Full of Scrap

Several things of no particular import.

1) This morning, to my surprise, I achieved my first year weight-loss goal for Korea. Just a shade under 9 months early. This allows me several options.

a) Go on an enormous eating and drinking binge and get about half of that weight back so that I can be challenged, again, to lose the weight

b) Stop worrying about it. “Mission Accomplished” as a far greater man than myself once noted.

c) Adjust that target down a bit more.

Since I am still technically a “Jelly-Filled Fat Fuck” (thanks HYS), I think I shall adopt the third strategy

2) There is another job-opening in administration here at BPU and some administrators are suggesting I go for it. It’s more money, but it is a 9-6 gig, which would completely eliminated the excellent schedule I have that allows me to roam around like a rabid dog. It might serve me well in a job-search in the States (it is something like a dean of student services) but it would be a fall-back position behind my plan to become a world-famous editor and critic. I think it’s too early to be working on fallback plans.

It is tough to not know what you want to do when you grow up… and you’re 30 years beyond growing up. ;-)

3) I was contacted by a University up North, that probably wanted to hire me AND the OAF, but had to bow out due to my contract with BPU. Amusingly, two days after I sent my email saying that I could not accept the job, it popped up on Dave’s ESL Café.

4) Another reason I don’t particularly want to take the admin job (did I mention it supposedly pays substantially more money?) is that I’ve just figured out a couple of aspects of my teaching style that needed fixing and have begun to fix them in this semester. I’d really like to have another full semester in the classroom to get this stuff cemented in my head (fight cement with cement?).

BPU tossed us into the fray so quickly that I didn’t really have a chance to thoroughly check out the textbooks (a different one for each class). They also wanted a weekly lesson plan, so, for the first 10 weeks of the semester, I was pretty much cloning the first one I came up. In the short weeks following the mid-term I took a longer look at the books and decided what in them was useful. Most of them contain pretty pointless skill-n-drill, but each also has a bit more.

I also decided I will scale back the money system next semester, using it only for in-class participation. Finally, that look at the books set me to re-evaluate my blackboard style. I had been using the style – essentially outlining the topics to be taught and modeling one or two sentences – of the guy who developed the money system. It didn’t work that well for me, so I had strayed away from using the blackboard for anything but random points and explanation of things that came up.

Looking in the books I noted that I could extract things in terms of vocabulary, grammar, and meaning and those things would outline the lesson in a more useful way (as well as leave theoretical and practical models on the board for students to study). This seems to have worked much better, and I plan to continue it next semester.

Finally, I did a few things that made the class more interesting for students. I added some competition between the men and women and broke long slogs through exercises with brief spelling games (which the students both love and are good at), and in general tried to break the monotonous pace. This also included adapting some things in the textbooks to be more local. If the textbook had an exercise that requested my students “brainstorm all they knew about Rome,” that brainstorm would last all of 1-second in their heads, as they ransacked them for anything they might know about Rome, and then it would last for 5 agonizing minutes as no one could come up with anything and no kind of prompt I offered would help. So wherever these popped up, I made a “Korean” version, trying to focus tightly on Daejeon. This seemed to help some.

Heh.. all of that will become part of my analysis of my teaching plan, if they ever get around to asking me to do that.

The Great Ceramics Fest Must Wait!

Since I went out and visited the OAF today and we took a big sweaty walk up to a temple-like resting place on the hills. Then, as I walked back from the "World Store" (I was picking up some decent beer for a meeting later with TSR, the God of Garbage chose to shine his benificence on me, and so I walked home from the Bus Station with a small tea table and a backpack full of 15 pounds of beer.

The table was rather grotty and that first picture of it is as it sits in the bathroom waiting for me to join it in the shower. Once there, I stripped down (I imagine you all have a mental picture of this) and cleaned it rather extensively.

Then I cleaned myself rather extensively.

It dried in a few minutes and looked absolutely wondrous in its new role as "Piece of furniture that ties the entire room together."

Soon it is off to Academic Writing, and then a quick return to have dinner with TSR. And also pick up, if he has completely downloaded it yet, the complete discography of Queen (I am currently downloading the complete discography of Elvis Costello).

Home early, alas, as I teach at 9, and with days waning in this semester, I can't eff up (student evaluations are just around the corner!)

BTW.. Yvonne's apartment pics should go up soon at her new blog:

www.elkwoman.net/bulgogi.html

But of Course....

Get Your Cyborg Name

Friday Follies

Friday’s class is the lovely Japanese Studies kids who are always a hoot as well as the most academically serious of my classes. That’s always a good way to end the week. TSR and I kicked it in the office for a couple of hours and traded stories. He showed me a variety of pictures of his house and apartment buildings in the Philippines and also told me the story of how he met his wife. He was in Israel(!) and planning to go to Thailand. He thought she was Thai and stopped her on the street to see if she would give him lessons. She wasn’t, she was a Philippina nurse in Israel and so not much came of it. Til fate, FATE I tell you(!) caused them to bump into one another again and it eventually led to marriage.

