School Time

So the children like candy. They REALLY like candy.

A Smattering of Classes

Advanced Class:

Then:

They scream. Oh, those angsty middle school boys scream. Loud! They screamed so loud, in fact, that Eden, my not-so-friendly barely-speaks-English Korean teacher next door came and yelled at them to shut up. At least I think that's how the Korean translates.

They screamed some more. They all forgot their textbooks. And one in four remembered to do the homework. So I quizzed them. And then they cheated. I screamed. I banged my fists on the desk. Instantly straight! By God, I'll scream some more. One boy looks so distraught that he stays behind to clean the wipe board and gives me puppy-dog eyes.

Now:

Who wants to answer the question? Yawn. You'll get CANDY! "Oh, teacher! Teacher! Me! My hand was up first!"

Now they all do their homework. And they like Jon Teacher.

Genius Ivy:

These kids are smart. And dorky. They remind me of a middle school me. They giggle and pick on each other. Always answer the questions right. But, dang, that girl, the one who answers all the questions, the one who cuts the other students off, the one who says so and so did such and such wrong on the assignment--were we really that annoying?

These kids are "Classic Korea." I give them example sentences to help prepare for their presentation to "Explain Something." You know, try the construction, "In order for X to happen, Y must Z."

"Teacher! Teacher!"
"Yes?"
"How many of these examples should we use?"
"As many as you want."

Next day:

"In order for X to happen, Y must Z."
"In order for X to happen, Y must Z."
"In order for X to happen, Y must Z."
"In order for X to happen, Y must Z."
"In order for X to happen, Y must Z."
"In order for X to happen, Y must Z."

"Okay, okay. But can you tell me what Y means?"
"What?!??!?!? Teacher! No questions! You no fair!"

Advanced TOEFL Prep
(late middle, early high school)

MWF:

"How is everyone today?"
I look at kid with head on desk.
"Tired?"
Chirp, chirp.
"Sleepy?"
Chirp, chirp.
"Candy??????"
Chir, chirp...
"Yes. Tired. Too much work."
"Here's your candy."
He puts the candy in his mouth and places his head back on the desk while eating it.

TTh

Wow. These kids have great English.

"What do you like to do with your free time?"

Soccer, soccer, soccer, soccer.

"What about you, boy in the back row?"

"I like soccer, too. But I also LOVE fashion. Like this shirt!!!! And this bag! I love BAGS!"

OMG! I think I found my first gay Korean...


xoxoxoxoxo

First friends, first students

1) (a little belated)

En route to sanity, one of many first priorities: find (English speaking) friends quickly. En route to reality, one of many first realizations: this may take awhile. Temporary solution? First friends!

Last week Sam and I took a jaunt to the much discussed "Dragon Bar." Dragon Bar is the so-described home away from home for English teachers in the Nowon-Gu. In fact, it's pretty much our only (expatty) watering hole within a 20-minute subway ride. So in hopes of making our first friends in Seoul, the Dragon Bar seemed like a logical conclusion.

And now you're in our mindset.

Up the stairs and around the bend, Sam and I crawl into Dragon Bar. It's, much to our delight, a bar-bar, complete with a wooden(ish) bar and a few lounge-y tables. Korean bars, as we soon discover, function more like restaurants than inebriation stations. In a Korean bar, you have to order "bar food," which basically means ordering a full meal. If you just want a drink, it's either a "Western Bar" or your bedroom (or for many people, the street corner with open container).

So back to the point. We are THRILLED to be at a bar-bar. We are not as thrilled that this so-called "expat bar" is currently only full of Koreans and us. But this doesn't deter us: Two Cass's (a cheap Korean standard) please!

We chat at the edge of the bar, quietly and self-consciously in English. There are a few Korean women to our left and two young Korean men to our right. The juke box begins playing Green Day, and then suddenly, to my right, the smiling Korean man sings the perfectly unaccented lyrics to "Basket Case." This takes Sam and I a little off-guard, so we turn wide-eyed to gawk at our neighbor, the newfound rockstar of the bar.

