I Kan't Spell

 
That Wasn't Me

So I went out for my last night in Hyungdai last night. This is the club scene. It's like New Orleans met New York and they had a sit down and said, "Right let's have big huge clubs like your city but we'll let people walk around in the street and not charge covers or have any bullshit like your city. Sounds good." And they shook hands and this place was born. Every club I have gone to in America has sucked unless I was under the influence of more than alcohol but here man, here I go out and shake my fat ass every weekend. And here you don't feel any pretensciousness( sp?)in the club. There's no guys with tight black shirts walking around with gel in their hair (well there are but you can whoop their ass anyway so it doesnt matter) And all this doesn't add up to the bonus of you getting to be a rock star all the time just because your eyes are round. It's not as fancy as American clubs and the music sometimes suffers but damn oh damn I have never had more fun in a dancing environment then since I have been here. Anyway...that's the club scene here...it's so friendly and wonderful that you can't not like it....

But after the club is when the fun begins. The best fun to be a part of is the drunken Korean girls. You know by now that Koreans love their booze and it doesn't take little 90 pound girls too much to get hemmed so imagine if you will a small sea of wabbling straight black haired girls in short skirts or tight(more baggy than our version of tight) jeans falling all over themselves in the street at 4 in the morning just dying to live out some sort of fantasy. I mean, that's what you do when you get drunk, you let go of whatever is inside of you at that moment and luckily for us westerners that notion is often, "Man I really just want to have sex with a westerner". So woohoo! You see me waiting on the corner like a taxi driver at the airport just knowing that soon enough someone is going to want a ride. But of all the nights, last night being my last there, I had to choose poorly (like India Jones). We went to a little Ramin joint and sat down across from two swaying Korean girls and invited them over to drink, they were bombed and I told them I was an astronaut and since they didn't really understand what that was, they found it interesting. Well within five minutes I have my tongue down this things throat and after another five minutes I look over and she's sort of swaying. And then she spits. And then you know what's coming. She just hurls on the floor. She then gets up looks at me, after I have been trying to get her in a cab for the ride back to Bret's magic palace, and she says "Kaja".(Let's go) She's got some puke dripping off her face and I just can't help but laugh. And then her friend sees her puke and she pukes and then they both fall in the puke and drunkinly roll around. She then proceeds to continue her requestful ways and says, "Kaja". I guess you had to be there, but to see her covered in vomit walking up the street with her Gucci handbag and puke covered designer jeans, was just so damn what Korea has been so many nights.
Link posted by JVMM : 2:20 AM

 
Hesse : Damien

Excerpts from the book. I found this book fascinating and shockingly touching. A nice short quick read which
may flash some lights inside your head.

Pg. 53 - Speaking to Damien after the story of Cain and Able has made it's predominant place in the story.

"I can see that your thoughts are deeper than you yourself are able to express. But since this is so, you know, don't you, that you've never liked what you are thinking and that isn't good. Only the ideas that we actually live are of any value."

Pg. 54 - Attempting to convince Sinclair to break free from his traditional molds.

That is why each of us has to find out for himself what is permitted and what is forbidden. It's possible for one never to transgress a single law and still be a bastard. And vice versa. Actually it's only a question of convenience. Those who are too lazy and comfortable to think for themselves and be their own judges obey the laws. Others sense their own laws...Each person must stand on his own two feet"

Pg. 64 - Sinclair chooses the average life during his college years

"Nonetheless, I felt wretched. I lived in an orgy of self-destruction and, while my friends regarded me as a leader and as a damned sharp and funny fellow, deep down inside me my soul grieved."

Pg. 66 - See pg 64. in relation to his slob ways.

"In my odd and unattractive way of quarreling with the world - this was my way of protesting."

Pg. 77 - Sinclair realizes his own potential. He focuses on the (excuse me here) "The art of living". He has found a peer who tells him of the rediculous aspects of religion and this sparks him to the thirst for knowledge and saves him from expulsion from family and school.

"This change did not bring me into the community of the others, did not make me closer to anyone, but actually made me even lonelier"

Pg. 91 - This made me think of archetypes (not that I fully understand them) Again Sinclair is still with the peer who says this to him. He is about to break ties with this man and break out of his own shell open to the world.

"We always define the limits of our personality too narrowly. In general, we count as part of our personality only that which we can recognize as an individual trait or as diverging from the norm. But we can consist of everything the world consists of, each of us, and just as our body contains the genealogical table of evolution as far back as the fish and even much further, so we bear everything in our soul that once was alive in the soul of men. Every god and devil that ever existed, be it among the Greeks, Chinese, or Zulus, are within us, exist as latent possibilities, as wishes, as alternatives. If the human race were to vanish from the face of the earth save for one halfway talented child that had received no education, this child would rediscover the entiore course of evolution, it would be capable of producing everything once more, gods and demons, paradises, commandments, the Old and the New testament"

Pg. 97 - Struck a chord in me, considering how often I not only use the word "hate", but actually think I feel the emotion of hate. Plus that last sentence in the first part says so much about our own personal interests.

"If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us....The things we see are the same things that are within us. That is why so many people live such an unreal life. They take the images outside them for reality and never allow the world within to assert itself. You can be happy that way. But once you know the other interpretation you no longer have the choice of following the crowd. ...the majorities path is an easy one ours is difficult."

Pg. 107 - Sinclair talks about the seperation from mentor or father. The need to break from the known light and find his own.

"But where we have given of our love and respect not from habit but of our own inmost hearts, it is a bitter and horrible moment when we suddenly recoginze that the current within us wants to pull us away from what is dearest to us. Then every thought that rejects the friend and mentor turn into our own hearts like a poisoned barb, then each blow struck in defense flies back into one's own face, the words 'disloyalty' and 'ingratitude' strike the person who feels he was morally sound like catcalls and stigma, and the frightened heart flees timidly back to the charmed valleys of childhood virtues, unable to believe that this break, too, must be made, this bond also broken."

Pg. 111 - Sinclair talks about the search for a vocation and how the decision on a path of work is trivial. The only path is inward to yourself.

"Each man had only one genuine vocation - to find the way to himself. He might end up a poet or madman, as prophet or criminal - that was not his affair, ultimately it was of no concern. His task was to discover his own destiny - not an arbitrary one - and live it out wholly and resolutely within himself. Everything else was only a would-be existance, an attempt at evasion, a flight back to the ideals of the masses, conformity and fear of one's own inwardness.

Pg. 119 - Talking about the ideals of man as a general communion,. He goes on to foreshadow by saying that is does not exist. He says that the community spirit is only a manifestation of the herd.

"It will reveal bankruptcy of present-day ideals, there will be a sweeping away of stone age gods. The world, as it is now, wants to die, wants to perish - and it will."

Pg. 120 - Talking about the plight of the common man and the nightmare that we never see creep on us. Nor do we see it as a nightmare. It merely resounds as reality. This passage made me get up and go to the mirror.

"I remembered civil servants in my home town, worthy old gentlemen who clung to the memories of their drunken university days as to keepsakes from paradise and fashioned a cult of their vanished student years as poets or other romantics fashion their childhood. It was the same everywhere! Everywhere they looked for "freedom" and "luck" in the past, out of sheer dread of their present responsibilities and future course. They drank and caroused for a few years and then they slunk away to become serious minded gentlemen in the service of the state."

Pg. 122 - Talking of going home. This struck a chord considering...

"One never reaches home. But where paths that have affinity for each other intersect, the whole world looks like home, for a time."

So what does all this mean to me? Have you ever thought about greatness and what it would take.Have you lusted after the thought of immortality or triumph unbeknownst to anything you could imagine inside your own dying world. I did. I thought I might actually achieve it at one point. I was younger and unhumbled by the world. Reading this gave me more incentive to redefine those paths that once held the future for me but were never drawn or mapped out. I wanted the glory without wanting to travel the arduous road.

