I don't know why this isn't working. But I am paying a baht a minute so I'll just put the monk pic in a new post. Here it is. He seems to be having as much trouble with his phone as I'm having with the computer I'm using here. Technology!
Monday, June 26, 2006
Monk pic
I don't know why this isn't working. But I am paying a baht a minute so I'll just put the monk pic in a new post. Here it is. He seems to be having as much trouble with his phone as I'm having with the computer I'm using here. Technology!
Sawas dee cap
Hey everybody! Greetings from Thailand. That's what the title means in case you were a wondering. Lemme say right off the bat I hope you appreciate this posting because I just spent 40 minutes doing a really nice post complete with several pictures and lost it. Thai computers are getting better but they're still not as wired here as Korea. Oh well, take two.
I haven't YET had any real big misadventures that I know of. But the vacation is young and I'm still in the relatively comfortable confines of the Khao San road area. Tomorrow morning I'm going to Kanchanaburi to see the tiger temple and the bridge over the river Kwai with Kasia.
I've been hanging out with Kasia and a friend she met named Claudia for a couple days and we've had some fun. We went to Siam Square the other day. It's a very impressive, ultra modern mall here in Bangkok. We did some black light bowling, I ran through a fountain and we all ate at the sizzler. It was good food but I found a little tiny cockroach in mine. The three of us pigged out for the equivalent of about 14 bucks so I didn't really want to complain about the extra protein. So this is what we did instead. They probly got the message.
I've noticed a few changes since I was here last about 5 years ago. The biggest two changes are good, but not so good. First, there are all kinds of bank machines - FUNCTIONAL bank machines around here. I brought all kinds of American cash but it turns out I didn't have to. Now I can get all the cash I want. Hmmmmm...
The second good and bad change is a 24-hour Mickey Dees right down the street from my hotel. (He says as he surreptitiously leans over and cracks off a Big Mac and gin/tonic fart and hopes nobody at the internet corner notices). So far I haven't eaten there before 3 am. Nuff said. I gotta include the pic of Ronald Mcdonald doing the Thai greeting. He looks a bit freaky doesn't he? Like he poisoned all the french fries. Maybe he's been into the Thai tree. Hee hee hee.
I'll include one more pic although that's what is killing me here. I gotta put it in though. It's a classic. I took an after breakfast walk and went by the Grand Palace. On the way I saw a monk in the orange robe I absolutely had to take a pic of. If you look closely, YES, he is talking on a cell phone. HA HA HA HA. That just killed me.
Well, I hope this works. It's almost time to go to the fights. I'm gonna watch some Muay Thai tonight. I'll post more about my Thai adventure for sure.
Monday, June 19, 2006
Education Whore
I'm gonna blather on a little bit more about my job here in Korea because I'm still feeling dirty from what I had to do yesterday. Let me splain. No it would take too long. Let me sum up. I taught about 200 students for the past 16 weeks. I'll use two students as examples of why you won't find my school on any lists of top educational facilities in Korea. In my class all you have to do is finish your assignments, write your tests, answer questions, come to class and try to stay awake. With the extremely lowered expectations I employ coupled with an uncanny knack Korean students have for cheating, that'll get you about 80%. Compare that to the student who occasionally strolls into class an hour and a half late and proceeds to distract other waking students by chatting in Korean, listens to his mp3 player, reads the Korean news, does Korean homework, talks on his phone, plays games on it and sends textmessages etc. Generally when you make a concerted effort NOT to learn like this you will end up with about 20% in my class just because you showed up when it suited your fancy.
I've been told to give no lower than 70% in my classes. So I have to give the 20% slacker 50 free percent. To try to offset that I give the 80 student an extra 20. SO, the bad student gets a gift of 250% and the good student gets a gift of 25%. Also, on the official attendance, no student has more than 11 hours absent. This too benefits the slackers.
What kind of message is this sending? I'll tell you, "Don't try. It's not worth it."
Yesterday I sent this message to 200 students. I feel like I should be sent to jail for two hundred counts of contributing to the stupidity of a minor.
To add insult to injury, after compiling the lists of phony marks, and phony attendance, my supervisor then required me to sign these lists like this anti-education was MY idea.
How did I choose to maintain some semblance of pride in my work? How did I choose to cleanse myself of this dirty academic whoredom? I refused to sign the lists and today I'm going to Seoul to pick up a ticket to Thailand I purchased. Hopefully two weeks of visiting the tiger sanctuary, snorkelling, riding elephants and such will dull the guilt I feel. If nothing else it'll provide some cool pics for this site, and no doubt some of the usual misadventures I have when I travel. Then when I get back I'll spend two or three weeks of my holiday doing some extremely intense REAL teaching at a kids camp somewhere in Korea. This is the pennance I have sentenced myself to. Hopefully all this will prepare me to reprise my role as an academic whore in September.
Wish me luck.
I've been told to give no lower than 70% in my classes. So I have to give the 20% slacker 50 free percent. To try to offset that I give the 80 student an extra 20. SO, the bad student gets a gift of 250% and the good student gets a gift of 25%. Also, on the official attendance, no student has more than 11 hours absent. This too benefits the slackers.
What kind of message is this sending? I'll tell you, "Don't try. It's not worth it."
Yesterday I sent this message to 200 students. I feel like I should be sent to jail for two hundred counts of contributing to the stupidity of a minor.
