Caveat: Ultimatum

Banalities & Journaling / The Wonders of Work

Well, I kind of gave my boss an ultimatum yesterday, after last weekend's depressing, discouraging experience (which was, admittedly, entirely subjective). 

I told him that I wasn't very happy, and that I would like to negotiate an early end to my contract, but that I was uncomfortable with just cutting and running, as another foreign teacher at Hugok did only two weeks ago (he simply disappeared, cleared out of his apartment and sent an email, "bye").  This is not uncommon among some of the lower echelon foreign workers who come to Korea and end up disillusioned or frustrated by one aspect or another of the experience.  But I don't want to be like that, I said. 

We talked for a while.  And here's where things stand.  I will not take work home with me, ever.  That's clearly not good for my personality type and for my ability to survive.  I must get better at making clear when things I "must do" will not, realistically, get done in the time I have to spend on them at work–especially correcting student papers.  In exchange, when I do have such unfinishable piles, I can count on him or someone to help me try to work through them somehow.

And, if that doesn't make things survivable over the contract term, he will give me a "letter of release" if I still want to leave at the end of a term–as long as I give sufficient notice and as long as it's at a good boundary between student terms.  The first such stopping place is near the beginning of December.   The "letter of release" will mean I cannot be "blacklisted" by Korean Immigration and thus I will be free to remain in Korea, seek another job here, etc., per whatever I might choose to do. 

This seems like a very fair and reasonable basis upon which to proceed.  And in good faith, I will probably be working exactly the full open hours of the academy for at least a while.  Which means 11:30 to 11:30, roughly. 

Caveat: Monday, 6 AM

Banalities & Journaling / The Wonders of Work

Friday, 10:45 pm.  I'm finished with work.  I have about 250 papers I should correct this weekend.  I'm exhausted by the long week, feeling overwhelmed.

Saturday, 10:30 am.  I slept restlessly.  I still have 250 papers I should correct.  I call my friend Curt and tell him I don't want to meet, I'm tired.  My stomach hurts.  So, I read a book, but I'm feeling depressed.

Saturday, 1 pm.  I finally begin to correct some papers.

Saturday, 2:50 pm.  I get a text message from my boss on my cellphone–he tells me I should enjoy the day.  What the hell does this mean?  I now have about 230 papers I should correct.  I'm working too slowly.  I'm feeling discouraged.

Saturday, 7 pm.  I lost momentum completely, earlier.  I can't concentrate.  I spend more time feeling angry about my situation than I do correcting papers.  What's wrong with me?  I'm a failure.

Sunday, 3 am.  I can't sleep.  I'm restless.  Angry. I try to correct some papers, but I still can't focus.

Sunday, 11 am.  I finally focus, and begin to seriously correct some papers.  But I'm just TOO SLOW.  I'm still only managing maybe 10 in an hour.  My mind wanders. 

Sunday, 1 pm.  I go into Seoul and spend some time at the bookstore.  But then I decide I shouldn't buy any book–what's the point?  When am I going to find time to read an interesting book?  I should be correcting papers.  Why can't I just correct these damn papers?!  I still have 190 papers to correct.

Sunday, 6 pm.  I have definitely made some progress correcting papers.  I'm down to around 160.  I do some more on the subway, coming home.  But I'm thinking to myself, what a horrible weekend.  And it's my own fault–if I would quit worrying about all these papers to correct, and just DO IT, I wouldn't be so unhappy, would I?  I'm a failure.  I just can't handle this kind of work hanging over me.  It stresses me out and makes me anxious and miserable and angry and depressed and resentful.  I feel like I'm going to quit my damn job–which will only make me feel more of all those things.

