Aaaaaaaaaargh! I just got in to Jeonju from Seoul. I had a completely useless visit that I managed to salvage in a couple of ways…
Ending Another Week
and now the week is done… … and I find myself on the verge of an even more tiring weekend. I must go up to Seoul tomorrow to pick up one of my saxophones, which was being repaired, and test out a piece of equipment. I don’t really want to leave my house this weekend, to be honest. My ear infection (which supposedly isn’t an ear infection at all… actually, just isn’t an ear infection anymore, is still lingering and no doctor will give me enough medication to deal with it permanently; and I am exhausted from the busy week …
This week…
This week… This week is still busy. I started teaching a new term this morning, and my two classes, both of which are pretty high-level classes, looke quite good. I already know what I have ahead of me for one of my kids’ classes, but the other I don’t know about. We’ll see tonight. It’ll be nice to be finished teaching at 6:30pm instead of 7:30pm.
faq(easy)
All of these are real questions asked by students. What’s a faq? FAQ means: Frequently Asked Questions Frequently means "often". So a FAQ is a list of common questions and answers. Sometimes foreigners hear the same question many times in Korea. Are you American? Do you like kimchi? This FAQ answers these kinds of questions.
faq(hard)
All of these are questions I have really been asked at some point. What’s a faq? FAQ stands for "Frequently Asked Questions". It is a way for me to answer questions people ask me a lot. Foreigners in Korea get asked a lot of the same questions everyday. This is okay, but sometimes I wish I could simply give someone a link to a faq that would answer all of their questions without having to explain for the thousandth time that yes, I like kimchi, or that no, I am Canadian, not American. So, I created this faq.
My Musical Background
Music’s been a big part of my life since the middle of seventh grade, when I decided that if my sisters could play the flute (and get a lot of attention that way) then I could bloody well do as well on some instrument. My mother rejected my first instrument choices (drums, electric guitar, bagpipes) and finally, after hearing the horn player in INXS, I settled on saxophone. I wanted to be a rock’n’roll sax player because damn, I was sure that women were crazy about that guyÖ
Apocrypha Live ’98 excerpt
Right now I only have one music download for you of my own. It’s from Apocrypha Live ’98, by Apocrypha, the last band I played (semi-)regularly with in Saskatoon; one of our last live shows (in summer ’98) at a rave hosted by my friend Mike (aka DJ Dekoze) was recorded and actually mastered, produced, la la la. Some of it is bad, some is good. It’s kind of a mix of ambient music, free jazz, and spoken word. Accordingly, some bits sound like the Bladerunner soundtrack and some of my soprano sax work reminds me of Jan Garbarek. The …
Busy Busy Busy
Busy Busy Busy This is where I spend 2 minutes in the morning posting how damn busy I am. I have interviews and then a lunch meeting (which may or may not happen depending on whether a film crew that is making a documentary about my band shows up and scares off my friend), followed by some hardcore web page design because I want my webpage (here) to be working by Monday, and then tonight I will go to Jeonju for a gig and documentary/interview at Led Zeppelin. I don’t know what time we play, but I know it’s in …
On My Birthday…
… I miss most of all the people I miss all year round. My family, my girlfriend (who can’t be here this year), my old friends flung into their faroff places all over the face of the planet.
Independent vs. Mainstream Film
Independent vs. Mainstream Film and My Picks for Indie Films Here’s something I almost posted about a couple of days ago, except of course that the Hand of Fate wiped it out somewhere in the data transfer. So I lost the preamble to it, which was about how I’d been teaching my students on Wednesday last about complaining. It was fun, because it wasn’t anything to do with grammar, it was all about tone of voice and delivery and a wee bit of acting. Deadpan complaint just doesn’t work, it sounds like statement of fact, so we worked on that …