Baltimore: Once upon a midday dreary
0 Comments Published by Brian on Thursday, August 31, 2006 at 12:56 PM.
Luckily, I didn't go to Baltimore to see Baltimore. I want to Baltimore to see Julie, (Hi Julie!) and to spend some time with an old college dorm-mate, Brian, and his fiance (Hey guys!)
Before we get to Baltimore, I have a question. My train stopped in Wilmington, Delaware on the way to Baltimore. Can I say I've been to Delaware now, even though I never even got off the train there? I suppose not. It's too bad, since you see, one of my goals in life is to visit each of the 50 states before I die. I'm up to 28, now that I've been to Maryland. Delaware could have been 29 if only I'd planned a layover of an hour or so. Who knows when I'll get the chance to visit Delaware again (or why I would want to)?
Anyway, Julie is a dear friend who is originally from North Carolina, but our paths first crossed when we worked together in Portland, Oregon before I ran away to
Other than reconnecting with friends, I had exactly one item on my Baltimore "to do" list. That is, visit the grave-site of Edgar Allen Poe. It's a very simple affair it turns out, in the corner of a church yard. Most people don't know this about me, but when I was about 13 years-old I memorized the poem The Raven for no particular reason. I remember it was summber and I was bored. I was a nerdy kid, what can I say? With some prompting I can still do it too. Maybe I'll brush up on it, just like I'm going to brush up on my French someday.
We drove around Baltimore and environs a bit and eventually made our way down to Fort McHenry. Although the view across the bay was beautiful, I was underwhelmed by the fact of being at the fort itself. I don't understand why. I've studied American history. I like American history. I think it's fascinating. But being here where the flag was that inspired Francis Scott Key to write the American national anthem failed to stir me. Maybe I'm more the type of person who, if I saw one of JFK's cuff links in a museums I would think it was a big deal, but the big, sweeping moments of the American Experience just don't do it for me. Who can tell?
We met up with Brian and Lorelei at a restaurant back at the Innter Harbor, where we partook of Maryland's other tourist attraction: crab meat. Several people told me if I came to Baltimore I had to try the crab cakes, and they were indeed delicious. At other tables, large groups were engaging in a barbaric ritual of tearing crabs limb from limb (from limb from limb from...) wacking the pieces with a wooden hammer and picking out the spare bits of crab meat with their bare, smelly fingers, then tossing the exoskeletal remains into a plastic bucket on the table.
Before sending Lorelei and Brian back down I-95, we had time for a few photographs.
Julie dropped me off at the Amtrak station at 6:45 the next morning and at 7:13 I was on my way back to Philadelphia. It was a quick trip to be sure, but I was grateful to have had the chance to see a great friend who I don't get to see nearly as often as I'd like.
Philadelphia freedom (after you pass through the metal detectors)
0 Comments Published by Brian on at 11:57 AM.
After the weekend in New York, my friend and I hopped a bus to Philadelphia, where he lives. Philly is less than two hours from New York, but it has quite a different feel to it. The feel of Philly is more downtown than uptown. I mean that in a good way.
The problem here is Philadelphia has no famous sights to speak of. It isn’t known for anything. The food doesn’t have any particular reputation.
...You know I’m totally kidding of course. What else does one do in Philadelphia except see the Liberty Bell, Liberty hall, and eat a Philly cheese steak sandwich (and if you’re a fan of a certain movie, run up the steps of the art museum while humming “Gonna fly now” to yourself”)?
The room where the Declaration of Indepencence and the U.S. Constitution were signed. The room is much, much smaller than I’d always imagined it to be.
The “Liberty Bell.” The bell itself was interesting enough as bells go, but I found myself much more intrigued by watching the tourists angling to get pictures of themselves and each other with one of the world’s most famous bells.
New York: Two murders: 35 dollars
0 Comments Published by Brian on Tuesday, August 29, 2006 at 12:29 PM.
Saturday I met some friends for brunch in Manhattan, then went to a matinee performance of Avenue Q. My friends are connected, so they got a deal on the tickets. I was already very familiar with the music from the show, but until a few days ago could only imagine what it looked like on stage. It looks pretty neat in fact. Anyone who grew up watching Sesame Street (or is now raising someone who does), will instantly identify with it.