Monday, 6 am.  I can't sleep.  I just corrected exactly 5 more papers.  Now I'm down to… let me see, about 140 left to correct?  This is wrong.  I won't make any deadlines, this way.    I feel so GUILTY.   Last week, I handed over more than half my correcting load to Sarah, and here I am, fucking up and not managing to complete the half I kept.   So I'm sure it's wrong to want to hand over more.  What it comes down to, is that I'm just a lousy teacher.  I might be doing fine in the classroom, but I'm incapable of managing my time appropriately to get all this correcting done.  The irony is that a year ago at this time, I was all stressed out because I was worried I was doing badly in the classroom.  Now, I look back on those times with nostalgia.   This inability of mine to deal well with the stress of "homework" goes back a long way.  I failed to finish my Ph.D. because of it.  I can often do pretty well with situations where I have to show up on a regular schedule and get work done.  My years at ARAMARK proved that.  But if I get into a situation where I have work "hanging over me"–unfinished work that I carry around with me and that I feel guilty about not getting done–that seems to eat away very quickly at my soul.   And it leaves me a hypocrite, beside:  what right do I have to demand of my students that they complete their work in a timely manner, when I can't do so myself?  Being a hypocrite doesn't sit well with me.  Not well at all.

Monday, 7:15 am.  So much for "Zen with a Red Pen."  Eh?

Caveat: Viendo el debate presidencial en vivo en español

Español Aleatorio (Random Spanish) / Politics, Economics & Current Affairs / Quotable

Esta mañana, me dediqué a mirar en vivo en el web el tercer debate, ¡en español!  ¿Porqué en español?  En parte, sólo por la novedad de poder hacerlo, pero, también porque brinda una cierta frescura a los mensajes ya tan aburridas de los candidatos.  Es interesante como oír los argumentos de Obama y McCain en voces de traductores (en voces femininas los dos) me enfoca mejor en sus contenidos, y permite olvidar las personalidades en cierta manera.  

Sin embargo, la negatividad de McCain, su postura defensiva, sobresalía en los fragmentos que escuché.   Y, mirándole, con su cara de viejito enfadado… difícil de aguantar.

En otras noticias, nótese como McCain sigue algo confundido respecto al siglo en que se encuentra, mirando como parece querer cambiar las reglas (que el mismo ha ayudado en crear) bajo las cuales operan las nuevas medias.

Otra pequeña observación: nunca antes me había fijado en que McCain es un zurdo.  ¿Significa algo éso?

Cita:  "While America remains a center-right country, this may well be a Marxist election in which economic realities are determining the political superstructure."–Michael Gerson, in op-ed column.

Caveat: 당신은 나는 바보 입니다

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling

Sometimes I download music without really even being sure what it is.  And it sits around on my computer without me knowing anything about it, until at some point it comes around on my infinite shuffle (well, nearly infinite–last I checked, I had approximately 5000 tracks, maybe 20000 minutes of music on my computer).  Anyway, a Korean pop song came around.  I don’t actually like it that much… just another sappy love ballad, from the soundtrack of a drama that was popular a few years back.
But I was excited when I found myself understanding significant parts of it… whole sentences, even.  That felt like a milestone.  And I thought… I could learn this song.  Maybe I should try.  Koreans put great store in a person’s ability to sing a song or two from memory.  I could really get points if I could sing something besides a few Dylan tunes in my off-key manner.  Especially something in Korean–even if I don’t particularly like the song, right?  I might as well try to learn something that I can more-or-less understand.
Here are the lyrics of this song, “Dangshineun naneun babo ipnida” (you [and] I are both idiots).  It’s a sentiment, anyway, that I could concur with–without even knowing who you are.  The artist goes by the typically monosyllabic and slightly meaningless English name of “Stay.”  Here is a youtube of it.
당신은 나는 바보 입니다 / Stay
난 바보였었죠. 내가 바보였었죠.
후회해도 늦었죠 알죠 돌이킬 순 없죠
그댈 볼 수 없어요 나도 알고 있어요
내가 정말 잘못했어요 정말 미안해요
그땐 얘기하지 못했죠 너무 어리석었죠
이제와서 이렇게 애태우며 난 용서를 빌어요
당신은 나는 바보입니다
자존심 때문에
술과 쓴 담배연기로 망가지고 있죠
당신은 나는 바보입니다
아직 사랑하기에 하루 종일 펑펑 울고만 있죠
그대도 나도 모두 바보처럼
그러진 말아요 다시 생각해봐요
우리 어떻게 여기까지 힘들게 왔는데
다시 생각해봐요 후회하실꺼예요
내가 정말 잘못했어요 정말미안해요
그땐 얘기하지 못했죠 너무 어리석었죠
이제 와서 이렇게 애태우며 난 용서를 빌어요
당신은 나는 바보입니다
자존심 때문에
술과 쓴 담배연기로 망가지고 있죠
당신은 나는 바보입니다
아직 사랑하기에 하루 종일 펑펑 울고만 있죠
그대도 나도 모두 바보처럼
그대 없인 나 한순간도 살 수 없어요
머릴 잘라도 술을 마셔도 눈물만 흐르죠
당신은 나는 바보입니다
자존심 때문에
술과 쓴 담배연기로 망가지고 있죠
당신은 나는 바보입니다
아직 사랑하기에 하루종일 펑펑 울고만있죠
그대도 나도 모두 바보처럼
이제 더 이상 망가지지 마요………
[link above is broken, but here’s an embed of the same song, edited/added 2012-02-18 – this song is therefore referenced/embedded twice in this blog now, though] [further update 2013-06-29: broken link fixed again – ! %$@ copyright police.]

