1. no matter what changes I make, it’s different the next day, so I always have to start over if I want to do anything. This does not mean it always changes back to some shape; if I move the desks, they move to a different shape, but if I leave them alone, they are the same the next morning. It almost feels like a tit for tat thing — if you make a star, I’ll make a circle, if you make a U, I’ll make a T, but if you leave it alone, I will too.
2. the worst though, is the fact that if I’m not careful about what I move and how, the little girls will use any space I leave open for tumbling, and I don’t feel that is very safe.

Therefore, a standard classroom it will remain!

She is a very warm, loving and generous person. She is not effusive and I’ve not seen her get visibly particularly excited about anything. This makes her tough to read, but I am confident now that she appreciates Misun and I and she shows it clearly in her own way. Mattie loves her and goes to her readily without any problem. She even calls for her sometimes when she’s not around. She is very gentle with Mattie, but very interactive and, when Mattie wanders over to her, I always her her talking (even if I don’t understand everything she says).

She is an excellent cook and does so for us all the time. She used to run her own restaurant and was scouted to go open one in Japan, but declined because she didn’t want to leave. She claims she’d rather not, but she does it so well and so often that it’s tough to believe. I am especially touched that she can see that I don’t like to eat alone, and so, to make sure I eat lunch when she’s around, she cooks it up and sits with me even if she’s already eaten. We can’t talk much, but we try and it means a lot.

That’s not enough, but it’s all for now.

Oh, and I’m starting to think about looking at land in Alaska. I figure that, if we buy a nice piece of property now for cheap (is there anything cheap anywhere?), it’ll be valuable in a few years. That is, of course, assuming the Earth keeps heating up like it has been. Maybe it’s just me, but it really does seem as though summers are much hotter now than they were when I was little. Of course, this could simply be the fact that I’m older or that the places are different (and more humid?)…

Alaska would also be closer to Korea than Indiana, or New York, right? Misun’s dead set against living in the cold though.

However, I do have one bone to pick with the paper thus far. I guess it’s not major, but it keeps nagging at me and I have to say something. He keeps handicapping his argument with unnecessary and contradictory qualifications. I know that didn’t make sense, so let me demonstrate with a quote from page 37 (emphasis added):

Aesthetic experience can be powerful and life-changing, and at minimum intensely enjoyable and memorable.

How can you say that something might be ___, indicating uncertainty, and set a hard minimum in the next clause? If you are uncertain, how can you know the minimum? If it already is and you can determine a minimum, why couch it in can be-esque uncertainty? Am I wrong here? Unfortunately, I wasn’t watching for this from the beginning and can’t yet bring other examples, but I assure you they are present.

Am I being too much of a dork?

This weekend was crazy with plans changing all over the place and being dragged here, left there and then dragged back halfway across the country. It’s done now, but it was a bit rough. One positive result is that our private lessons with the high school kids are now finished. I spent four hours with them over the course of Saturday and Sunday because they cannot do next weekend and now we are finished. I like them and I’ll miss them, but there’s no way I’m arguing with having one less item on my plate.

The weekend wasn’t bad, really, just unexpected. Misun’s grandmother stayed through it and so we all stayed at my brother-in-law’s house the whole time so we (and especially Mattie) could spend time with her. Then, yesterday afternoon, we went with my father-in-law (and not our grandmother) over to 부안 (Buan — a coastal city) for 훼 (hwe — raw fish). Mattie didn’t eat any, but she sure loved looking at the fish and the boats!

The next two weeks (as we get ready to leave) are going to be crazy time. Plans here in Korea are always very fluid and there’s nothing to stop anyone from changing any of them on a moment’s notice for any reason at all, but now it will be worse because we have so little time left here. What makes it worse is that no one bothers to tell me when plans have changed (if I even knew what the plans were in the first place). What I do know is that I cannot commit to anything for the foreseeable future.

…and yes, this makes me crazy (not that I needed the help).

I’m making progress on my readings still and my goal is to cut down on the amount of paper that returns with us on the plane.

Oh, and I hate tv. I’ve given a lot of thought to trying to understand it and I think I do, but I still hate it.

It’s funny, because I believe that it’s always there, and that if you don’t pay attention to it, it doesn’t go away, it just doesn’t necessarily go the way you want it to, but it’s difficult and it’s easy to forget trying to maintain/monitor it. Even if I do find that this is of the significant value I think it is, what is to be done about it?

I guess we take it one step at a time…

Things went pretty OK today, but Mattie didn’t go to daycare again (I don’t know when their vacation ends and it seems that Misun doesn’t either as she keeps trying, I think).This means she hasn’t been napping and that means she’s been a bit cranky lately. This is a bummer, but we’re surviving. What really sucks is this insane humidity! I go from A/C to non-A/C and back again all day and this can’t be any good for me. Mattie, too. She’s been getting bloody noses some mornings and I think it’s at least peripherally related to the A/C dry-cold to humid-hot all the time.

Still busy and I think that, as of next week, Wednesday will be my worst day. On Wednesdays I go to camp in the morning, across town to a class with Alex’ kids and then back here for Ebo Young. Wish me luck!

My projects and reading and research are really beginning to come together now. All of them, that is, except for the one which I’ve neglected: The Collins Class is only just barely limping along, but I’m really pretty much OK with that because my partner on the project is about as active as I am. I think we both have a good idea of where the design is going and all that, but we’re sidetracked with other things at the moment and we haven’t stopped, we’ve just slowed. I think things will move quickly when we meet up again in the fall. Also, I remembered that I have a book which I believe will be quite useful to us, but it’s in Bloomington now (I hope).

I’m home right now — just got here, and neither Mattie nor our father are here and there’s no message from Misun either. I’m not sure if Mattie went to the daycare today (they had vacation yesterday) or if they went out somewhere. I’m sure they’re OK, but I thought I was going to get Mattie this afternoon.

This weekend was nice — not exactly relaxing, but nice. I’m slowly making my way through my readings for the summer and I’m beginning to see a light at the end of the tunnel, I think. I’ve made significant progress on my various projects as well, and that’s my biggest success story, I think. I hope to have more to say in the near future.

Oh, and Mattie is on something resembling a schedule now, waking around 7am and sleeping (often) around ten.