The one about leisure

When Elder Scrolls 3, Morrowind, came out, I remember playing sometimes 15 hours straight.  It was the first game like that I had ever experienced, and it was completely blowing me away.  Before that, all I had ever played really was Age of Empires.

That wasn't exactly good for me, though, playing long stretches at a time, so when Elder Scrolls 4, Oblivion, came out, I promised myself to play only two hours maximum at a time.  

I lied.  

I ended up playing Oblivion hours on end, too, because it was just so cool and so much better than Morrowind, I honestly couldn't get enough of it.  I even bought a new television to make the Oblivion experience all the better.

So now Skyrim has come out, Elder Scrolls 5.  It's compelling just like the others in the series, but for some reason, I have not sat on the XBox hour after hour playing it.  I have played for a couple hours then gone off to do other things, all without threatening myself or setting alarm clocks or anything more extraordinary than simply glancing at the clock and saying, "Hey, I want to go outside now."  Maybe I'm finally growing up?  Unlikely, but maybe.

The graphics and scripting and character interactions are the best ever in Skyrim.  For the first few days of play, I really didn't do much except wander around the game world enjoying how beautiful it was, how the butterflies flew, how the grass waved in the breeze, how people chopped wood and smithed blades, as well as how the occasional sabertooth cat could slice me in two with one swipe.  Fascinating.

But now I'm down to business and getting into the actual meat of gameplay.  I got married in the game world so I could have a steady and daily flow of income from my spouse.  That was never possible before.  There are children in the game, too.  Elder Scrolls games never had children characters before.  A lot of the grooviest stuff must have come from the game makers' experience with Fallout 3, because there are aspects of Skyrim that remind me of Fallout, and some of the voice actors were also in Fallout.  

Games like this are little escapes from reality, and that's not a bad thing.  It's a hell of a lot better than watching television.  TV as entertainment is a total waste of time. Everyone needs to have and enjoy meaningful leisure on a regular basis.  My job affords me the time and opportunity to engage in several different leisure activities; Skyrim is just one. 

I hope that you, too, have something fulfilling and fun and challenging to do when you are not working to make a living, be it reading great books, building things, fixing things, playing games, hiking, biking, or whatever.  Make sure you create leisure for yourself regularly.  It's what helps us stay sane in this crazy world.

All the photos here are swiped from the Internet because I cannot find my Morrowind screen shots, and I never played Oblivion or Skyrim on anything other than the XBox where you can't take screenshots.

The one about improvement and attitude

Before I came to Korea I had used chopsticks on and off and could at least get the food to my mouth without dropping it, well, most of the time anyway.  Over the years I have lived here, my proficiency with chopsticks has improved off the scale, yet I noticed something a few years ago.  I don't hold chopsticks the same way Koreans do, yet I can use chopsticks just as well as they can.  In that little observation, a whole philosophy of learning appeared before my eyes.  Proficiency lies not in technical imitation, but in the extent of usage.  Tell someone to reach a goal, give him a pointer or two, and let him go.  Given the opportunity to practice the skill, they will arrive at the goal, though maybe not the same way you had intended nor with the same style you expected.

Learning English (or any language) works the same way.  However, here in Korea, many are obsessed with technical imitation which ultimately defeats most of them long before they gain suitable proficiency in the language.  My observation isn't some novel approach to the whole English learning endeavor, because I have heard experienced English teachers say over and over that improvement comes with usage.  Speak more, write more, listen more, read more, and your language skills will improve.  However, instead of creating an abundance of opportunities for real and genuine use of English, many universities and communities in Korea discourage such things in favor of classroom rote and mimicry.  For example, I have online conversation classes in the 3D virtual world of Second Life.  Many of my learners appreciate that this environment compels them to use English extensively whether in my class setting or elsewhere in the online environment.  The virtual reality allows a much more realistic use of the language than they find in a brick & mortar classroom.  They can not only meet native English speakers as well as people from any number of other countries who use the English language within the virtual world, they can also exchange real and personal ideas and opinions in the common language and receive back the same from others. Usage improves skill.  It's true with a hedge trimmer, it's true with pastry, it's true with language.  However, our school is closing its presence in Second Life and enforcing the rule that language education must take place as though it were no different than a math, science, or history class. English is data to be learned, not a language to be used.

