gulf.

Thanks Harry.

Caveat: An Accidental Curry

Banalities & Journaling / Food & Drink

12 PM rolled around, and, since it's Saturday and I've decided to be a homebody today, I realized I needed to cook lunch for myself – there's no convenient cafeteria, here, to vist at 12:30 promptly, with it's reliable supply of seaweed soup, rice, kimchi, etc.

I didn't really have much to work with.  I put some rice in my rice cooker, and decided to stir fry some vegetables.  But all I had was one green pepper, 2 mushrooms, and plenty of delicious onions.  I chopped them up and threw them in my fry pan.  I gurgled some cooking oil, and added some basil and chopped garlic, a dash of soy sauce (instead of salt, that's what I tend to use), and then I had an inspiration.

I was looking at some fat, juicy apples.  And I had some rather weird, organic, Korean yoghurt that some students had bequeathed on me after a field trip to a dairy last week.  And I thought – aha! – curry.

I chopped up an apple.  I found my raisins (that I sometimes nibble on for a desert type thing).  But the key was that although I had no curry powder, I had all the essentials for making my own:  tumeric (dump, dump, dump), powdered coriander (dump, dump), black pepper (dash, dash), ground clove (dash), Korean red pepper powder (dump).  That makes a passable curry – I've done it before.

Then, in an added inspiration, I looked at the dry-looking development in the fry pan, and thought to moisten it with a half-cup of orange juice.  Curry is most delicious when it's slightly sweet (with e.g. fruit), but spicy as heck.   And so then, after simmering this combo for a while, I added some of  the yoghurt, making it a deep goldenish brown colored glop, and stirred it all together.  And put it over my rice.

It was the most delicious freaking curry I've had in ages!  Certainly better than the pasty, bland Korean and/or Japanese styles I've gotten used to.  And spicy as heck!  I'm sweating.  Sweat.  Sweat.

I experiment a lot in the kitchen.  But  I tend not to talk about the failures. This was defnitely no failure.  Yay.  ^_^

Caveat: The view from my window

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / My Photos

With reference to Andrew Sullivan’s blog at The Atlantic: the view from my window, right now.

picture

So, on the good side – my window has a view. When I lived in Ilsan, all I saw was the wall of windows 3 meters across the courtyard. I love when the clouds get heavy and it rains. If you can ignore the heat and humidity, summer in Korea can be beautiful. As you can see, rural Korea isn’t really that rural.

CaveatDumpTruck Logo

Caveat: Inside some kind of slow-motion Van Gogh

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / Life is a Dream / My Drawings & Paintings

Driving through the fields south and east of Hongnong, coming into work each morning by carpool or bus, feels like passing through a Van Gogh painting that's been animated, but in very slow motion. The colors are brilliant, and each morning things have subtly changed. Three weeks ago, the fields were almost all barley, and vibrantly green. Then over one weekend, the barley fields all turned to stunning yellow-gold and the sun turned summery. And then field by field, over the last two weeks, the barley has been cut, rendering each field in turn a more pale yellow-white, stubbly color, and then the fields are burned, which renders things brown-black. And then the fields are plowed, and the earthy is a muddy, dark color, and then the fields are flooded, turning them into silver mirrors of the skies. Baby rice plants are laid down by Rube-Goldberg-looking rice-planting contraptions, in neat rows of green shoots across the mirrory fields. The rice plants begin to grow, earnestly, and within days the fields are green-silver, and deeply textured. Finally, the paddies are drained, revealing the slick, red-brown Korean soil, with the rice plants standing in neat rows, preparing to absorb the summer heat and rains.
Each field follows its own rhythm, slightly different from its neighbors, so at any moment there's a whole palette of colors patchworked into squares and triangles across the rolling countryside: Green -> gold -> pale yellow -> black-brown -> silver -> silver-green -> red-brown with green. And so it goes.

Caveat: Homesick.. for Ilsan?

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea

Homesick?   No, not really.  But maybe.  I'm experience a kind of odd missing of Ilsan.  Of the city. 

I knew moving out into the country would be difficult for me.  My new apartment is a long walk from even a convenience store.  There is a vegetable garden, however.  And some chickens, up the road.  And a giant "love motel" called "Glory" with a rainbow themed neon sign.   And an industrial installation across the way, where they like to bang on things.

