an american in seoul

In order to protect my privacy and the privacy of some of the people I talk about, I make a substantial portion of my posts "friends only." Ask to be added. Most likely, I'll do it. I just want to be in control of who sees what, and to keep that number to a manageable one.

By way of a disclaimer, everything I write is my own opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of any other private individual, company or government entity.

Please note that if you are already on my friends list, I want you to stay! You don't even need to ask to be added either, just be sure you're logged in to see all of my exciting posts :p

Procrastination begets pictures. Here is a portion of our China pictures. More are forthcoming. I will let you know when to look but they will be in the same folder.

China

There are some new photos in the Beach folder that I missed (they were on J's camera). Here is the final batch of Hawai'i photos, from the USS Arizona memorial:

Hawaii: USS Arizona Memorial

Soon, I will upload the China pictures. The Great Wall is just spectacular. But for now, I must finish working - I have procrastinated too much as it is!

Here is a link to my beach and "miscellaneous" photos gallery from Hawai'i. Also included are some shots from Pali Lookout and Dole Plantation. One more gallery to go for Hawai'i: the USS Arizona Memorial.

Hawaii: Beach/Miscellaneous Pictures

UPDATE: Fixed the broken link (I renamed the gallery. D'oh!)

Here is the first batch of Hawaii pictures, from my Picasa Web Albums site. These are all at the Honolulu Zoo. Click on the Pink Flamingo to see the rest.

Hawaii: Honolulu Zoo

The sun and surf are coming next :-)

More coming soon but here's a video to whet your curiosity:

A full day without any news web sites (other than the two blogs I mentioned yesterday, which I wouldn't count as news, per se) and I feel better. I continue my blackout tomorrow.

I am now registered for the Network+ exam on Saturday at 3:00 pm. A-P-S-T-N-D-P. Got to keep remembering that (plus what it means). Very nervous. I don't feel as well prepared as for the A+, but then again I knocked A+ out of the park. I would be satisfied with a sacrifice fly in this case, as long as it nets a score :) (Yes, baseball is almost upon us).

And one last thing. I try to keep the politics on this blog to a minimum, but in spite of my news blackout I have heard of the inflammatory remarks Sen. Obama's former pastor made. For balance that you probably won't hear on CNN or the other news networks, I thought I would link to this interesting article I read regarding Sen. Clinton's involvement with an ultra-conservative religious group in Washington called "The Family." The article is written by the excellent Barbara Ehrenreich,  author of "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America" and "Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit Of The American Dream"

I (heart) House Furuche (link in Japanese)



That's all.

It's indeed the same as the first. J's not been feeling well today and we've both been lazing around the house. I got some work done this morning but am beginning to spin my wheels now (hence the fact that I am here).

I got rid of the Myspace. Turns out that I'm not 16 anymore. Pity, I might have been able to do it better this time 'round.

It's easy to bottle inspiration in pithy catch phrases... "Get busy livin' or get busy dyin'... that's goddamned right" comes to mind... but it's a lot harder to translate words into actual action. At least for me. What holds me back? (That's a rhetorical question, I think)

I rarely ever feel well rested. I don't know what the problem is... it doesn't matter if I sleep 5, 7, 8 or 10 hours, I always feel half-tired. I'm not on any medications other than for acid reflux, so nothing that would chemically alter my sleep-wake cycle. What's up with that? Sleep apnea? Cat moving around on the bed all night? Me and or J rolling around too much? It's got to be something...

It's probably the impending new year that's got me all introspective, but really the "New Year" is a man-made concept. Life is really just made up of one continuous mass of sleep and wake cycles until the moment you die. Nothing inherently special about the New Year. Why is New Year's any better a time to change?

I so want to be happy. As a regular state of being. But again, what's holding me back? Of course, there are 222,000 Google hits on the terms "happiness conscious choice" but I'm not sure I buy that... especially when the links point to things to buy to "make" that "conscious choice" easier. Then, there's the book Happiness is Overrated by Raymond Belliotti. The book description reads, in part:

"[Happiness is Overrated] argues that happiness is not the greatest personal good. Ultimately, the greatest personal good is realized in leading a robustly meaningful, valuable life."

So maybe that's it. What about leading a "robustly meaningful" life? It's probably a problem when you don't even know how to begin to define that in personal terms.

That's about it right now...

