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The past week or so, I've been availing myself of the various Pittsburgh amenities I've managed to skirt every other year of my stay here. What follows is a record of the proceedings.
Kennywood Fright Nights I actually did this before, but I never went on any of the rides because they were tall and fast and, well, scary. After conquering my fears, however, I not only rode MOST of the rides there, but I also strapped myself to what was essentially a cloth harness, got dropped from about 100 feet up, and dived Batman-style from apex to just above the surface of a treacherous lake. Actually, the lake wasn't all that treacherous. But it's cooler when I describe it that way.
Primanti Bros. A sandwich joint notorious for putting fries and cole slaw IN the sandwich, I got my sandwich without cole slaw. Because, honestly, I'm not a huge fan. But the fries were enjoyable, as was the bottle of hot sauce they left on the table for the customers. I am an avid connoisseur of hot sauce, and theirs was...decent.
Drue Heinz Lectures This is something else I've also done before (isn't there a blog entry about it somewhere?), but this last one was given by one Tom Wolfe, a verifiably cool dude. He talked about Miami, and the role race plays in the country, and some other intellectual sorts of things. Then there was a Q&A session, which exhibited more of the lively fare.
All in all, a pretty good week, I'd say. Now I just need some Steelers tickets.
Miles
rolled over on what he thought was his bed, pulled up what he thought was his
blanket, and pushed his face into what he thought was his pillow.
He
quickly noticed that what he thought was his pillow tasted an awful lot like
leaves.
Miles
rose with a start. After he rubbed the dirt from his nose and spat out a tiny
leaf, he realized that his "pillow" had actually been a bluish hedge, and his
"bed" was nothing but the ground. It seemed as if all the things Miles thought
he knew were quite unlike anything he had thought at all. He looked around,
pushing his dark blonde bangs out of his eyes.
Somehow,
he had come to be in a forest, a darkish, bluish forest whose highest boughs
blocked out all but the most persistent streams of moonlight. Miles had heard
stories of people sleepwalking before, but walking outside your house? Into a
forest somewhere? That seemed like a bit much. He dusted the soil from the
bottom of his green pajama pants, and decided to do some exploring, if not
discover how far away this place was from his home. There was even a wide dirt
path, winding through the trees up ahead, inviting Miles for a stroll.
As
he walked down the trail, he couldn't help but notice some of the peculiar
plants that grew along the sides. Miles didn't know much about what different
plants looked like, but he knew what they weren't
supposed to look like, and more than one of the specimens he encountered fit
into that category.
One
of the flowers looked exactly like a violet butterfly, its wings spread as if
in mid-flight. When Miles leaned in closer to smell, he raised his arms as a
strong breeze whirled around them, and an inexplicable lightness came over his
feet, as if he could leap beyond the tree tops and glide between the stars.
As
soon as the feeling came, it was gone.
Another
strange flower grew in the shape of an arrow, and its bent stem created the
image of an arrow pointing straight down. After smelling this one, a dizziness
overcame Miles, which provoked him to look at the ground. For no reason at all,
the ground seemed to be rushing at him terribly fast, as if he were falling
through the path itself. Miles quickly closed his eyes and shook his head.
The
sensation left him in an instant.
Every
so often, Miles would come across a completely black flower, a plant that
looked as if someone had dumped a bucket of ink on top of it. There was
something ominous about those flowers, the same kind of ominous that hung about
poisonous mushrooms, or a single crow perched on the branch of a dead tree. So
Miles made sure to stay away, and give those plants a wide berth.
Nothing
he had seen so far, though, could have prepared Miles for the masked flower. It
stood at the center of a flowerbed, as though it was the watchful protector of
its own little patch. Miles wondered what the actual flower itself looked like,
but draped over it was a white leaf with two little holes, almost like eyes. It
seemed like the leaf looked up at Miles' presence, regarding him with a curious
sort of attention. Of course, he knew that plants couldn't pay attention to
things, but it intrigued him anyway. He uprooted the plant and tucked it into
his pajama pocket; he'd be sure to tell his mother to put it in water when he
got back.
Just
past the flowerbed was the edge of the forest, and the canopy above Miles was
beginning to thin out. At once, all of it disappeared behind him, leaving him
in a grassy plan under a perfectly clear night sky.
