So, this last Friday about 30 people or so took a break from school to come down and have a LAN party!



I remember Gizmo and Bubbles some other 41 alums hosting these things at their off-campus apartments when they lived down here. I was the little sophomore who they let come and have fun with them, which I have always appreciated.

So after they left, LAN parties have kinda fallen to the wayside, at least in my experience so I decided to have one this last weekend.

PEEEEEKTURES

Zerg and Fargo and Trolley and Fjord helped me out tons with renting a classroom, talking to security, securing sponsorships from nvidia and Bawls and of course with providing hardware from the computer club to make the network... work.

It was tons of work but also tons of fun. We had plenty of guests, pizza, DDR and XBox on projectors. We linked up 2 Xboxes and played 4v4 Halo. And of course lots of Warcraft III and UT2004 over the LAN. We had some crazy matches and the best part is all being in the same room together.

Anyway, I'll get up a post with pictures about Thanksgiving, soonish.

I am about to go cross-eyed because of philosophy homework, LAN party planning, Disraeli paper-writing madness, but I found this humorous.

My Blogger profile views...



are so very leet. Booyeah.

Now don't go look at it or you'll mess it up. ;)

Just an update... to say that I put up two new Flickr sets. One of an outing to Nacogdoches and the other of the LETU Fall Extravaganza, which I covered for the LETU newspaper.

I have discovered that even paper writing becomes cool and adventurous when you play the Mission Impossible theme really really loud.

It also makes everyone entering your room want to burst in stick-em-up style with hands clasped like a pistol.

The Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii were released this last weekend, and though I have not been much into gaming consoles, I have recently had good times with several 41ers playing an XBox, which made me especially enjoy this comic.



More papers to write but it looks like Thanksgiving will be crazy... something like 19 LETU students car-pooling up to Kansas. Craziness.

Mirthquake. I just encountered this word and I find it endlessly amusing. Are you having a mirthquake today? I am.

More seriously, Fargo and I went with our fine arts class to the Dallas Arts district today. Our first stop was the Texas state fairgrounds, which had seven commemorative Art Deco buildings from 1936. Fargo didn't take any pictures. Bad Fargo.

He did take pictures of our next stop, the Dallas City Hall, designed by I.M. Pei.



It's an inverted pyramid shape, which is way cool. People's office windows were hanging out over empty space. This, and the other Pei building we got to see later, use a lot of straight geometry, so he liked to offset this by having fountains and bright, curvy sculptures around his architecture.

In the case of city hall, this was a red ball with a bite taken out of it, spinning in a pool.



We ate lunch in the Plaza of the Americas, I believe it was called.



Then we went inside the nearby cathedral, Virgin of the Guadalpue. The sun shone very nicely through the western transept stained glass.



Then to the Meyerson. Spork, Slope, Sydney and I had poked out heads in here on an earlier trip to Dallas, but this was my first real visit. We did get to hear a pipe organ recital!

I'd heard from people that it was really cool, but none of them had bothered to tell me what I learned today: that I.M. Pei designed the building, that one of the nation's best pipe organs is inside the concert hall.





There's tons of technical reasons that make it a really really awesome concert hall, but the end artistic result was just beautiful. It was completely soundproof, so despite being in the middle of downtown Dallas with an airport flight path right over the building, one could hear nothing from the outside.

After this, we spent an hour and a half running through a few parts of the Art Museum. I found a Van Gogh I'd like to write the class report on, if I don't do a favorite pieta of mine, so more on that later.

I felt really tired all day, but again, coffee to the rescue. Wanting to sit down while looking at art reaaaally reminded me of my jet-lagged dash through London early this year. Funny how these things always happen together.

This blog is two years old! W00t.

Last week Bebo Norman came to campus so I went and saw his concert. I was only a partial fan of his music but after the concert I was very impressed by his faith and voice. The upcoming issue of the YJ features a tiny review I wrote of his CD.

This is a terrible picture but it is him.



My next writing project is American Lit journals. I am beginning to wonder if I can get it all done by Thanksgiving.

Zerg and Fargo and I recently watched Lost in Translation. Numerous little moments really reminded me of what it felt like being in Korea.

It's been a good week or so for my Fine Arts class. On Saturday evening, a number of LETU students piled in a bus to see Madama Butterfly at the Shreveport Opera. It was superbly performed and very watchable. Not too long and with subtitles on a screen above the stage, you could actually tell what was going on.

After seeing the entire opera, I noticed even more phrases and themes in it that appear in Weezer's Pinkerton album. Really interesting stuff.

Tomorrow, I'm going to Dallas for a Fine Arts field trip. We'll be going to the museum area or something. Should be good times.

Hooray for getting away from Longview during the semester. My motivation/energy levels have been reaaaaaally low recently.

I found out today I was accepted to UT! I was very happy.

I actually had no idea what to think. The application was a last-minute affair; nobody proofread it for me and I even forgot to attach my academic resume.

I find myself curiously spelling my words in Britain-style today. Mostly theatre and colonise. Strange.

In any case, for your undoubted viewing pleasure, here's an essay I wrote for the UT application.

The stated requirements:

Many students expand their view of the world during their time in college. Such growth often results from encounters between students who have lived different cultural, economic, or academic experiences. With your future growth in mind, describe a potential classmate that you believe you could learn from either within or outside a formal classroom environment.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Jakhongir was too hard to say, so I called him John. He was rich, he spoke four languages fluently and I felt certain his dad was in the mafia. He and I were students at Handong Global University, an upstart Christian institution in South Korea.

For me, the decision was easy to spend a semester in Korea. I came from a Christian college in Texas. But my friends in the States still laugh when I tell them that my best friend in Korea was John, a Muslim from Uzbekistan. He and I were like night and day, but somehow, we clicked.

John loved wisdom. I believe that, though he would probably laugh if he could read this essay. There is no doubt in my mind that he came under intense pressure from friends to convert to Christianity, to conform his ideas this way or that.

Instead of skirting the issue or ranting obnoxiously, he engaged others with an idea to hear their reasoning, and if it wasn't sound, he would pinpoint it.

He could differentiate ideas and put them in their place, in class or in a casual conversation on the porch. I remember one time he quite seriously said that someday, when he had a family, he wanted me to come and be a tutor for his children.

"Why?" I asked, thinking he would want someone he knew better for such a position.

"Because I don't want them to think like everyone else in my country. I want them to be international."

I would often ask him what his life was like in Uzbekistan. He had some telling insights, but he was inexcusably ethno-centric.

One time he said, "I'll tell you, the best tasting food and the most beautiful women in the world are in Uzbekistan. You just have to see them for yourself."

"But John, most Americans can't even find your country on a map. If that's true, shouldn't they be able at least to do that?"

"That doesn't mean anything." And then he pulled out his favorite joke to describe the internationality of the dormitory.

"If you know three languages, you are trilingual. If you know two languages, you are bilingual. If you know one language, you are an American."

Even if he mixed up the issue, I also respected his motivation, his get-up-and-go. He told me about his IT work in Dubai, about switching schools and learning a new language in junior high just so he could understand his teachers.

I had done comparatively little travel at the time and was impressed personally with his spunk. Before college, he could fly to the Middle East and get a high-paying job because of his English and technical skills. I grew up on an east Texas farm. What was I doing?

I also noted his lifestyle. He wasn't living off his rich father, partying in Uzbekistan, or staying in a ritzy apartment, working in the United Arab Emirates.

He wanted to learn, and he wanted to help his country. He knew his country needed it. He wouldn't often speak of it, but it was something I could notice by his presence there.

I haven't spoken with John since I left Korea. But people like him stretch me when I visit a new place. I could not have imagined that growth coming from someone like him, but I internalized it nonetheless.

I felt bad again today. Again, I took a nap. Again, it didn't help.

BUT

This is all overshadowed by the wonderful truth that ALL of my second set Poetical Books journals are DONE. I was freaking out over them this afternoon so I decided to not sleep until they were done. And they are! Nevermind the time.

