GOOOB!

I've been chuckling to myself lately about becoming the bitter old washed-up villians in cartoons. You know... the ones that fester in their hate and malice to give themselves meaning until their hair falls out and their teeth go janky. You know... like mike yagoobian a.k.a. "Goob" in "Meet the Robinson's" I could do that... all I need is a nice heavy cape and some minions ~ possibly even a secret lair. My most recent targets on the list of things i'll crush beneath boot when I rule the world are: Ajummas... its the same thing as A'yi(s) in China... (old women...) and Taxi drivers. I don't think i've ever gotten into a taxi here in my two months in korea where the bastards havent complained where I'm going. Short distances or further distances... there seems to be no where that they want to go. Seriously... why would I want to speak Korean if it creates nothing but difficulties for me with these forsaken infidels of mercenary transportation. They inspire me to play nasty tricks on them and give no quarter. A week and a half a go or something "the other day" if you will... I and three other friends finally got into a taxi after far too many times being turned down by the snarky folk. I sat in front and totally hijacked this mans life with my good old friend: ignorance. I slathered on my nastiest midwest-city boy accent and nominally told the driver that we wanted to go on the five minute drive to Yonsei pyongwon a.k.a. Yonsei hospital (near where our homes were). He started griping up a little storm about the location... and that we had one too many people in the car... and I replied... yup... Yonsei pyongwon. It worked! YAY! screw you santa-claus ~ Peace on Earth good-will towards man fails again. Huzzah, I think my blood just got a couple degrees colder too. Ajummas then? Well the crotchety old livestock of gazillions of restaurants and otherwise run of the mill service sector jobs (restaurant proprietors, convenience store managers etc.) seem to have no pleasure in life but to tell you that you can't have something. For example... their restaurant has no small number of empty tables... but when sat down at two tables pushed together to accommodate our larger numbers, and they hear that we want to order quantities of food that they feel are not suited to how many people we have... they start bellering and snarling at us and pull away the second table. i could have spit in her face and kicked her into a gutter. At the very least, I would have been quite willing to introduce her to an iceberg fragment in Arctic conditions. So if you see me and im cloaked and balding... dont leave your drinks or children unattended around me because treachery just might be afoot...

Service Vs Production

Service vs. Production I’ve been talking to people like usual, and one of the fruits of a recent conversation helped me realized that I really have no interest in production type jobs. I’m so service oriented its almost sickening. So the conversation was with a friend whose mum evidently has factories in China (she’s US-Korean though). I asked him what her factories produced and he said... basically anything that girls are interested in buying at a given point in time. That idea exhausts me. It sounds so dreadfully mountainous and soulsuckingly boring to me. I respect her for doing it because it is such a monolithic feat, but have zero interest in doing it myself ~ even if it is one of those things that can make you fabulously wealthy. Why would I want to spend the larger portion of my life toiling for something that I find dull? and I say nay. The only way I could be involved in production is if it met at the cross section of a service. For example ~ tea, coffee, spice trade etc. The production or more realistically farming/distribution of those things could be ok to me because I am interested in what those things become and how they are used later down the line. But lets go back to it. I dont want to teach English forever. I could... but I’d be settling for much less than im worth. Teaching is still a business and even if I were a dyed in the wool career teacher (which im not), you always have to pander to the desires of whoever is running the school in order to preserve your position. That usually comes at the cost of how you teach (methods you’re allowed to use/ subjects you can talk about or subjects that are considered “a waste of time”). The definition of “quality education” gets twisted by whoever wants to throw the phrase around. At least service is about pandering to peoples preferences. Its honest on at least one level ^_^. I like service because its about understanding societies wants and/or needs. Theres something about that that I find seriously engaging. It leaves you open to learn more about people and to some extent possibly even understand their desires more than they themselves do. Like that one slutty lady on Moulin Rouge... And then there is my obsession with consumption. Theres a certain amount of abstract meaning in taste as far as I am concerned. While everyone has their own preferences and likes, and that is very important. Cooking, eating and drinking in a lot of ways are like a short term journeys to find something that is both objectively and subjectively good. History, tradition, creation and discovery are all wrapped up in the same event. Its not everyone who is so fortunate to be a part of a constant paradox. Naturally im emo enough to enjoy not being understood.... like paradoxes... :D

Stream of Conciousness

There have been a few times that i’ve heard of an exercise that... I think... is called “Stream of Consciousness” or at least its supposed to demonstrate your stream of consciousness. The way it works to my knowledge is you take a piece of paper and writing implements (fresh blood and a raven quill.... J/K) and you put to paper whatever jumps into your mind AS it jumps into your mind. There is no controlling or focusing, you just put down what it is that you think as you think it. So yes, your thought could change mid-sentence and you would in fact write a different thought halfway through your sentence. It can be really hectic, but really exposing of what is going on “up there.” I’ve also heard it done with pictures I believe. Draw or doodle whatever comes to mind and morphe as the thought morphes. Im terrible at doodling, so I just do my thing switching between Chinese and English and enjoy the heck out of it. My version was definitely more controlled than the experiment I just talked about, because I like to mostly finish my sentences. I was also choosing words that I felt encapsulated my moments. Very interesting results. One thing I think that is just fabulous about the activity is that it shows how many unrelated thoughts we can have bouncing around in our domes. Its stuff like that that keeps me up at night. An inability to resolve ideas and an equally frustrating inability to let them go. Mostly. Its enough to make one an alcoholic. But more of lions and less of lambs, or perhaps more of lions and of lambs depending on your paradigm. I was reading the third book (just started it... again) in the Chronicles of Narnia (The Horse and His Boy) and one of my sleep disturbing thoughts of the evening was the idea of belonging and blood. Its an old idea (like Dracula old), but many cultures share the idea of truth being in the blood. Anyhow, “the Boy” otherwise called Shasta finds out that he isnt actually the child of this mean old fisherman in the southern reaches of the continent and confesses to “The Horse” that he’s always had a yearning to know about the Northern reaches. The Horse (called Bree) tells him matter-of-factly, of course you do, its in your blood. I think my blood is bitter. I know it tastes like copper and what not, but I’m at a juncture of life where I have a frighteningly dark view of the concept of belonging. Its like I estrange myself to some degree from the groups that I can be a part of, the groups that I THINK I want to be a part of I can’t be a part of because you kind of have to be born into them (ethnicities/ social strata bla bla bla) and then there is the third kind where you have to be found, and im just too darn good at hiding. Scary right? Ever thought of a castle dungeon? Dark dank, smells like nasty men, mould and general funk. I’ve always had this sympathetic fear for the person who is stuck there and then the castle is conquered by a different kingdom and everyone is let go, but he’s forgotten somehow, and then the castle collapses down on top of him once they leave. How emo does that make me? maybe I should dye my hair.