tomorrow emily and i go to jejudooooooooooooo.
i want my fellow flight passengers to all wear fancy suits, miraculously have giant ’60s hairdos etc, and sip martinis on the plane. is that really too much to ask?
when we get there, we may rent scooters.
i am shamefully and absurdly scared of this possibility. what if i tip over!?!?!
time shall tell.
cute things of the day:
1. during a lesson on occupations vocab, i asked about the jobs of my students’ parents. hanna’s mom is a pianist and her dad is an opera singer and they play and sing together at home! sometimes even with hanna on flute! hanna thinks it’s pretty normal.
2. my coworkers emily and nathan informed me of my destiny: i will live in a farmhouse with my furniture-building husband and one perfect angel baby and i will either be a freelance writer or a librarian.
they better have meant the hot kind or the noah wyle kind of librarian.
3.
this girl was on scrubs before. one of my relatives from pennsylvania told me that the first day of hunting season is a school holiday. even for elementary school students.
i want to live in this video.
forget the nonsensical lyrics, this is AWESOME.
(originally seen in a commercial for the brightly-colored incredibly expensive lollipop cell phones)
in other news, i’m thinking about training for a marathon…? i found a training schedule that builds up your distance over about five months. i kind of lose my momentum when i have no real goals. how do you motivate yourself to get exercise?
I just read Bonjour Tristesse by Francois Sagan
She wrote it in her parents’ garden when she was 17.
I didn’t absolutely love it, but it set a nice atmosphere, like a special sunny world far far away from my real-life circumstances – romantic even in its deceit and misery.
They made the book into a movie, starring Jean Seberg.
I found this great interview with her. The interviewer is so nastily blunt, but Seberg is amazingly charming and graceful – it’s so far from a modern Hollywood celeb type interview.
Before that book, I read Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami, which I really really liked. People who love Murakami usually say they hate that book, but it’s the only one I read, so maybe I don’t even actually enjoy REAL Murakami. Ah, who cares?
With all this foreign reading in this foreign land, at times I feel emotionally displaced. I know I’ve written about this before, but it’s something I keep trying to figure out, but just can’t grasp. Losing oneself to find oneself? This seems like something I should have experienced before, my kind of Holden Caulfield moment, but it’s happening now. In some ways, I understand who I am the farther away I am from the people and places who define me. Contrary to my expectations, I keep falling more in love with my identity as an American girl. I feel really proud of Americans and our gumption, our creativity, our big overblown dreams, our too-many choices, our innovation, our neuroses. America is such a strange and wonderful and complicated place. It’s weird that I have learned to love Korea AND America more during my time abroad.
Check out this FRENCH band love. I guess the lyrics could be taken as tongue-in-cheek blah blah, but I think it’s subversive enough for scruffy unwashed French dudes to sing an ode to American girls.
i drank green beer with 100 foreigners in green wigs and green face paint
and then i got crushed in a crazy screaming korean girl mosh pit while listening to korean rockabilly.
FALMOUTH, Mass. — A customer shopping at a Wal-Mart for a wallet claims he found something that definitely didn’t fit the bill: human teeth. Police say the man found 10 human teeth Saturday when he unzipped a compartment in the wallet. One tooth had a filling.
The customer turned the wallet and the teeth over to employees at the Falmouth store but left without giving his name.
Police investigating the incident told The Cape Cod Times that the teeth belong to an adult, but since there was no blood or gum tissue on the teeth, they would be unable to perform DNA tests.
A Walmart spokeswoman said the company believes it was an “isolated incident,” but will investigate.