After the show we had some pretty great Thai food in the same neighborhood. I would even go so far as to say it was as good as, if not better than, Thai food I’ve had in Thailand.
On Sunday we met in Bryant Park, just south of the New York Public Library. We had intended to spend a part of our day strolling through Central Park, but inclement weather put a damper on those plans. We got coffee instead and skipped right ahead to the next item on the agenda, which was the International Center for Photography.
Now, we chose the ICP specifically because it is a museum devoted to photographic images, but didn’t pay too much attention to which exhibits were actually on display. My friend and I are both budding amateur photographers (He is, I should say, much further along in the budding process than I am), and we thought the ICP might prove inspirational. We had no idea what we were in for. The primary exhibit at the moment is Atta Kim: On Air. There were two series of photos in the exhibition. In the first he took pictures using extremely long exposures, some as long as eight hours. In the second, he layered several images on top of each other, like pancakes. By the way, it’s purely coincidence that the photographer is Korean, and my friend and I have both lived in Korea, but we appreciated it just the same. Regardless of his origins however, his work is amazing. I won’t reproduce any images here, but please do see some for yourself. By the way, the images in the gallery were extremely large. It does make a difference.
Downstairs at the ICP, they were showing photographs by a guy named Weegee, who I’ve never heard of before, but who also turned out to be pretty cool. He was not a great photographer in his day, but what he did was take lots and lots of photographs. He documented the everyday lives of a generation of New Yorkers, working classes and racial minorities overlooked by the mainstream media of the day. The best image of the show was a picture of a check stub from Time Magazine reading “Two Murders: 35 dollars.”
So what does one do on a rainy Sunday afternoon in New York City? One sees a movie, that’s what one does. After the gallery we caught a taxi to Columbus Circle hoping to make a showing of Half Nelson. Again, an incredible work of art.
You know, I may seem to wax too effulgent in my praise for the things I saw over the weekend. But honestly, people who know me know I’m not that easily impressed. In fact, I kind of see myself as a curmudgeon who constantly looks for flaws and imperfections and ways to be disappointed. Certainly there were flaws and imperfections in everything we saw and did last weekend. The actor who played Brian in Avenue Q did not impress me. There was a major continuity problem in the movie, one of the best images in the photography show was lit badly so it was nearly impossible to see because of the glare. By and large though, the total experience was overwhelmingly satisfying. It was all just that good.
After all that art, I was feeling inspired, so I felt like experimenting with my camera a little bit. I'm still learning about my camera and getting comfortable with the settings and the like. I'm just playing for now, but anyway...here's a picture of Columbus Circle, as seen from inside the Time Warner Center using a 1/5 second exposure.
Now here's a similar picture, but this time taken at 1/160. Like I said, just messing around trying to see what effects I get from different settings.
New York: Sun and Moon and Stars (and snakes and lizards, and Frozen Hot Chocolate)
0 Comments Published by Brian on at 12:25 AM.
In the past few days I’ve seen and done, not to mention eaten, some amazing things. I”ll try to give a few highlights, but maybe can’t go into as much detail as I normally would. This is what I get for not updating for a few days. On a meta-type side note. This is always how it seems to go. Either nothing is happening, so I feel there just isn’t anything to write about, or I’m so busy I don’t have time to write about the things I’m doing. It’s never just right, but such is life. Anyway, on with our discussion…
On Friday my Brooklyn friend and I went to the Museum of Natural History. She and her family have a membership. We didn’t even try to see all of it, but breezed through the planetarium, saw an I-Max film about caving, and walked through a display with live snakes and lizards. The snakes and lizards were Kristen’s idea. I hate snakes. Lizards I’m ok with. But snakes, forget it. We both enjoyed seeing Gila Monsters as part of the exhibit. We both have seen Gila Monsters in the wild during our youths in Arizona, so we felt like we were part of a rather exclusive club. Hey, in New York City, exclusivity is a big deal.