Caveat: 3, 2, 1…

Banalities & Journaling / Kids / Life in Korea / The Wonders of Work

There were some kids doing science outside on the track/soccerfield/gathering area, with some supervision – although less supervision than would be found for similar activity in a US school. They were launching water and air pressure powered plastic bottles made into rockets. The idea was to see how far and how close to a target at the other end of the field they could get to.

I think they’re going to a science fair at Naju, tomorrow, based on overheard conversations (my ability to figure out what’s going on from overheard conversations continues to improve, but still leaves a lot to be desired – it still requires a lot of context). Here’s the last girl of the evening, launching her rocket – after it occurred to me to take pictures. It flew pretty far, but wasn’t that close to the target.

picture

picture

Korea postponed the launch of its rocket, Naro-II, which, if successful, will be the first successful launch-to-orbit of a satelite by the Korean Space Program from Korea’s new space launch facility. It was supposed to take off yesterday evening around 6 pm, from the Naro space center which is at the southern end of Jeollanam Province. They had an unsuccessful attempt last year (Naro-I). They’re using a combination of Russian heavy-lift rocket technology and home-grown control and satellite vehicle (so, the bottom stage is Russian, the top stage is Korean).

CaveatDumpTruck Logo

Caveat: 말이 많으면 쓸말이 적다

Banalities & Journaling / Teaching & Methodology / The Wonders of Work / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

There are some workmen doing work on the “staff” bathrooms that I had been in the habit of using.  Actually I have no idea if they’re officially “staff” bathrooms, but they’re across from the Principal’s office so I that what I think of them as.  Anyway, because of that, I started using the bathroom across the little courtyard to the west of my classroom.  Why am I telling you this, you might be wondering?
In this bathroom, someone has posted little Korean aphorisms and proverbs over each urinal.  So while I use the urinal, I get a Korean language lesson – if I can sort out the vocabulary.  I try to choose different urinals, to get some variety.
The above aphorism (말이 많으면 쓸말이 적다 = mal-i manh-eu-myeon sseul-mal-i jeok-da) seemed to make sense – the only word that puzzled me was “쓸” but I guessed it meant “wise,” which would give the meaning of the phrase as “there are many words but few wise ones” which makes sense.  But it turns out (according to my coteacher) that it means “will-be-used” (roughly).  That gives “there are many words but few that will be used.”  I don’t understand this quite as well, but it’s not impossible.
Yesterday, I had a sudden “aha!” moment in thinking about serial verbs in Korean.   Serial verbs are where several different verbs get strung together, each with a finite ending, with only the last bearing all the extra endings (marking politeness, etc.).  A simple example would be “공부해 봤어요” (gong-bu-hae bwass-eo-yo = I tried to study).  I suddenly thought that maybe these serial verbs are the Korean language analogue of periphrastic verbs in English (periphrastics are also sometimes called two-part verbs, like “get up” “get down” “get in” “get out” etc.), not syntactically (obviously), but definitely in terms of what you might term “semantic pragmatics”  – they’re what the language turns to when it needs a new meaning.  I’ll think about this.
In other news:  I am learning a lot from my coteachers.  Ms Ryu, with whom I teach the 3rd graders, is a very patient and kind teacher, and she has an amazing focus on positivity and the kids behave amazingly well for her.  I need to learn to emulate her tricks and style.  She spends a lot of time explaining to the kids what will happen.  This is not a trick I can use effectively, given I’m supposed to be speaking English and that my Korean is so bad that I doubt I could get my ideas across very well anyway.  But it does underscore the importance of being consistent and predictable, which is something I CAN do, and which helps the kids to know what will happen.  She always writes what the lesson objective will be, on the board, and sometimes even has the students read it.  I could do this, in English, too.  [e.g. “Students learn to say:  I like __ / I don’t like __”]
My other coteacher (the “main” one), Ms Lee, with whom I teach the fourth graders, is generally quite focused on keeping things “fun,” and she is a more kid-centered, western-style teacher.  The consequence, with Korean kids, is that there are more moments when the classroom seems out of control, but I think if you can tolerate this state of affairs, it can be good for learning, too.  It’s a fine line between “seems out of control” and “really is out of control.”

