I succeeded in my second foray into the foreign exchange market... as in I did it, all by myself, with helpful bank staff, but only time will tell if it was a success.
The beginning of the week market the first significant drop in the American dollar since my arrival here in Korea. With the over zealous panic of someone very new to this, I woke up early on Tuesday, checked my daily email of the exchange rates, confirmed a further dip in the rates and hurried to the bank in hopes of securing the first of what will be numerous money transfers in my financial favor. I exchanged $1000.00 USD... in the form of two traveler's cheques. That night, in deciding how to appropriately mail the necessary funds home I was struck by the absurdity of sending the equivalent of $1000.00 unsecured cash overseas in the mail. Ludicrous!
So I went home, no richer, no poorer, and went to bed. The next day the rates had dropped again. Determined to get some of this newly acquired wealth safely home I arranged the necessary details of a wire transfer. This was the ticket! By the through the miracle of modern banking I could send money electronically around the world where a trusted individual could then receive it and pay off my bills as planned! It was a $500.00 USD test run.
By Thursday they had dipped under the 1400/1 mark and I told myself that if the rates dropped again, or remained in the 1300's on Friday, I'd send another $500.00 home.
The rate was on the incline this morning, but still under 1400, so I did as planned sending another $500.00 USD to disappear into an electronic abyss where the debt I owe lie waiting somewhere on the other side, with their voracious appetites that I long to fill.
Now I get to experience the joys of budgeting as I have suffiecient, albeit limited funds for the upcoming month left to me in the bank after draining two grand American (which translates to approx. 2.5 million Won) in the course of a week. At least until the rates climb high enough that I can profit from those traveler's cheques...
I'll let you know how it works out.
- Foster
Friday 20 March 2009
Wednesday 18 March 2009
Teaching teachers to teach teachers to teach would be a good thing.
Schools are high stress environments. I personally never would have guessed, and would be blissfully immune if stress were not one of the most contagious infirmities on the face of the earth.
I have no complaints. My schedule suits me (working 1-9pm), I have a gym to go to, I have food, shelter and a limited array of suitable clothing (still, I've more than I anticipated due to the lax dress codes at work, another plus in my opinion) and I have found a nice church to attend on Sundays. Quite the workings of a quaint quiet little life which would pass a peaceful year if people could only stop stressing over the insignificant irksome idiosyncrasies that abound in life.
My thoughts tend to wax and wane on philosophic problems. I like to take the rabbit trails that I find in thinking to see where they lead. I don't particularly know what curriculum would best suit students who are in a listening class where they refuse to listen because they can't understand the language they are listening to and as a result spend two hours in conversation with each other in a language I cannot understand. I only know what my students can express in their translated thoughts, and what my limited experience can discern from the situation: namely that the material is too hard. However, since they have been ushered through the previous books in a system more concerned with progression than understanding, or with reaching the end however incomplete the course, with the completion of a book rather than the comprehension of a chapter, it now seems I'm stuck transcribing and dictating answers to students of copying and printing.
There are other stressors, many concocted out of gossip and others that exist from the sheer fact that few of the teachers are formal teachers, but are, like me, willing to learn to teach if there could be found those willing to teach we willing to teach teachers.
This is obviously a microcosm of a much bigger problem. One might even call it a philosophical problem. It's just not one of the ones I've devoted much thought to until now, so I'll have to get back to you with those.
In the meantime I'm doing my best to enjoy the simple pleasures of black tea, peanut butter, 24 hour gym access, and all my needs being met.
- Foster
I have no complaints. My schedule suits me (working 1-9pm), I have a gym to go to, I have food, shelter and a limited array of suitable clothing (still, I've more than I anticipated due to the lax dress codes at work, another plus in my opinion) and I have found a nice church to attend on Sundays. Quite the workings of a quaint quiet little life which would pass a peaceful year if people could only stop stressing over the insignificant irksome idiosyncrasies that abound in life.
