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 …
Category: PERSONAL
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 …
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? …
‘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.
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.
Workout Tracked Now Working
Finally got the workout tracker working… I had to give up on Miniblog, and anyway, am perhaps happier to have it just run through the same interface as all my other posts on this site. Why the heck not? It looks snazzy over in the sidebar, there, so I thought I’d mention it. Whee!
Honey! Surprise! I Think I’m British!
I was explaining to Lime this evening about how I’d gone through some papers, while preparing my passport application. (I need a new passport in about six weeks and it takes three weeks for the new one to arrive, so I’m trying to get organized and get the application in as soon as possible.) Anyway, I was mentioning how I had examined my Certificate of Canadian Citizenship, both the little wallet-sized card and the larger certificate document. On the passport form, a date was requested for these documents, but no date was given on either document, so I resorted to …
Workout Tracker Added
It’s nothing fancy, and I’m not even offering an RSS feed since I can’t imagine anyone else besides me wanting to look at records of my exercise. In fact, the only reason I’ve added this thing to my site is to guilt me into going to the gym regularly. When I arrived in Saskatoon for my father’s funeral, nine months ago, I took a look at my health, and asked myself, “Am I learning from his example?” He had been very fit and healthy when he was younger, and as he got older, my father’s health kind of collapsed. This …
Write-In Update
This is an update on the Write-In post I made last night. As of 4:30pm on Sunday, I am now at 11,800 words. Of course, this is redrafting, so it’s going more quickly than original drafting. Still, the amount of complicated reworking and rethinking has my brain in knots. Lots of going for short walks and thinking things over today… but it is coming along. It might be optimistic to think I can finish this off tonight, though, considering I need to get my passport application and laundry done as well… UPDATE 2 (2pm, Monday Oct. 23): Well, I’m now …