The
constellations! Miles wasn't good enough to find his way home by the stars, but
he knew how the Big Dipper looked from his house at this time of year, so maybe
he could use that to help. A rhyme his father had taught him made everything a
snap:
The
Big Dipper,
Shining
bright,
Always
points
Away
from the right.
Miles
found the Big Dipper right away, and followed its telltale "handle" with his
finger.
"Always
points...away from the..."
Something
was wrong.
Miles
was fairly certain that he was looking at the Big Dipper, but if so, it was
definitely pointing away from the left. Was he remembering the rhyme wrong?
Perhaps it was "towards" the right?
A
very unsettling feeling churned in Miles' stomach, as he surveyed the rest of
the stars surrounding the Big Dipper. Other constellations he had thought he
remembered were all doing the exact same thing. It was as if someone had
flipped all the stars in the sky, shone them through a mirror so they would all
face the wrong way.
It
was as if Miles had ended up on the other side of the stars.
He
took a dizzy step back. No, that couldn't be right. Could it? What rhymed with
the word "left"?
Suddenly,
it hit Miles that he was all alone, in the middle of the night, by a big, dark
forest, on the other side of the stars. He wasn't sure why he hadn't been
scared until now; perhaps because he had just assumed it was all a dream.
The
thought of a dream calmed Miles somewhat. Yes, that would certainly explain a
lot. The strange flowers, the flipped stars, how he had ended up here in the
first place. And every time Miles had ever realized he was in a dream, it had
only been a matter of moments before he sprung awake.
He
felt a sharp tug.
----------------------------------------------------------
So it looks like this blog entry has inherited the font for the rest of the entry. Not bad, is it?
Anyway, this is the beginning, and I've been getting a couple of different opinions on this. The two schools of thought are a) that it starts off a little too sudden without proper pre-characterization/setup of Miles, and b) this works well because you feel like you just sort of fell into the world with Miles, and you're getting your bearings the same time he is.
b) was kinda what I was going for, but that's what ALL we writers say. We're trained to do that, from an early age.
So...don't be shy now, feel free to critique. Maybe you don't like Miles' hair?
I'm talking about the blog site, of course, although whatever alternate definition you may have mapped across that title is probably much cooler. Stick with it.
No one's entirely sure what happened, but if I might entertain my usual tendencies towards fanciful delusion, I might suspect a ranged pulse of some sort, perfect for frying servers while apparently leaving any and all other appliances completely intact. What can I say? Those engineers knew what they were doing.
At any rate, there were quite a few insights bubbling beneath the crust for some time, but I think I may have lost a couple of them. Fear not, however, for I shall attempt to recollect some of these splintered musings the same way adventurers find journal pages, hastily scrawled, of the less fortunate who blazed that trail before them.
--Document design has since yielded a handful of escapades to far corners of campus, that could really only be described as field trips. There was the rare book room, where we got to pore over texts that may have been hundreds of years old. Unfortunately, we then had to discuss their design and what that told us about the book itself. I mean, I'm sure there's a fascinating conversation to be had there, but I'm not truly enamored with the margin choices of the tomes here. If it's all the same to you, I think I'd just like to stare.
We also got to visit the printing press, nestled in a basement somewhere. The fellow who manned the press was a great character, a wide-shouldered, nimble-fingered man who knew where every type could be found, and how old they were, and what secrets they held. I wouldn't be surprised if he had a few letters of the First Script lying around, the alphabet which lies beneath all things. He was just that kind of guy.
--The more I write things that don't involve warring gods, or wayward demons, or that which rhymes with "schmantasy," the more I begin to feel the stirrings of a peculiar competence. Sadly, though, even when I think a piece I churned out wasn't bad, it's just not the same. It's almost like a songwriter having to turn to straight poetry instead for a while. We can admire our work when it excels, but you can't help but miss the music.
--Speaking of which, Nytethorn's almost trounced me, handily. You know all that stuff I wrote about Nytethorn a ways back? Yeah, remember the Laifkin? Well Miles hasn't even met a Laifkin yet. Honestly, I'm not even sure he can spell it. What's worse, any new ideas that are planted in my head flower with a speed not traditionally attributed to plants. Before I can even write another chapter, their fruit is already ripening right off the branch and bopping me right on the head. I suppose it could be worse. At least I've got the fruit, right?
I realize it's that time of year again, when thoughts turn to Common Apps and college tours are arranged. If any of you might have any questions, please, don't be stingy now.