His pictures also included the volcano behind their house and a boatload of relatives. These relatives includes Violetta, his 33 year old sister in law(?) who is looking for a husband. The upside is she is quite attractive and will make a good wife in the traditional Philippina way. The downside is she has three kids. The middle-side is that her kids are all old enough to stay in the Philippines. And, she’s willing to marry someone of up to 55 years of age. This sounds horrible (I can hear the “Pucaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiie!” from here), but it is also pretty much traditional – TSR showed me a cam-site for Philippine women and if they think you are an even moderately wealthy (and their standard is quite low) American you will be swarmed like a bee-hive.

Anyway, if any of you know a single man in the US who wants a pretty, quite, and dependable wife, boy TSR would like him to start an e-conversation. Considering all the losers independent thinkers I used to hang out with, I was boggled no names came to my mind. Surely there is some gnarled mountain-man up there in the high-hills?

Got home and the accumulated exercise of the week started to gang up on my old self. Turned on the ondol floor (damn the bills!) and just laid on my back, with the headphones on, for an hour. It’s the world’s best heating-pad. Got up and headed to the PC Bang, but no one was around online. Did a bit of research for the book review, then came home and read and wrote steadily for about 2 hours. It’s now up to about 1800 words and I can see I will have to hack great chunks away, since there are still 4 stories to discuss. Still, it is at a point that I can start on the little project that BKF and I will hammer out in the next couple of weeks, using “sayings” in language and cultural education.

Something based on similarities (What do the following proverbs say about risk?):

“A turtle travels only when it sticks its neck out”
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

And differences (which culture valorized farming and which valorized hunting?):

“Beating around the bush”
“Licking the outside of a watermelon

It should be a lark – and only over 750 words, so easy to bang out. Blah on about how it can be used as a writing prompt, how it can be used to make foreign cultures seem less intimidating and more familiar, and how it can be used to teach conversational FL.

Tomorrow I bicycle up to the reservoir to go fishing (tremendously shitty weather permitting).

That should be fun.

Project Updates…

As I noted before, the scriptwriting has gone the way of dear old biological dad – dead at the hand of its ongoing author. My new scheme is to write 10 pages a month, in whatever section of the month seems appropriate.

After an unseemly period of dithering I got back to the review of “Land of Exile” (which I have linked here despite the fact that my accretive writing frequently makes my stuff seem nonsensical until completion – oftentimes after that as well) and am now pushing 1500 words. As the goal is 2000 and it is due on the 15th of next month, I feel comfortable with this. Anyone who wants to comment on this can feel free, but it really won’t be in any readable form for a week..

The abstract for my conference proposal in Fukuoka is still in the hands of the PHUD and I’m wondering why I haven’t heard back? I suppose I’ll keep working on it myself, since it needs to be in by the 10th of next month. If I ever do go for my own Ph.D. this will be the paper, so I might as well push on with it.

The last bit of work that came shuddering down from above was from the BKF who sent me a 15 page trifle with a semi‐frantic email about how the time‐frame was NOW and that we’d need to be in constant conversation about the piece. So I slapped out an edit/annotation and whipped it back to him. That would be about 10 hours ago and I haven’t heard a peep back. I keep forgetting that as time is relative, and by virtue of my being the godfather of BKF’s son I am a relative, we are all therefore composed of nothing but time.

Relatively speaking.

Poking around the moodle I note that after this weekend I have two consecutive three‐day weekends upcoming.

Man… the tragic schedule of the allegademic!

Detritus..

Well..

ScriptFrenzy certainly hasn't been working... I've been on page 10 since day two. ;-)

On the positive side I can now count to 19 in Korea and know several words for body parts (clean ones, at least).

Also, the review for the next Acta Koreana is creeping up to about 1,000 words and I have the whole scheme for it in my head.

I met with a tourism professor yesterday about my presentation for Fukuoka.. I logicked that if I had a Ph.D. co-author it might seem more attractive. So I let him see my work in very early process and I'll be surprised if that nightmare doesn't send him screaming away. ;-)

Making plans to go to Gwangju next month to take pictures of the 5.18 Memorial - a big date in Korean history when sections of Gwangju went toe to toe with dictator General Chun Doo-hwan and did ok ...... for about 4 days. Koreans, as they people do, have romanticised it a bit, but it was a pretty bad show...

Other than that, just kicking it Daejeon style (Soju!SOJU! SOJU!!!!)

It's a Good Day When

1) You forget what day it is and you plan out the next TWO days of classes.

2) The Linksys network in one building of BPU is fully on and you file your income taxes E-lectronically

3) You also Limewire down about 15 new songs.

