Notebooks Part Deux

As time marches on, it seems I sometimes forget the promises I once made on the electronic letter machine.  Here's one I remembered.  Those dang notebooks.  Well here are a few more that I have run across in my homework grading adventures.

For those of limited vision it reads, "The new rocket of NASA blasted off And they will be ready to go into space in two and a half to three years time.  Travel through space.  Travel through space."  Uh, what?  I'm not sure if this notebook company is aware, but NASA has been going into space for about 50 years now.  You clearly display pictures on this notebook of Americans in space, a space shuttle, and a space station.  In fact, there's not even a "rocket" to be seen on the notebook. 

I'm pretty sure they stole this from a 1980s magazine advertisement for a citrus scented douche.  The added the smileys as a way to beat the copyright laws.

Do you really want to know the answer to that question? 

 "There is Double looking for unknown generation.  Let's feel your sensitivity."  I don't think Double and his rabbit Sensitivity are going to find any unknown generations flying around in an elephant balloon.  I'm pretty sure that takes some archaeological research and some serious digging.

 This chicken will haunt my/your nightmares. 

These four sentences sound like what "Pinkfoot" would say after the interrogator asked it why it massacred an entire village.

Vote or...DANCE.

As America's election race has been equated to a "war on women," South Korea's elections should certainly be deemed a "war on ears."  Every day for the past two weeks, I have been woken up at 6:30 AM by what seems like a block party happening at the main intersection outside my new home.  The campaign process must go something like this: A rich Korean man decides that he is going to run for office in Parliament.  So, he then hires 60 otherwise out of work people (sometimes children) to record new lyrics to a song which is otherwise famous.  He then hires a truck with loud speakers, drives around with the 60 otherwise out of work people (not the children), sets up at major intersections during rush hour and makes everyone dance while he blasts said music at surely illegal decibel levels.  The result is that the candidate's name is seared into your mind forever.  It's actually very successful as I can remember 3 candidates off the top of my head and I'm not even able to vote.  

To get a taste of this process, here they are in rain:

 

And here they are in shine:

 

Two different candidates, sharing an intersection.  Debates?  Probably not.  They just battle each other on different sides of an intersection.  Whose music is catchier and louder?  Whose hired cronies dance with the most fervor?  That's who will win the office.  I actually prefer this method over America's race because 1)it's essentially a dance-off for office 2)most people don't understand/care about the candidate's platform anyway 3)it's clearly more fun and nobody gets called a slut for wanting the government to pay for birth control.  Democracy at it's finest. 

Anyway, the point of this post was to inform you that South Korea is voting today and we should all take a moment to be thankful that we, too, can vote and at least partly have a say in who our leader is.  

If you want a serious, but still light, article on South Korea's actual political landscape, head over to this article I discovered on Yahoo!...here.

Decibel Levels and Light Rail Lines

So, I realize about two posts ago, I mentioned how I was going to write about my new apartment, and I still haven't made good on that promise, but it's coming.  Just not now.  Now i'm going to write a short(!) post about why my school deserves to win the loud, obnoxious award.  Although the atmosphere of an elementary school is naturally loud and obnoxious, lately there have been various construction projects adding to the overall decibel level of my class time.  Let's take a look at exhibit A:

They're building a new gymnasium where the old garden used to be. (Progress?) There's hammering and sawing and drilling and jackhammering going on for a large portion of the day.  Notice in the background the large crane dedicated to the construction of a new high rise apartment complex two blocks away (that is a larger discussion on the ever changing urban landscape in Korea).  That is project number 1.  Let's look at project number 2, exhibit B:

Now, the cynics in the readership may comment that this is just another part of exhibit A.  The laying of gas and water pipes is an essential part of constructing a new building.  However, you forget that this a) adds noise, as there is an entirely additional crew working on this portion of the project, and b) creates a fenced barrier, hindering my maneuverability (are we at war here?).  Instead of being able to walk directly through the door adjacent to my classroom every morning, I have to go around the building and enter from the other side.  Minor, first world problems, I know.  Just explaining why I treat it as a separate project. 

Then there is exhibit C:

It's difficult to discern with my stellar iPhone camera, but in the background, there exists a rail line resting atop cement pillars between lines of orange coney things.  This is the ongoing Daegu light rail project that was started before I came to Korea and may very well end after I leave.  When I moved here, the road pictured was just a normal four lane road with no median.  Since that time, they have widened the road so that a median space for a rail line exists.  In order to do this, they have torn down establishments, physically moved my school's historic landmark auditorium 20 ft east, and, most annoyingly, destroyed and shut down part of the subway station adjacent to my school, as they need to physically move the elevator and the stair entrance to the underground.  Luckily, I moved apartments and I don't have to deal with the closed subway station anymore. 