And if you're visting, let me know! I've got all this fruit to give away.
The Creative Writing Open House transpired the other day. The Gladys Schmitt Creative Writing Center was engorged with students, and a cursory review of my blog entries will reveal that I've never before included the words "engorged" and "Creative Writing Center" in the same sentence. I'd like to tell myself that I had something to do with this insurgence of fresh blood, although I'm certain the truth is probably much more rational and much less involved with myself. But hey, a writer can dream. Sometimes, I think that's all we do.
After the meeting was over, some of the new writers congregated around me and asked me if I was, in fact, the apocryphal figure Dan Archer. Actually, most of them were afraid of coming off as stalkers, fears I attempted to dismiss. I've said before, I'll say it again, I like having stalkers. They make me feel important.
As it turned out, a couple of them wanted to be video game writers, and had come here for the ETC (Entertainment Technology Center) in hopes of launching their video game careers. I got to espouse my philosophy on video game writing and how a tidy little alcove in the industry is beginning to form for writers, and a bunch of other malarkey pertaining to how I had to blow dust off N64 cartridges in order to play them, and how these young 'uns have no idea what's what. I don't get to be crotchety very often, so when I'm presented with a pristine lawn and a rocking chair, I'm often tempted to sit down in the latter and scare kids off the former.
Nytethorn's coming along at a decent clip; not spawning volumes, but pages are indeed emerging. In other words, for me, a decent clip. Classes have been interesting in their respective ways:
I knew document design was going to be a troublemaker, when I first gazed upon its sinister moniker with that word -- design -- and proceeded to gather my protective talismans against such crafts. As some of you already know, my eye for design is akin to my eye with x-ray vision. Desired, but nonexistent. Thankfully, the instructor, Kerry Ishizaki, is of the compassionate sort, who understands people with my disability and is willing to guide them with a gentle hand.
Magazine writing has been a sort of review of excellent articles so far, from a bunch of magazine I know my mom reads. Atlantic, Harper's, The New Yorker, and some other heady fare with cartoons that display humor dry as Saltines. The writing is all top-notch, even though I'm always inclined in these classes to doubt my own judgment on these things. It's not my arena, after all. I can judge the verisimilitude of a system of magic, the timbre of imagination. This material, in magazine writing, is the stuff of our world, a world I inhabit only out of necessity.
Argument's been a little on the academic side, although I think things are heating up relatively soon. We've had to read all these grimoires on the history of argument, which does not a thriller make. It seems that in classes on X, there's always the 2-3 week period in the beginning where we learn the history behind X. I'm all for contextualizing things, but MAN. I mean, who was the first guy who said "You know what, Og? Our debate concerning your stone wheel could be a lot more effective if we attacked each others' claims and warrants, as opposed to just bludgeoning each other with mammoth thigh-bones." Then I imagine Og clubbed Thog into submission. This is why I can't name great rhetoricians past Aristotle and Socrates. And that's not to say THEY weren't clubbed, in a manner of speaking.
Calculus is...well, math. I'm not getting into this.
Other than that, not a ton to report. I'm thinking about posting Nytethorn excerpts, maybe? See what you guys think? I know I said I'd do that before, but then was then and this is now, and if you're looking for a better argument than that, I'm sorry but you're reading the wrong blog.
Check back after I've passed Argument.
Here I stand once more on American soil, more specifically, Pennsylvanian soil. I have returned to the land where the bagpipes croon, to the house that Andrew built.
That's right, I have returned from my travels to Carnegie Mellon University. And I am tired. Jet lag sucks.
But I have learned much in that strange and distant land, and since Carnegie Mellon is virtually krawling with Koreans, I can try to keep my spoken Korean at the barely passable level I had groomed it to before I left. I'll miss the Korean food, and the people, and the karaoke, but I'm staying in touch with a few and who knows? My voyage may take me back there one day.
Since I've gotten back, I've been up to my eyeballs in things to do. Buying supplies, JayIsGames stuff, Nytethorn...there's just all this stuff for an aspiring writer to do, and such precious little time to do it in. Here's a basic rundown of my initial class impressions (I know how much you all love these):
Document Design: Basically, we discuss typeface and spacing and similar aesthetics. Remember, this is something I have absolutely NO aptitude for (you know, designy stuff), so this class could go either way. Thankfully, the teacher's cool and there's not much except projects, so maybe I stand a chance. Just MAYBE.
