to those of you who followed the link on my (brand spanking new) facebook page here: congrats! as you can see, i've been somewhat...lazy in posting recently. this is due to my tendency to wait until things are over and done with to comment on them. in this case: vacation. argh, i can taste it! it permeates every moment- inviting, taunting, dragging its feet. it is so close! 3 weeks! and i feel bad for my coworkers and especially for students. after all, if i start being a dick in the office, the teachers can just tell me to fuck off. but the students, oh those poor bastards-- they have no recourse. it's already happening, too. i'm not yelling yet, but i've turned the "jackass" meter up to 6 or 7... it goes all the way to 11 for when i that extra burst to really emotionally tear down someone's self-esteem. it will only get worse, their only hope is that i get burned out on being burned out.
let's see, what else is new? oh yeah! it is hot here, humid too. like i have started to keep extra deodorant at school kind of hot. like i should start bringing my school clothes in a separate bag kind of hot... though to be fair my school clothes are basically my normal clothes (one of my students said i dressed like her dad before he went to bed, that's right: my casual wear is the equivalent to korean pajamas).
i did spend part of my weekend in busan at the beach in spite of the heat. I spent most of my time in the shade reading al gore's the assault on reason . since i don't respond well to heat and humidity very well on an emotional level, this book was really fanning the flames of my discontent with america right now. one of my friends was saying that she was really just learning about the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and it was getting her quite upset with the us. i almost don't want to bring this book to her attention for fear completely turning her off to america... not to equate bush with nuclear strikes. except for i kinda did.
i got my eyes lasic'd! i don't need glasses anymore, at least not until my eye start to go bad again. since everyone has been asking me if it hurts, let me say this: it kind of feels like you let some dude put you in a chair, stick a metal circle inside of your eyelid, slice off the top of you eye with something that looks like a plastic triangle, shoot lasers into your eyes for thirty seconds, put the top of your eye back on, and then ask you to put eye drops in it for the next 2 weeks. actually it feel exactly like, but without any real pain; it's just... uncomfortable.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Saturday, July 12, 2008
i am freaking out right now
I AM FREAKING OUT RIGHT NOW! it is raining quite hard in seoul. it is the evening. it is hot and humid. because it is raining, i have not left my apartment much today as i don't like being rained on. did i mention that i am freaking out? i opened the door to my barred, six foot long, one foot wide balcony to enjoy the a bit of fresh air, maybe see the outside world... and i did. and it was looking back at me. and i am freaking out. i don't even know how to describe it. it looked like two long curved wires were sticking out from the side of the building. i had never seen wire there before. they were antennae. they as long as my fingers. i freaked out. i slid the door shut. stood there for awhile. decided i must be wrong. bugs don't get that big. not big enough to have 4 inch antennae. i slid the door open a little. i kept my face very close to the door so my head wouldn't block the light. they twitched. at me. jebus christonacrunch theytwitchedatme...urg...guh...gak... i slammed the door shut. this happened 30 minutes ago. i have been looking at the door every five minutes and shivering. i am not going to be able to go to sleep tonight. i am going to be thinking all night about what was on the other side of that wall- can it open doors? is that shadow moving? what sound does a giant, mutant roach from outer space make as it comes to lay eggs inside your brain? i am freaking out. i mean, really, everybody's seen it- that first guy who gets killed because he doesn't realize the dude lurching towards him is a zombie. that person who just knows there's no such things as werewolves, and that howl was probably just some dog. that the lights going out during the night is just bad luck and not the work of some masked guy who has a grudge against underage drinking and promiscuous teenagers. they all end up dead. why can't they just admit something freaky is happening? why do people have to wait for it to happen a few times before they decide that they should be careful. there is no way i am going to be the first person to die in the great evil bug rebellion of '08. i am going to sit back, lock the door, and go to bed tonight with a frying pan and the biggest phonebook i can find. and tomorrow, i'm going to check the news for reports of crazy bug deaths before i go out. yes, i am freaking out--- but i'm not the one the audience will throw popcorn at the screen at because i "went in there"
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Uneventful June
with the exception of a particularly long, drawn out week last week, june was fairly uneventful. i did see m. night shamaylan's "the happening"... man... just man...
