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So I'm researching both law schools and music schools. It's infuriating that I still, after a whole degree, have no idea what to do. On the one hand I love playing piano, and I'm easily good enough now to get into a music school of my choice. Hell, I was only about 5 wait list spots from music school 5 years ago when my piano level was considerably lower than it is now. On the other hand, I love arguing, debating, philosophy, ethics, and all things of that sort. The LSAT, I believe, will be a breeze. But then there are drawbacks to all choices. If I aim for law school, it can only be one of a few schools, Victoria not included (in all likelihood), because my B+ GPA just isn't very high. I'd probably end up in Edmonton or Manitoba or maybe Dalhausie on the east coast. Boy did I ever work hard every semester, for a few weeks during all the exam and essay due dates. But the rest of the time I just didn't hold much of an interest in regular studying and reading. ...

Just last week on the plane to Jeju Island, I was explaining to my girlfriend that the 'water landing procedure' safety pamphlets are useless, other than to give people a creative kickstart for when they start pondering what to do if the plane goes down. See, when we're flying that high looking down on the vast ocean we want to know that there's a plan, should the plane come across an above-water emergency. Above-land situations are intuitive, because the jet is supposed to land on hard ground; in an emergency, maybe it could land on a highway, or a big field, or wherever. This is what we tell ourselves. But water landings are not intuitive this way, and we need some kind of line-of-thought for how we'd handle them. We all think this stuff, no? (Personally, I fantasize about being the hero, pulling gorgeous young women to safety out of the wreckage, then modestly saying "don't call me a hero" to Larry King a few days later.) So, to help out, they give ...

Photos as promised! This weekend the girlfriend and I made our way to Korea's most popular tourist spot Jeju Island, dubbed by the govt. as "Asia's Hawaii," rather dishonestly, though cleverly. It is somewhat of a topical place, but not much at all like Hawaii. All in all, it was a wonderful, albeit short, vacation! We stayed at a small lodge, one of those wood floor, wood wall, wood ceiling kind of places, near the water. Here's the balcony view: Surrounding the coast are a dozen or so relic 'smoke signal statues', right out of Lord of the Rings. They served as a defensive communication measure several hundred years ago: The island has a number of rather... cheap... tourist traps. I saw a number of those dinosour parks you tend to see out on the highway, and a lot of go-cart tracks. Here's a horse ranch/go-cart track/theme park place. The giant boat is a restoed relic of some sort. On the property is a nice point, around which we walked. On Friday, o...

Tomorrow I'm jetting to my first bonafide out-of-town vacation during this January/February time off. I've got two nights at a nice hotel (for two), round-trip flights, and a rental car, for a hair over $200 apiece in Canadian dollars. Ah yes, the wonders of travelling during the off-season in a country with a bad economy and flagging tourism industry! I cannot wait to see the ocean and breathe in the fresh sea air. There will be photos!

Special days are, if nothing more, token reminders about different parts within ourselves. New Year's is really special, because when the ball drops and the fireworks explode and the drunken spirited melody of Auld Lang Syne is hearkened or sung by all, an urge enters the spirit to change, to become better and accomplish more and be happier and find love (or express it more truly) and be honest and good and all the rest. For a fleeting moment, many people actually take an honest look at their lives and imagine how they could be better. Some people even go so far as to resolve to enact said imaginings! And any gym regular will tell you they hate January, because that's when, for about three weeks, the facilities are clogged like so many arteries with large rumps and spare tires; resolute New Year's devotees, fresh from celebrating the Earth's token completion of yet another orbit around its giver of light and life, drag their rears to the gym to transfer some of that ...

Perhaps one of the greatest transitions a person makes over the course of his or her life is the transition from being surrounded by close elders, to being surrounded by those who are younger. As a rule, we outlive our grandparents, our parents, our aunts and uncles, even our older siblings. Eventually, our greatest friends and family will be, at the most, our own age or only slightly older. Most will be much, much younger. I wrote several months ago in one of these entries hat we do an astonishing amount of 'prepatory work' before we go out and experience the planned experiences. That is, on top of the 1/3 of our lives we spend unconscious, we noodle about with head (and body) hair, washing, shampooing, makeup, nails, dressing, as well as house cleaning, organizing, paying bills, laundry, folding, ironing, cooking, cleaning dishes, as well as buying supplies for all of the aforementioned activities (but a few of the number that coule be listed). And the worst part is, so ma...

