Anomaly in the Space-Time Continuum

I felt an unnatural affect today, maybe a ripple in the space time fabric? I know that this is shocking to so many that know me, but I remember the 70's [deal with it]. People rode around on roller skates with a transistor radio to their ear, maybe listening to dance!-boogeywonderland! ...maybe some Abba. [I have Dave's attention now, Did somebody say ABBA?]

I'm really from the Breakfast Club 80's generation, though, and we never thought that the 70's would come back. Never. In a hundred million years. Never. Well, it's 2007 now, and people are still wearing fashions influenced by the 70's era, which we could have sworn was an anti-fashion, fashion vacuum decade. I figured when the 70's clothes came in, it would last a few years tops. No, I was wrong and today, something jolted me. I had this weird cool wonderful science fiction experience.

One of the students here was carrying around this device and playing some song, the quality of it sounded really like a transistor radio. The fashion she's wearing could be right out of the 70's and her laughing carefree attitude fit right in as well.

But it took me a second to realize what she was holding...a PMP device! PMP mind you, is not just the very latest in technology, but it's something most of us couldn't imagine in the past without a dreamy futuristic context. There have been times throughout the years when people have expressed high hopes and predicted that someday the star-trek communicator days would come. The generation before me was the moon landing generation and they were pretty pie-in-the-sky with their future fantasies. The kids in elementary school in 1969 assumed that when they were adults every aspect of their lives would be push button ready. The 70's shattered their hopes and dreams, and then offered a brief glimmer of hope in 1978 with the release of A New Hope- Star Wars.

We were all stunned by that, but then the Reagan Era came in and steamrolled everybody and we tolerated Rambo part one two three four and whatever. People with sensibilities were punkrock angry.

Well, things have really exploded in technology over the last 10 years, but the fashion is retro, the treatment of women- worse than retro, violence- positively primeval, and so on. But today I didn't know what time or place it was when I saw this girl, holding a little device close that was emanating transistor radio sounds, but then seeing what she held and realizing, 'you've come a long way baby' If one is looking around with timeless eyes, now is interesting.

Swarmed

On the jeepney ride home last night, I looked out the window and saw these everywhere. They infested the sky in giant free floating swarms, it looked just like a movie. I noticed it in Alitagtag, and thought maybe I would see that for a few miles before I hit home. Even at home, there were tons of these things. Happily there were only a few in the house. Our front porch, though is covered in brown wings.

On the way home when the jeepney driver stopped all the ants flew in and we were waving them away from our faces. The driver wanted to drop people off while still moving because this was so annoying, like a horror movie, "go! go!, Step on it!"

I understand that the earth needs ants to survive, but this certainly seems like an imbalance.

Small Face

So I argue with my students about Rain (Bee) the singer, they say he's not good looking because his "eyes are too small". I have a new batch of students in today, and sure enough there's a girl in the class announcing Rain's eyes are too small.

Later, in my afternoon class, a student was talking about how he saw this famous actor (above) twice in Korea in public somewhere, and everyone was impressed. They think he's really good looking, BUT then they all proceeded to tell me that he has a really small face. What gets me is the way they do it. Each one uses their hand to demonstrate how small his face is. "You would be very surprised, his face is this small." They show me their hands.

I've had other classes with other students at other times talk about this guy and his small face, also using their hands to demonstrate. I'm thinking...was this on some national talk show or something? It's bizarre to me. So here he is....with his tiny little face, oh I can hardly even see it.

Well, maybe they mean his head is small. No, they don't. They talk about how his body is so great (yes, men talk that way too, that's a post for another day), and there's no way a Korean person would say that he had a great body if there was a disproportion. If his head was smaller than his body, then I guarantee you that would be the discussion. His name is Jo-In Seong, which probably translates to 'little face'.

Hey Farm Boy

We talked about our childhoods today, and James offered that he did the tradional Korean game with fire, where they make big circles. The way he was explaining it, I said, ew that sounds dangerous for kids, I wouldn't let my kid do that. And James said, "NO! Korean tradition!" like it's the best thing that ever happened. Juri, the girl across the table said, "No, I never done that.", James shot back, "She is not Korean."


