Remember, Remember, the Fifth of November...

Happy Guy Fawkes Night Day...or something like that,

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, t'was his intent
To blow up the King and Parli'ment.
Three-score barrels of powder below
To prove old England's overthrow;
By God's providence he was catch'd
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, let the bells ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!

This strikes me as a strange holiday...Let's celebrate the corporal punishment of a King James hating tyrant by burning wooden sculptures of him and setting off fireworks. Maybe this is where Burning Man came from? And why is it not called Happy King James Survived! day or Huzzah, Guy Fawkes is Dead! day.

I think that we, as United States of Americans, should start celebrating the day they found Saddam Hussein hiding in his little hiding hole. What should we call it...Happy International Terrorist Day? We can build statues of Saddam and topple them to the ground. Then, we can all read up on the Patriot Act and Homeland Security tactics and other Bush era shenanigans.

I guess we do have Colombus Day...although it is offensive on a whole other level

However obscure this holiday seems to me, there are many who revel in its fun (personally, I only know of Yeoju's own Scottish lass, Fiona, who has adopted a few pyrotechnic loving Americans, Canadians and Koreans). I will be amongst them this evening, as we shoot off fireworks underneath the Yeoju bridge. There are cars that drive on that bridge--also seems inappropriate...but a Korean is the one insisting we do this...and we trust him.

Feeling Swiney?

Feeling swiney? They asked.
I could only assume, for they spoke in a foreign tongue
From the Far East

Then
They handed me a blue mask.
To fight the international killer.
H1N1

I put it on
Reluctantly
My face began to sweat
I put a circle, with two smaller circles inside it on the front of the mask
Like a certain animal

Now those circles are the rage in the office.
The principal likes it the best.

It smells like a dentist's office.
And I don't have afternoon classes.
Assah.

I think I'm asphysxiating.
Either from lack of oxygen
Or permanent marker fumes.

Mr. Sharpie knows how to fuck a person up.
Maybe Mr. Swine should take some pointers.

Love, and Falling Into It.

I have found him. You won't believe it. He really exists! I can't believe it either. I was on the verge of giving up. Maybe dabbling in Monk life, or a nunnery. His name is Joe Pug, and he's a 23 year old singer-songwriter from Chicago.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvo1F9ZPLIk

It was love at first aural stimulation, and it grew from there. After reading about him...oh man, I may never find someone who can match his allure. He went to school to become a playwright...and, a week before graduating, realized he was unhappy--he preferred the brevity of poetry and songwriting to the intricacy of writing plays. Because of this training he has lyrics that, even though they are often self reflective, relate to us, the listener. The poet that has influenced him the most is...Rimbaud! (Whom I wrote about briefly in my last entry).

His voice is like a more well trained Dylan--one with better intonation yet still has that air of something independent and meaningful. He is incredibly young, so I can't wait to see what he brings to the dwindling music scene (I also can't wait to see how beautiful our babies are! haha, just kidding, a little).

Here's his MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/thejoepug
There are about five songs that you can easily stream, and fall in love with him too.

Rimbaud Musings

I had a great weekend of music watching til the wee hours of the morn followed by lounging around in the Sunday sun while my buddies played their Ultimate Frisbee league games. It turns out that it was a fabulous idea for me NOT to join the league--much too competitive for me. While whiling away in the shade of a tree, I read some poems by Rimbaud. My friend Billy had lent me the collection, and I discovered some great poetry. He has a Bob Dylan-esque voice (writes a lot about women, structures and pseudo-social themes) and he employs a rhyme scheme I haven't seen in quite a while. It is most similar to the Petrarchan (or Italian) sonnet. I chose to use his abba cddc eef ggf pattern to craft a poem of my own:

Untitled, 20 september 2009

Always going, never stopping to see,
The tiny mushrooms growing off the ground,
Pushing through debris without a sound,
Without any cares, undoubtedly free.

Let's pause, let's practice watching for a moment--
With an absence of speculation
abandon our idle conversation.
We'll see with all the senses, lacking comment.

Every day is getting shorter.
As we approach our lives' first quarter
There are many things we need to learn

About the sowing and the knowing,
The slow freeing and the fast flowing,
Of something as simple as a growing fern.

Assah! Yong-o mal issoyo!!

(Hooray! I have English language!) I fiiinnaallllly figured out how to change the language of my blog from Korean to English. I hope this helps the four of you that read it :). Maybe now you can become followers? or leave comments even. That would be super duper cool. If not, that's okay too, I still love you.