My thoughts tend to wax and wane on philosophic problems. I like to take the rabbit trails that I find in thinking to see where they lead. I don't particularly know what curriculum would best suit students who are in a listening class where they refuse to listen because they can't understand the language they are listening to and as a result spend two hours in conversation with each other in a language I cannot understand. I only know what my students can express in their translated thoughts, and what my limited experience can discern from the situation: namely that the material is too hard. However, since they have been ushered through the previous books in a system more concerned with progression than understanding, or with reaching the end however incomplete the course, with the completion of a book rather than the comprehension of a chapter, it now seems I'm stuck transcribing and dictating answers to students of copying and printing.
There are other stressors, many concocted out of gossip and others that exist from the sheer fact that few of the teachers are formal teachers, but are, like me, willing to learn to teach if there could be found those willing to teach we willing to teach teachers.
This is obviously a microcosm of a much bigger problem. One might even call it a philosophical problem. It's just not one of the ones I've devoted much thought to until now, so I'll have to get back to you with those.
In the meantime I'm doing my best to enjoy the simple pleasures of black tea, peanut butter, 24 hour gym access, and all my needs being met.
- Foster
When sweet dreams go bad...
I've been dreaming quite a bit lately. Not necessarily bad dreams, but dreams that have certainly been reminiscent of a different time and place in my own increasingly-not-so-recent-personal-history. There are specifics that many could guess, particulars of time, place, persons, etc. but I'm not prepared to divulge those in print for whatever misguided propriety I feel I'd betray.
Last night was a particularly good/bad dream though. I was in this place, with these people, meeting one person in particular.
It seems, in these dreams, that I'm as much there as I am here. My senses are intact; I smell and feel and see. What happens happens and then I wake up to an alarm, a brightened room, or the still dark night and have to run to the bathroom having had too much water at the gym a few hours before.
Without going into details, Id just like to say that I'd really appreciate the temporary ability to interpret dreams, and I don't mean in a Freudian sense, I mean like Joseph did, because I get the sense that these dreams are telling me something.
Of course I could already know what it is.
Anyhow, last night's culminated in a reunion with a particular someone I haven't seen but for one passing instance in a few years. I was walking with two others outside a familiar house. I followed them inside. I stopped in the threshold where I met the other.
We meet inside a familiar doorway. We hug, but it's more my initiative. Then I drop to my knees, falling face to feet where I see scars and wake to realize that this is all I know of love.
Last night was a particularly good/bad dream though. I was in this place, with these people, meeting one person in particular.
It seems, in these dreams, that I'm as much there as I am here. My senses are intact; I smell and feel and see. What happens happens and then I wake up to an alarm, a brightened room, or the still dark night and have to run to the bathroom having had too much water at the gym a few hours before.
Without going into details, Id just like to say that I'd really appreciate the temporary ability to interpret dreams, and I don't mean in a Freudian sense, I mean like Joseph did, because I get the sense that these dreams are telling me something.
Of course I could already know what it is.
Anyhow, last night's culminated in a reunion with a particular someone I haven't seen but for one passing instance in a few years. I was walking with two others outside a familiar house. I followed them inside. I stopped in the threshold where I met the other.
We meet inside a familiar doorway. We hug, but it's more my initiative. Then I drop to my knees, falling face to feet where I see scars and wake to realize that this is all I know of love.
Tuesday 3 March 2009
My Artistic Creed... a work in progress
Given my recent private writer's strike, I felt the need to get some ideas down for why I'm driven to [write]. Feel free to comment, collaborate, or criticize.This list is by no means complete and will certainly undergo changes... but hopefully not retractions. Time will tell.
1. I feel like a person knows me better if they know, and understand, what I create, be it visual, auditory, or tactile.
2. I create with intent and purpose to relate something to someone.
3. I feel comfortable while creating, at home in a chair, on a stage, or otherwise in front of the medium I'm using to illustrate an idea.