Caveat: Destroying

Banalities & Journaling / Kids

Dialogue, today at 2:28 pm. Student has two pointy-looking wood-carving implements out, and is focused on something at a desk.
Teacher: "What are you making?"
Student: "Destroying."
The behavior was questionable, but the English was excellent.

Caveat: Be lamps unto yourselves

Buddhism & Zen / Philosophy & Cultural Criticism

"Do not accept what you hear by report, do not accept tradition, do not accept a statement because it is found in your books, nor because it is in accord with your belief, nor because it is the saying of your teacher.  Be lamps unto yourselves." – Gautama Buddha.

This is why I am more interested in Buddhism, despite my confident atheism, than in other religious traditions.  It offers a sort of "freedom of conscience" that e.g. Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism or Islam don't appear to offer.  When I say, "I'm an atheist," I have had more than one Buddhist answer, simply, "That's OK."  It's hard to imagine a Christian saying that.

Caveat: Stasis

Banalities & Journaling / Teaching & Methodology

Lately I've been feeling burned out.  I know what you're thinking:  I just started this job!  No… I'm burned out on change.  Traveling almost continuously for 8 months, living out of a suitcase.  The stress of finding the new job.  The complications around my housing situation once I started my new job.  Those things have me feeling  burned out.

So my solution to that is to go into a sort of near-hibernation mode for a while.  For a weekend.  I didn't do much this weekend.  The farthest I traveled was the grocery store.  I still feel exhausted on Monday morning.  But I think I'm a little less "burned out," hopefully.

I need to solve a problem with my first grade after school class:  it's too big (20-something kids) and they're too unfocased (with too low-level English) for my regular song-and-dance strategy to work.  I need new strategies to keep these kids' attention.  I'm really opposed as a matter of principle to using the giant TV/computer monitor… as a rare, native-speaker resource in this school, it seems like a terrible use of "me" to be sitting there pushing a button on a computer.  And I've always been skeptical of the effectiveness of technology-driven language lessons – especially with children.

On the other hand, I had the best class I've had in ages with my sixth grade after school class.  We did something a bit like mad-libs, they would randomly make up nouns, places, verbs, characters… then they had to tell little stories about them.   Being sixth graders, the nouns included things like toilets and trashcans and dog poop, and the characters were mostly each other or cartoon characters… but they had a lot of fun, making up little disconnected stories.  We're working on "how to make a narrative."

Caveat: “God’s Right”

Found Online / Philosophy & Cultural Criticism / Politics, Economics & Current Affairs / Quotable

pictureThis cartoon summarizes, perfectly, my feelings about the immigration debate.

When those who oppose immigration, legal or illegal, have each taken the time and made the effort to learn at least one Native American language, and have considered the merits of Native American spirituality and culture and “walked a mile in their shoes,” only then will I take their arguments about the need to “control” immigration, and their sanctimonious arguments about “rule of law,” at all seriously.

Until then, I think Herman Melville (160 years ago!) summed up the only, truly ethical stance on immigration quite succinctly, when he wrote: “If they can get here, they have God’s right to come.”

Period.

CaveatDumpTruck Logo

Caveat: Cynicism is hope

Quotable

I overheard Miguel Syjuco, a Philippine novelist, being interviewed on Minnesota Public Radio.   He said:  "Cynicism is the last refuge of the hopeful."

Brilliant quote.  And that's… why I'm a cynic.  ^_^

Caveat: Alcoholland!

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea

It’s not what you’re thinking.

Last night, I joined some fellow foreigners on what is a regular Friday-night outing in Yeonggwang, for pizza and beer and later a game of self-generated trivia. And what turned out to be a lot of disgruntled chat about “things wrong with Yeonggwang” or “things wrong with Korea.” And I admit, I was disgrumbling, too.

Ultimately, one of the reasons I find myself staying away from gatherings of expats in this country is that they too often turn into complaints sessions. Either that, or it’s just an almost college-life-style binge drinking experience. Which is a total turn off for me, too.

Don’t get me wrong… everybody needs to complain – all you have to do is read my blog to see that I’m guilty of it too. But I also have learned, over the years, that sitting around and complaining, socially, is generally a bad idea. It reinforces the feelings of powerlessness and frustration, rather than leading to solutions or forebearance. So I tend to make my own complaining a solitary pursuit – I complain to the journal (this blog), and I keep my face-to-face social interactions as positive as I am able. It’s hard. But it pays rewards, emotionally.