After a few awkward smiles and pauses, he turns to introduce himself and offer Sam and I some of his Absolute. We quickly learn two things: Koreans LOVE to be good bar hosts (as in pouring a never-ending amount of alcohol into your glass), and his non-singing English vocabulary is composed of approximately 15 words.

Here's where it gets fun. Because of our unfortunate disability at communication, my friend, the rockstar, feels desperately compelled to let me know that he likes me. A lot. From here on out, please refer to me only as your "first friend." That's me. I am now and forever always going to be cosmically connected to this man whose name I don't know because he proclaimed, no less that three dozen times (this is not an exaggeration) "YOU ARE MY FIRST FRIEND."

Please be awed by the list of kick-backs first friends receive in Korea:

A) A LOT of affection. Physical and verbal splatter included.

B) Free half-bottles of Absolute Vodka.

C) Delicious fruit plates from behind the bar.

D) Free neck massages. And because no one can explain in the other's tongue what is going on, a lot of awkward hovering before the hands finally settle on the other's neck.

E) Leg massages.

F) And of course, the security of knowing that I became this man's first friend before Sam was ever in his picture. My first friend will always remind Sam (as he did) that I am better.

Before you become alarmed by this strange ritual of first friends, let me clarify: Korean mean, ALL Korean men, perhaps even straights more than gays, love to share physical intimacy. Groups of thuggish looking boys walk down the streets holding hands. Grown men curl into each other's arms when drunk. And little schoolboys frolic down the street arm-in-arm, inseparable and impenetrable to our Western expressions of homophobia.

To make a long story short, my dear, dear first friend continued drinking with me until he eventually fell over in his chair. A girl came over and chuckled, and in broken English, mimed that this was her ex-boyfriend from many years ago. When he began to vomi dirtectly onto the floor beside me, his real first friend took him away. I said my adieus as he vomited in the toilet stall, and he smiled sadly as I walked out the bathroom door.

End of story. Sorry for all the tense switching. I'm too exhausted to talk about my first students. That will come soon. Promise.

2) to be continued

Escape from the neon nights

At first glance, Seoul is the world of the hyper-modern. If I had described this city yesterday, I might have said "excessive." It's enormous. Twenty million plus in the metro area. That makes it the second largest metropolitan city in the world, in case you were wondering. When you go out to eat, you don't go out with a restaurant in mind. You pick an area, say two or three blocks, and then you choose from not one restaurant, but 50. You follow the trail of neon lights and the broken English, and finally, exhausted from choice, you sit down.

In Seoul, your vision may start at street level, but it quickly goes up. Up one, two, seven stories, because their is a restaurant/bar/store on every floor. And they're all busy. You at first try to take the stairs, and then realize your legs won't make it if you do this over and over again. In the end, you resign yourself to that simplest of luxuries, the elevator, and you let it take you wherever you want to go. The same applies to the sidewalk. Why stroll when the subway is clean and, dare I say cozy?

The lights are blinding, the options overwhelming, yet somehow this city presses on, buzzes with pride to the extra everything. People do smile in Seoul. And they laugh. And they pray.

Where you would expect to find a humble sanctuary, you find a neon cross. A man waits patiently on the escalator of the metro to give you a copy of "The Daily Bread" (in Hanguel and in English). There is a revival underneath a tent, right outside of Seoul Station. But there's more to Seoul than neon and Jesus, right where you'd expect to find it. Up, up, up.

Today Sam and I took a stroll. First to the Filipino flea market, which happens every Sunday. The Filipinos line the street chatting and jibing, and every bad bootleg DVD you could ever want waits for you next to scrumptious rice cakes and tropical rice. But that was just a stroll, a precursor to our big adventure, the hike to Inwangsan.

