Happy Saturday afternoon to everyone!

I'm in a very pleasant mood at the moment --  the best, in
fact, in rather a long time, so I'm enjoying it to the fullest extent
that I can. I thought I should share it with you, my Xanga friends, so
here I am

Let's see, where does this good mood come from? Well, it's nothing
major, really. I've worked very hard not to lose the childlike ability
to be delighted by small things, and it's been a very worthwhile,
especially since we all know that there are times in life when big joys
are few and far between. These past 6 months, it's seemed like even the
little joys have taken a lot of searching for. The trick for me has
been to keep in mind where we've been. When I compare the things that
are bugging me now with what was going on 6 months ago, why today seems
like a wonderland

I had a good week at work. We have 11 houses under construction, and
a bunch of them complete sale within the next short while. One closed
on Friday, actually. So this week was very busy. I like working, and I
don't always find it easy when I have a lot of empty time during my
weekday, so having things to do all day was nice. I also got lots of
hours, which is great. The chief problem with this job is the lack of
hours. Most weeks I get between 25 and 30. This week I got 48.

So yesterday, I was feeling good, realizing I had had a remunerative
week. I was tired, but energized. Walking home I won a free coffee, saw
a train go over the river bridge, and even saw two beavers swimming in
the river. I haven't seen beavers in the wild for over a decade. These
two musc be pretty ambitious, since I saw them in the Grand River,
which is several hundred feet across Then, to finish it all off, I dozed off early and ended up sleeping almost 15 hours last night, so I'm bouncy and energetic.

So here it is Saturday afternoon. I was alone earlier, and got to
listen to two whole CDs all the way through on the stereo -- a luxury
living with the inlaws doesn't usually allow me. If only my coffeemaker
was working, things would be perfect. But oh well. I lit up some Korean
incence, opened up the windows so a fresh breeze could blow through,
and listened to nice, relaxing music. In a few minutes, Crista and I
will probably go for a walk downtown to deposit my paycheque and hang
out a little.

And now that I've regaled you with details perhaps even duller than
usual, I'll try and make up for it with a few pictures, since those
seem to go over so well These ones were all taken since we've been back in Canada.

Crista and I with our pumpkins, back at Hallowe'en. They actually look remarkably like us

I
took this one mostly to send to my ex-students in Korea. This thing is
at a local park, and inadvertantly reveals the truth about us!

The
cake and decorations I did for Crista's birthday, back in December.
Baking her a birthday cake is a long-standing tradition which goes back
over 9 years to before we were even going out. That first year, I was
smitten but we hadn't formalized anything. I baked her a cake, left it
on her front doorstep (in a snowstorm) and then called to tell her
it was there

And
finally, this is the Grand River, mentioned above. You can see that the
beavers must be quite ambitious. I walk past here every day after work,
and I love watching the trains go over the bridge, especially when I'm
right under it. No idea why this particular train was hauling the back
ends of transport trucks though...

Anyhow, that's it for today. As always, thanks for dropping by. I'll
do my best to return the favour as quickly as posible. Have a great
weekend !

Take care
-J-

Hi

Well, time keeps rolling on, bringing with it the usual accompaniments and a few high points. One such high point was a concert we went to see last night. It was a fundraiser for the local summer folk festival, and featured a wonderfully eclectic set of performers:

First up was Enoch Kent, a legendary Scottish singer-songwriter and interpreter of traditional material. He's been at this for half a century, on his own and in groups with people like Peggy Seeger and Ewan McColl. he was great, with his gravelly voice and masterful stage presence.

Next came Jeremy Moyer, a young Canadian who plays Chinese traditional music on a variety of fiddle-type instruments, as well as composing music for the erhu. He was accompanied by a guitarist and a percussionist and put on a dignified but fun set.

After the intermission came some lovely bluegrass from Lyle Friesen and Tom Nunn (and another man whose name I can't remember). Guitar, fiddle and mandolin, played blazingly fast. Foot-stomping goodness.

Rounding off the evening was Rukanas, a group from South America, playing the traditional music of the Andes. I love Peruvian music, and they were very good -- lots and lots of energy, and some of them played as many as 4 different instruments in the course of a single song!

So that was the concert. A lovely evening. Unfortunately, it also served to highlight my displeasure with our current state of existence here -- too poor and uprooted to take advantage of most of the opportunities which come from living so close to the center of activity. Left me feeling kind of blue for the rest of the evening, though I'm doing a bit better today. I wish I had a better idea of what the future has in store for us, but that's not to be I guess. Just have to find out where we're going when we get there...

