I think it’s called an ondol, but I could be spelling that wrong (I always seem to hear a vowel wrong these days). It’s a system of heating a room from below, and it uses hot water to do so. There’s usually one under the floor of apartments, and when you sleep on the floor on a yo (a floor-pad) like I do, the warmth radiates up out of the floor and permeates everything… the room, your body. My back feels so good the morning after I sleep on the warm floor, even when it’s on the lowest heat possible. …
Author: gordsellar
Homesickness
I’m not homesick these days, but I know what it feels like. Wanting to make everything simpler, to settle into that room that was always yours to sleep in, the wish to hear those voices that are so familiar even after so long being away. Not just the laughter but also the arguments, the disagreements, and the chores: everything is precious to you. I have a friend who is feeling homesick now. I hope she has a chance to go home and recharge her emotional batteries… we all need to do that sometimes. I hope I didn’t contribute to some …
Northern Lights
I was looking on the blog of another Friday Fiver and saw the most amazingly beautiful picture of the Northern Lights. It made me remember when I was a kid and my dad was driving us home to Prince Albert from a day of music lessons in Saskatoon. Sometimes at night it would get so dark we could see out across our arm of of the Milky Way, the ocean of miniscule lights. One night, I don’t remember why, he stopped and I remember looking off into the haze of light far past the distinct points of light. I remember …
7 Hours Argh
Why does my body insist on waking up after exactly 7 hours of sleep? I am sick. I need a little more these days. Argh!
I dreamed
I don’t often remember by dreams, but when I do usually they’re odd. My sister once commented that of course, I even dream science fiction stories. This isn’t one I would actually write into a story, so I’ll blog it. I dreamed of my body strapped into a seat. The seat wasn’t connected to anything I could see, but knew I was in a craft, which was moving so quickly that it felt like I was perfectly still in it. My suit was comfortable, the room warm but not too much so. There was no music, only the whine of …
Shocking!!!
Shocks are always sudden, and while we often learn to expect a shock or two in life, we never see them coming. That’s why they are shocking. Some shocks are a passing thing: I know a young woman (a student of mine here in Jeonju) who was just dumped by her boyfriend. One day he told her he loved her, and the next he said, “Forget I said that,” and dumped her. I can’t guess why he did this, but I know that the girl’s shock is a passing thing, for she is very young and very nice and is …
Musical Weekend
Well… this weekend was busy. Friday I mostly slept, aside from some phone calls and SMS messages. I didn’t get enough sleep, but I did sleep. Saturday I wrote an email, which I won’t get into here but it was important for me to write it. Saturday afternoon, I planned on reading and writing and working on my blog a little, but I got a call from Myoung Jae telling me that the band needed to meet that afternoon, if possible. He was sick and medicated on Contact, so I didn’t feel my own slightly sore throat, by then mostly …
In-Class Persona stuff
When I started teaching, as a teachin assistant in Montreal (which at my University meant I was the professor for a freshman class), I didn’t understand that I wasn’t quite supposed to be the same Gord in the classroom as, say, at home. I thought, look, my job is to show people how to do a job. I was teaching writing, something I was good at, and I was teaching students who were basically my own age, or only a few years younger at any rate. I felt that there was no way I could actually pull rank on them, …
Hot Profs Score More?
Here’s article about how more attractive professors score higher on student evaluations. Now I am curious to see what my student evaluations will look like. In Montreal, I was a lot heavier and I scored pretty well, but I thought it was all the time and work I put into my teaching. Maybe it was just my beautiful eyes? Hahaha.
Friday Five: From the Mouths of Babes
Gina asked: I don’t have children myself, but I love to hear the knee-slappers that my godson, his siblings, and my nieces come out with. Or, for that matter, the “logic” espoused by the adults around them when speaking to them. To wit, what are the most amusing things you’ve ever heard in a household with children? Well, to be honest I haven’t gone into a household of children in ages, but I have two sources to draw upon: my childhood, and life in Korea. As a teacher, I used to deal with kids every day, but I also sometimes …