I don’t know what’s causing it, but my installation of Movable Type is behaving somewhat strangely. I can’t figure out exactly why, but I’m wondering if installing the new, upgraded version will help. While I do want to port over to WordPress, I’m scared about the learning curve and figure that for now, it’d be easier to readjust my MT installation, work on WordPress for another site I’m building, and once I am more comfortable, make the shift over to WordPress quickly and cleanly. But if this site goes silent for a few days, and then disappears, worry not. It …

This is my participation semester. I’ve only made one important change to my classes, and that is basing 40% of students’ grades on participation and homework. Otherwise, my syllabus is basically the same. I will, however, be doing up a sheet that I can hand out next week, if I can enlist some help. It’s a list of things students are expected to do if they really want to learn English. I’m working hard to keep my motivation up, to try to be idealistic and realistic about these kids. In my first class most kids seemed okay, but in the …

Seems something’s wrong with the comments system. Maybe it’s time to port over to wordpress, next week. But I’m running out to Seoul for the day to take in a Bulgasari show with a friend. So anyway, please don’t be distressed if your comments don’t show up right away. I’ll have to rebuild for you to see them, I think. Argh!

Well, last night the band had their last show. What can I say? First of all, hearing them again after almost a year was very interesting; I haven’t managed to go to any of their shows since I left the band, and hearing what they’d been doing since then was quite interesting. The guitarist they brought into the fold, Hyo Sang, did some really good, interesting things, and their songs sounded, I don’t know, a little more natural. None of that scraping to find a place for a sax to fit in. Anyway, I bought a copy of their EP …

This blog is hilarious. I’m inspired, really. In a sick, awful kind of way. The disgusting girl I work with and her new girl friend both wore tube tops for casual Friday. Their navels remind me of ebony and ivory subway tunnels. I wish I could turn back time to the 1950’s when all women were forced to dress like school teachers. Only super models and teenagers should be allowed to expose their bare bellies in the light of day. If you want to feel slightly sick, but laugh your ass off too, follow the link above. And just read …

Over at New Sophist’s Almanac, the philosophy tandem blog I run with my friend Marvin, activity has begun again after some quiet summer time. Marvin posted reflections about his experiences with karate, reflections fueled in part by reading Edward Said’s Orientalism. I responded to his wonderful post with some of my own thoughts as a kind of Orientalist-by-necessity that I find myself being in my life as a foreigner in Korea. And now, the hardcore stuff: our spelunking of the Alpha Theory has begun again, with the aid of one Bourbaki, who is answering questions on this theory which purports …

I didn’t do so well on this quiz, but then I take it that it’s more of an educational thing than a real “test your knowledge” quiz. Pretty cool, though, and now I know a lot more about survival in the bush than I used to.

Wow, I wrote this a long time ago, and I’m not sure why I didn’t post it at the time. This goes all the way back to March, when Lime was still working intensively in the hospital. But it’s still true now, and perhaps, as she’s studying for her biog, fat, important exams in the next few days and months, seeing this will give her a little strength. So I’m going to post it here, now. But I’ll put what wrote back in March in the extended post, because (a) it’s a bit personal, though I still want to post …

I rather enjoyed this essay on freethinking and heresy, from Paul Graham’s online collection of essays. Though it doesn’t always seem like it, there is a line between things I think and things I say, sort of. As I get older, at the very least, I’m learning to choose my battles; I may not be very good at it yet, but I am learning.