After the museum Kristen had a hankering for a special concoction called Frozen Hot Chocolate. The ice cream shop with the special dessert was quite small and nondescript, but there was a line in the front entryway and…a hostess, complete with rostrum, putting names on a list. She told us the wait for a table would be about 45-minutes. Let me repeat that: It’s an ice cream shop with a hostess and a 45-minute waiting list. This is absurd in so many ways, and yet it’s New York, so it somehow doesn’t seem so crazy. We didn’t do it though. We had to meet Kristen’s husband and daughter and some of their friends or we might have. Remember what I said about exclusivity? Kristen swears it’s worth it. A Frozen hot chocolate, by the way, is basically a Frappuccino made with hot chocolate instead of coffee. A little ways down the block we found a candy shop offering a cheap imitation of the frozen hot chocolate, and that’s exactly what it was.
I’ll try to cover this past weekend in another posting later today. I’ve gotta get caught up somehow. Oh, by the way, I’m in Philadelphia now. See what I mean?
In my case, I weighed my options carefully, and settled on the Whitney. To celebrate their 75th anniversary, they are showing some favorite works from their permanent collection, including a generous helping of works by Edward Hopper. You know Hopper, even if you don’t know you know him. Easily Hopper’s most famous work is Nighthawks from 1942 (Boilerplate: Images on this page are copyrighted and are reproduced below under the fair use provisions of United States copyright law).
Even I forgot the name of the painting until I looked it up yesterday. Unfortunately, Nighthawks is not at the Whitney. What I did see was this:
Early Sunday Morning, 1930And this:
New York Movie, 1939The audio commentary told me that Hopper’s works evoke a sense of solitude, which yeah, I get that. Frequently there is a single subject in a detailed setting, or no subject at all. Some pictures seemed to show a person in a private, unguarded moment, Some gave me the feeling I was seeing something I shouldn't, like I was an intruder. At one point, the commentary told me Edward Hopper was 6’4” (1.93m). He was a very large man, and never quite fit into his world. His paintings reflect the sense of awkwardness he must have felt, which again, I hear that.
The rest of the exhibit was divided into three major periods of American art: Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, and Minimalism. The Pop Art was cool. With the help of the audio commentary, I “got” Andy Warhol for the first time. The Abstract expressionists bothered me, and as for Minimalism, there wasn’t much to it. It’s funny that last year I saw some very similar works at the SFMOMA and thought they were pretty cool. This time they just left me cold. [shrug] Don’t know why.
After leaving the museum, I found a coffee shop nearby where I had my second ever Reuben sandwich (pastrami, sauerkraut & Swiss on rye), and had just enough time to get down to the Film Forum in the Village for a 3:15 showing of Fratricide, a movie about Kurdish immigrants living in Germany. It’s beautiful but gut-wrenching, in a very literal way at times. This film will never play in Seoul in a million years, and that’s exactly the kind of film I’ve been wanting to see while I’m visiting my home country. I was going to get into a whole thing about screen quotas and the (perhaps) unintended side-effect it has of cutting off the Korean nation from the wealth of international cinema that is available out there. Remind me to say more about that another time.
So it was a good day, I learned a lot, and I think Edward Hopper might be my new favorite artist.
This train smells like Komsomolskaya!
0 Comments Published by Brian on Friday, August 25, 2006 at 12:49 PM.
I’m not talking here about the smell of the squid roasting stations or the delimajoo stands (Delimajoo, by the way, smell a lot more heavenly than they taste, in my opinion). By the same Metro card (tokens no longer accepted), neither am I talking about the wafting fragrance of cheap wine and urine that may catch you with your guard down on occasion. What I’m talking about is the smell of the system as a whole, or what you’d have to describe as “That subway smell,” they way people talk about “That new car smell.” Warm axle grease accounts for much of the scent, but that alone doesn’t nearly cover it. Perhaps it’s the smell of history.
For my readers who live, or who have lived in Korea, what does the Seoul subway system smell like to you?
The city awaits.
Most everything went according to plan yesterday while transitioning from the Arizona phase of my vacation to the northeast phase. Flyer’s dehydration continues to be a plague upon the land. If everyone is going to continue to be all persnickety about fluids on airplanes, and it appears that they are, then the airlines really need to stock extra bottles of water for passengers who need to wash down their dry turkey sandwich that they bought at the last minute in Dallas because American Airlines doesn’t serve food anymore. Charge a dollar if you want, I don’t mind. Just anything so you don’t have to wait two hours for the damn drink service. That’s all I’m saying.