Not that ironically (at all, really...), my new apartment is adjacent to a different portion of the new light rail line.  This portion is objectively more finished than the portion near my school/old apartment, and I can see what will clearly be a light rail train station looming above the intersection. 

I can quickly see how this blog post is graduating from short to overly long and from the noise/aggrivation level at my school to the new Daegu light rail line, but I don't much care as this is my hot bloggy and I can do what I want.  As I mentioned, this project was begun before I came to Daegu in February 2010.  It is not scheduled to finish until summer of 2014, and, being smack dab in the middle of it, that deadline seems like wishful thinking. 

I have mentioned before the industriousness of Korean construction teams and how quickly they can produce a finished product.  This rail line seems to be the opposite of that.  Mired by ongoing money shortages and battling with rush hour traffic, this project has been going painfully slow.  I have seen progress, obviously, but the rate at which I see it is definitely lower than the Korean standard (see also: the Namdaemun reconstruction project). 

It makes me especially sad since the route this line follows would be really convenient to getting around the city.  Let's take a look at the new route:

Represented in red and green are the current subway lines, making a crude X, meeting at Daegu's downtown business district.  Notice how much of the north and southeast are not represented by subway coverage.  Now look how the new line (represented in cat puke yellow) will almost exclusively cover those areas.  To the north is Chilgok, an area I frequent that has a unique shopping/restaurant/nightlife district.  To the southeast lies Suseong, the affluent area of Daegu, boasting a really nice lake, unique nightlife, and exotic restaurants.  To me, these areas should have been represented by subway coverage a long time ago (especially since Suseong-gu surely has lobbying power).  But, Daegu's subway is a recent venture, so it's understandable that they are still expanding.  I'm just going to stop there, as I'm sure you've gotten a broad overview of what I wanted to share.

Notebook Showcase #1

So, one of my duties at school includes grading the 6th graders' homework.  This is normally done in their English notebook, which they hand in at the end of class.  Since beginning this duty, I have been absolutely enthralled with the covers on these notebooks.  Now, I admit I had a Lisa Frank trapper keeper in the 4th grade, but the covers to these notebooks make Lisa Frank look like Rambo's casualty checklist.  Note: I have blocked any names out of the pictures for privacy purposes, and because that's explicitly stated in my contract not to expose names of students.

This week's top five:

 "You see, when a mommy and a daddy really love each other, they plant gardens full of strawberry seeds and yell "Happy FRESH100%!" and make sweet time sweet time sweet time sweet time.

 I don't even know what this is supposed to be, but it looks like a propaganda poster for the first day of integration at a 1960s elementary school.  Perhaps in black people language, this day is called "Awa seru!" 

 Oh!  So, even if I don't know English, I should just yell as loud as I can what I think English sounds like at strangers.  Nobody would be offended at that.

 Somebody! Anybody!  I'm so desperate and lonely.

"Do you like Drive?"...as in the movie Drive?  And I'd love to see a street sign that just says "For Driving."  Oooh, a driving road.  Or maybe it leads to a golf course?

Now before I continue this type of entry, I should emphasize that there are some notebooks that are both tasteful and grammatically correct.  They are, admittedly, in the minority.  Why Korean stationery companies prefer to vomit incorrect English onto their notebooks is beyond me, but it's the rule as opposed to the exception.  Like their t-shirts.

200! Nowaythat'stotallyawesome!

The tears are like, totallynotfalling down my face right now because we finally did it!  We made it to 200 posts on this blog!  Holy crap, that's like probablynotthe biggest accomplishment I've ever made. Let's get another congratulatory picture up there!

Let's see.  I've been having strange dreams again as of late.  They seem to come in clusters.  Dreams tend to reflect reality, and tumultuous reality creates tumultuous dreams.  The perplexing thing is...what is so tumultuous about my life?  It's the same as it has been for two years, right?  It's certainly less tumultuous than this currency, right?  Oh see the 200?

Well, yes and no. It's true that I am now used to the ways of reality in Korea (mostly, more on that later).  Seeing old men peeing in public doesn't phase me anymore.  But, I have changed apartments (more on that later, too) and a majority of my friends have left Daegu, if not Korea, thus congealing my solitude a little.  I still have friends here, of course.  And life goes on.

