아 바 다 (Avatar in Korea)

So last night, at the fantastically decadent hour of 3:08 a.m., I emerged from James Cameron's new movie in 3D. First thing to know: Avatar is a visual orgy. The colors are brilliant, the scenery is fantastic in the most literal and most metaphorical senses of the word, and the surfaces made me drool just a tiny bit. You could watch this movie on mute and still come out rejoicing. It's a technological marvel. Go see it, just for the ride it is.

I was most impressed with the facial expressions of the blue aliens. A few years ago, I read in the New York Times about the breakthrough in digital mapping of the human face, and saw what could be done with the technology when it first came out. The people working on this have clearly not been twiddling their thumbs; it has totally come into its own. Davy Jones was a great leap, but he was just one guy, and this movie is about two thirds populated with CG people with perfectly believable faces. Also, 3D has never been my favorite, and still isn't, but they really make it work for this movie, mostly because the scale is so terrifically huge. 3D IMAX would probably rock my socks into next week, so if you can see it like that, do! (I'm looking at you, Hyde Parkers).

The whole environment is steeped in detail. I kept flinching at bugs in the jungle. Bugs! In the jungle! They were in 3D, and I kept thinking they were in the theater with me. Also, woodchips fly, bark is not just one matte painting mapped onto various tree-shapes, it has its own texture. Water looks real, acts real. Particles behave as particles ought to. Things glow with appropriate (and oddly MYST-like) bioluminescence. WETA has done it again. Go forth and contribute to their worthy coffers.

That said, (and I do mean it - go see it! Except you, Mom, you'd hate it) some things about it bothered me. If you have no interest in my nitpickery, stop reading now. Go, enjoy the movie on its merits as a romp and a visual feast. For those somewhat more accepting of my foibles, forge ahead.

First, a couple of hard(ish) sciencey problems.

- The celestial body on which the action takes place is a moon of a gas giant, which we see several times in the sky. This would be a lot better if it weren't so clearly Jupiter, dyed blue.

- Every macroscopic life form (which they take care to show us with fabulous clarity) is six-limbed. Except for the conveniently humaniform blue cat-people. They're not monotremes in Australia. Evolution: they're doing it wrong.

- I... I really should talk about the floating mountains and what should have happened with the atmosphere there, but it was just so awesome to look at, I'm wussing out and saying that the phenomenon affected only certain types of solid stuff. (You may envision me with my fingers in my ears, going, "na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-BATMAN!")

And now, the social sciences!

- Archetypes. Many said archetypes with rich subtexts of privileged guilt. Noble savage, anyone? (links to Sociological Images' analysis) It would be like me coming to Korea, getting elected president, and single-handedly ending the North Korean missile threat, except that South Korea would be populated by the Huns.

- The language they make up. It... makes my brain hurt. I do love me a glottal stop, but there is no discernible reason the persons in question are incapable of producing a much richer phonetic set than Hollywood ever gives them. (Except for District 9. They win).

So, bottom line: see Avatar. It is worth seeing in 3D. Admire what technology has given us, and think longingly of the day when this particular visual extravagance will be par for the course. I'm going to go teach some classes and daydream about having my own alien pterodactyl-hang-glider thing.

PS - Bunny, bunny!

This week has not been a victory for my traveling ability in parts foreign. Not only did I manage to get on the wrong train to Seoul, but today I got lost in my own town. I went to the home store during my dinner hour and got a taxi back to the hagwon - or, well, I planned to.

I got the taxi, and figured I could give "City Hall" as the destination. There are businesses around it named phonetically "City Hall," so I figured I could get away with it. Yeah, so that didn't go too well. The driver was perfectly amenable to me making strange English noises and pointing as we approached intersections, which was lovely on his part, but a mistake in practice. The iterative nature of businesses in this town got the better of me, as I saw what I thought was my corner, but it turned out to be someone else's. Eventually, we ended up at the other iteration of the store I'd just left! It was a little like being trapped in a game world where you walk off one side and end up on the other. I figured out where we were, at last, but had no way of communicating it to the driver (I learned my lesson, I'm printing out the school's address, and will have it in my wallet from now on, as I do with my home address). Luckily, I was able to call J, the bilingual foreign teacher from Colorado, and he totally saved my bacon. He spoke to the driver - who was still totally cool with it all! - and between them, I ended up back at Avalon, not as totally late as I could have been. Dear readers, be better prepared when you go abroad. And now I will drown my humiliation in teaching beginners about the Caribbean. Nothing like pictures of Johnny Depp to knit the raveled sleeve of my wounded pride.

