A couple of factors combined to make the potential trip to Tokyo that I mentioned here unworkable. (Not the least, a great deal of uncertainty until, well, this morning about whether I’d need this or that or the other thing to get the code number I’m supposed to get in order to do my visa run.) Now I have stuff going on this week, stuff to get done, people to see and places to be — heh, even an orientation tomorrow, which will probably be several hours of incomprehensibility to whatever foreign profs actually make it there — so the …
Category: GENERAL
SOAO Workshop 2009 Pictures Up
There’s lots of snowy ones, and some not-so-great photos, but the majority of the shots I’ll be posting are now viewable here. I’ll add some descriptions when I get time, and write up the experience here soon. Here are a couple of pics, with a few more in the extended post…
Databased & V-Day
Well, a friend sent me a link for the The Ultimate Guide to Modern Writers of Science Fiction and Fantasy, which was compiled by Avi Abrams and explained in this post at Dark Roasted Beans. I was shocked to find myself in it. Shocked in the sense of being hit by a wave of, “Oh, crap, I need to get some more stories submitted out there soon!” The semester looms, and I have tons to do before then. Ah well, for now, I’ve other things to take care of. But I was chuffed to know I warranted entry into a …
Hiking Boots?
I’ll be going to a mountain on Wednesday, as part of a very interesting workshop involving Korean SF writers and astronomers — oh, yes, a listening comprehension test three days long, which I’m already failing, but more about that afterwards — and I’ve been told it would be a good idea to have some hiking boots. I’ll be in Seoul tomorrow, and would be able to pick some up, except I have no idea where such things could be gotten — that is, winter boots, in “large size” (ie. 300, 305, 310, or bigger, depending on the brand). Apparently the …
Sh*tbag Attacks Constitution (Again)
So, Kenneth Starr is once again doing his bit to hold a rifle to the groin of American democracy. Yeah, the same guy who wasted millions trying to find out whether President Clinton did the same sorts of things we all know Republican Presidents have done in the past, because the real scandal he was investigating turned out to be politically useless… Well, now he’s now out to delete all those same-sex marriages that happened in California before vast numbers of inmates members of the Church of Mormon decided it didn’t believe in separation of Church and State, and that …
Clean Reinstalls? What?
Today I went to the Woori Bank to get my 공인 인중서, which is, basically, a little electronic certificate that I need to have in order to file my taxes. (Which I can only do on paper now: the electronic tax filing through my workplace closed a week ago, and the office assistants either didn’t know, or assumed that foreigners couldn’t do it, or forgot to tell me when it was announced. After a little discussion in which I mentioned I’d done it before (with a different office assistant who is now gone), and it’s much easier with a 공인 …
Weights, Endorphins, Bike
I’ve been lifting them, after increasingly long stints on the stationary bike. (Today was a half hour, which doesn’t sound long but a good chunk of that was on a high setting, simulating riding up an incline.) Then the weights. I use pretty much every machine there, but I’ve come to pay attention to what the rest of my body is doing when I used them. For example, my breathing — I had to learn to exhale when exerting, ie. when bench-pressing. I had to learn to firm my abdominal muscles so that they would support the work that my …
Nominated for a Golden Klog
Several, actually, much to my surprise… considering I haven’t been writing much at all about Korea. (Well, not since, oh, say, October, but still.) The Golden Klogs are awards for Korea-based (mostly? all?) English-language blogs, being hosted at Korea Sparkle. I’ve been nominated (or co-nominated in one case) in a number of categories. If you feel like voting–for the best blogger, me or whoever–this is the place to go.
Visa Run: Tokyo?
Okay, so Tokyo can be expensive, I know. But a guy I know from back in undergrad (yes, you Malcolm) suggested it probably wouldn’t be much more expensive to visit than Fukuoka or Osaka, and there is more to do in and around Tokyo. (And it turns out return flight tickets to Tokyo for mid-late February can still be gotten for about W300,000. Besides, some part of me would rather wander around in Tokyo, and maybe wander off to Kamakura or Minami-Alps (which my friends here have praised highly) or even just or Hakone, than to pass just a few …
Random Things
Over the last eighteen months or so, I’ve become pretty good friends with my co-worker Gwen and her husband Mike. Well, they’ve just had their first baby, a little boy! (I’ve yet to visit, for various reasons including a niggling cold I wouldn’t want to pass on — though don’t babies have a strong immune system? Er, I dunno. I’ll call and ask Gwen.) Anyway, congratulations to them! And suddenly, the balance of weight has shifted back to me being the one who looks more pregnant. This afternoon I’ll be heading across campus to sign my contract for my current …