LOCATZ at me..

Sorting through my HD trying to figure out what I can delete in order to have more space for "horse on man" porno, I find this lovely draft of an email I might have or might not have sent.

With details of potential... "target?" .... "recipient?" .. blurred out, I give you the Methuselah Stick.

I am, in fact old. And I am reliably informed by a 52 year old that the next few years will be even worse as the slide down the razor blade of life continues. As the 52 year old is completely white-haired (a fate I will escape only insomuch as I continue to bald at an appalling rate), thoroughly round, and florid, I trust him.

Some simple mathematics might help.

The negative effects of age are asymptotic to extinction as you approach about 120 years of age, with some bad stuff before verticality. You will recall that an asymptote of a real-valued function y = f(x) is a curve which describes the behavior of f as either x or y tends to infinity. In this case, the negative effects are the value that reaches to infinity, as age clearly cannot do so. In fact, had I more time (and were I able to post pics in here) I’d describe the relationship as an oblique asymptote as that would better allow description of some of the cool things that happen in the first 21 years of life.

Alas Blogger, like loan-agents and women, denies me.

If we prefer to be more creative, we can look to literature.

Alexander Pope once noted, in Volume 27 of his 52 volume work, Denunciad: Short Musings on Brevity

The Methuselah stick, hits hard and quick
The Mortal man to chasten
The young and bold, are rendered old
As to their end they hasten

And then at age 56, as if to prove his own point, Pope shuffled off this mortal coil.

In science we can look to macroscopic entropy; in art to Goya’s Chronos; in philosophy to Ed Gein; and in music to the relief-map of Mars that is Keith Richard’s face. But they all say the same thing.

I’m old; nearly as old as dirt.

Fortunately, I suppose, I am not too far from a slight balm for all this. Thailand, with its cheap and excellent plastic surgeons, cheap and excellent Jack and Cokes, and cheap and excellent ladyboys, is merely a plane flight away. No solutions are permanent, but at my age, I’ll take what I can get!

Gotta scoot... I have a ticket-agent to engage..

A slightly smarter scammer..

Bernie Madoff's wife would like me to help!

Greetings,

My name is Ruth Madoff, as you can aware that my husband has been sent to 150 years imprisonment, please I want you to assist me and claim this funds out of this bank now before it too late.

I know you can do it for me, this is not a matter that we need to discuss over and over at all, bellow is the account details and you can check this account online.

Bank Website:
http://www.europefintrust.com/es/home/
Account username : Bmadoff
Account password : bernie

Customer Account Log out

Welcome Bmadoff!

Online Statement of Accounts
Account Number: EPF/UK/ONL/06524677
Account Holder: BERNARD L. MADOFF
Holder's Address: 2100 McKinney Ave, Suite 800, Dallas, TX,USA
Holders's Phone Number : 206-338-6347
SID Serial: 2435-5757-9898
Currency: UNITED STATES DOLLARS
Account Type: Transit Account
Account Balance: 59,700,000.00
Click here to view full account details Click here to make Funds Transfer

Please contact the account officer on this email urgently.

A Review Pours In!

As you may recall (both readers), last week I wrote an epic poem (albeit a short and insignificant one on a minor theme) and posted it here.

I am happy to say that Mr. Joe Orton of the Hawley Smoot Post and Tariff, has emailed me his review of my work. I post it here, without comment, which is more or less what it deserves.

The central theme/muse/symbol in all Montgomery’s major works is beer. This is Beer the Creator of modern man and beer the inspiration (e.g. in the Epic of Gilgamesh, the 'wild man' Enkidu is given beer to drink. "...he ate until he was full, drank seven pitchers of beer, his heart grew light, his face glowed and he sang out with joy."). Montgomery often relates Mankind’s creative process with the work of a creator, a brewer, an artist. In the natural world it is man’s artistic vision that brings creation to its zenith -- by revealing the world as it is, by sharpening perception, by giving form to ideas, by creating order out of chaos. Beer, of course, is in “the Mogi,” as any serious critic of Montgomery’s work would guess. But in “The Mogi” Montgomery steps outside of man’s creative role, to examine the creative and destructive role of the universe that surrounds us.

One of the beauties of Montgomery’s work is its (extreme) simplicity and you do not need to understand Montgomery’s divine-visionary-drunken beliefs to appreciate "The Mogi." Even a teetotaler can enjoy this work, for at its core the poem reprises the questions that many of us asked when we first heard the claim that God was a benevolent creator. "If that is so, why is there bloodshed and pain and horror? Why death? Why disease? Why the Lakers?" Most answers to these kinds of questions seem rote, incomplete or dishonest. "The Mogi" recounts, in a mythic context, the experience of not getting satisfactory answers to this key question of faith.

Montgomery does not stop here (he is not prone, actually, to stopping at all). "The Mogi" also describes that precipitous moment in which reason is overwhelmed by the antipodal but linked beauty and horror we find in the natural world. "When the stars threw down their spears / And watered heaven with their tears" is perhaps is the densest and most thematically rich section of "The Mogi." In the creation story in "Job", the stars sing for joy at creation, and it is to this that Montgomery refers. This key moment of creation is, of course, immediately definitively linked to Montgomery’s own “star tears,” the beer in the hand of the Creator. Unusually, Montgomery suggests that this might not be an altogether good thing.

In “The Mogi,’ stars represent reason and objectivity. Although Montgomery is generally a rationalist, and fully appreciates the understanding that science can bring to the world, he is also enough of transcendentalist to know that there is an experience to hearing the buzz of a Mogi at night that can't be communicated in entomology class: Our sense of annoyance and fear defies reason. As the Mogi’s buzz gets closer to our ears we have all had the experience of flailing frantically at that noise in the vain hope of destroying nature’s littlest assassin. It is not too much of a stretch, in fact, to argue that the Mogi can be read here as a symbol of death as well as of nature’s implacable might. The two are certainly linked

Regardless of whether the Mogi is taken as a symbol of death or of the power of nature lurking beneath and beyond our concrete ramparts, Montgomery makes the point that contemporary rationalists (of all political stripes) who hope to control the world by thought and application of power must eventually face the reality of the Mogi. As the lines “Who the devil? What dread grasp / Makes you want to sting my ass?” make clear, Montgomery believes that if we do not face the reality of the Mogi, the Mogi will come back to bite us on the ass.