It also kicks off some sort of paradoxical spiral that can never end. It sort of makes me think that the things that stuck out in the story are the only things that I myself can identify with. There were probably hundreds of points to be made in the book but these were the ones that stuck with me. Why? Is it a reflection of myself? But, I don't think I would have even noticed these half of those things had it not been for what I have read recently about archetypes. So what does that mean, does that mean as I learn then I grow somehow genetically and internally to be able to receive more things from the world. I think it does mean that...woohoo!

Sidenote- I just realized that all of Hesse's stuff is translated. I wonder if it was one guy who did all his books. I mean they all have the same tone. It's just truly awesome the way he writes. He is a novelist of ideas as opposed to one of stories. He was also studying CSJ at the time. He carries with him this ultimate morality, like Kundera. Read Siddartha! That's the only book my father ever gave me...

Link posted by JVMM : 11:48 PM

 
Curiosity Killed the Cat

Old John...through his English wit and probable boredom found my blog yesterday and threw a quiet little hissy outside of my presence. I don't think he expected to be reading about himself. "Hey John you do suck and consider my writings a warning. Don't be like all the other fat western people that come over here and eat Burger King and sleep with stupid whores. Go live a life that you can be proud of instead of running from one that you don't understand. And if it makes you feel better. All sarcasm against myself is openly welcome." Personally I don't really care if he reads this thing or not; at this point I could use the audience. And if you are gonna punch me or whatever, square me off, don't sucker punch me.
Link posted by JVMM : 11:22 PM

 
Randoms

So I was reading my Hesse book last night and came across like 20 different little psychological breakdowns of stuff I would have never even understood or stopped to try to understand before. I was so proud of myself for putting them into some sort of context. I'll post them here tomorrow. A lot of them have to do with Tim's stuff, which doesn't really light any fires under my ass, but I find it interesting none-the-less. It's like your friend whom you respect says, "Dude, I'm really into figure skating." And you look at him with a pregnant pause and say, "Uh huh" But, you know somewhere down inside you wanna sort of check it out too. Well anyway, reading all his stuff about archetypes and other polysyllabic words that I am currently too lazy to go and ctr-c/ctrl-v has really made me start thinking about this book in a weird way.

Hey, Doug STICK IT! That damn doug threw the turkey and ham in my face. Well...well...well....(depleted after all the build up)...well I got nothing to really combat that with...Yeah but you have never had really good kimchi...nah nah...Oh BTW...your writing kicks ass...the bar story and the bus/innocence story, and (thanks for leaving my own analogy out of this one...that would have sucked for me) the Dad story...were great...you guys need a message system on that site...

So I got my flight info today and am writing my final email either tomorrow or tonight. Don't worry, no stories, so you can rest easy. I tried to outline like a cute little story but failed miserably and ended up using my baseball stat mind to simply put down a whole bunch of numbers and some generic speach about being "The luckiest man on the face of the earth..arth...rth...th...h". So when I got my flight stuff they tell me I can go and get all my taxes that I paid into Korea back. But, of course, since this place blows hard chunks when it comes to any sort of government anything, they said I may get that back by the time X-men 6 comes out. BTW, I'm really nervous about coming home. You guys are gonna have to give me some space to decompress for a while. Seeing all you wide eyes may freak me out, and don't get mad if I occasionally spasm into some Korean or pour your drink or hold your hand...don't...just roll with it and gently pat me on the head and say, "It's ok Bret. Let it go."

I saw Lord of the Rings last night. Hmm. Yep. It was sort of cool. I wasn't expecting much. I got more than I bargained for. I liked all the digital animation. I can't wait til in 5 years the whole movie doesn't have actors and instead we just celebrate our favorite programmers, "Ohh Mark Crezhenksi is so hot! He just got laser surgery and since he stopped eating 2 pounds of chocolate a day his acne has really cleared up. Look at those fingers." Or in like 20 years when we can just hop into a bubble and create our own movie like those Spielberg kids with terminal diseases can do. Or probably before that we can just pick a character in a movie, and just like in a karaoke bar, we will get scored as to how accurate our depiction of his role was as we strap on monitoring head gear and play it out in front of a analyzing camera. Oh crap that's a gret idea. But I would be Ray Liotta in Goodfellas, Tom Cruise in Top Gun, and the guy from Pi. Well to start I would be those people, but given my propensity to fall in love with the cinema, I may just quit life and join a cult where they let me play in the make-believe bubble all day in exchange for my soul or whatever. So much technology moving so fast, that's what I got out of LOTR. Except for the trees, the trees were weak, "The fighting trees...". Boo the tree scene. So wait what happens in the third one, they fight for middle earth, but didn't they just whoop everyone up. And how is the world so damn small and aren't elves cooler than that. I guess I'll watch the third one. ehh

Link posted by JVMM : 11:53 PM

 
Baltimore fun fact:

Last week, the Baltimore Sun ran its first-ever same-sex ceremony notice, for a lesbian nuptials. But the announcement did not appear in the weddings section of the paper - rather, it was buried amid lost-pet classified ads. Why? "We're just not ready to talk about that right now," said John F. Patinella, The Sun's general manager. This is what the Sun's general manager told a Sun reporter covering his own paper's decision!


Link posted by JVMM : 5:11 AM

 
The Coolest Birthday Present in the World

Su Yeon gave me a portrait of me. How damn cool is that. How damn cool! I don't really have anything else to talk about. I'm sort of finished with this blogger thing until I can get my thoughts more clearly organized. I'll be sending out my last email from Korea later in the week. Good luck all....

Link posted by JVMM : 4:54 AM

 
Layla

So the little P.E. class I teach on Friday's just put together a nice little rendition of happy birthday for me. Koreans are so thoughtful when it comes to birthdays, anniversaries or anything revolving the celebration of life or time. They bought me a little present and wrapped it up in cute tissue paper and signed their named to a big card saying "We Love Bret Teacher". Layla gave it to me as all the other teachers knew that that was probably what I wanted. Then we played. She got hit in the face with a ball. She cried. I held her. All was right
Link posted by JVMM : 2:07 AM

 
Present

So Hyung gave me a present last night. He found me alighter with the coolest thing on it. It's called a Bong Hwang:

Bong Hwang is a auspicious bird in brilliant colors, existing only in imagination, with chicken-head, snake-throat, swallow-jaws, turtle-back, and fish-tail, and sings in five different voices. Male bird is called "Bong", while female called "Hwang". They are said to live in a sacred place, eating fruits of paulownia trees and bamboo trees. The scene of a couple, a male and a female, along with younglings symbolizes a harmonious unity of a family

Here is a image that sort of looks like it...only mine is engraved on a zippo and has no color....anyway...I love it...and I needed a lighter as well...presents kick ass!
Link posted by JVMM : 10:54 PM

 
Birthday

Happy BDAY to me. Oh by the way...happy birthday to a whole bunch of other people. I am so sorry but I am just horrible with remembering dates. I know, forgive me. Oh dog gonnit...my BDAY is the 22nd...which is now here but tomorrow there...oh well...yeah for me...I'm 24~!
Link posted by JVMM : 10:30 AM

 
Weblogs

So here I am on blogger. I spend a lot of time here. And, for the most part looking back it's so wonderful to see a recanting of all my thoughts throughout the last month. But, sometimes it takes someone to take the process or technology and put it into a different light for you to truly see what it is you are dealing with. Ol' Timothious has been writing about how weblogs could be used as something more. They could be used in what I hope to build my professional life around, learning, and they could be used as a cornerstone to the technology or as a systematic way of sharing information. At first I couldn't really see it, and I couldn't really put my finger on it but then I went to the elearning guild (where I have been spending all my other online time) and see that their question today is "Do you think weblogs can play a role in elearning?" The wonders of the working mind never cease to amaze. Oh by the way, tonight I'll have all my notes posted on my other blog.
Link posted by JVMM : 2:04 AM

 
Cultural Expansion

Ok so last night I threw a little sware' (sp?) at my apartment for all the new teachers. I had noticed lately that not many of the cats get out much and if they do venture out it's usually with other western teachers and all they do is drink. So, I figured I could get Su Yeon to cook some food and I could clean up my hole of an apartment (which is sadly twice as big as everyone else's) and invite everyone over for a semi-traditional korean meal.