I got Seoul, but I'm not a soldier (C is!)

So today, I sojourned to Seoul. (And yes, I'm going to shoot for a record-breaking number of alliterations and terrible puns with that city's name for as long as I live here. You have been warned). It was a day full of adventure, culture, discovery, and erudite conversation.

I went up to visit with C, a friend from the U of C who is back in Korea to do his mandatory military service (in his case, as a spiffy interpreter of English for the air force). Poli Sci department, we are representing the family. I was shooting for a 2:00 pm arrival in Seoul, via KTX (high speed train), courtesy of my Christmas loot. Before I got ready, however, I got a call from my family, during which I was regaled with the full account of Christmas in Connecticut. It was lovely to hear from them, but it did put me about 37 minutes behind my intended schedule. Still, C was very chill about the whole thing, so I went off to the subway to Daejeon Station. The subway stop is on my way to work, no more than ten minutes' walk away, and I caught it going the right way very quickly. I even got off at the right stop and followed all the handy signs to the KTX terminal. Wanting to give myself a couple of minutes to grab a coffee bun and a latte, I bought a ticket for a train about ten minutes later. Coffee bun and latte in hand, I descended to my platform and sat about, waiting.

Now, my train was supposed to be at 13:48, on track 3, which shared a platform rightly enough with track 4. That platform is dedicated to Seoul trains (yes, I went there). There were announcements being made in Korean, and a train was there at 13:48 on track 4. I assumed, in my cowed foreigner way, the announcements were saying, "oh, and by the way, we put the KTX to Seoul on 4 instead of 3." I was wrong. That didn't stop me from getting on the wrong train. Even when confronted with a guy who looked very comfortable sitting in my seat. I found another - at the time - empty seat further down and thought nothing more of it than that it was more convenient for him to sit there with his friend because there were other available seats. Then the people actually sitting in the seat I was in came back from the dining car. They were very sorry that I had screwed up, and kept apologizing for having the right tickets. Eventually, after failing to explain there was a guy in the seat I thought I had, someone directed me to the conductor. She also apologized, as though it were somehow her fault that I had been such a KTX n00b. It turned out I had gotten on the slightly-not-so-fast train, which would still get me to Seoul, arriving at 15:31. The conductor even found me a seat a few cars away. C continued to be very cool about it all.

Whatever my own failings as a passenger, the train system in Korea, as in every place I've ridden trains outside the US, is impressively punctual and well-appointed. We pulled into Seoul Station at 15:31 as advertised, and after a couple of false starts having to do with the number of exits and where they were, C and I met up.

Having had more time than expected to think about it, I'd decided I wanted to see the historical sights. This was apparently the right choice, because my native guide ushered us through the subway system like a pro to Jongmyo, the royal ancestral shrine. On the way, C acquainted me with "the dark niches of Korean society." Also, we talked about work and fun stuff. C is also employed by a hagwon, though he gets to teach American history and... something else in English. It is good times, boys and girls.

So, Jongmyo! Once we figured out that indeed, we had to pay to get in, we got to walk around. I n00bed it up some more by walking on the archaic raised walkway, which turned out to be the spirit walk, so now I am going to be haunted. (I feel pretty okay about this, as all I would do in such a haunting is apologize for not being able to understand the spirit's spooky Korean). The buildings themselves are very impressive, stately and austere. They are very long, with rank on rank of wooden pillars, each holding up a perfectly symmetrical chunk of building (and symbolizing "the perpetuity of the royal lineage"). They front onto plazas, which make them all the more imposing. The Main Hall is designated National Treasure No. 227, and is where they hold "the most majestic court customs from Korea's last monarchy" (designated Intangible Cultural Property No. 56). Jongmyo occupies a whole set of two linked campuses, which are probably gorgeous in spring, but were a bit cold and drab in December. We moseyed around for a good enough while that I couldn't feel four of my fingers, and my toes had stopped speaking to me, claiming abuse.