Some critic would have you believe the Mogi represents evil. These critics are stupid. They eat steak don’t they? It is certainly not "evil" for a real Mogi to dine on humanity, but is part-and-parcel of our world. Yet it still inspires a certain horror and a sense of awe, that we are in the presence of the transcendent mystery at the very heart of creation -- and a certain terrible beauty. If Montgomery’s lyric has brought this to our attention, it has been successful.

Now I'm going to go and get a nice frosty one!

Bad News!

For all of you who have been waiting to send me last year's Xmas gifts.

You must now rule out the Sigma APO DG 70-300 lens as a potential gift. I bought this bad-girl from a, well bad-girl I suppose for about $133.00, which is a real bargain in Korea.

It's a nice lens too, although I'm still figuring it out. The first thing I did, of course, was take it out to take picture of bugs, stinking bugs.

The first bug was a fly on a wall (a bit cliche, even for a walking, talking cliche such as myself!) as I walked across Namsan Mountain and took a bit of refuge from the sun in a redwood-ish pagoda on the side of the hill.

The fly was obliging and hung out til I could figure out how to engage the macro. So I got two or three shots of which the one on the right is best by far.

Also, I learned that a picture of a fly on a wall is not only pretty uncompelling, but it also doesn't seem to reflect much about Korea.

Lesson learned, lesson learned

Then, when Yvonne and I went to see the Egyptian Exhibit, we also hung out at the little pond in front of the Museum and, lo and behold, a dragonfly came by and alit on the one sad leaf of pond-grass that stuck up out of the algae-ridden pond.

So I got me another pic.

Now, of course, we come to tragedy. We arrived home and there was a cockroach in the bathtub. Yvonne went in to shower - which she does Korean style, standing on the bathroom floor with the drain open. This means she didn't have to actually get in there with George, as we had named him. But it did mean she splashed enough water on little George that he expired soggily.

I didn't want to pick him up in his waterlogged state, so waited until the tub had dried out and..

It must have been CockaRoach Easter, cause George was back to life!

Or, those cockroaches are as tough as they say.

So, with George dry and alive, I got an empty yogurt cup, some cardboard, and trapped George and let him go outside.

Here is a picture of George, valiantly trundling away.

With that it was bed time and so I went to bed.

When I looked out my window.. Woe betide! Alas!

Poor George had not got very far.

This truly sh*tty pic is of George, on his back, six little legs to the sky, communing with the Great Insect What Lives in the Heavens.

And Yvonne can chalk up another kill!

With apologies to Mr. Blake

Upon the occasion of having been bitten.....

The Mogi

Mogi, Mogi, aloft alight
Waiting for a time to bite,
What immoral hand or eye
Gave stings and wings to a housefly?

From what distant drapes, on my fat thighs
Do you sit and peer and set your eyes?
On what silent wings, do you aspire
To leave a sting that burns like fire?

What nimble fingers, & what art
Made you long for fluid from my heart?
And when thy heart began to beat
Did that creator sense his own defeat?

What the thimble? what the stick?
That built you with your cruel prick
Who the devil? With lack of grasp
Made you want to sting my ass?

When the stars threw down their spears
Did the creator have a couple beers,
Did he smile, his work to see?
Did the creator of man, make Mogi?

Mogi, Mogi, aloft alight
Waiting for a time to bite
What immoral hand or eye
Gave stings and wings to a housefly?

Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam!

Next gift-giving occasion I will sneak my bad self into a Costco and snap pictures that fully indicate the Korean obsession with SPAM.

It is a sensible obsession, I suppose, which began after the Korean War when locals realized that SPAM was the perfect fat and calorie filled food for fighting famine.
(I must get some kind off accelerating alliteration points for that last sentence?)

In fact, Budae Jiggae is still a classic Korean stew, and it still features SPAM.

But you know me.. I like to make the political personal.

Which is why I was thrilled to find the "SPAM Single" (which sounds like an honest title if I ever put an advert on E-harmony). You take that bad boy and two pieces of American cheese (removing the plastic wrap is optional) and toss them onto a piece of bread on a frying pan?

Three minutes later you have a delicious heart-attack.

Heck. Next time I think I'll fry the bastard in butter.

Also, I particularly like that there are now "flavors" for spam. The close-reader of eemajee will have already noted I took mine Italian style - mozzarella and chicken.

I'd type more, but the shooting chest pains seem to have made the fingers in my left hand all numb and tingly.....

Palo Alto officials look for long-term solutions following student suicides

Er...

what could be a longer term solution than suicide?

But in the short term?

All the suicides are Gunn students.

Let them go to Paly and learn why life is worth living. ;-)

We Enjoy What?

LOLcatzzzz..

even when attempting to use the US as an example of something to emulate, it seems we can't quite be.. known... (this from the joongong daily)

“Korean teenagers compete for higher scores during three years of high school, but students in other countries such as the United States read, write, do volunteer activities and enjoy sports such as taekwondo and tennis.”

Man.. I think we can all agree that those years on the taekwando squad were bitching!

Best Rap Song since All the Computers Crashed in 2000

Asplain to me the one that is better....

Hell, one of the lyrics is "I ain't passed the bar"

and I so identify!

At Steve's Request!

Steve from my rant down below, commented that if I'm going to go ape, I should at least recognize his current blog.

Steve's current blog can be found at http://tentaclesforbreakfast.blogspot.com

"Current" is a sketchy term though. When he posts it is interesting and often epic, but man.. months pass... The last post seems to be from 2008?

I may have to go over there and leave a comment , it's a bit sparse. ;-)

Noted With Disgust...