4) Full updates of system, iPod, and Adobe through the same network..

If there had only been more time I'd be up to my (insert body part here - so to speak) in gnarly porn.

As it is, I'll take it.

And tonight I meet with the Tourism Ph.D. who may want to work with me on the conference.

so far, so good...

Lack of Pressure..

Teaching English in Korea is a pretty pressureless gig if you know English. Seems to be ok for some people who don’t know English at all. In some ways it is the clown car redux. The important difference being that you know you aren’t intended to be taken seriously.

Consequently, no pressure.

A condition that suits me.

This is a conclusion I come to after cobbling together a little numerical rubric I call the “Charles Montgomery Ratio of Head Bobbing, Hip-Shaking, and Rocking till our Cocks are Out to the Number of Songs that Play on His iPod Coefficient”

I’m not entirely happy with the name of that. I like that it starts with my name and it does include “cock”. Also, “coefficient” sounds pretty scientific. But I know that I need to do some work on the name.

Anyway.. my number on that scale is now higher, and not just because I’ve moved from a Fahrenheit country to a Celsius one (which, I think, would have lowered my number?).

Still, as I sit here under the largely quieted (a story I must shortly tell) Thumper McMastodon and his amazing feets of stone? Music (I guess I mean songs) makes me unreasonably happy again. Sure, it all means nothing. Sure, I’m probably gonna die under the wheels of a Korean tax-cab. Sure this all dust in the wind (man, there’s one song that gets my trousers completely buttoned back up – what WAS wrong with those boys?). But man… every now and then?

I don’t much like using French words other than the traditional ones – “Surrender” – “Toast” – “Fries.”

But I believe “frisson” is the word and..

.. I’d write more, but I just said a French word. So I need a shower.

Or a mistress..

Then I’d still need a shower..

And a bagel… screw croissants… I’m all Dreyfuss up in around here baby…

In Sleep What Dreams?

Wednesday off because of the parliamentary elections and last night Thumper and I had a chat and maybe worked out some of the noise issues. He was certainly much more quiet. He agreed to a real effort after 10 at night and I discovered that the early AM thing is something like PTSD caused bad dreams. He outlined a little bit of the bad luck he’s had, including the ‘gruesome’ death of his first wife. So, not much we can do about that, and I agreed that I’d just have to put up with it. I’m still going to try to get into that smaller, but better deal apartment up the hill, but this might help me get through the next 4 months to that point.

Then, of course, I couldn’t go to sleep til after midnight! Still, it was a good night of sleep and I was perky enough this morning to ignore the impending rain and go running. Went for 24 minutes and felt I could go more. But this was already 6 minutes more than my target, and as a fragile old man (and jelly-filled fat fuck) I don’t want to break something down, so I returned home to my frugal English instructor’s breakfast of a carrot and ramen. Delicious! Toss a vitamin in there to make up for all the nutrition that is lacking and I was ready to get on to my first bottle of Soju – I may not be able to vote, but goddamit I will celebrate democracy in Korea, even if it does cost me my liver!

Also, I got the galleys of my photo-article for Education About Asia. You can see it here (In PDF form) and I must say that JAE had never looked more beautiful nor BFK more handsome. I was unable to use the pic in which BFK looked like Bogie, but I think you get the idea. He should get married more often. In fact, we should all get married more often!

Or not.

The rest of the day should be the three w’s: Wreading, Writing, and Wrist-bending. The OAF has several phone interviews today (her ‘ethnicity’ already has popped up as a small problem) and if they go well I will be that much closer to losing my blessed hermit status. ;-)

Maybe she’ll get a quiet pad and I’ll spend all my time over there.

Mask?

I forgot to add one of my favorite things from yesterday - the dude in the mask, to protect himself from pollution, who kept pulling the mask down to take a big old pull on cigarette after cigarette.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Minutae

MINOR AGGRAVATION DU JOUR
So.. in the faculty apartments you either get an electric stove or a dual gas-burner thing. Normally, I’d prefer the gas burner by a Korean mile (which, as it happens, is equivalent to 2.2 Kilometers or, in the local parlance, “100 times the distance I can spit”). But there is a truly annoying “safety feature” with the ones we have. That is that you can’t turn it down below about medium. The lever that controls gas level won’t go low enough (I presume) to run the risk of the flame guttering out and the gas killing me in my sleep (Since, like all waygook, I frequently sleep while cooking). This means browning vegetables is a bit difficult. Just another reason, I suppose, to give up on them entirely.

