Tuesday, December 23, 2008
2009 TBR Challenge
So, this'd be the one I meant to sign up for last time...
1. At the Point of a Gun, David Rieff
2. How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Thomas C. Foster
3. Ordinary People, Judith Guest
4. The Yacoubian Building, Alaa Al Aswany
5. The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan
6. Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Gabriel Carcia Marquez
7. Race Against Time, Stephen Lewis
8. The Gate, Francois Bizot
9. The Truth About Stories, Thomas King
10. The Ethical Imagination, Margaret Somerville
11. Flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
12. Swann's Way, In Search of Lost Time Vol. I, Marcel Proust
Alt.1. In Search of Lost Time Vol. II, Marcel Proust
Alt.2. In Search of Lost Time Vol. III, Marcel Proust
Alt.3. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
Alt.4. My Name is Red, Orham Pamuk
Alt.5. What Canadians Think, Darrell Bricker & John Wright
Alt.6. Crimes Against Logic, Jamie Whyte
Alt.7. Riotous Assembly, Tom Sharpe
Alt.8. Epileptic, David B.
Alt.9. Navigating the Golden Compass, Glenn Yeffeth
Alt.10. Pyongyang, Guy Delisle
Alt.11. The Essential 55, Ron Clark
Alt.12. Bodily Harm, Margaret Atwood
Monday, December 22, 2008
Yet Another Seriously Moment
U.S. balks at backing condemnation of anti-gay laws
NEW YORK - Alone among major Western nations, the United States has refused to sign a declaration presented Thursday at the United Nations calling for worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality. In all, 66 of the UN's 192 member countries signed the nonbinding declaration - which backers called a historic step to push the General Assembly to deal more forthrightly with any-gay discrimination. More than 70 UN members outlaw homosexuality, and in several of them homosexual acts can be punished by execution.
Co-sponsored by France and the Netherlands, the declaration was signed by all 27 European Union members, as well as Japan, Australia, Mexico and three dozen other countries. There was broad opposition from Muslim nations, and the United States refused to sign, indicating that some parts of the declaration raised legal questions that needed further review.
NEW YORK - Alone among major Western nations, the United States has refused to sign a declaration presented Thursday at the United Nations calling for worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality. In all, 66 of the UN's 192 member countries signed the nonbinding declaration - which backers called a historic step to push the General Assembly to deal more forthrightly with any-gay discrimination. More than 70 UN members outlaw homosexuality, and in several of them homosexual acts can be punished by execution.
Co-sponsored by France and the Netherlands, the declaration was signed by all 27 European Union members, as well as Japan, Australia, Mexico and three dozen other countries. There was broad opposition from Muslim nations, and the United States refused to sign, indicating that some parts of the declaration raised legal questions that needed further review.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Postcrossing
I like mail - both sending and receiving - so participating in Postcrossing seemed like a win-win for my 101 in 1001 list. It has taken me a bit to getting around to doing it - but I think that is the point of the list in the first place. Many of the items aren't difficult, exactly, but many of them are just things I'd enjoy doing but not ever prioritize enough to get around to doing. I meant to do this last week when I was sending out Christmas cards but I ran out of interest in writing, particularly the small talk necessary to come up with a message for a complete stranger. However, I've now written out postcards to go off to three continents, to women from 9 to 50. If you click around the map below, you can see where my cards are headed.
View Larger Map
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Traditions
A Sunday Scribblings post, only three weeks late. It's like most writing I have done in life - essays, belated birthday cards. Late. Which turns out to be this week's topic, so conveniently, with one sentence, I've managed to catch back up!
I was thinking a lot about the traditions prompt, but it's taken me awhile to come up with something to say. The thing about being an expat is that you generally have to leave behind a lot of the traditions you started back in your home country. I spent Canadian Thanksgiving eating galbi and singing cheesy songs at norae bang, for example.
My family has lots of interesting traditions. There's the naming thing - boys only get one middle name, but somehow all the girls get two. There's the British foods that we still all eat - like coddled eggs, which even the British have barely heard of these days. My egg coddlers may not be with me here in Korea, but I wouldn't be a part of the family if I didn't own a few. I'm hoping that the tradition of how the roll-top desk gets passed on continues, because I'm pretty sure I've got that one in the bag. There's the familiar socks and underwear tradition - and since my mother is quite honest on the customs forms, I know that one is being followed this year.
However, traditions don't have to have been around since childhood to be important. For the last two years, I've gone to Geckos for Christmas dinner. The turkey is good and the company has always been great. Each year I've gone with different people - Korea is a revolving door for teachers and army and those few other people here doing something different. It's the company that makes it special though - the first year I was there with Vanessa and Sheila and crew and the second with Samarra and Brain. I anticipate this year's being great too.
