Family. It boggles the mind. So this is my baby sister, who is 30 (she is 30 this year, I think, or is it 29?), and her little boy, Kinlay. The name’s a bit unusual, no? It was my father’s middle name, in the Scottish tradition where children take their mothers’ maiden names as their middle names. Helps keep track of who’s related to whom, I suppose. My Dad only missed meeting the little fella by months, by less than a year. The fleetingness of life is a damned rip-off sometimes, isn’t it? Apparently Kinlay’s quiet, calm, smiley, though he’s …
Category: GENERAL
Jazz Winds
On the way home from class tonight, I heard a jazz drummer practicing up in one of the practice rooms somewhere in a nearby building. It’s terribly windy tonight, and he (I think I glimpsed him through a window, and it was indeed a ‘he’) was burning his way through a fast post-boppish cycle, and the sound of the crashing cymbals and off-kilter rhythm seemed to match the low-roaring wind just perfectly. If I weren’t feeling sniffly and sick, I might have gone looking for him, to see if he was good as he sounded from far away. It’d be …
Dammed Flue
Er, damned flu, I mean. Been sneezing like mad. Talked with one of the two plagiarists in class tonight, was was very contrite and in tears. (She settled for a C and a horrible assignment involving multiple paraphrases of what she plagiarized, but was mostly just embarrassed and felt awful about “quoting information” without actually quoting it.) The other, who basically just copied and pasted Dokdo rants, fled from the room at the end of class. Sniffle. I hope to be feeling better tomorrow, so I can hit the gym, but I have six more essays to mark, and then …
THANK GOODNESS! by Daniel C Dennett
Here’s an excellent little piece by Dennett on why he thanks goodness, and not God, for his survival of a medical emergency. Quite worthwhile to athiests out there. Here’s a snippet: One thing in particular struck me when I compared the medical world on which my life now depended with the religious institutions I have been studying so intensively in recent years. One of the gentler, more supportive themes to be found in every religion (so far as I know) is the idea that what really matters is what is in your heart: if you have good intentions, and are …
Two Words…
I’m up for a challenge. Like answering the following 25 questions in two-word phrases. 1. Explain what ended your last relationship. Age difference. Maturity too. Somewhat drastic. Legal, however. 2. When was the last time you shaved? In 2003. Now bearded. 3. What were you doing this morning at 8 a.m.? Sleeping peacefully. Ahh, yes. 4. Were you any good at math? Certainly not. 5. What were you doing 15 minutes ago? Reading email. 6. Your prom night? Decidedly underwhelming. 7. Do you have any famous ancestors? Probably no. 8. Have you had to take a loan out for school? …
Die, Spammer, Die!!!
Spam. I know, it’s like shooting fish in a barrel, but… This letter may come to you as a surprise due to the fact that we have not yet met. No, I’m quite used to spam. I have to say that I have no intentions of causing you any pains so i decided to contact you through this medium. But now that I’ve received spam from you, I’ve decided that I have an intention of causing you pains. As you read this, I don’t want you to feel sorry for me, because, I believe everyone will die someday. That’s very …
‘nother private post added
Site members curious about some, well, very offensive things I saw in the classroom today might wish to login to see the private post I’ve added today.
Noticeable Improvement
Today, I focused on cardio exercise… and surprised myself! 14 minutes on the treadmill, no breaks, with (after a minute or so of walk-in) a constant pace of 7 km/hr 15 minutes on the stationary cycle, no breaks, but not at a constant pace because the damned thing kept trying to push me into more difficult levels. Another 10 minutes on the treadmill, trying Shawn’s suggestion of intertraining… that translated to 3 one-minute bursts of 10 km/hr, and the rest walking at 4 or 6 km/hr. I stopped more because I decided to head out and do some marking before …
My Sole Trick-or-Treaters
So one of my neighbours, Jason, and his wife have a couple of little boys, and they were done up as Spiderman for Hallowe’en, and I gave them a little candy. It was pretty cute, their dad urging them to say, “Trick or Treat”, and them all reluctant to do so, until finally, they kinda got the words out (they’re very young), and we clapped and cheered and I gave them some candy. And then I ran off to class. I mention this because I haven’t given candy to children for Hallowe’en in years — it’s not celebrated in Korea, …
No, I Am Not This Guy
Every once in awhile, someone asks me whether I am the same guy who runs Acts of Gord. After all, Canadian ESL teacher in Korea with a background in RPGs, named Gord… how many can there be? At least 2, is the answer. I am not that guy. Though, eerily, we both visited Sokcho this summer.