I go to bed happy. :)

Felt under the weather all day. Not much energy, weak, tired. I took two naps back-to-back, an hour each, one on my couch and one on Fjord's. Didn't particularly make me feel better but it passed the time nicely.

I'm still trying to do Poetical Books journals but it's going slowly. I find it hard to write insightful analysis on Proverbs. There's certainly much there to think about; I must change strategies.

For our Monday night play reading, we read Murder in the Cathedral by T.S. Eliot. It was light on action and interaction (long speeches), but as always Eliot's imagery is unmatched.

The next few weeks require focus. I have four writing projects. The work is certainly doable, but there are a million ways to fritter your time here.

My window is wide open to November and it's still hot in here.

I'm at peace about leaving LeTourneau. I'll be sad but I've been saying goodbye to places and happenings and people, not with words, but just in the sense that I enjoy them in a different kind of way. It's time to go.

Things I've done (in bold):

01. Bought everyone in the bar a drink
02. Swam with wild dolphins
03. Climbed a mountain
04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
05. Been inside the Great Pyramid
06. Held a tarantula
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
08. Said “I love you” and meant it
09. Hugged a tree
10. Bungee jumped
11. Visited Paris
12. Watched a lightning storm at sea
13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise
14. Seen the Northern Lights
15. Gone to a huge sports game
16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa
17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
18. Touched an iceberg
19. Slept under the stars
20. Changed a baby’s diaper
21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
22. Watched a meteor shower
23. Gotten drunk on champagne
24. Given more than you can afford to charity
25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment (giggling fits yes, worst possible moment, never)
27. Had a food fight
28. Bet on a winning horse
29. Asked out a stranger
30. Had a snowball fight
31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
32. Held a lamb
33. Seen a total eclipse
34. Ridden a roller coaster
35. Hit a home run
36. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking
37. Adopted an accent for an entire day (International Talk Like a Pirate Day, anyone?)
38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment
39. Had two hard drives for your computer (OK, so not two physical drives, but I have three partitions on my disk, that should count)
40. Visited all 50 states
41. Taken care of someone who was drunk.
42. Had amazing friends
43. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country
44. Watched wild whales
45. Stolen a sign
46. Backpacked in Europe.
47. Taken a road-trip
48. Gone rock climbing
49. Midnight walk on the beach
50. Gone sky diving
51. Visited Ireland
52. Been heartbroken longer than you were actually in love
53. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger’s table and had a meal with them
54. Visited Japan
55. Milked a cow
56. Alphabetized your CDs
57. Pretended to be a superhero
58. Sung karaoke
59. Lounged around in bed all day
60. Played touch football
61. Gone scuba diving
62. Kissed in the rain
63. Played in the mud
64. Played in the rain
65. Gone to a drive-in theater
66. Visited the Great Wall of China
67. Started a business
68. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken
69. Toured ancient sites
70. Taken a martial arts class
71. Played D&D for more than 6 hours straight
72. Gotten married
73. Been in a movie
74. Crashed a party (hahaha, I love crashing parties)
75. Gotten divorced
76. Gone without food for 5 days
77. Made cookies from scratch
78. Won first prize in a costume contest
79. Ridden a gondola in Venice
80. Gotten a tattoo
81. Rafted the Snake River
82. Been on television news programs as an “expert”
83. Got flowers for no reason
84. Performed on stage
85. Been to Las Vegas
86. Recorded music
87. Eaten shark
88. Kissed on the first date
89. Gone to Thailand
90. Bought a house
91. Been in a combat zone
92. Buried one/both of your parents
93. Been on a cruise ship
94. Spoken more than one language fluently
95. Performed in Rocky Horror
96. Raised children
97. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
99. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
100. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over
101. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
102. Sang loudly in the car, and didn’t stop when you knew someone was looking
103. Had plastic surgery
104. Survived an accident that you shouldn’t have survived
105. Wrote articles for a large publication
106. Lost over 100 pounds
107. Held someone while they were having a flashback
108. Piloted an airplane
109. Touched a stingray
110. Broken someone’s heart
111. Helped an animal give birth
112. Won money on a T.V. game show
113. Broken a bone
114. Gone on an African photo safari
115. Had a facial part pierced other than your ears
116. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol
117. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
118. Ridden a horse
119. Had major surgery
120. Had a snake as a pet
121. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
122. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours
123. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states
124. Visited all 7 continents
125. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days
126. Eaten kangaroo meat
127. Eaten sushi
128. Had your picture in the newspaper
129. Changed someone’s mind about something you care deeply about
130. Gone back to school
131. Parasailed
132. Touched a cockroach
133. Eaten fried green tomatoes
134. Read The Iliad - and the Odyssey
135. Selected one “important” author who you missed in school, and read (Hawthorne, Melville)
136. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
137. Skipped all your school reunions
138. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language
139. Been elected to public office
140. Written your own computer language
141. Thought to yourself that you’re living your dream
142. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
143. Built your own PC from parts
144. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn’t know you
145. Had a booth at a street fair
146. Dyed your hair
147. Been a DJ
148. Shaved your head
149. Caused a car accident
150. Saved someone’s life

That was kinda cool. I thought I'd done more than I have, but there are some crazy things on that list. I really want to try and do some of them. Many thanks to Abigail for the idea.

At least the list reminds me I have a really freakin cool life. I don't think that often but I really do. God is good.

Sweet potaters in a juice, who'd a thunk

Today I woke up early for a Saturday and did journals a lot of the day. I want to shoot myself now I'm on my sixth one, just from being here a lot. I can't stand doing paper-y things for very long.

Speaking of doing lots of sitting-with-a-computer work, I've gotten into a TV show called The Office. It's about this group of people working in a mid-size paper distribution company in Pennsylvania, led by a pair of social misfits.



It has a lot of very hilarious commentary about corporate life, which I wouldn't profess to know anything about, but the show is nevertheless really great.

The show comes in easily-digestible 22-minute bites and it doesn't help that Fargo has the first two seasons on DVD.

There's some kind of riot going on outside my door. I will miss this about LeTourneau. What're we down to? Five weeks? Inconceivable!

My lovely grandmother stopped by today after a meeting. Granny, I tried sending you a note by email but it said your inbox was full. Thanks for the hoodie and the T-shirt and most of all for stopping by. I love you.


I am... Red Riding Hood.

My mom sent me a few pictures from this summer, when we did one of the always-amusing family photo shoots.





Otherwise, not so much beyond school going on. We started reading Macbeth and hope to finish it tonight. The accents are fun, as is trying to use helium balloons to enliven the witches' voices.

Finally finished my Poetical Books paper. I'm not proud of it, but it's finished, which is a delightful word.

I also started a quality movie from the 1940s about Benjamin Disraeli for my Europe paper. I love the look and feel of old movies when I don't get annoyed with the pacing. They take time to get into the drama right from the start of the movie, without the gratuitous action scene every modern movie has to have.

Zerg and Fargo and I went to Starbucks today. I am still amazed by the regenerative powers of getting off campus for an hour and laughing about random things with a maple macchiato.

I have also enjoyed indulging my inner nerd with Battlefield 2142. Bubbles and Gizmo of Dorm 41 fame got the game and we have been owning n00bz for great justice.

Here they are playing DDR for great justice



Right now? The Rolling Stones and philosophy homework. And chatting with Jordo.

I do not think

I shall ever have to take eighteen hours again

I went to the Spencers' house on Friday night and Andrew and I watched Part One of the Godfather. I'd seen half of it on my flight to Korea but the plane landed before I could finish it.

I made him an offer he couldn't refuse.

Good stuff.

We woke the next morning, went canoeing for several hours on the river just below the dam of Caddo Lake. The river was very still, and generally the time was very quiet. It was nice to just paddle and be quiet.

We came back and made pizzas.



We then watched Dead Poets' Society, which was my first time to see it.

My name is Nerwanda!

The rest of the break was uneventful; I slugged away at a Poetical Books paper.

Last night the Korean students on-campus had a dinner for their host families and friends. The food was delightful. They made a special trip to Dallas and got real kimchi and kimbop and cho ko paie. It was one of the best Korean meals I've had, and afterwards I was privileged to play guitar for them while they sang a goodbye song in Korean.