Ok. On to the ridiculous. Another couple of sightings: A favourite recent one is a TV commercial for Nicorette¢ç, a nicotine gum. During one part, an actor pops one into his mouth and chews it. The caption at the bottome of the screen reads "Use proper chewing technique". The next thing comes from Korea. Which I was there, a book was released. it was a book to help you improve your English in practical ways. I just happen to think the title is a bit unfortunate.

And one final thing for today. As many of you know, my wife and I lived in South Korea from October 2002 - October 2003. This evening, I've been dipping into some of the audio I made over there, and I thought you might like to hear some from my students. Today, I offer you my youngest students (ages 4-6) singing a song in Korean. I don't know the name of it, but they practiced it so much that I could practically sing along. If you like this one, I'll post more some time.

Song (1.1Mb)

Well, that's enough of that. I'm tickled pink by the recent wealth of visitors and comments, and I'd like to thank you all for dropping by.

Take care
-Justin-

Okeedokee. How's it going? Glad to be back for another entry after that little break of a couple of weeks. I remember years ago when I updated my blog 4 or 5 times a day sometimes. But Xanga was a much smaller place back then... So here we are. This one's a talkie. I have a few topics to cover, but I'll try to keep it under a thousand words  Happy Leap Day, by the way. Even though I've been here over 3 years, this is, of course, the first time I've ever posted on February 29th.

First of all, I'd like to thank my many visitors for dropping by. Since my last entry, my guest counter passed the 10,000 mark, which is pretty nifty. A quick look at my stats reveals that I also have 93 subscribers, though admittedly probably less than half of them are still active here at Xanga. Oh well. People come and go. I just hope that the time you do spend here is rewarding in some way.

What do you think of my new header graphic at the top of the page? I took it just before we went to Korea, in a fountain here in Cambridge. Thanks also to the reader who saw the picture of me and my grandparents and commented that I was handsome Must've been something I did with Photoshop or something.

Ok. On to absurdity. I love how the world around me is filled with weird things, both naturally-occurring and man-made. An example would be the phone booth picture in my previous entry. I'd also like to mention a few that have been amusing me lately, this time from audiovisual sources:

1. On the radio lately, there's a commercial for a place that boasts that they do laser eye surgery and laser hair removal.... Laser eye surgery and laser hair removal. Hmm. This may be an entirely standard and logical sort of arrangement I suppose, but to me it seems awfully odd. I mean, if I was going to get my eyes done, I would want to get it done at a place which only did eyes. I don't want my eyes lasered by someone whose area of expertise is bikini-lines.

2. There's a car commercial on TV that boasts that their cars are available in "sophisticated monochromatic colours". Hmm. Sophisticated monochromatic colours. A quick peek at the dictionary shows that monochromatic means "having or consisting of one color or hue". Hmm. So what they're saying is that each vehicle is painted a single colour. How revolutionary!

3. Some local business is running a TV commercial concerning a contest whose prize is an "all-inclusive trip to Jamaica". Ok. Except that if you look at the bottom of the screen, it says "airfare not included."Ah. My question would be: In what way is it a trip to Jamaica if it does not include airfare? I would also tend to think that the absence of airfare really brings into question their claim that the trip is all-inclusive...

So there you have a few of the huge mountain of ridiculous things which inspire me every day. They make me smile, and cause me to write (or at least start) a large number of songs. I will be sharing a new batch of those songs with you very soon, so do check back if you think you might like to hear them.

Well, I'm going to take mercy on you and finish up here. Do feel free to share your own stories of encounters with the ridiculous.

Take care
-Justin-

Hello everyone.

Well, I had some ideas for this particular entry, but I find myself feeling the urge to post some more pictures instead. Once again, they share little thematically, at least on the surface, though they were all taken in Korea. Looking through the albums to find these is rather a painful experience in some ways since, as I've mentioned, we miss it so much. But such is life. And such are the pictures:

I've always taken pictures of things that amused me, and Korea was just as full of them as any place I've been. I missed a lot for not having a camera with me, and this was a shot I made a special trip to take. The observant among you will notice that it's a phone booth, set into a sort of gap between two buildings. The more observant will notice that there is a door behind the phone booth. To get to this door, you have to crawl through the phone booth, and the lower rear glass panel has politely been removed.

