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Truly, there is no way I could write every day, for two reasons. First, I don't have the time; second, I have too much to say. It is a weird feeling, there is so incredibly much to tell, all of it interesting, that I have no idea where to begin. I'm hoping to write perhaps weekly, and to add pictures whenever possible. Right now my internet is so slow (stolen wireless) that I can't put pictures up, but soon I'll have my own net connection and I'll be able to. In a class today, I had the students (grade six) do a game called "the human knot." Students stand in a tight sircle facing in, and everyone grabs two random hands and holds on, such that all the arms and hands are intertwined and knotted up. The students then have to communicate and work together to get out into a large circle (sometimnes two separate circles), seesntially 'untying' their hands, without anybody letting anyone else's hands go. Kids love this game to no end. I pitted the gi...

I don't even know with the time change what I've missed. Unfortunately I don't yet have internet at home (I'm in a cafe right now suyrrounded by starcraft-playing korean teenage boys), so this blog is going to have to wait. Seoul is massive.... just, endlessly large and crowded and full of life and culture and lights and buildings and food and everything else. I'm really busy getting things together in terms of utilities, work, transport, food, and all the rest. Do wish me well, and I promise that once I get home internet I'll begin writing more regularly, though probably not every day anymore. And I promise this won't turn into a boring travel blog, chronicling the everyday events that sound interesting to absolutely nobody other than myself. I fully intend to write the way I've been writing this whole year, and Seoul will be informative to that at most.

My travels will take no less than a full day, and including the time change, there is no way I could possibly blog tomorrow (friday) or even the next day depending on whether there is internet in my apartment when I arrive. For your interim entertainment, here are some photos I took today in rainy North Vancouver. I went up to a lesser-known suspension bridge, and around the rainforest near Grouse Mountain.

I'm writing from Vancouver today. Most of the goodbyes are done, and my flght leaves tomorrow morning at 6am. We fly to San Francisco to lay over for five hours, then to seoul; the final arrival time is expected to be 5:30 p.m. Seoul time, Saturday, at which point we'll be stuck on a two hour bus ride to our places of residence. All together, it will be about about a 24 hour trip. I dread the trip, but I look forward to stepping into my apartment and collapsing to the floor into well-earned slumber. Travelling is an awful business.... driving, flying, bussing, ferrying... it leaves one slightly ill, tired, unexercised, and at a loss for appetite. But then, I remind myself that not more than a few hundred years ago, making one's way to Korea from North America's west coast was a months-long journey on the swells of the ocean, and often deadly for those who dared. Sometimes I take pictures of art, but in a sense I feel as though I'm stealing, even if my pictures offer...

"Stupidity is the devil. Look in the eye of a chicken and you'll know. It's the most horrifying, cannibalistic, and nightmarish creature in this world." - Werner Herzog

I find myself at a partial loss to explain just why it is I'm leaving the country for so long. For those readers who don't know, I've contracted with a school in South Korea (Seoul) to teach english for one year, renewable. I depart for Vancouver in two days, and for Seoul in two more. Jordan is coming along with the same contract, and you can find his soon-to-be travel blog "Seoul Searching" at: http://destinationseoulkorea.blogspot.com/ . So here we are. I've been hopping around Victoria these last few days tying up odds and ends, and in the process I've been pressed to admire the beauty of this city, and the deep love I have and always will have for it. Victoria is warm, sunny, temperate, quiet, unassuming, and full of visual beauty. A large portion of all the people I love most are in this city, not to mention my aging cat (who I fear may pass on while I'm away), the ocean that I find myself drawn toward at nearly every moment, and of course the va...

Hiatus, day three. I leave very soon now; the seemingly endless number of odds and ends to be tied up is keeping me from writing. "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed." - Albert Einstein

Hiatus, day two. Still working on my entry, it should be up tomorrow. "Do you ever stop and notice who it is we assasinate? It's always people who've told us to live together in harmony, and try to love one-another. Jesus, Ghandi, Lincoln, John Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, John Lennon; they all said 'try to live together peacefully.' And BAM!, Right in the 'fuckin head. Apparently we're not ready for that. That's difficult behaviour for us." - George Carlin

I'm going on hiatus for two days to write up a long entry with the addition of some photos. It is in progress right now. It should be for Day 238.