To add insult to injury, after compiling the lists of phony marks, and phony attendance, my supervisor then required me to sign these lists like this anti-education was MY idea.
How did I choose to maintain some semblance of pride in my work? How did I choose to cleanse myself of this dirty academic whoredom? I refused to sign the lists and today I'm going to Seoul to pick up a ticket to Thailand I purchased. Hopefully two weeks of visiting the tiger sanctuary, snorkelling, riding elephants and such will dull the guilt I feel. If nothing else it'll provide some cool pics for this site, and no doubt some of the usual misadventures I have when I travel. Then when I get back I'll spend two or three weeks of my holiday doing some extremely intense REAL teaching at a kids camp somewhere in Korea. This is the pennance I have sentenced myself to. Hopefully all this will prepare me to reprise my role as an academic whore in September.
Wish me luck.
Friday, June 16, 2006
As I take a slug of white Russian and lick the drips off my moustache while swallowing I'm feeling very Dude-like tonight. If you don't know the reference watch the Big Lebowsky. Then read it again and you'll get a chuckle. Maybe. Things are getting Dude-like around here. I'm marking final exams and realizing how little most of my students have learned. Now I have to try to fake like I did my job. I was in the supervisor's office today saying, "In the parlance of our time, new, uh, uh, shit has-has, uh, come to light, man!" Or something a bit more professional sounding.
The thing is, the more I talk to my supervisor, the more I think the sum total of what he has to give me for advice is "Don't worry about test scores, assignments, homework, attendance, participation points or other such records you've been keeping for the past 16 weeks, just give everyone really high marks." Or something more professional sounding.
It's far more neccessary to have things LOOKING official even if they're complete horseshit. For example, if a student misses more than 11 hours he or she automatically fails. Any subject. And I think that's good because my classes have averaged a total of 42 hours or so. 12 hours is about 29% of class. So if a student misses 12 hours but absolutely aces the stuff he's been there for, the best he can hope for is 71%. And as near as makes no difference, the students who are missing more than 11 classes are not likely to ace anything except maybe textmessaging 101, soju drinking 1100 or advanced slackassing.
Well, I've been told to give nobody more than 11 hours absent. So people who have been absent for half the classes will have a really nice 11 after their names on my attendance.
Not only that but we've been told that students don't really fail English in this school. Unless there is someone who just hasn't been in class at all, they all have to get at least 60%. So I'm gonna have a lot of students who missed more than 50% of class getting 60%! "Why is everything" in Korean schools, "always such a travesty, man!?!?"
So it looks like things are pretty lax. Not so! The way to fill out our official attendance forms was outlined and I think that's gonna take more time than marking the final exams did. I have 3-hour classes. If a student was absent for one of the three hours I hafta make a /. For two of three I make a //. For all three hours I cross the //. And it is important to evenly disperse the phony crossed //'s, //'s and /'s for the students you are trying to make look like they were only absent 11 hours. We have to try to make it look genuine if we can.
For holidays or special days like sports days, military training days for the guys, school festivals, and we had an election day this semester, mark all the students present but for those you intend to fail, mark them away. I think that's what I was told anyway.
We have to fill in the month, date, day and hours of each class on a form that's only in Korean so God help those teachers who don't read Korean. Luckily I do. But after I've sounded the words out with domestic accuracy and pronunciation, I don't really know what the hell they mean.
The marks are even more ridiculous. It's important to keep things pretty standard because it looks phony if one class has much higher marks than another. I have one class of about 45 who averaged in the 80's on their final exams and another class with about the same number of students in it that averaged about 15-20%. How in the name of FUCK do you average that shit out?!? And these classes have been that way all semester long! I tried really hard to make things easier for the shitty class. And harder for the good class. The good class even missed one day for the love of God! That's three extra hours for the duds! But I suppose it wasn't enough.
Not only that but within the bonehead class are about 4 students who are absolutely awesome! Two got 100% on the exam and two got 98%. So how can they be learning while the rest are getting dumber? And if I add like 50% to other students' marks, what do I do for these four?
It gets worse! Not only do I have to try to keep my classes' marks fairly uniform, but all five of the English teachers have to come up with similar marks for all their classes. How we are supposed to find out what kind of marks the other teachers are giving their students, I don't know. "Just cuz we're foreigners doesn't mean we're SAPS!!"
And now the worst part: after we have sharpened our marking pencils and created what we think is a stinky enough pile of academic fraud, we have to plug it all into the computer system at the school. Of course it is all in Korean and it has WAY too many bells and whistles and little bugs that we will no doubt learn about the hard way. And of course every little mouse click that is second nature to a Korean will be totally foreign to us foreigners and they won't think of explaining it. Like when you click on the icon for the program we need to enter the marks into, a box may come up that says, "Are you sure you want to enter this program?" because all Korean electronic shit has plenty of these useless extra steps to it. The choices will be yes and no but they will be in Korean so we won't have any idea what we're looking at. If we manage to guess correctly, a warning may come up that says, "The domain you are entering is not protected by your current virus software. What would you like to do?" The choices will be continue or delete all the work you have done up to this point. But we won't know what we're looking at. So we'll have to guess. That's just one example.
I've tried this inputting marks into a computer before and it's always a MASSIVE pain in the ass even when the program is in English.