Another common theme in my pictures is shadows, namely shadows of myself. I started this back in 2000 while I was living for a couple of months in England. I didn't have a camera with a timer, so I couldn't be in any of my pictures. So I started taking shots of my shadow, and it caught on. This one was taken looking east across the roof of our apartment building in Angang.

A class picture. I took pictures of all my English House classes during the week before we left. These were taken a 5 minute walk from the school, at the edge of town, overlooking the rice fields. This is my youngest class.

And finally, since the last little frog proved so popular, I thought I'd indulge you again. This one is obviously a different breed. Their stomachs are bright orange.

So there you have it. Another round of pictures. Hope you like them. Next entry I'll probably go back to boring words, but I'll definitely be running more photoblogs on a fairly regular basis, since they're so much fun to put together. Hope you're all having a great day. Thanks for dropping by.

Take care
-J-

Hi

I have things to say, but not necessarily the energy to say them. And I'm not even sure that they should be said. Whatever the case, I think I'll give you an anomaly this time -- a photo blog. The pictures have no common theme, and I picked them on a whim, really. Hope you enjoy them. Descriptions under each picture. Ok, here goes:

This is me, almost a year and a half ago, with my grandparents, not long before my wife and I went to Korea. This is the grandmother who passed away a few weeks ago, my father's mother. My grandfather, Gordon, is still kicking at 93, though I don't think he's long for this world either. Lovely people.

The Ear Tree. This is a bonsai tree I saw at a rest-stop along a toll highway in Korea. It has on it what looks exactly like an ear, and for some reason I find that extremely charming.

This is Angang, the town where we lived in Korea. We miss it very much.

And finally, we have this teeny little frog. We took pictures of rather a lot of variously-shaped frogs and toads, and this guy isn't the smallest. But his beautiful colour, as if he was carved out of jade, makes him stand out.

So there you have it. Four largely unconnected pictures. Now that I have some linkable webspace for image hosting, I may start to do this more often. Let me know what you think. And, of course, questions are welcome.

Take care
-J-

Hello hello.

So another couple of weeks go by the wayside and January will soon be drawing to a close. It's been just over 3 months since we arrived back in Canada from Korea. It's been a rough ride. But we're still kicking. Our current goals include becoming financially independant again, so that we can move into our own place. Though my wife's parents are great people, and the apartment is great, living with one's inlaws for a prolonged period of time has certain drawbacks. But at the moment, we're only making enough to cover the student loan payments and the minimum payment on the Mastercard bill, so there's still a way to go.

Some of the interesting recent happenings have to do with food. I've made a couple of batches of hummus, one of the foods we couldn't get or make in Korea. Hummus and pita is a sublime snack. And on the flip side, we went yesterday evening to a couple of Korean grocery stores. It was an hour each way on the bus, which was a bit of a pain, but we now have kimchi, laver seaweed to go with rice, a Korean pear, and other delicacies. It was both nice and sad to be in the stores -- with all the products being familiar from Korea, it felt like being back there. I think that both of us would much rather be there now than here, so it was a bit painful. But at least we have our little 'fix' for the time being.

My job continues to improve, though I'm still not getting enough hours. Thanks to demonstrating my skills I've sort of upgraded myself from person-who-chucks-garbage-into-dumpsters to general handyman. I get to do a lot of finishing work on the houses (plaster repair, some painting and caulking...) as well as some quality control and stuff. At the very least it makes what I'm doing more interesting.

My jam session today started out a bit rocky, since there were some loud, dunken, obnoxious people who talked loudly and obnoxiously through the first hour or so. We finally got management to boot them out, except that they refused to leave and it took another 10 minutes to get them out of there. Nothing against them -- they were behaving as would be quite appropriate if we were playing a paid gig at the bar. But we're not playing publicly, we're doing a private jam session, and thereby everyone is supposed to be quiet and attentive. We do permit spectators sometimes, but it's with the understanding that they won't be disruptive to what we're trying to do. However, once they went away the proceedings went ahead pretty well. My three for the week were Jackson C. Frank's Blues Run The Game, my own recent Why Fly, and an acapella take on the traditional Tarry Trousers which all went very well.

Another recent milestone was getting all of our photographs from Korea into albums. We had already filled 4 small albums, but this time around we had to deal with the remaining 340 pictures. Yoinks. We didn't have a record of what order the rolls went in, plus the photos within each roll were out of order. Argh. It took many hours of toiling, plus a few reprints to fill in gaps, but it's done. So now eventually I'll do another huge round of scanning and put up around 500 shots from Korea on the website. A big task, to be sure.