As much as I will miss everyone back home and all the things I recall doing for the holidays with them, tradition doesn't have to end when you are far from home.
I was thinking a lot about the traditions prompt, but it's taken me awhile to come up with something to say. The thing about being an expat is that you generally have to leave behind a lot of the traditions you started back in your home country. I spent Canadian Thanksgiving eating galbi and singing cheesy songs at norae bang, for example.
My family has lots of interesting traditions. There's the naming thing - boys only get one middle name, but somehow all the girls get two. There's the British foods that we still all eat - like coddled eggs, which even the British have barely heard of these days. My egg coddlers may not be with me here in Korea, but I wouldn't be a part of the family if I didn't own a few. I'm hoping that the tradition of how the roll-top desk gets passed on continues, because I'm pretty sure I've got that one in the bag. There's the familiar socks and underwear tradition - and since my mother is quite honest on the customs forms, I know that one is being followed this year.
However, traditions don't have to have been around since childhood to be important. For the last two years, I've gone to Geckos for Christmas dinner. The turkey is good and the company has always been great. Each year I've gone with different people - Korea is a revolving door for teachers and army and those few other people here doing something different. It's the company that makes it special though - the first year I was there with Vanessa and Sheila and crew and the second with Samarra and Brain. I anticipate this year's being great too.
As much as I will miss everyone back home and all the things I recall doing for the holidays with them, tradition doesn't have to end when you are far from home.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Last Weekend
Turkey soup from Liz! Yum!
Baking Christmas cookies with Jenn - we substituted about 70% of the ingredients in the recipe but the cookies were awesome!
They didn't last long though!
Shopping in Insadong - it was fun, if a bit chilly.
This is why I should not be allowed in a bookstore, even supervised!
Geek Post
Archaeology's top 10 for 2008:
Mark Rose, Archaeology's online editor, is reluctant to call this list the "best of the year," but these are the reports from the past year that the magazine's editors regarded as relating to the most important discoveries:
The secret of Maya Blue: Scientists analyzed bits of the sacred blue pigment the Maya used during human sacrifices and other ceremonies - and concluded that it was made through the ritual burning of a mix of ingredients, including indigo, minerals and copal incense.
Masked mummy of Peru: An intact 1,700-year-old mummy, bearing a wooden mask with seashell eyes, was discovered in a burial mound beneath a busy Lima neighborhood. Archaeologists suspect the remains were those of a master weaver from Peru's Wari culture, based on the knitting needles and balls of yarn that were buried along with the mummy.
The stone with soul: Researchers found a 2,800-year-old funerary monument in southeastern Turkey that provided a fresh perspective on ancient religious beliefs. A 13-line inscription was chiseled into the basalt stone, in which a high official refers to food offerings that were made "for my soul that is in this stele." This proves that the Iron Age culture believed the soul was separate from the body and could inhabit a monument.
Brown gold from Oregon: About that ancient poop ... the 14,300-year-old preserved feces found in eastern Oregon's cave provided the best evidence yet that humans had colonized the Americas that long ago. Researchers even extracted DNA from the coprolites - which could help clear up longstanding mysteries about the identity of the first Americans.
Oldest oil paintings: Researchers discovered the world's oldest-known paintings in a maze of caves in Afghanistan's Bamiyan Valley - yes, the same place where the Taliban blew up two giant statues of Buddha in 2001. (You'll find more about Bamiyan below.)
The first European? An excavation in a cave in northern Spain turned up a chunk of a Homo erectus jawbone that has been dated back to 1.3 million years ago. That suggests that the ancestors of modern humans made their way into Europe about 500,000 years earlier than previously thought.
The earliest shoes: An analysis of 42,000-year-old human toe bones from a dig in China provided evidence that the person, known as Tianyuan 1, wore some form of footwear.
Pristine Portuguese shipwreck: Geologists working on an underwater diamond-mining project off the coast of Namibia turned up something more scientifically valuable: a 16th-century cargo ship that was buried on the seafloor, safe from underwater treasure hunters. The find netted almost 50 pounds of gold coins, plus navigational instruments, elephant tusks and other treasures.
The colossal heads of the Roman Empire: Archaeologists are uncovering the monumental marble heads of Roman emperors at a dig in central Turkey, where a first-century metropolis once flourished. Last year, Hadrian's head was found at the site of Sagalassos' Roman baths. This year, the researchers recovered fragments of statues depicting Marcus Aurelius and Faustina the Elder (wife of the emperor Antoninus Pius).