Mike McStay...

a guy I used to work with at Woosong. He has, maybe, cancer. Tumors at least. He ended up in the emergency room a few weeks ago, getting some bits cut out. He needs to go back and get more cut out and we should all pray (although I don't exactly pray!) that the tumor is non-malignant.

Mike McStay....

A guy who I disagree with on every political level that you can imagine.
Yeah, fine, we could still have a beer.

Mike McStay

The guy who spent hours getting my fiancee (who has little fingers that dont' bend at the knuckle - my belief is that is so she can hit me harder) to get her fingerprints on that stupid card.

Mike McStay

A cool guy to crack a beer with.
Did I say that?
You sense my obsession? ;-)

Mike McStay

Pretty (in the unpretty - ;-p - ) serious about movies.

Mike McStay

Probably fighting for his life.. so then there's Stevie Bee

ah..

let's just say that old Stevie thinks Mike is a tad judgmental. So he returns that judgment in spades.

Complete dickhead.. who has a blog in which he tries to be offensive. No one comments of course, but perhaps that is his triumph?

now I'm going to sleep and pretend that most people who agree with me politically aren't self-satisfied judgmental aresholes..

Like old Stevie is..

Curses, Gargoyled Again!

We woke up early-ish and headed off to Hongdae, which is the cool and artsy section of Seoul that surrounds Hongik University. This was both to check the place out and so I could pick up my new toy an ultra-wide Tamron 11-18 lens for my camera. Some guy was selling it for only 300,000 won, and a quick look online suggested that deal was too good to pass up. He included a UV polarizer and a nice bag. That’s a picture of the critter up there on the right.

The guy who sold it to me was very friendly and he also told me that there was an Apple shop just down the street – which makes sense for such a trendy and artsy neighborhood – as well as a Canon dealership just down at the next subway station. We headed over to the Apple Store, where I drooled over the new mac-book. Then, walking over to the Canon dealership we found a cool bookstore with English books, and magazines of many different languages. All this made us hungry, so we stopped in at a really nice restaurant for some Tuegi Galbi. At the Canon store I dropped about 50,000 won on a new 2-gig card for my camera to replace the faulty one I’d had to throw away, as well as a new card reader to replace the one I’d lost. The Compact Flash Card is “professional” so, you know, I feel pretty good (like a trendy tool) about that.

Then, of course, off to a bookstore – the smaller Pookyoung store by Cheongyecheon – which was good for Yvonne, but disappointing for me as it did not have the one book I was looking for.

Finally, we half walked and half subwayed down to the Hangnag to meet Jong Kyu. As I type this I am sitting in an outdoor café, with the potatoes eaten and the beer still on the table..

LATER

Jon Kyu took us to his friend Chong suk’s restaurant, where all the food was great in Jeollnamdo style, until they brought out the 홍아 (ammoniated fish). I had eaten this before, but Yvonne had not. There was no way to refuse it as the hostess came to our table and prepared us individual servings, with hot kimchi, garlic, pork, and sauce. Then she sat there and watched us. It was interesting to watch Yvonne try to choke it down. That's a picture of it below, one which, suprisingly, is not giving off sulfur or wearing horns.

She chewed ferociously, sweated prodigiously, and her nose ran, but eventually she swallowed it, washed down with torrents of coke. Mission accomplished, or so we thought.

Then it was off to the Han River, where we lolled, talked, drank beer, and set off fireworks. This was a lot of fun. At the last minute, Chong Suk decided we should play basketball, so it as off to a very dusty court to shoot around and play to games to 10. Yvonne messed around and got a triple double, and I didn’t die. So we count that as a success. At the end of the second game, however, Yvonne’s stomach began to get troublesome, and we had to quickly find a public toilet, then walk back to the restaurant. On the walk, Yvonne grew progressively grayer and more quiet. When we got to the restaurant Jong Kyu decided we needed to use a substitute driver. This is a cool way to avoid drunken driving charges in Korea; you call a service which drives your car home. The driver had difficulty finding us, and by the time we set off, Yvonne was holding the seatbelt off her stomach so that she wouldn’t puke.

The car rattled over a series of very small streets in an attempt to make a clockwise circle to the main road. We got there only to discover that a tour-bus had parked across the top of it. The driver was nowhere to be found, though the flashers of the bus were on, and wouldn’t initially answer the phone. Our driver got more and more angry, while Yvonne continued to grey up.

We tried to back out, but a car came up behind us.. it pulled parallel and our driver dropped to window to talk to the other guy who informed us that it was all a one-way street, and the it went the direction that ended up at the bus. So our driver pulled forward again, made several calls to the bus company, and finally got the driver. Our driver hopped out of our car so we wouldn’t hear him swearing. Still, 10 minutes later, the bus loomed over our hood, and our driver finally gave up backed out till a turn-around space, and drove us out, the wrong way down the one-way street.

Just as we got turned around, of course, the bus driver showed up, and as we sped the wrong way down the alley, in the rear-view mirrors you could see the way behind us come clear.

Oh well.

Then a long ride home, the driver did not know the Itaewon area and ended up in the left-turn lane into the US Yongsan military base. We ran a red light to get out of that one. Finally we got near home and the problem of parking arose. Finally we decided to risk parking in front of a villa right by my house.

Yvonne took my keys, ran up the pad, and performed the Famous Flying Gargoyle Act. Jong Kyu ran back down to the store to get two beers, while I nervously listened to the sounds emanating from the bathroom. They suggested that, simultaneously, the Pequod was being pulled to the bottom of the ocean by the world’s biggest whirlpool and Old Faithful was spitting out an unfriendly card game of incontinent devils.

The smells weren't good either.

After a moment, Yvonne opened the door and asked “is anyone planning to use the bathroom?” I peered inside and decided not.

She continued, “cause I have to clean this up. I puked.”

Thank god for Korean style bathrooms, in which you can pretty much sluice the entire bathroom clean, although Yvonne didn’t quite completely achieve that.

Still, better than what would have happened in a Western bathroom.