There aren’t many “foreigners” working in Yeonggwang county. There are maybe a dozen working for the public schools. These foreigners have been attempting to forge some degree of community, under the leadership of a guy named Jim. I admire this – Jim’s even created a website, which is full of information for people who might come to Yeonggwang in the future.

I suspect there may be some foreigners working at the nuclear power plant, but I haven’t met any. Some of these may be “guys from India,” such as I found to be so ubiquitous in Suwon (a city with a lot of things for internationally savvy software engineers to do). I have overheard something that was either Chinese or Vietnamese on the bus to Hongnong twice. So there are non-native-English-speaking foreigners around, too. But I’d be willing to guess that none of the hagwon in the Yeonggwang area are employing westerners.  Are there other foreigners? Probably… but I don’t know where they are or what they’re doing. It’s not like Ilsan, where there are whole restaurants and bars dedicated to the “foreigner” market.

alcoholland barOh. So what’s with the title of this post? I saw a sign on a bar, walking back from the pizza joint, that seemed to imply that the name of the bar was “Alcoholland.” I attempted to snap a picture with my cellphone… it didn’t come out well, but there it is. What a totally awesome name for a bar. And maybe… what a great nickname for all of South Korea. It sure is hard, sometimes, not being a hardcore boozer, in this country.

I had one beer last night, and woke up with a headache. I don’t do alcoholland well, obviously.

CaveatDumpTruck Logo

Caveat: Yahoo fails some more

Internet & Blogging

I have felt that Yahoo is a doomed company for a long time. I’ve had problems with obfuscating and bureaucratic approaches to problems with my yahoo email account before … in fact, I’ve been annoyed with Yahoo since at least 2003.

So I don’t use my Yahoo email account very much. This evening, I tried to log on and got the following page.

picture

Take a look – can you tell me what is wrong with this picture? The fact is that it’s giving me two choices, neither of which is true. Nothing is worse than a computer program that gives you only a limited number of choices that fail to cover all the possibilities, thus allowing a user like me to “fall through the cracks.”

The first option: I’m a resident of the U.S. Not true. The second option: I’m a resident of Australia. Also not true. And why does yahoo keep thinking I’m Australian, anyway? That’s not the first time I’ve had that experience. Admittedly, I’ve been in Australia while happening to use Yahoo. But I’ve never lived there. And currently, I live in South Korea. That wasn’t a choice on the web page. Why not? At first, I thought… are they inspecting my IP address? I guess their software isn’t that smart. Because, what’s even funnier? When I gave up and lied, and told them I was a U.S resident, and was able to check my email, well, subsequently, when I logged out of my email, they threw me onto Yahoo.co.kr! That means… they CAN, in fact, tell by my IP address that I’m Korea. So what idiot came up with the software that only offered the two choices shown on that web page?

The header on that page said, “help us make your Yahoo mail more relevant.” Earth to Carol Bartz: maybe you should ask yourself, “how can YOU make my Yahoo mail more relevant?” Right now, it can’t even figure out what country I’m in, and it’s too poorly designed to even give me the option to let me tell it what country I’m in. A LESS relevant internet mail program would be difficult to invent.

If you haven’t already… sell your stock in this company.

CaveatDumpTruck Logo

Caveat: bp cares

Found Online / Philosophy & Cultural Criticism / Politics, Economics & Current Affairs

pictureSo now that I have some internets, I’ve been doing some surfing around.

There’s a guy who goes by the nom-de-twit of Leroy Stick, who is apparently behind the fake BP PR tweets on twitter that have been such a hit. A sampling:

Not only are we dropping a top hat on the oil spill, we’re going to throw in a cane and monocle as well.  Keeping it classy.

I found his press release on Huffington Post, and he actually seems pretty smart. I really like the following line:

You know the best way to get the public to respect your brand? Have a respectable brand. Offer a great, innovative product and make responsible, ethical business decisions.

This is brand management 101 – and it’s why 90% of marketing people don’t get it. And why the remaining 10% of marketing people are the secret masters-of-the-universe behind the magic of ethical capitalism, by functioning as the watchdogs that keep businesses honest. And it’s why I don’t believe that marketing as a profession is a bad thing.  It can be – and often is – a bad thing. But it can also be right up there with saving the world. Too bad BP doesn’t seem to have any of those types of marketing geniuses on staff.

