Chang Mai

I still don’t know how to spell it. Forgive me.

We are here with Kim and Susan, teachers from Osan. Also, Ajay and Anish met us here as well. I told many of you before about Ajay; he was a student in my class during my student teaching year at Mansfield, Massachusetts, in 1999. Ajay and Anish, his brother, stayed with us in Korea for a week before Thanksgiving, then came to Thailand. We are hanging around with them in Chang Mai until Sunday morning.

Bed

Last night, we had supper in bed.

There’s a restaurant here called Bed, which the guidebook boasts that it is the coolest place to eat in Bangkok. Being the cool guy that I am (let me have this moment), I wanted to go.

We arrived at 7:30 for drinks in the bar; the restaurant doesn’t open until 8:00. Why is it that the cooler you are, the later you eat? Just for the record, Kristie and I usually eat at 4:15 pm sharp. At the appropriate time, we were escorted to our “table” by a guy with a plain, white t-shirt with the phrase “Creativity Makes Me Horny.” The tables were two long, white-sheeted beds spanning the length of the restaurant. We took our shoes off and climbed in. There is a small table only big enough for drinks and a candle. A DJ stood in the middle of the place with his Powerbook for a turntable. He had his earphones on only one ear, the way they do in those fancy New York clubs, and his head bobbed with the electronic smooth booms. Scantily-clad stiletto-heeled Thai women pranced around with drinks and menus. Bed has two floors of dining, and these off-balanced waitresses climbed stairs (and ladders!) with great ease.

The menu was set, with a couple of choices. We all had the tuna for an appetizer, and a tomato-mozzarella-balsamic-vinegar salad. I had the King Crab penne, and Kristie had the salmon. The white waitresses handed us the food and we ate on our laps, the way our moms served us when we were pretending to be sick to stay home from school. After the meal, we had a lemon cheesecake.

During the meal, a magician came around doing tricks. He spoke English OK (magic-english, if you will: “Is this your card? and “Close your hand with this coin”). He was amused at his own tricks, and, after making two sponge rabbits turn into an entire family of rabbits (is a trick on fornicating bunnies appropriate for dinner?), he laughed and told us this was “Very magic.” I tried to show him a trick or two of my own, but no one offered me a magical job. He handed me his card, perhaps offering to bring me under his tutelage.

We paid the bill (over $40 each) around 10 pm. By then, the REALLY cool people were coming in and the music was even louder. Customers were drinking drinks in martini glasses and shot glasses, and Thievery Corporation was even a bit too loud for me, even though I have them on my iPod in heavy rotation. We walked out of the space ship down the curved, steep stairs. I almost tripped, and I wasn’t even wearing my heels.

www.bedsupperclub.com

One Night in Bangkok

The alarm rang at 3:45 am on Saturday morning. We got out of bed, did the last-minute packing, and boarded the 5:45 am bus to Inchon Airport. Our plane left for Bangkok, Thailand, at 10:50 am. We had an unexpected layover in Hong Kong, and checked into the Marriot at 9:00 pm. It was a long day filled with airplane food and sermons on how to buckle my seat belt.

It’s 8:30 am on Sunday, and I’m listening to Elliot Smith and typing this poolside. We ate sandwiches and pastries for breakfast, and Kristie then went for a swim. A family walked by and stared at my Mac, either with lust or derision. I’m going with lust.

We’ll stay in Bangkok until Tuesday, then go north to Chaing Mai, then on Christmas, we’ll fly down to the island of Koa Samui. Katrina, Kristie’s sister, will meet us there.

I’ll update with pictures as wi-fi permits.

Countdown

It is cold here in Korea. This is this-is-why-I-left-New-England cold. Isn’t the phrase “cold as hell” a misnomer? Why do we want to say this?

Four more days of school until our Thailand trip. We are leaving on Saturday morning for Bangkok, then Chaing Mai, then to the beaches on Koh Sumui. We return to Korea on New Year’s Day.

I checked; there is a Starbucks at each of these places.

What Sean Had for Lunch

Sean at school offered the most unique reason why he didn’t have his essay for class. The seventeen-year-old explained that his paper was on his portable flash drive, but he got sick and threw up on it. The vomit, he went on to say, messed up the drive and he could no longer access his files. He said that he even took it to a Korean computer fix-it shop, but even they—those who supposedly work wonders with puke-soaked electronics—could not retrieve the needed paper.

