Adventures in the Colonial 'burg: October 2009

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

AFN

I decided to turn on the TV in my room last night, and found AFN. All of you non-military brats may not know that this is the Armed Forces Network, and when I lived in Germany, this was the only English station that existed (as a sidenote, now here there is also BBC and CNN), and more specifically the only station to get American shows. So I watched it for a while. I forgot how much it sucked to be forced to watch whatever they had on (and last night it was the Jay Leno Show and then the Tonight Show, at 9pm and 10pm, and seriously, I am not a fan of late-night talk shows, they just are not funny).

But what really made me laugh were the commericals. There are no commercials for products, they are merely commericals on how to make your life better while you are stationed here in Korea. The sad thing is that it is so low budget, it is like watching television in the 70's. Well, for me, it just reminded me of the 80's, and I remember seeing commercials on how to drive on the German roads (the main issue was the fact that when the light is still red but about to turn green, the yellow light turns on while the light is still read, implying that soon it'll be green and you must prepare to go...Americans really had to be taught this, as if they couldn't figure it out from driving around for a bit).

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Fresh air

I was listening to Fresh Air on my iPod on my way into the dept today, and realized something. What is it about NPR that makes not just the hosts but the guests speak in that soft, put-you-to-sleep voice? Jason Segal was on, and he was talking in such a soothing voice I almost nodded off while walking up the endless hill on my way in, thereby falling into the street and being hit by a Hyundai model city bus. What a way to go that would be...

Monday, October 19, 2009

1 down...

I just finished the first of the five lectures today. It went very well, with minimal interruption, even though it was insisted that I only do one hour today because I am supposedly "very tired" from my trip. I'm not tired. I would like to make sure that there is not a repeat of last year, where on Friday we had a five-hour lecture (with a quick break for dinner) to make sure we covered everything. But that's not as big a deal.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Up at 4am

I just got into Seoul last night, making it to my hotel by 8pm or so. The travel time was around 26 hours if you include getting to the airport in Richmond and getting to my hotel last night, so it was exhausting. Nevermind the fact that I lost a day, leaving Virginia at 7am Saturday and all of a sudden it's Sunday night.

But I stayed up for a couple of hours, and went to sleep at 10, hoping that I could sleep a ton until my alarm went off at 8. No such luck. I was awake at 4. I read for a while before finally giving up and just getting up. I seem to recall this happening last year as well, so I'll just get used to it. I know I'll be fine for my lecture today since it is (most likely) in the morning, and I'll definitely make it through the day.

The cab ride from the airport though is what I want to discuss. I felt like I was in a video game. The driver had a GPS in the car, so it was graphically displaying where we were. It also measured (or displayed after getting it from the car) the speed we were traveling. This is all well and good, but it kept making blinging noises, and at one point, I saw we were accelerating. Once the car hit 100 km/h, the GPS went crazy and I felt like we just got a bonus and have moved up a level. It was rather distracting and the entire hour-long ride, I was fixated on it.

Incidentally I am not sure why the driver had the GPS. He didn't use it to find the hotel, he had a crumpled piece of paper that had directions on it. At least I assume that was the case because a) the GPS never indicated where he was supposed to go and b) every ten minutes he'd turn on the inside light and look at this piece of paper.

Two more hours until breakfast.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Close call

As I was driving in this morning, a student nearly hit my car. The whole thing happened really fast, and yet in slow motion. It was both terrifying and yet not at all, considering the speeds involved were around 10 mph. I was pulling into campus, on a one-way road with angled parking and she started backing out. And she kept backing out, as I went by and by the time I noticed that she was even coming out, I couldn't stop or she would have hit me. So I laid on my horn and the gas. Given my little Hyundai, the gas did little more than add a couple of miles per hour, but it was enough. That combined with her finally noticing and braking (with rather slow reflexes I might add) was sufficient to prevent the accident.

Of course, if only she had hit me, I could have gotten the passenger door fixed, which would get rid of the unsightly scratch that has been on there since the day after I got the damn car two years ago, when some douche in NYC damaged it while parked on the street. I shouldn't have accelerated...

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Scarf

Corbett kind of wants to knit this:

I think it looks like something is trying to eat this poor woman.

Monday, October 5, 2009

We must all be up!

I'm sure I've mentioned this to plenty of people before, but I just have to go into it again. Dante has this strong desire in the morning for all of us to be awake. Generally I get up to my alarm (after three, four, or five hits of the snooze button), to which Dante responds with much joy and excitement. ("We get to go out! We get to go out! I really have to pee!")

When we return from our walk, I give him his breakfast and he sometimes will eat it right away, sometimes not. Many times he goes back to the bedroom and looks at Corbett, and wonders why he's not getting up. He'll often get up on the bed and forcefully (read: with his tongue) get Corbett awake. This is generally when the nuzzling occurs, if it's going to.

The best is when he gets as excited as he did this morning. I was in the office, and saw Dante bolt out of the bedroom and spin around, wagging his tail very exuberantly. After a couple of seconds he ran to the kitchen, again spun around, still wagging his tail. Corbett was getting up. Finally he ran into the kitchen supposedly to eat, since he sometimes will not eat until we're all up. But this morning was special.

See, there are times when Corbett likes to get Dante to eat by either hand-feeding him, or more recently, by throwing Dante's food, one morsel at a time, into the living room. This gets Dante worked up and he runs to grab every piece. This morning, Dante clearly wanted to play this game because he'd run into the kitchen, then dart out and look at Corbett. The look said, "C'mon, we have to play the food game this morning." Corbett of course obliged, and it was adorable, as always. I wish I had pictures.