i mean i was right on the edge:
6th sense: ++
unbreakable:+
signs:+/-
the village:-
lady in the water:--
as you can see from my matter o' fact chart there, shamaylan had, despite a great outset, had broken even. this was the tie-breaker. is he good, but in a rut? is he a lucky hack? what a tie-breaker it was, too! no more, mr. director! no more, please! i'm done with his movies. my god! this was another in a long line of movies these past two years to have "anti" sub-text, for lack of a better term, it had super-text. yes, i am an english major snob who thinks he knows everything about characterization and story telling mechanics, but it's not like i have anything against exposition, as such. it's a really useful tool that lets the reader or viewer in on the rules of the game. ...still, there are ways to do it without actually seeming like you're doing it. showing and not telling, for example works wonderfully in books. now i realize movies are designed for showing so maybe that device gets over used. well, that's where subtext comes in; a verbal kind of showing. the character says something, he might even believe it, but the reader or viewer (from their vantage point) sees this really says something else about the character. subtext at its best can show a divergence between the author and the narrator. so:
a show character will in some non-verbal way convey that he is angry
an expository character will say "i am angry"
a subtext character will say "gee, those there flowers sure are nice" (randomly) and the viewer knows he's angry because they read between the lines
so that brings us to "the happening" (and "the brave one" "d-war" "revenge of the sith" to name a few others) where the characters make comments that are supposed to be subtextual and deep... but they're not (the characters or the comments). they, at best, just tell us what is happening in a shallow way. but with these films, it's more than that- either the actors, writers, or directors were unwilling or unable to reach that core emotion and are trying to imply that they have (think padmae's "you're breaking my heart!"). thus supertext: when a character that should be angry, though very clearly is not, states either explicitly or implicitly that he is angry though, once again, he clearly is not. this movie was chalk full of that.
so, let me very clearly state that "i will never be suckered into seeing one of shamaylan's movies again", as well as "the ribbed crow flies north by northeast" as i shake my fist to the heavens to the backdrop of thunder and lightning.... can't be more clear than that.
i mean i was right on the edge:
6th sense: ++
unbreakable:+
signs:+/-
the village:-
lady in the water:--
as you can see from my matter o' fact chart there, shamaylan had, despite a great outset, had broken even. this was the tie-breaker. is he good, but in a rut? is he a lucky hack? what a tie-breaker it was, too! no more, mr. director! no more, please! i'm done with his movies. my god! this was another in a long line of movies these past two years to have "anti" sub-text, for lack of a better term, it had super-text. yes, i am an english major snob who thinks he knows everything about characterization and story telling mechanics, but it's not like i have anything against exposition, as such. it's a really useful tool that lets the reader or viewer in on the rules of the game. ...still, there are ways to do it without actually seeming like you're doing it. showing and not telling, for example works wonderfully in books. now i realize movies are designed for showing so maybe that device gets over used. well, that's where subtext comes in; a verbal kind of showing. the character says something, he might even believe it, but the reader or viewer (from their vantage point) sees this really says something else about the character. subtext at its best can show a divergence between the author and the narrator. so:
a show character will in some non-verbal way convey that he is angry
an expository character will say "i am angry"
a subtext character will say "gee, those there flowers sure are nice" (randomly) and the viewer knows he's angry because they read between the lines
so that brings us to "the happening" (and "the brave one" "d-war" "revenge of the sith" to name a few others) where the characters make comments that are supposed to be subtextual and deep... but they're not (the characters or the comments). they, at best, just tell us what is happening in a shallow way. but with these films, it's more than that- either the actors, writers, or directors were unwilling or unable to reach that core emotion and are trying to imply that they have (think padmae's "you're breaking my heart!"). thus supertext: when a character that should be angry, though very clearly is not, states either explicitly or implicitly that he is angry though, once again, he clearly is not. this movie was chalk full of that.
so, let me very clearly state that "i will never be suckered into seeing one of shamaylan's movies again", as well as "the ribbed crow flies north by northeast" as i shake my fist to the heavens to the backdrop of thunder and lightning.... can't be more clear than that.
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