Once we'd gone out of the first campus, over a pedestrian bridge spanning a highway, and into the other campus, a man came along to tell us they were closing (it was 5:30 in the afternoon). We tried to take the scenic route out, but it turned into a very scenic route indeed as we got yelled at when we went one way, and herded with the last few people in the place to retrace our steps, only to find a recently closed gate in our collective way. This was only an annoyance for C and me, but three of the people we'd run into had left their belongings in the lockers just inside the gate on the other side of the bridge, and were understandably concerned about retrieving them. They turned out to be visiting students from Indonesia, who spoke very nice English and with whom we chatted from campus 2 all the way back to the front entrance of campus 1, where everyone's belongings were successfully retrieved. We even exchanged email addresses so that if I should be in Busan, or she should be in Daejeon, my new friend L and I will get in touch.

After helping rescue errant backpacks, C and I went as fast as our frozen legs would carry us to a place with heat. We were hoping for the delicious and toasty bounty of Rotiboy, but alas, only Dunkin Donuts presented itself. Warm doughnuts and coffee, ho! C and I sat and chatted some more and made terribly geeky jokes (as is, I understand, the wont of U of C expats far from the alma materland). When the caffeine and the mocha-filled doughnuts ran dry, we braved the cold once more in search of more substantial food. We settled on soup and meat type things in a traditional Korean place, and after that, C was quite the gentleman, and took me all the way back to catch my 21:20 train back to Daejeon. Whew!

This time I got on the right train and everything, and then decided to treat myself to a taxi home, it being so unGodly cold. That was its own adventure, as I live on a tiny traffic capillary, seemingly unconnected to any useful vessels. The taxi driver was good-natured about it, and laughed when I apologized for the trouble I'd caused him. I was in the door between 22:30 and 23:00, and all was well. Happy Boxing Day!

Oh what fun it is to be in Daejeon for Christmas Day - hey!

Christmas in Korea! Not so hard to be on one's own in a foreign country for a major holiday when it's not a country that goes all crazy over the holiday like the US. The streets were full of people selling stuff while wearing Santa hats, but it seems much more like a big party, rather than a family holiday. It's much more a New Year's feel... which makes me wonder how wild New Year's will be.

So for Christmas, I got a cold. I will not be sending a thank-you note. I also got a big box of stuff from the Family Johnson, which was great, as a lot of it was for my apartment (now if you come visit, you will get a classy placemat, lovely napkin, and fancy napkin ring!). I did thank them, when they called. After that, it was a whirlwind of a day, what with all the present-opening, and jigsaw-puzzle-doing and cookie-eating. It's hard to be me, let me tell you.

In the spirit of experiencing a new culture, I purchased a "Christmas Cake" which all the bakeries and doughnut stores were selling. (Dunkin Donuts here is actually a relatively posh bakery as well as a relatively cheap doughnut/coffee stop. Maintaining the dichotomy must be exhausting). It turned out to be a sort of adapted tiramisu thing with more of a sour flavor than tiramisu usually calls for. Very tasty, either way, but another example of what P and I determined was Western culture in Korea: an idea of what the West should be like, rather than actual importation. It's a fascinating phenomenon.

The cake also, for reasons unknown, came with this... scarf-deer.

So it is the end of my Christmas. I put together my puzzle of my Chicago home (minus the lake, because that's a lot of blue pieces), watched Lord of the Rings on CGV (the channel for American movies), and cleaned my apartment. It is ever so much more presentable now. I'm still working on how to pull pictures off my phone,* but I should soon be able to post some lovely photos of the new and improved Chez Moi. I hope all of you in the states are having Christmas Eves both peachy and keen.

PS - Spaghetti and garlic bread as Christmas dinner for the win? Discuss.

*I was when I wrote this, but have since emerged technologically victorious.

Haggy Wonny Hagwon

For those playing the home game (hint: if you're reading this blog, you are!), a hagwon is a private, extracurricular school. There are about a bazillion of them in Daejeon alone, many (perhaps even most) for English. (Other hagwon types include math and science). To give you an idea of the hagwon density: my hagwon is in a building with two others run by the same company for different age groups, and four others run by different companies. This is all in one building. There are several more across the street. My hagwon is a franchise of Avalon English Language School. We have a regional headquarters (to which I got sent for training - a story for another time) and a corporate structure and all that good stuff.

My school employs both foreign and Korean teachers. All the foreign teachers are American except for one, G, who is Canadian. E and S are both from North Carolina, Q is from Los Angeles, and J is from Colorado, and actually teaches in Korean. They are all older than I am, having spent time doing other things, some of them in hagwons, before this job. They all live on the other side of the school from me, in an apartment complex with a lot of other foreigners, with whom they get together and do stuff. I imagine it is difficult to form very lasting relationships with people here unless they arrived with you, because either you or they are going to be leaving soon. (Perhaps that is just me justifying why we do not socialize much; after all, E and J arrived at the same time I did, and I see them no more frequently).