(On the female Chinese gymnasts): "They all look the same to me anyway.... I mean because they're all young! You see, I'm 45, so to me, anyone born post-Ghostbusters-II just looks like an apple-cheeked, nubile symbol of my own mortality." - Jon Stewart

I'm stuck on the notion of historical narratives today. Was it the wet ground below the horses' feet, or Napoleon's personal distractions, or Wellington's strategy that won the battle of Waterloo? Perhaps none of these conditions were sufficient, but all were necessary. Perhaps any combined number were sufficient, but no one was necessary. History is almost an art more akin to literary theory than it is a science akin to chemistry. So, I ask of my readers (all 5-ish of you) today, to look back on your past relationships and ponder honestly the historical narratives you've created to explain feelings, happenings, and the precipitating factors in their eventual ends. What do you tell people when asked? How do you paint yourself as a character in your story? How do you paint the other? Now, I ask that you dig down and try to unbury the memories you feel best, the good times, the pivots, the little moments that have stuck in mind. Try to reminisce, to get as real a...

One never really kicks an addiction. It stays with you until the very day you die; the only issue is whether or not (or how often) you lapse into indulgence. You don't hear "former alcoholic" tossed around much, to name an example. I have my addictions. One of the biggest ones is the world of computer gaming, particularly the WoW or Diablo-style online adventure games. This addiction I share with many others, though I've quite intentionally steered clear of all such games for several years now. It is no wonder that pornography, gambling, and drugs are so wildly popular. They appeal to basic human desires in a way that is entirely compelling and completely irrational. Weaker people get caught up to the point that it destroys their lives, while stronger people still can't help but throw a buck or two in the direction of a lottery tcket, or have a more than few drinks every so often, or take a gander at the veritable universe of sexuality that is but a click or two a...

I had a nice day at Thetis lake just this last weekend. Jumping off the rocks is an interesting experience. Looking down, it appears to be a dangerous and unnerving height, but looking back up from the water it seems trivial. I can only imagine how unnerved I would be if I ever chose to jump out of a plane (with a parachute of course). The lake was crowded with drunken, obnoxious guys my age, all of whom are followed about by skinny, good looking ditzy girls. "Girls don't like nice guys, they like jerks," as my friend Colin pointed out. Sure, that's clearly true of some girls. But the equation is deceptive: I run into beautiful girls attached to asshole guys, and I default to the mindset that "she could do better." But says who? Those girls are bitches most of the time anyway (forgive my language), and very much match their male counterparts. So, in an important sense, the men who are allegedly more successful with women than 'nice guys' are compet...

I think today's trip to Wal Mart will be my last. I go maybe two or three times a year, typically to buy things like socks, soap, or batteries. But today I felt especially uncomfortable with the massive crowds, the endless beeping of bar code readers, and all the fat people. There were so many fat people, and single mothers, and miserable staff. The staff roster is interesting, a combination of retirement age workers and teenage girls. If we were to drop our elitism for a moment and recognize that we live in a culture of consumerism (i.e. buying things), we'd have to admit that Wal Mart is the new opera house. It is the new art gallery, the new live stage, the new church, the new local restaurant. Buying things has become a source of pleasure, a shared experience, even a ritual to some.

Basically, I'm a pretty average guy, physically. I'm not oddly built, my proportions are normal, my height is just an inch or two above average, and so forth. I had a normal, healthy childhood, and a variety of experiences in education, travel, and skill sets to speak of. I am 23. Therefore, it is a near impossibility that I could ever have been an olympic athlete, or be one in the future. The truth: international level competition is, at this point, reserved almost exclusively for the abnormal, for people who are genetically well-built for their discipline, and who don't have much of a life: "All I do is eat, sleep, and swim," in the words of Michael Phelps. Not to denigrate the effort. Surely to be an olympian, an exceptional level of dedication is a necessary condition. It's just not the only necessary condition. Other ones, physical properties for example, are in some sense arbitrary, and blind to the effort of the competitors. The idea that determination ...