Inwangsan is a peak, 338 meters to be exact, and it towers over Seoul just like the 60 other peaks that make the city sort of resemble a cereal bowl. To get to the trail to Inwangsan, you go where you always go in Seoul, right onto the subway. You find yourself dropped off in a neighborhood, which is nearly every neighborhood in Seoul, busy and crammed with high-rises. You walk down a most discrete path, the first alley you see on your left (That is what the directions told us, and they worked just fine) right past corner stores and apartments, and you finally end up at a staircase that steeply climbs to an ugly dirt road that looks strangely out of place for a city as paved as Seoul. The dirt road shoots up the side of a hill, and voíla, you are now at the temple gates to a Buddhist village.

My last description could be wrong, it may be a Shamanist village. I know that many Koreans practice a blended form of the two, and perhaps any other number of religions/traditions. I do know that the entrance, and what's to follow is stunning. Absolutely stunning. Carved into the hillside is the antithesis to what lies below. You turn around, and the city lies before you, pricking at the smoggy sky. Turn around again, and you suddenly are afraid to utter anything for fear of disrupting the energy.

The homes of this village are small, and if I remember correctly, wooden. I could also be making up the following, but I swear there were wind chimes. And birds. And streams running. You crawl through the village unsure if this land is artificial or just so deeply removed from the land below. I walked with Sam, and we didn't have to say anything to choose our direction. We just went.

At the top of the village, you see stone trails that begin to ascend the mountain. Suddenly there are carvings of Buddha, statuettes, and burning incense everywhere. There is ritual, of course, and then there is the spiritual. A woman rocks on her knees in front of bowls of water and burning votives chanting to the breathtaking misshapen rock face in front of her. A man next to her rocks silently, following her command. At this point you are afraid to progress until you see that others dare to walk past. The others walk past and the woman continues chanting.

This scene is played out in a nook and cranny every 50 feet as you walk. Each time you feel like you should cry and begin rocking on your own knees. Every time you reach an opening, you look below to the city and lament the modern world. You climb and climb, not even nodding at those you pass, because perhaps that would be too much, too cruel to remove someone from their own private state. We continued up and up until the path narrowed from stone to grass and dirt, and we tucked our heads lower and lower under the trees. And then we found an exit, a different path. This one was paved with white lines and filled with hiking Koreans. And that was fine. We hiked to the top, saw all of Seoul, and eventually meandered down, following the white lines all the way to the bottom so as to leave the spiritual parts of the hill alone.

We came down and eventually found Insadong, a neighborhood that preserves a little more of the old Seoul and a little less of the skyscrapers. And just as I was feeling bad about not finding any vegetarian food, we wandered through a charming alley and in bright neon lights I saw "Vegetarian Restaurant." I'm feeling refreshed and excited, having learned a little more about the "heart" of "Seoul."

First night on the (international) town; back to base at midnight

So on our first Friday night in Seoul, Sam and I decided that Korean food is driving us bonkers (we like it, really, but it gets old kind of fast) and we'd like to go out for a night of Thai food and gay bars. Right in the heart of Seoul, flanked on either side by the U.S. military base and Hooker Hill lies the international enclave of Itaewon (ee-tay-won, sort of).

Itaewon is great for many reasons. First, in our neighborhood we probably only see a half dozen non-Korean folk on any given day. That's not a problem really, except we don't have any friends yet and no one really speaks any English where we live. Itaewon, on the other hand, is TRULY international. Not just American-Euro International, but African, Middle Eastern, non-Korean Asians, etc. There is a lot of flare in the neighborhood, it's crawling with English speakers, and you can get any piece of clothing custom made, tailored, or embroidered for reasonable prices. Second, because it's so international, the Koreans have allowed Itaewon to become the land of vices. You know, there are strip clubs and gay bars. Naturally Sam and I feel right at home. The only problem is that Itaewon is a 45 minute subway ride, and the subway stops running at midnight here. So you have to decide early whether the night is going to be worth a $20 taxi ride (which is actually quite cheap for the distance).