It reminds me of a bit of writing advice from Ray Bradbury, the author of Fahrenheit 451. “Throw up on your typewriter in the morning; clean it up in the afternoon.” I wonder if this is what Sean had in mind. Someone forgot to tell him that Ray meant this figuratively.

I gave him an extension mainly because I was amused. I excused myself from class, went to the staff bathroom, and washed my hands. Twice.

Narnia

The Chronicles of Narnia was released today in the States. I am eager to see it, but it only plays on base while we are in Thailand. Figures.

It’s Aslan’s namesake; the least they could do is show it this week so our dog can watch it and understand her roots.

The Shortest Point Between Two Distances

Kristie and I rented a driver and a tour guide to take us to the Mekong Delta. I talked with the guide about Vietnam history, especially about communism. It was a non-issue for him, though. He said that he was the guide for a Russian guide last year who said to him, “Communism is the longest route from capitalism to capitalism.”

Coming Out

It seems like liberal Americans likes to often say, “that’s why the world hates us” to show our imperfections as a country. I have been in the world more than most of my friends and relatives, and those who say that phrase seem to hate America for than the world does. Talking to natives in Korea, Bali, China, or now here in Vietnam, I see that people still think highly of American opportunities and freedom. They speak of it with a quickened voice and a sparkle that is long gone from those critical of the U.S. As I have said often, it’s not an attitude that you must love Bush and the war and all that goes along with that to be considered a good American. Rather, I wish they didn’t lose the forest for the trees. More time is spent complaining about Bush and Republicans and conservativism which drowns any remaining joy about being an American. This attitude of malcontentness, while at times can initiate change, will not simply dissolve with a new administration. If a Democrat wins in 2008, you’ll still find something to complain about, because there are too many conservatives in Congress. Or the Supreme Court. Or, in local politics. Or on the school boards. Or in your workplace. Or on the radiowaves. Or on Fox. As a conservative, I feel like you will continue your harange until we all are wiped out, and your Master Political Race not only rules, but also is the only voice in this land. I have learned a few things from being around you and reading your articles. The main point I gleaned is this: you do not want me around. Other than a whipping boy or the reason America is in the toilet or why the world hates us, I serve no purpose in your mind.

The irony of this is that I welcome the discussion, and I could be persuaded to vote in your direction on some issues if we had more of a discussion on these topics. I do not vote “conservative” like a well-trained puppy. I welcome the discussion, but you do not want me in. Your starting point is an ad hominim argument. Your complaining interferes with debate and discussion. You exaggerate and caricature. Eye-rolling never convinced anybody of anything.

I met another teacher here whom I’ve grown to greatly respect. Kim is a strong liberal who is critical of Bush, etc. I recently “came out of the closet” to him on my political beliefs. He asked why I never said anything earlier. I told him that when I tell people of my affiliation, I am judged. I want you to know who I am before you put me in your prepackaged container. It’s a lot like skin color. You judge before you know anything about me. So, I’ve adapted to the hostile environment you created by hiding who I am. I gently smile at your jokes and knowing nods and cruel insults. You have made it clear that you are not as “tolerant” as you like to tell people you are. Where is your tolerance now? “Minds Are Like Parachutes…” your bumper sticker says. Where’s that open-mindedness when you are around someone who voted for Bush?

What time does the goose-stepping lessons begin?

The American War Museum

We visited a museum today that showed a slanted and propagandistic view of the Vienam War today (this is the way our Vietnamese tour guide and the tour books refer to it). It was to show the atrocities of war. There were three dead babies in pickling jars, all dead from mustard gas birth defects. It was gross.

The Shortest Route Between Two Points

Kristie and I hired a driver and a tour guide to take us to the Mekong Delta. I talked with the guide about Vietnam history, especially about communism. It was a non-issue for him, though. He said that he was the guide for a Russian guide last year who said to him, “Communism is the longest route from capitalism to capitalism.”

Lon's Pointy Hat

Lan is our next tour guide on the boat itself. We paid $45, and it seems like he purchased a guide for each strip of land in the Mekong Delta. She has one of those pointed bamboo hats that we always see in the explosion scenes in Good Morning, Vietnam-type movies worn by crouching rice field workers. She smiles a lot and her eyes turn upward at the outer corners. She’d look nefarious if she didn’t look so happy. Her English is rough, but she tries to communicate. She repeats herself often. Not like our grandmothers do by telling the same story about the Depression or what it was like to wear knickers in the winter. Rather, Lon punctuates her sentences by repeating the phrase she ended with. When we were starting our journey, she reviewed the itinerary. She said, “Here we will visit a coconut candy factory. A coconut candy factory. Then, we will go to the south to have a traditional meal. A traditional meal.” She is one of those guides that feels she must earn her keep by a constant volley of words. Of words. As if she is the Charles Dickens of the Southeast Asian tourism world, getting paid Vietnam dong per spoken word.

