Nana and I arrived in Pittsburgh around 3:00 local time this afternoon, making for a 20-hour trip door-to-door, which is a new all-time record (for us).
But that doesn't mean the School of ROK fun is over: expect a trickle of backlogged posts over the next couple weeks. And stay tuned for details about our new Edinburgh blog!
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Sunday, July 12, 2009
One Day More!
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One day more!
Another afternoon, a final night,
A never ending trans-Pacific flight
(And now I have to face again
those meals they serve us on the plane)
One day more!
I did not pack until today.
How can I fit this in my suitcase?
One day more.
Our worldly goods are worlds away…
Oh, shipping turns us into fruitcakes.
Nana:
One more day before we go.
Justin:
Will we come back here again?
Nana:
Should we pack the peanut butter?
Justin
I will miss our little dog…
Nana:
I don't remember buying this.
Justin:
And our kids, we'll miss them too
Nana:
Put the heavy stuff in his!
Justin:
I just know it's going to storm
Nana:
It's been raining here for days.
Justin:
We'll be schlepping in the thunder.
Nana:
What a great name for a band!
Justin:
But alas, it's the monsoon,
Nana:
I hear ducks out on the road.
Justin:
We may have to take a cab.
Nana:
I think I packed my contact lens!
Together:
One day more!
One more day until we're leaving,
On our way to MScs
Off to Scotland for some schooling
Hope my teacher's not like me!
One day more!
BBQ and tteok
Noraebangs and beer
My Korean sucks
in spite of living here
Tuck in all your shirts!
Obey the EOP!
Weren't always fair
but always tried to be.
Chaperoned the student field trips
(In the US, that's DC)
To Shanghai and to Japan
(Lucky weasel, yes I am!)
Went to S'pore and Malaysia
(And to Xi'an, and Beijing)
And Japan again to ski!
APIS, we will miss you!
One day more!
Justin:
How I loved to sample food
And Asian beers that I was drinking
Now I'm heading for the 'Burgh
But not the 'Burgh you may be thinking
Nana
Public transit rocks
Hardly any crime
If you cannot talk
you live in pantomime!
Tomorrow we'll be far away,
Tomorrow is the travel day
Oh, soon we'll leave Korea
For another zany foreign shore….
Goodbye, Seoul,
Bye, Wolgye,
One day more!
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Shanghai: Zhujiajiao Water Village
Shanghai isn't all urban glitz: many of the outlying towns are still very traditional. The old center of Zhujiajiao, for instance, has been painstakingly preserved as an example of a Chinese "water village," or canal town.
The town was built on a river delta about 1,700 years ago, then rebuilt several times over the centuries. The natural waterways of the delta have all been channeled to serve as the town's main "roads," a la Venice.(For the record: this being China, the population of Zhujiajiao "village" is actually about 60,000.)
Zhujiajiao is also a great place to see examples of traditional Chinese bridge-building. Most bridges in China are engineered to have that high peak in the middle, with a series of arches of variable size supporting the footpath.
Below: Zhujiajiao taxi drivers.
The bridge shot above, and the shot of the bell tower below, were both taken from one of these taxis.
Zhujiajiao is also home to the famous Ma Family Garden, built by one of the local magistrates. Both the pond and the laughing Buddha below are popular photo spots.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
7/7
Today is Justin and my 2nd anniversary. According to Wikipedia, that means we're supposed to give paper, or cotton, or possibly china, depending on who you listen to. I've decided to play it safe and get Justin a lolcat.
I love you, honey!
I love you, honey!
Shipping shenanigans
Last year we had some stupid problems with our shipment coming to Korea, when the company left it in the warehouse for four weeks instead of shipping it to us and then tried to bill us for the weeks of storage. So we determined that this time, we'd try to be as thorough as possible, and have a shenanigan-free shipping experience.
It was all going so well last week. We found a shipper, got a reasonable quote for door-to-port shipping (since we don't have an address in Edinburgh, we're going to have to arrange for delivery there), and arranged for a pickup.
Then we found out today that the quote, which is for moving our stuff from Korea to the UK, does not include UK customs clearance. And that the fee for customs, if we choose to add it, will almost double the original quote? Oh, and did we mention that the port is not Edinburgh, but Felixstowe, which is next to freaking London, so that even if we wanted to do the customs stuff ourselves, it would take nearly a day of round-trip traveling to get there?