Stay, “당신은 나는 바보입니다.”

Caveat: Job

Banalities & Journaling / Life is a Dream / Philosophy & Cultural Criticism / The Wonders of Work

I awoke from a transparently symbolic yet overwhelmingly simple dream this morning.  Most everything in the dream was the same as in "real life," except that my name was Job, not Jared.   There were a few moments in the dream when I was reading an article on wikipedia about Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath.  There was another moment when I stood in the classroom, and the students were asking me something, addressing me as "Job-teacher," with a long, pure, Minnesota-inflected /o/. 

Upon awakening, I looked up The Grapes of Wrath on wikipedia, but the article wasn't the same.  The novel wasn't even the same as in the dream–not that I remember quite how it was different, there.  Somehow the dream version of the novel was less Steinbeck, more Melville.  Waking up with echoes of Job left me with neurons firing associated Northrop Frye and Harold Bloom.   I looked those authors up as well, and then wondered if it were possible to be a gnostic atheist.  How would that work?  It seems like it would lead one down a path toward one or another of those crazed conspiracy theories. Bloom, in turn, lead me, via David Lindsay's A Voyage to Arcturus, back to Alasdair Gray, whom I've mentioned before, here, I think.

The pun that is central to the dream is embarrassingly obvious, given my unhappiness with my job.  I'm very glad that Freud is dead, as I'd not appreciate his making a case-study out of it.

Caveat: the neon fruit supermarket

Banalities & Journaling / My Photos / Quotable

“What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon. / In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!” – Alan Ginsberg, in his poem “A Supermarket in California,” 1956.
Completely unrelated to that, here is a picture of some people at Bukhansan National Park that I saw yesterday, doing things on ropes that I don’t know that I would have the courage to do.
picture
picture

Caveat: What’s $5000 here or there?

Banalities & Journaling

A friend perceptively asked me, recently, if the current stockmarket situation might be influencing my glum mood about things, lately.  I often make a big deal out of the fact that money doesn't matter that much to me. But partly, that's a matter of trying to convince myself, maybe. It's not that I want to have money… but if money I already have seems to be lost or wasted, I often react irrationally, graspingly. Something of that old "scotch," behaviorally inherited from my mother's parents, via my mother and uncle. 

So yes, losing $5000 in "paper net worth" in about a week is not painless, no matter what I might say or try to believe. I can take a huge amount of solace in the fact that, if my portfolio had been configured as it was up to about 14 months ago (i.e. up to when I decided to move to Korea), that disappeared $5000 would have been $20000.  But, because of my decision to make my investments more conservative, I backed out a lot of my equities in August, 2006.  The consequence, now, is that this current tumble is much less painful than it might have been.  Still, the investments I did decide to keep were mostly of the riskier variety (including an Indian stockmarket fund [down 70% from my purchase price] and Starbucks [down 65% from my purchase price]). 