They played a promotional video for Handong and I recognized a lot of the people, including my roommate Marcellin.

I don't have pictures but maybe soon.

Here's an assignment I did for Poetical Books. We were to write an acrostic (first letters of the sentence A-Z) in the style of Lamentations 3. It refers to my first year at Boy Scout camp.

Muse rocks my world.

Joshua Jones

Poetical Books

Dr. Hummel

Oct. 13, 2006

Genre Assignment: Lamentations 6

All day long, I walked and walked, only to turn around and walk back with the Boy Scouts again.

Believe me, I would not have come to summer camp if I had only known.

College cafeterias put camp food to shame and this is my first time to leave my father's house.

Drought, dust and adolescent drama fill this place; O Lord, have mercy upon us.

Everyone wished they were here yesterday and wants to be back home today.

Forgotten are the weeks of excitement, the days of packing, the tiresome parting with family.

"Goodbye," said my mother; "Good times," said my father; "Good riddance," said my sister.

Hot and dry is this place; we faint because we cannot go in.

Ice and air conditioners are nowhere to be found.

Just like school, we pine everyday, learning of compasses, cougars and cooking.

Kindling a fire and watching it at night reminds me of stories with my youth group.

Looking at the flame, I am comforted and conscious of Your presence.

Many homesick boys cry for their mother, but you, O God, are always with me.

No amount of time, not even an eternal seven days, can age Your love for me.

On a mountain sunset, I cannot complain that You do not care for me.

Please help my tentmate to take a shower tonight.

Quietly I distance myself from him at reveille.

Reeking like a billy goat, he grins and refuses to bathe.

Sometimes I do not understand why we work summers, leave our homes, walk all week.

Talking of rapelling or rafting or rifle shooting does not concern our normal lives.

Under a distant sky, we bake and scheme and live out winter dreams.

Very often, we slap at mosquitoes and curse the heat.

Warriors can become discouraged and lose their resolve; so do we.

Xerxes had his Thermopylae.

Yet, in our sorrowful summer camp blues, we ask not to be forgotten.

Zealous Boy Scouts cannot always be downcast!

Lamentation Characteristics:

1.This lamentation is structured in acrostic form.
2.The description of problems includes more variety (Lamentation genre), lamenting a multitude of problems rather than one specific trouble (lament psalm); examples: the heat, a dirty tentmate, the dust, the uselessness of the camp classes.
3.Hope is featured only in the middle, relating to a campfire experience.
4.The acrostic form, references to classical generals and Boy Scout subject matter implies a more formal lamentation of troubles, involving the common complaints of many people, rather than the private outcry of an individual.
5.This lamentation is about a definite place and time (my first summer camp), a characteristic of Lamentations rather than a lament psalm.

Fall Fest is over and done with. Kelsey, 41's queen from G2, won Fall Fest, for which the whole floor is immensely gratified. Fargo unfortunately did not win but we still love him.

Here's me crowning the new king, Lee Shaver. His theme was Wolverine, from X-Men, so shaking his hand was kinda interesting...



He made a really good Wolverine, by the way.

After the banquet, it was the talent show; it was better than last year and Karen and I were pleased with our performance.

The winner was a guy named William Wall who played this superb Chopin piece.

So today was very soothing.

This afternoon Fargo and Zerg and I studied at Starbucks. It was raining and I tried their new maple syrup macchiato. There was that pleasant balance of study and freetalk. We toured Best Buy and looked at all the nice things we couldn't buy.

After dinner I laid in Spencer's chair; studied Poetical Books and discussed the Big Three: God, gastronomy and girls.

Dozer is behind me lecturing his monitor on the operations of hydroelectricity. I am happy to be a history major.

Today Karen and I rehearsed for the talent show tonight. I hate pre-performance jitters, but we sounded OK. "The Phantom of the Opera" will be during the show's second act. Paige, our pianist, hooked me up with a full-length cape and probably make-up for later tonight.

I'm going to the banquet too, and my ticket is free, which is nice. Fall Fest is always fun but everyone is happy that it is only one week. Grey, my roomie, in particular has put a lot of work into it this week.

This last week, and the one coming, are big testing weeks, but the hope of Fall Break glimmers on the other side. I may just stay here and write papers. Woo.

I've been listening to the new Breaking Benjamin album. The album includes an acoustic version of their lead song "Diary of Jane" which is very very good. Cello and piano fit the song's lyrics much better than heavy rock.

There are so many books I want to read but school never leaves the time or desire to read. I look forward to life after school, when reading and writing can be fun again.

Thursday and Friday were a huge academic push for me, so I pretty much took Friday off after classes. Zerg and Fargo and Frisbee and I played a lot of Warcraft III, which is fun only in small doses.

I do wish I could hear back from UT about my application there. It's a toss-up; in my mind, a 50-50 chance of whether I get in or not, so I'm anxious to hear back.

I got my mail packet about the commencement ceremony in a few months. My thoughts about graduating are rather ambivalent.

weezerity

They dont make stationary like this where I'm from
So fragile so refined
So I sniff and I lick your envelope and fall to little pieces everytime

So it's Fall Fest week again AND midterms. I cannot believe that what looks to be my final semester is already half through. INCONCEIVABLE

My roomies have been busy setting up the "Save Princess Kelsey" Mario theme for this year's Fall Fest. We have people running around dressed as Koopa-Troopas, piranha plants (complete with the green pipe), Bowser, Luigi, the whole gang. Here's a behind-the-scenes pic featuring Zerg the Shroom.



From 41, Fargo got nominated for king and I really hope he gets it. G2 has done a stellar job with a Toy Story theme, so there are some very quality outfits of Army Men, Woody, etc.

I spilled orange juice on my keyboard about a week ago. It makes the right control button very sticky.

I played Acousticafe on Friday night. The opener was with Fjord and Karen, a rendition of the Mariner's Revenge by the Decemberists.



I worked hard on both of my Bible classes yesterday but couldn't make much progress on my Book of Acts abstract. So instead of stressing over it for the evening I went to Andrew's room and we laughed about random inane things for a few hours. He has a French acoustic CD which perhaps explains why I am listening to the four French songs on my computer.

Fjord and I recently welcomed him to 1999 by making him get an AIM account and keeping it open some of the time. Andrew makes me really angry when he just wanders around and can't be contacted. Leashes...

And in world news... I'm glad I'm not in Korea any more.

So this weekend I went canoeing at Caddo Lake. Andrew Spencer and I basically died trying to finish a lot of Poetical Books homework so that we would have the time for this, but we did it.

We spent Friday night at the Spencer's house (ate wonderful homemade pizza!) I also got to play Julie's harp, which is always fun.

The campout itself was fun but not much to write of. We set up camp on an island just inside the Louisiana border (the same place I camped last time with Andrew and Spork.)

We did get up in time for a small "church service" of our own out on the canoes at Sunday sunrise.

School has been insane, but here's a parting shot of our canoeing group. Hoo ray.

Fjord is the man...

me: Thou impertinent beef-witted bladder!
me: Thou mammering fly-bitten miscreant!
me: Thou bawdy guts-griping minnow!
me: Thou paunchy doghearted pumpion!
me: Thou impertinent ill-nurtured death-token!
me: Thou villainous lily-livered wool-sack!
me: Thou ruttish tickle-brained clack-dish!
me: Thou puny milk-livered fustilarian!
me: Thou burly-boned ill-nurtured ratsbane!
me: Thou currish beef-witted gudgeon!
me: Would thou wert clean enough to spit upon!

Fjord: your face sucks
Fjord: pwnd!

me: sorry, doesn't do it for me

Fjord: uh, your mom's face sucks?

Think about this but don't overdo the mental effort. These things take time to sink in... a quote from my philosophy textbook.

"Happiness is much more abstract and elusive than peanut butter."

Man, I am sure glad that they teach me these things for only $300+ a credit hour. I would be so lost.

Just finished the second week of the semester at LeTourneau. It has been really good being back. I miss lots of people that have graduated but it has been very good times with the people here.

