Taking a break.

Perhaps you've noticed that I've slowed down my blogging as of late. Not much has been very interesting lately, and I don't want to just throw something up here just to update every day. I'm going to take some time off to recharge. Look for an update after January 1st. Merry Christmas everyone!

John's Last-Minute Christmas Guide!

Don't know what to get your loved ones this Christmas? Don't know what to get yourself? You can't go wrong with these gift ideas! Oh, and please, don't buy me these. I own them already :)

Like music?


Like Books?


Like TV?


There you have it! Now you don't have to worry any more!

Election Day

It's election day...which means no school! Enjoy!

The best dinner in Korea.

Last night Kate, one of my co-teachers, took me out for dinner as a Christmas present. Due to the unique nature of Korean-English pronunciation, I though the name of the restaurant was "Bips" but it turned out to be "Vips." Anyway, it's been so long since I've had a good meal, I hardly knew what to do with myself! There was a stocked salad bar with hot and cold food, including some awesome garlic tortillas (about as close one gets to Mexican food in Ulsan). Then came the main course--steak! I nearly cried, it was so delicious. Then came more salad bar and for desert, yogurt and Canapé. Again, very delicious. I can't tell you how much I miss American food. I try so hard to like many kinds of Korean food, but I just can't get myself to like it. Dinner at Vips was like a little taste of home again, and enjoying it with a good friend made it all the more special.

Tomorrow is election day--no school! Woo hoo! :)

Politics, Korean Style

This is an election year in Korea. Presidential, provincial, local, everything. Everyone heads to the polls on December 19th. The run-up to elections in Korea is a lot like in the US. There are campaign ads, billboards, etc. The biggest difference is the presence of mobile campaign stations. These are trucks that have an open back. Some of the truck beds have a mobile stage on the back from which the candidates can pontificate with their street teams (who really just dance around and hand out flyers). Other trucks are outfitted with HUGE backlit pictures of the candidate and massive speaker systems that blare the candidates theme song for everyone to hear. Whenever I've gone downtown this month, I've been driven insane by two or three of these trucks being in the same vicinity, each trying to outdo each other in sound output. Luckily, since I don't watch Korean TV, I'm spared those political ads. I asked a few of the young people (around my age) in my school about how they vote--almost all of them just said they look for the man with the kindest face. Hey, at least they're voting, right?

Homegrown Engrish.

I would have probably picked a different name for this clinic. Unless you plan on serving mutants, of course.

The Old Three Thousand

Actually, I'm not sure if that's the name or not.

Ok, to be honest, I'm sure that's not its official name. But it accompanies all social gatherings in Korea. I think it's three thousand ounces. After choir practice on Sunday, they decided to have a party for me, which really means, time to drink a couple old three thousands. Good times.

Sometimes being a teacher sucks.

So today I had to discipline a student. She was drawing in class (supposedly an art project). I told her once to put her papers away. She complied, but five minutes later she had her papers back out and she was drawing again. This time, I took the papers away. While I wasn't looking, she stole them back from my desk, and was drawing again. The other students were witness to this. It was time for me to act. I took the paper and tore it in half. Was I justified in doing so? Probably. Do I still feel bad? Of course. I always hate disciplining students--it's one of the reasons why I could never be a teacher for life.

Engrish.com

Engrish. You love it. I love it. Go to the site. Laugh.

My Friend

That's right, this space heater shaped like a fan is christened with the name "My Friend." I prefer friends that don't have the ability to burn down my house.

Vacation time is over...for two weeks.

Well, I just ended two weeks of having no classes--just me and the good ol' internet. Today's Friday, but come monday it will be back to normal-for two weeks, and then I get a week off, teach a one week English camp, then possibly get two weeks off after that.

I really like my job.

Real Life Superheroes

Here are ten interesting folks. My favorite is this guy.

#2 The Boy with Sonar Vision (Ben Underwood)

Ben Underwoodtaught is blind, both of his eyes were removed (cancer) when he was 3. Yet, he plays basketball, rides on a bicycle, and lives a quite normal life. He has teached himself to use echo location to navigate around the world. With no guide-dogs, he doesn't even need hands: he uses sound. Ben makes a short click sound that bounces back from objects. Amazingly, his ears pick up the ecos to let him know where the objects are. He's the only person in the world who sees using nothing but eco location, like a sonar or a dolphin.


Read about all ten here.

American Football in Korea

I'll admit it, besides the food, I miss being home for the football season. There's nothing like relaxing on the couch on the weekend in front of a football game. In Korea, I thought that football didn't exist, but it turns out some universities have football teams, and *gasp*, marching bands!


Here is how Google translated the accompanying article.

----Involvement in the 10-7 win last year, taking up to two years in a row tayigeobol

College soccer is December 1, 2007, we gourmet (Saturday) afternoon 12 6:00 ungsang Stadium in volume production at Kyungnam University Article 48 times the national football championships before the final 'tayigeobol' involvement in physical sparring, 10-7, and won the championship. Our university has also won the last two times golfers, the tournament second consecutive victory for the glory of the team.

The final quarter of the 89 times against Sen. Don Kim Su-ro's 24-yard field goal, but the first three points, the second quarter from a stint in touchdown kicks and accepted by seven points in the game.

Fourth quarter and the game three minutes and 30 seconds, leaving a once Africa's touchdown and 33 times in Kim's success, thanks to seven points by adding the kick, 10-7 victory.

The award ceremony took place after the game in the tournament MVP 381 (Environmental Engineering and 3), while the players, coaches coach donguidae baekseungil award, best offensive player award Projects (distribution management departments 4), and best manager award 11.30 (a Japanese literature and 2) manager Water.

