Inauguration speeches

I finally got a chance to watch Obama's inauguration speech (I don't think I would be able to stomach the rest of the ceremony) and I give it a resounding 'meh'. It sounded like a stump speech, and not even one of his better ones. Granted, Obama's stump speeches are better than the majority of speeches ever given, but this inauguration speech isn't even in the same league as Kennedy's in 1961. Hearing it still gives me goosebumps. Everyone knows the 'ask not what your country can do for you,' line, but when you hear the build up it gets exponentially better.



(Seriously, give it a listen; it's only fourteen minutes.)

Update: This article makes me feel better about Obama's speech. It made me realize that the speech was brilliant, if not particularly inspiring to me, because it wasn't talking to liberals. Obama used the language of conservatism to try to get conservatives behind liberal ideas, which will be essential if they are to be enacted. The best example of this was the "These things are old; these things are true" line, which resonates for conservatives in a big big way, but among the 'traditional' values he listed were tolerance and curiosity, the latter of which in particular seems pretty damn radical after the quarter century of Republican leadership and completely antithetical to Bush II in particular.

On Gremlins

I have recently been researching mythological creatures both for incredibly dorky reasons and because they are awesome. One of the things that struck me was how recent some of the creations are, particularly gremlins. Like other mischievous little people (fairies, goblins, kobolds, pixies, brownies, oni, etc), gremlins are blamed when things mysteriously go wrong or get misplaced, but gremlins limit their mischief to airplanes. Gremlins were invented by the British Royal Air Force in WWI. They were originally suspected of being creatures in league with the Germans, but then RAF members heard of similar occurrences on German planes and realized that gremlins just like to sabotage planes for their own twisted pleasure, without regard for the nationality of the pilot. The gremlin myth became more widespread during WWII. Here is my favorite telling of the gremlin tale:

Birthday

I had quite good birthday today, for the most part. This morning I slept in and chatted with some of you people, which was nice. At school I received many gifts including rice cakes (sweetened gooey rice concoctions which taste considerably better than the preceding description would have you believe), Belgian chocolates, cookies, school supplies for my Korean class (I really should practice writing Korean, and the notebooks I got today should help), a tasty bread-cheesecake something or other, and a paper airplane from one of my kindergarteners. My kindy class sang happy birthday to me and ended the song by making hearts with their hands and saying "I love you Landon Teacher!" I am totally going soft in my old age because I found this adorable.

The nadir of the day was when I was giving a test to a class of older kids. This involves taking them out of the room one at a time for an oral quiz while the other students do the written part. I made the mistake of going out of earshot, and the kids left in the room tore up each other's paper tests and literally got in a full-out fight. Ukk. This class has consistently been the worst behaved, so I should have known better than to leave them even for a few minutes, but this was way worse than what I expected. We can't really do a whole lot to punish them, but ripping up someone else's test is definitely grounds for in-school suspension in my book (I am such an academic and nerd for this to be the part that appalls me rather than the physical fight).

After school I met up with other teachers for Korean class and we had the best Korean Barbecue that I have had thus far. Mmmm, barbecue. At class I felt like Korean was starting to click for me, which is a great feeling. The only other time I've had it was with German in Germany. I now have a rough idea on how to decline verbs and know the infinitive of basic verbs, which gives me a much better picture of the structure of the language. At class they also had a birthday cake for someone with a birthday in about ten days, so I got to share that too. The only bad part about Korean class is that the Pakistani and German and Chinese people make me feel stupid because they are learning their third language (or more) by being taught in their second language (or more), English, yet they are better at it even given that huge handicapp.

On the way home I got another birthday gift in the form of the subway system correcting their English grammar (!). They now say "the door is closing" instead of "the door is close", the latter of which had been driving me a little crazy every time I heard it. After dropping off perishable gifts at my apartment I met up with most of the other foreign teachers at The West Wing bar and hof ('hof' is Korean for 'bar', so it basically says 'bar and bar'. Also, the logo says 'sense 2002' instead of 'since 2002.' The logo is generally fantastic: it is the presidential seal except that the eagle is holding hops and forks instead of olive leaves and arrow.) Hanging out was great. We toasted America on this historic inauguration day (well, sort of, given the time zone difference), semi-planned a movie night, talked about relationship stuff, and other fun things. I'm really enjoying my fellow teachers. I was worried at first because I am so used to Reedies that it is like I'm not socialized properly and have weird expectations of people, like that they have some side interest of totally useless but bizarre and interesting information that they will spout out for hours to anyone who will listen. However, they seem genuinely happy to hear me spout off about obscure things like how the movie Hero as an example of brilliant subtle Chinese propaganda and other useless information, and they have interesting commentary to add even though they themselves mostly lack the weird trivia because they mostly studied things that can, you know, get you jobs. I'm deeply looking forward to hiking and chatting with Bo this weekend, and to our 'family dinners' and other social events with the family in general.

To sum up: I am really happy in Korea so far and had an excellent birthday.