I'm taking 18 hours:
Europe, 1789-1914 (interesting stuff... and Kubricht is teaching)

Intro to Fine Arts (stop laughing! Watson is the man)

Poetical Books (I think I really like Dr. Hummel. Sometimes it's just hard to spot him behind his gigantic GPA beat-down stick.)

Book of Acts (insert Dutch joke here. Actually Dr. Hood is cool)

Survey of American Literature I (We watched the Disney Pocahontas in class. Think about that. Actually I'm really glad to have taken another Dr. Coppinger class)

Intro to Philosophy (probably my least favorite class, not because of the material, but because this type of class should be the type of thing you do on a sunny hilltop with a band of good friends, not in the arctic sterility of Heath-Hardwick Hall in the company of 30+ caffeinated freshmen. Sometimes silence really *is* the best option when it clears you of retarded side considerations.)

I'm not working for the university this semester, which is hurting my bank account, but it is very freeing to be able to concentrate only on other stuff.

Pebble unfortunately could not come back this semester, so I'm the undisputed Overlord of the Power Suite. We have numerous names; none of us have girlfriends so we tacked on the name of the Eligible Suite.

On the upside, both of my minions (read: roomies) have cars, which, in classic Overlord style, I have dubbed my chariots. One of them, the Chariot of Destruction, is a '97 Chrysler Concord, but the other...

Well, last night I saw it for the first time and cried out, "What?! My Chariot of War is a stationwagon?!" Ah well, we must make do with what we have.

I lined up all my major semester assignments on Google Calendar and now anytime I want to be depressed I can open it to survey the coming destruction.

Several musical pursuits have also opened up for the semester. I'm working up some material for the next AcoustiCafe, not the least of which will be accompanying Fjord on his lead vocal debut with a very quality song.

Karen and I are also planning to try out again for the Fall Fest talent show with the act that got turned down last year. We shall prevail over the nay-sayers!

And there's a few more projects that I'm not actually at liberty to say. One of them involves *dance*. Yes, quiver in fear.

these can be amusing...

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Your Superhero Name is The Star Prime Your Superpower is Mathematics Your Weakness is Philosophizing Your Weapon is Your Rusty Bazooka Your Mode of Transportation is Sleigh

Random picture of Loch Lomond:



I made it back to LeTourneau very smoothly. The flights were on time and Granny was there to pick me up for an early arrival in Houston.

We drove up to her house, grabbed my stuff and deposited it in my room. There were only a very few people in the dorm, but I ran around for about an hour saying hi to people.

The rest of the night consisted of the random, yet progressively building series of events that make me love evenings at LETU so much.

I sat down to play the 41 piano. Fjord heard me and walked in and we started talking. Then Spork walked in and we sat there for a good half hour in the so-called "make-out closet" until we collectively agreed to go to Whataburger.

So we drove down and ordered our burgers. We noticed, in addition to the normal Whataburger late-night crowd, there was a number of stranded bus passengers.

Their bus had tried to pull in to Whataburger, but the bus became stuck in the rut between the road and parking lot. The front and back ends had scraped too hard on the road and the wheels were unable to contact the ground hard enough to move the bus.

We finished our burgers and as we were walking out to the car, a huge purple tow truck pulled up. "Hey, this could be fun," we thought so we sat down and watched the tow truck pull it out.

The next day, IMPACT retreat immediately started. Today I have carpet to put down, generally putting all my stuff away. I hope to start on academic business in earnest this week.

OK, so I should probably update this thing before I leave.



There's a taste of some new Flickr-age.

The weather has been phenomenally good since we came to Scotland. The locals call it a bit of a heat wave, but I seriously doubt the temperature has gone over 90 degrees Fahrenheit since we arrived. Glorious sunny days that don't make you sweaty and hot.

My dad is working with the Reformed Presbyterian church here in Airdrie, and Pastor Quigley kindly gave him the first few weeks off to do household business and do a bit of sightseeing.

My folks and I have been in Scotland for five weeks now, and have settled in quite nicely. More than ever, I have immensely enjoyed just hanging around the house doing nothing at all, eating whenever and sleeping late most mornings. Wouldn't want it forever, but this summer certainly isn't.



We stayed fairly busy the first couple of weeks, moving things, setting up beds and phone lines, and then going to see castles or something when we had to get out of the house. Airdrie itself isn't much to see, but it is ideally situated in the middle of Scotland.

Stirling Castle is lovely and just 40 minutes to our north. It's been restored to a Reformation-era style and overlooks the plain of Bannockburn where William Wallace scored his greatest victory against the English.

They have a monument in a garden there to a man in the 1500s who angered his compatriot and was unfortunately thrown out a second-story window to his death.

I tried watching Braveheart, since it is the quintessential William Wallace/Scotland type movie and wow, I was really not impressed. I don't know; something just struck me wrong. Probably a lot of it has to do with Mel Gibson's hair.

But also I thought it just dragged too slowly. I dig long movies when they're good, but this was too much.

A few weeks ago we also went to Loch Ness. It's a very long, thin and deep lake.

The Scots often snub the English, and proudly relate that the loch contains more volume of water than all the rivers and lakes of England. Of course, more water doesn't mean better, as far as I know, and the Scots could no more fill the lake than they could win a war against the English... OK, so that was harsh. ;)

Urquhart Castle is this really beautiful and old medieval castle right on the shore of Loch Ness and we walked all over it. It has this really interesting history and changed hands a number of times between the English, Scottish and some clans through several significant sieges. Sausages sizzling savorily in sunlight. In the summer.

Just last week, Candace, Amy, Ben and I took our own trip into Glasgow, which is a 30-minute train ride away. Traffic and parking in the city is terrible but it is easy to take a train almost anywhere in the city we need to go.

We hung out at Starbucks (our first in Scotland), walked around, looked at shops, ate, and generally flowed "with the wind." It's a fun city to walk about and doesn't completely swallow you like a bigger place.

Come to think of it, I still don't know my grades from Korea. Now there's a scary thought.


So I am definitely ready to be back in Texas for a while. I am taking 18 hours this fall and I am looking forward to each class in its own way. I still need overrides for three of those classes. :D

As for after grad, I have some options there but nothing firm yet.

I still cringe thinking about what a kid I was just three falls ago, and that process isn't over by any means. But I am thankful to LETU and all the people there that have taught me so much.

But we musn't end the post all mushy like, so I will now tell you the *real* subtitle of Lady In The Water, which I just watched.

"Adrien Brody with Dreadlocks: The Grass Dog Gets Owned By The Three Monkeys of Justice!"

If any of that seems unlikely, well then you just watch the movie!

A ham sandwich.

A Taco Bell Grilled Stuft Burrito.

Three meat casserole.

Cranberry juice.

Frito pie.

Good black coffee.

These things make me happy. :)

I'm still adjusting to US time. The flight back went smoothly. I didn't sleep much but the time went by quickly.

We're packing and such for the move. We'll be sharing a flat in Airdrie, a town of 40,000 not too far from Glasgow. My dad will be working with the Reformed Presbyterian church there.

And now I'm getting really tired which isn't good for making interesting posts, so I'll end with a photo.



It's Pohang, with a bunch of my Handong homies.

And today's random picture, comes from Festival time, Handong, just before midterms...



One more final before I'm done for the semester. It's American History and definitely what I'd consider to be my easiest final.

A week from today I fly out of Incheon. Korea's been good but I'd be lying to say I wasn't excited about the US/UK.

The weather has been warming up, but like other places I've lived, the weather rarely stays the same all day. It can be really hot in the morning and when a rain front moves in, you need a jacket for the evening.

The dorms don't have air conditioning, but on the plus side, the construction crew outside our building hasn't worked in the last few days, so we keep the windows open.

I made a Wal-Mart trip on Tuesday afternoon. I make microwave spaghetti... mmm.

Prof. Duvernay, of Korean history fame, took a poll of the students asking who had the coolest presentation. Guess who won? The prize was this Korean language history book. So, I can't read it, but the professor said before giving it to me, "It has lots of pictures."