CaveatDumpTruck Logo

Caveat: OMG I gots some internets

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea

I haven't had internet at home for … a long time.  The closest I got was when I was staying in Suwon, in January thru March, but my connectivity at Suwon was sporadic.  And since starting work in Hantucky, I've been deprived.  I've been able to do the essentials.  But there a little things, that long ago became important habits:  streaming internet radio (such as MPR or KCRW); being able to blog when I felt like it, rather than when it was possible; being able to look something up on wikipedia when I wanted to, rather than having to note it down and wait until I had a chance to look it up later.  These are luxuries, in the scheme of things.  But I'm very pleased to finally have the ability to do these things again.  And my blog admin website isn't even blocked.  Wow.  Special super-duper wonder-bonus, eh?

A friendly and competent Korean technician came and got it working for me, this evening.  Special thanks to my co-teacher for handling the various telephone calls that were required to make this happen.  Hopefully… I won't have to move again.  Ergh.  Scary thought.  Mantra:  Pessimism = bad;  Pessimism = bad;  Pessimism = bad.  Heh.

Caveat: Election Day

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / Politics, Economics & Current Affairs

Yesterday was election day, in Korea. Which is a sort of public holiday. Most countries either hold elections on a day when people are off anyway (like Sunday), or else they don't give people a holiday, but accommodate the need of workers to take some time off from work to vote. But Korea makes everybody take the day off – except small businesspeople, I suppose – there were still some guys banging on metal stuff in the factory-like establishment across the road from my new apartment.

Anyway, I kind of avoided going out in public. The whole election thing is a bit overwhelming, with trucks and dancing girls and bowing campaign workers beside major highways and loudspeakers and crazy campaign jingles. I just hid in my room, feeling kind of moody.

I'm convinced more and more that the 하나라 party is basically a front for the reactionary Christian right, in Korea, much the way that the Republicans have gotten more and more that way in the US, abandoning their secular conservative and libertarian roots. For that reason, although I don't agree with everything the 민주 stand for, I was hoping they'd do well in the elections, mostly to register a protest against 이명박's administration, since these are local-only, mid-term elections.

I watched the election results on the TV this morning, and it was a mixed bag: 하나라 won the Seoul and Gyeonggi governorships, looks like, which are the two largest and influential constituencies that voted. But overall 민주당 seems to have done better than I was expecting. I was surprised by the number of independents who did well, too, especially in counties and towns in the southern part of the country.

Caveat: 귀여운 고양이

Banalities & Journaling / Kids / My Photos

One of my first graders presented me with this picture the other day. How did she know I like cats? I put on the bulletin board.

picture

Unrelatedly and randomly, here is some 김치볶음밥 that I made for myself this evening.

picture

[this is a “back-post” added 2010-06-03]

CaveatDumpTruck Logo

Caveat: Happy Birthday, School

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea

So it turns out that today is my school’s birthday. And, since this is Korea, that means I don’t have to work today. Hmm.

Actually, I’m not really into NOT working, these days. I’ve been really enjoying my job, and not really enjoying my “life-at-home” – because of the frustration and lack of control around my apartment situation. Hopefully, they won’t move me again. But… I’m still trying to come to terms with the latest round of disappointments and frustrations.  But… without complaining to anyone at work, which is hard. I just carry it around bottled up, and vent on this blog. I’m sure everyone is really tired of hearing about it. OK, OK. Change the subject.

I still have no internet, either. And I went to a PC방 last night in Yeonggwang only to find my blog site was blocked there, too. What’s with that, anway?  At this rate, I’m going to have to invest in one of those VPN accounts that Chinese disidents use when they want to surf the firewalled internet. And it’s just because I want to work on my blog? The thing that’s funny is that the blog itself isn’t blocked … anyone at my school or at that PC방 can view the content of it (and presumeably all the other blogs that are out there hosted by typepad) – I just can’t get at the administration website.  What’s the rationale between allowing people to view content but not make updates?  What, exactly, do they think they’re blocking? Is it a mistake?

Hmm.. probably: “Never attribute to malice that which can be more simply explained by stupidity.”

