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About Ken
December 2011
Korean Politics One facet of Korean culture I find baffling is its politics. The foreign teachers I meet in Korea generally are young and college-educated and have centrist or liberal politics. It's thus surprising that here up often seems down— the conservative (GNP) party wants closer ties to America and strongly supported the FTA, both things which benefit the jobs and lives of foreign teachers, whereas the left-wing parties fought bitterly to sabotage it, releasing tear-gas canisters in parliament to try to stop its passage. Korean leftists are more like extreme rightists, beating the drum of Korean nationalism and blaming every problem on the foreigners. Bizarrely, many college students here support such parties, marching in candlelit protests against the US and then heading for the coffee shops to drink lattes and listen to Lady Gaga. It's a mad, mad world. Seoul recently elected a left-leaning mayor, and predictably, there's already blathering about how the US forces should leave, the FTA sells out our nation, and the North Koreans are our brothers who just need to be loved more. I'm thus unsurprised to hear that the board of education is booting out the native English teachers from the public school English programs in Seoul, beginning in 2012. There's the usual not-so-thinly disguised xenophobia that foreigners As I've said in other places on my website, ESL is a slightly sleazy industry. There are lousy teachers here only interested in fast money and women. A bachelors degree in Sociology does not make you a qualified educator. But the placement programs in Korea were shakily run from the start, hobbled by bureaucracy and hostility or confusion from Korean co-teachers and local administrators. I expect many of these released teachers to find work in private academies (hagwons), but the day is coming when China will slurp away the pool of native-speaking teachers just as Korea previously did to Japan. I do think conditions are better and improving for foreign faculty at universities, and this is probably what's going to remain— unless Seoul finds a pretext to deport the PhD holders as well.
The Cleanest Race - B.R. Myers (2010) For anyone looking for a good read which will explain North Korea, this is it— or at least read the interview. (Please do not think that December 2011 is a Korea-slam. Do you really want me to write drivel about how wonderful kimchi is?) Myers is one of the few academics who looks beyond the hyperbolic rants in the North Korean international releases, revealing that the threats in English to turn everything into a sea of fire are largely unconnected to what citizens inside the country read or see on TV. Some of Myers' conclusions contradict the usual western news and diplomatic assumptions about the reclusive state: 1) It's not a communist state. Myers claims that there is little that's actually communist about North Korea despite the "worker's paradise" rhetoric. It has centralized planning, but so did Nazi Germany's and imperial Japan's economies, to an extent. The North Koreans have virtually no interest in exporting their ideology as classic Soviet-bloc states did; they don't want to free the international workers from their chains. They want to unite the pure Korean race and then shut out the debased, quasi-human rest of the world, forever. Its only binary is race, not class struggle; you're Korean (good) or not (evil), and the distinction is permanent. 2) The Juche idea is a smokescreen. Myers believes that the Juche ideology of extreme self-sufficience is simply a ruse to keep critics and outsiders off-balance. North Korea has no trouble accepting aid, simply labeling it as grateful tribute from cowed foreign inferiors, whether Chinese or western. Whereas communist nations were more than happy to educate new recruits, North Korean ideology is extremely non-intellectual, portraying its people as simple, childlike souls guided by spontaneous passions— all requiring the friendly guidance and protection of a dear leader, of course. 3) It's not a Confucian state. North Korea is not a Confucian holdover substituting reverence for the dear leader for the king. Its propaganda uses consistently feminine imagery, portraying its leaders in maternal, sheltering terms. Again, the regime's valorization of purity and innocence hardly jives with Confucianism's respect for education and philosophical inquiry. The result is what one commenter called a country with one giant Stockholm syndrome— starving citizens who nevertheless believe that their race (and thus leaders) can do no wrong. Thus Myers doesn't see much possiblity of internal revolt, but rather the biggest danger to the regime is the creeping realization that the South isn't being oppressed by the Americans and doesn't exactly yearn for liberation. This makes the recent tolerance of cellphones in the North puzzling. October 2011
