Oops

I got off work early today, 2.5 hours early. I had plans to run three errands and go down to Songtan for Mismanagement, and all I accomplished was to run an errand that it turns out I didn't need to run and to fall asleep while reading the introduction to Frankenstein. Welcome to November. All I want to do is to make it to Christmas vacation.

Postcard from Ciddy Cent!

Running Schedule - No Time for Sleep!

I Want To Reread This Book

Rite of Passage by Alexi Panshin

Nike Plus Run Like You've Never Run Before

Believe in the Run

Very Amusing

So, Courtnie and I went down to OBH3 yesterday, but it's a long weekend and there was construction and we were uber-late. I called Little Leaguer when we hit the bus station and she told me they'd just gotten on the subway to Sema Station and I should head straight there and try to catch up. I took a cab over but was at a minimum two trains behind the pack. Miraculously, I caught up to the runners and was about the fourth person in at the end. I'm absurdly proud of myself. Great circle, since there was a large contingent of visitors from the Mother Hash in Malaysia, and then surprisingly enjoyable evening in Songtan, very low key, with about 10 Steves (new OBH3 tradition - any NNer is a Steve now, because clearly we are all too lazy to remember their names. Makes for confusing conversations, but is amusing) and Thumper Humper and ToT, but the rest of the girls had all gone up to Seoul, which was actually probably why it was such a great night. Had very little sleep and made it back to Seoul just in time to "host" a barbeque on my roof - Gus and Gabby and Ally actually did all the work of getting meat and a bbq and cooking, so really all I did was provide the location, the hookah, and a bag of Cheetos. It was a great night but I am now ridiculously tired. Thank god tomorrow is a holiday. Taking April's aunt up Seoul Tower and then hopefully doing the hash at 2.

Big fail though - have possibly killed my phone with excessive boob sweat. Sigh. Am attempting to get it to dry out, but I'm not optimistic. I'll give it a few days, if it doesn't start working again I guess I'll buy a new one.

Lace Up!

Leonard Cohen

Anthem

The birds they sang
at the break of day
Start again,
I heard them say;
Don't swell on what
has passed away
or what is yet to be.

The wars they will
be fought again
The holy dove
be caught again
bought and sold
and bought again;
the dove is never free.

Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in.

We asked for signs
the signs were sent:
the birth betrayed,
the marriage spent;
the widowhood
of every government -
signs for all to see.

Can't run no more
with that lawless crowd
while the killers in high places
say their prayers out loud.
But they've summoned up
a thundercloud
They're going to hear from me.

Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in.

You can add up the parts
but you won't have the sum
You can strike up the march,
there is no drum.
Every heart
to love will come
but like a refugee.

Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in.

- from Stranger Music by Leonard Cohen

"homage to my hips"

these hips are big hips
they need space to
move around in.
they don't fit into little
petty places. these hips
are free hips.
they don't like to be held back.
these hips have never been enslaved,
they go where they want to go
they do what they want to do.
these hips are mighty hips.
these hips are magic hips.
i have known them
to put a spell on a man and
spin him like a top!

(Lucille Clifton)

The Door

The door swings open,
you look in.
It's dark in there,
most likely spiders:
nothing you want.
You feel scared.
The door swings closed.

The full moon shines,
it's full of delicious juice;
you buy a purse,
the dance is nice.
The door opens
and swings closed so quickly
you don't notice.

The sun comes out,
you have swift breakfasts
with your husband, who is still thin;
you wash the dishes,
you love your children,
you read a book,
you go to the movies.
It rains moderately.

The door swings open,
you look in:
why does this keep happening now?
Is there a secret?
The door swings closed.

The snow falls,
you clear the walk while breathing heavily;
it's not as easy as once.
Your children telephone sometimes.
The roof needs fixing.
You keep yourself busy.
The spring arrives.

The door swings open:
it's dark in there,
with many steps going down.
But what is that shining?
Is it water?
The door swings closed.

The dog has died.
This happened before.
You got another;
not this time though.
Where is your husband?
You gave up the garden.
It became too much.
At night there are blankets;
nontheless you are wakeful.

The door swings open:
O god of hinges,
god of long voyages,
you have kept faith.
It's dark in there.
You confide yourself to the darkness.
You step in.
The door swings closed.

- from "The Door" by Margaret Atwood

Carnation Pens

Every year for Teacher's Day, I score at least half a dozen pens that have a felt carnation on the top and are wrapped in ribbon. They are sort of annoying to write with, so I've been regifting these things all over the place. It's a good thing I'm thinking this is my last year in Korea because I don't think there's anyone left to send one of these things to.

I also get a lot of socks and candy/chocolate, but those are considerably more useful.

