I’ve already written to exhaustive posts about this subject, but I have finally found the way to express my thoughts on certain elements of a program change we’re just starting in on, where I work. I’m going to use an analogy here.
Month: March 2005
Calling All Koreans: Did You Ever See This Show?
There’s a story out there which may or may not be an Urban Legend, and I’m wondering if anyone knows either way. It’s been claimed that the TV show “Joanie Loves Chachi” was one of the top-rated American TV shows on Korean TV, and that I was popular because the names of the characters were Koreanised in such a way that the name of the character Chachi sounded more like 조지, the kiddie term for penis. Now, Chachi doesn’t sound like 조지 to me, but sometimes English gets transliterated into Hangeul in ways that mystify me, so I can’t be …
Fans Don’t Kill People
Except in Korea. FanDeath.net. Heh. And no, fans don’t kill people. They may make a room cold, or somehow set up conditions which bring on heart attacks or strokes or other things, but there’s no way in hell that fans kill people, any more than sex kills old men because it excites them enough to give them a heart attack. We don’t call that “Sex Death”, do we? Ah, well, maybe in Korean it is called Sex Death, I don’t know. In which case, if the cause of death is ascribed to the catalyst of the physical crisis—the stroke, heart …
I Had Half a Good Post Written
… and then it was lost to the aether. It was about curriculum, program changes, and levelling programs, and how an educational institutions can effectively implement programs and program changes in a way that is centered on student benefit. It’s not really a whine-and-bitch session, but it does focus on the fact that realistic, honest assessment of negative factors is necessary if any real improvement is to be made. It also focuses on the idea of student-centered program implementation, and how this relates to interdepartmental politics. While it’s particularly true of the program change I’m witnessing now, it’s also true …
Shorthand of Korea
Peemil at Where are my socks? encapsulates Korea in a descriiption of PC Rooms: Korean PC rooms are a world apart from anything else I have seen in the West. They are part of what makes this country what it is. A noisy, smoky environment with alot of people swearing at stuff that really doesn’t mean alot at the end of the day. Lovely.
Avalon
Last night, I watched a Japanese/Polish-made SFD film directed by Mamoru Oshii called Avalon. A bit dated, the film was made in 2001, but anyway, it was new to me. I don’t know quite what I think of it: it certainly doesn’t live up to anything like The Matrix in terms of SF-action, but then I don’t think it was supposed to be that kind of a film. As some of the commenters on the IMDB message boards have noted, it’s very Tarkovskian, slow and full of empty silences, beautiful mundanities, and a kind of weaving of “mythic” materials with …
Whasango
Lime knows me very well, and she outdid herself this year. She ordered something for my birthday, online, because all the shops seem to be going out of stock, and seeing as it wasn’t a popular movie in Korea, it probably soon will be permanently unavailable. I picked up a copy for Marvin in Chinatown, Toronto, but never got one for myself, and I love this movie. I don’t care how low it is in the opinions of most Koreans, or how confusing it sometimes is (as Marvin noted to me once before); I think Whasango (here’s a pretty balanced …
Christian Fundamentalists, Korean Communists…
What do the devout (fanatical?) Christian E. L. Bynum and Kimg Jong Il have in common? See for yourself. via a really funny article at Landover Baptist.
Finally My Computer Looks Hi-Tech
Here are some very beautiful screensavers via Weird is Relative.
Oblique Strategies
As a birthday gift, the inimitable 강미 posted a link to this Oblique Strategies page. It’s all about Oblque Strategies, a kind of semi-random cardset that gives advice to people working on creative projects, meant to be used when one feels “stuck” or at some kind fo creative impasse. Thanks, Kangmi! Of course, the cardsets themselves are pricey, because they weren’t widely released and they now seem only to be available on ebay, at insane prices… but there are links on the page to an electronic version or two. The problem is, the scripts for the electronic versions don’t seem …