So Sam and I find a cute little Thai restaurant and I get to eat an entirely vegetarian meal that I got to pick from an ENGLISH menu. I've been working on the Korean alphabet, "Hanguel," but I've only just finished learning how to pronounce the letters. Basically, I still only know like five words of Korean.

After Thai, Sam and I decide it's time to enter the land of strange and go to a Korean gay bar. Our first choice, which we selected from a gay guidebook to Korea (they have one of those?) was a tiny wine bar tucked in behind a Reggae bar. Cute, friendly, and slow. So we enjoy our happy hour drinks, buy one get one free cocktails, and move on to the real center of gay life, "Homo Hill."

Homo Hill is really a little alley parallel to the main drag "Itaewonno." There are about 8 bars within a single block, so you definitely know you are in the right place. We walk up and down the alley a few times, debating which bar would be the best to meet friends, and settle into a small one right in the center of the street. It's a mostly expat crowd inside, a few Korean guys, and a ton of twenty-something lesbians in catholic schoolgirl outfits. We figure this is our ideal place, so we enjoy happy hour here (a little too much perhaps), and eventually throw ourselves at a group of friendly looking lesbians. Two of the three ignore us, but one adopts us and gives us the low down on being gay in Seoul. "Gays here, especially gay men, are evil. I've had gay men try to break me and my girlfriend up. Gays will tell lies to come between you two. Gays have AIDS here. If you trust each other, you will survive Seoul. If you don't, say goodbye to your relationship." That was basically me paraphrasing, but to be fair, she really did say all of that.

But what's more, and unbeknownst to us until this point, this is a MILITARY gay bar, as in everyone here is gay and in the U.S. military. Our new mentor explains to us that it's not uncommon for the patrons of this bar to quiz any newcomers at the door about their identities. We tell her that we are English teachers, and she tells us that if she didn't believe us, she would make us show our passports with the teaching visa stamped inside it. Suddenly this strange bar, where the prefer hair style is the buzz cut, suddenly makes sense. We now realize why all of these 50-60 plus patrons know each other and why they are going crazy on the dancefloor. Everyone is in the military, or, as we soon figure out, they have been axed by "Don't ask, don't tell." Lovely.

By the end of the night we are toasting with a male soldier who was celebrating his birthday and planning on getting married to the female soldier across the table. That's right. They are both gay. As the female soldier said to her fiancé, "Hey, consider yourself lucky. Who else would marry you and let you sleep with as many men as you wanted to?" Brilliant, yet bizarre. We finally found the only English teacher in the bar, a nice Canadian from Vancouver who was clearly the most well-adjusted person there. We took down her number, and she very well may be our first friend in Seoul. We'll see.

So the moral of the story is, if you don't think there are gay people in the military, you fly on over to Seoul and we'll show you a nice little spot where the boys and girls like to throw their shirts off and play doctor. More to come! We have a three day holiday Monday through Wednesday, and then we actually begin teaching! Woohoo!

Hello from Korea!

Hi dear friends back in the US of A and elsewhere. I have arrived safely in Seoul, and I'm becoming nice and cozy in my strange little apartment in Junggye-dong. It has a bunch of sliding doors, a shower sans curtain, and a washing machine with only Korean controls (fortunately the deputy principal of my school instructed me on how to operate it). Things are going quite smoothly here, even for a vegetarian!

How do I begin to describe this crazy world of neon crosses (yes, those are for churches)? Well, hardly anyone speaks English, and most of the menus have only Korean characters. Observe:

웹문서

I actually don't know what that means. I just copied and pasted it from Google's homepage. Every time I go to a Web site here, EVEN Google, these characters magically appear where I used to find English. I think 웹문서 might mean "search."

We're living on the third floor of a GINORMOUS apartment complex. I'll post pictures soon enough. My refrigerator smells like kimchi, the omnipresent Korean staple of spicy pickled cabbage.