But this is where I earn most of my money I guess. It'll be a very "creative" week I guess, working all this out. But after that it's two months of holidays! WOOOHOOOOO! Despite all my bellyaching, I'll think it's worth it when I'm drinking my Caucasians in Boracay, Kuta or Patong Beach. Just don't ask me if I think it's worth it right NOW.
The thing is, the more I talk to my supervisor, the more I think the sum total of what he has to give me for advice is "Don't worry about test scores, assignments, homework, attendance, participation points or other such records you've been keeping for the past 16 weeks, just give everyone really high marks." Or something more professional sounding.
It's far more neccessary to have things LOOKING official even if they're complete horseshit. For example, if a student misses more than 11 hours he or she automatically fails. Any subject. And I think that's good because my classes have averaged a total of 42 hours or so. 12 hours is about 29% of class. So if a student misses 12 hours but absolutely aces the stuff he's been there for, the best he can hope for is 71%. And as near as makes no difference, the students who are missing more than 11 classes are not likely to ace anything except maybe textmessaging 101, soju drinking 1100 or advanced slackassing.
Well, I've been told to give nobody more than 11 hours absent. So people who have been absent for half the classes will have a really nice 11 after their names on my attendance.
Not only that but we've been told that students don't really fail English in this school. Unless there is someone who just hasn't been in class at all, they all have to get at least 60%. So I'm gonna have a lot of students who missed more than 50% of class getting 60%! "Why is everything" in Korean schools, "always such a travesty, man!?!?"
So it looks like things are pretty lax. Not so! The way to fill out our official attendance forms was outlined and I think that's gonna take more time than marking the final exams did. I have 3-hour classes. If a student was absent for one of the three hours I hafta make a /. For two of three I make a //. For all three hours I cross the //. And it is important to evenly disperse the phony crossed //'s, //'s and /'s for the students you are trying to make look like they were only absent 11 hours. We have to try to make it look genuine if we can.
For holidays or special days like sports days, military training days for the guys, school festivals, and we had an election day this semester, mark all the students present but for those you intend to fail, mark them away. I think that's what I was told anyway.
We have to fill in the month, date, day and hours of each class on a form that's only in Korean so God help those teachers who don't read Korean. Luckily I do. But after I've sounded the words out with domestic accuracy and pronunciation, I don't really know what the hell they mean.
The marks are even more ridiculous. It's important to keep things pretty standard because it looks phony if one class has much higher marks than another. I have one class of about 45 who averaged in the 80's on their final exams and another class with about the same number of students in it that averaged about 15-20%. How in the name of FUCK do you average that shit out?!? And these classes have been that way all semester long! I tried really hard to make things easier for the shitty class. And harder for the good class. The good class even missed one day for the love of God! That's three extra hours for the duds! But I suppose it wasn't enough.
Not only that but within the bonehead class are about 4 students who are absolutely awesome! Two got 100% on the exam and two got 98%. So how can they be learning while the rest are getting dumber? And if I add like 50% to other students' marks, what do I do for these four?
It gets worse! Not only do I have to try to keep my classes' marks fairly uniform, but all five of the English teachers have to come up with similar marks for all their classes. How we are supposed to find out what kind of marks the other teachers are giving their students, I don't know. "Just cuz we're foreigners doesn't mean we're SAPS!!"
And now the worst part: after we have sharpened our marking pencils and created what we think is a stinky enough pile of academic fraud, we have to plug it all into the computer system at the school. Of course it is all in Korean and it has WAY too many bells and whistles and little bugs that we will no doubt learn about the hard way. And of course every little mouse click that is second nature to a Korean will be totally foreign to us foreigners and they won't think of explaining it. Like when you click on the icon for the program we need to enter the marks into, a box may come up that says, "Are you sure you want to enter this program?" because all Korean electronic shit has plenty of these useless extra steps to it. The choices will be yes and no but they will be in Korean so we won't have any idea what we're looking at. If we manage to guess correctly, a warning may come up that says, "The domain you are entering is not protected by your current virus software. What would you like to do?" The choices will be continue or delete all the work you have done up to this point. But we won't know what we're looking at. So we'll have to guess. That's just one example.
I've tried this inputting marks into a computer before and it's always a MASSIVE pain in the ass even when the program is in English.
But this is where I earn most of my money I guess. It'll be a very "creative" week I guess, working all this out. But after that it's two months of holidays! WOOOHOOOOO! Despite all my bellyaching, I'll think it's worth it when I'm drinking my Caucasians in Boracay, Kuta or Patong Beach. Just don't ask me if I think it's worth it right NOW.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Soccer!
It's World Cup time again and this country has gone insane with all out support for their soccer team. I like the Korean enthusiasm. Their fans did Korea proud in the last World Cup. Every Korean I know has been anticipating the World Cup for four years talking about how they're going to do even better than they did in 2002. With all the hype in this country you would think it would be easy for me to get into soccer. It's one of very few sports I just don't like. But I've been forcing myself to watch the qualifying matches, trying to remember key players' names and what pool they'll be in etc. I even went out last night to city hall here in Yangju, (or as the locals call it, "shitty hole"), where there was a big screen and a band in the back of a pick-up and about a thousand Yangjuians sporting their red "Corea Fighting!" shirts and their flashing red devil horns singing and chanting and drinking soju. It should be easy for me to catch the spirit, right? Don't get me wrong, I was pulling for Korea in their game against Togo last night. But it was too crowded at City Hall. I went to a bar closer to home where I could actually see the screen, drink some good beer and didn't have to stand. I'm not a big enough fan to make those sacrifices yet. Not even for the biggest sporting event in the world.