I had a job interview today with the Public Affairs section of the American Embassy. It was one of the hardest interviews I've ever had. There were so many out-of-the-box type questions that I was just not ready for. At least the editing test went well, I think. I'm giving 5-1 odds that I don't get this one though. Just a gut feeling. Moreover, I have come to the conclusion that I simply don't interview well. It's probably a combination of lack of skill in interviewing (the skills haven't materialized through my myriad interviews) and lack of confidence (consistent rejection will do that). So, I'm not sure exactly how to fix the problem or when I will get another shot at an Embassy job (long story) but we'll see.

I did find out that my check from my freelance work is (allegedly) on its way to Korea. That will be a welcome sight.

The monitor LCD display I bought was accidentally misrouted to Taipei. I think that it has to go back to the sorting facility in suburban Washington prior to coming back to Seoul. I'm not sure when I will get it - and worse I am going to lose out on a $40 rebate that had to be postmarked within 30 days of purchase. I hope that it's a good display at least.

J has been very busy at work this week. No rest for the weary in this the holiday season. Things are very busy in Korea with the election yesterday.

Korea's election had the expected result. GNP (Conservative) candidate and former mayor of Seoul LEE Myung-bak won handily over his ruling party (UNDP, Liberal) opponent CHUNG Dong-young, 48.5% to 26.1%. It will be very interesting because Mr. Lee is under investigation for his role in a financial scandal. It's possible that Mr. Lee could be charged with a crime. And if he is convicted  before his inauguration in February, the results of the election would be invalidated. Based on what I've seen, though, I have serious doubts that Mr. Lee will even be charged, much less convicted or forced to surrender his presidency. Mr. Lee won on a platform of tax cut and economic stimulus promises, including his "747 plan" of 7% economic growth, doubling Korea's per-capita income to $40,000 (within 10 years), and making Korea the 7th largest economy in the world. There is an interesting analysis (in English) in today's Korea Herald, if you are interested.

That's about all for now.

Riding back from a ski trip in upstate New York last year, I had my laptop and wireless card out on the New York Thruway and somehow I wound up browsing Amazon.com. I was amused for many miles by a listing for "Tuscan Whole Milk, 1 Gallon, 128 fl oz." Simply the fact that you could purchase gallon jugs of (not ultra-high-pasteurized) milk. On Amazon. For shipping anywhere in the continental U.S. (with ample amounts of dry ice). I wondered how many people actually bought milk that way.

Even more amusing were the customer comments and product reviews. Some of the comments were snarky, such as this one, entitled "No Gift Wrapping":

There are few gifts I like to recieve more than milk. Whole milk too. That's the kind of milk that says that it's real. It's right. It's whole. I want that milk to sit there for years because that's what you do with milk. There's nothing better than milk - well except maybe radishes.
-- Tim Lieder

And some even launched into poetry, as in "Kubla Khan or, Tuscan Whole Milk, 1 Gallon, 128 fl oz":

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately dairy-house decree:
Where Alf, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man,
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
the sacred cows wandered and fed,
And there were gardens bright with soft young grass,
Where blossomed many a pound of fresh-churned butter;
And casein scents filled the air,
Engorging the nostrils of naughty milk-maids.

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian milk-maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Cottage Cheese.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dairy in air,
That sunny dome! those cows of wonder!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Moo! Moooo!
Her flashing eyes, her swinging udder!
Weave a circle round her thrice,
And squeeze the teats with care,
For she on sweet grass hath fed,
And produced the Tuscan Whole Milk, 1 Gallon,
128 fl oz, of Paradise.

-- Debunker, attributed to "Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1816"

Tonight I was searching for a book on Amazon and decided to look for more comments on the Tuscan Milk when alas the Amazon Marketplace seller that was offering Tuscan Milk was no longer and the page, complete with all of the comments, was gone.

Fortunately, it lives on in the Google cache. Priceless.

EDIT: Someone posted an hommage to one of Tuscan Milk's competitors, Carnation Canned Milk:

Carnation Milk is the best in the land;
Here I sit with a can in my hand --
No t*ts to pull, no hay to pitch,
You just punch a hole in the son of a b*tch.

-- T. Webster, attributed as "The Virtues of Carnation Milk," from "The Oxford Book of American Light Verse" (William Harmond)

EDIT 2: The page is still available on Amazon's site, but the product is, sadly, no longer available.

