November 2011
1 post
“The part of the brain that controls decision-making has no language.”
– Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action | TED.com
September 2011
1 post
When enough is enough
In the English language, “enough” presents some interesting problems. It doesn’t sound the way it’s spelled, and it’s difficult to explain. The dictionary defines it as an adverb meaning “so as to be adequate or sufficient; as much as necessary.” In other words: when used to describe quality, enough is a matter of opinion; as a quantity, it is a matter...
August 2011
1 post
The state of our beings
“How are you guys doing?”
My family has heard this question many times since my brother was diagnosed with cancer, from people on both sides of the Pacific. I don’t know how to answer it. How calls for adjectives as answers, and I’ve taught my students to both revere and mistrust adjectives. Fine is a word used for its consistency, not accuracy. It’s a culturally...
July 2011
3 posts
One year anniversary, coming up
Almost time to renew my visa, for a few last weeks in Seoul. I remember when I got this alien registration card, with its accompanying creepy photo. It seems like ages ago.
Update: the Korean grocery store is alive and well...
Ironically, the same month that the NYT was mourning/celebrating the demise of the Korean corner store, the kids at my school were starting up a new junior economics class project. Guess what it was?
That’s right. A mini grocery store. And it is making a killing in the teacher’s room.
Pretty adorable, 그래? And well-priced. (All the rameon cups are just under a buck, and candies...
June 2011
1 post
May 2011
2 posts
“There’s no such thing as other people’s children.”
– Bill Russell, Boston Celtics legend and recent Mass Mentoring Partnership Champions Lifetime Achievement winner
Birthdays
This week, South Korea celebrated Buddha’s birthday in a big way.
Above: Buddha’s Birthday parade, Jongno-gu. Below: lady monks at Jogyesa, the most important Zen Buddhist temple in Korea.
It was an incredible week full of colors, parades, and quiet moments of meditation. More to come once the photos are edited.
Now, looking ahead to Friday, which is my 26th birthday. I will...
April 2011
3 posts
Our youth are starting to change Are you starting...
The youth are starting to change (me)
Angela, age 10, wearing my teaching motto
Did you know I have fifty babies?
It’s true. And they’re all Korean.
When I returned to Seoul after seeing my brother through surgery, my happiest thought was returning to the classroom, to my kids. Teaching has become a very meaningful part of my life, and now that I know with some certainty that I’ll be leaving my babies in just a...
3 tags
March 2011
4 posts
“I’m going to go away from here I went...
2 tags
Love and in yeon (인연)
I swung by the coffeeshop after work one night recently to give my “Uncle” Lee some strawberries, and, as usual, ended up shutting the place down with him. We talked for hours as we sampled some “prototypes” of his latest invention, the peppermint latte. (Lee’s a retired chemical engineer, and thinks he has the perfect technique for steaming the milk.) His wife...
Dave's diagnosis
It has been more than a month since we flew Davey home to New York. There, he was seen immediately by an excellent surgical team at Millard Fillmore Gates hospital. Over a few hours, they removed the mass in his brain that had caused the seizure.
Davey post-surgery
Davey’s girl Clara flew in from Portland and sat with him in his hospital bed. My friends came in from Boston for the...
February 2011
3 posts
WatchBEACH HOUSE: REAL LOVE (by matt amato)
Happy Valentines Day, everyone.
Life changes in the ordinary instant
My brother, Davey
This is a true story.
Three weeks ago, on a Saturday morning, my brother Dave and I woke up after a long night out in Seoul. It had been a good one: we had a few beers in a Family Mart and told each other riddles, then met up with some Canadian friends for ice skating and galbi (natch). We ended up staying up til dawn, thumbing through an old copy of Zen and the Art of...
4 tags
Taeman-eh kamnida: (I) (go to Taiwan)
“대만에 갑니다.”
I never thought I’d say these words, in English or in Korean. But life is funny sometimes.
I met my dear friend Chrissy (above) around this time last year, in Boston. I caught her eye on the first day of our TEFL course together, when neither of us knew exactly why we were becoming certified to teach English as a foreign language, or where this newfound ability...
December 2010
12 posts
Holidays in Hanguk: A Recap
I have been so moved over the past few months by emails from friends and family back in the States who wanted to make sure I wasn’t cowering in a bomb shelter or sitting at home solo during the holidays. To those of you who took the time to extend the power of your empathy halfway around the globe to me: thank you.
In fact, the holidays here in South Korea (known as Hanguk, or 한국, in ...
Santa Harabuji and Christmas kimchi
This was how I began December twenty-third in South Korea.
