Some things
Due to being out of town yesterday, I was unable to make it to the bank --the town I went to was pretty much owned by a local bank branch, so no locations, and my bank hasn't given me a card for ATM use. I have alternate methods of payment, but I am kind of cheap so I'm going to go through the weekend with only the few bucks I have in my pocket (plus my change pile).
Right now I'm enjoying slacker dinner theater: instant ramen + hardboiled egg from supermarket + remains of coca-cola bottle from fridge + perhaps some leftover sweet-potato cake from last week
+ bad quality stream of harold and kumar over borrowed wireless internet
And since it's ridiculously hot out, I'll go for a midnight walk later, and enjoy the ambling of the drunk people while I listen to tunes.
*
Being in Kwangju yesterday was pretty interesting. I forget how big the difference is between Seoul and the rest of the country. While I feel weird sometimes in Seoul about being a foreigner, outside of Seoul it's like a circus side-show. All the faces look my way, and bands of children walk past, then say hi, then turn around and start following me. "I'm fine thanks!" they say. "How old are you?" "Do you like Kimchi?" Drive by english spam, because a lot of the kids don't even care about the response, they just want to fire off more of their phrases --but good for them, for trying to do well. Another guy in the park started up a more substantial mini-conversation, which was pretty strange.
*
A guy on BBC radio the other night used the expression "...scored an embarrassing 'own goal' by...", while describing an incident of a soccer star who was being blackmailed for picking up prostitutes that turned out to be transvestites.
*
During my train travel I read this article I had printed out, and it was a really well-written and depressing feature on a soldier serving in Iraq making his way home. Really really sad and moving stuff. I guess I haven't read many stories like this recently (maybe a few years ago when it was more 'hip'). I have the tendency of dehumanizing soldiers often (as our politicians do), and it's good to read this and make corrections to my perspective. The sheer numbers have been frightening enough (4090~ dead, ten times as many wounded, trillions of dollars and counting, and a 'bonus statistic' I read today that 1 in 3 female soldiers is raped during service), but sometimes it takes stories like this to invest the interest in a more personal way. The result is nauseating and affecting. (You can't spell motivation without 'vomit'?)
*
Anyways, from what I see of American news (and as a result the whole American conversation) these days, it still seems to be ridiculous garbage, like competitions of whose pastor is crazier, whose 'support' should be regarded or disregarded (renounced or denounced or withdrawn or repudiated), who is being 'backstabbed' or 'thrown under a bus', and it's such bullshit. People think a lot of crazy things, but they all have reasons, and a lot of those reasons can be shared. Our world is crazy right now. And even the people who seem like the best hope for the future pull the same goddamned safe political maneuvering, at the expense of their fundamental strengths, in order to poll a little higher, and meanwhile the actual real world is still filling up with dead bodies by the day, and money is disappearing into the hands of the undeserving through invisible channels, and I'm surprised there aren't more angry people, angry people with crazy and stupid but understandable reasons for their anger, and... well, I'm a little lost but you get the idea.
Frustrations with everything.
Right now I'm enjoying slacker dinner theater: instant ramen + hardboiled egg from supermarket + remains of coca-cola bottle from fridge + perhaps some leftover sweet-potato cake from last week
+ bad quality stream of harold and kumar over borrowed wireless internet
And since it's ridiculously hot out, I'll go for a midnight walk later, and enjoy the ambling of the drunk people while I listen to tunes.
*
Being in Kwangju yesterday was pretty interesting. I forget how big the difference is between Seoul and the rest of the country. While I feel weird sometimes in Seoul about being a foreigner, outside of Seoul it's like a circus side-show. All the faces look my way, and bands of children walk past, then say hi, then turn around and start following me. "I'm fine thanks!" they say. "How old are you?" "Do you like Kimchi?" Drive by english spam, because a lot of the kids don't even care about the response, they just want to fire off more of their phrases --but good for them, for trying to do well. Another guy in the park started up a more substantial mini-conversation, which was pretty strange.
*
A guy on BBC radio the other night used the expression "...scored an embarrassing 'own goal' by...", while describing an incident of a soccer star who was being blackmailed for picking up prostitutes that turned out to be transvestites.
*
During my train travel I read this article I had printed out, and it was a really well-written and depressing feature on a soldier serving in Iraq making his way home. Really really sad and moving stuff. I guess I haven't read many stories like this recently (maybe a few years ago when it was more 'hip'). I have the tendency of dehumanizing soldiers often (as our politicians do), and it's good to read this and make corrections to my perspective. The sheer numbers have been frightening enough (4090~ dead, ten times as many wounded, trillions of dollars and counting, and a 'bonus statistic' I read today that 1 in 3 female soldiers is raped during service), but sometimes it takes stories like this to invest the interest in a more personal way. The result is nauseating and affecting. (You can't spell motivation without 'vomit'?)
*
Anyways, from what I see of American news (and as a result the whole American conversation) these days, it still seems to be ridiculous garbage, like competitions of whose pastor is crazier, whose 'support' should be regarded or disregarded (renounced or denounced or withdrawn or repudiated), who is being 'backstabbed' or 'thrown under a bus', and it's such bullshit. People think a lot of crazy things, but they all have reasons, and a lot of those reasons can be shared. Our world is crazy right now. And even the people who seem like the best hope for the future pull the same goddamned safe political maneuvering, at the expense of their fundamental strengths, in order to poll a little higher, and meanwhile the actual real world is still filling up with dead bodies by the day, and money is disappearing into the hands of the undeserving through invisible channels, and I'm surprised there aren't more angry people, angry people with crazy and stupid but understandable reasons for their anger, and... well, I'm a little lost but you get the idea.
Frustrations with everything.