People are exceedingly friendly here, even though no one can understand anything I say. Miming, my friends, is the new black.

I visited my school today, and the teachers and directors are all very kind. Apparently my Brown degree gives me serious street cred, and they believe that I can do anything. For real. I was talking with the deputy principal about what I will be doing at work, and she was explaining that we will be teaching and prepping for the TOEFL exam. She was like, "We'll train you, but I'm sure you know how to teach it better than me." This is a 30 something teacher with a master's degree FROM THE US. Here's to a crash course in TOEFL prep!

Anywho, jet lag is catching up to me, and I promised Sam a game of cribbage. So until my next post, I leave you with the Google Korea homepage.

iGoogle|로그인

웹문서

|

이미지

|

뉴스

|

블로그

|

그룹스

|

더보기 »

전체 웹한국어 웹고급검색|환경설정|언어도구

Gmail

토크

캘린더

노트

툴바

데스크톱

Picasa

채용정보|광고 프로그램|Google 정보|Google.com in English

©2007 Google

스팸없는 2.8GB 이메일

웹에서 즐기는 채팅과 전화

공유가 쉬운 웹 일정관리

언제 어디서나 웹 스크랩

브라우저에서 즐기는 구글

쉽고 빠른 내 컴퓨터 검색

편집과 공유가 쉬운 포토앨범

The sexy celebrity version of me!

Ahem, not that I'm into the CW or anything, but I found myself. Sort of. Really. Doesn't he sort of look like me back when I had better hair? Well, his name is Bret Harrison and he's the star of the new CW show "The Reaper." You can see his IMBD profile here. Sadly, I have to admit that our shared alikeness depends on the angle. But hey, maybe somebody will ask me for an autograph?

P.S. I'm leaving for Seoul on Sunday morning due to a slight scheduling problem with our flight. So until then, toodles!

The word on the street...

...is that I'm leaving on Friday. Call me or email if I owe you any money or if we have unfinished business. Otherwise, I'm outtie. Love you. Miss you. Wish you were here.

Last post until Seoul? I think so.

UPDATE:

We're now leaving on Saturday.

He's so dreamy...

For all of you pervs who have crushes on Zac Efron, might I suggest you follow this link...

In case you don't know him:


He was in that thing called High School Musical. Don't know much else, except that he's the current "it" boy for tweeny girls. Teeheehee.

Korea? Is that you I hear calling my name...

Wow. What a summer. Let's summarize.

Twenty-five interviews later, I have a job in Korea. Start date: Sept. 15th (ish)

Went down south to the motherland. Spent time with family. Little Lily Love is doing beautifully. She's got big bug eyes and a jumping fetish. Mom's got a gambling habit. Teresa's my new favorite sister. Dad's mom is dying. Dad's sad, and in his own words, "She was the only woman I ever loved."

Morgan and Mandy smoked the oblivion out of me. And their donkeys.

Sam came down to the mountains for Emily's big 21. We had a raucous time which included: a bad attempt at Salvia, a thunderstorm at a waterfall, and Emily puking at just the right moment, all over the sidewalk, next to the smokers who have been shoved outside by an unconscionable ban.

Dropped Mandy off in NYC to begin her new life of glam journalism. She can't afford New York, yet.
(Left my laptop in NY. I'll be back soon, baby.)

Almost gave up on life in Asia. Promptly got excited about life in Asia.

Reconciled with a dear friend.

Preparing to say goodbyes all over again.

Lesson learned: Never say goodbye prematurely.

I am in fact moving to the Junggye-dong area of Seoul. Which is next to the Nowon area of Seoul, which in my mind is like the Brooklyn of Seoul. What I've figured out: THERE IS NO BROOKLYN IN SEOUL.

I'm going to be teaching at a school that focuses on writing and speech. I've been told it's a specialized school, but then it occurred to me, when teaching English, when DON'T you focus on writing and speech? I guess in other jobs I would have been singing camp songs and having silly conversations all day, which sounded fine to me.