I pissed into an empty beer can, and need to remember that when I get home, so I don’t try to drink the stuff and start the evil Cycle of Gargoyle all over again.

Number One Cause of Hospitalization in Korea

Hemorrhoids

This is a thing I did not want to know, and now you know it also.

Heinie Flu here at Korea Times

A question of "hipsterdom"

How often do I have to skip over "Aqua Boogie (A Psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadoloop)" on my iPod before I should just delete it and recognize that no one is ever going to look at my library and say.. "whoooa! dude.. Aqua Boogie (A Psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadoloop).. yer so cool!"?

Academic Palaver

Just received this nearly incomprehensible email that, on the positive side, is not one of the 100 "Obama makes qualifying for a loan easy" emails I've received in the last three days:

online education for liberation will focus on the societal, social, political, economic and philosophical perspectives of transformative models how digital learning communities foster critical reflections and perspective change; experience systemic or covert discriminations; and also discuss the liberation topic from a progressive viewpoint. Thus, the proposed publication attempts to build a better understanding on how online educators/designers/tutors/learners can talk about injustice and inequality to a virtual group with an identity of privilege, and revealing about racism and cover racism to diverse people, sexism to men and women, heterosexism to straight people. This is important to scrutinize transformative models how to bring a global and multicultural partnership of faculty, administrators, professionals, teachers, community activists, researchers and parents as well as understand and challenge the injustices digital societies face. In the fields of online education, liberation, models for social equality, etc., there exists a need for an edited collection of chapters in this area.

Jesus.. that's a crapload of cant and as an academic writing professor I'd just like the author to pick one approach (preferably a grammatically correct one, but I'd settle for consistency) on how to approach "how."

The use of "about" is also extra-grammatical.

But mainly.. it's a steaming pile of academic horseshit..

"discuss the liberation topic"

doesn't that mean "discuss liberation?" Or is there a liberation 'atopic?" Entropic? Dystopic? Why write like that?

And:

and revealing about racism and cover racism to diverse people, sexism to men and women,

holy cow... they now have "cover" racists? Is that like bands and cover bands, or just pathetic writing?

Finally, the last sentence of the big quote up above just makes me want to cry:

Redundant "fields" and "area"
"there exists a need for"
the "edited" thing..

Somewhere in Hell, Mencken and Orwell are arguing over who is responsible for this kind of trash writing.

Get a real job you uber-academic troll - someday it will make your theoretical moaning more authentic.

Ah Jesus.. I mean... Ah Evolution.. this picture is quite funny

Thanks FARK!

Phrases that only sound semi-threatening until you actually understand them

It also helps spread the user

Bleach can clean a lot of things, but not things your mind has seen.

*shiver*

If at first you don't decede? Die, die again!

It was only editorial restraint that stopped this stories' headline:

Man dies after attempting suicide 4 times in one day

from being

Loser finally loses

or

Darwinner!

I mean, this kind of persistent striving for failure?

Dude should have joined the Republican party.. he could have run with Palin in 20012.

3 times...

;-)

Pathetic!

Meaning my blogging..

it's been busy as I've had to catch up on all the marking that I had avoided in the first half of the semester. I've also been a very social critter with James, Gord and Scott visiting me at various points. Much blah-blah-blah about writing and just about an equal amount of drinking.

With midterms graded and returned, and next week featuring tuesday and friday off, I think I'm ok with the school thing. This weekend is a quick trip to Tokyo with the BLF (she will stay on two days after I do, for some kind of ceremony in which she gets a tattoo and has her little finger chopped off.

I'll google what that means later.

For now I have to figure out the minimum amount I can bring (including all my camera gear, since part of this trip is to take pictures for a photo-article I will be publishing next year) for a three-day, two-night trip.

see you on the flipside...

Scraps..

Some awesome things on the writing horizon at BPU2. The Mentor and I have a scheme for analysis that is both a mile wide and, so far as we can tell, previously untapped.

But, really, doesn't all that fade in the face of Rosemary Chicken with scallions and cherry tomatoes? With a Heineken on the side?

Clearly, that question was rhetorical!

A "lyric"(?) written on IM to the OAF on Occasion of an Insult to her by an Idiot

There is a subtle pulse to things
Precise time insists upon
A steady march of morons, dreams
The impulse to be gone

Also an interred counterpoint
Beating below the ground
Where we meet in unmortised space
But no soul can be found

There all scratching pecking fools
Are pecked and scratched upon
In eternal space, now so confined
Their happy malice gone.

Everything Goes the Way Of Grandparents

(Then Parents)
(Then you and me)

Just to Conclude Technology's "Fuck You" to Chuck

Today my miniDV camcorder stopped working.

Oh yeah, in class.

As I was filming my communication students.

So... the USB stick died. The Projector in my classroom died. My computer no longer can use its battery and resets to 1970 every time I shut it down. My digital camera needs cleaning.

And my farking camcorder died.

siiiiiiiiigh

Techtastrophe Day....

So, first the stupid USB stick-drive goes total failo before my class.... Can't even be re-formatted.

Then, the LCD projector keeps randomly turning off during the highly entertaining climax to "High Plains Drifter." Yeah, I managed to squeeze that in to my Culture class!

As I'm puttering away on my laptop (whilst the kiddies are watching the show), the keyboard stops working (This is a symptom it came up with after I dropped it onto a tile floor a few years ago - I can't blame this one on anyone but me).

Neat, so I decide I'll pull the battery and give it a nice lobotomy. Get out a 500 won coin, turn the lock switch, and it crumbles right out of the computer (Note - next time get a metal body).

As it turns out, this means the slender aluminum reed that holds the battery in is now unmoored and I can't move the thing around without the battery falling out and resetting all settings to 1904, or whatever the baseline date is for this thing....

I will shortly be starting the "You Could Give Your Money to Some Stupid Poor Kids Who Would only Spend it on Crack, Or You Could Give the Money to me For a New Computer" fund.

I know my sister will be down - after all, I paid for her successful candidacy.