I donated blood again today. As an added perk, I got my manditory disease test results back from my previous blood donation, and I am free of everything! Well, everything they tested for, anyway. My girlfriend, who took my blood today, had a hoot of a time poking me with needles (one to test hemoglobin levels and another to draw). I also (to her great amusement) had my proportions and bodyfat level tested. Let's just say that if there's a famine, I'll be the last one laughing. But, my blood pressure is normal and according to the machine that measured my body fat, I also have excess muscle. "Why thank you," I responded to the machine, thinking perhaps it was a compliment. It was a fun afternoon. And really, who'd have thought one could have a relationship in which free physicals of the medical sort were a perk? Anyway. According to my BMI, I am an obese man. Not kidding. But seriously, if I'm obese, I must be the healthiest obese man alive. Oh and also, I ...

Well, I suppose it is resolution time again. How did that happen so quickly? It's weird, that the busier years seem to go by even more quickly. My sister is running and talking, my degree is hanging on a wall (or sitting in a drawer, or something), and I am in Korea for some reason. First, let's do a recap of last year's resolutions. I didn't write them here on the blog, and I think I wrote them on paper and left them back in Victoria in my desk or dresser. The only resolutions I can remember having made were to lose weight, write a blog every day when possible, and to continue my ongoing lifelong resolution to die of old age without having owned a cellular phone. It wasn't all that bad a year. I have lost a bit of weight, and I managed to write a blog every day until late August, which is pretty good. But, I did have to get a cell phone here. I tried not to, I really tried, but land lines are just out of fashion here in the world's most wireless country. The co...

I tell 'ya, if there's one thing religious people know how to do, it's sell their product. Every so often, I see a group of westerners, Mormons, roaming about town here in Seoul. They're always about my age, tall, good looking (men and women), well-dressed, clean-cut, smiling and chatting happily, and ready to spark a conversation with a willing stranger. And those aren't travel books they're holding! And I give them credit. I could never sell a religion the way religious people manage to, for two reasons. First, I'm a bad salesman in appearance (or, more specifically, well-kept-ness), and second, I tend to use reasons and evidence to convince people of things, rather than vacuous appeals to the baser elements of their emotions. --- Let me ask this: how long would Catholicism (or any other major faith) last if children weren't 'brought up Catholic'? I mean to ask, what would happen to the Church if only men and women over the age of majority cou...

The taller peaks off in the distance are my next project.

Christmas, historically, hasn't been any kind of big holiday here until just in the last half-century, with the rise of capitalism and christianity. Among the church-going population it is a family holiday, but among the secular it has yet to take on a family-oriented form. Instead, it is considered a romantic or fun day to spend with friends and/or significant others. There are still presents, but there is no established food tradition to be found. I spend the afternoon at a large palace downtown with my girlfriend, and had a fun dinner with the usual suspects later on. For more detailed photos of the palace, you can look at Jordan's site ( http://destinationseoulkorea.blogspot.com/ ), as he posted a lot more pictures from a trip last week and I don't want to be redundant about it. I was told that my '85 birthday signified me for the year of the ox. I went to wikipedia today to find out what that's supposed to mean, and stumbled across some additional information:...

I've been taking my camera to work lately, and I've fond that the kids are much less interested in smiling for it when I'm taking the pictures, but much more interested in smiling when they have control. So I handed the camera off to them with a stern warning to be careful with it, and then let them have all the fun they wanted. These are only some of my english classes, as I didn't get a chance to bring my camera to others. I deleted most of the photos, because they were blurry or otherwise not good at all, and here are the ones I kept. Enjoy: This is one of my grade six blue classes. Each full room is split into three groups for english time, red (best), yellow, and blue (there are three 6th grade homerooms, so 9 different english groups altogether). Usually the blue groups are badly behaved as well as bad at english. Interestingly, the red groups are also badly behaved, mainly because they've been studying so hard on the side that the texts are dead easy and not ...