The origins of whaling: A 20-inch-long walrus tusk, found at an archaeological site on Russia's Chukotka Peninsula, bears the carvings of a seal, a bear and a boatful of people hunting a whale from a boat. The tusk dates back about 3,000 years, which would make the carving "the earliest evidence for whaling," said Daniel Odess, curator of archaeology at the University of Alaska Museum.
The bonus round:
Archaeology magazine's online editor, Mark Rose, told me that the list doesn't include several important discoveries that just didn't fit the year-in-review pattern (or came to light too late to make the top-10 list). One of the most important finds is a 60-foot-long (19-meter) reclining Buddha statue that was reportedly discovered at Afghanistan's Bamiyan site.
This discovery wouldn't measure up to the fabled 1,000-foot-long (300-meter-long) "sleeping Buddha" at Bamiyan, which was described by a 7th-century Chinese monk but has never been found. Nevertheless, there's "big, big news" out there about a monument that somehow survived the Taliban, Rose said.
The problem is that the head of the archaeological project is trying to keep the discovery under wraps, Rose said. "It ties into a funding organization that is well aware of the marketing value of this kind of thing, as well as the entertainment value," he said. (For what it's worth, the team is funded by National Geographic and the French Foreign Ministry.)
We'll probably hear more about the surviving Bamiyan Buddha next year. But in the meantime, Rose said, "To effectively censor is not really conscionable."
Here are two more of the bonus selections that will be posted to Archaeology's Web site next week:
Disappearing glaciers = reappearing artifacts: Climate change has caused glaciers around the world to recede. During a warm spell in the Swiss Alps, the ice shrank back from the Schnidejoch Pass, revealing shoes, leggings, arrowheads and other artifacts. Some of those artifacts have now been dated back to 4500 B.C., which would make them older than the famous Alpine iceman Oetzi. Rose said the find could shed light not only on ancient cultures, but also on "the ebb and flow of climate."
Stone Age figurines from Russia: Archaeologists excavating a site near Moscow have found figurines and carvings dating back to the Stone Age - somewhere around 10,000 to 40,000 years ago. The artifacts include two female-looking figurines, a mammoth rib inscribed with pictures of what appear to be mammoths, and a mysterious cone-shaped object.
Mark Rose, Archaeology's online editor, is reluctant to call this list the "best of the year," but these are the reports from the past year that the magazine's editors regarded as relating to the most important discoveries:
The secret of Maya Blue: Scientists analyzed bits of the sacred blue pigment the Maya used during human sacrifices and other ceremonies - and concluded that it was made through the ritual burning of a mix of ingredients, including indigo, minerals and copal incense.
Masked mummy of Peru: An intact 1,700-year-old mummy, bearing a wooden mask with seashell eyes, was discovered in a burial mound beneath a busy Lima neighborhood. Archaeologists suspect the remains were those of a master weaver from Peru's Wari culture, based on the knitting needles and balls of yarn that were buried along with the mummy.
The stone with soul: Researchers found a 2,800-year-old funerary monument in southeastern Turkey that provided a fresh perspective on ancient religious beliefs. A 13-line inscription was chiseled into the basalt stone, in which a high official refers to food offerings that were made "for my soul that is in this stele." This proves that the Iron Age culture believed the soul was separate from the body and could inhabit a monument.
Brown gold from Oregon: About that ancient poop ... the 14,300-year-old preserved feces found in eastern Oregon's cave provided the best evidence yet that humans had colonized the Americas that long ago. Researchers even extracted DNA from the coprolites - which could help clear up longstanding mysteries about the identity of the first Americans.
Oldest oil paintings: Researchers discovered the world's oldest-known paintings in a maze of caves in Afghanistan's Bamiyan Valley - yes, the same place where the Taliban blew up two giant statues of Buddha in 2001. (You'll find more about Bamiyan below.)
The first European? An excavation in a cave in northern Spain turned up a chunk of a Homo erectus jawbone that has been dated back to 1.3 million years ago. That suggests that the ancestors of modern humans made their way into Europe about 500,000 years earlier than previously thought.
The earliest shoes: An analysis of 42,000-year-old human toe bones from a dig in China provided evidence that the person, known as Tianyuan 1, wore some form of footwear.
Pristine Portuguese shipwreck: Geologists working on an underwater diamond-mining project off the coast of Namibia turned up something more scientifically valuable: a 16th-century cargo ship that was buried on the seafloor, safe from underwater treasure hunters. The find netted almost 50 pounds of gold coins, plus navigational instruments, elephant tusks and other treasures.