Nietzsche
Lon tells me about the local people in their fishing boats as we pass by. I’m not understanding it all, but I dutifully nod and smile, resentful of Kristie’s freedom to look at whatever she wants. She tells me about the local people on the island and their crops. She said something that sounded a lot like, “The local people look like Nietzsche. Look like Nietzsche. You know Nietzsche?” Now, I know this isn’t what she said, so before I launched into a philosophical discussion of Thus Spoke Zarathustra and Beyond Good and Evil, I simply said no.

Rolling Down Your Sleeves and Working
On our canoe-like boat trip through a canal that splits one of the islands, our other guide pointed out the gloves on the boat drivers’ arms. These gloves cover fingertips to biceps, something Batman would wear. They do this, he said, to avoid getting a tan. They want to look white. I told him that white people want to look darker, so they tan. He said both want the same thing. For the Vietnamese, dark skins equates to hard, outdoor labor and a lower social status. The gloves help keep the skin underneath white, so they can go out, take off the gloves, and hide what they do for a living. White Americans want to portray the image of a life sitting on a beach, rather than the whiter-than-Dilbert alabaster that comes from working in an office. Their bronzed bodies show that they live a life of Riley. Color, he said, puts one’s status in society out for all to see.

We wear our social status on our literal sleeves, I guess.

Ho Chi Minh Was Once Saigon

“Is France a land of fat, smoking alcoholics?”

This is a headline in the newspaper I am reading in the hotel restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam. I can only wonder if the Vietnamese still have a bit a residual resentment lingering from the French Indochina occupation. Or, maybe, like most of us, they just don’t like the French.

We are finally here. After turmoil, we arrived in our rooms about 3 am. We were to be here a day ago, but we were stuck in three-hour traffic on the way to the airport in Seoul and missed our plane. We arrived at the same time the plane was leaving. An unhappy trip, to say the least. Even though I took a day off of work to extend our trip, I went into school defeated. I told the story 14,000 times. However, while I was preaching a depressed story to the children to conjure sympathy (they didn’t really care about missed planes or Vietnam trips), Kristie was orchestrating a do-over. At 3:15, we were on another bus to Incheon Airport. We made it with lots of time to spare. Early enough for me to ponder ways to bottle the excess time spent waiting for planes and transfer it to an account for use when traffic is slow or lines are long. I welcome your suggestions.

The hotel never picked us up, so we took a ride in a taxi. There were dozens of taxis in front, but, for some unknown reason, the guy we hired parked across a dark and dodgy lot. I told him the name of the hotel, and he smiled and tried to make conversation, as he politely swindled us out of our twenty dollars for a $1.00 ride.

There are many scooters in this city.

Today is Thanksgiving, and it is supposed to be 88 degrees. We are not part of a tour, so as soon as Kristie gets down here from showering, we’ll figure out what we’d like to do. There’s a few museums dedicated to the war. I’m interesting in those. It’s one of those places that I knew about but never thought I’d visit. I remember my 11th grade U.S. History teacher telling us about her visit here, and how beautiful it was. That was a long time ago, but I often thought about that. Last year, I taught the Vietnam War for the first time, and learned more than I ever knew about the war before. Platoon and Full Metal Jacket were the only textbooks I read on the matter. Oh yeah, Rambo as well.

For you jazz folks, Herbie Hancock will be in the city tomorrow for a music festival. Finally, after many years of anticipation, I can hear a live version of “Rocket.” I wonder if the robot mannequins travel with him.

I like how people go back and forth referring to this city as Saigon and Ho Chi Minh City. I’m unsure which to call it. Now I know how those Turks in Constantinople felt when it became Istanbul.

It's a Movie Bonanza

Here's a link to what's showing at our base movie theater. Please read this and pity us.

November is a stellar month. No movies this week due to an exercise, then Roll Bounce and Get Rich or Die Tryin. I wouldn't pay 50 Cent to see either of those.

Word.

Veteran's Day Celebrating

Today is a day off from school due to Veteran's Day. I'm a vet, but none of you wrote to wish me a happy Veteran's Day. It's not just for the wounded, you know.

Kristie and I spent the day cleaning out the garbage on our computers and backing up the important data. Our hard drives whiz along smoothly now and the desktops sparkle. I almost hope for a fatal crash on the system so I can restore it all easily. Above is a screenshot from the current incarnation of Dashboard. The Top 10 movies of the week is my favorite of the widgets.