Su Yeon made Chow Chan noodles, Jay Yu dop bop, bugolgi, bop, mul mandu, Ko Sun yuk, and home made Bek Say ju (fried clear noodles, spicey pork, spicey beef, steamed dumplings, Kings mushrooms, and rice wine). She made it all before hand but had to really cook everything at my house. She was a little late arriving so I cooked up some friend dumplings and made my "Bret Special Soy Sauce" and laid them out until everyone arrived. The conversation was dull as most of the people were new, and if they weren't new I found most of them to be rather uncultured when dining. They all seemed a tad awkward although most of them had been here for months. Some refused to use chop sticks (not as in they tried for hours to eat and then gave up...they just merely wouldn't attempt to eat with chop sticks), the others refused to sit on the floor (korean style), and one even made the bold attempt of turning on the television. I didn't mind because I was watching Su Yeon cook and scamper around like a little house wife trying to find enough clean bowls and such to hold all the food. So there inconsideration were of no real alarm to me. But, Keith took them a little personal and rightly so as his girlfriend was sitting trying to show everyone Korean dinner party games, and people simply ignored her because she couldn't speak English. I was watching the two Koreans play perfect hosts, I was watching the four westerners be perfect slobs and for some reason thought of Animal Farm.

I thought everything was prepared great and I really enjoyed the meal. But, half way through most of the foreigners were like, "Oh, let's just order a pizza." I don't understand people. They come half way around the world, work a shitty job, and the only perk they really have here is to experience something new and they lazily choose to drink Budweiser, eat Burger King, and befriend other foreigners. It was a sad night for western culture, but it was a damn good night for me. I came off like a hero, so did Keith by the way, as it seems our paths have evolved together. We poured, toasted, ate, spoke, and participated in every way that we have come to learn from other Koreans. I was proud of us.
Link posted by JVMM : 12:59 AM

 
12 day randoms

That's right I just keep on countin. And you know what everyday the number gets smaller. I think tonight I am going to sit down and learn how to use commas. That sounds like a good project after dinner. I'll start by defining a comma, looking at common usages of the comma, and finally crafting my comma use.

Last night I saw Sang Wan for the first time in 3 months, and well, like I expected he still sucks. You see, I have really been lagging on my chapter writing. So much so, that I only got 4 months into 42 chapters. And I am not writing anymore because it would just seem tedious, and it was already tedious, at this point. I never really liked writing them, after about the 6th or 7th one so I figure with 2 weeks, oh excuse me, 12 days left I can cease and save the digital congestion. But yeah so you guys never really got to know why I sort of hate that kid. I hinted at it in some of my chapters. If you read them you know he cries and whines about money (which I hate above all other discussions in the world...the money discussion...even if you have money...which i at one time did...stop talking about it...like I am going to do now), he is hated by my other Korean friends, and he is like cat piss to girls. But, other than that, and the fact that he can't carry a conversation in a hand bag, he's fine. So we went out got drunk, I sucked the irishman along to keep Sang Wan at bay and Su Yeon so she could talk to him in Hangul and I could watch her squirm trying to be nice to someone she hated. The night was ok, except that a Korean hurricane came a blowing through as I was walking my 1 mile walk home, and my goddamn motherf*n son of b*h c*cSu*g (sorry...) CD player broke...well it didn' break on the spot I got to sort of listen to it slowly die the whole way home....I tried everything from putting it under my shirt to in my pants but to no avail...it died and I am consequently musicless. Damn Sang Wan...yeah I'll blame it on him
Link posted by JVMM : 2:46 AM

 
Red Dragon

Ok so on Sunday I went and saw Red Dragon. I stopped watching Korean movies because well they are all pretty much rediculous. (*Sidenote - Korean movies try to emmulate western movies but somehow fail to do anything movielike. They just push the storyline along, through every emotion that could encapsulate a movie, clumsily, swiftly, prematurely and with lack of humor or suspense. I have never seen such a poor thought process brought on screen since I experienced Die Hard 2.) Anyway, Red Dragon right. I don't get to see a lot of current releases or anything and am actually hyper to come back and rent movies for like a week and just get fat off of cheese and watch them, but I did see Red Dragon in the DVD Bhang the other day and was slightly excited. I knew it wasn't going to be good, but I figured it couldn't be totally horrible if it had Ed in it and was running against a friggin Korean movie choice. And Ed was solid. I like Edward Norton you know since America X and Fight Club and stuff. Anthony Hopkins was friggin brutal, why did his character become like this playboy philanderer who is seeking attention when in the first one he was kind of you know quiet, rigid, and seemed alien to everything. In this one Anthony just takes him to a place where you don't really give a crap about Hannible, like in the first one I was happy that he escaped and all but in this one I just want him to shut the fuck up. Ok so all that was kind of bad but we all know what the real bad part was. WHY IN GOD'S NAME WAS THERE A SUB-LOVE PLOT! I was so keen on this guy, he had some Psycho elements with the Grandma and all and he lived in a creepy house and had sex with the women and did cool things with mirrors in the eyes. I was so pumped to see this guy really work. And the shit ass thing is they built it up the whole time like, "he is evolving into something else", "he is just getting started", and then the only other murder was of that guy who is in every movie, whom I love, but can't think of his name (boogie nights, scent of a woman, magnolia....). So he doesn't kill anyone else, and then he goes and eats the Blake painting, why, to kill the bad part of himself so he can go back to his love. Holy Jesus did it just get bad, and then the ending with the fire and, oh jesus what the fuck. Oh yeah and body builder man couldn't take down the flimsy florida house door which could obviously have been kicked in by your average ten year old. It sucked, I just thought I would share that. How do movies like this get made? And why do they go astray? I think they should start piecing movies together as they are being made so they can stop these train wrecks before they get out of control. Either that or they should have people sitting there the whole time and you can call them "Bullshit smellers" and they can say things like "You know Spielly I think the dialogue here is just stupid for the scene and no one really cares about the hooker dying but you seem to think that this brings us closure." Yeah I don't know I would love to see some new kinds of movies when I get back, you know like the artsy people see. I don't ever want to become one of those fake artsy fuckers though sitting around dirty diners smoking camel filters sipping black coffee and looking angry. Those people detest me, and well, I sort of detest them right back. The only difference is that I can kick their ass. And isn't that what it's all about anyway. So yeah I'm getting sidetracked. I can't wait til you guys see "Oasis", the only Korean movie I vouche for. It's good, plus I would love it if you let me know some under the radar flicks that I may enjoy. Cheers
Link posted by JVMM : 12:40 AM

 
Loss of Innocence

I started reading Demian last night by Herman Hesse. It's a really good book as most of his are, but this one is striking a chord with me. I've been reading so much lately that I think I am starting to understand more things in what people are trying to say. I think I am getting smarter because of reading.

I'm only about 80 pages in but I started to think that the book is totally about the loss of innocence. You see the main character gets tricked into telling a lie and then the lie becomes his shackles throughout the glory years of his youth (10-11). He is forced to lie more, steal, fight, lower his moral character and run from the "light" that is his home. He abandons his family in order to save them from his embarrasing moment. He hides in shame from the one's who love him most. He loses his innocence all because of one event. One thing that started so small and trivial, and looking back, if it were initially divulged as a sin to the people he was now hurting even more, it would have been better than the current flight of more evil to cover the original evil. Basically he should have nipped it in the bud.

Now I don't know what happens after page 80 but this brings about an interesting thought on people. What if that original sin would have never happened and what if he would stayed in the light. What if that darkness would have never creeped in originally. How long could he stay in that light. I think Hesse is going to tell me, "Until puberty" as he has a weird fixation on sex and adolescense but I think it could go on forever if we just broke all the rules that govern our lives. If we were just good. If we just stayed away from the initial dark and if we were to eventually wonder astray into that dark we should run back to the light as fast as possible and be cleansed no matter how dirty we were. If we merely absolved ourselves from the dark after being in it, we could stay in the light and in innocence. We would never be shackled or engulfed by the building snow ball that comes from the fear of divulging. The fear that comes from the shame.

