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!)

WRF?

Salon idiotically says:

A study finds that young dudes are more likely to turn to alcohol and drugs to deal with relationship woes.

They claim it's because the breakup hits us 'harder.'

Retarded!

I.. uh...... I remember my young dudeshipness - I was pretty likely to turn to alcohol and drugs for breakfast. Didn't have much to do with whatever young heezy had just tossed me over..

We're guys! We drink and do drugs...

Jeez...

oh yeah "WRF?" is just how Marmaduke would say it..

Like that's a WRONG thing?

If you have a freaking stripper and whipped cream? Why wouldn't you?

And I a fairly normal lad..

For Mikey Astrue: Ode To A Government Dude

The mirror tells things backwards, lies
out of shape and out of size:
Bends concave while we’re convex
Showing things we don’t reflect.
With a friend and a bottle, of course,
We pretend it won’t get worse,
But my mirror, once my oldest friend
Why did our friendship have to end?
There are certain reflections
that should be prismatic
Light diffused and indirections
should be automatic.
Today I approach a shiny surface
Straight backed and tightened butt
Knowing life is just a mirror
And a hammer to the gut.

I always knew this..

But was too wasted to articulate it...

Smart people drink..

It may also be possible that smart people drink and then stop doing it....

Yeah.. I'm thinking about three of you. ;-)

Bukhansan - Not just another mountain

Oh man....

our third day of spring has sprung (shortly to be replaced by rain and gloom), so I'm on the terrace of Gecko's listening to the marvelous cacophony of life in Seoul; horns blaring, semi-decent music from within the restaurant, scooters buzzing, and the breeze snapping a few flags.

Nice-uh!

An opportunity to post pictures of the first "non-Namsan" mountain Yvonne and I went up.

A few weeks ago our school closed for a day to climb Bukhansan. Yvonne and I headed off together in a cab for the meeting space, but once there we were efficiently separated as we are from different divisions.

We wallowed about a bit at the National Memorial, and then departments began to head out. EIT was the absolute last to leave. As we wandered towards the park, another Park (Bom-shik) noted that our department had been just as tardy last year.

our students dorking around, ensuring our tardiness

Our tardiness meant that we were at the back end of a massive traffic jam up the hill. I felt sorry for the Ajummah and Ajeoshi who had chosen this particular day for their hike up the hill. Little could they have known that they would be engulfed in perfect storm of Makgeoli drinking college students.

The long orange trail

Fortunately, Koreans are not much impressed by the requirement to stay on the trail, so the older folks, wherever possible, detoured around us on the hill.

on the way up

After a long slog at sluggish pace, we reached the first ridge and things opened up for a while. This was a decent hike and produced some really nice views of the mountains to the right. Eventually, we hit another bottleneck just below the fort, and we all milled like cows on the slaughter train. Eventually I snuck my way through. I was the first person from our department, so I sat down and waited for the rest of the party.

Again, because of our tardiness, all the good spaces were taken, and the first spot out intrepid student leader staked out for us was right next to the honey-pot style toilets!

Cooler heads (and ones with noses) prevailed, as some other keen-eyed student noted a large group already heading out (this is how late we were) and we slipped into that spot rather quickish.

our student leaders

Then it was lunch, drinking, and the traditional games including one something like "Duck, Duck, Goose," which was rendered quite dangerous by low branches, rocky terrain, and a coating of fallen leaves that obscured the real ground. Still, lots of fun.

our ferocious lunch


our drinking

Then, a walk down the other side which was painfully steep.

At the bottom our tardiness caught up with us again, as the last Dongguk shuttle bus, which Yvonne's more timely department had caught, was long gone. So we had to hike out an additional mile or two to a bus stop.

My students tried to get me to take a taxi, but there was no way I was wimping out at that point. Then it was bus and subway back to Chungmuro, for the traditional post traffic-jam/horrific descent beer and chicken extravaganza.

toasting the hike

A great day, and our first mountain down.