The apex of summer appears to have passed in the northeast. Here at my friends’ apartment I’m looking out at a bright, clear blue sky, with just a few white, wispy clouds in the background. Actual ducks just flew past. The forecast calls for thunderstorms for most of the weekend however, so I’d better get out and enjoy the nice weather instead of sitting here describing it to you. See ya…
In just a couple of hours I’ll catch the shuttle from Tucson back to Phoenix. To kill some time I’m in yet another coffee shop getting my daily dose of caffeine and Internet.
Tucson, for those who’ve never had the pleasure, is in the high desert. It’s hot, but not blistering hot like Phoenix, and it’s a bit more scenic I think. My dad grew up in Tucson, and I still have some family here, so I’ve been making visits to Tucson all my life. This trip was not about family however. Well, it was, but not about blood family. This time I came to Tucson to spend some time with my dear friend Jennifer, AKA “Jeffers,” who is as much a part of my family as anyone, and who I’m much closer to than the people who happen to appear on my pedigree chart.
The weekend was like this: On Friday I spent the day with Jennifer at the school where she is a teacher. (Out of respect for her privacy I won’t say exactly where.) Besides her class, I got to observe a couple of others, including the school’s two ESL teachers. That was a great experience. It gave me a lot of ideas about things I could be doing with my kids, but also reminded me that there is a certain amount of bullshit that goes along with any teaching job at any school anywhere in the world. It just helps me to “keep it real” in other words.
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On Friday night The Loft, Tucson’s local art house cinema, was having a midnight screening of Eddie Murphy Raw. I had never seen it, since when it came out in the 1980’s, I hadn't yet. I was still a “good Mormon boy” and “R” rated movies were out of the question. Of course seeing it now, nearly *gasp!* 20 years later, it doesn’t seem like such a big deal.
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On Saturday we, drove around, did some shopping, and I bought a shit-ton of Cliff bars. They are for me to take back to Korea for snacks. See, my doctor says I’m supposed to eat a snack every afternoon, but the problem is I usually don’t go directly home from work, and the only halfway healthy thing I can get from convenience stores in Korea is kimbap. I like kimbap, but don’t want it everyday. The Cliff bars are meant to remedy that, although I suppose it won’t be long before I’m just as tired of Cliff Bars as I was of kimbap, but one problem at a time, right?
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Sunday we had a surprise birthday party for Colleen, a friend of Jennifers. Colleen is my friend too, but Jennifer knows her much better, obviously, since they live in the same town. Colleen, AKA “Coco,” Jeffers, and I all knew each other at NAU.
I’ve never done the surprise party thing before, and for a while it looked like I still wouldn’t get to. Can I confess something to you? It’s just you and me right? Honestly, the whole idea seemed a little hokey. A surprise party? Does anyone actually do that? People who aren’t on television I mean? But whatever, I’m along for the ride so here we go…
We got to the house, and found out we were locked out, which was awesome in a way, but also kind of upsetting (it was about 100 degress outside), so we hung out in the back yard blew up balloons, and watched Coco’s partner’s family fight about where to place the four pizzas they’d ordered so they could best swealter. (Hold the salmonella, please!)
Once the guest of honor came home and we got inside the house, then it became an actual party, and was pretty fun after that. And the surprise thing went over pretty well. I was just glad to get that part out of the way first. But I guess it has to happen that way be definition.
Before, after, and in the middle of all of these things, Jeffers and I did a lot of talking. It’s like she and I have been having one long conversation for more than ten years now. When we see each other or talk on the phone, we pick up right were we left off and just keep going. It’s one of the many things I treasure about our friendship.
Here are a couple of pictures from Tucson...
Warning: The following post acknowledges the existence of certain body parts and what people do with them. Sensitive readers may wish to redirect now.