Of course, the Korean currency is crashing too.  Everything's crashing, one way or another.  The Korean national bank is managing a sort of artificial crash for their currency (I'm guessing, here–I don't know this for sure), as this may be the most prudent macroeconomic way to try to actually, ultimately, soften the export-driven economy's landing vis-a-vis the world situation.  But that means I've also lost several thousand dollars-equivalent because I am sitting on a KRW cash hoard.  Now is the time to make purchases in Korea using my U.S. credit card, however–I can exploit the new lower valued-currency.

Um… what major purchase is that?  I don't know. Maybe a new computer? I sure do feel unhappy with this one, sometimes.  Last night I was trying to use my work website, here at home, and was getting really frustrated with the way Vista "tries too hard" to manage the non-western character encoding on the flash components (not that that's particularly robust design on the part of the Korean-based website!).  The consequence was that the spreadsheets of students' grades popping up on my screen were mostly gobbledygook.  Argh.

Maybe I could buy a nice computer with a Korean version of XP installed? Not sure that would ease the frustration factor – I would be exchanging neverending technical frustration with Microsoft's Vista for the linguistic uncertainties of something that is technically more robust.  But…

Caveat: Hellbridge

Banalities & Journaling / The Wonders of Work

There, I've said it.  That's one of the not-so-secret nicknames that the students call my place of employment, L-Bridge Foreign Language School (엘브릿지어학원).  I've decided my students are right.  I'm not going to deny it or hide from it.  Now, just a matter of coping. 

I worked 53 hours from Monday to Friday.  That's not counting the 2 hours of "obligatory social time" on Wednesday night.  Nor is it counting the half-dozen hours I spent last weekend grading papers.

I'm within about a week and a half of being caught up, but because this was mid-term week, I'm already swamped again.

It was raining this morning – a cool, fall rain instead of the sticky summer type.  And there was a nice chill in the air, walking home.    I cooked myself some of my homemade 볶음밥, with chopped onions, garlic, chopped tomatoes and some finely chopped dried apricots that would be going bad, and kimchi and red pepper paste and rice stir-fried together with a bit of olive oil and an egg added to it.

 

Caveat: 미국무부, “북한은 긴장 높이는 행동 중단해야”

Politics, Economics & Current Affairs / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

Headline-du-jour: US State Dept, “N. Korea-TOPIC tension high-TOPIC [again?] behavior interrupt-do-OBLIGATION… [and then what?]”.  Not sure quite how to parse this, in detailed terms.  But the idea seems relatively clear, given current events.  I didn’t realize -야 (=[grammatically subordinate obligation]) could terminate a non-subordinate clause, however.   Or that there could be two TOPIC markers in the same clause, for that matter.   Perhaps it’s some journalistic shorthand?  Or perhaps since it’s the rather incoherent US State Department, being quoted?

Caveat: Anna’s Dream

Banalities & Journaling / Media (Texts/Music/Movies etc) / Teaching & Methodology / The Wonders of Work

I received a fabulously well-written essay recently. And because we're focusing so much on revising and editing of work, I could see that it was a genuinely evolved bit of good writing – meaning the student wasn't just expressing natural talent and/or a strong and advantageous background (e.g. a past opportunity to have lived abroad). Instead, I could see how she developed her idea and then successively refined the ideas and grammar to make the final essay nearly flawless English. I penned in exactly 5 corrections – essentially zero compared to her peers. I've incorporated those corrections here. I admit I liked the essay, also, because of the more creative approach to the topic than most of the students had taken.