Here's a picture of this tradition, looks pretty. The story is, that people in rural areas did this, and Juri is a Seoul city girl. Another student said that when he was a kid he did this and once he saw his friend's jacket set on fire, and sometimes they would accidentlly light a pile of rice that had been painstakingly harvested,"oops! ...and run away!" he said. The actually use big iron rods for this and then throw them in "the sea". I know that not everyone lives next to the sea, so maybe just some body of water.

When the students insisted this is a rural tradition, James argued, "No! All over Korea, people do this." OK James. We all know you're a farm boy, and there's nothing wrong with that.

That's Jack Fruit

What's that? Famous fruit of the Philippines, Jack Fruit. I'm assuming it can be found in other SE Asian countries as well. My students tell me this is expensive, but smells and tastes great.


Hey, what smells like garbage, did something die? No, that's Durian fruit. Some people say, 'oh it smells awful, but the taste is to die for.', NO...if you tell me I have to eat this again I might die, it tastes exactly the way it smells, and it makes your breath smell like garbage.

I had some Durian candy here at the school and it was so disgusting it was a joke to give it to people and watch their faces. First, the student is so delighted that the teacher has given them a candy, and then their face changes. It's pretty hilarious to see the reality set in. "What is this?" And then their breath. It stinks up the whole classroom. When new students arrived, if they annoyed the old students in any way, I would get a look from them..."teacher, he has not yet tried your candy". Man, we had fun, I haven't done that in awhile.

One classroom that I use is pretty small, it's for the 1:4 group and we had this really funny student named Young, she would purposely eat it and breathe it all over the other students, and we would all vacate the room. I'd bring in the incense.

I constantly heard from locals how great this fruit tastes, and I was like what kind of drugs are you guys on? Some of the staff here assure me that they do NOT like Durian, so it's not a Philippino thing altogether, just many people here are crazy.

Wet Me

I'm drenched right now and a little irritated, not feeling like a good sport. Today where I live there's a water splashing tradition going on. If you step outside your house people attack you. They line up along side the roads to throw water in to the tricycles and jeepneys. The jeepneys put the plastic down over the windows, but it doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter if you're a senior citizen carrying the fish for sale for the day, there's no age or nationality discrimination. I feel bad for not being a good sport, but it is really annoying to have people screaming and coming at you with all this water and they are having a riot of a time at your expense. To me, today all these people look like fools. But...maybe I need to just get into it or something.

Well, Theresa...what does it signify, does it signify something? Yeah, it signifies that people are idiots. Ok, not really. I'm sourgraping.

My jeepney ride reminded me of a ride at an amusement park today, and then I remembered that I have a long post coming up about how the Philippines is like the ride Pirates Of The Caribbean at Disneyland. Not kidding, there are many similarities. I think it's going to be a long post though and I'm lazy.

Lost in Goodbyes

Today is one of my student's last days, he's leaving. He gave me the first season of Heroes on DVD as a goodbye present. I'm really going to miss him. Next week another student is leaving that's going to make the whole school sad. He's THE fun around here. Also that week, a teacher who started almost the same day I did is moving on.

This job is constant goodbyes, I've blogged about it before. This photo is the last scene from Lost in Translation. This scene shows what the movie was about. It's about not really making connections, and then making connections, but they're fleeting so it poses the question...how do we act? What is the nature of this relationship? It was hard for Bill Murray and Scarlett Johanssen to say goodbye, it was awkward because they hung out alot, but ...

In the hotel lobby when Bill was leaving, there was so much commotion, and she was just like..."ok bye" and it was nothing special. I've been there before. Well the very last scene he chases her down and forces a hug and says a proper goodbye. I don't know what she's feeling, but I know what I feel in these countless situations that I've had with the students in the last year. I feel like this picture looks. I'm sorry, I don't know how to act, it hurts, but I don't know what to say or do.

We exchange email addresses and pictures and sometimes there's a party. Tonight there's one for P. but I can't go. Does anyone else besides me know that the St. Elmo's Fire theme song has words...part of it says, time goes on, people touch and then they're gone. It's playing in my mind today.