So I got a stool at the local Live Bar conveniently located about 150 yards from my apartment to watch Korea vs. Togo. I sat there drinking Heini Dark. I thought it a suitable beverage for the event since the consensus in this country was that Korea was going to kick some dark heini. It was pretty funny to see the panic at the end of the first half when Togo was up 1-0. But I assured my fellow cheerers that if Australia can come back from a 1-0 deficit against Japan and win 3-1 the night before, (see? I'm watching the games!), Korea could do the same.
Not far into the second half Korea was up 2-1 and the place was going berserk, but I, being not quite swept away by the glory of that fact, noticed something very strange. I saw several instances when Togo, (in yellow), sent two guys into the Korean zone to face about 8 Korean defenders. It just didn't make sense to me. Where were the other yellow shirts? For the remainder of the game Togo played very defensively. The most I saw were three yellow shirts in the Korean zone for half the second half!
Now I realize that one of the Togo players had received a red card and was booted off the field but shouldn't there have been two or three defenders in the Togo zone and the rest at least at midfield? I mean once they were down by a goal of course. But it looked like they were happy with the 2-1 score. And that was the final. I just couldn't wrap my head around it. I couldn't imagine anything stranger in soccer.
Then I went home and watched the France/Switzerland game. Did anyone stay up late like I did for that GEM? OH MY GOD Magnum! What a yawner! BOTH teams were playing Togo style sending 2 or maybe 3 guys into the offensive zone to try to score. THE WHOLE GAME! Like they wanted a 0-0 tie! And of course they got it. And I stayed up till 3 or 4 am to see this travesty! I should have waited till today because, classic soccer battle that it was, it is being replayed and replayed today all over Korean TV.
How can people call this sport "the beautiful game"? As far as I'm concerned when an athlete or coach is more concerned with stopping the other team from scoring than helping his own team to score, particularly when his team is losing, he is a PUSSY and he should give up on sport and become a life insurance salesman. And it's never been beautiful to me to watch these well trained actors getting grazed by an opponent's cleat and going down like they were shot by a sniper. Even waiting for the stretcher to carry them off and then bounding back onto the field immediately like a gazelle. And how can even a loyal supporter cheer when a goal is scored on a penalty kick given for an Academy Award performance like that?
I know I'm in the minority on this but I think soccer sucks. If anything the World Cup is making me hate it more. It's only the most popular sport in the world because no matter how poor you are, you can tie a few shirts together for a ball and you can play it. But that's just my opinion.
Corea fighting. :(
So I got a stool at the local Live Bar conveniently located about 150 yards from my apartment to watch Korea vs. Togo. I sat there drinking Heini Dark. I thought it a suitable beverage for the event since the consensus in this country was that Korea was going to kick some dark heini. It was pretty funny to see the panic at the end of the first half when Togo was up 1-0. But I assured my fellow cheerers that if Australia can come back from a 1-0 deficit against Japan and win 3-1 the night before, (see? I'm watching the games!), Korea could do the same.
Not far into the second half Korea was up 2-1 and the place was going berserk, but I, being not quite swept away by the glory of that fact, noticed something very strange. I saw several instances when Togo, (in yellow), sent two guys into the Korean zone to face about 8 Korean defenders. It just didn't make sense to me. Where were the other yellow shirts? For the remainder of the game Togo played very defensively. The most I saw were three yellow shirts in the Korean zone for half the second half!
Now I realize that one of the Togo players had received a red card and was booted off the field but shouldn't there have been two or three defenders in the Togo zone and the rest at least at midfield? I mean once they were down by a goal of course. But it looked like they were happy with the 2-1 score. And that was the final. I just couldn't wrap my head around it. I couldn't imagine anything stranger in soccer.
Then I went home and watched the France/Switzerland game. Did anyone stay up late like I did for that GEM? OH MY GOD Magnum! What a yawner! BOTH teams were playing Togo style sending 2 or maybe 3 guys into the offensive zone to try to score. THE WHOLE GAME! Like they wanted a 0-0 tie! And of course they got it. And I stayed up till 3 or 4 am to see this travesty! I should have waited till today because, classic soccer battle that it was, it is being replayed and replayed today all over Korean TV.
How can people call this sport "the beautiful game"? As far as I'm concerned when an athlete or coach is more concerned with stopping the other team from scoring than helping his own team to score, particularly when his team is losing, he is a PUSSY and he should give up on sport and become a life insurance salesman. And it's never been beautiful to me to watch these well trained actors getting grazed by an opponent's cleat and going down like they were shot by a sniper. Even waiting for the stretcher to carry them off and then bounding back onto the field immediately like a gazelle. And how can even a loyal supporter cheer when a goal is scored on a penalty kick given for an Academy Award performance like that?
I know I'm in the minority on this but I think soccer sucks. If anything the World Cup is making me hate it more. It's only the most popular sport in the world because no matter how poor you are, you can tie a few shirts together for a ball and you can play it. But that's just my opinion.
