The One Where I Used the Word 'Bindle'

Since our Homeplus/Tesco department store is so tiny, they made room a few weeks ago by co-opting the entryway into a sales area and pushing all the lockers outside.  If you aren't aware, Korean stores often have lockers for your bags and accessories, I mean lap puppies.  So now the local Korean ladies get to stuff their lap puppies into lockers outside in the hot sun.  This little guy was really distraught, probably overheated and thirsty, but I learned a long time ago that a foreigner in Korea can lose his job if he raises a stink and it gets back to his employers somehow, so I just leave them alone and hope for the best.

I had a nice chat on the phone with B.C. up in Seoul.  They're not traveling for the Harvest Festival holiday next weekend.  With this swine flu thing, I suppose they have the right idea.  I'm planning on being in Ansan for the holiday.  Simon says they have plenty of room for me.  Not sure if I should get the half-ton of honey or the quarter ton of ginseng gift boxes.   I can wrap whatever I get in a large kerchief and carry it like a bindle... well, then it actually would be a bindle, I suppose! LOL


I had intended to go into the uni to my office today to get some work done.  I'm behind sending out pats on the back for this past week's classes.  Friday's classes haven't gotten their kudos from me yet!  Plus, I try to look at the homework and let them know the major problems I see in it.  The ROTC lesson yesterday never materialized, because while I was taking roll, I asked them what their weekend plans were, and then I used what they said as a basis to demonstrate better ways to say those things, and that pretty much became the lesson.  We don't have class next week due to Harvest Festival, but I gave them U.S. military ranks to memorize, because we're going to play Army and talk about how to address officers and give commands, etc. when we meet again.  Yes, Sergeant Major!

The One Where My Motorcycle Kind of Looked Sexy for a Few Minutes

Yes, even I must endure the mundane!  This is my bike getting its check up and oil change.  It occurred to me as I stood waiting how beautiful she is really.  Not very strong, but she gets me where I'm going and looks good doing it.

Yesterday morning I discovered my internet was out, but I went off to the uni anyway to putter, kind of believing it would all sort itself out when I came home.  But it hadn't.  So I ended up on the phone trying to tell the woman my problem with her talking just about as fast as a person can talk without making gibberish.  I asked her to slow down, but she didn't.  That's when I got pissed and told her to find someone who spoke English.  So there I was on hold, and this was the message that came on periodically in a womanly digital voice while I was waiting:

"Now is another inquired call.
One moment, please.
Please wait for a while.
Sorry.  Connection is delayed.
It is a lot of inquiring call now.
One moment, please.
Please wait for a while."

How can I recall it word for word? BECAUSE I HAD TO WAIT AND LISTEN TO THIS AD NAUSEAM!  My guess is they ran the Korean through a computer translator that produced this masterpiece which they plugged into a (fairly good) voice synthesizer.  Anyway, the internet guy who eventually answered kept asking me questions, and when I didn't understand, I could hear him slowly draw in his breath like he was trying not to yell at me, but eventually we got it all worked out and my internet was restored.  Nick of time, too, since I had to teach online last night.

The One Where I Don't Go to the Secret Faculty Meetings

Google Calendar is becoming a better value than Mac's iCalendar, it seems.  They've come out with this list of national holidays for various countries that can be added to your Google calendar.  I've subscribed to the South Korean one, and it put in all the Korean holidays automatically!  Will wonders never cease?

Today was a long day. Finished at 6:30 tonight, but all my classes were good.  We did some great practice and learned a lot of new stuff about describing people. Some of them had trouble with their Second Life homework, but we worked most of it out.  Linden Labs must be having a bad day or something.  I extended their Second Life homework one more week since it is tricky getting used to how things work in world.  Some of them had their avatars wear the Dongguk T-shirt I made and gave them.  Cool.

I'm having second thoughts about a trip to Gyeonggido tomorrow.  I might go, but in the afternoon, maybe.  I doubt anyone would ever come here nearly as much as I go up there, and that kind of irks me.

A friend and I were talking about how rigid everything has gotten here... that there's a "grading" scale for our participation in the university, and we foreigners can never get a high grade because we don't even know some of the things we get graded on.  I have never been told about faculty meetings for our own department, but we are supposed to go to those to get the points.  Apparently we also get graded zero on our devotion to Buddhism,  probably because most of us don't find pandering to religious ignorance very useful and partly because we have no idea how to get Buddhism points.  Nobody said we had to be Buddhist to work here, but if we aren't Buddhist, it is a mark against us, it seems.  Anyway, we chatted about the money in the Middle East might be enough to make the recent rise in anti-foreigner bullshit in Korea something to think about.  So I'm thinking.

We know what this means: festival week.  Every Korean university has a "festival" every semester, and it is always at some time during the course of regular classes.  Students often expect to be excused for festival if they are working their group's booth, but unfortunately they are not excused from my classes.   With the swine flu, you'd think festival would've been canceled, but the flu apparently is something to sneeze at.

My ROTC class was rather small on Friday as several cadets had to be tested for the swine flu.  It seems that some cadets actually have it, but I'm not completely sure that is accurate.  This morning I went in to the university to work on lesson plans, and there seemed to be more people walking around with face masks on than usual.

I'm teaching tonight online.  The lesson is 'humor in English'.  I've done this before, but I'm going to introduce puns and oxymorons to them this time.  A lot of the jokes are along the lines of "goes into a bar" type stuff.  Here's an example:

<< A dyslexic man walks into a ___. >>

What would you put in the space that might be funny?

Any answer would be good use of language skills, but only one answer fits the sentence humorously.

Tomorrow I'm observing a co-worker's class in the morning.  We have to observe and report on three separate co-workers throughout the semester.  Isn't that so Orwellian? LOL  Big Brother will reward me.