More to come. Promise.

Let's get this blog rolling...

I'm back! It's been a hell of a busy time here in Providence. I sleep til noon, drink til 2, and lose my credit cards daily. All of that is true. But the good news is that this lazy little f*ck just received TWO job offers to work in Korea (the south side, if you really must ask). Looks like sometime between August/mid-August I'll be flying to the land of high-rise apartments and working my ass off for the big bucks. In case you're wondering, I should be working in Seoul, and more specifically, the "Brooklyn" (hell, maybe the "Queens") of Seoul. Right now the best job offer is in a neighborhood called Sanggye-dong in Nowon-gu in Seoul. Let me break that down for you. Seoul is divided into "gus" and "dongs." A "gu" is kind of like Brooklyn or Manhattan. A "dong" is like Chelsea or Astoria. Make sense? Well, think that over real hard and then look it up on wikipedia if you need to. Anywho, the two pictures I have posted are of my potential neighborhood. And just so you know, this blog is back for good.

Announcement

I have just spent the past month graduating, hence the hiatus from posting. Now that I am officially rested and free from academia (for at least a year), I promise a brand new blogger ethic, one might say a certain joie de blogging. In the days ahead, expect a serious layout overhaul and fancy new features to boot. Until then, one might go here to see what I've been up to. Peace and love. Jonc.

I'm done

That's right. I'm done.

MUST SEE

When this comes to a theater near me, or when it goes straight to DVD, I'm throwing a BIG OLD drag queen party. Seriously. You have to see this. RuPaul is back. S-T-A-Double R-BOOTY!

If YouTube had existed...

...when I was 16, would this be my video? Thank GOD technology really picked up after puberty.

WARNING: Don't watch this video on speed. You may pass out.

My belated tribute to Jerry Falwell

Jerry, Jerry, quite contrary,
said the gays should never marry,
Stole the ministry of Tammy Faye,
and assured the sinners they would pay.

So here's a toast from all your faggots,
may your skin get 'ate by maggots,
your fatty stomach will fill with gas,
and finally your soul will pass,

To hell you go, my bigot friend,
all bad people come to an end.



May the world remember you only by this picture. Amen.

Mimes! At Brown!

Stumbled onto this little video. Thought you Brown kids might get a kick out of it. It's a troop of mimes invading the Absolute Quiet Room. Tehehe.

Our Priorities

I just read this fascinating little piece about how much the war in Iraq costs. In case anyone was wondering, we're quickly approaching $456 billion. Seem like a lot of money? Well, the Boston Globe breaks it down for us:

According to World Bank estimates, $54 billion a year would eliminate starvation and malnutrition globally by 2015, while $30 billion would provide a year of primary education for every child on earth.

At the upper range of those estimates, the $456 billion cost of the war could have fed and educated the world's poor for five and a half years.

Check out the rest of this shocking slideshow.

Blog Stalking/DON'T READ IF EASILY DISGUSTED

********DON'T READ IF BODILY FUNCTIONS GROSS YOU OUT********

So, my new favorite habit (as opposed to writing papers that are already past due) is blog stalking or "stogging." Tehehe. I love portmanteaux. Anywho, so while reading my good friend SheWasNiceToMice's blog, I looked down her sidebar and clicked on a random friend. I read the most recent blog posting of said friend's blog, and decided it might be informative to read the oldest posting of said friend. This is what I did, and THIS is what I came across. I guess I have to give this blogger credit for a colorful posting!

I've been stricken for the last 5 days with a stomach virus that I contracted from my friend Dede (pronounced Day-Day). I call it Dederrhea. And if you'd like to know more about it, read the rest of this paragraph; otherwise, I suggest you seek the shelter of a more prudish blog. It's basically made me pee out of my butt... only less like peeing and more like a giant tsunami--large enough to destroy Asia five times over. Sometimes I've had to flush in the middle of Dederrhea attack. That's how bad it is. Gross, huh? Well, it's almost over, I hope. Although the last time I thought it was almost over, it just got worse. Whether or not it's over, I've somehow now been given the World's Worst Sinus Cold. I've never produced so much mucus. It's like all the Dederrhea I was pooping out has reversed gravity and turned into snot. My body's a wonderland.