MAF is off the hook for the care package she sent me.

MSM missed my birthday and xmas while I toted several heavy gifts from Korea to East Mexico. So that's probably a grand (factoring in the pain and suffering) right there

BKF is also off the hook, for a gift he gave me in the US and another he is trotting across the sea.

I can't ask my God-daughter for any gift-money back, so I will trust in the good will and love of her mother.

Lessee.. who else?

Anyone who I friended on Facebook?

That'll be $15 (AMERICAN!)

And if I can figure out how to get my students to pay for grades, I should just about be able to afford..

• 2.93Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo
• 4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x2GB
• 320GB Serial ATA @ 7200
• SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
• None
• Backlit Keyboard (English) / User's Guide
• None
• None
• None
• None
• None
• None
• None
• None
• None
• None
• None
• AppleCare Protection Plan for MacBook Pro (w/or w/o Display) - Auto-enroll
• Apple Remote
  
  
  • 
  
  

To be fair to all of you I opted not to get the Apple LED Cinema Display (24” flat panel) [Add $899.00], or any of the additional pre-installable software.

So in totall ya'll need to kick in, in ballpark figures, $2,868.00.

Then my long personal technological nightmare will be done.

Monday, Monday..

It hurts me to skip over the MT experience on the weekend, but there is one more picture I need to take in order to sum it up. With the BKF showing up in Korea either today or tomorrow (depending on which calendar he was using when he emailed me) that post might never get posted!

So, two things...

First, at the MT two students approached me and gave me pretty frank analyses of my classes. Generally good, thank HNA! But also with pointers as to how I could do better for students with less English acuity (this may be an "only in Korea" thing - the students who get it standing up for the ones who don't). I rolled some of that into the auditory classes today and had two students come up and thank me for the new lecture style and content. That's either a stinging indictment of my previous teaching style, or a ringing endorsement of my new style.

Well, if you're some kind of Manichean asshole. ;-)

For me it's just a small bit of good news in my ongoing work to get the classes to that kick-ass point I know they can achieve.

Second there's the wrasslin the house into my place. I went by the plant-place and everything was either shite, or clad in a 50,000 won representation of some famous Korean defeat at the hands of the Mongolians/Japanese (I keed, I keed. A little). Instead, I went home and made two delicious grilled-cheese sandwiches, as just today I found a store that sells actual SHARP cheddar cheese.

Then I decided I'd head back down the road to look at plants again, or buy some new pillows for the guest room. Just as I turned the corner from my steep and windy road to the semi-main one, the "best plant evar!" truck pulled away from the other side of the road and drove away down it.

Mega bummer!

Fortunately for me, the innate Korean ability to take one car, a taxi, a truck, a motorcycle, two scooters, a pedestrian, and an imaginary bean, and then turn them all into a traffic jam?

It came through!

The truck got as far as the next Y-intersection (READERS NOTE: Many of you might understand this "Y thing" if you think, metaphorically, of all the y-front underwear you've pulled down. Pretty congested under all that, eh?). There the truck was stalled by the aforementioned other eight participants.

I waddled as fast as my wattles could do, and caught up with the truck. Nice stuff on the truck. But my Korean is poor and I was conservative. I pointed at some modestly leafy thing and asked the price. Three chun won (about 2 bucks) for this fluffy thing and it's nice pot.

So, the same price I paid, last week, for an empty plastic pot.

More proof I am a dangerous retard.

I purchased two lovely plants.

I picture them here since photos of plants seem to be the only thing I do that get comments.

And I'm a whore that way. ;-)

OK, really anyway you slice it I'm a whore.

But this is today's soul-crushing selling of my crushed soul.

And more tomorrow!

Are Geraniums Weapons of Mass Construction?

Since I still believe my expiring plant is a geranium, I post this picture for the two horticulturalists, in the hope it will lead them to some kind of thought....

I hope clickology will result in a picture more suited for scientific analysis.



Also, the OAF and I wandered Seoul in random and seldomly related local concentric circles that, had they been tracked, would have resembled the death march of someone 8 cans of sterno into it, or a naked man expiring on the harsh deserts of the ironically named "Livermore."

In fact, what we really did was walk along the river (I purchased a tripod and the OAF, after saving me about 30 bucks on the deal, rewarded herself by buying a couple of books) and have this remarkably odd lunch.



It was advertised as a "Bagel with Salmon and Cream Cheese." It was actually a BLUEBERRY bagel with salmon, one slice of American Cheese, some kind of cream (it's doing that bukkake thing on the front of the bagel), bacon, lettuce, tomato and cucumber.

Oh, yeah, and a toothpick embedded in each half, except the toothpick was too short to go through the entire sandwich, so they apparently compressed the sandwich, stuck the toothpick in, then uncompressed the thing.

Result.. 4 cleverly hidden toothpicks between the two of our sandwiches.

Fortunately I figured that out when I picked mine up and despite it's odd stack of gooey ingredients discovered that it was remarkably structurally sound. I took a look and discovered the interior toothpick.

Despite the bizarre contents of the thing, and the wooden death concealed therein, it tasted pretty damned good.

Even the OAF, who is a talented deconstructor of Korean food, just pulled out one or two leaves of limp lettuce, and ate the whole thing.

Weird, I'd have never thought of such a combination. And beyond that I'd never have imagined it might taste good. It was like a BLT with American Cheese and Blueberry Bagel. American as Candy-Apple-Grey Pie.

Then I got home and to avoid grading, set up a mattress for the BKF and JAE when they arrive. I also worked more (in my role as 'Improviso Man!') on the sound/light-proofing.

The previous tenant had left some packing tape, I had a bunch of old newspapers (pink) and so I sealed the edges of some of the cut styrofoam (so that little bits would stop flaking off) and taped a matte of newspaper to the bigger pieces of styrofoam in the window by my bed..

Theoretically this will make it darker and cleaner in the bedroom.

Tommorow morning will tell about the first bit, and time will tell about the other.

