Catch up with my various feeds, if you’re not following them already. (I won’t do this regularly, but it seems I can’t delete this now!)
Category: GENERAL
Things to Post About
Last night at the launch of the Seoul Science Fiction & Fantasy Library — an amazing project I’ll post about soon — the writer/translator Jeong So-Yeon reminded me that I hadn’t yet posted about our experience at SOAO Workshop up on Sobaeksan, which has prompted me to write this post of things I need to post about soon. Not all of them are related to SF in Korea, but a few are. The KASI/SOAO workshop on Sobaeksan The Seoul Seoul Science Fiction & Fantasy Library An article idea on the social economics of reputation and the translation of genre literature …
Studying the Expat Experience
Hey, you, foreign teacher living in Seoul/Incheon/Gyeonggi-do! Go help a scholar find out more about the expat experience in Korea by filling out this survey. I found most of the questions on this survey interesting, though a few (such as assumptions of what “nationality” means among expatriates) were a bit oddball to me. (Via Hub of Sparkle)
Got a Kick Out Of…
A few things I got a kick out of in the last few days: Seeing a drunken old man jogging in place on the express commuter train out of Seoul. He jogged for ten or fifteen minutes, stopped, rolled his head around for a while, then jogged some more. I seemed to be the only person taking any notice at all of his performance. It was amusing. Seeing my name on a few of the “Here’s who I nominated!” lists for the Hugos and Campbell Award. I didn’t see a lot of these, but I saw a few, which is …
7:32pm Posted a tweet on Twitter. @doctorow which .kr publisher? I was recommending it to 박상준 at Omelas as a book Korea badly needs translated now… 7:34pm Posted a tweet on Twitter. Treadmill test result: normal. Heart fine, blood mostly fine; just blood pressure to deal with… Whew. As relieved as is reasonable to be. 6:17am Posted a tweet on Twitter. @maureenmcq Folsom prison by a Chinese singer? Sounds amazing to me too! 6:18am Posted a tweet on Twitter. @CarolineYoachim yeh I’m relatively pleased! 6:19am Posted a tweet on Twitter. @seouldaddy thanks man. & thanks for piling on the Starbucks …
Back in One Piece, More or Less
I’m back in Korea. I should have left my camera at home: Fukuoka was rainy and grey, and though being there was pleasant, I didn’t feel like shooting any pictures, so the camera was just unnecessary weight. Will never again travel with my big huge brown briefcase: it’s just too heavy. One other annoyance was that my netbook was useful for writing, but not for getting online. With the exception of my (landline, not wifi) hotel room, I couldn’t get online anywhere in town. Granted, when I got home I discovered that the wifi capacity on my iPod touch had …
On my way to Japan
It’s a lucky thing I didn’t leave as planned. I ended up spending Monday at the hospital. I’m now on high blood pressure medication. Which is good, because it’s managing issues, but it’s hard not to be frustrated and let down by the fact my efforts in the last few months didn’t even dent my health issues. I guess I’ll have to try harder. My goal is to get off these medications in a year. We’ll see if I can manage it… I was told it’s possible, but that many people just go on the meds and have to stay on …
Recent Annoyances
Believe it or not, I’m trying not to rant and complain too much these days, as I said last night to some friends I was hanging out with. But you know, I just spent the afternoon dealing with something that, as usual, incompetent idiots didn’t deal with, and I’m in a mood. And yes, this involves a water leak and my closet, though it’s a different closet — though the source of the previous one’s leak, if that says anything to you… But if you’re not up for a rant, just click on the link above, about the friends I …
Tweet
Since picking up an iPod Touch, I’m now on Twitter. Just saying.
Reactions…
Here are some recent reactions to my writing, or collections in which my work appears: Karen Burnham’s discussion of Hugo-worthy stories mentions my own “Dhuluma No More” and even links to a very flattering discussion of it in the course of a review of the Oct/Nov 2008 Asimov’s SF, tellingly titled “So What Should SF Be Talking About?” She called “Dhuluma No More” “the stand-out story” of the issue, and explained: This story hits a lot of Big Issues, and Makes You Think. Obviously there’s the idea that whatever we come up with in the West to mitigate climate change …