About 3 months ago, I had a funny and interesting dream.  I'll never forget it.  I was sleeping in my bedroom after I finished my school homework.  In my dream, I was in a desert.  I looked around and I saw a bear standing next to me.  It was a polar bear wearing a cowboy suit.  The polar bear turned and asked me if I wanted to try a red spotted dried snake.  I ate it and it tasted really good.  We started punching up all the cactuses in the desert and chased desert foxes.  The time went by.  Suddenly, the polar bear stopped running.  I asked him why and he said this instead of answering, "It's cold, I should go home."  I was surprised so much.  The polar bear says it's cold in the hot desert?  I knew it was a dream but it still didn't make sense.  I jumped off the bed, and got out of the dream.  And I saw my mom saying to me, "it's cold!  So you should put your sweater on!"  The polar bear wasn't the one who said it's cold.  I just connected my dream and mom's talking.  My family all laughed when I told them what was happening in my dream.  I think I will never forget this dream.

Caveat: Zen with a Red Pen

Banalities & Journaling / Buddhism & Zen / Life is a Dream / Teaching & Methodology / The Wonders of Work

I have long been drawn to the idea of zen-like meditation. But the fact is that I have a stunningly un-calm mind, and efforts at traditional meditation have generally failed me.
I have been reflecting that what I need to do, to meet this challenge I currently face – these massive piles of papers to grade that seem so overwhelming – is to somehow cultivate an “emptying” of my mind, around the process of having to grade student papers. Thus, I can try to turn the work with the red pen into a contemplative exercise.
Authors like Thich Nhat Hanh have written about the need to approach even the commonest of daily tasks – such as, say, doing the dishes–with a contemplative and calm and fully focused mind. And I’m not one of these people who naively believes meditation (zen-like or otherwise) requires paraphernalia of any specific kind, mental or physical. “Any activity done mindfully is a form of meditation, and mindfulness is possible practically all the time.”
pictureHere is picture of a typical-sized pile that I face on a weekend. So, is it possible? Can I make the massive piles of papers-to-grade into a opportunity of enter into a meditative state? I need to escape the resentment and anger I feel about it. If it turned into something calming and contemplative, wouldn’t it then be something I would be less inclined to dread and procrastinate on?
picture

Caveat: And?

Banalities & Journaling / The Wonders of Work

I'm still utterly miserable with work.  On top of feeling overworked, now that the new month has turned over, we (all of us teachers) are getting blamed for a sharp drop-off in enrollment at the highest levels.  Which is to say, someone (parents? kids?) is unhappy with the new team make-up and/or changes to the curriculum.  But the signals are mixed:  too much homework?  yes; not enough homework, still?  yes;  mismanagement of homework and/or of missed assignments by students?  yes.  All of the above.   What's the solution?  Bitch at the teachers for messing things up.  And maybe it's legitimate.  I'm more than 2 weeks behind on some of my grading and scoring, and I'm sure that kind of delay gets noticed by students and parents and compares unfavorably with my predecesor.  What can I do?  I'm already working more hours than I can bear.  I'm not into this kind of stress – if I were, I'd still be working with computers for corporate America.

I'm trapped.  If I resign, I get a black mark on my resume and I'll have to leave Korea – it's impossible for a teacher who has failed to complete a contract to get a visa renewal or another job in the country. That might not matter so much, if I hated Korea. But I don't. I really like it here. But additionally, if I resign, I'll have to carry around the sense of failure that will bring.  I don't wanna go there.  I don't see what to do, except buckle under and push on. 

And?

Caveat: going down the stairs of study which you hardly climbed

Kids / Quotable / The Wonders of Work

So writes Brian, on a "mini-TOEFL" style test.  He's discussing the disadvantages of having a humorous friend over that of having an intelligent friend. Which is to say, funny friends will lead you astray.  But it's a delightful turn of phrase, which I'm guessing is a translation of a Korean idiom that happens to work well in English.