And then forget it entirely as it kill us in succession, and then turns to those who have succeeded us.

Etcetera...

Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett Writes

After a a long and at least colorful career attempting to find the lost city of "Z" in the Amazon (and I know you swine won't believe me, so here's a link) Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett staged his own disappearance and then moved, with his son Jack, to the Philippines*.

Years later, Jack had come into reduced circumstance and, in a brief period of sobriety, tried a quick succession of jobs, none of which panned out.

The following is from his attempt to be the commentary-page poet (a position that as far as Google research can determine, only exists in the Philippine Islands) for the Manila Times-Picayune.

Going to the Philippines
And renting me a shack
With a corrugated tin-roof
A rusty sink over at the back

I’ll need a three-legged dog
An old Ford stuck up on blocks
A creaky metal spring bed
With a mattress up on top

I’ll rent a part time wife
Buy me a full time bottle
Get me a sometimes friend
Do things I shouldn’t oughta

Two dirty half-full glasses
On the table by the bed
Lipstick on the glasses’ rims
A thunderstorm in my head.

Going to the Philippines
And renting me a shack
Where nobody wants to know me
And I won’t be coming back.

It didn't work out, of course, and Jack resumed the only position he had ever been successful at - the prone one.

Two years later, the work of rum concluded, he was consigned to the land of the permanently prone.

A cautionary tale, indeed, in these difficult times

-----------------------------------------
*In 1927 the New York Times reported a rumor that Fawcett had been found alive and well, living in a "veritable paradise," a bountiful land "that has no owner." That was before the US got their hands on it.

Dude! I can't see out of one eye!

Unfairly cropped from an article at SFGate.

But can we all get together on the argument that white guys with dreads are douchebags?

In this case, of course, he's redeemed by the granny glasses, puka-shell necklace (tres 70's!) bizarre semi-camo do-rag, and liver spots.


Not...

Noted With Some Reservations

First, the City of Seoul thinks this is scenic:



Dudes.. that's a ROAD!

Second, only in Seoul do trees get intensive care, in this case some kind of restorative drip. This was in the area of Bukchon and I hoped the sign would give me some help, but it's just a request that the cultured citizens of Seoul not leave trash in front of a gallery.

Alas..

But, I should say, the trees looked splendid and thus the medical care is probably warranted. ;-)

Addenda --

Korea beats the Japs 4-1

there is also far less (still way to much) spitting in Seoul...

Scraps

1) Taxi drivers in Seoul seem much less garrulous than the ones in Daejeon.

2) It is much more likely that they will have working seatbelts in their cabs.

3) The students here primp and preen at about 33% the rate that they did at BPU, where every shiny wall in an elevater was an excuse to fidget with hair, adjust collar and do makeup.

4) This stinking cold I picked up in the US just keeps hanging on. I'm not sure the Yellow Dust yesterday did it any good at all.

5) Korea currently leads Japan 3-0 (first inning) in the WBC semis

That will be all. ;-)

Leaving Daze..

It continues to snow in big, gustly flurries, here in Daejeon. But I got up early-ish and headed to my BPU office to clean it out, and get everything off the computer. This task is slowed by the fact that my PC is painfully slow copying files, and I am snagging, among other things, all 45 episodes of Monty Python (Nerd!).

Got in at about 10 and it is now going on 2, with completion just coming in sight. When I leave this particular office, I will not be returning. Tonight I bring some things to the OAFs pad for safekeeping, and on Monday I begin my move up to Seoul (as well as some consultation on the horrifice 110 page editing job I just did) by bringing a suitcase full of books and printed out articles.

This afternoon I will also clear up whatever else I need to do with immigration. I understand all but two of the documents they are requesting, and I will have my friend M give immigration a call to get clarity on the other two.

This whole crazy plan might work out - I can get into my work office on the 25th, and pick up the key to my apartment on the 26th. Do some moving on the 27th and spend the next two days making sure I have all my ducks in a row for instruction.

Semi-Well

Teh ague is almost gone and consequently I’m much more optimistic. I made it to the office today and got a new swipe-card to get in my apartment building. The lovely OAF, for some reason in her alien head, took my card to Busan and left it in a restaurant. So I’ve been getting in on the charity of friends or, worse, leaving the basement windows jimmied and crawling back through them. This was not much of a problem when I was sick, as I stayed in most of the time, but now that I’m recovering I wanted out.

Talked to the Brit-going-to-China and he regaled me with stories of talking (on the internet) Chinese girls out of their underpants and into sending him pictures. Rather classic tales, particularly from a man who is going to China to get married to another woman. Canadians may have pot-smoking and child-abuse down pat, but no one beats the English for promiscuity.

Semi-relatted, this evening I finally got the notion for my Brit-Am Culture class. It’s going to be based on shared generative myths, like manifest destiny in the US and the white mans’ burden in the UK, and I will use lecture and media (primarily videos and music) to tie the thing together. It may be a bit raggedy as I work it out, but it will be a thing of beauty by the time I’m through the first semester. It’s also an approach which will maximize the impact of my devious bullshittery and give me plenty of time to sit on my keister and watch movies.

So.. that makes the auditory and the culture class well into the bag. Now I have to figure out how to combine the speech and debate classes… it might not be too difficult.

All my life...

I've washed my Levis with the rest of my laundry. Today I went downtown to do some shopping, which included picking up a pair of 501s. When I wandered back to pick them up after tailoring (that is included here in the land of the morning Yellow Dust), the nice guy was very explicit that I must dry-clean my jeans and only then could I wash them.

Why is that?

New Things I Think about Korea

1) Running when the temperature is 5 below zero (Celsiosity) is like being stabbed in the lungs with icicles. Oddly, starting there then makes 3 below zero seem nearly tropical.

2The four distinct seasons? Can the summer and winter ones become just a bit less distinct?

3) It’s no wonder Koreans want you to take your shoes off when you enter their homes – they know the public excretory wonderland that you have just trodden through.

4) I wish they'd stop tearing down the cool old hanok housing and replacing it with stands of grey concrete behemoths.