4. I look for a story in an image, feeling like the picture is incomplete unless I can relate to it in some way.
5. I have a plethora of pictures, words, and actions I associate with specific people, places, and things.
6. I am concerned by the reception of my ideas, not enough to change them should they be rejected, but enough to argue passionately their legitimacy, and in failing to reach an understanding or otherwise peaceful resolve, enough to severe certain ties with people on their account.
7. I believe that creation characterizes more than action, and action characterizes more than being.
8. I believe that being dictates action and action, in turn, creation.
9. I believe that an intended creation completed is the end of an inanimate thing and its interpretation is the beginning of another thing entirely and wholly expressive of the interpreter.
10. I believe that creation is ongoing and that people change and so creations too will differ in intent and meaning.
11. The compilation of a body of work is not as telling as an individual work that expresses clear ideas.
12. Differences in creative expressions are not hypocrisy, but evidence change, growth, exploration, or instances of diversion from a norm.
13. Intention is not relative, irregardless of its being known; interpretation is.
... ... ... to be continued?
1. I feel like a person knows me better if they know, and understand, what I create, be it visual, auditory, or tactile.
2. I create with intent and purpose to relate something to someone.
3. I feel comfortable while creating, at home in a chair, on a stage, or otherwise in front of the medium I'm using to illustrate an idea.
4. I look for a story in an image, feeling like the picture is incomplete unless I can relate to it in some way.
5. I have a plethora of pictures, words, and actions I associate with specific people, places, and things.
6. I am concerned by the reception of my ideas, not enough to change them should they be rejected, but enough to argue passionately their legitimacy, and in failing to reach an understanding or otherwise peaceful resolve, enough to severe certain ties with people on their account.
7. I believe that creation characterizes more than action, and action characterizes more than being.
8. I believe that being dictates action and action, in turn, creation.
9. I believe that an intended creation completed is the end of an inanimate thing and its interpretation is the beginning of another thing entirely and wholly expressive of the interpreter.
10. I believe that creation is ongoing and that people change and so creations too will differ in intent and meaning.
11. The compilation of a body of work is not as telling as an individual work that expresses clear ideas.
12. Differences in creative expressions are not hypocrisy, but evidence change, growth, exploration, or instances of diversion from a norm.
13. Intention is not relative, irregardless of its being known; interpretation is.
... ... ... to be continued?
Hearing Voices...
Don't be alarmed.
I was; my alarm woke me up at 9:00am this morning to make sure I was up for an expected call. Sure enough, 9:30 rolls around and my phone... er, sorry, my computer rings. I had a call come in from NY and I got to hear a few friends gathered together, not to call me, but they agreed to do so while so gathered, and thus I heard the choral voices of a few friends which made my morning. After that I made a call to another friend in DC who happened to be online at the time. Once we got some technical issues sorted out we had a good talk. I couldn't get reception this clear in NYC with Verizon. So, long story condensed: I caught up with a few people and I became convinced that I should stop ignoring Skype and take advantage of some of these tools I've been avoiding for too long.
If you would like it: www.skype.com
For those I talked to, it was good to hear you. Thanks for the call.
Cheers,
- Foster
I was; my alarm woke me up at 9:00am this morning to make sure I was up for an expected call. Sure enough, 9:30 rolls around and my phone... er, sorry, my computer rings. I had a call come in from NY and I got to hear a few friends gathered together, not to call me, but they agreed to do so while so gathered, and thus I heard the choral voices of a few friends which made my morning. After that I made a call to another friend in DC who happened to be online at the time. Once we got some technical issues sorted out we had a good talk. I couldn't get reception this clear in NYC with Verizon. So, long story condensed: I caught up with a few people and I became convinced that I should stop ignoring Skype and take advantage of some of these tools I've been avoiding for too long.
If you would like it: www.skype.com
For those I talked to, it was good to hear you. Thanks for the call.
Cheers,
- Foster
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