Caveat: 제목없음

Banalities & Journaling / Quotable

I had a terrible dream, based at core on the fiasco of last Thursday night at work, combined with the staff observatons that are coming up.  And Condi Rice was there – in the role as Sarah-teacher.   There were supposed to be student presentations.  I was unprepared to give out the homework.  The headmaster came by (headmaster?  that’s from Moorestown).  It was on third floor of Old Main, and too hot (Old Main?  that’s at Macalester).  And I was wearing a cowboy hat.  What’s that about?  As Condi-Sarah was leaving, she was shaking her head, saying, “He did nothing… and THAT for homework?”  Pure derision.  Laughter from other annonymous observing teachers.
Meanwhile.
“God will only hear your prayers if you’re in your [home] congressional district.” – Congressman Barney Frank

Caveat: Kowloon

Hiking & Travel / My Photos

I don’t feel like dwelling on the present.  Here is a view from my hotel that I snapped in Kowloon (Hong Kong) on August 30.
picture
picture

Caveat: Sparrow

Banalities & Journaling / Media (Texts/Music/Movies etc) / Science & SciFi

I picked up a novel while visiting my mother's house (always a good place to pick up novels).  The book was The Sparrow, which I finished a week or so ago.  It was a very intense novel, both fascinating and ultimately disappointing, for me.  I won't go into the details or make an effort at a review–better discussions and reviews can be found many places on the web, including the Amazon spot linked above. I will only say that basically I concur with the Publisher's Weekly reviewer who states "The final revelation of the tragic human mistake that ends in Sandoz's degradation isn't the event for which readers have been set up."

I enjoyed the anthropology/linguist themes, and they are developed quite well (as to be expected given the author's background). I had less fun with the religious/sociological aspect, as for the most part it seemed a rather pat re-hash of the 1492 encounter, and excessively and unnecessarily sympathetic to the Eurocentric viewpoint. Those aliens are real savages!  How can we possibly interact with them, ultimately, except to end up murdering them or exploiting them? It's us vs 'the Other.'

It was a rather dark novel, but I won't blame it for the darkness of my overall mood lately.  More just a curious synchrony than any kind of cause-effect. 

 

Caveat: Flobby Dombniss

Kids / Teaching & Methodology / The Wonders of Work

Hi!  My name is Gina.  Today I'll read a story that I made.

^.^ Please listen carefully please ^.^

There was a stupid boy named flobby dombniss.  He was a farmer who grow cows.

One day snowflakes fall down to the ground.

He was growing cows in the meadow but he don't know what to do with it.

So.  Do you think he took them to inside?

No, if you think like that, that is wrong.

You know what he did?

He gave all the cows mittens and hats to put on.

This is the end of my story.  Did you enjoy my story?  I hope so and thank you for listening to my story!  Bye!

 

Caveat: Not Funny, Just Fun

Language & Linguistics / Teaching & Methodology / The Wonders of Work

"Funny" is, in my estimation, the single most mis-used word by Korean learners of English.  Somewhere along the line, they internalize a rule that tells them that "fun" and "funny" are synonyms, and that, furthermore, they describe an internal mental state rather than an external situation.  Hence you get innumerable variations on this sort of phrase:  "I am funny," by which is meant "I am having fun."   I think the problem arises out of a semantic overlap in Korean that doesn't exist in English, but is aggravated by the deceptive shared etymology of the two English words.

Lately, I've taken to telling my students that their chances of using the word "funny" correctly are sufficiently low that their best bet it to avoid the word altogether.  "Fun" has broader semantics in any event, and is generally closer to what they intend.  The issue of the fact that it describes an external as opposed to internal state is more difficult to resolve, and is linked to Koreans' efforts to use English "state" adjectives in general, I think.  Regardless, "I am fun" is slightly more comprehensible than "I am funny" as a multi-purpose response to an entertaining situation. 