Anyhow, I have more to say, but this is already longer than it should be. I'll stop for now. It's past time I was in bed anyway. Thanks for reading.

Take care
-Justin-

Hi

Well, another week-and-a-half has gone by and 2004 is well underway. I was back at work this week, which was a relief. I even got a bonus on Friday, which was certainly appreciated. Even with our currently much-reduced bills, it's still challenging to get the money trickling in to balance with the money flowing out. Hope you all had a great New Year's.

Let's see. What's been going on in my world? Well, today we visited some of my wife's family -- aunts and an uncle and some cousins with very cute twin baby boys. The twins (Aiden and Elias) were born just before we went to Korea, so they're about 15 months old. This was the first time we'd gotten to meet them, and the first time we'd seen their parents in even longer. It was a nice, relaxed sort of gathering, despite the fact that the central concept was breakfast. Don't get me wrong, it was a lovely breakfast, but I'm definitely not a morning person, especially when it means going out when it's -25C and driving for half an hour in the unheated car. The twins are just great -- very good-natured and pleasant and quick to smile as they toddled around.

Also today, we finally acquired a new piece of computer hardware we'd been wanting. My wife got some money for her birthday back in December, to buy a scanner. The model we decided on (Canon LiDE20) then proceded to go out of stock quite spectacularly. Well, I finally located one at the Future Shop in Brantford, where we went for the family breakfast. However, after 3 weeks of looking, we in fact decided to buy something else . There was a sale that ended yesterday, which featured a printer/scanner/copier which looked good. But we missed it, only finding out an hour before closing. But the store we visited today had fogotten to take down the sale sign, so they honoured the sale price. So we're now the owners of a Hewlett Packard psc1210. It took way too long to install, since it turns out the supplied drivers wouldn't work since our edition of Windows XP is in Korean. So I had to go online and download the massive (180MB) driver in Korean. That took about 5 hours, but now it's all up and running and so far I'm really pleased.

I don't think I've yet mentioned one of the best things in my life right now -- every second Sunday there's a sort of structured jam session that I attend. A dozen or more folk afficionados gather together, and we go around the circle with everyone also free to join in. It's just great, since the skill level is extremely high and the people are very warm. The range of instruments is also quite varied, including multiple variations on the guitar plus mandolin, fiddle, accordion, tin whistles, cuarto, lute, stand-up bass... and the list goes on. It's probaby the single most anticipated event in my life these days. No 'probably' about it, actually. I've been contibuting various traditional and more contemporary things, both instrumental and with vocals, plus some Ticklish Brother material and some of my recent songs. Last week didn't go ahead, so I'm hoping that we'll be convening tomorrow. Three hours of musical bliss.

Anyhow, another form of bliss I've been depriving myself of is ordinary, basic old sleep. I think I'd better go to bed now, and play catch-up for this past week. In fact, I even napped a few times at work this week, when I had done everything I had been assigned yet had to wait for ages for my boss to get back.... Anyhow, I hope you're all well and happy, and that you're being spared the rather chilly (currently -28C) temperatures we're getting here.

Take care
-J-

Happy 3rd Xangaversary to me! Well, I'm off by a couple of days, but close enough. Lots has changed in the 3 years I've been writing here. I've met a lot of wonderful people, some of whom are still here, while others have vanished back into the online ether. I remember that back when I joined, it was possible to visit everyone, if you felt so inclined. Now, with  tens or hundreds of thousands of users, Xanga is kind of a different beast. But I still love it. My writing style has changed a bit -- I write less frequently and the entries are more like a diary. I don't post as much poetry either. But all in all, I hope it's still a worthwhile place to spend a few minutes of your time. Thanks so much to all my readers, veteran and recent, for dropping by and sharing a bit of your world with me.

Hope everyone had a good Christmas. All geared up to make all sorts of well-intentioned yet futile New Year's resolutions? If I was the resolution type, I'm not sure exactly what I'd resolve this year. Everything's so up in the air. On the one hand, we seem locked into this series of unpleasant actions with little chance for self-determination. But then again, a slight shift in perspective and you could look at our current floating aimlessness as the embodiment of the ability to do pretty much whatever we want in the coming year. It's not easy to cling to the second perspective, but that's the one that'll help us to rebuild, so that's the one I'm trying to keep in mind.