I bought Zero 7's "Simple Things" album today. It has been the soundtrack of our day, and it is growing slightly annoying now.

I shredded two months of receipts today, and I organized my office. I began making a movie to show you what the place looks like, but it didn't come out as good as I thought it would. Could it be that I'm not as charming on camera as I think I am?

We are going to a dinner party tonight. It's 3:58 pm, and Kristie just changed out of her jammies.

Quarter One

First quarter ended on Thursday. Looking at the grades brought me one step closer to abandoning the teaching profession. I have already started thinking of other career paths I'd like, ones in which I am not held responsible for other people's laziness. After the report cards arrive, I'm sure I'll get a barrage of emails from parents angry with me for the grade. There is little blame put on the student in such matters. I say something similiar each time:

I put all assignments online.
At the start of each unit, I give students a schedule of the next 3-4 weeks of assignments.
I am available to help tutor kids before and after school, but I have not had many come in.

Still, it is not sufficient for some reason. We are raising a generation of young people to shift responsibility and work off of their shoulders onto others. In the short time I have been a teacher (six years, ten if you count my alternative school time), I sensed the decline grow steeper. By this, I mean that students are getting better at not learning. Now, I am not idealizing the good ole days when I worked on lessons in the wee hours of the night. "Three's Company" and Spiderman comics were more interesting to me than reading Huckleberry Finn and filling out worksheets on geometric problems. But, when my poor grades arrived, my parents blamed only one. Me. I couldn't imagine my mom calling the teacher to complain about my D in English, citing the problem as "Ron feels that you don't like him," or "Ron was quite busy around the house. I am to blame for that." I have heard both of these excuse sitting on the other side of the teacher desk, let me tell you. When parents do this, a powerful– and damaging – is learned.

I want kids to enjoy my classes. With this, I want them to earn good grades. But I cannot work harder on their grades than they are. They are the ones that need to do the assignments. I'll help, of course, but I'm not going to give As automatically. If they are involved in sports, they need to work harder to make up missing assignments. [Note: I continue to desire to work at a school without sports. I believe that if schools removed those programs, the academics would improve. Both schools I've worked at state that "academics comes before athletics," but neither of them do that. If coaches stopped with the "dumb jock" stereotype, perhaps students would, too.]

Thus ends the invective.

Starbucks Store Count

Seoul-108 stores

Portland-57 stores

Rhode Island-12 stores

Sly's Back

Sylvester Stallone has just announced plans to return to his role as John Rambo in Rambo IV. You probably already heard last month's press release about Sly becoming Rocky Balboa again (sans Adrian) in Rocky VI. With any luck, maybe he'll also become yet another one of his beloved characters, Lincoln Hawk from Over the Top. I believe that the world of truck driving-arm wrestling still has a lot of room to explore in a sequel.

Courageous Channel

One of the downsides of working among a military community is that we sometimes have to play those military games. No, Kristie is not forced to wear an olive-drab uniform while twirling a machine gun synchronistically with tank commanders and infantrymen. Rather, we have to take part in a peninsula-wide exercise to prepare us to be evacuated in case of an attack of North Korea or a natural disaster. If there is an attack, they will start the processing and send us teachers, spouses, children, etc. to either Japan or Hawaii to be averted from danger.

Like everything else in Military Land, the exercise is labeled with an acronym. NEO stands for Noncombatant Evacuation Operation. I’m not sure which is more disturbing, the fact of an attack from the north, or that I’m now labeled as a noncombatant. I can wield a weapon just as good as the next guy. I juggle knives, you know.

We do this twice a year, in October and April. This one is called Courageous Channel, which is a bit of a misnomer. Evacuating when trouble comes seems to be the exact opposite of courageous. Perhaps they call it that to avoid making us pathetic, not-up-to-snuff-for-fighting-the-communists teachers feel lower than the airmen. That’s mighty considerate.

The entire exercise took about an hour. When I see Kim Jung Il, I’m going to tell him how he has inconvenienced me.

Sax Education

The weather after school is still pleasant enough for me to sit outside on my patio to relax for a few minutes. It won't be for long, so I make an effort to come out here each day to sit and stare at our neighbor’s bug-infested tree while I try to purge myself from the day. It will grow cold in a few weeks; in fact, today I have to wear a jacket. I usually make some tea, put on some music on the iPod, and relax. Ron Time, if you will.