Argument: We learn how to argue things. Just blew your mind, I know. We all had to bring up one argument we got into once, so I cited the one time that I argued with someone that comics could be literature. I said yeah, they could definitely be construed as literature, call them "graphic novels" if it helps.
Magazine Writing: This has a lot in common with the literary journalism class I took last semester. Same general idea, same sort of writing being taught. AND it's being taught by the same professor, the ineffably awesome Jane McCafferty, who ALSO happens to be my advisor for...
Senior Thesis: Nytethorn is coming along...I don't want to say swimmingly, because in my opinion, I should really have more of it written by now, but it's definitely coming along. I told Jane that I really don't want this project to be about the writing; I mean, the writing's important and all that, but it's the publishing that I need the help with. Hopefully, we can get this sucker in print (or at least on its way) by the end of the year. Wouldn't that be awesome? I think that's awesome.
Calculus for H&SS: Math is math. If you want me to get more in-depth, I will, but it's late right now and I'm starting to wink in and out, so I think I'll bid you all adieu for now.
P.S. I'm not sure if new college-searchers are prowling these grounds yet or not, but if you are, I take any questions and answer them with relative agility. Don't be afraid to ask!
The Top Ten Worst Things About Being In A Country Where You Don't Speak the Language:
10. To achieve anything outside your frustratingly diminutive command of the tongue, you need someone else to go with you to get anything done. Depending on the day, this can be a good thing, as having a personal interpreter occasionally makes me feel important. Not usually, however.
9. I think I've skirted this topic before, but most of the meat of my personality is transmitted via my speech. Having that taken away makes me feel like a rather uninteresting person. (Not that I feel super-interesting in ENGLISH, but you guys know what I mean.)
8. Working someplace where they all speak the other language means that they do all the talking once, and then someone has to explain it you again a second time in English. And if they feel like it's not worth the effort, they might just not. Which is troublesome when the information completely and utterly pertains to you. Thankfully, this has gotten better since the beginning.
7. This could just apply to Korean, but there's this nifty little custom among the locals here to not speak English, even if their pronunciation is perfect, under the pretense that their English will sound bad and then I'll mock them behind their back. Honestly, if someone says "Hello" to me in English, I'm pretty much psyched. Even worse, if people introduce me to their friend as a writing major, this paralyzing fear triples in magnitude. It's like, they really think I'll hate them if they miss a conjunction. I have complained about this to people with varying levels of success. Some people say "Dude, second languages are hard," and you know what? I agree, totally. But when we both know you speak the language perfectly, and the mutual friend went to the bathroom, and we're both just kind of checking out our reflections in our spoons...I dunno. I don't look good in spoons.
6. Again, this is more directly applicable to Korean, but I feel like most times, when someone I know is mispronouncing a word, I can usually divine what they're trying to say with a fairly high margin of accuracy. Here, the semantics of a phrase can hinge on whether you sounded that o as an "oh" or an "aw." This results in a handful of "My mother was a SAINT!" moments, where you wonder what just happened.
5. Sometimes I wish I hadn't learned the alphabet before I came here. It means I can read everything I see, but I have absolutely no idea what I'm saying. Which puts me at this odd middle ground that some people have difficulty understanding. (i.e. "But you just read it! What's it say?")
4. Having really good pronunciation on the phrase "I don't know Korean" in Korean is, from time to time, counter-productive.
3. I've also brought this one up before, but you're always really afraid to brandish what you do know, because then everyone assumes you're fluent (and why shouldn't they?) and they just totally go to town on you. And more often than not, the follow-up to this is #4.
2. You don't really realize how much of a culture is contingent on the language until you're neck-deep in one without it. (Okay, I didn't realize it, anyway. That's not saying much.) I mean, yeah, okay, you can sample the cuisine, check out the museum, do all that other ostensibly cosmopolitan razzmatazz, but what is that really teaching you about the people? I want to know what Koreans consider awkward situations, I want to know what makes Koreans laugh at a joke, I want to know Koreans. Good luck doing that without the language. Seriously. If any of you guys come up with a solution, let me know.