The Korean teachers are about twice as many as we are, which is good because they teach more than half of the classes. (Foreigners only teach speaking and writing classes. Grammar, reading and listening are all on the Koreans). We have a head teacher, HS, and a vice-director, IH. I don't know all the Korean teachers, but I do know K, M, and H by name. To a man, they are all very friendly, but communication is not a strong point of the environment. (The first day of the new semester, for example, nobody told me I was supposed to arrive at 1:30, not 3:00 in the afternoon. In fact, they did not even tell the TA who had picked me up that morning to take me to Immigration. Both of us were unpleasantly surprised when I received a text asking after my whereabouts).

Physically, the school occupies half of the sixth floor of a decent-sized 8-story building. We have something like 20 classrooms, most of them fairly small, and at least one that is big enough for forty or fifty kids (that many adults would really be pushing it, though). In addition, there's the nice entryway/waiting room, two teachers' offices, the guidance counselor's office, IH's office, the copy room and the break room. Everything is done in the Avalon colors: blue, white and gray.

Every day is broken up into two blocks: one starting at 5:30, the next at 8:15. Kids only come for one or the other. On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, each block has two classes, each 80 minutes long. On Tuesday and Thursday, the classes are three to a block, and 45 minutes long, plus a homeroom to make up the difference. (Yeah, nobody here's really sure why, either). As someone who is teaching speaking to reticent teenagers, I must tell you it is far easier to take more time to do a unit in the book than it is to cram a lot into a small time. With a lot of time, you can afford to wait for the kid you have called on to finally answer you. With a short class, so much time is spent explaining and coaxing, it would be a miracle to have them speak and finish a lesson.

Which brings us to the actual students! They are between 13 and 17 (though I don't teach any 17-year-olds myself). Those on the low end and those on the high end of the ability spectrum are great; they participate and ask questions, some of them even poke fun at my illustrations (I had to teach a class what "to scale" means, because one of them felt my stickman was too big for the mountain I had him skiing down). The middle classes are somewhat less fun, as they seem conditioned by the Avalon bell tune (a seriously elaborate jingle including two arpeggios and a descending scale with a little do-ti-do cadence at the end) to fall into a coma. If they were simply shy of speaking, I'd have more sympathy, but they just sit there with their mouths slightly ajar, some of them asleep. I've tried to take speaking out of it as much as I can and still consider myself a teacher; I just ask them to raise their hands to vote, and still, nothing! Please give me suggestions! (Preferably class-structural/activity/academic-based, as I am not supposed to give them candy).

So that's where I work.

In which the author is zapped into introspection by the +4 Cattle Prod of Culture Shock

Well, okay, so the culture difference has mostly manifested in ways that I find wryly amusing rather than shocking, but the reference was just lying there, like an adorable baby seal, gazing up mournfully as the desire to be used swam in its bottomless, metaphorical liquid eyes... Ahem. Right. Impressions.

I realize this is not a revelation for most of you, but hey, guys, I'm white. Growing up in the US, that means I'm like a lot of people, the majority, even. Same holds for the traveling I've done with my family to Western Europe and Australia. For those playing the home game, Korea is one of the most ethnically and culturally homogeneous countries in the world, and the genes that are homo, they are not white. Now, I'm used to being taller and bigger than lots of people, but I am absolutely not used to being constantly aware that my face is singing the, "one of these things is not like the others" song. Loudly. I don't mean to say that people have been cruel or even unkind to me based on my race, because they haven't. If anything, I feel interested in. It's not mean at all, but it is draining. For the first time in my life (and oh, what a lucky person I have been to be able to say this!), completely unrelated to weather or fashion, I was relieved to put on a hat.

The next thing that struck me, personally, (in a bit of a prideful place I admit), was the language. I've never traveled to a place with a language completely and totally divorced from my own, or which I had not studied before arriving. I think the lesson I've learned here is that immersion is super cool for cementing existing language knowledge, but it is like getting hit with a cement truck if you start from nothing. I can read Korean characters/letters, but that just means I can sound them out. I have no idea what I'm saying, unless it's on a menu and has a convenient little picture. I'd hoped what little I have learned to elucidate the structure more, but "verbs at the end" doesn't help as much as you'd think. Oh, I can order food and buy things as well as the next person (well, as well as the next ex-pat), but in any novel situation, I would be at the mercy of fate. I have never felt so isolated, so linguistically vulnerable. Needless to say, I am on the lookout for a Korean class.