I handed in two finals this morning and immediately went back to bed. I knew I hadn't gotten enough sleep the night before, but now, after a 4 hour nap, I can't convince myself that it's still Thursday.

Can't think of much more randomness...

I can't stand the annoying arrangements on a lot of old big-band style songs, but I have really digged two songs recently... Dean Martin "Blue Moon" and Julie London "Cry Me A River." And yeah, they're both really sad...

Last Saturday night, there was a big fireworks display on the beach in Pohang. I wasn't initially planning on going, not knowing exactly where it was and having no one to go with, but John got me. We hopped on some random bikes and went pedaling for the beach. We soon realized we wouldn't make it, since we started too late, but we stopped on a mountain dug out for road construction and had a nice, private, cool long-distance view of the show.



Last night was Korea's first game in the World Cup (soccer, for the completely uninitiated, like me). To this day, I can't recall watching an entire soccer match through. The closest I came was one of the collegiate games at LETU, but even then, it was a newspaper assignment.

This first game was the biggest sports celebration I've ever seen. Americans just don't have the same passion for any sport, even football or baseball, that many other nationals have for soccer. These people would scream and shout and almost dance, when their team simply had the ball. When they made a score, it is unusual *not* to get a slap or hug from a screaming fan.

Handong provided their own pre-show and halftime show.





Admittedly, I have no strong emotional ties with soccer, or the performance of teams from Togo or South Korea. I do favor a degree of sportsmanship, in any game, along the lines of not laughing out loud when an opposing player slips, injures himself and rolls on the ground in agony.

For the Koreans I was with, it was more a matter of, well, nationalism I would call it. Korea is the best. Korea can't be stopped. Korea couldn't care if their team played a bunch of cripples because it's all about winning. We base our national pride on whether we can outplay a tiny African nation. Go Korea.

I'm a foreigner so how could I "get it."

Stryder wanted haircut pictures. Very well then.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present before and after...

Bookshelf madness

It's Monday.

Still handwriting the US Constitution. I'm on the 17th Amendment. Almost done.

No classes tomorrow. Memorial Day!

Rice cake presentation on Friday. You ever done a rice cake presentation? Hmm? Yeah, I thought so.

Shaved my head last night. I'm not quite bald, but not far from it. Prof. Schoenhoff led the psych class in a round of applause for my "bravery."

The wind and sun feel delicious on my head.

Mukolo got a new camcorder, and he also pulled out an old webcam.

We were bored.

One day shortly before spring break, I was randomly playing guitar on the front steps of the dorm and people stopped around to say hi and plan what they were doing for the break. It's the I-House boys...



I have plenty of homework (for one of my law classes, we are to handwrite the Constitution), but last night I went out and finally saw MI3. Now, I don't know why the critics hated it, but I was pretty impressed with the film. Definitely kept me on my toes and certainly enjoyed it more than MI1.

Before you go out for the night and see movies or whatever, you have to sign out of the dorm. They have room checks at 11 PM to make sure you aren't off being mischievous, I guess. So before I went to the theater, I signed out.

Name: (I scribble in my name here)

Room: (room number goes here)

Place: Cinema

Reason:

And here I pause. I could write the obvious, that I am going to the cinema, to, you know, watch a movie, but that seems too straightforward. So I thought of the most random thing I could...

flying with unicorns

Satisfied, I drop the pen and go to my movie.

I came back later that night, and lo and behold, on the sign-in sheet to mark my return, entered conspicuously into the top of the dorm computer system, is my name, telling me in 13 pt. Arial that I went to the cinema to fly with unicorns. Can't believe the RA girl actually typed it into the computer. Maybe she thought it was the name of the movie?

This morning I went with some other students to a local church. We read Bible stories and taught some basic English to about 200 kids. I read stories with kindergartners and then had a discussion time with fifth and sixth graders. I do my best, but I'm just not a little kiddies person.

There, finally fixed the layout. I also uploaded pictures of Seoul from spring break. There's no captions with them, but as always, the Flash slideshow is a dandy thing. I still need to write about Seoul but I'm too tired to do it tonight.

Buenas noches.

Well, OK.

I just had the Blog Apocalypse of 2006, which means my mouse accidentally selected too much of my HTML template and thusly I ended up saving something wrong. I have an old version of the template that I can work with to get it back but for now I am making just the home page pink to motivate me to get it fixed soon.

Tomorrow is a very busy day and I have emails to answer and pictures of the weekend to upload, 3 hours of English tutoring to do and I never did finish the term paper. So, bask in the pinkness.

I very nearly used the word "facilitater" in my term paper (which, combined with its shortened form 'tater', I thought the funniest thing all day), so it is obviously time to throw in the towel, hit the sack and all those other crazy idioms.

I thought this quote fitting:

"One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important."
Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970)

I was tired of writing on my term paper, so I decided to update. Here's a random picture of a kid walking back from school in downtown. Photo credit goes to my roomie Mukolo.



The post-midterms laziness has set in, a middle-of-the-semester effect I call the slacker solstice. The work should get more difficult as the semester draws to a close, which is coming coming coming.

I don't think of my time in terms of months; now, I count the weekends until I leave, which really represent my final opportunities to get out and about before I have to go.

For Korean History, my team project people and I finally got our act together and visited a bakery. Yes, our project is the history of Korean rice cakes.

We will try to make a few, or at the very least, take pictures and claim we had a hand in it.

The man was very obliging to answer all our questions, none of which I understood since it was all Korean. This is one of those projects where I really have to trust my teammates.

We visited at 6 in the morning since that is when he makes the new rice cakes every morning. It was cool to visit the street vendor part of town, when the shop owners are setting up and before all the buyers come.

It's my goal to finish this term paper today. I'm writing on legal issues in the computer gaming industry. It's actually a fun paper to write since it's a topic I enjoy (not just the gaming part, but the legal aspect too).

Life in the I-House grinds on. This is a dorm not renowned for its openness. So many international students from so many backgrounds make any kind of cohesiveness rather difficult, so people keep to themselves.

It's a far cry from 41, but at least it's a better place to study than the library. The guy next door to me is a diligent CounterStrike recruiter, copying his hallowed version 1.5 to anyone who says yes. We're also slowly making our way through the Band of Brothers series, which I'd never completely seen.

So apparently, tomorrow, I'm having lunch with the university president. My roomie Mukolo, a friend of President Kim's, Jordan and myself are going; not sure of the details beyond that.

There's some kind of I-House talent show next week and people have been pressuring me non-stop to sign up. I don't want to, but apparently this Russian guy will do some rapping that goes well with a guitar, so I agreed to accompany him. I'll let you know how acoustic Russian rapping goes, should be fun.

This weekend I'm going with a few guys to Seoul, to see the sights. It was a cheaper option for things to do during the school's mid-semester break. We'll leave for that sometime tomorrow afternoon.

I'm checking around on grad school application deadlines. It also occurred to me that I have to take the GRE sometime in the not-so-distant future. It's like the SAT, resurrected from its unholy pit and brimming with malice after four years with the undead. Yikezorz.

You know, if you try to pronounce GRE like a word, it sounds like someone getting stabbed.

So, the plan at this point is to graduate this December. I think I figured a way for that to work. It will save me quite a bit of money to do that, and allow me a semester to prep for the Big Leagues, as it were.

Well, I've dawdled long enough. Gotta write this paper, and then later, there's some kind of special chapel service, and students are supposed to hold national flags, and Mukolo asked me to represent the United States. Ummkay.

More updateage! I put up three more Flickr sets; I've linked to each one directly as I talk about it in the post.

But before you see the Flickr photos, check out my breakfast.



Yes, that is milk in my bowl, and no, I haven't added the cereal yet. Hooray for powdered milk.

A few weeks ago, there was Korean culture night, which was essentially a 2-hour artistic and taekwondo presentation, followed by food. It was cool. I got to play the Korean guitar thing, which I wish I could try again. It was like a cool mixture of harp and guitar, except sideways, with the dynamics of a harmonica.