Emails and Excuses

I really wanted an excuse to post this guy, and I don't have one, so I'm just posting it. Cute!
And now for something completely different...but still cute...
I got an email from the student that had a horrible entry into the UK. Here's a follow up.

ME: How are you?
answer: I'm fine except only my health. it's terrible. it depend on weather. i hate the weather in u.k. sometimes i felt really bad. i didn't know why i felt bad. i think weather is just problem. i worry a litter about my health. but i belive that time tell me to answer.

How is the school?
answer: the school's name is regent. i think the teaching system is good and there are many different student. it's good for me but, i think you're best teacher than all of teacher in u.k. because my school teacher always compart a indivisual to a public. i don't like it. for instance, ones time, my teacher didn't answer to a question because of time. at that time is finishing time her class. sometimes, i'm surprised person mind in u.k. however... never mind...^^

Are the teachers as awesome as me? (no, I'm better!)
No. you are best for me. ^^
bye.. thank you . have a nice day.
---------------
No, I'm not embarrassed at all to beg for compliments!
I warn these guys about the weather in the UK, but so many of them don't want to hear it. It's a different world than the Philippines, let's just put it that way.

You Want Sports?

THIS is a sport. It's called Sepak Takraw, it's Malaysian. It has to be seen to be believed. I was trying to find photos that would capture just what these athletes do with this ball, it's much more amazing live.

These guys hit this ball with their feet in any position, and they literally fly upside down at times. I have never seen anything like it, it's very exciting. This is on television here in Asia, but I had never seen or heard of this in the U.S.

UPDATE: There is a You Tube video of this to check out, the Busan Asian Games, Busan is actually in South Korea. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXmjOMUdsPY, It's not the most amazing action I've ever seen, but if someone has never seen this, go there now.

There's also a youtube video of some guys in Minnesota USA messing around, but they look like they might have Asian heritage, maybe that's why they knew about it.

Kim Jong Il is HOT!

And he's pretty much a fashion icon in Asia. His hairstylist works long hours to keep that quaff standing tall. He's got the hippest most now glasses frames, I see the hip hop world has taken to them. He wears huge platform heeled shoes. He's really really short. I read an article in Newsweek that said the first thing he said to one female foreign government official on her visit was "What do you think of my physique?Eh?" What's a girl supposed to say to that? Yeah...you're pretty hot. Umm, now...about those nukes...

I'm going to blog about the dmz soon, probably not today tho. Oh, no...I just found this...

I thought my sense of humor was original...guess not. The students really laugh though when I seriously say that I really like Kim Jong Il...for fashion, but that's all, otherwise he's not a good role model.

Dear Students,

I'm not your maid. I'm not even my maid. Don't leave stuff in my class for me to pick up. I don't want your old water bottles, balled up tissues, used old post-it notes that you don't want anymore, nothing like that. I'm not interested and it looks crappy. Take your dishes with you, your old coffee cups when you leave. Oh, your pen ran out? Throw it in the trash. It would be nice if you also took your body odor with you, but I have some incense for that. Have a nice day. See you tomorrow.

100 Words For Yellow

Once my student MK told me, "I think it would be too hard for you to learn Korean." "Why is that?", I asked. "Because we have about one hundred words for 'yellow'." The other students said, "What?" "Ok," said MK, "maybe 99." Then he started listing all the shades of yellow in Korean and the other students started nodding, "Oh yes, maybe he's right.", they agreed. I think English has a lot of color words also, but I don't know about 99 and they are not commonly used.

A few minutes ago I walked by the sink in the hallway leading to the bathroom and it smells like butterscotch for some reason, and I had forgotten how much I love butterscotch.

Ok Justin! I see you!

My last post underneath this one got me to thinking. I posted it at lunch time and then was sitting here at the school in the lobby zoning out, trying to think a complete thought without interruption from the students...I'm thinking I clicked around on the jpod website and no less than three links came up for skateboarding stuff, and I'm wondering what Douglas Coupland's deal is with that, and if it's explained in the book jpod. What does an old guy like D.C. care about skateboarding so much?