That makes me think about my situation, and how there others fare in a similar one. I came to this country because I needed a job. I had other options, but this one fit the bill of both my needs and preferences. I could have, had I tried harder, become more familiar with the language before leaving (not terribly much, but a bit), and I have some resources that will, hopefully, lead to my learning it while here. I had and have choices, and I still feel incredibly ostracized. How much worse it must be, then, for people who have neither choices nor resources, who come to a country because they need to, and have no way of making it their own. Even in the social enclave of the other teachers at my school, I am always aware of the island of English on which I live, and its boundaries. Being linguistically dependent on such a small fraction of people is crippling. It influences where I can go, when I can go there, with whom... It's like having really strict parents (something I, of course, know nothing about). You know the other kids are out there, having fun, but you can't go. It's... kind of lonely, boys and girls. It's an argument for expanding your language horizons, for sure.

Still, my floating isle is a good place to be. Daejeon is a feast for the eyes, particularly at night (to the tune of so many signs that epileptics would be in real trouble), and oh my God the food! The city is exploding with food. P and I made a deal: no restaurant repeats for the two weeks he is here. Sticking to that is not even a challenge, dear readers. I could go two months before distance substantially affected my dining, and then it would be distance, not availability, that stumped me. There are bakeries all over the place, and they make coffee buns. For those not in the know (and I wasn't before I got here) coffee buns are the closest physical manifestation to Plato's ideal form of delicious. Come visit me, we'll go to Rotiboy and get a couple. For more savory dishes, close your eyes, spin around in the street and when you stop, simply walk forward, and you will find food. Fried things, grilled things, boiled things... all with the requisite kimchi side dish, many seafood-y, pretty much uniformly tasty (though a few stand out as particularly phenomenal). Also, I have had a revelation: spicy is good. Korea has this kind of sweet-spicy thing going on, which is worth exploring to its fullest extent. So come visit. My tasty Korean food, let me show you it.

Anyway, I have to go make some photocopies for my next class and swig some Coke so I can stay awake the whole time. Next chapter: The Hagwon (Language School).

Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story...*

Whew. Sorry this is going up so late, exciting things have indeed been happening, but not one of them was the excitement of my getting the Internet at home, so here I am at work, catching you lucky folks up. What follows is the account of just the travel involved in getting to the new Chez Moi in Daejeon.

At ridiculous o'clock in the morning on December 5th, 2009, P and I engaged the services of a taxi and hauled six bags plus our backpacks to O'Hare. We checked our junk with a whole hour to spare in which to lurk longingly outside shops in the concourse which weren't yet open. (Pro tip for traveler's through the United Terminal: La Brioche Doree is there to ease your weary, way-worn soul)!

Our first leg was on United from Chicago to L.A. United, friends and relations, can most diplomatically be described as aspiring to Korea's level of space utility and failing miserably. These are clearly believers in the idea that NASA's physical specs for shuttle passengers are perfect, and that since a 747 is so much smaller than a rocket, all airline passengers should likewise revise their measurements. I had never before had the occasion to feel freakishly long-femured, and I hope I never do again.

Once shoehorned out of our seats on the far side, we were treated to the exercise in frustration that is navigating LAX. LAX's international terminal's organization is all the reason you will ever need to stop believing in survival of the fittest, and start believing in the existence of a malevolent God. After all, the mentally fit do not bottleneck thousands of passengers by forcing them into a security line one abreast, which then, in the great tradition of every amusement park, snakes bowel-like through the belly of the incomplete, ugly, supremely inefficient and badly designed beast that is Terminal 5. (I could take this metaphor to the logical place regarding how you feel after you've been squeezed out the other end, but my mother is reading, so I will let you draw your own conclusions). The whole experience of the design coupled with the complete absence of any sense on the part of those directing the masses can only be explained as evidence that God wants us to be unhappy.

Let it not be said, friends and relations, that I do not appreciate what good I can find in a situation. On the inside of security at the international terminal is a See's candy store, with rank on rank of Toffee-ettes, and if that were the last of the frustration, I would put benevolent God back on the table of possibility. Alas, the tragedy is only in its middle act. From the Toffee-ettes, you must trickle through the dazed crowds exiting their security debacle to the row of gates in which an alarm whines perpetually, to the corner you will turn to discover the endless, endless hallway. There is no food on this hallway except hot dogs. You have been sent to the Special Hell.

