The Saemangeum Bay Development Project

One of my friends and my bandmate wrote a song about this recently. According to him, a wetland used by birds migrating from Russia to Australia is facing “development” on the order of being paved with concrete so that “love-hotels” (that is, by-the-hour sex hotels, not uncommon here as an escape from repressive home life) can be constructed. I’m collecting articles for students to debate about it with some information at their fingertips. It’s probablt the first big environmentalist issue I’ve heard about since coming here, except for the silly culinary preference for female crabs which is destroying the crab …

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Noh Mu Hyun opinion

Here’s an interesting opinion article on Noh Mu Hyun. I don’t know enough about him for now to comment myself, but I will try get some students to talk about him and also I’ll read more so I can try develop an opinion of my own that is informed by something other than just highly partisan newspapers.

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Dreams

I’ve been sleeping longer hours these days, because of exhaustion. I was, for a time, extensively planning three classes and trying to get full handouts ready for a couple of those classes every day. (Things have chilled out considerably now that I’ve realized at least one class explicitly doesn’t want handouts.) There was actually a day where I was so damned tired that I started getting chest pains and slept 12 hours at night… and felt much better the next day, thank goodness. But anyway, I’ve been having some very very weird dreams. Two that I recall are worth writing …

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A Day At The Beach, Update

It seems that the little dog SaeNal died a little while after that day we spent on the beach. I found this out after making a stupid unwitting joke to Chong-Sook about wanting to make dog soup with her (SaeNal was a she). I guess she was in a new home, because Chong-Sook had to give her away, and she died falling off a table, the poor thing. I wasn’t close to the dog, so as much as a I feel bad for Chong-Sook, who really loved SaeNal, for me it’s more an experience of strangeness. I always find it weird …

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