Choice 1) pay ludicrous fee and get on with life
Choice 2) travel with 900 pounds of luggage, paying ludicrous airline fees
Choice 3) mail boxes to US surface-rate and then mail to Edinburgh, producing ludicrous amounts of manual labor
Choice 4) attempt to secure local UK customs expediters, preferably at less than ludicrous quoted rate
Choice 5) set fire to all items, necessitating ludicrous amounts of shopping
I am leaning towards Choice 5.
It was all going so well last week. We found a shipper, got a reasonable quote for door-to-port shipping (since we don't have an address in Edinburgh, we're going to have to arrange for delivery there), and arranged for a pickup.
Then we found out today that the quote, which is for moving our stuff from Korea to the UK, does not include UK customs clearance. And that the fee for customs, if we choose to add it, will almost double the original quote? Oh, and did we mention that the port is not Edinburgh, but Felixstowe, which is next to freaking London, so that even if we wanted to do the customs stuff ourselves, it would take nearly a day of round-trip traveling to get there?
Choice 1) pay ludicrous fee and get on with life
Choice 2) travel with 900 pounds of luggage, paying ludicrous airline fees
Choice 3) mail boxes to US surface-rate and then mail to Edinburgh, producing ludicrous amounts of manual labor
Choice 4) attempt to secure local UK customs expediters, preferably at less than ludicrous quoted rate
Choice 5) set fire to all items, necessitating ludicrous amounts of shopping
I am leaning towards Choice 5.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Movin' on out
Apologies for the sparse blogging. We're in the midst of move-out and things are alternately so hectic we can't blog and so dead we can't bring ourselves to do anything but recover. It's run, run, run, and then play video games for four hours straight to anesthetize our brains.
So that this post won't be a total waste of space - I was ruminating on this end-of-year stress in the context of a topic called allostatic load - apologies for a Wikipedia link on a medical topic, but it's the only thing written in manageable English. This is the idea, as my mangled history-major brain processed it, that when you're chronically under stress, your body remains at an elevated level of stress hormones regardless of whether or not the immediate circumstances call for it. If anybody reads this with medical info (Mike?) and can elaborate or correct me, go for it. I'll come to your blog and proofread your assertions about 19th century military terminology.
Allostatic load has been studied in female teachers and found to be connected to exhaustion and health conditions. The abstract, which I confess is not only all I read, but all I'm likely to understand, can be found here. Another study found that both male and female teachers suffering from high stress did not show reduced blood pressure during less stressful evening (off-work) hours; the researchers theorize that allostatic load keeps blood pressure high regardless of immediate stimuli. Again, abstract only, can be found here.
It piqued my interest for many reasons. One is the long-debated question of how long a summer vacation should be, or indeed whether a vacation of any length is ideal for learning. I can tell you right away that if I did not have summer off, my teaching would rapidly drop to what Harry Wong calls "survival mode" teaching: movies, handouts, reading; whatever it takes to get through the period. Psychologically, by the end of the year, I have ceased to feel "fresh." Major projects and innovative unit ideas - a Casablanca essay on political symbolism cross-curricularized with English, or a demographic study of correlation and causation using CIA World Factbook and Microsoft Excel - would disappear from my curriculum on the grounds that "I just don't have the energy."
(I know, I know - teachers get more vacation hours than other jobs. .But having been in both a desk job - consulting - and secondary teaching, I can make a pretty good comparison. Justin and I calculated once that with after-school activities, grading, and lesson planning, we often worked a sixty-five or seventy hour week, which means that every week, we nearly doubled a standard forty hour workweek. By the end of the school year, we've already worked those twelve weeks off, plus extra. And hours spent in front of kids are more intense than hours spent at a workplace surrounded by adults by a factor of a squillion. You must watch every single word that comes out of your mouth, lest you be responsible for somebody's childhood trauma. You must be eternally positive and optimistic - try asking for THAT from a typical workplace. You have to have enough energy to drag students with you into whatever you're teaching. It's like being on stage for nine hours straight.)