1. This takes the cake. Having to sit in a room with a child who's really miserable and not being able to tell them everything's going to be okay is kind of like torture. Scratch that, it's torture. At this English camp, there's been quite a few incidences of kids being a) sick, b) harassed by unscrupulous classmates, or c) just plain stressed out, and there really isn't a damn thing I can do about it. I really just want to say I'm sorry, and that I hated elementary school too, and that the other kid back there is a total tool, but nope! And if you try to speak to them in English, they just assume you're disciplining them some more. So I just draw them stick figures instead.
The Top Ten Best Things About Being In A Country Where You Don't Speak the Language
10. When everyone's having one of those work discussions in Language X, you can just sort of tune it out and no one really seems to mind. Like, the other day this happened, and I realized that in a story I'm writing, I want magic users to be treated like lepers and forced into traveling caravans that go entertaining from city to city, or else risk persecution at the hands of a society that blames them for everything that went wrong at the beginning of history. And that was just one.
9. It's actually kinda cool to listen to conversations and snatch the words you know, like fish from a stream, and then try to map the overall meaning. Nine out ten times, I'm completely off the mark, but that makes the tenth time feel glorious.
8. Not knowing the language means I get to discover what pieces of culture transcend language, and how I can use them. This came up in the Japanese posts a while back, but so far, the big one is imagination. Kids the world over have these big, wriggling imaginations in their heads, and it doesn't take much to get them going. I came up with the "VS." game at camp, where the kids pick two characters that we pit against each other via my drawings on the blackboard. We then select their equipment, which is usually half the fun. "Dan-teacher gets knife!" one kid declares, while another contests it with "Dan-teacher gets rocket launcher!", something that seems picked up from a video game. Plus, I draw stick ninja battles on anyone's paper that gets high marks, so they have a little incentive. I don't think I've ever felt more at peace than drawing a stick blind swordsman felling two foes in three panels.
7. You know how in every adventure novel, the world-traveled character always has this sort of laconic honorary-brother character from some exotic country that doesn't talk much, but saved the first character's life and now they're tied up in some notion of blood-oath from the foreigner's culture? So when Korean friends introduce me to their other Korean friends, I'm like the exotic guy. Maybe not in EVERY respect, but as long as I keep that image in my head, I still feel awesome.
6. When you actually get what someone says, you can then dramatically unveil your comprehension a few minutes later, and everyone gets nervous that you understood everything they said. But then you explain to them that you didn't. "Or DID I?" is then the appropriate conclusion.
5. This is another Korean thing, but normally, you have to use these different registers for talking to first-time acquaintances, or people who are older than you, or close friends, etc. Being a white guy is pretty much your Get-Out-of-Etiquette-Free card. Not that I enjoy it or anything, but...um, I mean...nope, I lied. I totally enjoy it.
4. Another holdover from Dan in Japan is the moment where you trade a phrase with a supermarket employee effortlessly. They ask if you want paper or plastic, you say plastic, they ring it up, you pay, you both exchange pleasantries, DONE. There's no stumbling through the lexicon, no huh? or what?, just a completely normal run-of-the-mill encounter. And I get to feel semi-inconspicuous again, or at least as inconspicuous as a white guy can be in this place.
3. I have discovered pantomiming abilities I didn't know I had.
2. One of the best ways to pass the time is to visualize your own subtitles over conversations anyone has within earshot. The more serious the expressions on their faces, the more fun this is. I have also devised an elaborate scoring system, based on how the other person reacts and how well this corresponds to the dialogue I have imagined for them. So far, the winner was a man announcing that he was pregnant, and then the other guy looked really skeptical, and then suddenly surprised. Like, 5000 points, EASY.
1. Or, if you prefer, you can pretend everyone is speaking in poetry.
Another week goes by, another loose assortment of experiences and vignettes. Rather than try and run a single cohesive thread through this one, I think I'm just gonna bullet-point the various things that popped into my head as "Oh! I want to blog about this!", of which there are several. And a quick apology: sorry I haven't been responding to comments of late. I have been strung up for time, between work, Nytethorn, and a new use of my time that shall be revealed at the end of the entry. (See, now you HAVE to keep reading.)
--Elevators in Korea are sleeker, friendlier units than their disgruntled American cousins. In Korea, when you press the "Door Close" button, the doors actually close. Like, whenever you want. So you can run into an elevator, swivel around, tap the magic button, and DING! The doors close before they even fully opened. Coupled with my own neurological addiction to pressing buttons, this mechanism has become one of my greatest sources of entertainment.