The other day I heard in one of my podcasts that right now at the Edinburgh Fringe festival, a play is being presented whose content is taken entirely from the writings of UK based blogs. The producer sifted, he says, through thousands of different blogs looking for suitable content to use in his production. Besides being from the UK, he said he was looking for blogs that were well written and with racy material. The one about a lonely phone-sex worker made the cut, for example.
The Blog of Brian is not UK based, so I wouldn’t have been eligible for the play anyway, but racy you want? Ok. It could be a lot racier if I wanted it to be. Witness the following:
Two nights ago at Wal-Mart I purchased several personal hygiene products that are hard to come by in Korea. They have all been on my USA vacation shopping list for quite some time: Fragrance-free lotion, deodorant, a face scrub I like, and condoms. It’s true you can get condoms in Korea, but they are, shall we say, constrictive. I’m not bragging. Really. The condoms are just very small. By the way, the stereo-type about Asians having small penises is not completely true. It’s mostly true, but not entirely. Asian condom manufacturers don’t seem to know that however. The problem is, when the condom is too tight it cuts off circulation. If you aren’t getting any blood flow, well, it makes it a lot harder to accomplish the thing that you’ve donned a condom for in the first place.
The condom selection was a bit daunting. I haven’t actually purchased many condoms in my day. Usually I would just grab a handful from the men’s room of the local gay bar. They were never more than an after thought, if indeed, they were a thought at all. Here, the main question seemed to be one of knowing what not to get. The ones with ribs or little knobby things don’t make a bit of difference in my world. Also, an early partner of mine advised me never to buy condoms with spermicidal lubricant. It doesn’t taste good apparently. I’ve always just taken him at his word however. I’ve no personal experience on the matter. I finally selected a box of Trojan Ultra Thins and then, after careful consideration, threw in a box of Magnum Extra Large. Honestly, I don’t think I’m so well endowed that I need a condom that large, I just want to see if it makes a difference. It’s more of an experiment really. Really. Stop looking at me like that.
I dropped both boxes into the bottom of my shopping cart and quickly found something to put on top of them. “I’m not embarrassed to be buying condoms,” I told myself. “It’s just a private matter is all.”
My next trial of non-embarrassment came at the check-out line. Which cashier would be the least non-embarrassing to take these to? Aha! The U-scan. Perfect! When I was the next customer in line, the girl overseeing the three self-scan stations called me to her register. The line was getting backed-up, so she offered to check me out herself to keep the line moving. Great. One by one she picked up my items, scanned in the price, and set them down again in my cart, saving the two condom boxes for last. She scanned the Trojans while I pretended to be distracted counting the money in my wallet. She picked up the Magnums and waved the scanner over the bar code. Nothing. My heart froze, but I tried desperately to maintain my outer composure. “If you call for a price check, I’m walking outta here so fast it’ll make your head spin!” I thought with intensity.
While the checkout girl tried different angles to scan the box of extra-large condoms, I glanced quickly at the register behind me to see if anyone else had noticed. There stood a tall, black male in basketball gear helping his girlfriend feed dollar bills into the money accepter. He is the guy they make these for, I thought, ashamed at my penile hubris. In a flash though, I caught myself buying into yet another cultural stereotype, and felt further shame. Unfortunately, his basketball shorts were too loose to permit visual confirmation. Anyway, what was I so worried about? That the checkout girl will know that I have sex? That people will see the condoms and they will think that I think I have a big penis? Oh for fuck sake! Scan, damnit! Beep!
The checkout girl put the condoms back in my cart and totaled my order, seemingly unfazed by the incident. Perhaps she really was unfazed, but I can just imagine how the story went after closing when she was talking to her other coworkers:
“You should have seen this guy in my line today. Extra large condoms! Yeah right! Who does he think he’s fooling? I pulled the, can’t-get-the-item-to-scan routine just to make him nervous. Gets ‘em every time.”
No, really. I envy them. I don’t mean to get all wistful and “I wish I could go back to college” but basically, I wish I could go back to college. I could have gone to ASU you know, and sometimes I still wish I had. The deal is, a very, very long time ago, before what I call “The Awakening,” my greatest ambition was to attend Brigham Young University (BYU). I got my Associates degree from a two-year college also owned by the LDS church, and it just seemed natural to finish my bachelors at the “Y.” The trouble was, BYU admissions didn’t share the same vision. I was sent reeling since I had absolutely no backup plan. (I have since come to believe that BYU did me a huge favor by rejecting me, but it took me years to realize it.)