Another hindrance to learning, at our school anyway, is that the English speaking teaching staff are crowded into mass offices with many teachers per office.  My students find it uncomfortable to come to my office, because there are eleven other teachers sitting there listening to them, and I am in the least populated office.  It's intimidating, to the low level learner especially, to visit a teacher in this environment.  The university thinks it's the teachers who just want private or semi-private offices for our own comfort, but the reality is, it's the students who suffer from this secretarial pool setting where they are too nervous to come see their teacher because it's like stepping on a stage in front of an audience.  Nobody likes their problems or academic difficulties on display like that, especially if their language skills are minimal.  It's like seeing your priest or rabbi for a personal problem while a dozen strangers are listening in.  The university is discouraging student-English teacher interaction by denying the student-teacher privacy all other teachers at the university are favored with.  If I were a student, I would not come see my teacher in a room full of strangers unless I absolutely had to, but that's what we see not just here but all across the realm of the Korean English education system.  Our students don't come by our offices to talk; they come for incidental reasons.  They come to take make-up tests. They come to turn in a late homework.  They come to ask a quick question about when their midterm exam is.  They come to bring a can of Pocari Sweat as a gift. They do not come to consult with the teacher to help them speak English better, because in a room of many other teachers, you cannot speak freely, you have to lower your voice, you are distracted.  The Korean education system once again rallies to assert its time-tested recipe for failure.

There are thousands and thousands of native English speakers living in Korea, yet the schools and universities ignore us as a resource.  We are just foreigners and workers who need to be controlled and constricted.  Many of us have degrees in subjects that allow us to teach those subjects either in high schools or universities, yet the Koreans opt to use us only in "conversation" classes which meet once a week, if there isn't one of their innumerable holidays in the way of that.  Unless we have fluency in Korean language, we are not allowed to teach our subjects which defeats the whole reason we are supposedly here in Korea in the first place, to provide opportunities for them to use English in real-life situations.  The Koreans started this 'learn English' venture and invited the thousands and thousands of us here to help them fulfill it while at the same time tying our hands behind our backs, gagging us, and generally ensuring that we will not get too comfortable in their country.  Some teachers stick it out because there are no jobs back home worth taking.  Some stick it out because they believe there is no problem, that people like me are simply exaggerating Korean ineptitude.  Some, though, just get sick of the hypocrisy and lip service to education and go where their contributions will be appreciated.

Koreans amaze me in many ways.  They are obviously a long-established homogenous people.  Their nation is so old that no language has survived that is related to Korean. That's pretty cool.  Their general outlook on life and society can be thought-provoking and even admirable.  It's their inflexibility that also amazes me, however.  Their reticence to create or to innovate is holding them back too much.  I love Korea, and I don't say that flippantly.  Sure, I get irritated with the nuisances of daily life here, but so do native Koreans; when all is said and done, though, and I'm sitting at home with my cat on my lap and warm cup of tea in my hands, I can reflect and honestly say that I do love Korea.  It's not from any malice that I bring up the serious inadequacies of the Korean approach to language education. It's because I know they can do better.  It's because I know English is crucial to success in the modern world and I want every Korean to succeed.  If Koreans don't come to grips with how language is learned and implement changes necessary to ensure the common language takes root in their country, they will not be nearly as successful as they could be.  Korea, we are here for you, but if you don't change your attitude, we might not stay.

The one about garbage bins

Back in the States, I always just dumped my food waste in with my regular household waste, but here in Korea, they use these little buckets for food waste.  The lining is slatted to allow liquid waste to pass through so you can dispose of it in the waste water system and the solid food waste you can... well, I really don't know what to do with the solid food waste.  Some apartment houses have special containers out near the trash collection area just for food waste, but our apartment house doesn't have that, so I end up draining my food waste and simply tossing it in with the regular trash much as I have always done my whole life.

The other day the old lady who, with her elderly husband, kind of acts as the overseer of the building came ringing my doorbell at 8:30 in the morning.  I usually don't answer the door at 8:30 since I'm more than likely still in my underwear.  Each apartment has a video camera on the doorbell; I looked at the monitor and saw it was the old lady, so I slipped on some pants and answered the door.  She stood there telling me about these garbage buckets and something something "go bring you one" something something.  I couldn't really understand what she was saying, but I think the gist was "if you need one of these buckets [she was holding one up for me to see] I'll go and get you one."  She can hardly get up and down the stairs here, so I might have gotten mixed up on that bit.  She might have been telling me to go get one.  However, I already have one, but I don't know what more to do with it. There is a special truck that comes by and empties these garbage containers at buildings that have them, but since our building doesn't have one, I'm not sure what to do.  Should I just take my little bin out there and hope nobody steals it?  Who would steal a garbage bin? You never know, but these 2-dollar bins are small enough to walk off with unnoticed.