In the flickr set, there's a picture of the professional performers playing them. There was also singing, a martial arts demonstration and dance.

I've put up two sweet videos recorded by Jordan, my American pal from Cedarville University.

Taekwondo, punching boards (Quicktime format, 7.2 megabytes)

Dancing girl (Quicktime format, 4.3 megabytes)

The dancing girl was probably in junior high; in my opinion, she easily had the best dance of the evening. So nimble. I apologize that this clip was recorded at 90 degrees. Pictures!

So, school school school, and then this last Thursday I slipped out of Law & Contempoary Issues a bit early to attend a dinner for international students. Apparently, some recent graduates and friends of the university had set up a scholarship for international students, so we had a big dinner to publicize it.

We rode a very crowded university bus to a wedding hall and buffet type place. They made the presentations and brief speeches. I thought President Kim did a very slick job of doing what university presidents do: thanking donors for money while simultaneously asking for more.

Then, we ate. And then, the sponsors decided to hang around since everyone was having such a good time, so they brought out the karaoke machine. A few people played and showed considerable talent, including the proprietor of the establishment himself.

John and I were thumbing through the book of available songs. I put my finger on "I'm A Believer" by the Monkees and we both just started laughing. So several of us agreed to do it. I walked up to the mike, demanded that the others stop being chicken and come up with me.

They did, and wow, we had the place hopping. Jordan backed down on singing along with me, but apparently he and the others had a nice snapping/dancing routine going. One guy even did an impromptu break dance at the song's climax. Good times.

I met Dr. Henk and we had a good talk. When I mentioned I was from 41, he specifically remembered Abu off the top of his head, so Abu, if you read this, you apparently made an impression on Dr. Henk.

So, the dinner was cool, and people kept on taking pictures.

And then...

The next day, Jordan and I decided to go to Kyungju. People are always telling me, "Oh, you have to Kyungju." So on Friday May 5, we did. We decided to just go despite not knowing how to get there, and also without a Korean native to accompany us.

We took a bus out of Pohang, which is a city of about 750,000, and went to Kyungju. From Korean history class (hrm), I happen to know that it was Korea's capitol city for a stretch of roughly a thousand years. It's certainly a good place, protected by mountains but flat and good for construction.

We rented bicycles and just started riding around. We found a cool park, explored the city a little, and generally didn't worry so much about not knowing where we were going. I definitely want to go back and actually see some of the things Kyungju is famous for, but as an introduction, it was a great day off-campus. Pictures!

So there you have it folks.

Firstly, a link to the text of my second and last Handong column for LeTourneau's YellowJacket newspaper: my weekend visit to Busan.

Mid-terms are almost over for me. One more (Korean History) on Tuesday. This week marks the beginning of the semester's second half. I've had all the time in the world for keeping my desk tidy...



Church was good. The assistant pastor Prof. Schoenhoff, a German/Canadian/American guy (hard to pin nationalities on some of these Handong people), preached on Philippians 2:1-11. He used the example of Canadian maple trees to relate how we should "tap into" Jesus to put others above ourselves. I wasn't exactly sure how that related, but it was interesting and an uplifting sermon.

Last week, John (an Uzbek student) and I watched... wait for it... How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.

This was voluntary, and no girls were in the room. Actually, one was in spirit, since John said his sister would make him watch it someday. We laughed so hard; I will make no judgments here on Matthew McConaughey's courting methods, but dang it, he deserved the girl after all she put him through.

Two Fridays ago I finally visited a Korean Wal-Mart. The trip over was cool; I sat beside this Mexican girl and brushed up on a bit of Spanish. I also know the Swahili word for "hello"... in two dialects.

The Wal-Mart wasn't so special, selection-wise, but the inclined escalators were fun. I bought some strange chocolate-covered donuts, as is my wont; also some bread that doesn't taste like the machine it was made on.

Did you know tuna and bananas go well together? I didn't.

In my psych class, we've discussed memory and learning. It's amazing what you can learn when there is the desire to learn; interest is a key factor in memory. I have studied a little for Korean History, and will soon study much more, but admittedly ancient and medieval Korean studies don't hold my interest of late.

However, Prof. DeVries handed out a copy of Tennyson's Ulysses in history class. I read it over last weekend and liked it so much, I started memorizing it. I'm about a third into it now.

Prof. DeVries links its meaning to the restless search for opportunity in the culture of American settlers. He doesn't hesitate for a moment to link Socrates and cowboys in a long chain of western civilization.



Tonight, Jordan and I went for dinner and a movie. He's the other American dude here, from Cedarville University. Both of us forgot our cameras, but I promise soon to have more pictures for you.

Until I do, feast your eyes with a link to a blog run by a guy named Andy in Korea. There are some pictures of Handong people on there, some of whom I know, along with copious amounts of Andy's devotional musings.

Several posts down, as of this writing, he got a highly flattering mugshot of me. Of more interest is the following pictures, of the DeVries family. Mr. DeVries is my teacher in American Society in Historical Perspective. Cool guy.

As I was saying, Jordan and I went dowtown. We had huge hamburgers from TGI Friday's, which was most delicious. Good conversation. And then, we went to the theater and saw 16 Blocks, a good Bruce Willis movie that I actually like better than Inside Man, despite the +10 baseline-coolness factor of having Clive Owen in your movie.

This was one of those random Sunday night things that I really appreciate doing. It really is sad how much time I spend just in my room here.

One of the things I do in my room is play Eve Online. It's an MMORPG that actually works on my laptop. I would show you a picture of my spaceship, but alas, it was destroyed today by pirates.

And now, for the necessary Ox-In-Downtown Picture (TM) that must accompany every post.



Apparently this man decided that having an ox and cart was cooler than having a car. He actually travels around town like this and does his business. Pretty cool.

I could talk about school and term papers and studying and all those things that take up most of my time, but I'd rather not. It's Monday morning and I should get some rest.

Plans are beginning to formulate, on the horizon, for some more travel in Korea. I'm trying to make sure I can actually afford some of it, but happily, I think travel and accomodations in this country are quite cheap. You can travel halfway across the country by bus for less money than a taxi ride across town.

We shall see what happens. ^^

I submitted a column on my experience thusfar in Korea to LeTourneau University's YellowJacket newspaper, which was distributed yesterday. The text may be viewed here.

My regular lunch: spicy noodles and a slice of bread. The cleaning ladies in our building had seen me preparing the noodles in the lounge a few times now (apparently I always do it during their break time) so today they decided to offer me some of their snack. It was a type of Korean sweet potato, which one of them had baked. It was very good and went scrumdidleeumptiously with my noodles.

It occurred to me today, during team meeting, that my diet consists of little more than carbohydrates in one form or another. I shall return from Korea a pudgy, rotund little man with puffy cheeks.

The chopsticks are nice wooden ones I got on the ascent to Yongdosung Park in Busan with my roomie. (See my newest Flickr set) I cannot recall ever buying a metal fork for myself, but these chopsticks rule.
















I'm firing a homemade Korean bamboo bow

I've been at Handong Global University for two weeks today. Classes look to be good this semester:

Law & Contemporary Issues
Introduction to Korean History
English Morphophonemics
American Society from Historical Perspective
Introduction to Psychology

My teachers are of multiple nationalities, and only two are Koreans.

The campus itself is quite new, but they are building new things constantly. The surrounding area is also quite nice, as evidenced by my latest Flickr madness.

I took a walk around, so actually the first you get to see is a bunch of off-campus stuff and no people, but at the end there are some pictures of campus. I'm not into taking pictures of people until I get to know them a later better... you know, politeness and all those concepts.

I had captions for them, but then the power to my laptop mysteriously went out. And by the time I logged back into Flickr I was in no mood to redo them. So, put on the Flash slideshow and enjoy.

For being a "global university," the college is, perhaps unsurprisingly, quite Korean. The I-House (my dorm) has an English-speaking-only rule, but I routinely hear other languages. I think it's strange to see so many English letters and numbers on signs even in Pohang; the United States doesn't randomly have signs and food products with other languages on them.