5) More kimchi, please. ;-)

Creatures of the Night?

LOLZ!!

As I've mentioned elswhere, Korean TV shows US series that would cause any typical Korean to be scared shitless of the US as the home of nothing but crazed killers, victims, and cops. But last night Cold Case did a show that begins at the Rocky Horror Picture Show, and uses the soundtrack for commentary. As an extra bonus the psycho-killer is played by Barry Bostwick.

They even did the ending credits in the blood font from the original movie!

This has to be the "best" (I know, it's relative) Cold Case ever, and I never would have seen it had were it not for shitty "in English" Korean TV

That was the week that was

I’ve been a shitty blogger, since this was intensive week, I’ve been house hunting, and I’ve been struggling with my stupid New Year’s resolution.

Schedule
The classes were all pretty good, but all but one of them were new to me and one was new to PBU. This was the TESL class, which is teaching theory and theory-application to Korean elementary school teachers. The students were very good, although they complained about how much work was given them (a very Korean thing in my experience). The odd thing about that complaint was that no matter how we tried to dial them back on specific assignments the crazier they seemed to get. You could say “I only want you to discuss how to teach using multiple learning styles – just a discussion,” and you would be completely un-comprehended. They would get in their groups and go absolutely mad creating theoretical frameworks, lesson plans, physical props, and assignments of all stripes. We just couldn’t get them to NOT do this. And the work was just outstanding. In both writing classes we gave perfect scores to ALL groups. I mean they took the assignments out behind the shed, strapped them to a pole and beat them until they gave everything up. Then they made them tea, slapped on some bactine, an made them beautiful for presentation. Given this student approach (an offshoot, I think, of the BKF’s “what the fuck” theory of Korean behaviour) I think that dialing back the assignments was all we could do.

Schadenfreude – the only Freudian thing worth a shite.
The last assignment in this class was a Writing Storm and I asked my students to write about their experiences in the class. This resulted in something unexpected. I came out fine, but the students absolutely unloaded on the “Games” instructor. In very un-Korean form several named her by name, the rest mentioned “a instructor” and if words could kill she’d be under a lovely bit of turf and marble right now with Jesus shining her up for use as a sunbeam. It was brutal. John and I read them together and giggled like schoolgirls (albeit fat male schoolgirls in our 50s) that someone else had gotten it. This may not be very adult, but it sure was fun.

Chilluns
I also got two chilluns classes, which I have historically hated, but these were good. I was a bit consterned when I arrived at my “(CAMP NAME REDACTED) 2” to discover that the 2 did not mean 2^nd grade, in fact pretty much meant nothing. I had two sixth grade boys, but it was for only an hour a day, MWF, and only for this week. I pulled out some old lesson plans and showed some videos. That was that. The other class is twice a week with a handful of 7-year olds, but they are the best-behaved little suckers ever, and just as prone to short videos as any other class.

Academic Writing.
I got to this class and there was only one student in it, an extremely Pointdexter-ish male high-school senior. For the entire first class, every time I spoke he jerked visibly and then slowly subsided into lesser spasms, tremors and twitches. Still, as it turns out, he put himself in this class, not his parents. I assumed it was his parents and was confirmed in this assumption when, with the first class ending, he asked where the homework was. “So,” thought I, “if he doesn’t show his parents homework, they won’t be satisfied with how much work he is doing.”

Second class comes and I hand out the homework and ask him if I need to mark it in any way to impress his parents. After he stops his little impersonation of jello on a hot waffle griddle, he figures out what I am asking and says.. “Homework? No show parents. Homework is for ME.” So, you know, I was wrong about that whole domineering parent thing. Turns out he’s just a kid with a plan. Must have been the twitching that confused me.

Anyway, next week gets lighter and easier…

Home is anywhere, that you hang your head
The Korean listing habit, at least for houses listed on foreigner boards, is to list them when they become available; as available immediately. And Koreans expect something called “key money” or Jeonse (젼새 I’m guessing), which is a substantial down-payment (in fact, if you put enough down you don’t pay rent, the landlord just gets to invest your money. This strikes me as a risky thing, but I guess it works). Consequently I’ve watched two places I would have really liked, in, say, 6 weeks, go away. Oh well, I look at a place tomorrow.

My stupid resolution
When I got to Korea I swore I’d start running again. As I was an jelly-filled fat fuck (with an order of extra jelly), there was no way I could start immediately. So I set a weight that I would hit and then start running. I got to that particular weight and celebrated by sitting down. Didn’t quite start running. So, to jumpstart the whole thing, I resolved that in January I would just run one lap of the local field for the number of each day. One on the 1^st, ywo on the 2^nd, three on the 3^rd, etc. Of course on New Year’s day I was hung-over. Day after I was lazy. I started on day three with already 6 laps to do, which was not quite my brilliant plan. Then I realized that if I was going up to Seoul on Saturday (the 10^th, so ten laps) I’d have to get ahead a few laps as I wouldn’t run that day. Suffice it to say that I’m dizzy from running in circles, but will be able to take tomorrow off and still go into the truly daunting part of this whole scheme a couple laps ahead of schedule.

Next week should be a bit lighter, then one more week and I’m going back to Cali.

Sweet!

Some bits of decent news

1) The last translation BKF and I did for EWHA University netted a pretty good paycheck and, as usual, BKF is cutting me in all out of proportion to my contribution. I can't wait to get up to Seoul and try to start working us in with the BPU2 folks.

2) I came across an old friend on facebook and dropped a line. Got a lovely return message revealing she's happy and has a child and a father associated with that child. ;-)

3) The TESOL class is a good one. The teachers are all at least semi-fluent, and the curriculum that Candace (one of our ABD teachers) put together is grand, and will give me a much better background in TESOL than I had before this. A good deal all around.

4) Sore from a romp through the hills yesterday. How did I get so old? ;-)

Looking forward to seeing all of you I can, in a month or so..

Kwanzaa begins today...