MINOR BLESSING DU JOUR
After class one of my Academic Writing Students comes up to me in one of those Korean Serious Moods and I’m starting to think I said something to offend Korean Pride. Instead she says, “Are you teaching this class next term? Because if you’re teaching it again I want to take it again.” Aaah.. at least one of the students likes my teaching. I told her I hoped so and said that if I was, she’d better prepare what she wanted to do since the rest of the class would be behind her. She looked properly serious (she’s trying to go to Grad School) and said, “I have many writing projects planned.”

Because 10 of them were ill with the flu that is raging through the college I only had 28 Chinese students and the class went smooth as glass. 30. Keep my conversational classes under 30 and I will be a happy little imperialist.

And because Korean students get a day off for the elections (now THAT is democracy, my friends!), I only have them once next week.

TONIGHT’S SWEETNESS
Off to read two short stores from the collection I will be reviewing. After that some Korean history for the piece I am speccing for Education in Asia. Can’t think of a better way to spend an evening here in the Land of the Morning Calm.

"Millions of pounds of Jello suddenly cried out in terror."

Since I didn't make it to the gym yesterday I "ran." For 10 measly minutes. And reduced my legs to jello.

Who knew jello could feel pain? ;-)

What Teaching? Teaching What?

DPP (D. Pucaaiaiaiai! Pilipina) asks about education.

Just like in the US, not so very much.

But since I nearly ran off with DPP to smuggle guano to the Solomon Islands (Alas, a handsome Anglo named Bruce Geer stole her away with his manly and direct glance. These things happen. It turned out for the best as I have the OAF and DPP now lives in her cluttered office amongst half-eaten candies, dog-eared books, and two book-eared dogs.) I thought I might start on about that.

Since I’m always going on about something.

The commitment to “learning” English is stated but not real.

While I teach a “conversational” class, the final the students take to assess their ‘conversational’ skills will be 100% written. A deaf mute could pass these tests.

I was talking to my coordinator about the fact that they have given us a textbook which presents us with 7 “exercises” to do in 90 minutes. In 75 minutes, actually, since a 15 minute break is given. So assume 5 minutes for taking roll, announcements, getting the chairs shifted, and so forth, we have 10 minutes per exercise to include explanation of the task, modeling (most of the books are big on modeling), and then the actual exercise.

This is unattainable in even the most frenetic forced lockstep. So, you assign some as homework and hope it gets done. When I had this conversation with my director he shrugged (this is his response, similar to the program director’s sigh and faraway unfocused stare) and said, “it happens every term. They assign us a certain amount of chapters and by the midterm we are far behind.” But the next semester they give us the same number of chapters. Since most of the courses are curved I suppose that none of this matters, 10-20% will get A’s and the rest will follow below. I’m not teaching at a prestigious university. But no one is learning conversational English here.

I have noted the number of Koreans one can see, in Seoul, on the underground reading a book in English. And not just any book, frequently books of some heft, both physically and in the canon. I’ve seen Dickens, Shakespeare, Wuthering Heights, you name it. But any attempt to speak with these readers would be futile. They can’t speak more than a few words of English, and certainly couldn’t construct a spoken sentence under any circumstances. The Korean educational approach to instruction is one of the many reasons this is so.

Most Koreans don’t see this as a problem. Korean men in the United States are sometimes referred to as “hi-bye” men because of their lack of fluency. Kim Seong-kon, writing in the Korea Herald notes that the problem really is that the goal of Korean education is to pass tests. Kim refers students to US institutions and says that the institutions are always amazed at the high TOEFL and GRE scores of Korean applicants. He says, “Indeed, who could be better-trained than Korean students when it comes to choosing the right answer on an exam sheet? Due to the notorious college entrance exam that decides one’s future, Korean students begin training to choose the right answer as early as elementary school. Kim goes on to note that the second “amazement” these institutions get is when the Korean students arrive in the US and are not able to speak English.” Kim says that he has to walk these people through an understanding that test-taking and speaking ability are essentially uncoupled in Korea. While in the United States tests are supposed to measure, and even increase, knowledge, in Korea the tests are supposed to measure, well, test-taking ability.

And so it is that, somewhere in there, the little kids on the street who can speak limited, but pretty accentless English, become the college Freshmen who are entirely unfamiliar with English. 12 years of education has done its job and rendered these students entirely mute.

Society is pleased.

And I get paid, so it’s ALL good.

I Roam The Alleys!

Probably, it's more like I haunt them.

The alleys among houses are usually deserted here, so as I walk them I meet no one. But god knows what a sight I must be to those few who do come around some bend and run into me.

I particularly pity the poor ajumma who rounds a bend and comes face to face with an old, fat, white man in a leather jacket slamming through the alleyways with his iPod turned to eleven. His arms wave in spastic approximation of TV on The Radio and his mouth howls (well it looks like that - the monster actually makes no noise besides the stretching and rubbing of leather overstrained by the body inside it. In some ways, I'm sure, the fact that no sound at all is coming out makes the scene even more terrifying) the lyrics.