Yun said, "two in a row for the glory of sport too mean, the players work hard and are likely to result from hunting," he says, "American football game on the domestic kimchi with a win so that you can see exactly in the best of preparations," said the championship experience.

The tournament includes nationwide 35 intakes each region (Seoul, Busan, Daegu) Regions 4 expires after all 12 teams qualifying to advance to the finals, and the Seoul National University, 19-0, we practiced, in the semifinals of Daegu medicine to 45 -- 15, surpassing advance to the finals.

January 6, 2006 (1) 3,942 stadium in Seoul, Korea and Australia syupeobolin the final winners' foundation 'for the finals. The final will be Australia, Seoul and Busan draw beef producers' gwanggaetobol 'win for the December 2, 2007 (Sunday) in Yongin University Stadium finals.

----

Not too bad for a machine translation!

My thoughts on the current state of DCI and its relation to music education.

If you're here to read about something Korean, just skip this post. In fact, if the letters DCI mean nothing to you, this post will be of no interest to you. However, I spent a lot of time typing this up on the band forums, and I wanted to give any interested parties a chance to read about my thoughts on this issue.

DCI was formed out of necessity, but (in my opinion) has been doing far more bad than good for the activity in the past 15 years. Consider these questions.

How many corps have folded?
How many kids are participating in the activity?
How much influence do a few people have versus the many?
How many smaller corps are there?

The fact is, DCI has done nothing for the activity but drive costs up and widen the divide between the haves and have nots. You've got staffs (staves?) full of people who couldn't hack it on the professional circuit or who failed in broadway trying to impart their "artistic vision" on a group of young people.

In my opinion, drum corps should be something that is directed towards the entertainment of the audience. Do you think a drum corps audience of today walks away from a show as entertained as they did 15 years ago? Well, you may argue, even though the music is not as interesting to the audience, the members are getting a better musical education through playing original works.

Drum corps is not music education.

Drum corps develops good work discipline and provides a wealth of performance experience, but playing the same ten minutes of music all summer long is in no way a substitute for a curriculum that will increase your ability as a musician through playing a repertoire of different works, studying theory, aural skills, etc.

A summer at Interlochen is music education. A summer with DCI is not.

However, I'm not knocking drum corps because it's not music education. It shouldn't be. Drum corps should be a chance for young people who are driven enough to rehearse all through the hot summer to push themselves to perform a show to the best of their ability. The kids always have been and always will do that. It's the people in charge and their "artistic vision" that leads to glazed over stares from the audience who are the problem.

Playing original music when you're The Cadets is fine. You're big enough and have enough talent to make it interesting. A voiceover? Ok, you're The Cadets. The audience will still applaud.

However, if you're a small corps, you want to be like one of the big boys. Your staff comes from people who want to eventually work for The Cadets. They want to have their "Artistic Vision." Guess how well that corps is going to go over with the audience? And if I busted my butt all summer to perform this show, how the audience responds is going to make all the difference in the world to me. I couldn't care less about imparting some greater "Artistic Vision." So I have two choices:

1. Drop out of drum corps.
2. Move up to a top 12 corps.

Sadly, that's the state of DCI right now. You've got small corps trying to mimic the repertoire of larger corps who can only get away with the music they're playing because they have the talent (artificially increased by the numbers flooding in from smaller corps) and the money (to buy a staff who is top of the line.)

Maybe you don't think DCI is in trouble. Maybe you think all the shows are great. Maybe you like this new direction. But the numbers don't lie. The top corps need the lower corps just as much as vice versa. Whenever you see the dramatic decrease in numbers for the activity, it can only spell doom for the organization.

More culinary adventures.

This bad boy is Sundae. At first I thought sundae was the same as hagis, but it turns out sundae is much more disgusting.

According to wikipedia, sundae is Korean blood sausage. Now if you know me, you know I've got nothing against sausage.

Sundae is not sausage. It's some kind of potato and blood mix mixed together and stuffed inside the intestine of a pig.

Of course, I tried it once, like everything else, but never again. I don't know if it was worse than bundaegee (see the previous culinary adventures post), but it was definitely equal.

Between live octopus, sundae, and fish head soup, Korea is doing its best to turn me into a vegetarian.

100 Posts!

Oh happy day! This is by far the longest I've ever managed to keep a blog without losing interest. I guess it's because this is the first time I've ever had anything in my life interesting enough to write about. Anyway, help me celebrating by posting a comment! Looking at my Google analytics, people are looking at my blog from all over the world! Please, just once, post a comment! I'm talking to you, Mr. Nishinomiya, Japan who's been here three times!

Last night I went to go visit my friend Becky at work, since she had to work today, the day we normally hang out. First, I took the bus to Samsandong to have some KFC goodness. KFC is sooo good :) Anyway, from there I took a taxi to dong-gu, where the hotel is where she works as a bartender. Anyway, I tell the taxi driver where to go, and off we go. Except he's watching tv on his GPS. Ok, no problem. As long as we don't die, whatever. The interesting part comes when as we get closer to the destination, he taps the gps screen to bring up the map. "Cool," I think, "he's going to get me right where I need to go. However, he taps it again, so the map is sharing the screen with the tv.

So let me clarify. The taxi driver is

1. Driving
2. Watching the Korean Oscars on TV
3. Looking and inputting information into his GPS about where we're going

...all at the same time! Talk about multitasking.

What sucks is that he didn't know where to go anyway, and I had to take another taxi from my pharmacy to the hotel. Oh well.