 

Caveat: (마음이 아파요)

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

well, this weekend i haven’t been feeling well.  and plunged into a rather dark depression.  i know what it’s about–the whole work thing, y’know?   the feeling that i made a bad decision, signing the contract.  overwhelmed with the hours.  angry about various things, and not able to manage that anger properly.
it makes me mad that one of the reasons i wanted to stay in korea was so i could keep building on my korean language skill… but ive been so overwhelmed with work and the hours grading papers, that since the start of september i’ve devoted exactly one hour to study.  i feel too exhausted most of the time to push on it, although in august and especially before that, in july, i felt like i was finally making some amazing forward progress.
i’m really not sure what to do.  i’ll just wait this demon out, and hopefully things will smooth out at work a bit.

Caveat: 아자아자화이팅!!

Banalities & Journaling

아자아자화이팅!! (a-ja-a-ja-hwa-i-ting)=”work hard and push thru to victory, stay positive!”  Roughly, it’s something to be said to get a team to work hard, or to get an invidual who’s down in the dumps to cheer up and keep pushing forward.   The second component of the phrase, hwa-i-ting, is actually a borrowing from English:  it comes from the word “fighting” and is used like a cheer at sporting event, meaning “go team!”  I think it must have come into Korean via Japanese – English words with an “f” sound that enter Korean directly tend to get transliterated to “p” sound, but Japanese turns f’s into h’s most typically, and so when English words come into Korean with “f” changed to “h” or “hw” I assume it’s through Japanese.
Anyway, my students were complaining about something today, kind of moping and moaning (not unlike myself, outside of the classroom), and I said that phrase (which I learned watching one of those Korean dramas I’ve been neglecting since my return from Australia). They immediately perked up, partly because they’re conditioned to do so, but also because of the novelty of having an English native-speaker say it to them, maybe.

Caveat: Mexico Still Independent, Sorta

Banalities & Journaling / Politics, Economics & Current Affairs

Monday and Tuesday were Mexican independence day.  Two days, yes.  They put the event of declaring independence right at midnight, as that way they can party two days in a row each year.  But this year, the celebration was marred by grenades being lobbed into crowds in Morelia (which is the place in Mexico where I've spent the second-longest amount of time, after only my "#3 hometown," Mexico DF).

Mexico has always had a strong undercurrent of violence and anarchy, but lately I'm beginning to wonder if my time in Mexico in the mid-to-late 80's was maybe exceptional in being relatively tranquil, or whether in fact it was just as violent as now but I was simply being oblivious to it.  I know that the murder rate in Mexico City was very high even in the 80's, but it's even higher now.  Back then, murders were out of hand in the U.S. as well, so maybe it didn't seem so alarming.  Nowadays, the rate in Mexico City is the among the highest in the world, while notorious death-dealing U.S. cities like L.A. or NYC have improved substantially.

My run-in yesterday with Korean private-sector bureaucracy had me thinking about Mexico, too.  Obviously, any run-in with bureaucracy can cause me to wax nostalgic for those interminable hours standing in lines at banks or government offices in Mexico.  Though the DMV in California isn't disimilar.   Superficially, Korea has leapfrogged into the developed world.  But the undercurrent of thirdworldism (as pat and offensive and cliche as that really sounds) is still there, to be found, lurking under the surface of things.

Now that I work for a large, much-more-faceless corporation, perhaps I'm seeing that more, too.  Anyway, it's on my mind. 

But back to Mexico.  I'm worried.  When I surf the news articles on the grenade incident, I detect a certain institutional despair over the increasingly out-of-control situation vis-a-vis the drug violence that seems to be sweeping the country.  And, like any vaguely liberal American, I blame the American "drug war," at least partly, for the problem.   But Mexico's ambivalence about genuinely enforcing rule of law is saddening.  It's depressing to observe its tendency to allow money of all varieties (thus including narco-money) to seep into and quietly control all political processes, in ways that makes U.S. money-driven politics look profoundly transparent, humane, and fair.  Calderón seems as weak and aimless as any old boy priísta in his day.  The congress, supposedly more under the panista´s control than during the Fox term, stil seems to resist any efforts whatsoever at reform.  The PAN, far from offering anything genuinely new, just seems to be a new PRI with a sexy neoliberal headdress but nothing really new, and the left (PRD etc.) remains as chaotic and self-absorbed as ever. 

