photo love for the digital age

So, I should probably be updating you on Korea right now but instead I offer the following.

I've gotten pretty into this blog lately, BAGnews Notes, which focuses on noteworthy images being passed around in the media. As someone who once wanted to be a photojournalist and who spends unusual amounts of time thinking about modes of political (and visual) communication, its pretty much the best thing ever. But its worth a look anyway, if only to see how much goes on in the images in your daily newspaper. assuming you still actually get the newspaper... nevermind, anyway.

I found this post especially interesting. The idea of a visible remainder, a way to show all those not served by the status quo, or rather, what you see once this meaning is attributed to the photo, is highly interesting to me.

But its one am on a school night. so i shouldn't even be online now. *sigh* night all!

Thursday Update

So, I had my first official assessment as a working professional today. The district supervisor and my vice principal came to observe one of my level one classes today. I was nervous, but hoping that the presence of the higher ups would put my kids on their best behavior. Of course, I arrived to find the audio not working. My lesson was pretty media heavy, but Sung-In helped me improvise the listening sections and I stood in front of the class and just sang the "Bye bye Birdie" song we were going to listen to (today's lesson involved the telephone). Nevertheless, it went pretty well. Afterwards, I got praise and advice and coffee and snacks in the principals office. Not too shabby.


Anyways, heres the roundup:

Number of Days in Korea: 47
Number of Words of Korean in my actual vocabulary: 7 (hello, goodbye, thank you, pretty, hurry up, really? and where?)
Coffee Count for the day: 3.5
Level of homesickness: 2 out of 10
Plans for the weekend: Fulbright interview, then clubbing with Jee Hye (a teacher I work with)on friday, Korean Rock Festival on Saturday (from 9am to ???), Sunday will hopefully be a day for me to chill out at home and learn some Korean but I can't be too certain that that will be the case.
Random Korea fact of the day: Korea has the cleanest subway bathrooms I have ever seen. Literally. Its impressive.

Total score for life in Korea thus far: 9.8 out of 10.

This just in: american politics still able to piss me off.

Yet another reason why I should not be allowed to follow American news. as someone currently enjoying the benefits of national healthcare, I found this article especially depressing.


for those of you playing at home, allow me to summarize:

Congress: "Gee, specifying exactly how much coverage insurance
companies should provide is hard. if only there was a way that we
could ensure a minimum standard of coverage without actually writing
it in to law."

Republicans: "naw man its cool. just let people figure it out
themselves. insurance cos have their backs."

Dems: "no way, jose. but damn this is getting expensive"

ME: um, hey remember that thing you kicked to the curb? that thing
that could totally solve all of this? I believe it was called the
PUBLIC OPTION. anyone? anyone? ok nevermind. *sigh*

R-O-C-K in the R-O-K

1st official post from korea.

So I suppose apologies are in order. I've been meaning to write a little something to let you all know I'd arrived safely in Korea, but then I blinked and a whole month had gone by. So here is the roundup, one month in.

Landed in K-town without incident. SMOE (seoul met. office of education) staff gathered us and put our jet-lagged arses onto busses. At a university on the edges of seoul for a week of orientation, which quickly became orientation/quarantine thanks to the swine flu scare. A week of lockdown, with nowhere to go and no drinking allowed. Awesome. fortunately, we met some really fantastic people and spent the week making friends rather than weeping from boredom. Still, we were happy to be released into seoul proper.

I should mention at this point that I didn't know what school I would be teaching at until the night before we left orientation for our specific schools. I was overjoyed to be picked up by the nicest vice principal ever and a coteacher who had lived in canada and spoke perfect english. They didn't have an apartment set up for me quite yet, so I spent a few days at a hotel up in the mountains. not too shabby.

The next few days were spent meeting teachers, checking out the school, meeting up with SMOE friends, and wishing desperately for cell phone service. I'm getting a hang of the teaching thing now (altho with classes of 30-40 it will always be challenging) and my apartment is totally sweet.

The 9-5 world is still not my favorite, but it does have its merits. Having no responsibilities after 5pm has done wonders for my social life. I'm learning to read and write korean, slowly. hopefully speaking and understanding will follow. eventually. in the meantime, I rely on english-speaking co-workers and my ability to communicate via gesture.

This weekend is Chusak, the Korean thanksgiving, so we are off monday and friday. This is deeply exciting. Going with arianna and a bunch of our friends to an island off the west coast where we are allowed to camp on the beach. It'll be nice to see a little more of Korea.

Theres so much more to tell, but as usual I'm running late. I'm going to attempt to post occasionally on a blog rather than making facebook notes. I can't promise to update frequently, but if you ever want to check it out its http://anyidiotwithablog.blogspot.com/

also, I have a skype phone number. Its an new york number and it costs the same as a new york # to call. However, it calls my computer rather than a phone, so if I'm around I can talk to you. I would love to hear from you, whether by skype or by email. Just to know how you are, ect.
(347) 627-0964

anyways, love and miss you all.

anyang!
rachel

blogging live from s. korea quarantine 2009

So I've been in South Korea for a few days now, and the lock down on our campus has gotten increasingly serious. Medical checks are also becoming tighter, and rumors are starting to fly in place of any actual information. (okay, so I was kidding about the quarantine part, but in that way where its a little bit true. things do seem to be heading in that direction, but I would like to state for the record that we are not in actual quarantine-- so far as i can tell.)

In response to the encroaching cabin fever, most of us English teachers have reverted to middle school level games of yore. There is only so much to do on a closed campus with a strict no alcohol policy. All excursions to the outside world (trips to our schools, a city tour of seoul) have been canceled. This is going to be a very long week, I think. With an luck, though, on Saturday we will get to move to our apartments.

Still, its somewhat disquieting, knowing you are being held for observation.

And, in all the weirdness, its hard to find a way to express my sadness over Senator Ted Kennedy's passing. He was a good man who did a lot of good for his country and who got behind a lot of really groundbreaking legislation. We could use a lot more like him but we're not likely to see his equal for quite some time. If there is peace to be had in whatever follows life, I hope he finds some. It will be well deserved.