Enough already. I've stayed off the internet for the last few days because I'm sick of the fulsome, nauseating plaudits. How great the man was, how visionary he was, how he changed everyone's lives. I admit his innovations were among the most important of the 20th century. This does not make him a beautiful human being. He cheated his partner Steve Wozniak, abandoned a daughter, screamed at his employees, and cut off all charitable giving at Apple. A new biography states he "parked in handicapped spots, was rude to every waiter he ever encountered, and believed he didn’t have to bathe." He did not invent the graphical user interface. Xerox did, and both he and Bill Gates viewed the failed Xerox GUI computer at a demonstration, modeling their respective operating systems on it. I've never understood why Bill Gates, who has arranged to give away his entire fortune, is the bad guy. Let me reveal a dark, shameful secret that no liberal arts graduate is supposed to have: I've never really liked Apple products. I've always found their software frustrating to use and counter-intuitive. To me their products are gimmicky and overpriced, and almost as annoying as their hipper-than-thou fans. The man deserves respectful commemoration, but he was no saint. He ran a business. He sold things for profit, and people paid for them. September 2011 Craig Ferguson & The Tiger-Mom
Maybe my choice of comparison will seem very strange. I recently bought a Kindle and the first books I've read, I guess because they're at A and B, is Craig Ferguson's American on Purpose and Amy Chua's Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. Being in Korea, I'm actually not that familiar with the late-night show, but I enjoy memoirs and Ferguson is very likeable. He talks about his childhood in Glasgow and there are the expected thugs and bullying teachers as Ferguson joins rock bands, abuses drugs, and cheats on girlfriends and wives until he gradually matures, stops drinking, and becomes a comedy entertainer. Ferguson tells us his past sins without exoticizing or bragging about them, but neither is there the revival-tent Oprah-esque melodrama of how he had "the courage to be healed." Instead, Ferguson is funny and self-deprecating. He blames himself for his excesses while admitting he had a good time, and ends the book grateful to be a citizen of a country which gives him opportunities. There's been a few times in my life where a book was so bad or made me so angry that I refused to continue or threw it against the wall at its end: Moby Dick. Middlemarch. Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea, with its whiny, martyr-complex narrator. Anything by Joel Osteen, who preaches that the reason you're not rich is because you don't have enough faith, although being the son of a wealthy and famous televangelist might help a little. I would have thrown Battle Hymn at my wall, except it would have broken my Kindle. I don't know why I have such strong feelings over this text, and I'm a little late to the party in talking about it. But I hate this book. Were it by some obscure crank it could simply be discounted. But some people and educators are taking this drivel seriously. I hate this book because of Chua's absolutely binary view of the world. You are Chinese or you are Western. There are no gradations or alternatives. If you are a Chinese mother, you scold, humiliate, and beat your preschool daughters. You force them to play violin or piano and deny them sleep, food, or bathroom breaks. You reject birthday cards they draw for you because they are not perfect. As a result, all 1.2 billion Chinese are successful and love their parents. The alternative is to be a Western parent, where you are vaguely aware that you have children and occasionally check in on them in their 20s when they are in your basement playing video games in their pajamas and shooting heroin, pausing to praise them for developing their self-esteem and inner specialness. I hate this book because of its thinly-veiled racism. Whenever Chua uses the word western there is a disgusted sneer about it as though she were saying syphilitic. Whereas Chinese parents love their children, who never disobey their parents and get As in all subjects, Western parents are "perfectly content to let their children turn out badly." Western academics are called "Dr." in sarcastic quotation marks. Americans are lazy, weak slackers who are fat from eating "Kentucky Fried Chicken" and full of "psychological disorders" that "don't exist in Asia." Disney movies appeal because they offer consolation to "people who never win any prizes" and probably work as "janitors." At the same time, Chua never accounts for the fact that while her automaton offspring are virtuoso performers due to their Chineseness, all the music they perform was written by creative European composers who did not spend their childhoods in prison-camp conditions. I hate this book because at the end I'm not sure what the point is. After all the self-congratulatory prose about how hard Chua's childhood was, how she attended Yale and Harvard and the president resigned so that she could be senior emeritus professor at seventeen, how she lectures or vacations in (insert half a page of important places you haven't been to) while not piloting the space shuttle, how important and sophisticated her friends are, how clever and successful her children are, and how she does all this and forces her daughters to practice sixteen hours a day because she is more driven-than-thou... what? It isn't a compelling narrative, as she hasn't learned anything from her narcissism. Her techniques won't work for those parents who don't happen to have her position or connections and lack the time and money to fly their children from world-class teacher to another. Why try to enlighten Americans anyway, as presumably they are too lazy to act on it?—the same people who fund the university you work at which enables you to spit on their values? Ferguson gives me the impression that he writes to share. Chua seems to write to make you feel small. ................................................................................................. August 2011 Bad Korean Meals The food in Korea is good, when it's good. When it's bad, it's downright diabolical.
