Today I saw a presentation by Steve Gershon, who is the author of the English Upgrade series which my University uses in its conversational English classrooms. After the presentation, I was asking a coworker about how much of the ideas Gershon presented would be successful in the classes we teach here. Judging by the fact his University even offers post-graduate courses, I would assume that the student body is perhaps a little more selectively accepted than at the place I’m teaching. That, of course, can make all the difference in the world. But the question of pedagogy, and my role …
Month: October 2004
All Look Same?
ALL LOOK SAME is a game where you try and see whether you can tell the difference between Chinese, Japanese, and Korean people by photographs. Some Koreans claim this is easy as ddeok, but it’s not. It’s a worthwhile game, though. Lime showed me this, and I’m crediting her even if she disagrees with a rule that won me 9 points out of 18, which is 2 points above the average scored by 1.3 million people. There’s also an essay about the concept of the game, here. I must say that I could pick out the Koreans while traveling in …
Cavare Party
Yesterday was a tiring but alright day. I left for Seoul in the morning, which meant I had enough time to wander a little before heading in for the late-afternoon sound check. I had a nice sandwich over at Itaewon and got a chance to check out the excellent new bookshop What The Book? which is not only cheaper than the big bookshops in Seoul, but lets you order anything, apparently sans credit card, and even offers free delivery if you order more than one book! The location is worth visiting, if you can find it: it’s out near the …
Asia by Blog linkage
As usual, Simon World’s Asia by Blog linkfest is worth checking out. Man, so much info, so little time.
Joy To The Gord
Well, yesterday I saw the doc at the hospital nearest my house and he told me the following: that what was wrong with me was I wasn’t sleeping or resting enough, that I put too much strain on myself, my immune system was in bad condition as a result, and the only cure is to rest carefully, not push myself, and try to sleep and eat well. I am eating well, I’m starting to sleep a lot better now, and the rest is just going to take time. The worst of my symptoms are passing and now it’s more just …
The Most SF Jazz I Know
Steve Coleman’s music is worth knowing about. It’s jazz of a kind, but jazz that somehow comes out like science-fiction, all angular and, well, not “funky” so much as, I don’t know. It’s like bebop that started freebasing funk music or something, or maybe got a medical shot of funk in the butt to inoculate it against David Sanborn and Bob Rivers. It’s best when you start out, to forget the sometimes-incomprehensible (but to me enjoyable) manifestoism of the M-Base and all of that, and just check out the music, when you can get your hands on it. My favorite …
Ugh.
Well, I’m slowly feeling a little better now. Ungh. I seem, however, to be going off to sleep quite early, sweating heavily in sleep (even though I am taking Tylenol, as per doctor’s prescription, to control my fevers, and regardless of whether the heat is on or off in my home), and still feeling sick after a good night’s sleep. But I suppose getting well takes time. Anyway, I’ve now off-and-on (mainly on) been sick for maybe seven weeks, and I am fed up with it. So I’m going to go to the hospital and ask that someone please figure …
Resume Examples
I didn’t want to use my own resume as an example when I taught resume-writing in my writing class, so I modified it and used a made-up character, Isaac Wolgren. What’s included in this file are two examples of a resume: one is experience-based, and one is skills-based. I’m assuming most of my students have no work experience and will have to use the latter form. And yeah, a dragon-slayer’s resume is a silly idea, but it was the first thing that popped into my sickly mind. I’ve had dragonslayers on the mind lately, so what can I do? When …
My Nephew
Lately Marie and Troy (my sister and her husband) have been sending pics and vids of their son MY NEPHEW Nathaniel, and I thought I’d pop some up. This is how he’d have looked in the 1950s. Here he looks like his great-grandfather. I’m not sure which one, but there’s gotta be one of them that looked like that. Heh. Trying to look all intellectual and French with his Caillou dollie. Next he’ll order Marie to make some kind of weird-ass creamy fish stock-based soup and refuse to eat anything else. Or, perhaps, it’ll be Quebecois poutine he’ll demand… Another …
똥침
똥침을 알아요? 이 개임 해봐…. 대희씨… 당신이 너무 무서워요… 빅 호미니드도 무서워요! (For those wondering, just click the first link and try this messed-up flash game. The point is to shoot your fingers up someone’s bum. It’s a Korean thing. No, I’m not making that up.)