At this point someone was trying really hard to get my attention, so I snapped out of my stupor to see Justin in my line of vision, "hi teacher!" He's wearing this shirt today that says, "SKATEBOARDING IS ON MY MIND" and there's a picture of this guy that looks kind of like my ex in contemplative thought. Yeesh...it reminds me of my post on my MySpace blog regarding the conspiracies of the universe.

So, Theresa, You got jpod?

All this eluding to Douglas Coupland and the links on the side of your blog to Douglas Coupland news, what's really going on? Who is this person? What can you tell us?

Well in college I had to read Shampoo Planet for English, my introduction to the writing of D.C. We didn't discuss it much in class, and then had to write a final exam essay on it, and didn't know what the questions would be in advance. My essay kicked butt. The teacher used to teach at Stanford and holds a PhD. The college is located in a nice area, so teachers like to live there. This results in having an astounding local small college staff. Anyway, she wrote on my final, "you are the only one that really got this book."

And I did, Douglas Coupland writes for me and he reminds me of my friend Dave. He coined the now horribly misused term Generation X, that was the book title. He's an artist type that can't see things drably, even the drab he romanticizes[see Souvenir of Canada].

When my thinking gets too literal I need a Coupland antidote, or anecdote...whichever. Not that he isn't literal, but his windows have the right dressing. It's permission to be me, and there's not much media entertainment out there issuing these slips at the moment, especially to females. (Thank god for gay guys? -huh?)I need a hall pass to surreal thinking patterns that are so concrete they could be plans for a futuristic skyscraper (that doesn't scrape anything). I'm an accidental futurist so often and pained souls like me need the kindred spirits.

I'm in need of jpod and The Gum Thief, but I don't know if I can get them out here in the Phils.

BUT the reason for this post is to send readers to a very cool web page that must be played with and clicked, it's really fun and evil. Enjoy.
http://www.jpod.info/ The image of the cat is something I stole from the page ( you have to click around on there) title..."God is a Xkb state indicator"

There are also links on the page that pull up a google search for how to flip a skateboard, and one link to http://www.skateboardingis.com/ and pretty funny http://www.skateboardingsucks.com/, this is rude joke on skateboarders (commercialism) but at a quick glance and scroll and my super speed reading abilities, it looks well written, and there are probably some suckers out there that don't get it, just a guess. It's interesting, but not my sense of humor. I don't know, I don't really care if things go commercial. And certainly the people that write this website, however intelligent in their own areas of expertise, seem pretty standard in keeping with the currently misogynistic times. Even if it's parody, it's likely just reinforcing their readerbase badbrains. I'm tired of jokes at the expense of women. We're not animals, we're people.

I'm a misogynist-o-meter in that if society is currently extreme in women hating and exploitation and control, I become more of a feminist automatically, which normally I'm not.

This is the thing about Douglas Coupland, is that all his media sends me on a thinking carnival ride.

"Mom Ibis"

This is a picture of some ibis, I'll get to that in a second. My youngest son, 12, is Autistic. He doesn't really talk, but he says a lot of things, like lines from movies, mostly. When he says these random things, he requires a certain response from anyone else he might be in the room with. He comes up to me and touches my chin showing me that he wants me to talk, and repeats himself again and again if I don't respond the right way. If I fail to say what he needs to hear altogether, he'll launch into a full scale tantrum. A typical routine goes like this:
T:"It's Showtime!"
Me: "The Incredibles"
T: "BYOB!"
Me:"Bugs Life"
T:"Hey little guy..."
Me: "Finding Nemo"

I have to say the right movie, or else. It's hard when he adds a new one, sometimes I don't know it and there's an emergency family conference with my older son who can almost always figure out what he's referring to. He also does songs, where I have to do the next line, and he does that when he's upset. He does Joni Mitchell, Simon and Garfunkel, a song from The Sound of Music, and lately some duran duran, but for some reason when he does that one he's not mad.

Another thing that he does, is he names an animal and I have to make the noise of the animal. So, he'll say "Mom dog" and I have to bark like a dog. "Mom horse" and I have to whinny or something. This gets irritating, it sounds easy, but then he says, "Mom penguin" ??? or "Mom giraffe", "Mom unicorn". I suppose I can make a horse sound for a unicorn.


He has this children's book with obscure animals that he tortures me with, "Mom ibis!" he demands. It's easy to make up a bird sound, but then he says, "Mom ermine" gasp!