So I came to Gwangju, today, because I know where there’s a cafe with free wi-fi that doesn’t appear to have any annoying IP blocks on it. I’m sitting drinking iced coffee and downloading some episodes of dramas – because on top of everything else, my cable TV in my new apartment appears to work only sporadically. Yet another problem to try to ask for help on without seeming to be complaining about it. Not that cable TV is good for me. I lived just fine for 2 years in Ilsan without it, and never missed it. But given the lack of internet in my apartment, the cable TV was providing some distraction, anyway.

I’m not doing very well at NOT talking about my issues with my living situation, am I? I would go off and travel somewhere, but I’m really a bit burned out on that, too.

Well, back when my cable TV was working, guess what I saw? They were televising a “go-stop” tournament. I blogged about this game a few months ago. Seeing this on TV was almost more bizarre than the 24-hour baduk channel (바둑 is the Korean name for the game we call by the japanese name: “go”). Though it’s maybe not quite as bizarre as the fact that Korean cable TV has two channels devoted to televising Starcraft tournaments (Starcraft is a multiplayer video game).

Here’s a picture of the go-stop game on TV:

picture

CaveatDumpTruck Logo

Caveat: Just a bad dream

Banalities & Journaling / Life is a Dream

I awoke from a vivid but unpleasant dream this morning. I was moving into yet another apartment. Go figure. This time, the "apartment" was a traditional style Korean house (perhaps influenced in appearance by the historical drama I was watching yesterday afternoon). But it was full of machinery and network servers (hmm… shades of life in Long Beach). And… it was filthy. Of course. I started trying to clean. I found a corpse under the kitchen sink. The bathroom wall was rotting and full of maggots.

OK. It was just a bad dream.

I had kind of a bad day yesterday. Stewing in my new apartment, but I was feeling sickly — my stomach was upset, either from stress or something I ate Saturday. Or both. I had a "toseuteu" (toast) on Saturday — maybe that was it.

I caught up on watching some Korean dramas. I finished the "Oh My Lady" series, and started two new series: 제중원, which is the first Korean "historical drama" I've found interesting, taking place in 1880's Korea, around the establishment of the first western-style hospital in the country; and 연애시대, a contemporary romantic drama involving a divorced couple that keep gravitating back to each other.

Caveat: The Karmic Consequences of Complaints?

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / The Wonders of Work

I don't dare complain to anyone about my new apartment – each time something has gone wrong, and I've said something negative about my apartment, the next apartment is worse, in some way.
It's easy to feel like someone in the administrative office hates me. It certainly leaves me feeling unwelcome and unliked. But… I really think they have no idea how this whole process has impacted my feelings. Koreans, in general, don't think about the feelings of others (especially "outsiders") the same way that many in the "West" seem to. And, I think it's possible that they have tended to interpret my complaints about my various apartments as "calls to action," when, in fact, I'm really mostly merely venting my feelings.

Anyway… so what's the new apartment like? It's very small. Smaller, even, than my apartment in Ilsan, by maybe several dozen square feet. But it's very clean. That's the positive. And the smallness doesn't actually bother me, although I admit I'm still missing that first place I was in in Yeonggwang, which, despite it's filth, was roomy and quirky. This new place is just a "box in a building" – but it's clean, and has an A/C unit (which I know I'll appreciate come the dog days of Korean high summer).

My biggest complaint about the new place is: the missing "extras" – many of those things that have been "standard furnishings" in each of my Korean apartments up until now. There is no washing machine (I'm supposed to use a public one in the lobby of my building – I don't see this happening very often, as it seems both inconvenient and fraught with communication difficulties vis-a-vis the other residents and the building manager), there is no microwave (my place in Ilsan had no microwave, but it did come with a toaster oven that functioned as an adequate substitute), there are no broom, trash can, toilet brush, or cleaning supplies of any kind (good thing it's clean, but, it means I'll have to invest in these things, which is a little bit annoying), there is no desk or chair (but the place is so small that I allowed the guys moving me in to convince me there was no point in getting a desk or chair – where would a desk and chair go?), there was no bedding (admittedly, they could see I had my own – that I had bought for my first place, because the stuff given to me at that place was too filthy to use), there were no kitchen dishes of any kind (again, they knew I had some of my own – but my set is incomplete and I'd been relying on things like a fry pan, bowl, etc., being provided).