Pretty good, no? I could imagine the scene perfectly. I should invite this guy to my writing workshop.

Cutest Thing on Earth

Speaking of how much I love crazy Europe, I just had to post this video. I have, no doubt, forced most of you to watch this video before. Well watch it again.

The song is called "Twee Vaders" and is dutch for "Two Fathers." I'll let you figure out what it's about.

This video make me want to cry/squeal/sing. Am I crazy for having a bit of a teeny-bopper crush on this boy? Oh dear. When he grows up he's going to woo all the ladies/men. He makes my heart flutter. Here it is.

Tehehehehe. I love Europe.

I'm not going to say much about this except that:
A) This is sort of like a Europe-wide American Idol, but a little different.

AND

B) The word on the internets is that this guy is going to win.

Enjoy.

The Republicans are Imploding. For Real.

Just check out our fellow blogger, Erick, at redstate.com:

The House Republican Leadership just does not get it and they will not take us seriously until we flex our muscle against them. We must fight the House GOP and we must fight today.

Today, I declare war on the Republican Leadership of the United States House of Representatives. We must scalp one member. That member's name is Ken Calvert.

That's right kiddies. Them's fightin' words, and straight out of the mouth of a Republican! Why has the Republican Civil War erupted? Surprise. It's not because of Bush.

Well, a little back story. See, one Republican dirt bag by the name of Rep. John Doolittle of Cal-i-forn-i-a had to leave his spot on the House Appropriations Committee because his house got raided by the FBI. Yep. That's right. So what do the Republicans do? THEY PUT ANOTHER SCUMBAG WITH BAD ETHICS IN HIS SPOT. Ahahahahahahahahahaha! It's kind of like Christmas, no?

As I realize I have been up all night...

...I'm pondering the possibility of what will happen if I don't finish this DAMN research paper. Do I have enough credits to graduate if I fail? Sheesh. It's hard to be this close... somebody serve me a glass of "whine." Thanks.

Do you want to play "Navy Seal?"

These are the words I heard two 8ish-year-old boys utter on my way home from work. Now, I tried to imagine what this game might consist of. The first thing that sprang to my head, was that these kids were going to go grab their daddies' guns and start swinging them around like crazy. I figured that was a little extreme. So then I imagined that they each had a wet suit hanging in his respective closet. I really hoped I might come back down the street seeing the boys in full gear including snorkel and goggles. Then it occurred to me, what if these boys are referring to actual SEALS? LIKE THE ANIMALS? When they said "Navy seal," maybe they meant they were going to pretend to be one of the U.S. military's Marine Mammals used to fight terrorism! Such patriotic little boys.

P.S. I'm not going to Hong Kong. It looks like it might be Shanghai, Japan, or Korea. Wish me luck!

Who's got the cash?

In earlier posts, moplumsy and I have discussed the possibility of buying one's own micronation. Now if you don't have the billion to buy Sealand, why not consider Sibley? Sure, it's not your own country, but a town ain't so bad. Plus, this one will only cost you between 300 and 500 grand.

We are a weird generation...

The NY Times recently did a little poll of some hot-button issues and displayed the results by different age groups. Well, for the 18-29 age range, the results are really frickin' weird. The findings? Let's compare them to our 65 and over counterparts. We support gay marriage and immigration rights by larger margins than the old folks, yet we also support the war in Iraq and abortion RESTRICTIONS more than the old fogies. Hmmmm...

Click HERE for the graphic.

Austin Powers is Back!

Details here...

http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?category=3&id=41417

Interactive Post

So I don't know if anyone other than Morgan and Sam are reading this, therefore I am going to test you. Please answer the following by leaving the appropriate word as a comment:

Ann Coulter makes me feel _________.