I'll tell you later what comes out of the book.
Link posted by JVMM : 12:25 AM

 
Teacher's Pet

Today I was watching Chase in class. Chase is what you would call a teacher's pet. He only has one goal on his mind and that is to appease me. I have other children that try to do the same thing. And, when you are a teacher, or as I like to refer to myself jungle gym, then you learn to appreciate those children as shining lights of hope in your tedious day. When you look out over the rolled back eyes and nodding heads of little children, as they try to trudge through learning foreign language, you seek out the teacher's pet. You seek it out because it gives you balance and makes you somehow feel it wasn't all in vain. Today Chase sort of broke that mold for me. He gave the teacher's pet which I have come to enjoy so much a different face. You see I don't like Chase. I so hate saying that I don't like certain children but it's true. When you spend everyday around them they become your co-workers and clients so you identify with them and start to exchange emotion that you wouldn't normally have with your cousin or daughter or whatever. But, yeah I hate Chase. Despite being a pet he's just not cool. He's not cool in the way that little kids should be cool. He's not carefree in that teacher's pet algorithm. There is some underlying evil in his actions. Like he's being a pet to be a pet, like he's going to get something from me, or he is just practicing for a life of ass sucking. My other pets are cool. They are carefree and tell jokes that are funny, they throw things at me when they know it's time to joke. Basically, they have a beat on my emotions. They can read me and I think that is a huge part of the element of cool. Not cool like leaning on the bar in tight jeans cool, but cool in the way that solid people interact with people and somehow manipulate them into doing things, saying things, or evolving. They can do this because they can read them and let's call a spade a spade, we all like cool people. Whether or not you care to admit it or whether your definition of cool is different from other people's, cool is cool. But, cool is often being nice, attentive, respectful but doing it within the sphere of the other person's current mood. Once, you step out of the audiences mood realm you become a dork. And a nice dork that is trying to make conversation just sucks. And that is Chase. He sucks.
Link posted by JVMM : 12:10 AM

 
Monkey See, Monkey Scared

So the other night I was sitting there watching this new horrible teacher John. I wasn't as much watching him as I was experiencing him in all of his horribleness. Now, why you ask, am I writing about the hogbeast that is John Gale. Well, you see, and most of you may never have directly experienced this, I am used to being subjected as evil. I was at once only thought of as an asshole. This may still hold true amongst those who never really got around to hanging around but for the most part that monacher seemed to stick, and sadly transcend any deed. Unfortunately I never really minded the idea of being that way because well, I was an asshole, and that is what and asshole would think. But, I think maybe 2 years ago, I started to slowly change. I started to slowly see that all the reasons I had for feeling that way weren't real. They didn't mean anything. I wasn't that smart, handsome, cool, and basically throughout most of my time I was living a lie. These things were hard to come to grips with. But, thanks to people like John I saw that being that way is just truly horrible. I'm not saying I'm all dead and shriveled up inside I would just like to think I have come to a stage of respect and simplicity that I have chosen as opposed to have been forced into. By choosing, I have started to assemble something within myself that can grow. Back to John.

John went to the baseball game with Brendan., Su Yeon, Jai and I, and made fun of the game the whole time. He spoke in an annoying American accent and pretty much busted my balls the entire day. He busted Brendan's too and although this level of friendly sarcasm can be accepted, it is usually only accepted if other permiating factors such as, pickiness, whining, sloth, laziness, and crudeness are not evident. We went to dinner after the game, insisted on using a fork and sent the food that my girlfriend had ordered for him back three times. He also refused to eat off the plate that she had prepared for him simply because it had touched fast. Now, I used to be this way, and I still may be this way a little, but seeing this thing act this way, definately shook me. Plus I could see that I wasn't acting that way back and that more or less was proving my theory that I was changing.
Link posted by JVMM : 2:10 AM

 
Biz-Poliz / Ahh Grah Chah's

Yeah that title makes no sense but oh well. So I have been doing a lot of thinking about my possible bi-polar disorder and am wondering if it doesn't make me more interesting. I also wonder what causes it, like i'm pretty sure it's chemical and all but I wonder if I give it a catalyst when I drink or date or write. I don't know. I know my body releases different chemicals when I do different things but I would like to be able to pinpoint what makes me all quiet and slightly depressed some days when I wake up. I think we are all like this sometimes but I think that mine may be a little worse than most because it always seems to be heightened by loud manners and an arrogant if not oppresive attitude towards any conversation. I don't know. I'm working on it but it's so hard to control, like I was just reading my blog and 3 blogs ago I was like "woo 16 days yeah!" and today i'm like "Damnit to all hell 14 days and I have so much to deal with when I get back and so much to deal with here before I leave." But seriously ya'll Bret (Joe Horn..hahaha) ain't bithcin. When I get home it'll be all good. I know it will because the love you take is equal to the love you make (oh god that was a bad lift). Anyway, just stick with me until I can get some of these social notes down or can start doing some research on my observances as other's have. I think that's what I am going to be into for a little while. Really, researching some of the things I think instead of just thinking them. Instead of being a slob about my theories and just blurting them out like a drunk at a baseball game and telling the pitcher he sucks, I would like to calm and cool watch others propose and then like the wonderful people I read about simply offer an argument as a gentleman (we can all laugh now at seeing me try to do this!). But, it's a goal and you have to have them.

Oh yeah the "Ahh Grah Chah's" portion of my title. That's from the VJC days and I look forward to seeing those kids as much as I look forward to seeing everyone else(even though they are everyone else). It was nice, and I think important, that I went and played baseball again and tried to be a part of a circle in college instead of just sticking to my childhood and work friends like I had planned to do when I chose that "hole" of a school. I met some wonderful people there and I can't wait to see them when I get back. And "Ahh Grah Chah" is short for the "ultimate grilled cheese" (which one of the baseball freshmen will be purchasing for me when I get back)...it consists of texas style grilled toast with butter, 3 cheeses (Mozz, swiss, americano), green peppers, bacon, ham, onions (raw and fried), tomato (one on the top and one on the bottom), and tabasco sauce with parmesan cheese sprinkled in. Now that's food my people.
Link posted by JVMM : 2:01 AM

 
14

That's it. 14 days and this weekend I went shopping for my family and went down to the mountain to eat dog again with the "Fam'". It was good but it was sad in that somewhere amongst the clashing silverware was a despondant moan like, this is all so fruitless in some way that we are attempting to stretch something that is coming to a definate end. It was probably just me considering I hate saying goodbye's and well I pretty much hat eBirthdays and Christmas too, not that they are bad or anything, I just don't like being on the spot in either occasion. But yeah 14 days is what I got. Personally and honestly I am not enthusiastic at all about returning. Everything feels really flat as of late. There's just no positive energy surrounding me and I can't feed off of anything because it all feels hollow now. That's so fucked up!
Link posted by JVMM : 10:58 PM

 
Ebbin

I was just listening to the new David Gray album again this morning and once and for all have decided that is just horrible. This is so disheartening considering his other solid works (Flesh, White Ladder, Lost Songs...). Anyway, he has this one rhyme about chance, oliver branch, avalanche, and it was so bad that I turned on the radio. But, I guess what I'm trying to really identify with, if anything, is that well shit if he could have made White Ladder in all it's goodness, and then come back with this, then there must be a flow to the output. There has to be a high tide and low tide. I don't know I started reading Demian last night by Hesse and it just blew me away. It just totally made me feel small and rediculous about the things that I do and especially the things that I say or even worse write. Being competetive can sometimes be extremely negative to the ego when you start to branch out and try to become humble. Yeah, you get humbled but sometimes you get a little too humble and lose motivation.
Link posted by JVMM : 10:53 PM

 
"FUGU...Give me Fugu!"