The colossal heads of the Roman Empire: Archaeologists are uncovering the monumental marble heads of Roman emperors at a dig in central Turkey, where a first-century metropolis once flourished. Last year, Hadrian's head was found at the site of Sagalassos' Roman baths. This year, the researchers recovered fragments of statues depicting Marcus Aurelius and Faustina the Elder (wife of the emperor Antoninus Pius).
The origins of whaling: A 20-inch-long walrus tusk, found at an archaeological site on Russia's Chukotka Peninsula, bears the carvings of a seal, a bear and a boatful of people hunting a whale from a boat. The tusk dates back about 3,000 years, which would make the carving "the earliest evidence for whaling," said Daniel Odess, curator of archaeology at the University of Alaska Museum.
The bonus round:
Archaeology magazine's online editor, Mark Rose, told me that the list doesn't include several important discoveries that just didn't fit the year-in-review pattern (or came to light too late to make the top-10 list). One of the most important finds is a 60-foot-long (19-meter) reclining Buddha statue that was reportedly discovered at Afghanistan's Bamiyan site.
This discovery wouldn't measure up to the fabled 1,000-foot-long (300-meter-long) "sleeping Buddha" at Bamiyan, which was described by a 7th-century Chinese monk but has never been found. Nevertheless, there's "big, big news" out there about a monument that somehow survived the Taliban, Rose said.
The problem is that the head of the archaeological project is trying to keep the discovery under wraps, Rose said. "It ties into a funding organization that is well aware of the marketing value of this kind of thing, as well as the entertainment value," he said. (For what it's worth, the team is funded by National Geographic and the French Foreign Ministry.)
We'll probably hear more about the surviving Bamiyan Buddha next year. But in the meantime, Rose said, "To effectively censor is not really conscionable."
Here are two more of the bonus selections that will be posted to Archaeology's Web site next week:
Disappearing glaciers = reappearing artifacts: Climate change has caused glaciers around the world to recede. During a warm spell in the Swiss Alps, the ice shrank back from the Schnidejoch Pass, revealing shoes, leggings, arrowheads and other artifacts. Some of those artifacts have now been dated back to 4500 B.C., which would make them older than the famous Alpine iceman Oetzi. Rose said the find could shed light not only on ancient cultures, but also on "the ebb and flow of climate."
Stone Age figurines from Russia: Archaeologists excavating a site near Moscow have found figurines and carvings dating back to the Stone Age - somewhere around 10,000 to 40,000 years ago. The artifacts include two female-looking figurines, a mammoth rib inscribed with pictures of what appear to be mammoths, and a mysterious cone-shaped object.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Always Choose the Fun One
Today was such a busy day - my last day of the semester flew by for sure, which is what I like. My mind was fully occupied and not at all bored. We had to do all of the tests today, mark them in the classes, write all the marks on the report cards and then hand the lot of them in. Since my last two classes are elite classes and the tests normally take FOREVER to mark, I was ready to have the kids marking each other's tests if that's what it took to get me out of work on time at 9! However, it all got done, though I did work through my half hour break when I normally do a little reading, a little facebooking, and eat dinner. Instead I ate my oatmeal in class and I tell ya, for all that it's not terribly different in consistency to bonjuk, I've yet to meet a Korean child who didn't make quite a face when confronted with a bowl of it.
My schedule for January looks ok - if you ignore the fact that classes will start at 9 a.m. and that means I will have to get out of bed before noon - one week I may be doing some serious overtime, but that's alright I guess. Especially since though I'm not drinking, I'm somehow not spending any less money. What am I doing with the $200 I used to spend partying every weekend? For sure, I still eat out a lot, and there were Xmas gifts to buy and then send, and I did spend about $100 on books this month (I should not under any circumstances be allowed in bookstores. I may need to get other people to buy my bookclub books for me.) but... And I guess tonights "Slumber Party" purchases didn't help (for anyone who isn't my mom, that's code for sex toy parties. I was startled to find myself something of an expert of all the attendees...)
Anyway... I was an errand running machine this morning. I had to buy a cake first and then I went to the post office, where a very confused postal worker thought I was going to try to mail the cake to Canada! Ummm, no. I'm not THAT lacking in sense. The cake was merely the first stop along the way. After I mailed out some packages - January birthdays, in fact, so I'm all ahead now - I went to get coffee and a ham and cheese croissant (I'm addicted to these things because the cheese is so.damn.good.), only to mildly annoy the people by bringing in outside cake. Oops. Then I popped into 7-11 because I need some shampoo and stuff and I didn't have time to go elsewhere. I dropped off my cake and my coffee at the register so I'd have a hand free to grab stuff and the 7-11 dude looked mighty confused as to why it was all sitting there in front of him. I even made it into work about 3 minutes before class started - that hour of prep in my contract? Very much not mandatory.