So anyway, we escaped the Special Hell and caught our plane to Korea. We spent around 13 hours in the air racing the sun (we let it win), and at no point did I make closer acquaintance with my knees than I wanted to. Victory. Improving the trip was the very cute little girl sitting in front of us who was, miracle of miracles, extremely well behaved the whole way, and the tasty Korean food served somewhere over the Pacific. (Bibimbap, that's where it's at, people). We touched down in Korea at about 6:45 p.m. local time.

After collecting our many bags (we each got a trolley, and I learned an important lesson about inertia) we exited customs and were met by a very nice family working for the recruiter. They got us set up with bus tickets to Daejeon and gave us numbers to call and addresses to show to pertinent people to get us through. Once we seemed established enough to get in the bus rather than fall under it, they wished us well and took their 7-month old home. It was about 7:45, and we had tickets for the 8:15 bus, so P wandered off to get an airport phone (rental phones for visiting Korea, which has decided to be its own special cell phone snowflake) while I read and tried to look menacing and protective of our luggage.

Lo! Behold! We got on the right bus and three hours later, it delivered us to Government Center in Daejeon. As advertised, Mr. Lee met us and took us in an Avalon van to do a drive by sightseeing of the school, and then to my apartment. (For those who have never been to developed Asia, nothing I can say will truly convey the difference between Daejeon and anywhere I've ever been in the US. I'll give it my best shot in my impressions post, but this is really a blow-by-blow account of the trip, so I'm saving it). So sometime between 11:30 and midnight on Sunday, December 6th, I arrived home in Daejeon. And there was great rejoicing.

*First line from The Odyssey, for those not of a mind to Google.

So far, I can say "hello" and "chicken".

This blog is supposed to be for when I do something exciting, like go live in a foreign country for a year where I don't speak the language. And truly, I will be doing something exactly that exciting very shortly. I am, however, creating this blog in advent of my departure by about a month, because trying to figure out what to say in one's first blog post* is so much more fun than packing. Also because it is entirely likely that unless I get the Boulder of Guilt rolling now, I will never push it up the Hill of Other Things I Should Be Doing so its ominous, irregularly bouncing progress can loom over me and pressure me to fling up the road blocks of regular posts. (Pushing the metaphor too far? Never!) If I don't start now, I may never, and then you would be deprived of the fascinating adventure that is my early-20's life abroad. And that, dear reader, would be a tragedy the like of which the collective internet cannot fathom.

For those who have perhaps not spent three years under the hilarious iron fist of the Yavenditti Sarcasmship (or regular high school Latin), the title of this blog roughly goes "west(erner) seeking/finding the east", if you want to get all Latinate-roots-y about it. Of course, that's really pretentious, so we'll just call it a play on words that ambiguously describes my reason for writing as well as my obvious background as a huge nerd.

To be clear, I am an American who recently received an expensive piece of paper from a fancy institution of higher learning. Despite this, there remains a dearth of employment for people with the ability to make linguistic jokes and draw syntactical trees, and declaim the wonders of constructivism over realism. Oddly. So, in a moment of Great Youthful Optimism (sometimes translated as Stupidity), I decided to go abroad and take a job teaching English. Not in a country whose language I had studied, of course, because that would not constitute a great enough Challenge. (I have had this brilliant conception of Challenging Myself four times in the last so many years. Three out of the four times, my Challenged Self has then wanted to beat its younger, less challenged self with a self-help book. Come back in a year to see if I'm four for four). I am going to Daejeon, South Korea. You may look at the title of this post to judge for yourself what a good idea this is.

Depending on your definition of "soon," I am abiding by rule 4 below and saying that probably sometime around December 7th, I will bring you lucky people an update. Since, you know, I'll actually be in South Korea and doing exciting, moving-in things, rather than Hyde Park, staring morosely at my unpacked possessions, and willing myself only to use my bubble wrap for good.

Oh, ahem, "this is my blog!" I now consider my first post duties discharged.

*I have it on good authority** that this is the correct way to go about it:

1. "hi!"

2. "this is my blog!"

3. "this is why I am keeping it!"

4. "check back soon for more stuff!"

**The only friend of mine with a personal blog of which I am aware. (Meta-footnote! I'll try to be a little less "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" from now on).