There's lots I squawk about regarding "Deadgu," but there was a fun little jazz festival with a free outdoor stage for three days this August. The Korean version of jazz is heavy on the Starlight-Lounge piano cheese and light on anything that might reflect jazz's African-American origins, but I will admit that the Latin band, the Amigos, really did get down and dance. It's not often you hear Asian bands singing in Korean, English, French, and Spanish.
................................................................................................. 1960s Pop Songs
"Take the last train to Clarksville, and I'll meet you at the station. You can be here at four-thirty, 'cause I've made your reservation." Never understood this Monkees song. Why the last train to Clarksville, and not the next one? You have something more important to do that you want your girlfriend to take the last possible train? What a romantic devil. "I would like to see you tonight, but I'd like to wash my hair and feed the cat and finish the novel I've been reading. Why don't you take the very last train so that you'll arrive by the time I'm ready and my other girlfriend has gone home?" "Take the last train to Clarksville, now I must hang up the phone. I can't hear you in this noisy railroad station all alone." So not only is the speaker asking this girl to arrive as late as possible for his convenience, but he's cheap. Why do you need to hang up the phone? What does the noise level have to do with needing to end the call? It's because you want her to pay for a train ticket but don't want to spring for another dime for the payphone, you lying cheapskate! ................................................................................................. The U.S. Debt Crisis I still like President Obama and think he has accomplished some good things. The USA, dragged kicking and screaming into the twentieth century, now has some measure of universal health care, and recently new fuel standards were passed to lessen dependence on foreign oil. I'm not jumping off the bandwagon, but I'll voice my frustration that lately when I see Obama I think of what Theodore Roosevelt said about Oliver Wendell Holmes: "I could carve out of a banana a judge with more backbone than that." The Americans nearly plunged world markets into chaos by being a hyperpower unable to pay its own bills, all because a fanatical group of useful idiots in congress refused to raise taxes on the super-rich, who presently pay less than their secretaries. Faced with this standoff, Obama did what he almost always does, which is propose a moderate position to look like a statesman, offer to compromise with the tea-party Republicans at the beginning of talks, and then cave and accept a deal almost entirely on their terms. That's quite the negotiating skills there, Lou. I wonder what this president would have done at other times in history?
Okay, I've had my fun. ................................................................................................. Rain Floods in Korea
Korea has been whammed with some serious rain this summer, leading to flooding and deaths in Seoul. I was in Busan this weekend and there's damaged and impassable roads everywhere with sunken concrete. Daegu was apparently too boring for even the rain to bother with it. Although it's been a wet July, there's been no problems here yet. July 2011
The website is going through some large changes this month, both in the code behind the scenes and in presentation and content. Because so many tablets and other applications don't run Flash, it's now gone (I won't miss it—Flash is a huge nuisance to program and implement). In its place is some new Jquery javascript code which makes things like the imageflow picture carousel you'll see throughout the site. The site still doesn't run well on Internet Explorer 9, but I'm not alone on that. I think lots of web designers hope IE9 will be like Windows ME and will be replaced quickly and forgotten. June 2011 Riots in Vancouver  
One of my friends commented on Facebook that we shouldn't be surprised at the riot that just happened in Vancouver following the Canucks' loss in the Stanley Cup finals; after all, we expect the players to beat each other violently during the game. To me there's a difference in that game violence is controlled, voluntary, and doesn't affect private property... a little like 'fight club,' admittedly. But as much as I grew up with hockey and it's in my blood, I think a growing backlash is going to be justified as citizens ask why we subsidize this sport with tax monies only to have to clean up and pay for damage to our cities after fans terrorize the streets. When my Oilers won the Stanley Cup in Edmonton in 1984, there was a small riot downtown. This week, after the playoff loss, there was a giant riot in downtown Vancouver which resulted in stabbings, injuries, burned cars, and looted businesses. The police were shocked, shocked! that there was a riot... so very much like the after-game riots in Montreal in 2010 and in 2008. Why, it's almost as if there's a pattern to this.