I got to watch my first Simpsons in almost a year yesterday and it ruled. It was the Fugu Simpsons where Homer goes to the sushi joint and orders Fugu but the master is busy taggin Mrs. Krebopple out in the parking lot "My hands are busy you fool! Cover for me." Oh shit wait that also makes me think of the line that Johnny and I used to say to each other

"When I stamp on your foot and point at you and say 'Hello Mr. Sampson' then you say 'Hello' Ready? Hello Mr. Sampson"
"I think he's talking to you"

Holy crap that still makes me roar. Anyway so back to the fugu. So after a heavy intensive night of introducing the lovely drink of a car bomb to Seoul, I went home, had insanely wild nookie, and then fell asleep. Yes, but here is where the fugu comes in. You see I dreamed that I ate it and had (well not 24 hours) 3 days to live. And in that time I basically did nothing but cry about how I was gonna die and I just sort of ate good food and hung out. I didn't really do anything with that time, but yeah anyway, i woke up like 3 times during the dream and went back to sleep afterwards still in that dream, like I said before I think in some weird way I can control my dreams. I didn't die in my dream either (or as some claim you cant die anyway) but like the 3rd day came and I was all worried and kept thinking that I would die and every twinge or heat wave over my body was it. It was IT! It was time to go and I am pretty sure I sweat through my bed during that part of the dream. I know because when I woke up Su Yeon was on the floor purring away and I was just strewn across my little bed at some crazy angle. But I remember being in physical drained pain after I woke up. Like I had just run a marathon or something. But, yeah that was good and all.
Link posted by JVMM : 1:18 AM

 
Phones and Joe Horn

Ok so I need a little help here. Bret needs a phone. What do you think, Dope ass phone with color and a robot that pops out and stands on the floor in a RUN DMC stance nodding his head saying0 "Bret You So Funky!" or like just a turd phone. Anyway, if you have a phone that you like and a good plan that offers use all over the country let me know via the little purple link down there that says "no one cares" or "these people have something to say" or whatever...yeah I just need some phone help...I hate cell phones but Bret's gotta be reached...you know without a house and all now...lol....Oh man I'm doing the 3rd person thing...the reason is because well I went out last night to see the Eagles/Saints preseason game with all the Irish Hooligans...after I saw a game of Hurling (that's insane by the way)...and the wonderful unstoppable laugh-at-me-factor that is Joe Horn of the New Orleans Saints was on and he kept doing the "Joe Horn is the best player in the NFL....Joe Horn can't be stopped....Joe Horn gonna do what John Horn gonna do." The Irish guys (great guys) thought this was hilarious so we did it all night...anyway...that's my story...
Link posted by JVMM : 12:25 PM

 
I Get Around

Dude, you know what was so hot about today. I got 7 emails from 4 different continents and 7 different countries. Spain, New Zealand, Australia, Thailand, Korea, USA, and Canada all hit me up today. Just call me a hub. Just call me cool....because damnit that is cool. I didn't even read what they wrote I just sort of wrote back about how cool it is that I get emails from people in other countries. Because, well let's call a spade a spade, the only reason that we have this network with each other is so we can say "Yeah, my friend in Izba says it's really hot there." But, it's damn cool. Ok so I need to sort of camouflage this...this is the email from the madame I spent my 3 days in dnaliaht (figure it out) with -

SAWASDEE KAAAA!

I hope you are getting on well! I am fine.Now I am at SAMUI here is so hot !!! I think tomorrow I will back BKK.Why you are not answer my e-mail you promise that you will reply but long time to here you.When we can meet?Write to you next e-mail

Take care
JANG

Anyway...I spent some time with that and it was good and now I have a place to hang in the land that houses food that rhymes with fly but starts with a "t"...damn i'm shady...lol...Jang is such a cool name...dear God we should all go to that place once in our lives...I will try to convince you all to visit before you get too old...
Link posted by JVMM : 12:06 PM

 
Bret's Hangul Mal

I am so proud as of late of my ability to speak Korean. I mean I can't go and have a 2 hour conversation but I am suprised at how much I can understand. Even more flattering is that other people are surprised as well. I'll be sitting in the teacher's lounge listening to the Korean women chirping away and then I'll laugh at one of them and then I'll join in the conversation and their faces get all wide and then they nod their head like a proud mom. I can really attribute this acquisition of a new language to refusing to mix with Westerners. I stopped going out with the wide-eyes a long time ago and made it a point to just hang with Korean friends, besides Keith sometimes. I can definately hear more than I can say but I guess that's the way it is with all languages. Su Yeon won't speak any English to me unless she's drinking and wants to yell at me about how I'm going home and stuff. But, that has really helped. I also studied the alphabet so that I could read street signs and menus and this has also helped. These are just my suggestions if you ever want to learn Chinese, Russian or any language with a different alphabet. Learn the pronunciation of the letters, then submerse yourself in culture, then force yourself to use it by going out alone to eat or something. Anyway, wait til I get home and we go dine Korean(maybe just drink Korean, the food ain't all that), it's gonna be fun to see me and the Ajumahs cutting it up as she serves us the Kimchi!
Link posted by JVMM : 10:03 AM

 
Updididated

I threw some stuff on the other blog. None of it is really revolutionary but it's kind of interesting. I have to fix my website and build a section for that stuff with a mission statement (written) and some real info and helpful tools. Plus I need a place to design my future while I have no paying venue in which to perform.
Link posted by JVMM : 9:44 AM

 
Miffed

I don't understand how someone can write someone else an email and not get a response. Am I that pointless, are people that callous? Are we losing are tact when it comes to personal relationships? I don't know. The tree has been shook and the leaves that I suspected to fall off have.

Link posted by JVMM : 2:08 AM

 
Aldous is Done

Aldous is finished and it was good, especially the end when he was fighting for all the craziness that I always thought he stood against. I always imagined, since soma was in Brave New World, and BNW to me was always a book outlining our future submission via total gratification, that Aldous was all about anti-anything social, medicinal, or governmental. But, the opposite was true, He loved peyote and vouched for the importance of LSD and art. He wanted badly to settle down in America and become a citizen, and he tried every crazy experiment to improve his sight throughout his life. He was a weird guy and I understand him a little bit more after reading about him. He came off as a warm hearted gentleman who was extremely interested in the arts of life and seeing the world. He was not hampered by some of the psychosis that goes through artistic people. He kept his life simply and put his family near the top of his personal pyramid. He was someone that I would like to emmulate in a personal way.

Now I'm moving on to "The Life of Samuel Johnson : By Bosley". This is sort of dry but I find the weird lexicographer rather interesting. And Bosley was a total bag-o-crap, and you know how I love my derelicts!
Link posted by JVMM : 2:04 AM

 
Getting Sad

I'm starting to get pretty sad about leaving lately. It's like as soon as I passed the 3 months-to-go mark I just let my guard down and let everybody in and now it's fun here. I mean I have to deal with the smell, bad food, and bad music, but the people are good people. The people I know and have come to love I will miss dearly. Things have been getting weird too, like the chief just gets all sad now whenever we talk and I find myself passing up on other girls knowing that it was just be messed up at this point to play with someone's head. I made the analogy last night to all the Korean's I was drinking with that foreigners that come here are like hamsters and should be treated as such. We are cute and furry and you can watch us around a cage and take a picture and everything and even give us a name like "Jooby". But, we all know that hamsters only live about a year and no one seems to really break down when a hamster passes on, you just go out and buy another one at any local pet store. That seemed kind of cold to say but it felt right at the time. It felt like me horribly trying to tell them that I didn't matter and it was ok to no care after I left. I guess that's like a way that a young kid will cope with stuff. Now that I wrote it down I don't really believe it.
Link posted by JVMM : 1:54 AM

 
Cluetrain Derailed

Ok so I read this because Tim said it was good but I found it to be really synical and pretentious (well then Bret why didn't you like it). It did have some interesting points and I thought the premise for the manifest was solid, but I don't understand why it had to come off sounding like the fat comic store owner from the Simpsons wrote it.