Ok, I am one hour late on today's blog, but I'll call it for 229 anyway and do one tomorrow (i.e. later today). You win some, and you lose some. Those moments when you know you've tried your best and simply lost, all you can do is exit with a little bit of class; don't linger around, don't wallow, and don't beg. But, I suppose, there is an argument to be made for going down swinging. Anyway. There were one or two things I really, honestly, truly wanted to happen, but that did not happen. And I tried for them. On the other hand, some great things have happened too, and more great things are on the way in good time. We remember the good things more anyway, in the long run. Well, some of us, anyway.

I got a letter ito the TC today. Originally, there was a story about a PETA advocate who stood outside a KFC wearing a bikini made of lettuce (or paper painted like lettuce anyway). A few writers wrote in saying that the girl was the subject of exploitation of PETA's part. So the girl herself wrote back in, confirming that she does in fact have free will, and that animals are the real creatures being exploited for their bodies... in a manner of speaking. Enter myself. Here's my letter: --- Re: "Fake fare spares real chickens," letter, Aug. 7. I'd like to preface my response by noting that I am a five-year vegetarian, and (at least to some extent) a supporter of the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals' efforts to move our society away from filling its bloated belly with dead animals. However, I don't believe it a productive measure to send out bikini-clad, gorgeous young women as the "troops on the ground" to win over hearts and minds. The you...

Ok so the Chinese had a cute girl lip-sync the voice of a less cute girl at the opening ceremonies. I'm sure you'd all heard, and I'm sure you've all felt that sense of requisite outrage. How dare they, right? Well, the polit bureau guy who made the decision (or his press secretary, anyway) said that the idea was to create the best possible performance. So they combined good looks with good singing; it was a team effort. I imagine our sense of outrage, or having been fooled, or our sense that the 'ugly' girl got a bum deal, stems from our particular culture and its obsession with individuality. We have a doctrine that individuals ought to get recognized as such for their acheivements, and that it is unfair when the limelight is shone (shined? ... I hate irregular verbs) in the wrong direction, or not at all. But that's not Chinese culture. Both girls were doing what they did for the benefit of the opening ceremonies, and not for themselves. The culture essen...

What do old rich people think, when they are just a few years (or hours) from death, full of nothing but memories of working for the extra zeros in their bank account, and a nicer car than other people's cars, and so forth? They must not be thinking happy thoughts. Everything is about money! It can't be escaped! Have you ever known rich people before? I have. I once taught piano to the two daughters of the people who own a 10 million dollar house at the end of ten mile point - the house way at the end, that's massize and almost all glass windows. Anyway, life is the same for them. The only differences - square footage, car horsepower, couch quality, the number of TV channels - really are the only differences. The people are the same, with the same desires and same miseries and same conflicts and same everything. They gave me a present for christmas. It was wrapped and handed to me directly. It was an ugly, kitchy, loud, motor-powered mini-fountain. Turns out the p...

The olympic athletes... they're all on drugs. I don't care how many 'negative' tests they get. Those swimmers are doped up. World records are broken almost every time they jump in the pool, and their bodies and abilities are a far shot from anything resembling the bodies and abilities of normal humans. The road to modern athletics has been long, such that we've grown slowly accustomed to it all, but take a step and have a real look at these people. Winners get millions of dollars, in advertizing, or cash rewards, or whatever else. My bet is that there are many, many illegal substances and methods out there that aren't being tested for on account of their newness or indetectability. And if I might add, a lot of the olympians look completely miserable. Especially the gymnasts. Those teenage girls look like they're on the verge of suicide from all the stress and pressure. And all the rules are arbitrary! I suppose that's true of any sport, but in some sport...