Pardon the derailment. Anyway. Another reason I'm interested in allostatic load is that it provides physical data to back up that psychological feeling of fatigue. I've spent the last two afternoons flat on my back; migraine yesterday and sinus/weather headache today. I've probably slept twenty-six hours out of the last forty-eight. I like allostatic load because it proposed the idea that I'm in some form of stress-hormone detox, as opposed to the idea that I'm just a wussbag who needs to get up and do something productive.
So. Summer vacation - maybe not perfect for students (although there are allostatic load studies of young people, which I haven't examined, which may support the thoery that they too need time to detox from stress). But as a teacher, I would not be able to survive without it. You don't want pilots flying your planes without sleep. You don't want doctors doing surgery every day, even if there are enough patients. Do you want your kids taught by people who are concentrating on standing in front of the class without falling over?
PS. No medical skills. No medical abilities. No information about allostatic load other than what's cited here. But if it's not allostatic load kicking my backside, it's sure something.
So that this post won't be a total waste of space - I was ruminating on this end-of-year stress in the context of a topic called allostatic load - apologies for a Wikipedia link on a medical topic, but it's the only thing written in manageable English. This is the idea, as my mangled history-major brain processed it, that when you're chronically under stress, your body remains at an elevated level of stress hormones regardless of whether or not the immediate circumstances call for it. If anybody reads this with medical info (Mike?) and can elaborate or correct me, go for it. I'll come to your blog and proofread your assertions about 19th century military terminology.
Allostatic load has been studied in female teachers and found to be connected to exhaustion and health conditions. The abstract, which I confess is not only all I read, but all I'm likely to understand, can be found here. Another study found that both male and female teachers suffering from high stress did not show reduced blood pressure during less stressful evening (off-work) hours; the researchers theorize that allostatic load keeps blood pressure high regardless of immediate stimuli. Again, abstract only, can be found here.
It piqued my interest for many reasons. One is the long-debated question of how long a summer vacation should be, or indeed whether a vacation of any length is ideal for learning. I can tell you right away that if I did not have summer off, my teaching would rapidly drop to what Harry Wong calls "survival mode" teaching: movies, handouts, reading; whatever it takes to get through the period. Psychologically, by the end of the year, I have ceased to feel "fresh." Major projects and innovative unit ideas - a Casablanca essay on political symbolism cross-curricularized with English, or a demographic study of correlation and causation using CIA World Factbook and Microsoft Excel - would disappear from my curriculum on the grounds that "I just don't have the energy."
(I know, I know - teachers get more vacation hours than other jobs. .But having been in both a desk job - consulting - and secondary teaching, I can make a pretty good comparison. Justin and I calculated once that with after-school activities, grading, and lesson planning, we often worked a sixty-five or seventy hour week, which means that every week, we nearly doubled a standard forty hour workweek. By the end of the school year, we've already worked those twelve weeks off, plus extra. And hours spent in front of kids are more intense than hours spent at a workplace surrounded by adults by a factor of a squillion. You must watch every single word that comes out of your mouth, lest you be responsible for somebody's childhood trauma. You must be eternally positive and optimistic - try asking for THAT from a typical workplace. You have to have enough energy to drag students with you into whatever you're teaching. It's like being on stage for nine hours straight.)
Pardon the derailment. Anyway. Another reason I'm interested in allostatic load is that it provides physical data to back up that psychological feeling of fatigue. I've spent the last two afternoons flat on my back; migraine yesterday and sinus/weather headache today. I've probably slept twenty-six hours out of the last forty-eight. I like allostatic load because it proposed the idea that I'm in some form of stress-hormone detox, as opposed to the idea that I'm just a wussbag who needs to get up and do something productive.
So. Summer vacation - maybe not perfect for students (although there are allostatic load studies of young people, which I haven't examined, which may support the thoery that they too need time to detox from stress). But as a teacher, I would not be able to survive without it. You don't want pilots flying your planes without sleep. You don't want doctors doing surgery every day, even if there are enough patients. Do you want your kids taught by people who are concentrating on standing in front of the class without falling over?