Since the day has been mostly taken up with a series of speaking tests and listening tests, I have just been a marking machine. It wasn't until the last elite class that I tuned into what the listening class was about. One of the questions was about a girl who needed to study for a biology test but was being invited away for the weekend. Based on what she said, the kids had to decide if she was more likely to go out or stay in and study.
I started laughing my ass off because given the facts - she really, really needed to study - my answer would always still have been to go out and have fun, though that certainly wasn't the answer they were looking for. Man, I was such a bad student. Every once in awhile it really blows my mind that I teach now. Me. Really!
My schedule for January looks ok - if you ignore the fact that classes will start at 9 a.m. and that means I will have to get out of bed before noon - one week I may be doing some serious overtime, but that's alright I guess. Especially since though I'm not drinking, I'm somehow not spending any less money. What am I doing with the $200 I used to spend partying every weekend? For sure, I still eat out a lot, and there were Xmas gifts to buy and then send, and I did spend about $100 on books this month (I should not under any circumstances be allowed in bookstores. I may need to get other people to buy my bookclub books for me.) but... And I guess tonights "Slumber Party" purchases didn't help (for anyone who isn't my mom, that's code for sex toy parties. I was startled to find myself something of an expert of all the attendees...)
Anyway... I was an errand running machine this morning. I had to buy a cake first and then I went to the post office, where a very confused postal worker thought I was going to try to mail the cake to Canada! Ummm, no. I'm not THAT lacking in sense. The cake was merely the first stop along the way. After I mailed out some packages - January birthdays, in fact, so I'm all ahead now - I went to get coffee and a ham and cheese croissant (I'm addicted to these things because the cheese is so.damn.good.), only to mildly annoy the people by bringing in outside cake. Oops. Then I popped into 7-11 because I need some shampoo and stuff and I didn't have time to go elsewhere. I dropped off my cake and my coffee at the register so I'd have a hand free to grab stuff and the 7-11 dude looked mighty confused as to why it was all sitting there in front of him. I even made it into work about 3 minutes before class started - that hour of prep in my contract? Very much not mandatory.
Since the day has been mostly taken up with a series of speaking tests and listening tests, I have just been a marking machine. It wasn't until the last elite class that I tuned into what the listening class was about. One of the questions was about a girl who needed to study for a biology test but was being invited away for the weekend. Based on what she said, the kids had to decide if she was more likely to go out or stay in and study.
I started laughing my ass off because given the facts - she really, really needed to study - my answer would always still have been to go out and have fun, though that certainly wasn't the answer they were looking for. Man, I was such a bad student. Every once in awhile it really blows my mind that I teach now. Me. Really!
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Bring on the Bedtime
I am just so tired and I have so much to do still. I can't wait for the quality time with my bed that's coming soon.
I think, anyway.
I've hit another patch of, well sort of, homesickness. I'm not homesick, exactly. I can't think of any particular life I'd rather be living than my own. I just wish I could round up everybody I'd love to see and make them all magically appear here with me for a bit over the holidays, or me magically able to go see all of them, without any pesky planes or airports involved.
I'd like to have my brothers around to tease me and my sister around to drive me nuts. I want to go through the Tim Horton's Drive Thru with Kari. I want to make pancakes with the girls. I'd like to listen to my Grandfather's stories of his dog and here him say tootle pip, while my Grandmother asks me to join her in a glass of Guiness. I'd like to listen to my Nana and Aunt and Mom make dinner and yell for my father to come carve the turkey. I want to sit around after dinner over coffee and pie and shoot the shit with my family. I'd like my dog to be there, barking her head off and running around in circles through the kitchen and living room. Then I'd like to transport us all to a campfire out behind the cottage, roasting marshmellows. I'd like to crash at Jas's place and drink some chocolate martinis and talk about absolutely everything and anything. I'd like to be able to transport myself and Jenn to Togo to see Ortencia and then to Italy to see Jen. I'd like an afternoon in a Scottish coffee shop with Jenni and Andrea. I'd like time with Jacob that is stress free (and judging by that last visit, also booze free!) I'd like to go watch a movie with Ike. I'd like to sit with Samarra in The Laundry Cafe (it better still exist), while we wear all black and talk about intellectual university stuff (so maybe this never actually happened in university but I still wish it had.) I'd like Candace to wake me up singing that annoying song and demanding that I come drink Black Cherry Vanilla tea. I'd like to see Jane again - I associate her more with here than anywhere, but perhaps an afternoon in random Nowhere, NY, just chillin'. Either that or some "time" in a DVD bang. I'd like to take all my favourite people from all the years in Korea and go dancing with them all. I'd like to be at Sunday brunch, surrounded by everybody, all of them happy and healthy and discussing books.