An Ending for Lost!

I don't know whether to be excited or exasperated. ABC has announced that Lost will be airing for THREE more years. On one hand, that means three more years of semi-enjoyable but mostly frustrating viewing. On the other hand, that means I have to wait THREE years to figure out what kind of crack those crazy writers were smoking when they made this show. Sigh.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/TV/05/07/television.lost.reut/index.html

Claymation Homo Love

Once upon a time I was reading Shakespeare's brilliant play Troilus and Cressida. It's a bit of an obscure play, but it basically retells the story of the Illiad with a Shakespearean twist. For those of you unfamiliar with the Illiad, it's basically the story of how Achilles goes bonkers when his male lover, Patroclus, is slain. It's actually quite sweet in that super masculine kind of way. The point of this post? Youtube is without a doubt the strangest thing on Earth...

I've got famous friends...

So for all of you who like a little bit of old-time meets honky tonk, let me introduce you to:

THE SWEETBACK SISTERS

Now I'm going to share their music in just a second. But let me tell you: This little band just finished 2nd place out of 700 bands in a talent show. Okay, but guess which one? The PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION talent show, as in the radio show hosted by Garrison Keillor on NPR with an average weekly listenership of 4 million people!!! Snap, snap!

Now for fun trivia, Emily Miller, left, attended Brown. She also lived with me (or rather I squatted at her apartment, which she happened to be sharing with her good friend and my soon to be free-rent giving boyfriend Sam). And she taught me all I know about playing the fiddle (which is unfortunately not that much because I don't have a teacher anymore). AND she grew up spending several weeks every summer at the Augusta workshops in my tiny hometown of Elkins. Strangely enough for a town of 7,000 people, I didn't meet her until after I moved to Providence. AND STILL MORE, after I meet Emily, she totally went back to Elkins to find a super-duper, guitar-picking, fiddle-cracking, harmony-yowling man, Jesse Milnes, right. To make matters even more fun, Jesse grew up about a block and a half away from my home. I probably splashed around in the creek (read "crick") with that boy.

I know you are bored, it's just that the world is so small, kind of makes me think you are all robots, and I'm in the Truman Show or something (God, I'm old and lame to reference that one). SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO... without further adieu, I invite you to click on the following links to discover just about the freshest band I've heard in a decade: The Sweetback Sisters.

First click below to hear their music:
http://www.myspace.com/thesweetbacksisters

Click here for their blog:
http://www.thesweetbacksisters.com

And then click on the video to watch Garrison Keillor at get creepy yet wonderful with the band:

If Mandy and I morphed into a single person...

I think we would be Janet from this fabulous little story by Richard Russo. Please, read this.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200608/richard-russo

They don't call gay people "queens" for nothing!

If you are fed up with your country start a new one! Why haven't we thought of this guys? Below I'm going to link to two very informative pages. The first, an excellent wikipedean study of the phenomenon known as the "micronation." The second is the "micronation" that I heart the most. I think these people are on to something.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealand
http://www.gayandlesbiankingdom.com/index.htm

Before we were bloggers

Jonc
http://www.angelfire.com/wv/johncspageoffun/

Moplumsy
http://www.angelfire.com/amiga/moplumsy/

Oh dear...

UPDATE:
My marvelous find of Morgan's old Web page has led her to delete it. Sigh.

Two Interviews/Three Papers to Go

To the world (aka the five people who might possibly read this),

I'm nearing the end of school which feels simultaneously like exquisite orgasm and death by water torture. Sigh. So what do I do? I start a blog! Soon I will say goodbye to Brown University and hello to Hong Kong (fingers crossed). So with much luck, this blog will become the repository for cultural mishaps and hilarious drunken posts. Here's to not drinking the water!

Jonc (That's my blogger name bitchez. Pronounced sort of like "junk" except really like "jawnk." Get it right or pay the price.)