For those of you wondering, my grandmother did pass away, in her sleep in the early morning of the 24th. My father is now out there, taking care of their apartment, making the plans for the care of my grandfather, and all those other details. I hope it goes smoothly.

Been trying to make some headway with a few bits and pieces that need doing. I've made some phone calls to get the wheels in motion for getting some important paperwork dealt with, though they say it'll be somewhere around 3 months before it's all processed. Also discovered something rather disturbing on another front, which means we have to be very careful for the next few weeks.

On other fronts, I've been going through the final few rolls of pictures from Korea. It's an emotional task. I'm slowly putting together a package for my ex-students, and I want to include all the class photos I took during our last week. There'll be other bits and pieces too, of course, like candy (can't go wrong with candy).

 I've also been putting together a whole bunch of stuff for my good friend Byron. I'm doing up a couple of mix CDs, plus one full of interesting video snippets, and one full of demos of the songs I've written since we recorded the first Ticklish Brother CD back in 1999. Since I write so slowly, that only amounts to maybe 20 finished songs, with another 35 in progress... But oh well. I've been recording the ones that are finished, and I'll try to put a push on to finish some more. We're hoping to record a second CD some time in 2004,and since we're in different places, swapping demos is about the only way to start getting familiar with the new material.  Ticklish Brother is definitely an example of something greater than the sum of its parts -- our songs and performances are much better when we're able to work together. But oh well. Time will come. I'll probably post some of the better recent demos online soon.

But I think it's time for a walk. I'm a bit stir crazy lately, since the company I work for takes a 2-week break at this time of year. I really can't spare the income, so it's a huge inconvenience. I'm not making nearly enough to begin with, let alone with a hiatus like this. I probably won't be back on the job until Monday the 4th. In fact, I think that if prospects don't improve during that week, I'm going to have to bite the bullet and find another job.

Alright. I'm off. Hope you're all happy and healthy. Thanks for dropping by.

Take care
-J-

I just got off the phone with my parents. It was lovely to talk to them. I haven't seen them in almost 15 months, and I miss them a lot. I don't know when we'll be able to get back home to see them, but I think of them (and my brothers too, of couse) all the time.

The news during the call concerned my grandmother, a wonderful woman. She's been ill for a long long time, and it seems she's not long for this world. The doctors say she probably won't make it through the night. So if you have a moment to spare to send a prayer her way, to ease her journey to the next world, I'm sure she would appreciate it. And for my grandfather as well, who will no doubt feel her loss keenly.

Thank you.

-Justin-

Hello everyone.

Well, another week has gone by, with mixed results. I managed to get a few more hours at work, but still not enough. Oh well. At least things in that department are moving in the right direction. As they've been discovering my skills and previous experience, I've slowly been acquiring more interesting duties. I'm starting to move into all the finishing touches on the houses -- plastering and painting touch-ups, caulking, and other bits and pieces. It takes more skill and focus, but it's more rewarding. Hopefully, I'll be able to wrangle myself a fuller slate of hours and a more appropriate salary level before too long.

Another interesting recent development has been a rekindling of my desire to learn. That's not to say that I haven't felt like learning before now, but it hasn't been the kind of hunger that it is now. I've been borrowing all sorts of different books from the library, covering topics as diverse as songwriting theory and stonemasonry. It's a good feeling, and one which will feel even better when my life becomes flexible enough again that I can start taking advantage of some of these tantalizing opportunities that are appearing at the edges of my vision. I also want to make a concerted and systematic attempt to seriously improve my Korean...

I miss Korea. I miss my job and my students, I miss my apartment and the town, I miss the people and the places. I got an e-mail from the new teacher today, and he seems to have settled in nicely. The presentations went nightmarishly, as expected, but now that they're done with apparently the kids have loosened back up again and become much more pleasant and manageable.

Anyhow, I think I'm going to cut this short now, and go for a little walk. I've been out today, but not for a walk. It was downtowm for the lovely jam session I attend every second Sunday afternoon. This time was especially nice, as there were twice as many people as usual. With about thirty-five in attendence, a dozen of whom formed a choir, the vibe was warm and the music grand. I played an old scottish song, as well as a couple of originals, and all were well-received. I'm just aching to get back into a more musical lifestyle...

Anyhow, anyhow, anyhow... Before I keep going, I'll get going. Hope your seasonal preparations are going well.

Take care
-J-