One Day by David Nicholls

"He had mentioned it in passing, but only as a distraction and alibi. It seemed that as he ambled through his late teens his possibilities had slowly begun to narrow. Certain cool-sounding jobs - heart surgeon, architect - were permanently closed to him now and journalism seemed about to go the same way." Derek

"But at the best of times she feels like a character in a Muriel Spark novel - independent, bookish, sharp-minded, secretly romantic." Emma

The part of this book I liked best was that tiny bits of it were set in Edinburgh and I could totally picture Rankeillor Street (I lived just down the road from there) and Arthur's Seat is somewhere I went hiking up both drunk and hungover (and even sober) and I shopped at the grocery store on Nicolson Street that is mentioned for two straight years. I also liked the British slang - good job you, wahey, etc. But, it's not really enough that a book reminds you that your ex used to say wahey a lot or that it amuses you that Em and Dex sounds a lot like Ant and Dec (annoying TV presenters much like Dexter was in the novel). I didn't like Dexter at all as a character, so it was hard to care much about what happened to him. I did like Emma and occasionally identified with her life quite a bit. All in all, it was okay but would have been a much better read on a beach when I wasn't looking for much in the way of depth.

"These days grief seems like walking on a frozen river; most of the time he feels safe enough, but there is always that danger that he will plunge through." Derek

"'Live every day as if ti's your last', that was the conventional advice, but really, who had the energy for that? What if it rained or you felt a bit glandy? It just wasn't practical. Better by far to simply try and be good and courageous and bold and to make a difference. Not change the world exactly, but the bit around you. Go out there with your passion and your electric typewriter and work hard at... something. Change lives through art maybe. Cherish your friends, stay true to your principles, live passionately and fully and well. Experience new things. Love and be loved, if you ever get the chance."

Emma

Bright-Sided by Barbara Ehenreich

"What would it mean in practice to eliminate all he 'negative people' from one's life? It might be a good move to separate from a chronically carping spouse, but it's not so easy to abandon the whiny toddler, the colicky infant, or the sullen teenager. And at the workplace, while it's probably advisable to detect and terminate those who show sings of become mass killer,s there are other annoying people who might actually have something useful to say: the financial officer who keeps worrying about the bank's subprime mortgage exposure or the auto executive who questions the company's overinvestment in SUVs and trucks. Purge everyone who "brings you down," and you risk being very lonely or, what is worse, cut off from reality. The challenge of family life, or group life of any kind, is to keep gauging the moods of others, accommodating to their insights, and offering comfort when needed.

But in the world of positive thinking other people are not there to be nurtured or to provide unwelcome reality checks. They are there only to nourish, praise, and affirm. Harsh as this dictum sounds, many ordinary people adopt it as their creed, displaying wall plaques or bumper stickers showing the word "Whining" with a cancel sign through hit. There seems to be a massive empathy deficit, which people respond to by withdrawing their won. No one has the time or patience for anyone else's problems."

I loved the first chapter on positive thinking and cancer, but after that I was less impressed. The parts about business were really just a recap of Bait and Switch and the bits about religion and psychology felt a bit repetitive. Still, the main idea, that the emphasis on positive thinking in today's culture has a negative effect overall was a good one.

"Still, surely it is better to obsess about one's chances of success than about the likelihood of hell and damnation, to search one's inner self for strengths rather than sins. The question is why one should be so inwardly preoccupied at all. Why not reach out to others in love and solidarity or peer into the natural world for some glimmer of understanding? Why retreat into anxious introspection when, as Emerson might have said, there is a vast world outside to explore? Why spend so much time working on oneself when there is so much real work to be done?"

My time at RBS was an introduction into forced positive thinking. All that bullshit about people with negative attitudes but high production being "terrorists" in the workplace always pissed me off. Don't show me some stupid show about people happily singing as they work in the Seattle Fish Market and then think that I'm going to put on a happy smile whether I feel it or not. The rah-rah company events that are run like some sort of religious revival meeting merely pissed me off. I may work for you, but I am not you. And that should be okay as an employee.

"In the hands of employers, positive thinking has been transformed into something its nineteenth-century proponents probably never imagined - not an exhortation to get up and get going but a means of social control in the workplace, a goad to perform at ever-higher levels... With 'motivation' as the whip, positive thinking became the hallmark of the compliant employee, and as the conditions of corporate employment worsened in the age of downsizing that bgan in the 1980s, the hand on the whip grew heavier."

"This is the project of science: to pool the rigorous observations of many people into a tentative accounting of the world, which will of course always be subject to revisions arising from fresh observations... There seems to be an evolutionary paradox at work here: human survival in the face of multiple threats depended on our ability to live in groups, but the imperative of maintaining group cohesion can sometimes override realism and common sense, making us hesitate to challenge the consensus or be the bearer of bad news. So, after checking with others, it remains the responsibility of each individual to sift through the received wisdom, insofar as possible, and decide what's worth holding on to. This can require the courage of a Galileo, the iconoclasm of a Darwin or Freud, the diligence of a homicide detective."