Today’s selection is John Coltrane’s Giant Steps. However, Coltrane’s smooth sax is competing with our next-building-over neighbor’s saxophone. Yes, there is a Korean man (or woman, who knows) that practices while I’m out here. Kristie says that he plays all day as well. And all that practicing isn’t doing too much to make him any better, believe me. So here I am, with Coltrane in one ear and the Korean man in the other. Quite the juxtaposition. I’m not sure which is worse, his playing alone or his defiling John Coltrane’s playing. Either way, it’s frustrating.

I can’t help but look at this as a metaphor for my classroom. I teach a 9th grade integrated Honors class this year, along with 11th grade English and US History. The freshman class is World History and World Literature combined into one class that spans two periods. Three hours with the same students. Try that one on for size, Hondo. I have taught 9th grade Honors before this year, and it is one of the most frustrating because it is usually the first honors-level class that these students take. To get in to the class requires nothing more than wanting to get in. Grades, teacher recommendations, parent signature, etc., have no bearing on who gets to sign up for this class. Overall, I like that. If a student wants to take a challenging class, he should. However…

The skill and –oh, let’s just say it– intelligence varies greatly among these 29 students. On one side are those students who force me to read and prepare because they are sharp and interested. One the other side, there are those who have a difficult time finding Korea on a map. Yet there they are, all staring at me, waiting for instruction (except for those cartographically challenged…they are staring out the window humming the Rugrats theme song). Sometimes it feels like one side is ruining the other, much like the amateur saxophonist is doing to Coltrane, and I am in the company of both.

I’m sure the neighbor sax man doesn’t want to squeak out the notes, and he probably wishes he could play more like Coltrane. Perhaps he listens to him for inspiration as he attempts to improve his craft. He has probably heard many times that his playing stinks and that he should simply watch TV or take up the air guitar. But he still practices every day. Those little freshman that I told you about have perfect attendance, even those who are earning C’s and D’s in class. Those non-Coltranes, both in the next building and in my class, know how far away from Coltrane they sound. They know that more than I do because they are the ones who listen to themselves every lesson. They have listened to the harangues of critics and felt the sarcastic comments from instructors. But, they come each day for another go-around. Perhaps this practice session will turn one of the honks or screeches into that note that were aiming for.

I stopped typing for a moment and listened to the sounds blur together again. Sure, it’s still terrible, but I think he is getting better.

Class Animals

The school nurse sent out an email today asking for a list of any animals that teachers have in the room. Of course, this means class pets (hamsters, fish, etc.). Of course, we teachers had other things in mind. Less than thirty minutes later, she had to send out another email addressing all the jokes that came in to her in that time asking for "cages for the 25 animals in the room."

I guess I wasn't the only one who thought of that one.

Changes

My birthday was yesterday; I'm now 36 years old. I'm thinking about growing a mustache.

Bopping to the DMZ

I passed a radio in the supply room at school today. It was in Korean, but I recognized the rhythm. It was "She Bop" by Cyndi Lauper. Korean techno-style. I couldn't understand the words since it was all in Korean. One can only wonder how "She Bop" translates into Korean. These are the moments that shock me into remembering that I'm in another country. Perhaps another world. I returned to my classroom humming the Lauper hit. If they can do this, I wonder what the disco crowd could do with "Total Eclipse of the Heart." Something funky, I'm sure.

Seoul now has 104 Starbucks. Up from 97 two weeks ago. Up from 57 last year when we arrived.

Kristie and I went to North Korean last Saturday, sort of. We traveled to the DMZ, the two-mile stretch that separates the two countries. On the west border is the Joint Security Area, a small plot of land for both sides to meet and negotiate. Here, both sides post armed soldiers to "keep the peace." We had to sign a waiver acknowledging our understanding that it is a hostile military area, and that we could be involved in a incident that could lead to injury or even death. We also quickly signed it because we wanted our picture with the guard. What fools... One of the houses has the dividing line through the middle, so Kristie and I went to that side. Not much different.

It was a strange experience, visiting the intersection of two opposing countries. Kristie tried to egg on the two sets of guards to fight, but it didn't work.

See all the DMZ pictures at http://www.flickr.com/photos/34261721@N00/sets/1156630/

Nine Words That Almost Rhyme with Korea

9. Diarrhea

8. Careen

7. Farina

6. Corey Hart

5. Creamier

4. Greener

3. Cornea

2. Corina

1. Coia

I'm Tired of Lost

I am sick of Lost.