She Was a Friend of Mine

I have been working, slowly, on a piece about swine flu-mania in Korea. Unfortunately, and very very sadly, our family's crazy yet lovable pup, Gypsy, died very unexpectedly on Monday. She was a great dog, from the uncontrollable wag of her tail to her sneaky face licks to her inability to stop playing fetch--sometimes bringing her dangerously close to heat stroke.

I remember when we first got her...My mom and brother brought her home from a breeder in Shakopee, and she was soooo cute. She was extremely calm and had a huge pot belly. Only later did we realize that both her placid character and rotund waste were caused by some digestion problems. We woke up the next morning to a nice pile of partially digested puppy puke, a much more lively pup, and one that was noticeably slimmer.

Gypsy joined our family in the spring of 2003...when we were all grieving over the loss of Evan and Jackie. One week after their accident, our aging dog, Toby (also an upstanding canine companion), had to be put down. His health had been declining quickly; and, I believe, the stress, sense of loss and chaos surrounding Evan's death was too much for the little guy. I was going to be leaving for school soon, my parents weren't on the best of terms (and hadn't been for a while), and it was soon apparent that my little brother was going to be more or less an only child...(this is at least my take on it, memories do change and mold through time and experience). I think she was also seen as a potential hunting dog. Gypsy? a hunting dog?!? Extremely laughable!

She was born on Valentine's Day, 2003, and we got her some weeks later. Truthfully, I don't remember much from this period in my life...grief, antidepressants and reefer have a way of making one not remember (I think this is worse than forgetting...not remembering...). I remember that she was cute...super cute. That's about it though, kind of sad, really.

The only other time I lived at home in the last six years was the summer between my freshmen and sophomore years of college. I was still pretty messed up then, but doing much better. I was dating a boy named Paulie, and we would bring Gypsy to Excelsior to play in the commons near the lake. She was still a little afraid of the water but would walk in until the it hit her chest. Passerby in the park would make remarks about how beautiful she was. And she really was... She was lean and jet black, with one of the shiniest coats I have ever seen.

I don't mean to be all woebegone and retrospective, but if there's one thing I know fairly well, it's grief. And in grieving, we must relive and celebrate...or it will pop up later at the most inconvenient of times...Grief doesn't disappear--it dissipates and gets less with time, unless you shove it away in some hidden, proud place. I will not be proud about this. I will cry and the Koreans will think I am a shameful person but I don't fucking care. Yesterday, I was told that I am "ugly" when I am sad. I have been laughed at several times for expressing grief over a dog. I guess I shouldn't expect much more in a place where dogs are a delicacy. I guess I shouldn't be surprised in a place where pets are a new luxury and viewed as accessories rather than friends. But it still sucks, and some of these people don't help at all. Some people are sympathetic, but I find it hard to face those who are critical. They don't understand that this grief goes further than the dog...it goes to grieving for my mom and brother--her real companions.

Gypsy accompanied my mom to the farm and, even in her craziness (Gypsy's :) ), kept my mom company while her children were hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away from her. How could I, or my brothers, or my mom, ever rely on a person to do that? We couldn't, but we had a great lovable big hearted pup to be there when she was needed. And when she wasn't, she would generally sit quietly in her kennel, or maybe whine in the front yard...oh man...I'm gonna miss her.

I'm going to miss her snotty nose marks on the court yard windows; and the way she would wedge a ball between your leg and the chair, begging for you to play fetch. I'm going to miss her sneaking face licks while we tied our shoes, and her perfect sad puppy dog eyes when she wanted to be let out of her kennel. I'm going to miss going on runs with her when she'd criss cross all around me, making my run more of an acrobatic performance than an aerobic one. I'm going to miss Nola yelling "Jippy!". I'm going to miss seeing her get old and finally settling down. I'm just going to miss Gypsy Rose.

It is eerily fitting that she was born on Valentine's day, lived with so much unconditional love and excitement, and died because her heart was too big.

You will be missed Gypsy Rose...and if there is a doggy heaven or doggy reincarnation or something, I bet you're with the best of 'em.

This blog is for my Mother Dearest, "Gypsy was a pain in the ass, but at least she was my pain in the ass..." I secretly hope some poor pooch shows up on your stoop one day (I guess it's not so secret anymore).

It's the End of the World as We Know it...And I Feeel finnneeee....

