Whoa Nellie!

Kim Young-ha wants to have a beer with me..

I couldn't be a happier fanboy!

Greek Love in Seoul

And that was just the men's room!

Actually, Yvonne and I headed to the National Museum because as part of an "International Arts" series that has truly rocked, the British Museum has sent some of its Greek collection over here.

We headed off on a stinky-hot (well, I was stinky and Yvonne was hot^^) morning and I got to use my limited skill in Korea banter with the cabbie, who was highly amused that I could speak any Korean. We got to the museum and it was spookily emtpy. The following picture is of the plaza before the museum, and on past visits it had been teeming with people.


Actually, that kind of looks like Greek architecture, as I look at it...

The exhibit was separated into 4 sections: Gods, Heroes and Outsiders; The Human Form; Olympia and Athletics, and; Daily Life.

They were all good, but if you looked at the brochure you had to laugh - every large sculpture is in the brochure and some of the small (and I mean, like, Barbie-doll size) figures are blown up to look a similar size.

Because of the distance, I suppose, most of what was sent to Korea was pottery or miniature. Having been to the British Museum, I was a little underwhelmed, but it was still cool and Yvonne seemed to dig it.

We were early enough that the Korean ankle-biters weren't out in force, which is always a good thing for health and sanity.

There was a rather blunt "erotic" section in "Daily Life," and as Ajummah walked their children through it, each kid taking copious notes in this section, as in every other section of the exhibit, I wondered if the Korean text was a explicit as the English - like when they talked about the Greek attitude towards sodomy/catamites (actually, this whole post was just so I could drop "catamite" into some kind of online discussion).

Later, Yvonne posed outside and we headed to Itaewon to get some Taco Bell. ;-)

Heavens to Murgatroyd!

Woke up this morning at 11:40 AM!

Haven't slept that late in quite some time...

Over the hill, here is the hottest new restaurant in Korea:
Yep.. that's an "out the door" line at a Taco Bell! Yvonne has eaten there twice, and there wait was about 40 minutes. 40 minutes out of my hair, as I think of it!

Then, on the subway, I see that SJECCD is out-advertised even in Seoul:

MY NEW CLASS: Part Hanah

Last semester I taught 15 hours, including a brand new course which I had to write on the run, and created the new Convo 1 class. I was also hit with several massive editing jobs including the College Catalog which had beentranslated major by major. Some majors apparently got their text by taking scissors to a thesaurus, flying the tatters in front of a fan(death), covering themselves in honey and rolling in the shreds of paper to see what stuck. Then, apparently, their secretaries rolled them onto a scanner that used Albanian language OCR, and emailed the results off to me (in an un-openable on my computer .hwp file).

I got a bit behind on grading during those periods.

So I went and talked to my handler and said that if there were to be any large editing jobs next semester, I'd need to have a smaller course-load.

She understood, and dropped me to 12 hours and with no new classes. It's worth explaining that a "new" class in the Korean Uni context means no existing goals, syllabus, books, whatever. It's from scratch.

Then, last Tuesday, just before I was to head to Gwangju for some pre-wedding celebrations of a Korean friend (posts to follow), I got a call from my handler.

Handler: Hey, we had an idea.

Me (afeared): Ah.....

Handler: We wonder if you'd like to teach a graduate class in Korean Literature in Translation?

Me (perfectly aware one does not say 'no'): Uh.. ok...

Handler: Great, the department chair and I were talking and we wanted to do this.

Me: For Fall?

Handler: Yeah, isn't that great?

At this point I'm looking at the three weeks I have left before leaving for Thailand and wondering if I could get a job in a Hagwon teaching Ecclesiastic Latin to children with Down's syndrome... Then my handler adds the kicker.

Handler: Yeah, we're so excited about this that I'll be auditing the class and so will the department chair.

Ziiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!

Now I'm terrified.

After changing my underwear I received a second call:


Handler: Oh yeah, and we like Venuti's "The Scandals of Translation."

Note to self - read that... whatever the fark that might be.

Wednesday spent cobbling together a kind of syllabus.....

Then it was off to Gwangju, head uneasy.....

TBC...........

Bad Blogger! Bad Man!

Back in the Saddle Again!

Wow...

Haven't blogged in a while and it's been concurrent with me letting all kinds of details slide.

Gained a few pounds I need to lose back
Stopped writing down my goals
Lost the thrill of traveling around here
Killed Yvonne and only ate half the flesh before the rest spoiled

just to mention four.

Maybe the blog is what keeps me on the right track?

And this is tragic, cause a lot has been going on --- an epic trip with Arirang TV, fun news at work, The visit of BKF and family... there's a lot of catching up to do.

To kind of ease my way into it, I'll just drop this amusing screen capture (it's as though the website knew me somehow!)