Every time there has been a hockey riot the press and authorities have said "this was the work of troublemakers and not true fans." Oh, well. Why didn't you say so? Carry on then. Where I live in northeast Asia, there are lots of public demonstrations, but if there is any potential for violence or vandalism the police are out in full number and heavy gear. Offenders are quickly arrested and fined or caned. And by the darndest coincidence, there aren't many sports riots. In many ways I'm politically liberal, but with public order I pray to the dark gods: either confront criminal rioters with force or cancel the damn playoffs. Michelle Bachmann, ID, & the Funda-atheists
I have friends and co-workers who are atheists. They're nice people and we respect each other. I don't agree with Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens, but they're gifted intellectuals in other fields. Hitchens can be funny and he knows the value of a good cup of tea. Can't we all just get along? Recently Bill Maher wrote an essay entitled "New Rule: Not Everything in America Has to Make a Profit." If I have a new rule, I suppose it is: Not Everything Has to Be a Fight. I'm not indulging in the sort of snide America-bashing Canadians sometimes do. I'm pointing out that religion in America is becoming increasingly polarized, aided and abetted by the internet, and to me the potential consequences are serious. If atheists can be good people, the corollary is that they can be incredibly nasty too. Recently Dave's ESL Cafe, a discussion board I frequent, gave up and banned all religious discussions because the comments had become so abusive. Atheist groups have the right to put jeering messages on buses and billboards. This doesn't mean the practice isn't spiteful or hurtful, or that anything goes. I see posts on discussion boards or blogs which would be declared hate speech and taken down if we substituted "Christians" with "Jews" or "blacks." Criticizing my faith is one thing, and advocating that I should be harassed, prohibited from certain jobs, or arrested for taking my child to church is another. This isn't free-thinking; it's fundamentalism applied to an opposite worldview. But Liberal Christians and everyone in the middle need to be aware and involved because we are attacked on both sides. If I moved to the USA, I'm not sure who would fire me first from a professorship—P.Z. Myers for being a Christian, or Michelle Bachmann for not being Christian enough. Extreme political movements seldom end well for believers. French, Russian, and Chinese revolutionaries all attacked the church. Hitler (sorry to "Godwin the thread") corrupted church leaders where he could, and where he couldn't, well—there were 3,500 priests in Dachau alone. The problem with the Intelligent Design and Evolution controversy is that there are honest and dishonest actors on both sides. On the ID side there are scientists with legitimate concerns about evolution (good) and six-day fundamentalists trying to sabotage science education (bad). On the other are scientists who sincerely want to pursue their studies agnostically (good) and those who believe religion has no place in science, unless one is disproving religion, in which case it's fine (Hawking). In my online course on university life at Keimyung, I discuss problem resolution through win-win scenarios. To me the impasse over teaching ID in high school science class is simply solved: Intelligent Design should be taught in Social Studies class. As a chiefly theological branch of inquiry, it belongs with the social sciences and humanities. Objection 1: "Aren't we admitting that ID isn't true if we state it isn't a science?" Well, no—History and English Literature aren't scientific, but they deal with realities we would say are true. Mathematics isn't scientific in a strict sense, as numbers are artificial constructs, but it's 'true.' These subjects all rely on an epistomological sense of truth which isn't inferior to the narrow type of truth which comes from scientific observation—it's just different. Objection 2: "Won't it confuse students to hear conflicting explanations of human origins?" High school and University ought to involve dealing with differing or conflicting information or viewpoints. If students can't handle that, man, the school systems have bigger fish to fry than science class. ................................................................................................. May 2011 Dr. Ken
I've finished my doctorate and have completed all the paperwork, and I'm just waiting for the official diploma to arrive. It's nice to be done. As soon as I did my defense in April, I promptly got sick with a cold. Others tell me that this is quite normal, that your body will have a little breakdown for a while, and that many people will be depressed similar to women after childbirth. Well, it hasn't been that bad. But after being so busy this semester I have felt out of sorts for a week or two, as though I always have the feeling I should be doing something. Random Topics