In other notes:  "These are your father's parentheses."  LISP programming language humor.

Caveat: Corrupting My Mental Space

Banalities & Journaling / The Wonders of Work

This having to take work home with me thing… it's really a drag. I never do well once that starts to happen. One reason I flourished at ARAMARK all those years was because I was able to work horrendous hours without ever actually taking work home with me – because I had 24/7 access to my workplace, and I found it a reasonably pleasant place to work. But I don't have 24/7 access to the hagwon, so, as soon as the number of hours I must put in exceeds the number of hours that the place is open, I have to carry work around with me. And I hate that. It spoils and corrupts the non-work parts of my mental space.

There. More complaining. Ain't I delightful to read, lately?

Caveat: Hint of Autumn

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

I had to go to a special office of KTF (my cellphone provider) because they wanted to cancel my service because their records showed I was no longer a legal alien – I had to prove my visa and residency permit had been renewed. It was all very bureaucratic. I was mostly unable to communicate with the various people I dealt with, yet I succeeded in conveying the issue through a combination of showing them paperwork, gesturing at various spots on the paperwork, and isolated phrases in Korean in the style of:  문제를 있습니다 (problem [I] have-FORMAL).
The office was near the 백석역, and after my hour of patient waiting and courteous nodding, I could’ve taken the subway back home, or even a taxi – it’s only 3 bucks for that distance, typically. Nevertheless, I decided I needed some exercise, so I walked back home instead. It was very sunny, and because today was the day after a major holiday, there was still a festive mood in the air and a lot of people had the day off and were doing things like shopping or lazing around socializing in sidewalk settings.
I saw a tiny hint of autumn, in the bushy bit of yellow embedded amid the latesummery green of the trees. You can make it out in the exact center of the photo I took with my now once again contractually functioning cellphone.
picture
picture

Caveat: Barack me obamadeus

Banalities & Journaling / Politics, Economics & Current Affairs

I ran across the above phrase while surfing through panels of the webcomic xkcd (one of the best comics of all time – and the fact that I believe this proves I'm a nerd).  It struck me as funny, and made me laugh out loud (which is not the same as LOL, after all). The phrase is a play on the title of that German guy Falco's 1985 pop hit (his only U.S. hit), "Rock me Amadeus."

The distortion has been attributed to an episode of Jon Stewart's Daily Show in June, but I have found occurences of it in the blogosphere from quite a bit farther back than June, including a scathing criticism of Obama in a difficult to attribute blog written April 1, 2008. The criticism is sarcastic and brutal, yet cogent and mostly accurate as far as it goes. Yet it doesn't dissuade me from thinking we're still better off under Obama, next term, than McCain. Politics is so depressing.

Caveat: Costco

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea

Basil (my neighbor and coworker) and I went to Costco today.  I bought green olives (expensive to find in other stores) and some bulk dried fruits and a giant brick of American-style cheddar cheese.  

Otherwise I had a profoundly unproductive day, except that my television died. I turned it on, it went buzz-buzz-buzz-swack! and the screen went shiny and then dimmed. I think the cathode ray gun inside the tube gave up the ghost.  So… it wasn't really good for me to own a television, anyhow, right? It had been a freebie I inherited from my predecessor at Tomorrow School.

Caveat: 추석

Banalities & Journaling

Today begins the Korean thanksgiving holiday, Chuseok. It’s different every year, as it follows the lunar calendar, like Buddha’s Birthday in the Spring.   But this year, the three day festival coincides very closely with my birthday.  I’m not sure I think  this is good or bad, to be honest.  I suppose it’s nice that I get my birthday off, but I often get gloomy during my birthday, so in fact, sometimes I prefer to just pretend it isn’t happening, which is harder if everyone around me is having a giant holiday, even if it’s completely unrelated to my birthday.
Whatever.  I’m not planning on doing anything special this long weekend.  I’m too exhausted and too overwhelmed with papers to correct.

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