In a panic, I applied to ASU and NAU. ASU was my first choice, or rather second I guess. But when I wrote the application form I used my Idaho address, so ASU decided I was an out-of-state resident, and I couldn’t seem to convince them otherwise. Looking back, I don’t think I tried very hard. A phone call to admissions would have done the trick I suppose. My problem solving skills weren’t the best at that time. So Northern Arizona University became, by default, my school of choice.
For a long time I felt like I’d made a big mistake by going to NAU, but I no longer believe that’s true. Because of NAU I studied in Montpellier, France, and there formed some of the deepest friendships of my life, that exist even to this day. I will see one of them next week in fact when I visit New York. (Hi Kristen!) Because of NAU I was able to explore my identity in an environment that was overall non-threatening and low-pressure. Finally, because of NAU I met the most awesome person ever (Hi Jeffers!), whom I love to the ends of the earth. I don’t even want to think about what my life would be without her in it.
Oh. One thing NAU did not give me was a stellar education. That’s as much my fault as it is the school’s. It’s my fault for not taking advantage of what was on offer, and NAU's fault for sucking.
So that’s what’s on my mind today. That, and how college students are really, really hot.
Phoenix: We're only happy when we're shopping
0 Comments Published by Brian on Tuesday, August 15, 2006 at 11:15 PM.
Arizona has a beauty that is different from almost anywhere else on Earth, but beautiful nonetheless. I would call it “enchanted” but I think New Mexico owns the trademark on that word. What Arizona does is show you how life is determined to just go on, however harsh the circumstances, and even flourish for that matter. I should be more like Arizona.
When I’m away I bitch about Arizona a lot, or the Phoenix area at least. It’s too hot. Everything is so spread out. You have to drive for miles and miles to go anywhere interesting, and if you don’t have a car, you’re completely fucked. The area is infested with Republicans. But when I’m here, what can I say? It’s home. Or rather, I feel a connection to this place that I can’t deny.
And yet, it’s not home. I have just one friend who still lives in Arizona. All the others have long since flown to various parts of the country. Spending all my time with my parents gets a little too intense, but I don’t really have anyone else I can go see. So in the daytime there is really only one refuge available to me: Shopping.
Near my parents home there is a mall that is supposed to be an outlet mall, but isn’t really. It’s enormous, and air-conditioned, so I’ve spent a lot of time and money there. It’s ok, because this was intended to be a shopping trip from the outset. But it gets lonely and boring having no one to talk to other than sales clerks. Talking to my parents is kind of a lost cause. I’ll try to explain more about that another time.
So I spend my time in the mall, in coffee shops, and on Phoenix city busses. In the evening, while my parents watch Fox News (which offends me on so many levels) and my mother talks back to the TV screen, I can take their car out and extend my reach a bit further, but I still don’t have anyone to go see, so I end up doing yet more shopping. Last night it was Wal-Mart in Chandler. That’s what I’ve been reduced to.
In theory, I would love to be the kind of person who goes out to hike around Papago Park, or Camelback Mountain, but I’m not that kind of person. Even if I was, it would be next to impossible for me to get to those places. So I guess it’s back to the mall for one more day.
Phoenix: Where's the rest of me?
1 Comments Published by Brian on Monday, August 14, 2006 at 9:08 AM.
I got into Phoenix last night as planned, but I guess my luggage enjoyed San Francisco so much it decided to stay awhile. You know, this is the third time for me that a piece of luggage has gotten ahem sidetracked between the United States and Asia, and every single time the problem has occurred on the U.S. side of the equation. I’m just saying is all.
As if that weren’t enough, while I waited in vain for my suitcase to appear on the baggage carrousel, there was also no sign of my parents. For a while I was afraid US Air had lost them too. Eventually we all found each other, and my bag even showed up this morning. (We had to go back to the airport to get it.) Since I had no clothes though, we had to make an emergency trip to Target last night to get a few things. I didn’t mind so much since I’d been planning to buy a lot of new clothes on this trip anyway, just no so soon. I have to say though, I was able to go down a size in both pants and shirts, and I don’t mean that I was able to squeeze into the next smaller size, but that I could put them on and feel roomy and comfortable. So that elevated my mood you could say.