I know that I am perhaps one of the few still-breathing television watchers who would make such a blasphemous claim on this much-heralded show. Even now, there are diehards who will quickly post complaints on www.matthewfoxisafox.com or www.iwishjohnlockewasmydad.com to elicit shame and scorn my way for writing such a sentiment.

I was in Korea when the show aired in the States. Since I’m a regular reader of Entertainment Weekly, however, I feel like I know the premise and the annoying hoopla of the program. EW seems to have a twisted love affair, more disturbing that Shannon’s and Boone’s, with that show, complete with multi-paged spreads of the men standing in a faux ocean dripping water and testosterone. I read about the hatch, the lottery numbers, the comic book, the ability to walk again, etc. Friends back home talked about it with great awe and reverence, waiting for the new episode to tell who is bad or good, where the other survivors are, or when Claire’s baby will arrive. I even knew about Boone’s death. That was another article in EW. Unlike The Village, knowing the secrets made me want to see the show more. When the season was released on DVD, I tried in vain to rent it (the small rental store had ample copies of discs 3, 4, and 7 only), until I plopped down forty bucks to buy the set. Keep in mind that I only buy three shows: Seinfeld, Scrubs, and Arrested Development. Lost should be grateful it is in such genius.

Thus far, we’ve watched 20 out of 24 of the episodes. It started interesting and novel, but by episode 10, I lost sympathy. I couldn’t take the dull, slow episodes laced with cheesy dialogue that 9th grade girls write when I give them an assignment. Perhaps it is watching two or three at a time daily without commercials ruined it. I see it all too much for what it really is. There is no processing time to spread out the flaws. Rather, they are all there in 40-minute blocks piggybacked by another, then by another. Perhaps that week in-between does something to you to make you only remember the nice parts, kind of the way we do when we think we like a song heard sporadically on the radio. When we actually listen to it, we see that it is foolishness.

I’m tired of Kate– looking as if she just stepped out of a jungle shower after gently shampooing with herbs and berries and dressed in a new outfit which is a bit smaller than she is– popping up randomly to plead with Jack to help Sawyer.

I’m tired of the talk of the hatch. I don’t know what it is, but I don’t care. I’m tired of belabored camera shots and explanations to show the island’s magic. Hurley’s lottery numbers are the same ones on the hatch? Whoopee. I’m tired of Michael and Jin yelling. Am I the only one who could see the future and see that they would become unlikely friends in an upcoming episode? In one of the later episodes, Jin comes with an armful of supplies to give to Michael. “Boat,” Jin says in fractured English. Oh please. Save it for the Hallmark channel.

Of course, the most flat and dull character is Jack himself. Tortured to do the right thing in every situation while combating daddy issues, Jack makes for predictable and dull television. If I played drinking games, I’d play one where “Jack” was the drinking word. You’d down a healthy dose before the first commercial break advertising a new Lexus.

Sawyer, the bad-boy-meets-the-hurt-child-inside character, is not much better. Let me guess, he’ll have a supply that the gang needs, Jack will argue with him, Sawyer will lie, Kate will say, “I’ll get it,” Kate and Sawyer will talk, Sawyer will make a joke about Jack, he’ll call her “Freckles,” then he will give the needed item. There’s your episode.

I’m sure I’ll watch the remaining episodes, perhaps even tonight, but that doesn’t mean that I’m going to like it. No matter what happens on this island, I can be sure of one thing: I’m not going to care. The comparisons to (and references to) Lord of the Flies are wrong. It would be giving Lost too much credit. Look at it as if it were a dramatic version of Gilligan’s Island. It would be difficult to take it seriously.

I feel that John Locke would wholeheartedly agree with me.

Seoul Museum Trip 10/1/05

Seoul Museum Trip 10/1/05, originally uploaded by roncoia.

Yesterday, Kristie and I went to Seoul with a couple of the new folks here at Osan. We went to a fortress in the middle of the city, then to a painting exhibit called, "The Exquisite Beauty in Suffering." It wasn't as exciting as the name implies.

After that, we went to Outback Steakhouse (authentic Korean...), Starbucks, then to Rodin's gallery.

Then, we went to a photo exhibit titled, "Our Mutual Crossing." An Australian photographer came to Seoul, and a Korean went to Melbourne to photograph. This was the collection. It was an excellent show. I wish I could show some of them.

We came home and watched Peppermint Candy, the first Korean movie I have seen. It played at the Portland Film Festival in 2002.

Here's the link to the photo gallery of yesterday: http://www.flickr.com/photos/34261721@N00/sets/1053053/.