Instead, I'm gonna go to bed and then wake up and administer some tests and hope that once all this stuff passes, so does the homesickness. It doesn't come often, but when it does - man, does it hit hard.
I think, anyway.
I've hit another patch of, well sort of, homesickness. I'm not homesick, exactly. I can't think of any particular life I'd rather be living than my own. I just wish I could round up everybody I'd love to see and make them all magically appear here with me for a bit over the holidays, or me magically able to go see all of them, without any pesky planes or airports involved.
I'd like to have my brothers around to tease me and my sister around to drive me nuts. I want to go through the Tim Horton's Drive Thru with Kari. I want to make pancakes with the girls. I'd like to listen to my Grandfather's stories of his dog and here him say tootle pip, while my Grandmother asks me to join her in a glass of Guiness. I'd like to listen to my Nana and Aunt and Mom make dinner and yell for my father to come carve the turkey. I want to sit around after dinner over coffee and pie and shoot the shit with my family. I'd like my dog to be there, barking her head off and running around in circles through the kitchen and living room. Then I'd like to transport us all to a campfire out behind the cottage, roasting marshmellows. I'd like to crash at Jas's place and drink some chocolate martinis and talk about absolutely everything and anything. I'd like to be able to transport myself and Jenn to Togo to see Ortencia and then to Italy to see Jen. I'd like an afternoon in a Scottish coffee shop with Jenni and Andrea. I'd like time with Jacob that is stress free (and judging by that last visit, also booze free!) I'd like to go watch a movie with Ike. I'd like to sit with Samarra in The Laundry Cafe (it better still exist), while we wear all black and talk about intellectual university stuff (so maybe this never actually happened in university but I still wish it had.) I'd like Candace to wake me up singing that annoying song and demanding that I come drink Black Cherry Vanilla tea. I'd like to see Jane again - I associate her more with here than anywhere, but perhaps an afternoon in random Nowhere, NY, just chillin'. Either that or some "time" in a DVD bang. I'd like to take all my favourite people from all the years in Korea and go dancing with them all. I'd like to be at Sunday brunch, surrounded by everybody, all of them happy and healthy and discussing books.
Instead, I'm gonna go to bed and then wake up and administer some tests and hope that once all this stuff passes, so does the homesickness. It doesn't come often, but when it does - man, does it hit hard.
Go Read!
The last paragraph of Brian's post on Baskin Robins is one of the funniest things I've read in ages.
Funnier than anything I've written since the Japan-isn't-in-South-East-Asia debacle and it might be sometime until I'm that stupid again, dear readers, so you will want to tide yourselves over!
Funnier than anything I've written since the Japan-isn't-in-South-East-Asia debacle and it might be sometime until I'm that stupid again, dear readers, so you will want to tide yourselves over!
I'm Well Prepared
For a siege, or some sort of run on foreign grocery items. I have no idea why I'm shopping for groceries in such an intense way leading up to this vacation, but there you are. My larder is well-stocked. Though to be honest, I've never been entirely clear on what exactly a larder is. However, my fridge and two cupboards are quite full. I've been an errand running machine and yet I still have a few to go!
You name it, I've got it. It's taken a tour of all the local stores, which carry a small and different variety of black market items from the base - since they all have a few different items, you are forced to shop at all of them. I wonder if they plan that? Then I hit up the stores local to my work, in Ichon. Finally, I finished it off with a trip to Itaewon to pick up some sour cream and about twenty other overpriced foreign goods that I had no idea I even needed. I now own apple sauce, for christ's sake! And rather expensive Mott's Apple Sauce at that.
I also went and bought myself a wee (or not so wee, really) Christmas present - I won a gift certificate for What the Book a couple of weekends ago and I finally went in and spent it. Perhaps I went a bit over the 25,000 - perhaps... I also bought myself some Starbucks coffee - which I consider a staple, as it's cheaper than buying a latte every day, but I did get myself one of the fancy ones I've always mildly coveted. I suspect the only thing that distinguishes this stuff from my normal, cheaper Starbucks coffee is the pretty packaging, but there you go.