Corea fighting. :(
Sunday, June 11, 2006
Progress?
Okay, time for another serious entry. I've been bombarded by messages all month about this topic from all sorts of sources so that it's been on my mind constantly and I'm starting to see that almost everything relates to it. Recent news stories all have a bit of it. Recent blogs I've been reading contain it. TV shows I've been watching. Even an e-mail I got from Kasia had this little story about a wise woman.
"The Wise Woman's Stone" A wise woman who was traveling in the mountains found a precious stone in a stream. The next day she met another traveler who was hungry, and the wise woman opened her bag to share her food. The hungry traveler saw the precious stone and asked the woman to give it to him. She did so without hesitation. The traveler left, rejoicing in his good fortune. He knew the stone was worth enough to give him security for a lifetime. But a few days later he came back to return the stone to the wise woman. "I've been thinking," he said, "I know how valuable the stone is, but I give it back in the hope that you can give me something even more precious. Give me what you have within you that enabled you to give me the stone." Author Unknown
Those are ALWAYS author unknown stories! Probly because the author wasn't selfish enough to publish it for personal profit.
My topic today my little cheeky monkies is selfishness. Or really selflessness, and how the further we "progress" as a species, the further behind we leave it. And before you cast any stones, I'm thoroughly guilty of selfishness myself. I count it as my worst vice, yet am perfectly happy to try to practice selflessness passively. I'll do unto others... if the opportunity should arise.
Excuse me whilst I wax religious: The golden rule is not so much a trite tidbit of advice we should think of occasionally, but a commandment that, being golden, should be foremost in the lives of good people. I believe there is a golden rule in all religion that is pretty much the same, and indeed this is a sentiment I have found to be innate in all good people religious or not. No matter how it's said, "Do unto others as you would have done unto you." is the answer to all the world's problems. If we could all just DO it, we wouldn't need Heaven. Or for that matter, Hell. Or Nirvana or Valhalla or Enlightenment or the thousand virgin party or whatever.
I found Kasia's wise woman story to be a pretty good test of how good a person I am. And I failed miserably. If a person is able to even imagine the woman being happier to have given the stone to the man than the man at having received it, that person is well on his/her way to being good, heavenly, enlightened, or whatever. While I was reading it I was saying, "No, no, no! What kind of a jerk asks for a gem from a woman who is kind enough to offer him food? He doesn't deserve the gem!" I found myself thinking, "How phony is this? What woman would part with a valuable gem, much less give one to a stranger?" I was even guilty of thinking, "HAH! Of course it's a WOMAN who gives the MAN the stone! And a WOMAN who sent it to me! Womanly wiles! Delete, delete, delete!" I certainly am not enlightened enough to understand how the woman could be the happier of the two after giving away something so valuable. What did YOU think when you read it? More to the point, what do you suppose led you to think that way?
I was recently watching 20/20 on my beloved AFKN and there was a story of a middle school teacher in the States somewhere who did a little social experiment in her classes. She divided her students into groups and gave them a jar full of Hershey's Kisses. She gave the jar to one member of each group and told him/her to take as many as he/she wanted and to pass it on. After all members got the same chance, the number of Kisses left in the jar would be doubled and they could do it again. So if they had six Kisses left, the teacher would give them six more and they could pass the jar around again. The teacher said that none of the groups had any remaining Kisses and most groups had one or more members who got no Kisses at all. The group members were thinking less about doing unto others and more about what they would have done unto them.
Now it could be argued that if they had thought long-term and stretched it out for several rounds, they could all have several jars full of Kisses and that THIS is the more selfish thinking. I disagree. I think "get all you can NOW" is the worst kind of selfishness and that's what is killing our planet. And, with all due respect to my American buddies, I haven't heard about this test being successfully replicated in other countries around the world. But then again, maybe it could be. What has brought us to this point? And can whatever has brought us to this point be accurately called "progress"?
Anyone ever heard of Martin Frobisher? He was an English explorer who visited the arctic in Elizabethan times. He found the "savages" living there to have some very "crude" and "uncivilized" customs. For instance, they had no concept of ownership. Anyone could borrow anything from anyone else, including wives, without being expected to repay it. Frobisher's crew had a field day with this custom. They took all kinds of Inuit goods and inventions like furs, kayaks, sleighs, mukluks etc. with no concern about how well the people could survive without them. They even picked an Inuit man, kayak and all, out of the water beside the ship and brought him back to England where they GAVE him to the queen as a present. He was treated like a well loved pet. Elizabeth enjoyed watching him hunt swans on the Avon in his kayak. He eventually died, (of a COLD for crying out loud!), far away from his family and his "uncivilized" land where many of his friends and family died off due largely to inequities in trade with the British.
The other natives in Canada had no concept of ownership when white men arrived either. Over the years they sure have smartened up haven't they? While I was living in Thunder Bay about 10 years ago, my neighbour, a native guy, unlocked my bike and took it. His wife had their car. I was almost late for work when he returned with the bike. I was really mad and told him he could borrow it any time but he had to ask me first. He challenged me to a fight because he thought I was saying he had stolen it. If I wasn't late for work, I may have taken him up on the fight offer. But I didn't. I just took the bike and rode it to work. I was late. Then one night my roommate and I were having a noisy party and guess who came over to complain about US infringing on his house owner's rights?
