It’s teacher’s day in Korea. You know, like it was Mother’s Day in North America yesterday? (Yes, I had a lovely chat with my Mum, but didn’t post about the day since she never reads my website.) Well, today it was teacher’s day. Our students here are really very sweet. They held a party for the occasion, for the professors in the department, which was sweet in itself. (I felt badly arriving late, but I’d had class, and it went overtime, and then I helped a student sign up for her classblog, something she should have done 2.5 months ago, …

While emailing a friend, I was reminded of a funny thing that happened once in a Korean newspaper. The band I used to play with was interviewed by a newspaper reporter — I can’t remember if it was the guy with the funny hair, or maybe the very pretty girl because of whom the word “reporter” became a euphemism for a “very pretty girl” in the band thereafter. Anyway, each band member was interviewed in turn, and when my turn came around, I was asked about my other interests. I stated that I’d been working on a book about the …

Out on the web (actually, on a minor mailing list I’ve got a sub to), someone was complaining about the apparent absence of intelligent life out there in space. Sadly, my first thought was, “Look, it’s hard enough to find on Earth, and you need to find more of it out there?” Come on, you know I’m right.

I hear a baby screaming as loud as it can, crying and crying for something. A woman and man in the same room, screaming at one another. Slapping sounds, more screaming, and the baby wailing with redoubled efforts. Him, yelling even louder. More slapping sounds. A thud. Her screaming too. More baby-wailing, until it all calms down and all I can hear is the person practicing a passage from some piano etude, somewhere out there. And people think hell is a place people end up after they die. I’m pretty sure hell can be just out my window, and over …