EDIT 3: If I'd done a little more searching, I would have found this article ("On Amazon, All of a Sudden Everyone's a Milk Critic") on the Tuscan Milk phenomenon from the New York Times, roughly six months before I stumbled on to the page in the first place.

I'm so neglectful of this blog. I've had plenty of things to say and to tell you about, but alas I have just not been in the place to write. Maybe it's all of the writing I've been doing for my job-let. Maybe. Hope to update soon, but not tonight as I am going to bed.

Stay cool y'all (I do read my flist entries and comment when I can :-)
 

A rare meme post, taken from annaonthemoon

 

To all of my American readers, happy Thanksgiving! It's already Thanksgiving Day here and we are going to our group dinner in about 1 hour and 40 minutes. Tomorrow, J has the day off and we are driving to Seoraksan (Mt. Seorak National Park). Since there are no directions on any web site anywhere from Seoul to Mt. Seorak, I am going to provide them here as a service (but I will cut them for those who don't care).


So, have a great Thanksgiving! I will be on limited posting... oh, wait, my postings are always limited.

We closed on the house on Tuesday. Now the fun -- paying for it -- begins!

I'm back in Seoul after three trips over the past 7 days with the Hello Friends program. It's a volunteer outreach of the American Chamber of Commerce, American Women's Club and Seoul International Women's Association and I am an honourary woman (a couple of the kids have asked whether I am a woman or not... and one thought I was pregnant :(

The program consists of a group of roughly 6 volunteers along with a Korean 'translator/chaperone.' We all travel to an elementary school in Korea (outside of the capital region) that has little or no contact with westerners. We spend the morning with the children, singing songs and practicing English. It's mostly 3rd graders, but there are also 4th and 5th graders at some of the schools.

So, yes, I have been singing 'Head Shoulders Knees & Toes' and doing the 'Hokey Pokey' with Korean schoolchildren. And I have some pictures coming soon (as soon as I get them) to prove it :)

In the afternoon we have lunch and (usually) tour a cultural attraction in the afternoon before returning home.

Trip #3 was one of the overnight trips, Monday into Tuesday. On Monday morning we flew from Seoul's primarily domestic airport, Gimpo, to Busan (Korea's 2nd largest city on the southeastern coast) and visited an elementary school in nearby Gimhae. In the afternoon we visited King Kim Suro's tomb. We then travelled by van to Namhae-do, about 150 km away. We stayed at a pension in the German Village which was OK. On Tuesday, we visited a school in Namhae. We were invited to have lunch in the school cafeteria after we were done. I chickened out on eating the main course, squid. After leaving the school, we got on a two-hour tour around the nearby islands. The boat was called the "Love Cruiser" and bus loads of soju-soaked Koreans piled into it. They were rather entertaining, actually. Can any of you say that you've seen two old Korean men slow-dancing (the boat had a discotheque on the first floor)? After our two-hour tour, we got back into our van and drove toward the airport. We had dinner near the airport at a Korean barbecue restaurant and then arrived at Jinju-Sacheon Airport for our trip home. The airport is a small affair, with two airlines and one gate. Korean Air flies from there to Seoul and to Jeju-do, and Asiana only flies from there to Seoul. As is typical with our trips, we upgrade on the way home to business class. It's only about 20,000 won (21.58 USD/14.52 EUR) more and it is really worth it. A bigger seat for my large American derrière and less smelly people to be near (there were only 8 business class seats on the plane and our group occupied 6 of them). We arrived back into Gimpo around 9:00 pm and I was back at the house by 10:30.

And glad to be home.

At long last the pictures from the new house are finally up. About time, right? Behind the cut are a selection of photos, but there are more (and larger) pictures at my picture website.
 

I opened a time capsule today. A time capsule for the modern age, perhaps. In my possession, I found two recorded CDs with backups I made in 1998 (one in March, one in August). Both contained e-mails, electronic voice mails, electronic faxes, and former web site designs, all more than ten years old, spanning the last years of my high school career and the beginning of college.

It was really weird. I could see pieces of myself, but there was so much unfamiliar. People with whom I'd carried on lengthy e-mail conversations that I don't know any more. Words and sounds that detailed the exuberance and fervor of youth. For me it was bad news and good news at the same time. On the bad side, I'm not as young anymore, but on the up side, it demonstrates at least to me how long life can be. It was also nice to learn that I've mellowed out a bit in 10+ years... well a little bit at least :)

Just pitiful:

( The gory details... )