Hey, 200th blog post!

In other news, lately I feel like this is a representation of my life:

In that the trend at the end will continue.  The blue line will skyrocket (or plummet, depending) when I settle down and have little tots running around and the red line will slowly wither down to zero because I have no time for my immature wants.  It's funny when you kind of reach a point where sometimes it's better forward planning to stay in on a weekend night than to go hard and crazy all over downtown.  Partially event driven, I admit, but still a reality (and still nothing compared to the "after settling down" phase, which is why the graph only goes up to 40%).

Ah, speaking of reality, I mentioned being accustomed to the reality of Korea.  That is both true and false.  As an outsider, I think one can never truly be accustomed to the reality of this culture.  There is the romantic viewpoint (the rose colored glasses, if you will) that gnaws at our perception constantly.  Korea is full of such opportunity and the people are so pleasant and innocent and it's the ideal place to live, like the United States in the 1950s.  And on the flip side, the "negative Nancy" constantly nagging at us about how everything in this country sucks.  God, Korean people are so backward and the weather is too damn cold and it's so noisy all the time.  So what you get is a reality based on two overused cliches.  As an example, people seem friendlier when the weather is sunny.  Is that because you feel more content when the weather is nice, or is it because, in general, everyone is more friendly when the sun is shining on them and they are being enriched with essential vitamins (and harmful UV rays)? 

Something irked me today, in fact.  I know I've touched on this subject before, and it's something that I hope will change in the near future, but I'm not going to hold my breath waiting.  I had two classes of third grade today.  Being my third year, the 3rd graders are the only students I have that are new to me.  They are adorable little farts, unlike last year's batch of 3rd graders.  In the first class, in the front row, sits a pleasant, but mentally challenged child.  This particular child is well behaved, but rather clueless as to what is happening around him, and today had a solid trail of snot on his upper lip.  His presence has created an environment where his classmates guide him and wipe the snot from his lip, thus teaching them nurturing skills at an early age out of necessity.  That's the optimistic view.  Now, let's move on to my second class of third graders I had today.  I am not even kidding, the second class has the twin brother of the child in the first class and he is also mentally challenged.  Now, I'm not even going to touch on their parents' assumed frustrations.  The twin brother, by contrast, is disruptive.  He spent the entire class walking around with a roll of toilet paper like it was an airplane, not listening to his teachers.  In this example, the other students completely ignore him, teaching them that if you are different, you are forgotten.

Both examples are bad, in my opinion.  In neither case is either child receiving the care or specialized education that he needs.  Both also disrupt the classroom.  Even if the other students ignore the child, it's like having a TV on in the background while studying.  There seems to be this cultural idea that everyone should be the same, and if you're not, everyone tries to pretend that you are.  And life moves on without you.  I don't agree with this and it's difficult to come to terms with "that's the way it is."  To me, it's kind of messed up, but then again, their ideal must be, "what's the point?  If we either fill them with a false sense of hope or teach them by ignoring them as society will mostly do later, they'll always be the same."  To some extent, that's true, but it's awfully defeatist.  Ah, there's negative Nancy assuming what she doesn't know.  I can no more easily enter the mind of a child than enter the mind of a child with autism.  I'm just an observing third party, and an observing third party from a very different culture.

Ah, optimism!  Uh...my new apartment!  I'll cover that...








...in the next post.

It Makes The World Go Round

Looming over us all. Right outside my new apart-uh. I think it's gonna be a good year...

Four Score and Seven Years Ago...

...Benito Mussolini announced he was taking dictatorial powers over Italy.  F. Scott Fitzgerald published The Great Gatsby.  The Scopes Trial took place, in which John Scopes was arrested for teaching Darwin's theory of evolution to high school children (gasp!).  The Chrysler Corporation was founded.  Mt. Rushmore was dedicated.  New York City became the largest city in the world, beating London.  Perhaps most importantly, my dear grandmother was born. 

But we're not talking about any of that today.  The title of this post is, of course, the opening lines of The Gettysburg Address and Abraham Lincoln was referring to the year 1776, but still it's kind of fun to look at the Wikipedia page for any given year and see what interesting events took place.  No, in that event, Lincoln was facing a civil war that had just escalated further with the Battle of Gettysburg. 

When I was back there in America for 3 weeks, Mom and I took a day trip to Gettysburg because I had not been in recent memory.  Since my mother last went, they had built a spiffy new visitor center and museum of the battle and the rest of the Civil War. 