Today, my grade one class took a final test, and I brought colored pencils and Christmas card materials to soften the blow and trick the girls into learning some new words. I started the lesson by asking them to tell me every word they could think of when they thought of Christmas.
“Santa Harabuji!” they shouted first....
...My hair
I was hoping to get away with not posting a photo, and instead offering 1,000 words, as that is usually the agreed-upon exchange rate. However, some people have requested a photo. So, here it is. The haircut which many people have tried to tell me makes me look older, taller, more responsible, more grown-up, more sophisticated.
My impulse this weekend was to look like none of those things....
1 tag
In which I learn that I am not my hair
It was when the steam started coming out of my head that I began to feel alarmed.
Well, it wasn’t really coming out of my head. The steam was wafting out of a tube attached to a strange contraption that was positioned directly behind my head. But from my perspective, looking at my winter-reddened face in the mirror, it appeared that my head was close to exploding.
Which it kind of...
1 tag
"The current threat level in Seoul Korea is...
Earlier this month, I felt impatient with the South Korean embassy, as it seemed they were not posting adequate information in response to the Yeongpyeong-do shelling incident. My family and friends were asking for my “plan,” and therefore I asked the embassy for their plan. And no plan was forthcoming.
But it occurred to me recently that the embassy may be deliberately limiting the...
North Korea has nukes; now what? - By Fred Kaplan... →
Good news and bad news — but most importantly, news with perspective and news that makes sense. Hard to come by these days.
“Kim Jong-il Says the Darnedest Things”
– How does North Korea make its announcements? - By Daniel Engber - Slate Magazine
On the bizarre communiques coming out of NK and why they’re so oddly worded.
“peerlessly great man
reactionaries
resolutely smash
sanctions
sea of fire”
– Welcome to NK News
A sampling of search terms from a search engine devoted to the (often-funny) North Korean propaganda machine, which, when its intended audience is the West, appears to broadcast mainly in weird Konglish phrases.
“There is no means of testing which decision is better, because there is no basis...”
– Milan Kundera (The Unbearable Lightness of Being)
One of my favorite passages from one of my favorite books.
November 2010
15 posts
2 tags
"At this time, there is no consideration of an...
In Seoul, there has been no serious discussion about expats leaving en masse, regardless of the escalating rhetoric and the jangling nerves of our loved ones back home. I’ll just get that out of the way right now.
The rhetoric I am consuming in moderation for the most part, a media diet advised by my Korean acquaintances — otherwise I would become too irate to function. And the...
“A mind is not blown, in spite of whatever Hollywood seems to teach, merely by...”
– Michael Chabon, Maps and Legends: Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands (via girlwithlandscape)
update: everything is gwaenchanh-ayo (괜찮아요)
Update, 12:30pm: everything appears to be normal, okay and fine. In Korean, they say 괜찮아요 (gwaenchanh-ayo).
Update, 12:55pm: the greatest dangers I faced this morning included drying my hair in a wet bathroom and avoiding the garbage truck as it backed up into the street along which I was walking. Because the garbage truck is still doing its job today.
Update, 12:58pm: children played in a...
3 tags
A letter to my loved ones
Many ex-pats like me received phone calls and letters last night in the wake of the shelling skirmish between North Korea and South Korea yesterday, which unfolded in and around Yeongpyeong-do (연 평도), an island near the border. I’ll link here to the New York Times’ South Korea news page so that any visitors will see the most updated news versus the early initial coverage.
I’m...
1 tag
Weekends in Mungyeong
As in every country, in Korea there is a divide between the city and the countryside. As I wrote in A Woman of Questionable Morals, I suffer each time I leave the city and each time I return. But I’ve had the good fortune to meet a group of great people who live in the mountainous countryside outside Seoul, which has given me the best of both worlds.
The bus ride to Jeomchon,...
1 tag
“We have to systemically create the environment and the incentives where people...”
– Thomas Friedman, Teaching for America - NYTimes.com
Ok, hold up. I’m all for improving education standards, and any teacher in South Korea will tell you that these kids are going to take over the world. But I’m wary of letting American commentators, even my beloved Friedman, bludgeon...
Stuff Korean Moms Like →
This site is a gold mine.
October 2010
12 posts
“Had I not created my whole world, I would certainly have died in other people’s.”
– Anaïs Nin (via iponderis)
“There is much that is immortal in this medieval lady. The dragons have gone, and...”
– — E.M. Forster, “A Room with a View”
via Tiger Beatdown › The Garjectionist: Female Characters in Literature
