A geeky kind of post

I have been working on a textbook of sorts (details are not public yet) when I have had free time. The problem has been quite simply that I don't have a computer, so I can only type it at internet cafes. Luckly, Computer Rooms are everywhere in Korea. Unluckly, most of the ones I found didn't have Microsoft Word. I need good format tools, so I couldn't use the default windows notepad, and so my progress on my textbook had been really slow (less than 32 pages of simple sparse text) so I decided to try the software openoffice I heard about. I was hoping it would let me paste my Word document, hoping it wouldnt take long to learn, and hoping it would have atleast some good format options. OK, here comes the "geeky post" payload. OHMYGOD!!! I was shocked. It opened my Word document, no problem (slight spacing error on a few pages, nothing I noticed) there was NO learning curve it was all designed naturally, and heres what shocked me the most... it had smarter format options than word. It automatically adjusted to what I needed. Ohmygod! So sweet! and 100% free software I can download anywhere, in one sit down I was up to 50 plus pages, my productivity zoomed up. Mygod... Microsoft must be scared? I heard they will support this software's file format as default in their new version. Too late? OK. This is the end of my geeky post. Thank you, and good night!

3rd vlog - leaves

I'm in another park. This time with leaves. I mumble about having nothing to say, and then I get distracted looking at the pretty leaves.

odd dream

As Mr. Loi likes to remind me from time to time, I like to walk into the "Department of Too Much Information" sometimes, and maybe I'm walking there today? In any case, although it is not really to do with this dream, I thought I should mention I rarely have erotic dreams, never have horror dreams, and rarely have dreams about people I know. That might but weird (or it might be normal for you too?) but that is my dreaming pattern. Anyway, on to my dream. I was working in a secret factory. I lived in a society that was trying to capture all of it's resistance fighters, and so me and the other fighters were trying to transport the resistance fighters. Someone (before the start of the dream reality) had come up with the genius idea of transforming the Resistance Fighters into doll parts. So where my dream reality starts, I am in the assembly factory, pulling parts of dolls (down from small windows, where they are delivered) into the small factory room where three other works are working. We get the parts, but we have to piece the dolls together like a puzzle. When we do it correctly the dolls transform into people. Presto! Instant resistance fighter! (Who thenway walks down a hall, which I guess leads into the main room.) I encourage one of the workers to keep trying to fit the pieces together, and suddenly the last piece of the doll I'm working on snaps into place and transforms into a real person who kisses me on the cheek and walks quickly down the hallway.
Now thats an odd dream huh? Welcome to a brief moment in my sleeping reality.

fall sweeps past

Fall has returned to me again, the colors are here, on the trees. This time around I really enjoy watching as the wind blows and scatters the leaves.

A lot of churches recently. Last week I went to Mr.Frog's church. Turns out he was leading half the time in a few songs, while he played a guitar. Was fun to see him hop around and sing even if I didn't understand. I also got to meet some other nice foreigners like me (these guys were from Nigeria). Although our communication was slowed by my limited ability to understand Nigerian English (which is the offical language of Nigeria, by the way) so I need to hang out with more Nigerians.

And yesterday, my friend Seung One invited me to check out a service at a "megachurch" she goes to in Kangnam. I was waiting for Takeya, who never came (he sucks!), so I decided to check it out with her. They were pertaking of the "sacrament" of braking bread and drinking juice. This is called "drinking the blood of God" and I suddenly wondered if that would make most vampires Christians? ... was an odd random thought.

One last thought? Does anyone know Japanese Pocky? The little dry bread sticks dipped in choclate? Those are called Pepero here in South Korea, and I didn't know, but apparent 11/11 (November 11th) is "pepero day" which is a Korean version of valintines day... not that they don't already have valintines day in Korea too, and the pan-Asian white day, so that makes about three holidays for a single person to cry on!
SAMPAI JUMPA LAGI

2nd vlog - marykoh visits korea!

Here is a collection of some videos I took while my Japanese friend Marykoh was visiting me for a few days. Kind of random. Some hip hop dancers outside, living octopus at a restraunt, Marykoh giving us the finger, and a crazy taxi ride (yes, you can hear the Taxi driver whistling)... Sorry that it's not in Quicktime format, I put this together on a PC in an internet cafe, and PCs like to use AVI, I hope people can view it that way. The AVI format made the video look worse and made the audio more fuzzy. These are the moments though.

first vlog - in a park

This is the "Hello world" video post. The start. The first entry. This is my jump into the world of videoblogging. From a dark park near my house. Not much to see, not a sparkly entry. But it's a start. I like the soft darkness of it.I think that neon crosses are quintessential South Korea. So this is a great start. Listen to my randomness. More to come.

welcome

This is the "first" post. All blogs have those. The little dirty backend useless "hello world" kind of posts. The crazy thing is I haven't decided to use blogger again. I'm just posting here so that I can use it again if I decide to. Yeah. Hows that for wild?

melancholy

The below entry was originally posted to a defunct web blog site, provided here as a record of previous events. Some content might reflect old server and not current server. The original post was dated the 20th, same date as my hello world post in this blog. For sake of clarity, I will mark this as the 19th.