It must look something like Hell Come To Earth to the poor old woman. I always drop my best Anyeong Haseyo, but it never seems to make up for the shock I have given. Then, I return to my perambulating Joe Cocker impersonation.

Got a curse we cannot lift
shines when the sunset shifts
there's a cure comes with a kiss the bite
that binds the gift that gives

No, I don't actually kiss or bite them.

Much.

Today was too shitty to head out to Expo Park. It didn't exactly rain, but it was overcast all day and that normally makes for cruddy outside shots. Diffuse natural lighting is pretty good for taking pictures of humans.. but most inanimate objects and natural scenes are pretty blah. Sometimes a good opportunity for B&W photography, but I'm not good enough to do that yet. So, alleys it was. A walk through the "old town" here in Daejeon on my way downtown. First to the train station and then off to, by some sort of indirection, good luck, and point to point navigation, find the Starbucks.

In retrospect, the fact that I immediately turned away from the Starbucks might seem odd. But recall - my plan began with indirection. So did I.

I wandered for a bit and then realized I was doing a sort of reverse version of the walk I had done on my first Saturday in town. I was heading over to the Solbridge Business Building. So I swung hard left and wandered very randomly through the near town. I bothered to stop and take one picture.

Regular readers (Hi ma!) might remember that I purchased some kind of "food" that I could never figure out the use for or provenance of. I'm afraid I have found the latter and it is demonstrated in the lovely photo there to the right. The mystery food is first extruded, and then sliced from the anu...... well, you can see for yourself.

After a long counter-clockwise-ish loop I began to feel I was recognizing things and then got to a rubber coated road lacing through a market area. It was tantalizingly familiar and I was sure I was on the track of the Starbucks. Also, I could see the two new buildings being constructed on the backside of Daejeon Station, so I also knew which way home was. That's always a comforting feeling.

Here I also discovered a shop that in some obscure way reminded me of MAF. So I took a quick shot of the thing that she might enjoy it as much as I had.

All of a sudden I realized, "hey, if I turn left here I will walk two blocks and the Starbucks will be right there on the corner." Which I did. The Starbucks, unfortunately, was not there. Nutted by reality.

I headed back into the market and kept walking. I passed by this startling diorama - it is of the classic Korean folk horror-tale that adults use to scare unruly little children (if the story of alley-lurking fat voiceless waygook singer don't do). The Korean tale of the headless wedding party is built to scare both as a horror story and as an abrogation of normal Confucian relationships. It is so scary that, someday, I will have to come up with the particulars of it. ;-)

Eventually I did find the correct left turn. Finding the Starbucks was the highlight of my day, which is probably why I was entranced.. maybe even hypnotized, by the old lady sharpening knife blades on an old-fashioned whetstone.

I walked into the closed part of the mall and took various pictures of things that homicidal ajummas were trying to pass off as food. The sign, if I am translating it properly, says, "Piles of incredibly nasty stuff. But surprisingly inexpensive!" The numbers underneath the Hangul are to local emergency rooms and poison control centers.

That arm? It does bend inwards my friends, it does bend inwards.

With all of this excitement finally behind me, I hied myself hither to the PCBang to grab some IM time with the OAF. Who, currently, is like the Starbucks - not quite where I expect or want it/her.

Hello....

Hello...?

Because I'm a Very Clean Old Man

I huffed yellow dust, and I got dusted..

Eh..

Sorta wasted day. Caught a cold over the night and was groggy and out of sorts. This cold came courtesy of an office-mate who teaches the little kids. When they first get together they are pretty much an experimental breeding grounds for disease.

Also discovered I have to pick someone else’s class (they had to go to Japan on an emergency Visa run). The good news is that they are teaching on of my books, and because of the MT last week and their early class, they had two lessons planned out that I have coming up. So with the help of their lesson plans and the book, I hammered ahead on my lesson planning. Also added some cool stuff to the plans, so they will be even better.

On a bitterly cold night I went out to an “international” steak and salad house with the rest of my office. 22K won and not really worth it. That kind of money buys me a week’s worth of groceries and the food, while plentiful, wasn’t really good. I haven’t been in town long enough to be totally jonesing for western food (some of the rest of the table have been) so for me it was more a social thing, though not a ton of that either as I was groggy with my cold. Thank god we split a cab home (well, two nut-cases did walk) so I didn’t freeze my ass off with the cold already set in. Yellow dust count seems to be on the rise and I would surely like to beat most of this cold before it gets up there in count.

With nothing else going on, here are some pictures that turned up as I sorted through my various websites.

Tomorrow – today for you, or something, will be another long one…

It will also mark my one-month anniversary in Korea which, except for lack of sleep and this here cold, has been grand.

Late Afternoon in DAEJEON!