It's a good idea to separate food garbage from regular trash.  It keeps down vermin and the collected material can be used for composting.  I'm sure the collectors earn money from farmers for most if not all of it.  Maybe I'll start investigating this more, though not sure anyone in my building will understand me. I can order food in a restaurant and go shopping, use taxis, and read most posted signs around town, but my Korean language skills are abysmal for getting spoken information.  Maybe I need to try anyway, just because it's the right thing to do.  Isn't it funny how something as mundane as garbage can compel us to change the way we think?

The one about waiting in line

Every year when I visit America, something rubs me the wrong way so bad that I have to respond with passion.  This year it is that stupid way Americans stand in line.

This past summer I spent a month and a half in America.  One day at Wal-Mart in Bay City, Michigan, I approached the self check-out area and saw an empty station.  There was a woman and her child standing in the area, well back from the self check-out stations, but the woman made no move toward the empty station, so I walked up to it.  A few seconds later I hear this muttering, "He saw me standing here..."  I turned and after a few choice words, we argued, and I told her off because IF she actually were waiting in line, she shouldn't have been standing 15 feet away.  I'm not happy that I lost my cool, but sometimes these people have to hear how stupid they are or else they'll never know.



During one of my motorcycle trips around Michigan, I stopped at a Dairy Queen in Grayling, and while I sat on my motorcycle eating a cone, I snapped pictures of patrons coming up to the DQ and standing in line.

When I was in line earlier, I stood right behind the person in front of me, and when she had received her order, she turned around to walk away and shot me a look that said, "What is wrong with you?"  I was 2 feet behind her, which seemed completely normal to me.  To her, that was way too close for comfort.

Americans grow up with distance between them.  Our houses are usually not abutting the neighbors (except maybe in older crowded cities). We also grow up scared to death somebody will touch us.  At Wal*Mart, on this same trip, a woman brushed by me, literally her shirt brushed my shirt, and at her reaction I instinctively flinched because she turned suddenly on me and raised her arms and said, "Oh my god, I'm so sorry!"  At first I had no idea on earth what was happening and why this woman was frantically trying to appease me.  She proceeded to apologize more specifically for "bumping into" me (!)

All the while she's apologizing, I'm thinking about my last 14 years in Korea where bumping and pushing are just part of daily life.  She had no idea that her little brush of my shirt was literally nothing compared to what I'm used to.

Americans have conditioned themselves to need as much space as possible, both physically and psychologically.  The concept of personal space is real, but I think Americans take if way too far.  Humans have no real reason so keep such distance from each other.  We are all in life together; we are all related.

Distance does not create community.  Closeness creates community. If America is to become a real society, a peaceful, caring society, this notion of huge personal space has to vanish.  Get close to your neighbor.  Stand near each other in line.  Reach out and touch a stranger to show that you're no threat, that distance is not necessary.  Use your body to spread the message of peace and love for your fellow human beings by making your personal space as small as possible.

The one about Venus and stuff

Several years ago, in 2004, I started a search for solar filters for my binoculars so that I could watch the transit of Venus.  It was not easy!  If you live in Korea, you know how nearly impossible it is to get specialized items, so you can imagine that in 2004 it was even harder.  However, I eventually found a little astronomy club in Seoul that ran a shop for that sort of thing and I got my lens filters.  They worked great!