So I thought I'd share my thoughts on the African-American experience...

All Ice Cube movies are worth watching.
If I were Halle Berry I would spend all my time nude
All movies should include Dan Cheadle
No one has replaced Sammy Davis Jr.

That will be all..

Back to Norml

Went scruffy for about 7 days and then shaved the thing off in order, to see what level of facial hair was "most attractive" (yeah, yeah, relative term). Really hard to say, as my generally hung-over mien pretty much shines through the whole series of pics. Also, apparently, I have had some sort of stroke, as my left eye is stuck in a lazy, open position.

I needs medicine!

Lebensraum in my brain...

As of 5:15 local time (two minutes ago), the big editing job for BKF is off to the intarwebs and a few days of semi-frantic editing are done. Nothing big for the next week, with the exception of discovering if I am hired by BPU2 or staying one more year at the one, the only, the original BPU.

Maybe it's time to focus on the little things that matter, sunrises, good coffee, sodomy. Just take a break. ;-)

And take pictures of the building going up...

nice..

The fourth distinky season

As it snowed last night, and this morning the river is iced over, I think it is the 4th distinct season here, at last. The snow just kind of swirled in front of headlights and didn't stick, but it was cool to watch.

I also discovered that I can now purchase Korean shirts off the rack (to be fair, I always could, they just wouldn't fit), so that will cut down on the shopping I have to do back in the states. I should also say that I am also now on the other side of two more or my weight goals, having passed several key markers of obesity: on the way down, thankfully!

Well, so far. ;-)

Job decisions still await, but right now so do 20 crazy Chinese kids...

We're all Terrorist Socialiss Now!

Whoohoo! Obama won.

I can get my old vinyl copy of "The Internationale" out of its sleeve, raise the red flag, and tax the sperm of heterosexual Republicans (a truly "progressive" tax, but one that will have to be high, due to the small number of folks who fit both categories) to fund the abortion of cheerleaders by homosexual doctors who will raise the boy-fetuses in tubes, to later use in their hideous forced-gay-marriage ceremonies. The hard-working CEO, whose brow-sweat and calloused hands eked a meager $50 million dollar golden parachute out of their failing mortgage company will be denied unemployment compensation will will be used to fund dastardly deeds including medical procedures for people who need them.

There will be no end to my villainy.

For now, though, it's nap time..

What to do..

Apparently the Civil Defense Office joins our intrepid old-lady from the previous post in recommending dildoes for just about any problem you might have.

And now I have a new hypochondria health worry . My blood pressure sometimes drops directly after I exercise.

Google thoughtfully reveals that this is a sign of early heart disease and that I am certain to die young (well, as young as I can at this advanced age).

As many of my schemes were premised on immortality, I feel that this is a bit of a blow to them.

I'll get back to you all with the rethink on my plans. Maybe tomorrow - if I live that long!

Symptoms

I remember from some long ago health lecture that the symptoms of the flu are how the body fights it.. the fever is to kill the virus, the coughing and mucous is to expell it.

So, if you use something that reduces symptoms, are you slowing down the bodies' defensive efforts?

Ah well, back to my fever dreams..

SCRAPS -Midterms; Editing; Language; Assorted

I'm not normally a big fan of bullets, but a couple of unrelated things:

• I have a nasty cold which syncs well with the crappy grey and damp weather we are having around here. Thank God this will be a stay-in weekend.
  
  
• In the course of one of the oral mid-terms I asked my students to describe their father. One of them did the normal thing "nice, etc." but then, struggling for something to add, said..."and.. and... he's a.... a supergenius!" I nearly fell out of my chair, but I was happy that at least one student listens to things I say. (Apologies to the only true superJenius, the MAF)
  
  
• The BKF may have lined up a big project for us to work on. I hope so, since I've missed that kind of work. It's with Ewha, so it's prestigious, but it is also a lot of work for BKF, over a hundred pages, due in late November.
  
  
• I have found yet another free Korean class which I will attend for the remaining four weeks of my five week plan to dominate 한국 말. It's on Monday nights from 7:30 to 9:00 and it is on campus.
  
  
• Finally, I did get my holiday schedule, so I will be flying to SFO on January 24th and leaving from SFO on February 12th. Everyone alter their existing plans accordingly. ;-)
  

I are Konfuzed...

Explain this for me.

First a bit of explanation.

All the Miguk shows on Korean TV have been chosen to scare the shit out of Koreans about the US. We have all the CSI/slasher shows, all the criminal prosecution ones, and Monk which has an advertisement showing a cow with a flower (Amurican BAD Beef icon) and presents the hero as insane.

Oh, that kind of show and Wrasslin’! So it ain’t all bad...

But I’m watching CSI:NY4 and every character is a super genius (not like MAF, but maybe close). They can solve a crime with the slightest bit of evidence – they can see through any ruse – they can profile a killer based on two words used in a High School yearbook.

And yet, they go to a doctor’s house, cleverly subvert the lock, and walk in with their flashlights on. OK, perhaps that’s a bit more subtle than turning on all the lights and cops might do it this way. But it turns out, of course, that’ it’s a crime scene.. all lovingly detailed in flashlight beams as they discover it. Nothing but corpses here, my friend.

In the door, across the hall, up the stairs, into the bedroom, all by flashlights.

Then they explore the entire crime scene by flashlight.

When they leave the crime scene to return to their lab, that scene of brilliantly intense and gory explications (verbal and scalpel) of the "body" of evidence?

Flashlights still on.

Why didn’t one of these geniuses turn the lights on?

Surely it would have been easier to find that all important evidence?

I’m confused.

Blast from the Past

Man.. saw this on the Gomushin Girl's website - you have to love the "Lucky Pierre" reference tossed in there:

Today I will Save the World!

It goes to the top of my list, because I just got a link to structured procrastination, which suggests that if I try to save the world I actually will get around to..

1) Writing that Conference paper
2) Updating my CV
3) Blogging some pics of Seoul.

Tip of the hat to: MAF

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. ;-)