It was a lovely day in Daejeon. Where some of you sceptics (I'm looking at you MAF and HYS) seem to think I am not. Some seem to believe that I am holed up in Santa Clara's Korean Town with a toothless hooker and a tub of Soju. Not so, and I have included the following pictures to prove I am in Korea.

#1) I took quick trip up to Seoul (At the 'request' of the Korean government) for some fingerprints at the sight of the Gate arson. One of the officers snapped this picture of me:

After the fingerprints came up negative I,

2) Visited a lovely snow-covered temple in Central Korea:

And then came back to Daejeon to pose with the dance team for the Hanwha Eagles:

I think I have made my point....

Plane Safety..

Catching up, finally, the night before I leave for Korea...

On the plane to visit MSM I took a look at the safety pamphlet and just about hooted up the five 'quick' beers I'd had in the Monkey Bar.

The first three panels demonstrate the care one needs to use in preparing an infant for a water-landing (like anyone is gonna survive that, but whatever).









The good news is that the baby is entertained (possibly dancing), the bad news is that there is more to do to ensure safety...









This is more complicated than changing a diaper and the baby, particularly in panel 5, seems to be looking a bit less thrilled by the procedure.

In truth, the baby's suspicion seems to be justified by panel 6:



In which junior hits the water and "goes to the light."

Hypothermia, it's a bitch for the little ones.

Yesterday is the Worst Day of the Rest of my Life...

It all started when I broke my routine. I left my camera and cell-phone at home, since I would not be in Texas for long and needed to spend quality time with the parents. Also, because I was bearing gifts, I checked luggage. These decisions would prove to be bad.

I was up at 4 (as in AM) and out by 4:15. It’s a quick shot to Big City Airport at that time of the morning and I was in the parking-lot shuttle bus before the fact it was cold enough to see my own breath made me shiver. Tragically, everything in the airport was closed. I suppose, at 5 am, it was naïve to hope for the bar to be open ;-) but I could have used a bagel. The flight to Phoenix was unremarkable. I was seated next to a 300 lb man in a grease-spotted t-shirt who, when he put his luggage in the overhead bin, handed me his snot-nosed child who immediately began caterwauling. Yet, as soon as the plane took off, the kid lapsed in and out of sleep. Later in the day I was to look back on this bit of my travel time with considerable nostalgia.

In Phoenix, the trouble started. For some reason US Airways was running late on every single plane in its fleet. To catch up they were moving flights from gate to gate and we left nearly two hours late. This meant that in Houston I missed my connecting flight to Brownsville. I was able to fire off an email to My Sainted Mother (MSM) that I was probably going to miss that flight and she mentioned that I might also have trouble in Houston due to squally weather. Call MSM Cassandra.

In Houston I changed my flight from Brownsville (the next flight was full) to Harlingen and spent the next 25 minutes running around trying to get my luggage (see, that stinky luggage?) re-routed to Harlingen. In the end, the luggage woman could only promise that she would try to get it there.

Then came the 2 hour delay on the ground. Pushed ahead in 15 minute increments, of course, so you couldn’t really leave the gate. I did make two emergency beer runs, but that was in extremis. No explanation for this other than planes weren’t leaving other airports on time. Perhaps this had to do with the weather at those airports, but if it did, no one at Continental was saying so. Finally, we get out on the tarmac and the pilot says “we are now in line waiting to get in line for takeoff.” 20 minutes later, “we are now in a position to hear from air traffic control and… ooops, they’re telling me all departures have been put on hold due to the weather.”

Then came the 2-3 hour wait on the tarmac with the reliable “we estimate 30 minutes more” lie repeated every, well, about 30 minutes. On the positive side, we did get one cup of free water from the Sky-Waitress who spent the rest of her time hiding behind the foreward bulkhead and occasionally, hobbit-style, peering nervously around it to assess how likely a revolt was. At about the third of these “30 minute” announcements, the pilot dropped a little bomb. He only had 59 minutes left in which he could fly. The geniuses at Continental had scheduled a pilot who was running out of FAA time. Here is where my other pre-flight decision paid dividends (if by dividends you mean a big stinking aggravation). I didn’t have a phone, so I could not call MSM and tell her about the cancellation. As we sat on the tarmac, already cancelled, but not moving towards the terminal, this was a problem in my brain.

When we finally got back to the terminal, two other flights seemed to have undergone the same process – waiting and then once the weather cleared up, being scrubbed due to too-fine pilot scheduling. This meant three planes worth of people in line to talk to representatives who were quickly running out of seats the next day. I heard the man just in front of me snatch the last two early-morning flights to Brownsville, and I got the last ticket on the mid-afternoon plane to Harlingen. There were at least 20 people (from my plane) behind me and I have no idea when they will ever fly out of Houston or will live the picaresque life Tom Hanks lived in The Terminal.