Also, I have only had two cigarettes since I left Korea, both during my transfer at the San Francisco airport. After I leave my parents’ in a few days, I don’t know what I’ll do. For now though it feels ok. I’m using both patches and gum. Otherwise I’d be climbing the walls.
Right now it's coming up on midnight and I really need to be packing for my flight tomorrow, but instead I find myself looking over camp pictures again. I can't resist posting just a few more pictures that I took at last night's talent show. My class did their "Little Mermaid" numer, which was cute. I was proud of them.
My old class also did a better job than in the last show. They had a teacher this time who took the lead and gave them some direction. The class did "Yello Submarine" this time. Like I said, it was much better, but they were still kind of quiet, shy and motionless, which actually made me feel a little bit better in an odd way. Guess they're just like that.
Probably the real stars of the show however, were these kids from another class who did a breakdance routine. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that the kid in the center learned how to do this before last Monday.
I'm still getting used to my camera, and I don't really know what I'm doing. These pictures came out dreadfully underexposed so I tried to correct them with some photo editing software. The results are kind of mediocre, but the kids themselves are pretty cool don't you think?
Summer Camp: Something is rotten in Jochiwon
0 Comments Published by Brian on Thursday, August 10, 2006 at 5:25 PM.
Summer Camp: Full Metal T-shirt
0 Comments Published by Brian on Wednesday, August 09, 2006 at 5:22 PM.
Almost. Just about.
Before we get to the awesome part we have to cover some background though. Here at camp every student wears a name card in a plastic holder on a string. You may have seen them in some of the pictures I’ve been posting. Ok so, each teacher, along with our own name tags, was issued a sheet of red dot stickers. When we catch a kid speaking Korean or engaged in some other act of dereliction we are supposed to put a sticker on the back of the student’s nametag (and sign across it as well, cause, you know). When the delinquent student gets three stickers they have to go visit the district supervisor. The original plan was to call the child’s parents when that happened. But the way the stickers are flying around here they would have had to outsource that job to a call center in Bangalore. For the record, I am a big old softie when it comes to the handing out of red stickers. In two weeks I’ve given maybe five red stickers. Some Korean teachers are on their second sheet already.
A few days ago we had a lesson where we talked about different movie genres: comedy, science fiction, action, etc. For an activity some teachers had their kids make movie posters and describe their imaginary movie to the class. For an example, my friend, colleague, and camp roomie Patrick made a mock poster for a horror film called Attack of the Red Sticker.
That alone was pretty awesome, but then the next night in my drama club, the students were trying to come up with a scenario for the little skit they were supposed to write. They floundered for quite a while and then a student from Patrick’s class had a flash of brilliance. They decided to essentially bring his movie poster to life by creating a skit about an evil, deranged camp supervisor who goes around stickering kids to death. That right there was the awesome part. And it could have been something wonderful, a biting satire of camp life and of the camp supervisors.
The trouble is some of the staff got wind of it and expressed concern. I unfortunately, had to concede their point. I could see an American camp leader seeing such a parody and accepting it in good fun, but somehow I don’t think it would go over too well in these parts. As much as it pained me, I asked the kids to tone it down a little. As a suggestion, I offered the idea that maybe the supervisor could eat some bad food and that he could become deranged as a result of whatever disease he caught, then get cured at the end. That way he isn’t actually evil, but still gets to do evil things.
As it turns out, the whole point is moot. The kids decided they don’t want to perform their skit on the stage. All of them have to do performances with their classes as well, and they are just kind of over the whole idea. It was optional from the beginning, so I can’t force them, and wouldn’t anyway.
But it would have been awesome.