--Every time I speak even a mere pocketful of Korean to anyone, they're completely shocked. I'm so used to America, where there's this frustration every time we come across someone who doesn't speak English: "You wanted to live here, you should have learned the language." I'm not saying I subscribe to that way of thinking, but I've seen people who do. And here, just uttering "hold on a minute" in Korean to get someone to wait turns you into some kind of linguistic superhero. Or maybe I'm just looking for an excuse to be called a superhero.
--You know, I used to think I was good with kids, but this English camp...I dunno. I just don't know. I've met a couple of kids that are real pieces of work, the kind who a) misbehave, b) revel in it, and c) find any and all of your reactions to be even more incentive to keep on being immoral little ingrates. It's easy to say you're good with kids when you're only dealing with the nice ones all the time, but the TRUE test of one's mettle is what you do with the ones who went sour.
--I met up with another CMU student by the name of Siwon Choi here in Seoul, who took me to a place called Samcheongdong. It's funny, you've got all these classy restaurants and clothes stores right next to all these hanooks, Korean traditional houses. I had a bit of fun putting one side of the culture in my left field of vision, and the other side on my right, and then alternating between my left and right eye and pretending I could see into the past. Yes, this is what Dan Archer does when he goes places. This is why you can't take him anywhere. Anyways, getting to talk with Siwon was a blast; I could finally express myself as freely as I wanted to, without having to squish all my semantics through a colander so only the base meaning would come out. And man, that felt good. Any of you ever strapped a colander to your mouth for two weeks? Yeah, didn't think so.
--I also met up with an old friend of Ilkyoo's in Korea, a very amiable guy by the name of Kyeongnam Bae. We scoped the outer perimeter of Gyeongbok temple (all the historical stuff closes mad early in Korea), and then we had some dinner in a quaint little place that we just happened to pass by. I had this soup where the chef basically takes an entire juvenile chicken and just puts it in the bowl, and then pours the broth over it. I was eating pretty slowly until I made a casual comment: "You know, in America, chicken wings are SUPPOSED to be eaten with your hands." Kyeongnam replied that I could do that here too, and it wouldn't really be a problem. I dropped my chopsticks in a split-second and pounced on that chicken like some kind of late cretaceous predator, fangs bared. I might have scared the table next to us, but I was too busy enjoying my tribute to the hunt.
--Neon in Korea. It's like, every other street is Las Vegas. Apparently, they tried to get legislation passed to restrict the use of neon in the streets, because it was TOO awesome. Thankfully, none of it flew, and the Koreans get to keep their totems to their gods of consumerism and colored light. Hey, if there was a god for that stuff, I'D worship them. Who's up for starting a Facebook group?
--Other day, I'm walking down the street, and I just happen to chance across a couple of guys, in full outfit, engaged in a match of tae kyon, sort of like the grandfather of taekwondo if you read up on the history. And it's just right there, in the street. Some guy got an elbow in the eye, and when they tried to make him stop, he said something to the effect of "Whatever, I'm cool, let's do this thing," in Korean and just flew back into the melee, legs vertically outstretched. I'd like to see them put THAT kind of culture in a museum. No, seriously. Prizefights, inside of museums. And they can use exhibits as like, improvised weaponry.
--All right, I think it's just about that time, to reveal my latest bit of exciting news. What you've all been waiting for...
...ahem...
...drumroll, please...(Come ON, Frank! Drum on something!)
...Dan Archer has a writing job! YES!
Some of may or may not be familiar with Jay Is Games, a website devoted to casual gameplay, whether it's in your browser, downloaded to your PC, or on your phone, and I just happened to see their review writing contest, posted on the site the same way enchanted blades are often conspicuously stuck in larger objects, waiting for the hero of prophecy. I entered that contest, and I won, which was fairly cool. A day or two later, an e-mail floated in my inbox, carried there by a raven who had loved this world when time was young.
Okay, I'm glancing back over the text, and realizing I'm getting kinda carried away with the metaphors here. See, this is how I react when I get excited. It's basically uncontrollable.
Anyways, they were like "Hey, wanna join up?" and I, never one to turn down an invitation to a team of avenging crime-fighters, said...
Damn! There it IS again! They're just spilling out.