The representative on the left (the one I got) was not telling people who spoke Spanish, or those who looked scruffy (which included me) that there was any kind of deal available on accommodation. Not only that, but all of the representatives were claiming that the cancellation was “out of their control.” This was ludicrous, since the planes had been hours late to leave, and when we pulled off of the runway we were less than 10th in line to leave, planes were already leaving regularly, and the pilot had already admitted that it was his schedule that was forcing us to return to the terminal. This claim meant that all Continental was offering was “deals” on local hotels. A rather shoddy thing to do, considering they had actually pulled planes from the flight-deck.

Back in the terminal the sole luggage woman was overwhelmed. Fortunately there was a machine which could scan luggage tags and give passengers information on where luggage was and where it was headed. When anyone used it, it blandly revealed that “information on the bag is not available.”

Rather than go through all that, I headed on the little tram to the in-airport Marriott. $160, but worth it to not have to go through the hassle of finding off-airport lodging. I was aggravated to discover that, given that hefty room charge, the swine wanted an additional 10 bucks for internet access and ruled I ruled that out for god knows what reason - I have been spending money like Ritchie-Rich on speed, but no intarwebs for me.

Everything was closed, but room service brought me four beers (after a 45 minute wait, which seemed excessive) and I drank them. I had planned to grab something from the “vending” machines noted on the floor-map and planned to get some crackers and peanut butter, or something like that. My plans of munching were flattened when I discovered that all they vended were various flavors of Pepsi. Odd, for a hotel which caters to an international airport and which closes down at midnight on weekends. I immediately began to feel starved. This goes to demonstrate the power of the stupid mind, since I had a mini-pizza for dinner and it was really not biologically possible that I could be hungry.

I watched a thoroughly idiotic movie called “Beerfest” which was so excessively retarded that it put me in a good mood and I went to sleep at about 1 or 1:30. Woke up at 10 and was amused to discover that the coffee setup had only caffeinated coffee and no sweeteners or pasty-white alterants. Now that’s how coffee is supposed to be here in the US! (Dear MAF, take note). I now sit here watching political TV while it perks away.

Political TV, tragically, has devolved into the local community show, and ESPN showing NASCAR and cheerleader championships. This is a clear sign it is time to move to the airport bar!

FINAL QUESTIONS: Who ever thought that “The Wiz” was a good idea? The yellow linoleum road? Michael Jackson doing his best blackface impersonation? Costumes out of a High-School Sci-Fi production? I am boggled.

Away Blogger

I have been very away recently.. what with all the writing for hire and actual travel. But the BAG, in a display of shocking efficiency, went out and got a temporary job that started the day after the xmas shut-down of her job at the college! And it pays a bit more. Someone should watch that chick, she may be getting it. ;-)

In celebration we went out for sushi and sitting there came across a new sake product. I swiped the table-tent which advertised it and it is scanned here for someone's delectation. First thing I noticed is that this is definitely not aimed at men. As I gazed at its overwhelming bubbly pinkness I could feel a nascent set of ovaries developing, way deep down in my body somewhere I couldn't exactly place. I quickly swigged some of my beer and belched. I'm sure the Japanese characters on the label say something like "girly-man."
I am impressed, however, by the phrase "Sparkling Flower" (although it really should be used to name a firework, not some girly Japanese hooch) and will add it to my list of silly nicknames.

On the other side was this odd layout. I wasn't sure why any self-respecting firm would give their product a "Sake Meter Value" negative rating, but there it is, the "-60". A bit of research indicates this means it is a sweet Sake, but I might take that "Value" out of there. It has multiple meanings. Semi-bad marketing.

Then again there is also the "serve chilled for maximum refreshment" which is often times a warning that if your taste buds aren't frozen, you really won't like the thing.

The remaining bits off the label, the Japanese characters, are semi-traditional stuff: Threats to "get back at the US" for WWII and several lines from an old lease to Dokdo Island.

I wonder if anyone orders this stuff?

Writing fer Money, Reward in Trash

I wish that little anonymouse I had a few months ago would come back... I'm sure she would have something to say about the fact that I'm writing a friend's thesis. ;-)

For money, of course, so that's ok since it's Capitalism. And maybe it isn't a friend.. you know.. an acquaintance, more or less..

But here's the interesting bit .... I cranked out 1000 words tonight without the slightest problem or second thought. Just line after line of prose as I peered at journal articles on Questia. And it's probably as good as any writing as I do. Which makes me wonder why I have such a hard time with my own writing. If the quality were higher when I was writing for myself, that would mean one thing. But this stuff was sleek, academic, and gloriously, gloriously empty. It will certainly get a degree.

As a reward for that writing I stayed up late and watched.... whatever William Shatner is now starring in. And it is spectacular trash. And by spectacular I mean totally trashy and awesome.....

