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 …
Category: PERSONAL
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.
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 …
새해복많이받으세요, & Bread & Beer
In other words, Happy Korean New Year! (And yeah, they got it from the Chinese. Whatever.) Me, I’m stuffed with rice cake and dumpling soup, and am now having having a nice Leffe Blond, which brings back memories of Montréal. (Not my favorite beer, now, as it was then, but then, it was my first beer, followed by Sleeman’s Honey Brown Lager, Guinness, Harp, and whatever else I could afford. It took till my second year in Montreal to arrive at beer; the first year was taken up with red wine. Which is to segue gracelessly to the fact that …
Amusements
A few random amusements for you, before I toddle off to get some real work done: A terrible audio track that my friend Jack posted that WILL make you laugh. Sunset Grill is a webcomic made by my friend Kat. Anyone notice that Obama mentioned non-believers in his inauguration speech without calling them unAmerican? That was interesting.
Koreabeat Translates Lime
Koreabeat recently translated a post by Lime that was written a few years ago, wherein she criticized the writing courses at a hakwon she’d tried out. She was quite surprised to see this fact. And almost immediately someone assumed she was criticizing white hakwon teachers, when, ironically, she was talking about writing courses taught by Korean teachers to Korean students. Someone also IDed her almost immediately. Now I can’t help but wonder if I know SKFK personally, or what?
Slightly Disturbing
19 Created by OnePlusYou – Free Dating Sites The thing is, it’s probably about right. I’ve been around large groups of little kids — not five year olds, but first and second graders. And I think that number’s about right. I’d tire out and they’d drag me down, and then it’d be game over.
Feed Update
Those who are reading this by feed will note that I’ve made some changes to the feed. Pretty much all I’ve really done is splice in my del.icio.us links and my (neglected) Flickr stream into the main feed. You’ll see updated links posted to del.icio.us, plus ay new photos that show up. One reason is that I sometimes have links I’d like to post and share, but which I don’t feel really have enough to say about to write about them. One downside is that they won’t, I don’t think, appear on the Livejournal mirror of the site, but I’m …
Upcoming in Seoul: Brad Mehldau
He’s playing in Seoul with a trio on March 4th. That’s my birthday, and the man can play, so now I’m thinking… Never heard Brad Mehldau? Here’s a gig on NPR that’ll get you thinking about whether you’ll be bumping into me at the show.