...so I said "Um, let me a think about this for a second...HELL YES," and the rest was history. I haven't devised superhero aliases for the other reviewers yet, but I shall, along with character-specific rival supervillains and convoluted love stories that can't ever be because of our adherence to justice.
So, to make a long story metaphorless, I'm writing for Jay Is Games now, and I've even got some reviews already up on the page. Click here to go to the homepage, or here if you just want to read my reviews and no one else's. Hey, if you wanna click that second link, nobody's judging you or anything. No one even has to know. You think I have a program that tells me who clicked what? I don't. So go ahead, click that second link.
I'll just be standing over here.
So here I am again, ready to bare my experiences in this fair (and muggy) land, and how they've changed me. It's only been around a couple of weeks, so my worldview's more or less unchanged. I have a ton more respect for teachers now, though.
Those rascally kids...there's always kids in a class who want to learn, and then the two or three who are just making it difficult for everyone else. And they know it, too. What's worse, I can only speak English to them, right? Skill level in English varies dramatically from student to student, so sometimes I'm just barking gibberish at them. It's like trying to teach me German, IN German.
I made a deal with the kids (or the ones that understand me, anyway) that as long as I can't hear them speaking Korean, I can't get them in trouble. So, in other words, if they're GOING to speak Korean (and they will), just do it someplace where I can't hear them. The ones who got it thought I was pretty cool, and let's be honest, this is all about being the cool TA.
I'm not gonna lie, I haven't seen too much of Korea outside of the classroom. (Monday-Saturday work week...awesome.) The other day, though, Peter (my boss) took me out to dinner with his church group. At first I kind of wanted to say "Peter, why do we think this is a good idea?" But I got sat next to a couple of college-age guys who spoke okay English, and we could talk about Korean movies and why English is so hard to learn if you started out Korean, and vice versa. (Their sentences are like ours flipped in a mirror.) One of the great standbys of this country is that it seems like everyone, whether they know you are not, is interested in trying to get your spoken Korean a little better.
After dinner, Peter took me to Seoul Tower, which reminded me of Tokyo Tower. There were signs on the windows that said how far away cities were, and a REALLY long line to get in, and chintzy souvenir shops that you tried to avoid. But in the end, the best part about the tower was the people. There were French travelers, and a group of Japanese tourists who Peter IDed by the way they held their hands while waiting. When I told Peter how much fun it was to watch people, he was really surprised that I should say something like that at such a young age. Apparently, his grandfather told him the same thing on the way to a zoo ("You know, sometimes people are a lot more exciting than lions"), so according to Peter, I'm ahead of the curve.
Oh, and when I visited Peter's house, he was like "You can play piano, right, Dan? Play for us!" So I said I could only play a little, and made the universal "tiny" motion with my fingers.
He responded by saying "Well, you're in luck, because we've got this really tiny piano..."
And the Best Wordplay in English Award goes to a Korean.
What? I thought that was the best part so far.
That's right, no matter where I go on the globe, I keep the fires of alliteration burning bright.
In other words, please don't hate me. It's OCD, I promise.
So where to start, where to start...Korea's been quite an adventure thus far. The scarlet-eyed, ruinous phantom of linguistic disparity haunts my steps once more (remember Japan?), and its influence has never stung stronger. I tried to learn some Korean before I left, but all I accomplished was shaky memorization of the alphabet and some miniature phrases to help me in emergency situations.
Once again, I find not knowing a language in another country to be maddening. It shouldn't bother me as much as it does, but maybe it's because I'm a writer. So much of my personality comes across in the language I use and my speech style (I employ my zany metaphors in more places than my blog), so being deprived of all that is such a disconnect from...me, I guess. Not to mention that to function at all in Korea, you really do need to know at least a little bit of the native tongue. It's like watching a culture from behind a transparent wall; it all looks so exciting from the outside, but when you try to interact with it in any capacity, WHAM! Forehead against the glass.
My position here is Teaching Assistant for Konkuk University Junior English Camp. I'll be helping a teacher with 7-12 year old kids, who aren't allowed to speak in anything other than English. I feel kind of mixed about that. I mean, sure, it'll be nice to finally be in on all the discussions, but at the same time, I'm trying to learn all this Korean now and I won't even be able to use it with the kids.