And then there's Ann Coulter talking about how some 911 widows are complaining about government officials, police, firefighters etc. all for personal gain. It seems to me if Ann Coulter is buying up 1.5 million dollar condos and 1.8 million dollar homes, maybe she's complaining about these women for her own personal gain. If she really just wanted to get her message out; if she really believed in it; if she really wanted to be like Jesus; she wouldn't charge for the books and may even leak the stories out like the story of the woman and the stone: author unknown.
The lyrics of an old song written by Kerry Livgren of the group Kansas come to mind.
Progress! We are marching backward,
Progress! as the captains of our fate.
Progress! We are marching backward,
Progress! We destroy and annihilate.
I'd better write a letter to my Gramma, or give some money to the poor, or send my sister some wedding cash, or do something nice in complete anonymity for somebody else today. I'm gonna try to give someone a precious stone. I think that's what the signs are telling me.
"The Wise Woman's Stone" A wise woman who was traveling in the mountains found a precious stone in a stream. The next day she met another traveler who was hungry, and the wise woman opened her bag to share her food. The hungry traveler saw the precious stone and asked the woman to give it to him. She did so without hesitation. The traveler left, rejoicing in his good fortune. He knew the stone was worth enough to give him security for a lifetime. But a few days later he came back to return the stone to the wise woman. "I've been thinking," he said, "I know how valuable the stone is, but I give it back in the hope that you can give me something even more precious. Give me what you have within you that enabled you to give me the stone." Author Unknown
Those are ALWAYS author unknown stories! Probly because the author wasn't selfish enough to publish it for personal profit.
My topic today my little cheeky monkies is selfishness. Or really selflessness, and how the further we "progress" as a species, the further behind we leave it. And before you cast any stones, I'm thoroughly guilty of selfishness myself. I count it as my worst vice, yet am perfectly happy to try to practice selflessness passively. I'll do unto others... if the opportunity should arise.
Excuse me whilst I wax religious: The golden rule is not so much a trite tidbit of advice we should think of occasionally, but a commandment that, being golden, should be foremost in the lives of good people. I believe there is a golden rule in all religion that is pretty much the same, and indeed this is a sentiment I have found to be innate in all good people religious or not. No matter how it's said, "Do unto others as you would have done unto you." is the answer to all the world's problems. If we could all just DO it, we wouldn't need Heaven. Or for that matter, Hell. Or Nirvana or Valhalla or Enlightenment or the thousand virgin party or whatever.
I found Kasia's wise woman story to be a pretty good test of how good a person I am. And I failed miserably. If a person is able to even imagine the woman being happier to have given the stone to the man than the man at having received it, that person is well on his/her way to being good, heavenly, enlightened, or whatever. While I was reading it I was saying, "No, no, no! What kind of a jerk asks for a gem from a woman who is kind enough to offer him food? He doesn't deserve the gem!" I found myself thinking, "How phony is this? What woman would part with a valuable gem, much less give one to a stranger?" I was even guilty of thinking, "HAH! Of course it's a WOMAN who gives the MAN the stone! And a WOMAN who sent it to me! Womanly wiles! Delete, delete, delete!" I certainly am not enlightened enough to understand how the woman could be the happier of the two after giving away something so valuable. What did YOU think when you read it? More to the point, what do you suppose led you to think that way?
I was recently watching 20/20 on my beloved AFKN and there was a story of a middle school teacher in the States somewhere who did a little social experiment in her classes. She divided her students into groups and gave them a jar full of Hershey's Kisses. She gave the jar to one member of each group and told him/her to take as many as he/she wanted and to pass it on. After all members got the same chance, the number of Kisses left in the jar would be doubled and they could do it again. So if they had six Kisses left, the teacher would give them six more and they could pass the jar around again. The teacher said that none of the groups had any remaining Kisses and most groups had one or more members who got no Kisses at all. The group members were thinking less about doing unto others and more about what they would have done unto them.
Now it could be argued that if they had thought long-term and stretched it out for several rounds, they could all have several jars full of Kisses and that THIS is the more selfish thinking. I disagree. I think "get all you can NOW" is the worst kind of selfishness and that's what is killing our planet. And, with all due respect to my American buddies, I haven't heard about this test being successfully replicated in other countries around the world. But then again, maybe it could be. What has brought us to this point? And can whatever has brought us to this point be accurately called "progress"?
Anyone ever heard of Martin Frobisher? He was an English explorer who visited the arctic in Elizabethan times. He found the "savages" living there to have some very "crude" and "uncivilized" customs. For instance, they had no concept of ownership. Anyone could borrow anything from anyone else, including wives, without being expected to repay it. Frobisher's crew had a field day with this custom. They took all kinds of Inuit goods and inventions like furs, kayaks, sleighs, mukluks etc. with no concern about how well the people could survive without them. They even picked an Inuit man, kayak and all, out of the water beside the ship and brought him back to England where they GAVE him to the queen as a present. He was treated like a well loved pet. Elizabeth enjoyed watching him hunt swans on the Avon in his kayak. He eventually died, (of a COLD for crying out loud!), far away from his family and his "uncivilized" land where many of his friends and family died off due largely to inequities in trade with the British.