Unfortunately, the transit of Venus took place for us in Korea late in the day, so it would be visible only during sunset.  It was also on a work day.  I told the hagwon owner where I worked what was going on, that the transit was a rare event we would probably only see once more in our lifetimes.  I also suggested that since I had the binoculars and the filters, the middle school children might be interested in the phenomenon, too.  We could talk about it and then maybe look up information about Venus.  Hagwon owners are notoriously anti-education, and lest you think that it is strange for educational institutions to be anti-education, let me remind you that hagwons are for-profit businesses and are run as such.  Not only did the hagwon owner say no, emphatically, he forbade me to go outside during work to see the transit of Venus.  Of course, I went outside anyway, and some of the students came with me to see this rare event for themselves.  I'm a teacher; I'm not a businessman specializing in education for profit.  The business of education in Korea gets in the way of education all the time here.  This was just one example that I experienced, a rather glaring example of why Koreans don't learn anything.  They are some of the most ignorant and ill-informed people on the face of earth.  They start out with curiosity just like anyone else, but the business of education, that reach for the almighty won, squashes curiosity in favor of the ruts that lead to company jobs and million-dollar apartments in Gangnam.  Don't ever tell me that Koreans are better learners than Americans.  The only thing Koreans do better is memorize formulas, equations, and facts.  Americans go outside and see the world, experience the universe, learn for the sheer joy of learning whether it makes them rich or not.

Everything is finished!  The students have all had their final one-on-one interviews with me, and all the grades have been posted, the absences entered into the university system, and my semester portfolio turned in.  The students have two weeks to contest their grades.  Two weeks?  Yes, in Korea, a tiny country where almost every house has high speed internet access they still give students two weeks to contest their grades.  Usually, if they want to contest what they got, they'll do it right away.  So far no one has ... oh wait.  One student wrote me this email:


Hello!

Last semester I'm happy to listen your lecture.

I enjoyed talking with you and many students.

However, I saw my conversation grade yesterday.

I thought that my grade is a little low.

And I heard that in absolute evalutation many students get good grade.

Is everything left to your own discretion?

Why did I got grade B+? 

Please tell me~ㅠ_ㅠ

Would you upgrade my score?

I really need your consideration!

If I get A0 , I can take classes more. It is school rugulation.

The reason is that I complete a course in teacher education.

It means that I have two major subject.

I have to take lesson more than other people.

I need to take three required subjects next semester.

If I give grades 4.0 , I can do it.

But I can't do it. I got B+, so I lack point a little.

Please consider it again~^,^

My guiding criterion in that class was how much they talked.  It's a conversation course after all, and the more they talked, the higher their grade.  This young lady didn't talk even enough for a B+, but I was generous.  Now, I can guarantee that if I don't up her grade to A, there will be repercussions that could eventually result in my contract not being renewed,  That's how they do it here.  Korea is not known for its high academic standards, and every semester we have to decide whether our academic integrity is more important than our jobs.  I have learned from several mistakes that the job is more important.  It's their country; they set the standards.  They threaten us all the time not to renew our contracts unless we do as they say, and happy students mean they will stay at our school and therefore mommy and daddy's money will stay here as well.  Follow the money.  That's where "education" is these days.

The one that needed to be said

Nobody in my family will come and get me at the Detroit airport when I fly in from Korea. So, I had to make a car rental reservation to drive to my hometown of West Branch. The closest place to my hometown where I can return the car is a small airport 50 miles away. Even at that short distance, a mere 50 miles, an hour's trip (after my 6,700 miles and 13 hours to get there from Korea), nobody wants to go that far on "the fourth of July weekend" to drive me back after returning the car. They're afraid of the horrible traffic, even though the weekend doesn't start until Friday evening and the car return is Friday morning. Here is what I wrote to my family, then deleted and didn't send. However, I needed to get this off my chest:


The entire state of Michigan has a population that is one third the population of Seoul, South Korea, a single city. You do not have traffic, trust me. If everyone in Michigan decided to go to one place all at the same time, you still wouldn't have traffic.

I'm sick of it. I'm sick of my own family believing that me traveling literally halfway across the planet to see them is easy, cheap and stress-free. It isn't. There is not a one of you I wouldn't go meet at any airport, literally any, or risk life and limb to pick up even if you had only gone a few miles to get there. I could never allow anyone I love to be stranded anywhere for any length of time if I had the means to prevent it.

I know my value to my family, I have known it for years, but I persist in visiting you all anyway because you are dear to my heart even though I am of little account to you. When you're gone, any of you, I will be beside myself with grief. On the other hand, if I were to die tomorrow I can guarantee that not a single one of you would bother to come and collect the things that were special to my life or see where I lived or show any interest in my accomplishments. So enjoy this visit; it is the last I will make. There are places I would like to see, but I haven't, because I thought visiting you was more important. No more. I will see the places I want from now on, and if you want to see me, you'll do the traveling, you'll spend the money, you'll take on the stress.

Love,

Mike