"A vigilant realism does not foreclose the pursuit of happiness; in fact, it makes it possible. How can we expect to improve our situation without addressing the actual circumstances we find ourselves in? Positive thinking seeks to convince us that such external factors are incidental compared with one's internal state or attitude or mood...IT's true that subjective factors like determination are critical to survival and that individuals sometimes triumph over nightmarish levels of adversity. But mind does not automatically prevail over matter, and to ignore the role of difficult circumstances - or worse, attribute the to our own thoughts - is to slide toward the depraved smugness Rhonda Byrne expressed when confronted with the tsunami of 2004. Citing the law of attraction, she stated that disasters like tsunamis can happen only to people who are 'on the same frequency as the event.'"

Canyons by Gary Paulsen

"Brendan Cole lived in El Paso, Texas, and each afternoon after school he ran. He did not run from anything and did not run to anything, did not run for track nor did he run to stay in shape and lose weight. He ran to be with himself."

I liked the bits about running.

Read Forever

Blast From the Past - And Inaccurate

Amanda's Friendster Profile

Female, 33, In a Relationship, Great Britain (UK)More
My Friends (11)

Member Since:Oct 2003
Hometown:Bolton, Ontario
Other education:Queen's University, Classical Studies, 2001
What I enjoy doing:hiking, travelling, film and book addiction
Favorite Books:the No1 Ladies Detective Agency, Ian Rankin novels, Oryx and Crake, Manufacturing Consent
Favorite Movies:baraka, whale rider, the first two godfathers, anything with audrey hepburn, documentaries, buffallo soldiers, the diner
Favorite Music:radiohead, ani difranco, mull historical society, idelwild, the flaming lips, rem, u2, sleater kinney
Favorite TV Shows:haven't watched tv since i lived in scotland and probably won't own a tv in the next year
About Me: well, i'm sort of randomly wandering around at the moment, just back in Edinburgh, Scotland and from living in Vancouver and Korea. I have finally broken the horrible trend of working in banks.

A Warmer Spring Evening, Please!

Coop and I got quite wet running tonight. It's chilly out there.

Running Songs

Nickelback: Animals
Metric: Gold guns girls
Foreigner: Soul Doctor
Silverchair: Anthem for the year 2000
Bloodhound Gang
Mary J Blige: Family Affair
Eminem

The King of Bedside Manor - Barenaked Ladies
Pump It - Black Eyed Peas
Me Against the Music - Britney Spears
Add It up - Violent Femmes

Just Can’t Get Enough – Black Eyed Peas
Up n’ Down – Britney Spears
Right Hand Hi – Kid Sister
Get Outta My Way – Kylie Minogue
Til the World Ends – Britney Spears
Backseat – New Boyz
Rolling in the Deep – Adele
More – Usher
Hey Baby – Pitbull
Yeah 3X – Chris Brown
Please Don’t Go – Mike Posner
Letting Go – Sean Kingston
Push Push – Kat DeLuna
You Used to Hold Me – Calvin Harris
Dirty Talk – Wynter Gordon
New in Town – Little Boots
Club Can’t Handle Me – Flo Rida
Flashback – Calvin Harris
Ridin’ Solo – Jason Derulo
Freeze – T-Pain
Calabria – Enur
Super Bass – Nicki Minaj

Sing, Sing, Sing - by Benny Goodman
Gorillaz: Dare
natasha beningfield, "unwritten"
"hip hop" by mos def
"sick" by the sneaker pimps
"survive" by hybrid
"fall into you" by soulstice
"passing me by" by the pharcyde
You Spin Me Round - Dead or Alive (Princess Julia Mix '03 is great)
Things Can Only Get Better - Dream
Don't Bring Me Down - ELO (more like 110 bpm)
It's My Life - Dr Alban
Life Is A Highway - Tom Cochrane
Lips Like Sugar - Echo & The Bunnymen
Right Here, Right Now - Fatboy Slim
"All these things that I've done" - the Killers
"Holiday" - Greenday
"Southside" - Moby
"Wild Wild Life" - Peter Gabriel
"Beat City" - the Raveonettes
"Such Great Heights" - the Postal Service
and, of course, "Born to Run" - Bruce Springsteen

-"Blue" by Elastica
-"Stutter" by Elastica
-"Kamikaze" by PJ Harvey
-"Cannonball" by the Breeders
-"Denial Twist" by the White Stripes

"Girls" - Beastie Boys
"Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Can See" - Busta
"Shake That" - Eminem
"In the Morning" - Junior Boys
"Sexyback" - Justin Timberlake
"Fantasy" - Ludacris
"Loose Control" - Missy Elliot
"Closer" - NIN
"Frontin'" - Pharrell
"Ain't Nothing Wrong With That" - Robert Randolph and the Family Bad
"The Way I Are' - Timbaland
"Where'd You Get Your Body From" - Will.i.am