1. #7 - Hyperlinks Subvert Hierarchy - ...quite interesting and very true. When human's control most of the information on a network, and the playing field for access to controlling quality amongst information and technology has been leveled, than the truth has a tendecy to leak out via the hyperlink. Humans have this inherent ability to deceive and also to divulge information. They tend to divulge when they have nothing or little to gain - i.e. - a network or personal website. These mass networks are vouching for the truth and the quality tha has always been evident but was slightly muffled. Now there is human interaction interspersed with mass marketing and where once was only passive facts, now exists interactive communities collaborating and sharing. Our communities and friends used to tell us things such as, "Dawn liquid soap bleached my clothes. Don't use it" And that information would have spread through a small community. Now the community boundaries are starting to evaporated and their populations are growing exponentially. Sidenote - Look how you have been getting most of your news and information lately; from trusted friends and services via the hyperlink.
   
   
2. #14/15/16 - Language of the future is changing - How true this has become even if you don't see the real aspects just yet. Think on a very small level at first and then imagine how it could get bigger. Picture your messenger convo's, email messages, ... , abbreviations, less salutations and facts, pictures, and expressions via crappy keyboard imagery " 8^) " . Now understand how often you use the medium of digital as opposed to voice and how they are starting to overlap. This is the tip of the iceberg when you consider the working class TV generation and computer generation's attentions spans have been cut to 1/10 of what they already rediculously were in the 70's and 80's. This lack of attention will call for more facts, explosive emotion to gratify unbuilding instant-satisfying emotional needs, and exact timing. On the downside it will also bring an extreme shock value to the message. Look at the growth of porn and, violence on television and in the movies, in the last 20 years. But on the upswing we will be less likely to waste time or deal with bullshit run around. The need for instant gratification via communication and information will be of major importance in the way people are advertised to and the way companies exchange information.
   
   
3. #27 - Arrogant Language - I never really understood this. When I used to sell computers (Oh Dear lord!) I begged the manager to stop using scary acronyms and simply rate the machines using charts or outlining simple points that make this machine right for the customer, "Do you like to go fast and play games. Then this is your machine", "Do you need word processing and Internet...". I think they do that now. But there was always this arrogance about the product that turned people off and made my job harder(lucky for them and me people needed computers at the time - 98') but now (and even then with Gateway) they have realized the draw to simplicity. I just wish programmers, programming products, advanced hardware (servers and routers) would think the same way. I see them starting to market to the world about how easy it is to be a programmer or own a server and run it, but it's always surrounded by aloof arrogance. It's not fucking rocket science guys. Anybody can be a systems admin, or web developer. So stop guarding your little lego forts of acronyms with polysyllabic swords made of shitty tin foil. Take your white papers and stick em' up your ass.
   
   
4. #52 - #62 - I hate to say it but I don't think most companies will ever divulge to the public. Most companies seem like they were started to get them away from the public and create a little club so they could play(well some work hard) with all their buddies and ask 24 year olds to marry them. Companies you see now became companies to have control over rules and people who were at that time controlling them. So they built a little cocoon where they could hide and defend. I think the idea of an actual company needs to be redrawn form close to scratch(do I hjave the asnwers for that, Hell no, but doesn't something just feel askew with our economy and corporate world). There are no battles, or there should be no battles, other than making a better product or service, taking care of your employees and creating an environment that people would want to be a part of. Sidenote - Do you ever get the feeling as though you are walking into a prison rather than a corporation when you stand at the foot of one of those fortune 500 buildings. I think the company system as we know it is destined to fail.
   
   
5. # 65-67 - Unfortunately the company you see today wasn't always that way. At one time they were 2 guys in a garage, Grandma was answering the phone on a cardboard box, or the $5.50 an hour employee hired in the sandlots outside was packing boxes in the back because the company just got their first big order that needed to go out tomorrow. But, the mob (us) overwhelmed them with our needs as proper consumers. Therefore, they needed to develop an infrastructure that was automated, often short-sighted, stand-offish and cold. And then this somewhere became the company and people became lost. So what will be next - a return to human? How? What infrastructure will support such a coming strain as result of our monopolistic type consumer land? Mom and Pops no longer exist. How can we make IBM our neghbor?
   
   
6. #84-88 - I was just reading how internal branding is extremely powerful. If you can get your employees to believe and carry your flag, they may amaze you with their heart, imagination, and will. It is only when people don't feel apart that they become sloth. Just picture a highschool football team with a paycheck. Well it's not that extreme but you get the idea. Internal branding should be an extremely high priority. These are the people that help to make the product and if they don't believe in you or your company, odds are, noone else will either. Sidenote - Companies have aura's. Think about Microsoft or the Internet boom and how those companies looked to you and then think about walking into a franchised McDonalds or MBNA to go to work. They have different personalities.
   

Link posted by JVMM : 1:35 AM

 
The Flow

Since I sort of stopped writing for a couple of days my brain has totally filled back up with observations of life. It's so nice to step back and take a break and then it all flows back in again. The problem is, and this is a huge problem, I have trouble capturing the moment for posterity. I'll be sitting there watching the West Wing or listening to the Stones or watching an old woman feed pigeons and then the lighting will hit and I'll have it. I'll have that beautiful idea for about 2 hours and then it will just poof up in the air. But, like a week ago I wasn't getting any of the lightning anyway, so at least improving the flow is a start. Now, I just need to train my brain to remember. I started an exercise last week which sort of built on my Hangul training as well. It resides around trying to remember a quote a day (or with hangul it was a word a day). Anyway, hopefully this will improve my retention, which may be one of my largest mental flaws. And if I can improve the retention of some of these lightning bolt ideas than maybe I can start turning heads and raising eye brows with some of the things that flow through my daily being.
Link posted by JVMM : 1:02 AM

 
Resume

So tonight I have to do my resume and then I have to start job hunting. For the last couple of days I've been doing some programming with MYSQl and PHP on my site but unfortunately nothing of any interest has come to fruition. Sorry I haven't been on here as much. Anyway, the resume thing is totally not my bag and I'm not looking forward to it, nor am I looking forward to getting any other job besides the ones I want. Unfortunately, I really don't have any experience in the field I want to persue(education development and curriculum design) besides one year and if I went back to it I wouldn't make ass anyway, but it's better than being a friggin programmer or network admin, that would drive me insane I think. I could see me doing it if it was something hot or a company with a vision. I love the stuff but aboslutely hate the air that gets breathed in there. But, that's what will end up happening (Bret at American Standards Co. pounding a keyboard for 40 grand a year...woohoo!) after I go for the gold for about 4 weeks and get totally shat upon. But, yeah if anyone has a good looking resume or knows what a good looking one looks like... I could use some help...I'm a poor resume writer...i've had complaints that they are either too long or have no linear semblence...all the resume's have seen sort of look like poo and completely bore me but I guess they are supposed to be that way. 20 days!
Link posted by JVMM : 12:55 AM

 
Coming Clean

The best way I deal with things is to talk about them. I rarely keep things bottled up and I can't stand keeping secrets. So, here is what has happened to me in the last 3 weeks. I'm sorry if this seems tacky, but it's not tacky to me. To me it's honest and it's dealing with my problems in the open where I can receive help or guidance. Well here is the response to my Uncle, who is looking in on my Father as he is recovering in a hospital.