"What do you do with a doctorate degree in medieval English Literature? Why are dissertation topics always so ridiculously obscure?" It's true that the topics can be very specific or odd. I once had a professor at Concordia whose friend did her dissertation on the three conjunctions "and, or, and but." Thesis topics tend to be extremely specific for the simple reason that if you discuss a broad or familiar subject—"Is Hamlet crazy"—you will need to read everything already written on that argument, which might take you the rest of your life! For this reason, a topic which breaks new ground is easier and more respectable. My dissertation was on the relationship between Chaucer's Tale of Sir Thopas and medieval romances. Some people find this interesting, most do not, and some get a little hostile in questioning the topic's usefulness. For most English professors at least, these specializations are a little like the ones physicians have. A medical doctor might do research on East Icelandic Accordion Disease and then spend most of his time treating sore throats, on call if someone with that ailment does show up. Similarly, in the future I might teach one or two Chaucer courses and be the go-to guy for a student writing an honors thesis about Chaucer, but I will spend most of my time teaching writing and literature survey courses, which is fine and something I like as well. That's assuming, of course, you get a job at all, unfortunately a more appropriate question for anyone doing graduate work in English literature... The Keimyung Adams Web Site
One project I've been working on over the semester is the new website for Keimyung Adams College. It's looking good, and it's a work in progress. My Winter Vacation
There's a kind of Russian-roulette aspect to vacations, I think. Every once in a while you get burned. This February I went back on a family vacation to Singapore and Bali. In my last trips there I found Singapore irritating and Bali heavenly, but my experiences this time were more mixed. Now that I'm getting used to Singapore, I'm liking it more. The country-state is a little like Apple. It's expensive and you will do things their way, but everything works. Although it's still always impossible to find a taxi, I'm beginning to like Singapore's cleanliness and efficiency, and I admit the architecture and the zoo are very nice. I'm sad to say that Bali is not as much fun as it used to be, at least for me. Part of it is that I'm admittedly getting older, and the noisy nightclub and motorcycle din of Kuta which used to be exciting for me is now aggravating and fatiguing. But I do believe that Kuta has deteriorated. It was a week and some of inflated prices, cheating taxi drivers, dirty rooms, truck-driver swearing Australian tourists, and jammed sidewalks with homicidal motorcyclists. The only way I would go back to Bali is to go to the highlands, which are quieter and friendlier. It broke my heart to see some of my favorite beaches on earth covered with litter. It didn't help that I and my mother-in-law got Dengue Fever, a sort of malaria-lite disease which has really ruined my health for some four months since. Interdum habere feriae et interdum feriae vos habit: Sometimes you have the vacation and sometimes the vacation has you.
As a special note, I have never had worse "food" or service as I did on China Eastern Airlines this February. Inedible dinners. Every flight hours late. A transfer both ways at Shanghai Airport, a facility setting new and exciting heights in arbitrary bureacracy, rude staff, nonexistent signage, and ripoff prices. Lest anyone think I'm just a grouch, let me say that Incheon, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, and Bangkok have excellent airports for efficiency and service. Beer (Slight Rant)
I admit to a somewhat working-class mindset. As I've written about on my beer website, one of my pet peeves is wine snobs. To me wine is an enjoyable drink almost ruined by the social expectations that you have to choose the right one, and so I am adamant that beer not be ruined in the same way; it's the people's drink. Alas, Salon has a new article about "How to enjoy your beer" with the usual pretentious twaddle about the necessity for the cultured connoisseur to sniff refinedly for notes of "caramel-toasted malt, black jellybean or green apple" in one's beer. Drink responsibly, but don't be afraid to to drink what you want as you want. Dante has a special plane of Hell for these pompous killjoys, just above the more-Irish-than-thou people who are always righteously prescribing the proper way to pour a Guinness.
In late February, a foreign private institute teacher in Busan took his own life by jumping from an apartment building. The press reported the incident while expressing condolences over the young man's death and advocating that the country offer improved counseling services for foreigners with personal problems. Ha! Ha! Just kidding. The local newspapers reacted with horror that an obviously insane foreigner who was probably addicted to drugs and alcohol was in the country teaching vulnerable Korean children, and called on the government to strengthen immigation regulations and screening for foreign teachers. The Busan Ilbo thundered that "a severe alcoholic who caused a disturbance in a public facility and jumped to his death worked as a teacher and openly taught students in Korea" (Link to the blog Gusts of Popular Feeling, which provided the translation). And so in addition to repeated and humiliating drug tests and police checks for sexual or violent crimes, now psychological profiles are being suggested as a requirement for visas in case we might selfishly litter the public commons with our bodies. How nice to know we're loved. Let me reprint the Vicious Circle of Korean ESL:
................................................................................................. January 2011 The standard procedure for Korean tourist organizations is to ignore anything a foreign tourist might say and to generate advertising slogans such as "Visit Korea Year 2009-2012." Well done. Here's my free contribution: there's lots of natural beauty here but one of the best (only?) good things about the cities is night time. Here's downtown Daegu (Banwoldang) at night, lit up with Christmas neon and busy with shoppers. It's a fun place to be. This'll be the player .................................................................................................