PS. No medical skills. No medical abilities. No information about allostatic load other than what's cited here. But if it's not allostatic load kicking my backside, it's sure something.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Clothing charades
This one goes out to Justin's family and their Christmastime games of charades: do you think you could pantomime:
1) Please remove these ribbons from this blazer
2) Please shorten the sleeves three inches
3) Please remove the snap and replace with three buttons and buttonholes
4) Please reline this blazer.
I call total success on 1, 3, and 4, and partial success on 2 - the sleeves came out a bit shorter than I had anticipated, but I think that's me having estimated the length wrong.
1) Please remove these ribbons from this blazer
2) Please shorten the sleeves three inches
3) Please remove the snap and replace with three buttons and buttonholes
4) Please reline this blazer.
I call total success on 1, 3, and 4, and partial success on 2 - the sleeves came out a bit shorter than I had anticipated, but I think that's me having estimated the length wrong.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Shanghai: Opera School and Yuyuan Garden
Consider this a follow-up to Nana's last post on academic pressure in Korea: on the first full day of the 9th grade class trip to Shanghai, we visited two veritable shrines to academic success as the foundation of filial piety--namely, the Shanghai Opera School and the Yuyuan Garden.
Shangahi Opera School
In the morning, we took a tour of the Shanghai Opera School, a boarding school where students aged (roughly) 8-16, in addition to their academic studies, learn the range of skills necessary to perform classical Chinese opera.
In other words, they learn singing, gymnastics, stylized martial arts, stylized operatic diction, costume-making--even how to apply their elaborate makeup. If the demonstration performance they showed us is any indication, by the time the kids are 16, they're really exceptionally skilled.
The shots above and below are from a beloved farce scene in the classical opera literature. The figure in white is the bodyguard of a popular general. The figure in black is an innkeeper who mistakenly thinks the bodyguard is an assassin. The conceit is that they're fighting in pitch dark, so neither can see the other.
Even so many hundreds of years after it was written--still hilarious!
Yuyuan Garden
Our second stop that day was Yuyuan Garden, a few blocks off the river near the Bund. It is a classic Chinese city garden, rambling and shady, rocky and green.
The garden was meticulously built over the span of several decades by a Ming-dynasty official for his beloved father, also a high-ranking Ming official. Back then (and even today, to a degree), it's assumed the first-born son will assume responsibility for the care of his parents in their old age, and this fellow went above and beyond the call of duty.
He got the money to do so, of course, by acing his exams. No joke--the modern East Asian exam system dates back to the old Chinese imperial exams, which secured top performers lucrative and powerful positions in the government.
Apparently this is the #1 destination for school trips to Shanghai.
So let that be a lesson, kiddos. If you don't mind letting your parents starve in the gutter, sure, keep playing that video game. Otherwise, crack open those books!
Shangahi Opera School
In the morning, we took a tour of the Shanghai Opera School, a boarding school where students aged (roughly) 8-16, in addition to their academic studies, learn the range of skills necessary to perform classical Chinese opera.
In other words, they learn singing, gymnastics, stylized martial arts, stylized operatic diction, costume-making--even how to apply their elaborate makeup. If the demonstration performance they showed us is any indication, by the time the kids are 16, they're really exceptionally skilled.
The shots above and below are from a beloved farce scene in the classical opera literature. The figure in white is the bodyguard of a popular general. The figure in black is an innkeeper who mistakenly thinks the bodyguard is an assassin. The conceit is that they're fighting in pitch dark, so neither can see the other.
Even so many hundreds of years after it was written--still hilarious!
Yuyuan Garden
Our second stop that day was Yuyuan Garden, a few blocks off the river near the Bund. It is a classic Chinese city garden, rambling and shady, rocky and green.
The garden was meticulously built over the span of several decades by a Ming-dynasty official for his beloved father, also a high-ranking Ming official. Back then (and even today, to a degree), it's assumed the first-born son will assume responsibility for the care of his parents in their old age, and this fellow went above and beyond the call of duty.He got the money to do so, of course, by acing his exams. No joke--the modern East Asian exam system dates back to the old Chinese imperial exams, which secured top performers lucrative and powerful positions in the government.
Apparently this is the #1 destination for school trips to Shanghai.
So let that be a lesson, kiddos. If you don't mind letting your parents starve in the gutter, sure, keep playing that video game. Otherwise, crack open those books!
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