The other natives in Canada had no concept of ownership when white men arrived either. Over the years they sure have smartened up haven't they? While I was living in Thunder Bay about 10 years ago, my neighbour, a native guy, unlocked my bike and took it. His wife had their car. I was almost late for work when he returned with the bike. I was really mad and told him he could borrow it any time but he had to ask me first. He challenged me to a fight because he thought I was saying he had stolen it. If I wasn't late for work, I may have taken him up on the fight offer. But I didn't. I just took the bike and rode it to work. I was late. Then one night my roommate and I were having a noisy party and guess who came over to complain about US infringing on his house owner's rights?
And then there's Ann Coulter talking about how some 911 widows are complaining about government officials, police, firefighters etc. all for personal gain. It seems to me if Ann Coulter is buying up 1.5 million dollar condos and 1.8 million dollar homes, maybe she's complaining about these women for her own personal gain. If she really just wanted to get her message out; if she really believed in it; if she really wanted to be like Jesus; she wouldn't charge for the books and may even leak the stories out like the story of the woman and the stone: author unknown.
The lyrics of an old song written by Kerry Livgren of the group Kansas come to mind.
Progress! We are marching backward,
Progress! as the captains of our fate.
Progress! We are marching backward,
Progress! We destroy and annihilate.
I'd better write a letter to my Gramma, or give some money to the poor, or send my sister some wedding cash, or do something nice in complete anonymity for somebody else today. I'm gonna try to give someone a precious stone. I think that's what the signs are telling me.
Saturday, June 10, 2006
Cream of Broccolant
Yesterday around lunch time I got ambitious and decided to make some broccoli soup. It turned out pretty good. A full head of broccoli, some pasta, cream sauce, pepper, deee-licious if I do say so myself. Toward the end of my first bowl I started noticing that some of the broccoli seeds had an odd shape and colour to them. Upon closer inspection I realized that I had unwittingly added an extra ingredient: ants. I had thoroughly cleaned the broccoli and there were no ants in the pasta. The cream sauce was in a sealed package and the water was straight from a bottle. My best guess is the ants had congregated in the bottom of my soup pot and somehow I had whipped up my soup without noticing them. What a way to go! Drowned and boiled.
Since moving into my apartment a few months ago I've had a problem with tiny ants. It was really bad when I first got here. They infested two boxes of cereal, a pack of Halls lozenges, a couple packs of gum, a few sticks of butter, and I had to throw out a bowl of sugar. I've found them in my pack sack, on my cutting board, on my dirty dishes, even in my kettle. I have since bought ant traps, ant spray, sprayed ant traffic areas with menthol, (which I was told they hate), and manually squashed thousands of the little critters. The entire building was sprayed with really strong anti-ant juice and I had to vacate my apartment for a whole day while that was done. But they just won't go away.
I think the best advice I have received to make life easier in Korea has been, "Don't sweat the small stuff." These ants are REALLY small, but it's pretty hard not to "sweat" pouring a cup of tea and having a dozen dead ants rise to the surface. Or pouring a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios and feeling about 50 ants crawling all over my hand and up my arm. I never know what I'm going to open next and get a creepy crawly surprise.
They don't bite and I've eaten enough of them to feel confident that they are not harmful when consumed. In fact, my broccoli soup was extra tasty and I felt pretty darn good after eating it. Natives used to eat particularly brave enemies' hearts hoping to ingest some of their courage. Maybe I'll eat enough of these critters to adopt some of their characteristics. It would be useful to have a better work ethic or to be able to lift 50 times my wieght.
So, in the spirit of not sweating the small stuff, I suppose I'll combat my ant problem by making cream of broccolant soup more often. If I start sprouting antennae I'll post a pic on this blog. Anybody want to come over for dinner?
Since moving into my apartment a few months ago I've had a problem with tiny ants. It was really bad when I first got here. They infested two boxes of cereal, a pack of Halls lozenges, a couple packs of gum, a few sticks of butter, and I had to throw out a bowl of sugar. I've found them in my pack sack, on my cutting board, on my dirty dishes, even in my kettle. I have since bought ant traps, ant spray, sprayed ant traffic areas with menthol, (which I was told they hate), and manually squashed thousands of the little critters. The entire building was sprayed with really strong anti-ant juice and I had to vacate my apartment for a whole day while that was done. But they just won't go away.
I think the best advice I have received to make life easier in Korea has been, "Don't sweat the small stuff." These ants are REALLY small, but it's pretty hard not to "sweat" pouring a cup of tea and having a dozen dead ants rise to the surface. Or pouring a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios and feeling about 50 ants crawling all over my hand and up my arm. I never know what I'm going to open next and get a creepy crawly surprise.
They don't bite and I've eaten enough of them to feel confident that they are not harmful when consumed. In fact, my broccoli soup was extra tasty and I felt pretty darn good after eating it. Natives used to eat particularly brave enemies' hearts hoping to ingest some of their courage. Maybe I'll eat enough of these critters to adopt some of their characteristics. It would be useful to have a better work ethic or to be able to lift 50 times my wieght.
So, in the spirit of not sweating the small stuff, I suppose I'll combat my ant problem by making cream of broccolant soup more often. If I start sprouting antennae I'll post a pic on this blog. Anybody want to come over for dinner?