OK… this is just more venting, right? I'm going to try very, very hard not to complain to the people who put me here, because at the rate things are going, if I do, next they'll stick me in a closet or a barley field somewhere with some chickens.

Caveat: Alligator needs a doctor

Banalities & Journaling / Kids / Teaching & Methodology

Today, I get to move – 3rd time since starting this job, last month. Maybe it will work out. Maybe not.

Meanwhile, busy day ahead of me. Some girls saw that I had used some tissue paper to wrap the mouth of the alligator, and immediately felt this was a medical emergency. They proceeded to operate, although they were also trying to watch Girls’ Generation (소녀시대 = a popular Korean pop group) music videos on the computer.

picture

picture

CaveatDumpTruck Logo

Caveat: Staff Volleyball

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / My Photos / The Wonders of Work

We had staff volleyball yesterday afternoon. It typically happens on Wednesday afternoons, if it’s going to happen. This time, instead of it being “intramural,” Hongnong Elementary (my school) was playing against Beopseong Elementary (the next school down the road), and so we all piled into various vehicles at around 3 pm and drove over to Beopseong. I thought I would have to play. But they were taking the competition with the other school too seriously, and they had already seen that I wasn’t really very good at volleyball, so, as the game against the other school progressed, it became evident that I wouldn’t be invited to play. I just sat and watched.

First, there were a couple women’s games (female staff vs female staff), and Hongnong won those games. My fellow foreign teacher (who I got to know because she went through orientation training with me at Gwangju last month) played for her school’s team, and really did quite well (better than I have done so far, anyway).

Then it was time for the men’s games. They played three games, and after Beopseong won 2, that meant there was a tie between the schools, 2 games to 2, because Hongnong had won the women’s and Beopseong had won the men’s.

The final game was quite suspenseful, and, honestly, some of the most entertaining volleyball I’ve ever watched. I didn’t resent not being allowed to play – I probably would have messed up. The last game came down to 20 points vs 20 points. There were a lot of amazing volleys, too. And finally, Hongnong won, 22 to 20. The pictures aren’t that good, but here are a few.

First, the women’s game – you can see my colleague Donna, who teaches at Beopseong, looking victorious after a winning a point.

picture

This is the last men’s game, during a long volley after the game was tied 20-20. That’s our vice-principal looking appropriately dynamic in the white shirt in the foreground.

picture

This is a picture of the Beopseong campus.

picture

[this is a “back-post” added 2010-05-29]

CaveatDumpTruck Logo

Caveat: Foodie?

Banalities & Journaling / Food & Drink / Media (Texts/Music/Movies etc)

Here is a little-known secret fact about me.

There are not that many websites for which I am a "regular." Most you could probably deduce, simply by "reading between the lines" on my blog a little bit: huffingtonpost, theregister.co.uk, wikipedia, theatlantic.com. But there was one that surprised even myself, when I caught myself typing this address into my browser this morning: latimes.com/features/food/.

Hmm… jeez, am I a "foodie"?

Maybe. I sometimes fantasize about my "next career" being that of chef. Not that it will come true. Why, specifically, LA Times? Because it's a pretty good food section – there are so many interesting restaurants and food trends happening in LA. Also, at least so far, the LA Times is one of the few major US newspapers that hasn't taken to experimenting with throwing up "pay barriers" for their online content. Not to mention the fact that I lived in LA for almost 10 years, and that was one of the paper-pulp version's sections that I browsed pretty loyally – sitting in the Burbank Starbucks on Saturday mornings, and all that.

Caveat: it is what it is

Banalities & Journaling

monday. less negative than last week. mostly over whatever flu i had, and mostly reached equilibrium RE the housing mess (not to say it's resolved – only that "it is what it is" and life goes on). another good day with the kids – although those first graders are hard to control, sometimes, especially when my co-teacher, who seems to trust in my experience, wanders off to take care of other business and isn't around if a discipline issue might arise (um, which it did, but i managed a stand-off with the kid involved until the end of class, when i found the co-teacher so she could explain my issue to the willful child in question). and for all that, i feel fine about it. now i have to go back to my unloved, internetless and gloomy temporary apartment – it's raining but i might take a long walk regardless. or watch another episode of some korean drama that i downloaded over the weekend. or both.

Back to Top