While P.T. Barnum may not have been the one to actually say, "there's a sucker born every minute," I sometimes like to go ahead and prove whoever uttered those words right. After all, My excessive book buying is finally saving more than just my mind, which has been slowly atrophying after years of bank jobs and students:
You name it, I've got it. It's taken a tour of all the local stores, which carry a small and different variety of black market items from the base - since they all have a few different items, you are forced to shop at all of them. I wonder if they plan that? Then I hit up the stores local to my work, in Ichon. Finally, I finished it off with a trip to Itaewon to pick up some sour cream and about twenty other overpriced foreign goods that I had no idea I even needed. I now own apple sauce, for christ's sake! And rather expensive Mott's Apple Sauce at that.
I also went and bought myself a wee (or not so wee, really) Christmas present - I won a gift certificate for What the Book a couple of weekends ago and I finally went in and spent it. Perhaps I went a bit over the 25,000 - perhaps... I also bought myself some Starbucks coffee - which I consider a staple, as it's cheaper than buying a latte every day, but I did get myself one of the fancy ones I've always mildly coveted. I suspect the only thing that distinguishes this stuff from my normal, cheaper Starbucks coffee is the pretty packaging, but there you go.
While P.T. Barnum may not have been the one to actually say, "there's a sucker born every minute," I sometimes like to go ahead and prove whoever uttered those words right. After all, My excessive book buying is finally saving more than just my mind, which has been slowly atrophying after years of bank jobs and students:
Very useful shopping advice from Roy Blount Jr.
We all know that the retailers are in trouble because of collapsing consumer demand. (For years Americans spent too much; now....) We all know that the automakers domestic and foreign are in trouble because people don't want to buy cars. Real estate is in trouble because people can't or don't want to buy houses. The stock market is in trouble because people don't want to buy stock. And, arguably most ominous for the republic, newspapers are in trouble because people are losing the habit of buying papers.
There is not much any one individual can do about this. I'm not going to buy a new house or car just because it would have useful tonic effect on the market. There are only so many papers I can buy per day. But after the jump, Roy Blount Jr, through the years a frequent Atlantic contributor and current president of the Authors Guild, suggests a voting-with-your-dollars strategy that is within people's means and can make a significant difference.
Starting now, I've changing my Christmas shopping plans based on Blount's tips. The presents he suggests are good ones -- and although I can't visit independent bookshops myself where I am, the ones I like and have shopped at (Elliott Bay, Powell's, Politics & Prose, etc) have web-based order systems. Seriously, this is a good idea -- as are, of course, gift subscriptions to our own magazine.
Blount's letter to Authors Guild members* below.
_______
I've been talking to booksellers lately who report that times are hard. And local booksellers aren't known for vast reserves of capital, so a serious dip in sales can be devastating. Booksellers don't lose enough money, however, to receive congressional attention. A government bailout isn't in the cards.
We don't want bookstores to die. Authors need them, and so do neighborhoods. So let's mount a book-buying splurge. Get your friends together, go to your local bookstore and have a book-buying party. Buy the rest of your Christmas presents, but that's just for starters. Clear out the mysteries, wrap up the histories, beam up the science fiction! Round up the westerns, go crazy for self-help, say yes to the university press books! Get a load of those coffee-table books, fatten up on slim volumes of verse, and take a chance on romance!
There will be birthdays in the next twelve months; books keep well; they're easy to wrap: buy those books now. Buy replacements for any books looking raggedy on your shelves. Stockpile children's books as gifts for friends who look like they may eventually give birth. Hold off on the flat-screen TV and the GPS (they'll be cheaper after Christmas) and buy many, many books. Then tell the grateful booksellers, who by this time will be hanging onto your legs begging you to stay and live with their cat in the stockroom: "Got to move on, folks. Got some books to write now. You see...we're the Authors Guild."
Enjoy the holidays.
Roy Blount Jr.
President
Authors Guild
The Guild's staff informs me that many of you are writing to ask whether you can forward and post my holiday message encouraging orgiastic book-buying. Yes! Forward! Yes! Post! Sound the clarion call to every corner of the Internet: Hang in there, bookstores! We're coming! And we're coming to buy! To buy what? To buy books! Gimme a B! B! Gimme an O! O! Gimme another O! Another O! Gimme a K! K! Gimme an S! F! No, not an F, an S. We're spelling BOOKS!
____
* I got this via a friend, Robert Ellis Smith, rather than directly on the mailing list. I have been an AG member for years but, as with countless other details of my personal life, renewal forms etc have disappeared in the mail between the U.S. and China as the years have gone buy. Many strands to re-weave on my return.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Monday, December 15, 2008
I'm in Pics on Ohmynews
This picture makes me look really tall.Riot Police Strong-Arm 'Comfort Women' Demonstration:
Peaceful protest threatened on Human Rights Day
So, you can really only see a bit of me in this one, but I'm the one cut off on the left there.Another article: Korean 'Comfort Women' to Demonstrate on Dec. 10
Survivors of Japanese military sexual slavery seek support on Human Rights Day
And here are myself, Liz, Padraic, and Martha at the Every Second Sunday book launch.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Grumble, Grumble
It's really cold in my house, though the heat has been on for over an hour. The floor is all toasty and lovely, but the air not so much.