Zen and the art of destroying household items

This is gorgeous:


(hat tip Andrew Sullivan, as usual)

I especially like the parts with water balloons. I love anything that reminds us how amazing and beautiful the ordinary things around us are. Though my ascetic tastes still tend towards the epic, I am learning to appreciate the little pieces of awesomeness around me, and it has made me a much happier person (I'm on my way to Zen mastery, I swear). In the mornings when I shower, light comes into the bathroom from the window and there is so much steam that breathing in there is like the inverse of breathing in cold weather: I can see my breath in the absence of steam. Watching the water molecules swirl and dance in the sunlight makes my morning.

Late Update: This video adds an interesting twist to the general awesomeness of slow motion destruction:

Korea update

I'm getting pretty used to things here. Classes are becoming easier since I am learning the routine. I also now know almost everyone's name, though I still need to consult the attendance sheet occasionally for some of the older kids. I have two kindergarten classes that I teach twice a day (all classes are 45 min), eight classes of older kids that I teach on either M-W-F or T-Th, and one class of older kids that I teach for a two-period block on Wednesday mornings. The classes range from five to twelve students, with most classes having nine or ten kids. The supervisor of the kindergarten and the supervisor of the older kid classes each observed some of my classes and gave advice. Apparently I am adapting fairly well all things considered, both in terms of teaching--judging by their feedback (especially about keeping the class on track and orderly)--and in terms of moving to another hemisphere--in comparison to how my fellow foreign teachers describe their first weeks.

The foreign teachers are very nice and friendly. We have 'family dinner' once a week at Lindsey's apartment. John and Bo live in the same apartment complex as I do, and are both good to talk to. Bo shares my love of hiking and John and I can be huge nerds together. Lindsey and Lauren are generally interesting and easy to talk to, though we don't share any single issues to bond over. Lauren and I go to Korean class every Tuesday, along with a bunch of teachers and ex-pats, including a few teachers from the other school. The two YBM ECC (my company) schools' foreign teachers also meet up once a week to hang out. One of them briefly went to school in the tiny town of Milton-Freewater Oregon with my good friend Ben from Reed. I really like some of the teachers from the other ECC and want to hang out with them more.

Tomorrow is my birthday. Tuesday is my light day in terms of teaching, so I get to sleep in, but it is also the day I am a student of Korean, which is much more difficult. Today was the birthday of Bo (he also turned 24) and Tom, a teacher at my school who is Korean. Tomorrow is also John's birthday, so all five foreign teachers went out to dinner to celebrate our triple birthdays. We had tasty tasty Indian food. Tomorrow we will probably get cake at work, judging by the precedent of today and last Friday, which was the birthday of our manager, Maria. I am of course getting an amazing present tomorrow of an Obama presidency (after work we will probably go to an American-style bar in our building called The West Wing to celebrate birthdays and the innauguration). However, I am greedy and want more, so for my birthday I would love to hear from you, either in email, in the comments, or (ideally) on Skype this weekend (my user name is landon.goldberg), and by 'weekend' I mean your Friday or Saturday evening, which are my Saturday and Sunday early afternoons. Actually, this weekend is the lunar new year, so we have next Monday and Tuesday off as well, although that also means that Bo and I (and maybe others) will be out hiking a lot in the 'mountains' around Daejeon.

Busy, busy, busy

The Washington Post just ran an article on Obama's faith:

For the president-elect, religion has always been less about theology than the power God inspires in communities...

Sounds like someone we know. I like to believe that Obama has this almost Bokononist view of religion. There is a part of me that prefers Bill Maher's opinion that McCain and Obama claim to be religious, "but I hope they're lying." However, I have recently attempted to embrace the foma of Bokanonism: the lies that bring one comfort and happiness. One of the foma I have been living by for over two years now is that Barack Obama will make the US a wonderful country and fix all our problems after eight years of duffle. One of the ways he might do that is by using and promoting the foma of religion. While it is not remotely possible for a religion to provide meaning for my life, I recognize that religions do indeed do so for many people, and I will do my best not to undermine meaningfulness for them as I have for myself. Similarly, as a Wittgenstinean I recognize the extreme importance of community, and while I am not part of any religious community, most of America is, and one must be part of a community in order to shape the realities of its members. In the meanwhile, I will attempt to re-embrace the foma of my past: truth, logic, science, Rawlsian Justice, etc and to discover new ones.

Trimet

I saw this picture in a Matt Yglesias post and it made my heart aflutter with missing Portland. Portland was my introduction to good (i.e. usable) public transportation, so Trimet has a special place in my heart.

The public transportation in Korea is fantastic, by the way. Daejeon has roughly the population of Portland (though it is much much denser) and its transportation infrastructure is better (again, easier because the city takes up less area) and cheaper. It costs less than a dollar to go anywhere, and the subway runs about every seven minutes. I'm not sure how often the buses run since everywhere I have wanted to go is on the one subway line (more lines are opening soon, but maybe not before I leave). The only problem I have is the grammar of their English (all announcements are in both Korean and English), such as 'the door is close' at every subway stop when they mean 'the door is closing'. The grammar nazi in me flares up at that one, but other than that the infrastructure is wonderful. Sometime I will do a post about the bikelanes here, which would be the envy of Portlanders (keep in mind that Pdx is by far the most bike-friendly city in the US).