I'm starting to get melancholy. Soon, very soon, I'll be moving off to another place and I wont see my cute/funny little students anymore. It's sad! I miss them all already and I haven't even gone anywhere yet. Tonight I spent hours making a quiz for one of my classes, I hope they like it. It's hard! But I want them to get interactive with English... so I made it like animated, so it'll be a computer quiz. Freaky me!

Korea is becoming really cold. I have woke up a few times with a runny nose (from the cold) so I need to use more blankets or start turning on the heat or something. Hows that for a useless comment? peace.

birthday blues

The below entry was originally posted to a defunct web blog site, provided here as a record of previous events. Some content might reflect old server and not current server.

=== Birthday Blues ===
Yeah. So I'm also a year older.
It's been making me grumpy I guess.
Well, it's more complicated than that.
But I've been a grumpy idiot recently.

I need to cheer up.

Tomorrow, or I guess that is today, is National Foundation Day. The day when some guy 4000 plus years ago is said to have founded the Nation of Korea. Wowsers. I wonder what they will do. My birthday (one of them, being that I have two) was on the foundation of Korea. Interesting.

Sky blue limits dont hold me back.
DAAG

being a teacher

The below entry was originally posted to a defunct web blog site, provided here as a record of previous events. Some content might reflect old server and not current server.

===Why its good/bad to be a teacher===

*bad*
* students dont listen sometimes
* they are too noisy, they scream (kids)
* you take hours to make something they dont like
* sometimes no matter how hard you try, no one "gets it"
* if you have to teach something you dont agree with (the sexism in one of my current books being an example "He's a fireman. He's a policeman. She's a homemaker." WHAT?)
* moments of no respect

*good*
* when everyone does that they are supposed to
* the light in someones eyes when they "get it"
* when your students go out of their way to show you they care (two memories spring to mind: teaching aptitude test in my Teaching English as a Second Language class.. I was a Teacher's Assistant in a class full of punky young Japanese kids. They never listened, always made word puns with English sounding like body parts in Japanese, talking in Japanese, throwing papers, (these are college age students, mind you) and they were generally hard to manage. But on the day my teacher came to check on my skills, they were quiet, they lined up and sat at their desks, they answered all my questions, and were basically perfect students. it was so brilliant it almost brought tears to my eyes. the other time that comes to mind is recently when my kids and me were having a "finish book party" and were talking about what kind of snacks should people bring, and someone asked me and i said kind of randomly, "I dont know, I really like orange juice, something like that" and on the day of the book party, the first student opened his bag and pulled out a bottle of orange juice, the next student smiled, pulled out the same, the third laughed and also pulled out orange and eventually all five students revealed they had brought orange juice too. Awww!)
* when my students teach me something. as a teacher i am always learning, and i like to learn from my students too.
* sometimes I get respect from my students. totally cool.

I'm sure I forgot some of the bad, and some of the good. but thats what comes to mind right now!

conversations

The below entry was originally posted to a defunct web blog site, provided here as a record of previous events. Some content might reflect old server and not current server.

Or I guess it just turned the 15 on this side of the world. Here are a few moments captured:

My new room mate looking at a poster I made:
Roomie: Whats that say?
Me: uhm.. something like, Simply living makes me happy or something.
Roomie: Really? I'll ask my girlfriend and we'll see if you're right!
Me: huh? Oh? You're girlfriend is Japanese?
Roomie: No! Why?
Me: oh! She can read Japanese? cool...
Roomie: Oh.. that's not Korean? Its Japanese?

Kids say the craziest things. One of my students... about 12... we have an hour class, with only the two of us, so we often have short conversations, this is a real one:

Student: I'm Jesus.
Me: Oh, You're a god???
Student: No... I'm Jesus person.
Me: Ohhh! You're Christian?
Student: Uhh yes. I'm Christian.
Me: Do you pray in English or Korean?
Student: (Korean thinking word) I pray in Korean, all Koreans do. But Jesus is American. I don't know why we pray in Korean.

That's all for the moment. SAMPAI JUMPA LAGI

shocking shower

The below entry was originally posted to a defunct web blog site, provided here as a record of previous events. Some content might reflect old server and not current server.

Ohmygod. This is a true story. At our house the shower is small. Imagine a closet, put in an old toilet with a broken seat, and then hang a small cracked mirror on the wall, with a small window looking out at a brickwall, and you have the basic idea of the shower room I use. It often gets a little smelly in there, and too steamy, so its common practice for me and my room mate to take a shower with the window open, and since it opens up facing a brick wall, there shouldnt be any harm in that. Right? So a few days ago I was taking a shower, I was about finished, I turn around and glance out the window to see if it will rain (should I bring an umbrella to work?) and I see an old man sitting about two feet from the window (on the fire escape?)... WATCHING ME. Just staring at me with a mean cold glare. Me totally naked, not a single piece of clothing touching my skin, him staring staring. I kind of get shocked, and gasp "what the hell are you doing?" in Japanese (I often speak Japanese when surprised) and this was even more creepy, he didn't move, just kept watching me. I shut the window. It was very very creepy. I think I'm scared of my neighbors now. ^O^;

In more "normal" news... its time to decide. My contract here in Korea ends in early December. I have to decide whats next. More Korea? Over to Hong Kong? Back to Japan? I can't decide! But I need to plan, so I need to make up my mind. Any ideas? Aaah! It's so hard to decide. DAAG