Thank god for Warren.
Now, all of your get your minds out of the gutter. Warren is the name Martha gave to my best blanket.
It's slightly odd having a blanket I refer to by name, I realise.
Thank god for Warren.
Now, all of your get your minds out of the gutter. Warren is the name Martha gave to my best blanket.
It's slightly odd having a blanket I refer to by name, I realise.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
But They're My Clothes!
I felt like I was copying Martha with last night's outfit. It was exactly what she wore last weekend!
Yesterday was fun, in spite of my extremely exhausted head. Martha and I headed out for brunch after the movie, which was lovely as always. Then Jenn came over to make Christmas cookies and I ended up getting some grocery shopping done at the same time - score!
The Christmas cookie baking was good, as I've been feeling a bit Scrooge-ish this year. Usually I love writing Christmas cards and doing holiday shopping, but this year it just hasn't happened. First off, I bought most of my gifts back before I went home in the summer and though I wasn't finished, I guess I kind of acted as if I was. I just didn't get around to figuring out what else I needed or who I needed to shop for. I also usually love finding bizarre Christmas cards in Korea - but this year I merely used last year's leftovers and pared down the list. Stuff went out on Friday and a few more things will hopefully go out tomorrow, but in general, I've felt a bit uninspired. I wrote some of my Christmas cards in the taxi on the way to the post office, in fact.
Our cookies are incredibly yummy - which is good, because we subsititued half the ingredients because we couldn't get them in my local grocery store and then managed to forget the brown sugar and just used more white sugar instead. There are pics, but I don't think I have time to upload them just now.
After the cookie making, I hopped in the shower to get ready for Melissa's birthday dinner. Martha and I were rather late, as we could not get a cab to save our lives and had to walk. If only we had just started walking at the beginnning, we wouldn't have been late at all. This just goes to show that laziness doesn't pay, I guess. The dinner was at Suji's and a lot of fun - Peter came along, which was great social multi-tasking for me, as I needed to see him before he flew back to Montreal (he's just visiting in a round-Asia trip.) After dinner, Padraic, Martha and I went to Soho, though we were incredibly low-key. Annie came later, but we all left around midnight.
I've had a ton of sleep, after a couple of episodes of the American Office last night, but I'm still crazy tired. However, more brunch, some Insadong, and some trivia are on today's agenda.
I guess I can sleep when I'm dead, right?
Yesterday was fun, in spite of my extremely exhausted head. Martha and I headed out for brunch after the movie, which was lovely as always. Then Jenn came over to make Christmas cookies and I ended up getting some grocery shopping done at the same time - score!
The Christmas cookie baking was good, as I've been feeling a bit Scrooge-ish this year. Usually I love writing Christmas cards and doing holiday shopping, but this year it just hasn't happened. First off, I bought most of my gifts back before I went home in the summer and though I wasn't finished, I guess I kind of acted as if I was. I just didn't get around to figuring out what else I needed or who I needed to shop for. I also usually love finding bizarre Christmas cards in Korea - but this year I merely used last year's leftovers and pared down the list. Stuff went out on Friday and a few more things will hopefully go out tomorrow, but in general, I've felt a bit uninspired. I wrote some of my Christmas cards in the taxi on the way to the post office, in fact.
Our cookies are incredibly yummy - which is good, because we subsititued half the ingredients because we couldn't get them in my local grocery store and then managed to forget the brown sugar and just used more white sugar instead. There are pics, but I don't think I have time to upload them just now.
After the cookie making, I hopped in the shower to get ready for Melissa's birthday dinner. Martha and I were rather late, as we could not get a cab to save our lives and had to walk. If only we had just started walking at the beginnning, we wouldn't have been late at all. This just goes to show that laziness doesn't pay, I guess. The dinner was at Suji's and a lot of fun - Peter came along, which was great social multi-tasking for me, as I needed to see him before he flew back to Montreal (he's just visiting in a round-Asia trip.) After dinner, Padraic, Martha and I went to Soho, though we were incredibly low-key. Annie came later, but we all left around midnight.
I've had a ton of sleep, after a couple of episodes of the American Office last night, but I'm still crazy tired. However, more brunch, some Insadong, and some trivia are on today's agenda.
I guess I can sleep when I'm dead, right?
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