"Evelyn Waugh Was A Man!"

I've been told more than once that this is me. I used to even have my hair kind of like Scarlett's there and I kind of have the same voice. I have to admit, when I saw this part of the movie [Lost in Translation] I cringed a little when her husband told her off. "Why do you have to point out how stupid everyone is all the time? Not everyone has a philosophy degree from Yale you know." (I don't know if those are the exact words, I'm going from memory.) She replied, "I thought it was funny." That's exactly what I would have said. I thought my friend Stephanie was the one who told me that I was like her, but she says it wasn't her and she hasn't seen the movie.

In reality, if someone said they checked into a hotel in Tokyo as Evelyn Waugh, I would have thought that was pretty cool, especially if it was a girl. BUT, I'm snotty about a lot of other things though. Bimbos irritate me. I've been thinking about this lately, because I'm looking at my friends on MySpace, like their friends, and then their friends...through the chain, the looking glass you know. There is just no shortage of dumb people on MySpace.

I'm not like the character in this movie, though because I don't get bored. I would have sang Karaoke in the bar with the blond chick. One of the first scenes where she goes to the Buddhist temple and cries because she felt empty, that was me in high school, but not now. I'm one of those annoying satisfied people that thinks they found the truth.

and don't gimmie that, 'no you're not Scarlett Johanssen', because that's not what I mean...

I'm So Boring!

I used to tell my friends that people only get bored because they are boring people. Usually I can find something to do to interest myself because I find so many things interesting. So I'd say things like, "there are no bored people, only boring people"...

Now at school the students tend to misuse this word, it's part of Konglish. "I'm so boring!", they complain. And I'm like...uh...well no, you're bored, not boring. Of course in the back of my mind I'm thinking, yeah you're boring, but I can't teach it that way. They also do the reverse, "The movie was so bored." There's a general rule that may not always apply, but generally people are bored and things are boring. Example, I am bored with this boring blog entry.

I Found My Flickr Account

This is a picture that I took of a poster I saw when I was in China. They are English crazy over there (and money crazy I guess). I thought I had lost my flickr account, but I found it. I should have loaded every photo I had to that account, because my camera was stolen, and all my technology isn't working at the moment.


This picture was taken at a KFC in Zhuhai China. I missed a lot of photo ops, because I'm shy to snap pictures of things without permission. I didn't want to ask these guys if I could photograph their feet so it's taken on the sly and not very centered. I took this because I was in KFC and these guys were all wearing the typical basketball shoes, and it seemed so Western to me, I think people have a different concept of China. Granted, this was in a special zone, but still the mainland nonetheless. I needed a visa to get there.

Old Goodbyes

These two girls left some time ago, but I'll never forget them. The one in the center is Wendy and the one on the right is Cathy. The guy is Rocky. Wendy and Cathy were two of the most memorable people I've ever met in my life, they were always happy, fun, energetic, interesting, everything. They made me want to put on my pjs and have a sleepover. When Wendy left she pulled me out of class and started bawling in the hallway, I almost lost it. I kind of wish I had, for her sake. After these guys left I said, never again. I'm not getting attatched to these people, no matter how cute they are. Can I try not naming them? "Student number 1, sit over there, please." Ok, so I'm comparing them to cute pets, sorry about that. I'm just trying to describe heartfelt attatchment to fleeting things.

Is He Handsome? No! Just Good Looking

I've had girls insist that Rain not only isn't handsome, but he's also not good looking, yeah right! This is Rain by the way, in Korea he's called Bi, pronounced Bee. To me, Rain is hot. The girls like him and say, yeah he's talented and has a good body, but he's not cute, or handsome, or good looking, his eyes are too small.

Whatever.


In the past I've blogged about this adjective frenzy that the Koreans get into, having precise yet unexplainable definitions for beauty words. I've got news for them, Rain is handsome AND goodlooking, AND cute, and has a great body. Deal with it. The native speaker has spoken.

Rain is popular in Australia and has toured a bit in the US, he actually sold out at Madison Square Gardens, and venues in Las Vegas.

I know, I know, he's probably a couple years older than my son.