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
06/06/06
What do you do on the last day on earth? It's something I have thought about a few times. But I forgot yesterday was the day the AntiChrist was supposed to blow the world up. What a thing to forget! Then again, it's still June 6th in some parts of the world NOW I think. Which begs the question, what time does the AntiChrist have? And that brings up the question, what kind of watch is the Evil One sporting? Rolex? Timex? Mickey Mouse? Is he on Jarusalem time? American time? Asian time? All stumpers.
If you notice the date on the picture to the right, it's not 06/06/06. I just included the pic cuz that's basically how I felt yesterday. And I think he's just plain cute. Alex isn't too bad either. Ar ar ar.
I'll tell you what I did cuz I think it was as good a day as any. I woke up at 10 in my room at the hotel where I always sleep off long nights of drinking in Seoul. I've flopped there enough times that I actually have a "usual" room. It's 119. 11:00 is check-out time so I had an hour to get used to my hangover and summon the energy to shower and shave and all those other "sh" words. I had spent a couple hours the night before with Heather, Mike, Reilly and Roman on the roof of the Nashville restaurant. I love the roof of the Nashville restaurant and they have the best burgers in Korea there, which you can eat on the roof while drinking Red Rock for the same price as local beer. Then my buddy Kasia came by and had a beer and a half with me. She left me to go on a hot date with some other guy. So, I went where I usually go, and more often "end up", Woodstock. It's my favourite bar in Korea and within easy staggering distance of room 119. Incidentally, 119 is the Korean 911. So it's a perfect room for my purposes.
When I'm in Seoul I sometimes wanna go where everybody knows my name. So I Tae Won Woodstock is the place. The stool next to the DJ booth has my ass print in it. They don't say "DAVE!" when I walk in, but the DJ will throw on some Rush for me. I had a good night with several people who knew my name shootin the shit, drinking sambuca shots, playing pool, smoking all my cigars, listening to some mighty fine tunes and ensuring that if the world were to end, I would be goin out with a hangover.
Doomsday at 11:00 after just checking out of 119, I had to eat. Since 119 is in the same building as McDonalds I had some Mcbrunch there. Then at noon I met Kasia and Christy at Burger King. We walked around in the midday heat looking for a tea set Kasia wanted to give a relative as a wedding present. Got a good one too. Then we went to the Three Alley Pub at 4 pm. to have the ribeye. It was GORGEOUS as usual.
Around 6 o'clock, the appropriate time for the world to end, Christy went home on the subway and Kasia and I decided to visit a few more friends while still on the earth. We walked to Mike and Heather's just in time to catch the end of a game of Memory Heather was playing with Reilly Kate. I won't tell you the score but Heather got her azz whooped. hee hee hee. Then Heather pulled the lasagna out of the oven. I really should have eaten with them since you just don't count calories when you're gonna die and lasagna is a rare treat here in Korea, but Kasia and I were still full from the steak. Also, lasagna always knocks me out. The picture, (finally I get to the picture), was taken the last time I ate lasagna. I made some at my friends' house near Pyung Taek back in March. As you can see lasagna's soporific effects on me can be hazardous to small children. Alex was okay though, don't worry. But I didn't want to endanger the lives of Reilly or Roman.
Anyway, Kasia and I both went home after our visit and we both woke up and went to work the next day. As yet, still no appearance by the AntiChrist. Another Armageddon averted. Woohoo! Now I have to go to the gym to work off my hedonistic, end-of-the-earth shenanigans. But it was well worth it!
Sunday, June 04, 2006
Here we go again...
Another week, another handful of stories out of Canada that make me want to return as an immigrant. They've got it made in Canada. They can do just about anything and our government will "fight" to keep them in Canada. I'm sure most of you have heard the most recent example. I love the part where the relative says, "They're not terrorists! Come on! They're students!" Well, as explained in this blog before, people don't really have to honour their student visas in Canada. We have a whole pile of "students" in our country with plenty of idle time to pursue illegal employment or plan crimes because they don't have to go to school. I bet they pass though. One student I wrote about before, Min Chen, who kidnapped and killed a little girl, got himself 15 years and that was enough to encourage the Canadian government to state that he "MAY" be deported upon his release from prison. Then there's this guy, the poster boy of Chinese business. "I may have bought some people new cars," or gave them piles of money, "but I didn't bribe anyone." He was expected to be deported and because the Chinese government, who make this guy look like a church bakesale vendor, didn't get their fair share from him, he would have been killed or tortured. So, lo and behold, we're keeping him too! I'm sure he's an honest businessman and will be a great citizen. He even said so, in Chinese, and why would we not trust a Chinese billionaire? I'm sure Bush wouldn't let this guy stay in the U.S. He thinks everyone should sing the national anthem in English and speak English in America. He should probably learn the word, "NUCLEAR" instead of saying "nucular" all the time, before he makes comments like that. Nonetheless, I think we need to take a page out of the playbook of our neighbours to the South. Bush may have the right idea here. Did I say that? Cracking down on immigration deficiencies is long overdue in Canada. Why hasn't somebody done something? Well, this might be a good indication of why. Look at the spineless, wimp we got in charge of immigration! Looks like Canadian immigrants have discovered how to get to this guy. I'm gonna apply for Korean citizenship while I'm here. Then I'll return to Canada on a student visa. That might be the only way to get a good job there. Where is the "oh brother" eye rolling emoticon when I need it?