Other little differences... they do take off their shoes in the lobby of the dorm, so socks or inside-only flip-flops allowed in the rooms. Handong has a "freer" academic environment than LeTourneau, in the sense that they are not quite as strict about being on time to class, and an honor code among students means they are not monitored during tests.

Dorm life is a bit more structured than LETU; you need permission to leave campus at night or stay off-campus, and everyone must be in their room for a roll call at 11 PM. I always am, but the announcement over the intercom is kind of annoying.

I am currently doing six hours work a week as an English tutor/discussion leader. I am privately tutoring one fellow who responded to an ad my roomie put on a forum, and I'm leading two bi-weekly groups of eight students in open discussion. The discussion thing will start next week, but I've already met three times with Myung Kwon, who has basic speaking skills. We talk about lots of things... I try to mix it up; he's studying for the new speaking portion of the TOEFL test.

It's actually extremely easy to find a bit of work like this as a native English speaker.

I've met tons of people, but the hard part is remembering their names. People routinely greet me by name and I grin and say "Hi!" and I'm thinking "I have no idea who you are."

Or, when I do remember a face, I think "I know who you are, and I care about you!" but if you don't remember the name, that just doesn't cut it.

Now the all-important music question. I found ONE guitar and ONE piano, but both have a caveat attached. The piano is in a building that is always in use. I checked it a few times a day every day last week and wasn't able to play it once. I think I have an alternate scoped out in the recently opened international student lounge.

The guitar is sitting in its stand in a nice little cafe in the student offices building. There's a little stage and a mic stand and an amp, but I can't imagine when any of these are put to use in this little cafe. The owner doesn't speak English, but after my third visit for cheap coffee this week, she kinda figured out I was coming more for the guitar than the drinks. The first time I think she was worried I would bust out the Dashboard, but now she might like it, or at least doesn't mind.

There are two English-speaking churches in Pohang. One is in town, and I have no idea where it is. The other is the Handong International Church, which meets on-campus in the chapel building.

In conclusion, I leave you with a typical piece of Korean appliance (made, of course, in China). My new alarm clock. It's one of the old style round analog clocks, with two bells on the top and a vivacious little hammer between them, just dying to ring out and send you scrambling from bed. Behind the hands, ominously visible above the morning alarm marker, it says, in tiny letters, "I'm the happiest man in the world."

Why, I can't imagine, if indeed the happiest man in the world must deal with this alarm clock. Perhaps it's the alarm clock's bid to redeem itself in its owner's eyes, as if it's begging not to be shot or thrown across the room.

Or maybe it means nothing. :)

Hi.

I'm alive.

I'm in South Korea.

Just letting you know. More to come, honest, I just need the chance to sit down and write something worth reading. :)

It's Sunday evening in Indiana. It's cold, still, so I haven't gone outside much while here. There has been very little snow this winter and basically none while I've been around.

I'm just beginning to make some preparations for South Korea. I leave on Thursday, March 2, in the morning, so tomorrow I'll have to start getting ready in earnest, deciding what goes and doesn't. I've been sick since coming to Indiana, but today I felt better, so it was nice to enjoy a full meal.

My student visa status is still up in the air; I've found Koreans at my college and at the consulate in Chicago to be difficult to speak with. To remedy the situation, I'm trying to learn little bits and pieces of Korean when I can; my first goal is to learn their writing, which I think I can do before I leave, though I will know no vocabulary.

If the visa does not go through, and things go badly in Seoul, they have every right to send me back across the Pacific, where I would die penniless, heartbroken and friendless, ending my own misery under the wheels of the nearest San Francisco electric tram.

Well, it's a bit of an exaggeration... mostly the death part. But I am uneasy.

Apart from this little dilemma, I am excited by the prospect. My flight goes from Chicago to San Francisco to Seoul. From there, I ride a shuttle off the airport island to Gimpo Airport, where I fly to Pohang, and am then picked up by the college, I hope.



And the rest, I just see when I get there. I cannot find any decent pictures of the campus or my dorm or anything, so I will be sure to take pictures and post them for you. I hope to post somewhat often here, as well as a few columns for the esteemed LETU YellowJacket.

Classes... I still don't know what I will be taking. On the bright side, my financial aid worked out really awesome this semester and is now all finalized and Handong is paid. Took long enough. :)

I uploaded to Flickr, with titles and descriptions. You can enter the set's first picture and hit the right-hand picture to move forward through the set. Alternatively, Flickr has a slick Flash slideshow if you don't care for the descriptions.

Enjoy.

Written in Africa, but posted only now, because I couldn't check my LETU mail or access anything on the blogger domain, until now.

Ah! My last Monday in Africa. Life in the Barn continues inexorably on. The weather has taken a rainy turn for the last week, so the archaeological work has slowed a bit. I did, however, enjoy helping some other students with their projects (which still got us in the rain) such as trying to find baboons, leopard tracks, or most interestingly of all, termites.

Nils and I ran his little termites through these mazes to see if they learn patterns or anything. I don't think they do. Three maddening but hilarious hours watching these brainless creatures crawl through a maze... anyway, we had a good long talk about universities and I think I am beginning to grasp the German educational system. It's very different, though I think becoming more like, that of the United States.

I also helped Karin look for leopard tracks and set up cameras. She got a totally sweet close-up of a leopard at night; apparently it was photogenic enough to pause for two takes, flash and all.

The archaeological work here has been interesting, and it's certainly a cool place to do it, but I'm a tad disappointed with the lack of supervision here. If you have a graduate project and want to organize your work and just go for it, it's great. But for wee undergrads without projects, like myself, sometimes it's a bit... open-ended. It would be cool to do something in grad school that would bring me back out here for longer, but somehow I doubt that would work out.

There's been three new students arrive since I've been here, and all three are German girls! What is it with this place and Germans (and girls for that matter. Hello LeTourneau?) I think four of us, myself included, will leave in this upcoming week, so that should put the Barn back down to "normal" size. The Barn's a bit crowded now, but never for very long.

Nils took some quality photos of baboons grooming each other on these rocks. He's one of those kindred spirits who toys around with Photoshop... so naturally we had to do a picture with several of us sitting on the rocks, "grooming" each other monkey-style, so that he could incorporate us into the pack.

On Thursday I went up to the peak of Mt. Lajuma for a third and final time. It's different everytime you go up. This time a storm was coming over our backs, over the mountains and on into the farmlands to the south. It was awesome, to look up and see the blue erased by clouds, to see the shadow advancing over lands miles away, to see rain and lightning in the distance.

I went with Tazz and Molly. Molly left Saturday, so Friday we had a goodbye braai (like bright without the T), which is the South African word for barbecue. Names for the festivities included the "Molliday" or "Molly's Braai Braai." You are speechless, might I say, stunned by our wit.