Uncle David,

Thank you so much for the updates. I find it very difficult to be away right now with everything going on and hearing (reading) your words helps more than you know. I am happy that you are there for my father in whatever capacity you can provide. I knew it would only be a matter of time before his psychosis finally went off the deep end. You just don't blow up like that every week for 20 years without some sort of serious deformity of the brain, and I think as he was getting older his mental state really started to slip. Now the burden has come to bear. Anyway, that shit he said (apparently my father is semi-dillsuional and has no idea where he is and his past is very clouded) was damn funny and I would love to get that on tape just in case he does recover he can watch it and laugh or something. But, I'm not too optimistic about anything when it comes to his future so I guess I'll just do what I can for him. It sucks to know that my life is just now really starting and my best friend and father might not be around to see it. It is a shame that I can't be there with him during any of this. I don't sit around and cry about it because I can always think of all the evil things he has done to our family (both sides) and the time and energy that has been sacrificed to support his own. But, I do break down sometimes knowing that he is my father and I can still see myself sitting with him when I was little and how good he always tried to be to me when he wasn't severly depressed or intoxicated. I have never really prayed in my life, but I think the night I received an email from my Mom's friend about what had happened I prayed. I prayed because I was helpless and it seemed like the only real thing to do. I had no idea who I was praying to or what I would say but it felt ok to do it. Anyway, I'll be home in 23 days. It's difficult to think that my life will be in no way the same as the way I have left it. In many ways it will be more liberating and therefore possibly fulfilling, but for the most part I'm damn scared and at this point and am almost willing to admit that I may need help from the support systems that have always been there. But, as my mother would act, that will always be a last resort. I thank you for everything you have done and for being a caring Uncle to me while I have been away, and a good brother to my father. It will be wonderful to finally rekindle the relationship which in my youth meant so much to me, I have always loved my Uncle David immensely.

Your nephew,
Bret Matthew Scharf Holmes

Anyway...that letter leaves a little to the imagination about what really happened but that's the way it will have to stay. I am much more embarrased than hurt by anything and to share real details is a little too painful at this point. The optimal goal would be to one day laugh about all this, as is the case with any tragedy or pain, but this may not come to fruition. So yeah...I came clean...I feel good about it...I'm happy here and am in good spirits...I just think I needed to sort of be around people and this is really my only outlet...it's strange being somewhere and having friends but no ne here you can really rely on to solve anything for you (im not looking for any solutions...oh this sad shit is getting out of hand) Anyway I am happy and wanting to come home, else I wouldnt be writing you weirdos...but it feels good to finally just let go of what I've been holding in...yeah yeah be good....p.s. you know that stuff he said was kind of funny...
Link posted by JVMM : 4:30 AM

 
Pictures

So yesterday Keith and I developed all our film. I had like 15 instant cameras that were just sitting around and he had all his film. Here is an overview

1. I'm fat
   
2. My hair is gone
   
3. Su Yeon is pretty
   
4. Thailand has the most blue sky
   
5. Keith looks like a rodent
   
6. I take damn good photos for having an instamatic
   
7. Tim clued me into the spontaneous picture right before I left with his arial shot and it has paid huge dividends
   
8. Pictures of rivers and crap are boring, people pictures are so much more interesting because there is emotion
   

So anyway yeah those were my pictures but the funny story came from Keith's one role of photos he took of his girlfriend. Obviously, they were nude photos. This is a big deal to Koreans as they keep their body very covered and hidden. So I can imagine the talking he had to go through to get her to pose nude. Well, anyway he told me to look at them before she came over that night and so I did while he was in the bathroom. And you know what happened next. She walks in the door and there I am standing there looking at her pimply naked ass slightly slanted on a 4x6 extra glossy. She was mortified and I dropped the photos and sort of tip toes sideways out of the room as she was slapping me on the shoulder in horror. When Keith came out she tore into him. Then they went into the bedroom and I could hear them yelling and I was all chuckling about it. But, then Keith came out appearing all angry at me, but he wasnt, he just wanted Eun Wha (Yoon Wah) to think that he was crucifying me for looking at "her" pictures. Anyway, it was kind of funny and we sat around after she left to laugh over them. She's really ugly naked!
Link posted by JVMM : 1:55 AM

 
Zwan

I wonder if they just made their name Zwan so that they would be down at the end of the rack with ZZ top and then maybe they could play cards or something. I don't know I have no idea what the name means but this cd is much better than I was expecting it to be. I have never really listened to the Corrigan experience but I remember Oliver making a big stink over those 4 albums on the net back in the adCOM hey day and now that I know his good taste in music I may have to go back and revisit some SP's. Wait a minute, he did like that beat ass song about losers or something, what the hell was that tune, anyway. This Zwan is damn good. The first two tracks are killer. Thanks black market of Thailand. Is "Black Market" a racial term or just using the word black for like shadiness or something? hmm...i'm rambling...
Link posted by JVMM : 1:42 AM

 
How Have I Not Managed to Kill a Child?

I dont think you can possibly understand the frustration of trying to teach English to foreign children in a foreign land. I threw in "foreign land" because if they were in America they would learn to act completely different in a classroom. Anyway, when they don't the answer to something they get this vacant look on their face as though someone had just powerbombed them on the sidewalk. They look horrified and at first I thought it was just because I was sort of a tyrant but quickly you start to hear the same complaints from all the jungle gym teachers. I mean you know me, I get frustrated, agrivated, blood read hyper. Can you imagine me with a marker in my hand tapping a board trying to get a 9 year old to pronounce the word "cat". And then the little bugger just sits there and stares at me as though cows are flying out of my nose. Now it's not as though I just push the anger down and just talk to myself saying, "It's ok Bret. They are children It's ok". Nah....I have thrown desks, kicked chairs, hit kids with markers at full speed tossing, I have slammed books dragged kids out of classrooms, I have basically been a horrible human being. But you don't understand (its just the way people talk when they beat their wives I guess) they drive you nuts. I've never gotten this angry over something in my life on a weekly basis. Now, for the most part I am rather calm and don't really give a crap and can make a joke about how stupid they are most of the time, but when I know that they know and they are just pulling that shy Korean, look down at the floor, crap on me, well I just wanna kick them in the throat and bury them in the street. Good Bret...9 year olds....real nice..I mean, Jesus they probably don't understand a thing I am saying and yet I scream and yell until my face turns red...I lose it...I have no idea why
Link posted by JVMM : 1:09 AM

 
Soul Filled That'll be $12.93

Do you know what day it was? It was play with Layla day and that my friends means I am in a jolly ass mood. Ok, so today Layla started to take advantage of ole' Bret by simply refusing everything and throwing fits knowing that I would not yell at her as I do other children (I no longer feel the need to be subjective in my treatment of students). So she cried her little corocodile tears and wanted to be held. She moped around and snorted at the other kids as they played their petty games. She was a total princess and I made her that way and it was so damn awesome to see. Anyway, we played together as the other peasants simply ran around beating on each other. It was good. I am happy. My soul is filled for another day.
Link posted by JVMM : 12:58 AM

 
My Action

I dont know about you but I love taking little IQ and brain tests online. I have absolutely no idea of the validity of any of these tests but I always kick ass at them and that makes me feel really smart. This one you can find here

Auditory : 31%
Visual : 69%
Left : 67%
Right : 33%

Bret, you are somewhat left-hemisphere dominant and show a preference for visual learning, although not extreme in either characteristic. You probably tend to do most things in moderation, but not always.

Your left-hemisphere dominance implies that your learning style is organized and structured, detail oriented and logical. Your visual preference, though, has you seeking stimulation and multiple data. Such an outlook can overwhelm structure and logic and create an almost continuous state of uncertainty and agitation. You may well suffer a feeling of continually trying to "catch up" with yourself.

Your tendency to be organized and logical and attend to details is reasonably well-established which should afford you success regardless of your chosen field of endeavor. You can "size up" situations and take in information rapidly. However, you must then subject that data to being classified and organized which causes you to "lose touch" with the immediacy of the problem.

Your logical and methodical nature hamper you in this regard though in the long run it may work to your advantage since you "learn from experience" and can go through the process more rapidly on subsequent occasions.

You remain predominantly functional in your orientation and practical. Abstraction and theory are secondary to application. In keeping with this, you focus on details until they manifest themselves in a unique pattern and only then work with the "larger whole."

With regards to your career choices, you have a mentality that would be good as a scientist, coach, athlete, design consultant, or an engineering technician. You can "see where you want to go" and even be able to "tell yourself," but find that you are "fighting yourself" at the darndest times.