M.I.A. - Bamboo Banga ("Road runner, road runner, going hundred miles per hour!"), Boyz, BirdFlu, 20 Dollar
Metric - Dead Disco, IOU
The Bravery - An Honest Mistake
Stone Roses - Fools Gold
New Order - True Faith
The Cure - Fascination Street
U2 - Lady with the Spinning Head, Fast Cars, Hawkmoon 269, Daddy's Gonna Pay For Your Crashed Car
George Michael - Freedom
Keane - Crystal Ball
Beyonce - In Da Club *blush*

The Who - join together
bush = machine head
Coldplay - clocks
eminem - dont know name of his songs but the one from the really bad movie hes in
r.l. burnside - its bad you know
pink floyd - run like hell
black eyed peas - hey mama
simon and garfunkel - cecilia, me and julio down by the school yard
johnny cash's but performed by dave mattews - long black veil
Potential Breakup Song- Aly and Aj
Crazy in Love- Beyonce and Jay-Z
Head over Heels- Boys Like GIrls
The City is at War- Cobra Starship
Guilty Pleasure- Cobra Starshit
Dance, Dance,- Fall out Boy
Put Your Money Where Your Mouth is- JET
Stronger- Kanye West
In Da Club (Dirty) - 50 Cent
Blister in the Sun - Violent Femmes
Don't Do Me Like That - Tom Petty
Ooh - Scissor Sisters
I Don't Feel Like Dancing - Scissor Sisters
SOS (Rescue Me) - Rihanna
Float On - Modest Mouse
Dead Disco - Metric
Mondo 77 - Looper
Outta My Head - Kylie Minogue
Uncle Jonny - The Killers
The Ballad Of Michael Valentine - The Killers
Andy, You're A Star - The Killers
Jenny - The Killers
The Sweet Escape - Gwen Stefani
It's My Life - Gwen Stefani
I Don't Wanna Be In Love (Dance Floor Anthem) - Good Charlotte
Crazy - Gnarls Barkley
Chelsea Dagger - The Fratellis
Under Pressure - David Bowie
Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger - Daft Punk
Tango shoes - Bif Naked

Einstein on the Beach - Counting Crows
Rain King - Counting Crows
Like a Prayer - Madonna
All These Things That I Have Done - The Killers
Mr. Brightside - The Killers
Caroline - David Gray
Under Pressure - David Bowie
Most of Matt Nathanson's fast songs
Send Me On My Way - Rusted Root
I'm Not Running Anymore - John Mellencamp

The Script - Rusty Halo
Kings of Leon - Sex on Fire
Kaiser Chiefs - Ruby
Lost Prophets - Everybody's Screaming
Paramore - Miracle
Kevin Rudolf - Let it rock

Long Train Runnin' - The Doobie Brothers
It Keeps You Runnin' - The Doobie Brothers
Running Down a Dream - Tom Petty
Running on Empty - Jackson Browne
Who Will You Run To - Heart
Born to Run - Bruce Springsteen
Band On the Run - Paul McCartney
Take It On The Run - REO Speedwagon
Take the Money and Run - Steve Miller Band
We Run This - Missy Elliott
Run to the Hills - Iron Maiden
On the Run - Pink Floyd
We Run - Sugarland
I Run for Life - Melissa Etheridge
Run Rudolph Run - Chuck Berry
Run to You - Bryan Adams
The Long Run - Eagles
Fox On The Run - Sweet
Ready To Run - Dixie Chicks
Run-Around - Blues Traveler
Run Don't Walk - Hey Monday
Young Hearts Run Free - Kym Mazelle
You Better Run - Pat Benatar
We Could Run Away - Needtobreathe
I Ran (So Far Away) - A Flock of Seagulls
Running On Sunshine - Jesus Jackson
Time is Running Out - Papa Roach
When The World Is Running Down - Police
Runaway - Bon Jovi
Runaway - Del Shannon
Runaway - Jamiroquai
Runaway - Janet Jackson
Runaway Train - Soul Asylum
2000 Miles - The Pretenders
Road To Nowhere - Talking Heads
Run Through The Jungle - Creedence Clearwater Revival
Walk This Way - Run-DMC
I Walk the Line - Johnny Cash
Don't Walk Away - Miley Cyrus
Walk Like an Egyptian - The Bangles
Walk Like a Man - Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons
Walk Away - Kelly Clarkson
Walk On - U2
Go Walking Down There - Chris Isaak
Bright Side of the Road, Van Morrison
On the Road Again - Willie Nelson
Middle of the Road - The Pretenders
Steppin' Out - Joe Jackso

'Back to Black'Amy Winehouse (2006)