Compare and Contrast

the crying bunny makes me sad...



More sad than the anorexic lead singer, anyway...

On the 28th we had a “uni” walk through the hills. Given our extremely strong sense of team bonding, it ended up being me and the HR director. Oh, and his 15 year old son who bounded up the steep inclines with the grace of a deer and, in doing so, gave me some insight into the joy HYS must feel when he shoots one of the cervidian motherfuckers right through the heart…

Ahem… That was off track..

Anyway, it was stark, grey-skies and sepia and ochre coloured earth and plants. About halfway up the hill we came across a trio of.. well, shrines, maybe? Koreans have a lot of the animist/shamanist in them. Even the “catholics” believe things about nature that the Pope would consider wrong. Man’s dominion and all that shite. But we came across three shrines that were focused on a small spring which flowed from the side of the hill. There were several plastic dippers and, by the side, thawing blocks of half-spherical ice which had been popped out of the dippers. Each of the shrines was stacked rock (as the HR dude noted, one shrine had used the finest polyvinyl foam to hold the rocks together) with a box on top. Each box contained candles that had been recently lit.

We stopped, drank our bottled water in relative silence, and then continued up the hill, not quite sure what we had just visited.

Later, we had So-Galbi and Maekchu.

Another freezing day in Paradise.

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..

Have I posted this before?

Things you don't much see in the States

That red line is to point out the long and snaking path that the gas-line is taking to deliver gasoline into a house.

I guess this house isn't on LPG or the City gas (not "oline") and so they use gasoline. I'm reasonably certain this would be illegal in most states, but in South-Central it's a common sight.

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..

Merry XMASS to ALL you all!

As you all, in the “behind world,” wake up to face xmas, it is already passed in the land of the future ™.

It’s funny how being in a new country, without stuff, focuses your present buying. The OAF and I each bought each other mugs (highly appropriate if you think of the two of us).

I bought the OAF a tea-mug, since I use one of my mugs for my toothbrush, and the other to temporarily hold various cooking items, mainly oils.

She bought me a toothbrush mug!

William Sydney Porter? Shut yo mouf!

Also, all waeguk surrender to Korea. Not only was today xmas, but last night was a birthday party and an xmas eve party. At both parties, socks, mittens, and scarves were highly esteemed as gifts.

Predictably, the OAF and I traded scarves this morning. ;-)

It’s true… four distinct seasons … with the good two so brief that it’s obvious Korean achievement is despite God’s punishment.

Good on the Koreans, then.

That picture there is the lame LED xmas tree that I drew on the wall of my flat, in cable and despair. The picture catches it in full-on LE(d)xplosion and thus it looks much less pacific and Christ-like than normal.

The OAF and I then careened, cold and in the wind, through Daejeon all day…. Bookstores and coffee-joints, pummeled by spitting masses as we walked through the Jung-ang market.

Ended in a tuegi joint that was stuffed to the gills, and that really laid on the meat portions.

Another freezing day in paradise… ;-)

and I did wear my scarf to the PC joint.. so Korea has made me gay.

For those of you who follow the OAF’s relatively random blogging, she has posted some pics of her new pad in the rich neighborhood. It’s nice.. if I can find a place remotely like it up in Seoul, I’ll be thrilled.

But while she was posting these pictures I noticed that she has at least one more fiancee…. The one she’s only had for 6 months..

She rushed to hide this reality, only to reveal something even more shocking.. that she’s into jailbait… if that’s what you call a kid under one year old..

that's just disgusting!

Do I get the Laziness Now?

I think I’m an official professor now.

Why?

Because I waited until the absolutely last day to do my grading – in fact I did it on the train up to Seoul. I even took the Mugunggwha so that I would:

a) be bored enough, and
b) have time enough to do them

Now they are done and my only concern is that for some reason the spreadsheet isn’t properly calculating my performance grades into the final result. This means that, currently, everyone failed my class. While I might have occasionally wanted to do that, it wouldn’t look good to the head office, so I’ll need to head back there and work out whatever the kinks are.

The kids did ok – 8 As; 4 B’s: 4 Cs; 1D, and; 2 Fs, with one F earned by getting caught cheating on the final. That kid was gonna fail anyway, so I guess he thought the gamble couldn’t cost him too much.

Wouldn't Fly in the States

I suspect this advert would draw some controversy.

Also, for the life of me, I can't imagine why a homeless-looking black dude would be used to sell tequila?