Summer camp: Coming around the far turn
1 Comments Published by Brian on Saturday, August 05, 2006 at 11:50 AM.
This week at camp we had a “pop song contest.” Each class had to choose a song, work up little routine, and sing it for the rest of the camp. Not too many surprises in the song choices. One class did a Britney Spears song, one did Westlife’s “My love” (I believe that rule was attached as a rider to the Every-class-must-have-a-kid-named-Harry law). My class did “Puff the Magic Dragon,” and I’m sorry to say it, but it just sucked. Several things went wrong. First, they didn’t choose their own song. Their Korean teachers chose it for them, and they chose a bad one. I love the song, don’t get me wrong, but it wasn’t one the kids could get behind. But perhaps the greatest tragedy of their all-too-brief pop-star careers was me. Most of the other native speaking teachers helped their classes with their song, but I didn’t. On the one hand, the Korean teachers seemed to take full control of this project and didn’t ask for any of my input; on the other hand, I also didn’t step up and offer my help. So I’m unsure how much responsibility I actually bear, and the kids don’t seem to be too bothered about it, but I can’t help feeling like I let them down
On Thursday we changed classes. We taught one class for a little more than half the camp, then switched, and will have a different class for the rest of the time. None of the native teachers wanted to change. Our students were just starting to open up to us, and we were beginning to develop real relationships with them. We asked the supervisors not to make the change, but our pleas fell on deaf ears. Our new classes are good too of course. That first attachment is always the strongest though isn’t it?
Here is a picture of my first class. From the top left they are (Sorry, I only know their fake English names) Kate, Eve, Jessica, Ann, Joanne, Lian, Phil, Justin, Owen (behind Justin’s head), Jackie, Allen, Helen, Sally, Jenny, Spell, Alex, Some old bald guy, Harry, and Donald.
In the 10 days I taught them, I feel I know them much better than the students in my regular school that I’ve been teaching for a full year. *sigh*
On Sunday night I’ll head back to Jochiwon, but at least there’s only four more days of camp, and really only three more teaching days. Monday is “game day,” where the students will rotate between different classrooms, and in each class they’ll play different game for 10-12 minutes. My game will be a simple spelling race. The students make two lines. I say a word, and the two students at the heads of the lines race to board. The first one to spell it correctly gets a point for their team. (Sound familiar Greg?) We break camp on Friday morning, and then next Saturday I’m on KE 023 bound for San Francisco.
Summer camp: Jochiwon Confidential
3 Comments Published by Brian on Tuesday, August 01, 2006 at 11:30 PM.
We did something like it when I did winter camp for English First in Russia. There, we gave the kids some money every day, just for existing basically, and we set up a little shop where they could buy junk food and EF swag. Here in the JCW (Jochiwon), it is all taken much more seriously. There is no shop. Kids are saving their money, and there will be an auction of things at the end of the camp.
Apparently the kids take the money thing more seriously as well. On about the third day of camp some boys pulled a heist in the main office. Word on the street is that one boy hid under a table, while another one distracted a staff member. I guess the kid under the table then grabbed some money and ran. They only found out about it because a third kid who I’m not sure how he was involved, had a guilty conscience and sang like a canary. I don’t know what punishment was either. I think the staff went easy on the boys, what with ‘em being from good families, and first time offenders and all.
Just today I heard about a boy who had an unusually large amount of camp money in his possession. The staff assumed he had stolen it, but upon further investigation, it was learned that he had won the money playing cards with other boys in the camp. Yes dear bleaders, the campers are gambling with camp money. (The cards, by the way, were borrowed from another native English speaking teacher at the camp.) I think that might be one of the most awesome things I’ve ever heard. I’m just afraid in a day or two some kid will show up to class with broken fingers because he couldn’t pay his camp money loan shark.
Tuesday is the halfway mark of camp, and that means I’ll begin my vacation in the States about ten days from now. My kids were dropping like flies today. Out of 18 in my class, four were out sick and two more looked like they were about to vomit or collapse. A couple of teachers are under the weather as well. I’m convinced it has something to do with the camp food. Not enough roughage, if you know what I mean.
Right now I have this feeling that I hate, like I have to go to bed now (it’s coming up on 12:30 AM here), but I’m still not done with stuff I have to do for tomorrow, and yet it’s still late so I’m going to be a wreck in the morning. It feels like I’m running on a treadmill (maybe a hamster wheel is a better analogy) and I can’t stop.
