I woke up to the sound of screaming this morning. My first thought was of all the situations I've heard about in psychology class about people not doing anything when others are being harmed in plain eyeshot or earshot. I walked out onto my balcony to see where it was coming from, and a jar suddenly crashed through the window in the suite below mine and flew across the alley, shattering on the opposite house and raining shards onto the street. Then another item came flying out, and another. I ran to Jordan's (right across he alley) and knocked, hoping he could accompany me to the door to try to do something (a one-person confrontation is more easily seen as provocation), but he wasn't home. Neighbours were standing in the alley gawking, and one had called the police already. As I ran to the staircase to the suite, a neighbour stopped me, saying we needed to wait for the police. I didn't know what to do, and in those few moments when I was deciding whether to ignore the ...
Posts
Seoraksan
The bus dropped me off, alone, in a middle-of-nowhere street corner in a place called Yongdae-ri. There was nothing aside from a couple of stores and a fish drying company. Little did I know at the moment, I'd been dropped off about 6 kilometers away from the park entrance by mistake. It was thursday afternoon, and my plan was to make the peak of the park's highest mountain, Daecheongbong, by Saturday morning, to watch the sunrise over the East Sea. I was starting on the east side of the park, and planned to exit on the west side, about 30km away, at the popular tourist destination Seorak-Dong. I found my way to the park entrance, and it was very quiet. This being the off-season, there were many closed motels, closed restaurants, and a large empty parking lot. I saw but one other hiker. I got myself a map at the ranger station and set off on the path to my stop for the first of two nights in the park: Baekdam buddhist temple. A family of korean travellers who were already at ...
Tomorrow morning I'll be boarding a bus to the town of Inje, where I'll set out on my hike across Seoraksan National Park, then to the ocean at the town of Sokcho. If I have the time and motivation, I may even go somewhere from there. Wish me luck! I'll put up photos here when I get back. As well, I'd like to say hi to all my adult students at BCM, some of whom I know read this blog now! Hi!
At some point in life I want to be the absolute best I can be at something. Anything, really... just to know what it feels like to hit that limit. Everything I do, I know I could be doing it better, with more commitment and time and determination. But before I'm dead, I'll reverse this trend with respect to one thing. I'm not sure which one just yet!
It took me a long time, and a number of relationships, to realize the fundamental truth that women tell each other everything. Absolutely everything. Everything they promise they won't tell, and everything else so personal that their boyfriends just assume on common sense that they won't tell... they tell. I guarantee, if you run on this assumption, things in your life will make so much more sense, all the time. I was reminded of this because yesterday I for the first time in my life I watched an episode of Sex and the City from start to finish. I was alone, and it was on, so I watched it. What an awful show. But more to the point, it makes sense to me why so many women are big fans, and why so few men have any interest in it at all. Men tell each other things relating to sex, but not a whole lot else. Even then, they only talk about the sex things that make them look cool, or that they can high-five about. The arguments, the tensions, the issues... men really don't t...
To paraphrase a paraphrase I heard today: Modern ethics in the western world, thanks mainly to the proliferation of easy modes of communication and mass organization, has become more focused on people as activists, or members of moral 'groups' taking various stands and exhibiting various symbols of solidarity with each other. I cite as an archetypal example the facebook event where everybody is supposed to wear a pink shirt on the 25th to oppose bullying. It's incredibly popular, with tens of thousands of participants already signed up. Now, I've always 'opposed' bullying, in the sense that I don't attempt to bully people, and in the other sense that if I see someone being pushed around and I can intervene usefully on the spot, I probably will (and on occasion I have done just that). This kind of moral thinking and action comes right out of greek philosophy (and thousands of years of its subsidiaries), and it is much more classical, independant from technolo...
Bananas
Buying bananas is a commitment, especially when you can't buy less than, say, 8 at once. The store I shop at only sells them by the whole bunch, i.e. about 15-20. So four days ago I bought 18 bananas (for less than 3 bucks!) and my life has been about them since. They sit there on the table in a bowl taunting me to finish them all before the brown spots spread too far. I had nothing but bananas for dinner yesterday, and I'm eating banana pancakes for breakfast every morning. There are 4 left. Ugh.
Michael Phelps apologized today for taking a bong hit. Of course, like all celebrities and politicians, the apology only ever follows the incident of getting caught red-handed. Just once, I'd so dearly like to see a public figure simply admit an offence that would otherwise have never been found out, and then apologize for it. That I can accept. "I'm 23 years old, and despite the successes I have had in the pool, I acted in a youthful and inappropriate way, not in a manner that people have come to expect from me..." - Phelps Who does Phelps owe an apology to? Who expects him not to take a few drugs and have a good time scoring babes by the dozen with his bucket full of gold medals (I sure as heck would)? Who wants him to be sorry? Who cares? And for God's sake the guy is younger than I am! If a 23-year-old can't be youthful and inappropriate, then what's the world come to? The apology is to Nike, and all his other contractors. He's terribly sorry t...