We had grand plans of playing a soccer game, and cooking outside over the fire and then it rained. Before it did, I struggled long and hard to make a bed of coals with wet wood, and very nearly had it, when the rain put the nail in the coffin. We cooked steaks over the stove, but it's so hard to stay up late past that at the Barn -- it gets dark and you just want to crash.

~~~~~~~~~~~ (Continued in the States) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So, my last town day, spent again at the same cafe except this time I got TWO milkshakes... I didn't have to spend much money of course on much else. I was stymied in my attempts to blog and answer emails and such because of blogger and LETU mail all deciding to be down at the same time.

Then there was only half a week left... two *more* German girls came, but then two were going to leave the same time as me, so I guess it evens out. Some previous "barnie" students visited on my last day; after dinner we crashed their braai and sat around the fire laughing and talking about animals and stuff. Erik recounted being attacked by a black eagle, and these two other Dutch guys roasted these humongous steaks. They talked back and forth in Dutch a lot, to the point where my German pal Nils nudged me and said, "OK, now I know how you feel all the time." Europeans are, quite typically I think, much better at being bilingual than the lazy Americans.

The last few nights we really enjoyed looking at the stars. I learned some more about Orion and the Horsehead Nebula, which Nils enthusiastically pointed out from the star chart he printed on Monday. I found the Southern Cross, a pretty cool looking cross constellation you can't see in the northern hemisphere. Cool stuff.

I left Lajuma on Thursday the 16th, not entirely looking forward to 30+ hours of non-stop traveling. It turned out alright though.

I rode the 5-hour bus ride from Makhado to Jo'burg, and the taxi to the airport with Inga; I think we both appreciated having company for the trip. I met her brother, helped her get some ticket hassles sorted out since her English wasn't so good, said bye and then it was off!

I had a nice relaxing time in Jo'burg International, but after that, I had no time to even stop for a drink in Heathrow or Dulles in DC. Run run run to catch the plane, but I actually got all my flights and miracle of all miracles, my luggage was waiting for me.

I should *not* have been on the plane for Indy out of DC, but God was merciful, that truly is the only explanation for it. You have no idea how happy I was to be on that plane and not spending who knows how long in the airport. At the very least, airports aren't such a mystery anymore.

The Kangaroo Cake. It was shaped by a deliberately drawn cardboard model and cut to match.

Molly and I met an American couple staying as tourists at one of the lodges here on Lajuma. They are from Baltimore, newspaper journalists covering southern pan-Africa. They'd lived in Johannesburg for nearly a year now and seemed to have a good grasp of happenings and society in the area. An enviable job. It was good to talk to other Americans.

Hard to believe my time in South Africa is already half gone. It really is too short a time to do something like this... oh well, there's always next time, right? :D

This internet cafe is a funny place. If you stay two hours, you get a free coke. Just now, a flock of uniformed schoolboys descended from outside to play Warcraft 3, babbling in Afrikaans with the occasional reference to "night elf" or "shaman."

Afrikaans is an interesting language to listen to. German, obviously, has a few sounds we don't use in English, but Afrikaans really sounds like English. It feels like you should understand what people are saying, except, you don't.

The radio DJs here freely switch between English and Afrikaans, either catering to speakers of both languages or assuming that everyone knows both. Most of the songs, of course, are in English, indicative of the British pop charts, I think, after listening to some of the songs. There's also some local music in Afrikaans.

My German is coming along painfully. I think I'm stunted in the area of languages, or perhaps diligence. I can count to 17 or 18 (though I can't pronounce 16) and I say simple greetings -- danke, gutenacht -- but most importantly, I'm learning how to insult people.

Some of the LETU crowd knows German is a harsh-sounding language... you needn't resort to nasty words when insulting unsavory characters... so I'm learning the word for "matchbox," which sounds despicable and suitably insulting.

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After last town day, we spent Tuesday at the Barn. The archaeologists were tired and spent the afternoon reading and cataloging several dozen pottery shards we'd collected. I measured their thickness and took photos.

Wednesday (Feb. 1) we got up and piled into the van. Botswana day! Me, Tazz, Molly, Karin, Katie, Inga, Christina and Ian drove north across the Limpopo River to a private nature reserve in Botswana called Kwa Tuli. There, we were greeted by our guide, known simply as Jerry. We drove out to one of the nicest campsites I've ever seen... again, I apologize I can't show pictures right now because of the internet here.

It was really really good to chill after being tired for the last several days... my sunburnt shoulders were peeling and all sorts of unpleasantness.

The camp consisted of a common area with hot water and gas stoves, completely furnished: plates, cutlery, mugs, couches -- and I nearly did a jig -- a beat-up little guitar.

The tents had beds, furniture even, with porches and bath tubs and mirrors and dressers... they were more like little cloth houses. I have this sweet video clip touring the inside of one.

Due to the sleeping arrangment, I volunteered not to stay in a tent and tossed my stuff in the common area. My bed was a hammock... which I liked a lot. The skies were brilliantly clear both nights, and the wind blew just enough to sway me a bit -- just lovely.

How shall I describe the terrain... at the risk of deeply insulting my numerous Botswanan readers, let's just say: take South Africa, remove all the grass and money, add more monkeys, and you have Botswana. I thought South Africa was a poor country, but as African countries go, I take that back. Thus was my short and inadequate impression of Botswana.

On Kwa Tuli, the terrain was, to me, quite ravaged. Most nature reserves seem undisturbed, with terrain taking your focus from the occasional lucky peep at a frightened animal. This was completely different.

Tracks, dung, animals were everywhere. The landscape was devoid of grass, the shrubs eaten by kudu and impala, all the large trees were knocked over and stripped of bark by the elephants. It wasn't a forest so much as a playground, or warzone, for the animals. Of course, some of the recent change is due to artificial influences, but I still question how so many animals can survive in that landscape.

It happened to be very dry while we were there, so most of the elephants had moved off. We saw a few of them on three occasions, once briefly at night and twice from a great distance. Kudu and impala (both deer-like creatures) were incredibly numerous; on the third and final day, we hardly took note of them.

With the exception of a morning hike on the second day, we rode about the reserve on a "safari" truck: a 4x4 Toyota Land Cruiser with a roofed observation deck. And, other than chilling at the camp, that essentially describes our trip. It was lovely, but we were ready to go by the third day.

Tazz and I tried repairing the little guitar but only succeeded in proving the inevitable... one of the tuning pin gears wouldn't stay fastened and the strings kept coming undone. In the end, I played it with only four strings... not quite the full sound you expect from a guitar.
On the up-side, I had less fingering to think about and could focus on getting some new sounds from those four strings; now I have some new ideas... so if you want to practice, break a few strings and try it out. :D

We left Kwa Tuli at 9 AM after a morning drive-about and accompanied our guide Jerry to his hometown. There, we got to see the town chief officiating a dispute. The people sat in a circle around him while he heard all sides and made a decision.

Electricity, of course, is hard to come by and very expensive to set up. We saw a butcher at work on a cow in a field, hanging the legs from tree branches. A shiny red hide dried in the sun. There was a little more grass. Donkeys and goats roamed freely. A water tower leaked.

Jerry showed us his home, commented on the gearbox he couldn't find to fix his tractor. He wore his .375 bolt-action bull rifle on a leather sling for a few minutes, just as he had on our morning walk, before remembering to take it inside. We ate a bite of fruit from a tree in his yard and said hello to his wife, who came in from working on a field.

I'd noted a little silver star pinned to his shirt. It was a sign for his church, which he was quick to show us. Apparently, he is also a part-time pastor at a Christian church in the village. Before Ian could stop him, Jerry launched into a 10-minute sermon.

He used examples that would make sense to Africans, rather than some obviously unfamiliar biblical metaphors. You could see the glint was in his eye. His words were suddenly more urgent and passionate than anything he'd told us on safari. Ian finally segued the discussion into a comment on the time, but Jerry wouldn't let us go until he'd prayed.

He told us how they prayed... stand in a circle, close your eyes, fold your hands into your armpits and in this way, he asked God to give us a safe journey back and keep the river down for our crossing back to South Africa. Not my expected goodbye with a safari guide.

The drive back was without incident... the river had risen but we were still able to ford across. We didn't have lunches so I drank Mountain Dew and ate chips all the way back... they're tasty but ugh... not by themselves all day.

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After we got back on Friday afternoon, I went for a run, took a shower and started cooking chili and cornbread. Someone has to educate these Europeans on Earth's finer delicacies... it turned out alright, considering I lacked some unimportant ingredients, like CORNMEAL for the cornbread and CHILI POWDER for the chili. Maize bread and red onions in the chili... every dish we make is a rough South African equivalent. ;)

Saturday I hiked up to the peak of Lajuma again, this time in the morning by myself. I got up without a hitch, enjoyed the view and had a couple wrong turns on the way down. Two hours later than need be, I made it back. You know how the Psalms talk about your tongue sticking to the roof of your mouth when you're really thirsty? It's true.

Sunday Alandra and I cataloged one of the larger sites of the area. It's a wash-out area at the bottom of a small hill, forested. The site is a low rock wall, crumbling in one part, sheltered against weather. There are a number of potsherds, beads, bracelets and an ax head.

I got sunburned all over again and I have a nasty cold and I nearly ran out of food (lots and lots of peanut butter and tea :D ), but most of those are my fault so I will just prepare better next week!

Miss you guys.