I guess that was sort of on but it was so vague (and most of them are) that I guess they are all sort of on and off at the same time. Anyway I like doing these things.
Link posted by JVMM : 2:32 AM

 
Home is Where the Heart Is

You know, to all of you out there who haven't spoken to me in a while, I am now without a home. Yep I am officially homeless. But, you know what, ("What?" they all replied in unison) I have received numerous invitations to crash and advice that was heartfelt and "real" about my current situation. Now understand that I won't take any of you up on your offers because I can take care of myself and I hate the idea of needing. But just know that I do appreciate the thought and would do the same.

That's it
Link posted by JVMM : 2:21 AM

 
Manifest for Thursday

I've been thinking lately that it will come to me. That devine intervention will reach down it's hand and bless me with what I need to fulfill my dreams. I've been sitting, waiting, thinking, with the idea that my talents are good enough. That I somehow have a splendid way of life. I've been stagnated into a house of pity and proclaimed injutsice that has gvien me sovereignce from real work. I shall no longer make claims or expect. What to do with this energy? I must go work for my life and excel at the art of living.

I am a liver. I have no intention of attemtping persuits unreasonable anymore. I have only the intention of living as well as possible. The thoughts of grandeur which I, at one time, held close to my soul are being let free every day. It is within the common life that my work work will be accomplised. It is in the toil of the field that I must find peace. It is amongst the ilk of my people that I must earn kinship. It is not my calling to posess any man or keep any rights. It shall be my way of living. It will not be holistic or monetarily fueled. This living encompasses the persuit of appreciation and the longing to respect that has so long escaped me in too many arenas. The persuit of living well is my goal. This is not living humbly or impoverished. It simply means persuing life over pain, accepting truths instead of dreams, acting on reason instead of impulse. And above all gaining respect and appreciation for all the things that make the world worth living in.
Link posted by JVMM : 10:43 PM

 
Staying Positive

My father told me my whole life that I was a negative person. Coming from a negative person it was hard to contrast myself and learn how to be positive. I find that most people think I am unbearable when I am in a negative mood and unfortunately this is way too often my mood of choice. Take the last couple of days for example. I sat down here and started reading all this crazy intelligent stuff that other people were writing and I got all frustrated and just decided to throw in the towel on my own writing because I knew I didn't posess the capacity to think as well as what I was reading. It really bothers me when someone outshines me in anyway and this leads to much of my negativity. Fortunately, it does have a positive mutated growth spinoff because luckily I was shown the wonderful light of lifetime learning, and can now simply supress most of those negative envious feelings and take from these smart outshinign people and enjoy them. It only becomes more complicated when I have nothing to give back. I am also highly anti-social and highly pro-social. I think this has something to do with my slight bi-polar disorder but I'm dealing with it as best I can. Anyway, know that I am working on it and am happy but it's a lifetime process like being an alcoholic. It's a struggle everyday to deal with negativity or depression. It's a struggle that I am fighting hard against, and with the lack of good people around me, and my family life falling apart I find it becomes more difficult. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I can sometimes be a screwed up person but I guess for the people that know me, they have stood by me and sheltered me through many storms. I think this is what keeps me positive. I feel if I can live right by the people who live right by me I can be happy, it's only when I betray, lie, cheat, covet, or become envious that I become negative. Again, it's a process and I'm improving but I'm by no means perfect.
Link posted by JVMM : 1:39 AM

 
Why Can't My Kids Learn English

I was watching my class today, and have been wondering lately, after getting back from Thailand, "Why is it that Koreans speak such poor English?" My theory lies three fold.

1. Lack of Idioms - When a Korean wants to say, "It's easy" they say "It's easy" not "It's a piece of cake". Idioms are a major part to conversational English and all the children try to learn them but I think they have trouble grasping the idea of an idiom because their language has so few.
   
2. Lack of emotional adjectives - There are very fews words for excitability or anger in Hangul. In English I can think of 50 different words to say if I were angry or happy or pissed or just slightly pissed or in love etc.... They have maybe 3 words each for these categories. Emotion is probably the major adjective maker, and English prides itself on not only having many adjectives but also incorporating other languages adjectives as well. Hangul does not do this and hence they have trouble expressing themselves in multiple hues of emotion. They learn very few emotional words. For example someone is sad both when another dies or when one is sick or when one has a bad day at work.
   
3. Alphabet - Hangul is a beautiful and scientific alphabet. It is regaurded by some (including chomsky) as being the most efficient alphabet. Hangul is all rules and the rules are never broken. Children by the age of 3 can read Hangul and it took me maybe 2 weeks to learn it. All the sounds are pronounced the same all of the time and this differs greatly from the Roman alphabet we use. For example, the "ea" sound has 4 sounds(break, heard, bread, read), the letter "I" can have 3 (ski, sit, site). I know that there are rules for most cases of these sounds but the rules are often broken. Take the letter "g" for instance "Gum" sounds like the real letter g should sound "guh- um" but then show a kid giraffe and try to explain why it's a "j" sound. It has to be frustrating to Koreans who want to learn our crazy ass language. I think the world should speak hangul sometimes.
   

Link posted by JVMM : 1:32 AM

 
56 seconds

And then it all gets sucked back in. It all gets thrown back into you and you have no idea how to catch it with your heart. You let all this love out and when you want that little cockerspaniel of your existence to run back home he just keeps on trotting along up a San Fran street with his leash dangling and flowing behind him as the sun sets. And it all gets sucked back in hard like you would see on a cartoon after a superhero got punched in the stomach by the powers of evil. It all gets sucked back in to where you can't find it anymore and then you sit and search around inside of you for what you once had and now it's either corrupt or totally gone and the feeling of a warm wet nose pressing against your palm just won't be felt again.
Link posted by JVMM : 10:56 PM

 
Bear with me -

Ladies and Gentlemen please stay with me while I rearrange my head and refocuse my thoughts. It may come back to me later this evening. It may not come back 'til I get home. Something is broke, I just need to fix it.
Link posted by JVMM : 10:49 PM

 
Maybe later....

I'll write about Thailand maybe a little later...there is just too much to rehash and too much stuff that went on there that I need to put the pieces back together in my own time. Bottom line...it was...interesting if anything. So, yeah...that's it...after reading all these other smart people saying stuff about smart things that I don't understand I'm deciding to shut up for a little while...sorry...just getting back to reality of what I have to look forward to and it doesn't look anything like what I remember or what I envisioned and therefore it needs to be accepted, and in time, maybe I can get back to that place where I feel I have something to say...I don't think any value has come out of anything that I have written in a long time and therefore I think it's time for me to stop day dreaming about being someone else and focus on real life instead of make-believing that I'm sort of special thing...this is not a pity letter and it's not anything that needs to be worried over or focused upon. I simply see little point in wasting time in fantasy and speculative notions, which may entice my own brain but plays no bearing on 3rd parties, when the real world that I live in blows up more and more everyday.
Link posted by JVMM : 10:06 PM

 
Back...

don't feel like writing...too many things running around...and I do mean too many...Keith did give head to a hooker if that makes you feel any better about the lack of writing...but I promise you within the next two days you will have a plethera and possibly just a supplement sent out to all those kids on the mailing list...
Link posted by JVMM : 1:59 AM

 
Update

All my faithful will be wondering about my current plight. I kept a journal so Ill save myself the baht and the time. Quick recap:

1. Not that hot (temp)
   
2. Thai boxing
   
3. Suit for no money
   
4. Keith is a bad man
   
5. "I chose poorly"
   
6. BUddhist bracelettes given to tourist = free drinks
   
7. A tuk tuk is the coolest cab
   
8. The dirtiness can never be washed away
   
9. Hippies come here to play
   
10. Bars close at 2
    
11. Thai food rules
    
12. 'Dem Thai fillies are sizzolid
    
13. I will be returning
    
14. Tatoo
    
15. Buddha was an allright guy
    

Ill be back home maybe Sunday afternoon...I'll write more then...

Link posted by JVMM : 9:12 AM