The new visitor center, built in 2008, is pretty informative about both the battle and the war.  Beginning with a 20 minute long film (narrated by who other than Morgan Freeman), the museum portion peaks with the viewing of the cyclorama.  "What's a cyclorama, Steve?" You say in a perplexed, yet intrigued tone.  Well, I'm not sure of the Oxford English Dictionary definition of a cyclorama, but I believe it is a depiction of a scene or battle, often painted, using a 360 degree presentation.  In this case, it was the 1883 painting by Paul Philippoteaux depicting Pickett's Charge, the peak of the Battle of Gettysburg.  This was an impressive piece, not only in scope, but in composition.  The amount of detail is mind boggling.  Standing at 27 feet tall and 359 feet in circumference, this massive painting used literally tons of paint and completely encompasses the viewer.  Upon its debut in 1883 in Chicago, it was said that some veterans of the battle wept from its realism.  Here's a taste of it.
The visitor center is so impressive, one can actually catch ol' Honest Abe outside resting his legs on a bench. 

I feel like he's got something on his mind, while I look like I've been drinking. 

Here are a few more pictures from an interesting, education, and (most importantly) fun day with my mom, shortly before I had to leave to return to Korea. 

Mom and the same cannon as above

The same tree from above.  This tree has seen death

The same Major General Oliver Otis Howard from above.  Just kidding, he wasn't above.  But he is looking like he don' give one solid shit 'bout no Rebs.

I'm Still Alive

Alright, alright.  I'm back.  And I'm in action.  There was a period of time when I sat, crying into my own hands on the edge of reality, battling a (to use a cliche) crippling apathetic depression.  Only a small part of that sentence is true (the "sat" part.  I did indeed sit since last I wrote.  You may have even spotted me sitting once or twice).  So much has happened since December 1st, 2011--the last time that you heard from the electronic signals in this keyboard, on this website, in this universe.  Let's go through our list.

Kim Jong-il died.  I know that is about the least important thing that I could discuss here, and obviously old news as it pertains to the world, but it did have an impact that I won't soon forget.  Soon after that news broke, I was sleeping when I was awoken by the loudest bang I had heard in recent memory.  I sat up and listened as a rumble lingered.  It kept lingering for a long time.  In that long time, I rationalized that North Korea had nuked Daegu because of its high U.S. military presence and the mushroom cloud was coming for me and I was surely going to die.  It turned out to just be thunder from a lightning bolt that landed nearby.

Look at that glowing face over the Kimjongilias and Mt. Baekdu where he was born under a double rainbow and brought forth on the back of a unicorn.  You will be missed, Dear Leader.

There are two linking events to Kim Jong-il's death.  First, Whitney Houston also died since last we met.  Let's get a picture of her up here so we can honor the hell out of her, too.

Sorry, I'm still really broken up about Dear Leader.  It's always the good ones that are stolen from us before we're ready.

I can't say I was surprised when I heard, but, you know, the world exploded and now we're going to hear her songs everywhere and see a new documentary and her doctor might go to jail for giving her drugs.  I've been singing "I Wanna Run To You" all week.  

The second linking event is that, on a fine winter afternoon soon before I was to depart for the motherland, I stepped into my favorite hair dresser (barber?  I don't think so) to get my ears lowered.  There was a very old woman in there getting a perm.  I sat down next to her, and to my surprise, she spoke English remarkably well.  We got to talking, and it turns out she was born in North Korea.  When the war broke out, she defected to Seoul and then was forced to move again when the early Northern invasion swept over the peninsula.  She ended up going to the University of Maryland and became a doctor, meeting her future husband (from Daegu).  Her son lives in Fairfax.  Small world.  I really wish I could have talked to her for longer about her experience because I'll probably never see her again.  It's rare to meet a Korean with such an interesting story who speaks English well enough to tell it to me.  

Let's see.  I found my new apartment.  Let me see if I can find a picture of it to show you.

Apartment specs: It's approximately the same size as the old one, slightly nicer, and above ground level (only by one floor).  This means that there hopefully will not be any mold, bugs, or intruding landlords.  It's further away from my school, which means a longer walk in the morning and actively remembering where I live when stumbling home on Saturday night.  

I visited Amurrica.  I'm going to keep the details of that trip locked away in my memory for centuries to come, except for one small part.  And I will cover that in another post to give myself something to write about and to keep you coming back.  Next time on World Class Flaneur: Gettysburg.