Aaah.. and I bookmarked all those lovely jobs in Korea...

Scrapology

LOL.. the last punchline from evil Friday is that just now, as I looked for something in my backpack, the missing 1 gig compactflash card fell out of a seam. It was there all the time and thus the panicked run to the Snakeway was completely unecessary.

Ho hum…. A perfectly awful ending to a perfectly awful day that actually ended ok.

Walked to and from work today, which gave me a splendid chance to think about things It was a splendid chance I declined to take. It was too nice to think….

Got the two reviews for Acta Koreana done, and will send them off when I get home tonight. I read online they are refereed, but it doesn’t seem I’m going through that process OR, I’ve misinterpreted and I still have to. Then I need to quickly query the other folks about the piece on Korean Marriage, or a review of Three Generations. Might be too much because..

.. I need to send an email to the chick with the Master’s thesis.. I haven’t heard from her and I will need to work like a maniac to finish it if she still wants it. Maybe I’ll start my reading tonight and take a few notes….. If it’s still on I’ll be huddled in a hotel all weekend. One with a gym ;-)

Birthday day, today...

Birthday undercoverish, as usual. Get to a certain age and the celebration has bled out of the thing. I had to go to work for a "Big Planning Meeting." This is unusual as I have always taken my birthday day off and, if people don't know my birthday, they have a certain inbred sense that looking for me near the end of November is fruitless.

The folks in Outreach purchased some delicious pastries and we had a little meet and greet at the information desk. These foo's have known me far to long to not know my birthday but since they have known me that long they also know big ceremony appalls me. So that was cool.

Everything else was on the downlow til about 2:30 when I checked my cell-phone. Which is pretty broken and so to hear messages I have to turn the little external speaker. So I head into my office which I share with our fine Indian (malaria, not smallpox) Webmaster. I sat down, put the celly on my desk, and let the messages run. 3 were business shit, but the 4th one, to my horror, began with my BS saying hello and then busting straight into a chorus of "happy birthday."

My age and alcohol addled reflexes were nowhere near quick enough to slap the thing off of my desk and shut off the message.

I look up and the Ind. Web. is looking at me with a look of infinite sadness and regret.

"It is your birthday? I am very sad. You should have told me this thing."

Every time I come back into my office he launches into this mixed sadness/anger thing about why I hadn't told him. Oh, and he goes into the next room and announces it to my Workstudy Student, the Instructional Tech, and a couple of instructors.

Now, somehow, I'm apologizing on my birthday.

Odd but amusing.

At least he later turned to trying to claim that another birthday meant I had become wiser.

Amazing how you can share an office with someone and the still don't know you!!

And damn you BS, damn you to HAAAAAAYEEEELLLLL!

After that.. watched a half of the excellent fooball game, drank some beer, and headed home for one of them dwarf bottles of champagne. BAG coming over later, but I'm so tired it will be one of those romantic sleep-ins that only old couples can do. ;-)

Sky Nest has just officially passed The Dwarf with its 10th real revision. I save them all so I can marvel at the dumb shit I initially wrote and also at the stupidity of what I have cut out.

So, it's like, process or some shite....

Now... some Physical Grafitti as loud as them speakers go... and dreamless, dreamless sleep..

Sinking Slowly...

As I plod through all the things I need to learn to make my review of "The Dwarf" complete I am reading "Measured Excess: Status, Gender, and Consumer Nationalism in South Korea."

Which is a traditionally theory-laden and fucked-up academic title attached to a book full of insight. Really, why don't you just title it "My Advisor was a Feminist Commie (who got beat up every day in high school)?" Not that there is anything wrong with feminists or economic critics, but for fuck's sake..

Anyway.. I read this brilliant work while the BAG is in the other room watching "Titanic." Which I watched for a bit, amused at the clear homoerotic bits that preceded the 'traditional' narrative. Leonardo DiCaprio is buggering his best friend at the front of the ship (this is an actual scene, watch more closely), before he saves the queen at the aft. It's all a bit odd.

But as I read, the BAG comes in during breaks and gives me plot summaries. For about an hour the movie has shocked and awed even her timetables and reporting ability. Her summary is now, GARP style, reduced to, "it's still sinking."

Which is a horrible thing to say about a ship, or a movie...

Scraps

1) I inordinately love me that picture some.

2) I remember why it is I used to have a beard. My trip to MidWest City included the loss of my nifty Gillete multi-blade razor. So for the past few days I have been using the old single-blade kind. And 2 days out of 4 I diced my face up brutally.

Today I gave up and came to work unshaven as the gang is going out drinking tonight and I don't want to get a DUI because I'm a quart low on blood.

3) I love the word "punctilious" just because all those little syllables strongly suggest someone who would be fussily exact in the smallest particulars - it is a word composed entirely of them.

That will be all. ;-)