Oh R.E.M...so eloquent, and so fitting for this blog entry. Today, as I Googled "How the World Eats" (my students are learning about the world's utensils--or lack thereof), the little pop down menu thing (I don't know what it's called) highlighted "how the world will end." I was intrigued. I clicked. I read. I ingested a plethora of apocolyptic information--most of which I have read before, just never in one sitting.

First, we have a couple of nihilistic scientists...bent on proving the futility of all of our present day actions...citing the fact that we are mere blips in the life of the earth. They reduce the the 12 billion year lifespan of Earth (from big bang, I think, to the explosion of the sun in the next 8 billion years) to a 12 hour time frame, with the end of planet earth coming at 12 noon. We are now at 4:30 a.m., but, at 5:00 am (a mere 500 million years away!) plants and animals will cease to exist. They say,

The end won't come suddenly.

Some critters will retreat into the sea

in an effort to escape the rising heat,

thus reversing the evolutionary process

as we move back towards green slime,

or wherever we came from.

It's all down hill from there--the oceans will evaporate, the sun will explode and then turn into a dwarf...leaving Earth as a floating rock...maybe it will become a meteor or something?

Comments at the end of the article urge that the only thing that will destroy the earth is the coming of God, and that if we know that then we are always ready or some bs. One reader says something along the lines of, "Read the Bible, it says so in right in there. So it gots to be true."

Others say humans will destroy the earth through over-consumption and atomic wars. To this I say--Humans will not and cannot destroy Earth...they can decimate humanity and the present plants and animals, but the planet will still be here after we are gone. As for acts of God, who knows?

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=97756&page=1


Next Up, the ancient Mayan calendar ending in 2012. There are many online articles on this...probably many of these are created by whackos; but they are very interesting nonetheless. According to one site, the Mayans said that there were 7 ages of man. The fourth ended in August of 1987, and led to the start of the fifth, which we are in now. In this age, we are to realize our spiritual destinies. This will end in December of 2012. The sixth age will reveal to humans that we are gods in and of ourselves. The seventh will reveal our telepathic abilities. I could not find other dates or what the first four ages were meant to accomplish.

Some argue that it will not be then end of the world in 2012, just---ahem--the end of the world as we know it. There are predictions of mighty sunspots reversing the poles, causing flooding, earthquakes and confused endocrine producing pineal glands. At this time the winter solstice sun will occur at the same time that the path of the sun crosses the galactic equator (the equator of the Milky Way?)--known as the Sacred Tree to the Mayans. It will happen on Dec. 21st, 2012, at exactly 11:11 GMT...duhn duhn duuuuhhhhnnnnnn

There is much more on this...read it if you want.

http://www.greatdreams.com/2012.htm

http://abcnews.go.com/international/Story?id=5301284&page=1

Similarly, There is the Aztec predictions of the end of the world. Pretty cool fantasy book stuff. Their calendar also predicts an end of civilization in December of 2012:

The Aztecs had an extremely complex calendar system based on the stars. They used this calendar not only to create holy days and times, but also to determine the course of human life on earth. The Aztecs believed in the Legend of the Five Suns, the times of which coincide with periods in their history. Each sun is a period of time wherein there is peace and life. Once a sun dies, however, the world is absorbed in chaos as the gods destroy the world and renew it. There are only five suns, and we are presently on the fifth. The first sun was the Sun of Precious Stones, destroyed by Tezcatlipoca in its entirety with jaguars. The second sun was the Sun of Darkness, where life was destroyed by a large hurricane sent by Quetzalcoatl. The third sun was the Sun of Fire. Life was destroyed by a rain of fire created by Tezcatlipoca. The fourth sun was the Sun of Water, destroyed by a large flood of Tlaloc. The final sun that now exists is the Sun of Movement, Tonatiuh the Rising Eagle, destined to end in 52 years by a large earthquake that will tear the earth apart. http://library.thinkquest.org/03oct/00875/text/AztecA.htm

Lastly, at least for this blog entry, are the Ten Ways the World Will End from discovery.com. If we happen to survive past 2012, and the world is destined to end within the next 8 billion years, it very well could be one of these catastrophes that come from above. I'm counting on getting sucked into a black hole. I think that's the most badass way to go out of them all...

That is it for my day of apocolypses. I hope the entry doesn't seem to morbid or fatalistic. As an environmental studies major I was constantly learning about the ends of civilizations, the slow decline in everything we need to survive and other uplifting topics, so this stuff is pretty interesting to me! It's entertaining to see what other people do with there time if nothing else.

Happy days from Korea.