The world's last non-porn website

One thing that Korea has in common with Canada is that if you stay up late enough, you can watch nudity on regular cable. But here's the interesting part: while Canada has badly-acted drama movies with nudity, Korea has comedies (also badly-acted). Korean late-night sex comedies are hard to describe, but the most common gag involves a beautiful woman on her back being thoroughly un satisfied by a goofy-looking man, who in turn is straining himself hilariously. It's good watching.

I had a dream last night that I was an artist. My method was to rummage around the dumpsters of university campus art buildings, and make billboard-sized collages of all the rough drafts and unfinished ideas of the students. The collages were two and three-dimensional, mixing paintings with sculpted limbs and twisted metal all at once. The artistic 'idea' was to present the unintended conclusions that aspiring artists came to before rejecting them, as a collective, to the public.

I tried a new teaching idea today with my best grade two group as well as my best grade five group: not talking at all . I didn't utter a single word, or write anything on the board that wasn't first suggested by a student, for the entire classes. I didn't even tell them what my plan was when it started. And it worked wonderfully. Working only with my hand gestures and nodding and head shaking as responses, the kids had to work together to decipher the lesson plan, in english, and then follow the steps. They read a textbook dialogue in pairs, expanded vocabulary on the board, and practiced writing sentences that describe people (clothes, hair, etc...). We even marked old homework and assigned new homework. Kids mimic behaviour of their authority figures. The louder I'm willing to be when I tell them to quiet down, the louder they think they can talk before I stop them. In today's classes, hardly a word was uttered other than what was necessary to advance the l...

As of today I'm going back to being a vegetarian. By now I've tried in excess just about everything Korea has to offer traditional-food-wise, and as much as I love it all, it's time to revert to a less consumptive lifestyle. Exceptions will include only large gatherings where meat is the dish served, as well as seafood when I happen to be out for dinner (there really aren't many, if any, truly vegetarian dishes at restaurants). Vegarianism isn't a matter of absolute principle for me, but a matter of measured principle; that is, "the less meat the better" would be the maxim by which I eat. The other reason is that I can't for the life of me lose weight with all this food... cheap restaurants, all-you-can-eat lunches every day... all the hiking and strength training I do is to no effect! Anyway, I'm going cold turkey today (so to speak). Wish me luck.

I really enjoy youtube. It's a great site with a great philosophy. Just yesterday the youtube collaborative symphony orchestra got together - musicians from around the world - to play at Carnegie Hall! There's only one thing I'd like changed about the site. I want the option of disabling comments on video pages. That is, I don't want to see the comments for videos, especially videos concerning politics, religion, or anything else that seems to bring out the stupid in people on the internet. People who want to write and read comments should be welcome, and people who want nothing to do with them should have the option.

I've never really had a steady 9-5 job before, until now here in Korea. All my past jobs have been either part-time or have been scheduled for unusual hours. Now that I'm part of the standard workforce, I have a question for all the other people who've been in it a long time: When in God's name do you go to the bank? I've needed to do it for, like, a month now.

Imagine you're a kid, say, in the third grade. You're sitting in class one day when suddenly 15 school principals, from schools all over the country, come into the room to watch your every move, cameras and notepads in hand. It's like some sort of nightmare. Anyway that's what happened today. There was some sort of principal convention, and the looks on some of the kids' faces were priceless. I was even a little set aback. On the good side, the cafeteria served the single greatest lunch ever as a gesture to the guests.

Long disance relationships all seem to go through a certain natural progression. The first stage involves making the goodbyes and cooking up half-baked plans about the future. The second stage (immediately after the people are apart) involves many affirmations of commitment and resolve. The third is a gradual period of adjustment and emotional dissolution, before the final breakup which by that point is a foregone conclusion. I think a good rule of thumb about long-distance relationships is this: if the time spent apart will outlast the time you've been together so far, it will probably not work. If it is less, then you've got a shot. For example, if you've been together a few months and one person must go for 6 months, it's big trouble. But if the 6 months apart follows a happy year together, it stands a good chance.

Sorry about the quiet volume... I have to use the pre-installed webcam mic and it's no good.