The university's a beautiful place, situated around a huge lake that looks beautiful when curtains of raindrops flutter against its surface. And there has been a LOT of rain. Apparently, Korea's got this whole rainy season thing going on, and I just happened to not bring an umbrella. Fantastic. I've procured one since, but my arrival at Korea coincided with the firmament retching about 3,000 gallons of water into Seoul. By the time I got to my accomodations, my clothes could be described by a long list of adjectives that did not include the word "dry."
Konkuk has these great looking stone tablets sprinkled around the campus, each with the listing of a different alphabet system from around the world. I always thought that was something they only did for like, magical libraries in fantasy novels I used to read. Isn't that cool? Sorry, I think that's cool. Anyway, the people here are awesome too, like the guy heading the program, one Peter Lim. The first night he took me out for dinner, he asked me what my dream was.
"Um," I said, "Getting one of my novels published would be pretty cool."
What he replied with was a philosophy, a guarded hope that parents in Korea would stop trying to pound English into their kids' heads for the sake of standardized tests, and learn that English is a useful stepping stone for getting ahead in the world, but not the end-all be-all solution to their problems. "English is not a goal, it's a tool," he said.
So...if our dreams ever got into an arm-wrestling contest, his would probably win. I'll concede that.
The actual classes start tomorrow, so I'm somewhere been nervous and excited right now. Regardless of how the languages fall into place, I'm good with kids, which as I learned in Japan, is something that usually transcends notions of culture. All the other TAs say the kids are going to be crazy, but I say, the crazier the better.
Ittaga popshida.
(Ahem, means see you later.)
I've got one foot on another continent right about now, and I really should be packing, but I don't know the next time I'll have an opportunity to sit down and chronicle my travels, so I figure I should prattle about Seattle now in case I don't get another chance.
It turned out to be a fantastic city, chock-full of things to see and places to be. I even went to a shopping mall down here. A shopping mall. Any idea how long it's been since I've sat down in a mall? I certainly haven't the foggiest. And the mall here has a food court with Thai food, crepes, smoothies, sushi...either this particular place is some kind of culinary World's Fair, or malls have undergone an evolutionary leap the past couple of years. Malls are always good places to watch people, I've discovered, if you're a writer looking for material. You want a real, unadulterated slice of America, just go to the mall.
I also saw quite a few movies during my time here. Bruno is the one that springs to mind, although I imagine that's exactly what they were going for. Definitely funny, but I'm certain that a much heartier portion of this Sasha Baron Cohen serving was scripted. Especially after all the legal rodeos over Borat, I really can't say I blame him. Then there was Moon, an independent film where this guy manning a lunar station starts losing his mind, his sense of self, and...well, I don't want to spoil anything. Know that the trailer makes this movie out to be much more suspenseful and action-packed than it actually is. The movie wasn't bad, not by any means, but the entertainment it had to offer was of a much more cerebral sort.
And Microsoft. Of course, I got to spend a little time strolling about the campus with my sister. (That's right. They call it a campus.) I saw the Visitor's Center (not much to visit, really), the Company Store, and a string of offices. Their conference rooms have these little touchpads by the door where you schedule your meeting times. Is that standard-issue, and I just haven't been in enough offices? Because I feel like it's not.
In terms of touristy things, I managed to avoid being seduced by the Space Needle, although the long line in tandem with the bared sun probably had something to do with it. I was wholly ensnared, however, by the Science Fiction Museum, a collection of influential literature and film artifacts from the genre of robots and rayguns. The Museum would have had you believe that science fiction is actually about other things like exploring social and cultural issues, but an adept such as myself knows better. (I kid.) What's more, there was also a Jim Henson exhibit going on, with Muppets and video clips and other tributes to someone who seemed like an inexorably cool man. Not sure what it had to do with science fiction, but hey, I'm not complaining.
What I really liked about the museum, though, was that beside all these Klingon warblades and starship schematics, they had copies of books that molded sciene fiction throughout the ages, each with blurbs explaining the book's theme and the impact. I know this doesn't seem like much, but young children were reading those blurbs, and saying things like "That sounds cool!" or "Hey, I remember that being the one book from my reading list that didn't suck." Sometimes, in this day and age of digital media and big business, I fear that imagination is like this ancient, dying god, whose temples lie in ruin and whose rites have been forgotten. But going to a place like the Science Fiction Museum reminds you that the old ways are not lost, and there are shrines that still stand. You just have to know where to look.
I'll see all of you again soon, from the other side of the world.
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