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Month: October 2006
Anomie Pop
I have the first of my two or three class meetings for British Popular Culture planned out: a powerpoint giving a basic “crash course” in British popular culture, followed by an episode (probably episode 1, or else the Pub Quiz episode) of The Office, with some discussion interspersed. For the second lecture, I’m thinking we could discuss sport culture, and I have a great episode of the TV program Life on Mars which deals with soccer, hooliganism, and all kinds of 70s pop culture. The third (maybe, probably) meeting, I’m thinking we could watch some of Brassed Off, and I …
Not So Bad, But There’s A Reason
Arrive at the gym late, and the guard told me it was closed from 8pm on. I told him I thought it was 10pm on, and he let me in for a little over half an hour. So: 10 minutes actual running on the treadmill; 10 minutes on the stationary bike; and about 10 minutes of weights and situps. Then came home dripping in sweat. Forgot my water bottle, too, and must go retrieve it in a bit… if he’ll let me in.
The Wow Factor — Grading, Education, Whuffie, And How To Really Learn
Making fair exams can be really, really hard. Evaluation of students is sometimes difficult. In fact, I’ve mentioned in several classes that I think the quality of University education would skyrocket if grading was abandoned. Now, instead of grading, they’ve said, you need something. They’re perhaps right… but maybe not. It doesn’t exactly matter how well a doctor does on her exams throughout school — if she flunks the licensing exam, she flunks; and it doesn’t matter whether a doctor flunks every exam going through school, if he gets 100% on the licensing exam (and then goes home and forgets …
Hyu! Shoopahs (Mostly) Down, and A Killing In Burma is Next
Whew. I just finished drafting the story under the working title, “How Jjangguk Took Down Kim Noh Wang (The Madman of Pyongyang)”. I’ll be doing some tidying and editing sometime this and perhaps tomorrow morning evening , and then soliciting comments soon after, not just from my regular crit group but others who’re willing to give feedback on more Korean- and Asian-political matters that are semi-allegorized in the story. It’s 95 pages long, double-spaced, which is pretty much the longest single fiction story I’ve written this far, aside from a few drafted novels. Certainly it’s the most coherent long piece …