It's a Wonderful Life and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
One of the things I worry about living in Korea and away from western culture is that sometimes my grip on what's normal or current seems to slip. I watch clips of Letterman and there's actors I've never heard of saying catchphrases to the audience that I don't understand and aren't funny. But one of my biggest shocks came this Christmas season when I saw two movies that left me rather unsettled. I must be one of the ten people on the continent that had never seen It's a Wonderful Life (1946) before. A Christmas classic about faith and redemption. One of those movies in the video rental store with "For the whole family" stamped on it. What I wasn't expecting was one of the most depressing films I've ever seen. As Salon notes, if you missed the last fifteen minutes of the film it would watch like a Beckett nihilist drama. What's wonderful about this poor man's miserable life? He watches his dad humiliated by a greedy capitalist and just when he's about to get lucky for the first time his father dies and out of guilt he throws away a European adventure, a university education, and all of his life's ambitions to stay in a stiflingly boring, one-horse town while his friends and relatives leave and achieve fame and success. He doesn't even get to have a honeymoon when there's a run on the bank and he has to go back to a run-down, abandoned house he's moved into. When his bank is again tottering on ruin because of theft and his alcoholic uncle he ponders suicide as he stands alone in the dark and cold questioning his existence. Who wouldn't want to jump under these conditions?
Then, in a turn of events that's supposed to cheer him up, an angel appears to show him that if he were not born, things would be even worse. If he were unborn, his relatives would be dead, townspeople insane or ruined, and his wife a lonely, broken spinster. Isn't that nice? I know that when I'm in a low mood, I would feel a lot better if an angel demonstrated that without me being born all of my friends and family would have met grisly deaths and fiery rain would have fallen down as the earth writhed in starvation, war, and torment. There's nothing like guilt to cure existential angst. I'm beginning to agree with Slate's Gary Kamiya, who says that Harry Bailey should have stayed in Pottersville. The movie tries to depict it as an alternative Sodom and Gomorrah, but it's a slammin' place. I know I would have walked away from my rotten life to have a few drinks and find some showgirls if I had that little to lose. But in comparison to the new Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows I (2010) the Frank Capra movie is a walk through sunshine. At the beginning of the movie a Hogwart's employee is shown bound and tortured above Voldemort and associates before being executed. Throughout the movie witches and wizards are killed, Harry and friends spend their time dipped in blood or arguing, Hogwart's turns into a Nazi boot camp of repression, purges, and show trials, and the land of the "muggles," ordinary humans, becomes a post-apocalyptic warzone of abandoned, scorched, frozen winter. This is based on a children's novel? Who wrote the screenplay, Nine Inch Nails? I know that the producers were consciously aiming at an edgier, darker scenario to show that the Harry Potter series is growing up along with its fans. But to me the charm of the early novels and movies is their fun and wonder, set in a magical world of adventure. While I suppose that Harry's world has to necessarily become more adult and less puerile as he matures, man, this is a cold, grim movie. Terminator 3 has a cheerier setting. Can I not have a little bit of happiness and warmth in a film? Do I really have to choose between this and Love, Actually? An extra kick in the arse to the Daegu theater I saw the film in. One second before the film ends a staffer opens a brightly-lit exit door at the front of the theater, and one second after the end he shouts out that it's time to leave. Charming. One day there's going to be a class-action suit against theaters begrudging patrons the titles to the movie they overpaid for, and I'll lead it. No better are the people who fly past me to rush out two seconds after the film ends because the Dalai Lama might have text-messaged them during the movie. I always wonder what these people are like in bed. .................................................................................................
This is an unusually frigid Korean winter and things have been dull even by Daegu standards, which is pretty bloody dull. I've now finished the first draft of my dissertation, and I'm waiting for my committee to send back changes. Hopefully it's changes along the lines of "take out a comma" and not "rewrite eight chapters." All the same it's nice to get this far. |
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Ken Eckert's Moldy Rutabaga Blogette |
I call this a blogette because of its size, although it seems to be growing. Here you can read about my extremely important news and opinions about everything. As usual, if you don't like it... take your money back. |
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Daegu Jazz Festival 
Ken's (Full) Rant
Happy New Year!