Malvina Reynolds (ya know the lady who sings “Little Boxes”?) reminds us, “There’s a Bottom Below”
This is what I listen to when I’m biking to work. It calms the temptation to steer into traffic. Did I not tell you about the power of lounge? “Calcutta” by Les Baxter
And since I’ve been sharing in groups of threes lately, here is “Work” by Ubyk. Definitely a more dismal view, but a fairly apt description of the daily drudgery of going to a job you hate.
but i’ve gotten really into lounge music lately.
as in:
i like exotica lounge music (music made by white dudes that sounds like it comes from a place with palm trees) a lot
and i’m not sure whether i like it in an ironic way – for it’s ridiculous cultural stereotyping through sound and general kitchiness
or i actually like it.
i kind of think the latter is closer to the truth even though i know lounge music is what people in the 60s listened to in their identical suburban homes when they wanted to escape their monotonous 9-5 / homemaking lives. am i one of them now? i know the answer is technically no, but as i drink white wine alone, i wonder a bit why i need exotica in my life. i’m IN exotica! i’m in freaking asia! i think winter has to end. it’s messing with my head.
1. “five years time” by noah and the whale
this video is lovely in its wes andersony glory and i dare you to listen to this while frowning.
2. “upside down” by scott matthews
this is a really pretty song performed in the rain by a man with a large beard. i first heard it in shortbus, an amazingly moving dirrrrty film. i think the contrast between cute ukulele twinklings and graphic sex made it work. actually, the whole soundtrack for that movie is tops. (and you should check out the movie too if you dare!)
3. “road trip” by sweetafton 23
i don’t know her real name, but this college-age blogger is an endearingly dorky top songwriter in my book. if you like sad but funny story songs like i do, have a listen!
tomorrow i fly to osaka.
it only takes 100 minutes and $230 to get there.
that’s only $2.30 a minute! what a deal! :/
i will go with a coworker and so today with the help of peppermint tea and caramel coffee, a lonely planet, and free wireless, we decided that three sights are absolutely necessary:
Spaland – the largest spa in the WORLD and only about $10?
a traditional tea garden – tea is important for living
nightlife in the area described as a land of “survival of the flashiest” – hot pink pants, i knew you’d come through for me
you: well, that’s just fantastic! i just KNOW you will have a fantastic time!
me: oh, ha, you, you are so kind!
you: well, what have you been up to lately?
me: oh, noting much – reading and getting poked in the side by korean doctors at the gym.
you: oh yes, that sounds fun!
me: why, yes, it really is! the doctor told me that i’m in perfect health, but that i should lose 25 pounds!
you: well, it looks like you already HAVE been losing weight lately. is 25 pounds really necessary?
me: why, thank you for asking! although my blood pressure, veins, heart health, immune system (cell count?), and stress tests are all top of the heap, and although i’m smack dab in the middle of my height’s healthy BMI, my legs are just too darn big!
you: your legs are too big?
me: why yes, i’m ordered to hault all possible strength training and focus on running in the morning without breakfast to burn all the huge leg mass.
you: well, that sounds like a very prudent plan of action!
me: i know! off i go!
(really, i didn’t listen to anything the gym “doctor” told me after he asked me to stand, got up from behind his little desk, poked my upper leg, shook his head, and frowned at me over his glasses. i feel very happy and healthy and i think i’m doing the right thing with my nutrition and exercise right now – i’m actually running further and faster, and getting noticibly stronger and slimmer as the weeks go by. so poopoo to you, korean doctor man!)
in other news,
i finally laid down the cash for 1001 albums you must hear before you die,
a tome of truly epic proportions which called to me every seoul bookstore visit in it’s rock and roll siren song.
(on this bookstore trip to pick up the japan lonely planet, i also met the young british dude who wrote the ENTIRE thick rough guide: korea, who told me exciting tales of adventure that made me feel like a serious lame-a-saurus travel weakling. “oh, korea is your ONLY asian country!? :chuckle: what an interesting introduction!” but then again, the guy was in a bookstore looking for his own book, so i shouldn’t have felt that lame.)
back to the 1001 albums! i plan on listening to one of the albums every week.
it should only take me about 20 years.
this week’s album was gary numan’s the pleasure principle.
it made me cut five minutes off my walk to work time, that’s how groovin those sweet synthesizers can be.
here’s a taste:
also, my man and i went to noraebang last night and i scored 100 on “purple rain.” admittedly, i drank a liter of beer before, but i think that only adds to my accomplishment.
it was an epic korea moment for me.
on his end, m-k sang a lot of korean ballads, and the boy can really belt them out!
