There are two reasons why my parents don't tell me things -- they either think it's too minor and not worthy of mention, or it's too serious and they don't know how to tell me.

I just received an e-mail from a friend of the family, addressed to me and to my parents. In it, she states that she has received a request for prayers for my family, and asks for details about a house fire.

Excuse me?

One thing noticeably absent from my Inbox is any sort of e-mail from my family referring to any sort of fire. This is causing me a certain amout of stress, since I don't know what's going on. It could be minor or serious. It could involve my direct or extended family. It could be a misunderstanding. I just don't know.

By the time most of you read this, chances are I'll have gotten the lowdown on all this. It'll probably turn out to be minor, but the uncertainty is stressing me out. If you have some spare prayers lying around, perhaps you could send them the way of my family. Why? I have no idea.

Take care
-Justin-

Happy Sunday everyone!

I'm going to be back in Canada before I know it if time keeps flying by the way ot seems to here. I know it may sound weird, but I love routine and stability. I function best when my schedule is fixed and my future certain (or as certain as it can be in this life). Leave me to drift, especially in a place with few prospects, and I flounder. But anyhow...

Well, I have to say that I'm feeling much better. I'm still a little shy of 100%, but essentially I seem to have ditched the lung infection, the sinus infection, and the bronchitis. Feels nice to be healthy. I lost about 7 pounds during my 6 weeks of sickness, making it the first time I've dropped below my "minimum weight" in years. What I call my "minimum weight" is the weight I don't ever drop below, no matter what. Well, six weeks with no appetite did it. I dropped 4 pounds below it to 163. But now that I have my appetite back, I'm sure it's going to shoot right back up to normal again. But anyhow, it sure is nice to feel pretty much healthy again.

Spring in Korea is a fascinating thing. I'm used to Newfoundland, where Spring is stretched out over all of April and May at least. Here, in a matter of a couple of weeks, everything went from bare to leafy, just like that. It's really startling. The temperature is summery and everything is green, except for all the flowering trees and shrubs, which are bright pink and red and white. Back in Newfoundland last week, near where my family lives, a boat sank because it got crushed in the ice....

Over the past couple of days, I've written a whopping 16 lines of my song The Noble Death of Michael Birdsley, which is about a guy who gets crushed to death by a vending machine. For those of you unfamiliar with the slowness of my writing, that really is a huge amount of progress. I started this song over a year ago. I'm a real perfectionist, and I don't like to set a line down on paper until it's perfect, since it's all so closely interconnected. I really want to get a bunch of my songs completed, especially since there's recording on the horizon. When I get back to Canada, Byron and I are planning to get together and record intensively for about 3 weeks or more, for the reissue of the first CD and hopefully enough for the second.

Speaking of the return to Canada, that's a whole entry in itself. Suffice it to say that I have profoundly mixed feelings. But there's still plenty of time to think about it. April 19th was our halfway point here in Korea, so we now have more time behind us than ahead. Fascinating.

There may be some pictures soon. One of my co-workers has been given a scanner by her brother. She needs me to help her learn how to use it, so she's going to bring it over here. I've spoken before of the vast quantity of scanning that needs to be done... Well, there seems to be hope that it may actually happen some time before the universe cools and implodes.

Anyhow, there's another excessively long entry for you. Thanks for dropping by. I'll try to increase the frequency of my posts, but there are no guarantees. I'll certainly let you know if and when the pictures are up on the website.

Take care
-Justin-

A brief entry.

I've been sick now for 5 weeks and I'm really starting to resent it. It started out as an ordinary little lung infection, which turned into bronchitis, set off my asthma, and simply won't go away. Usually I'm one of those annoying people who hardly ever gets sick and recovers overnight. But not this time, apparently.

I think it's because of the horrendous air pollution here in Korea (especially compared to the unusually clean air of Newfoundland). It could also have to do with the vast quantites of chalk dust I inhale in the run of a day. Dunno. But whatever it is, it does its job well.

A few weeks ago, I got some antibiotics from the pharmicist. Those didn't work, so I went to the doctor. He gave me a fascinating cocktail of five different pills (no idea what they were, except that at least some were antibiotics), a shot in the arse, and a ventolin mask. At the pharmacist, they seal each dosage (breakfast, lunch and supper) in a string of little wax-paper pouches. It's fun. Anyhow, those took a dent in things, but then it got worse again. So now I cough uncontrolably a lot of the time, including during class which is really inconvenient. The worst is when I lie down, which makes getting to sleep a real ordeal.

So anyhow, I took it to the next level tonight. I went back to the doctor, who was suitably disturbed by my symptoms and proceded to hook me up to an IV for 2 1/2 hours (vitamin C, dextrose, a bronchiodilator and perhaps some other stuff. I also have a week's worth of even stronger pills (again, I have no idea of thieir nature), and even some to help me with getting to sleep. So there.

So that's where I am -- not particularly exciting to most, but there you go. I'm hoping for good things from this batch of pills, and also hoping that they won't agtravate certain uncomfortable side-effects caused by the previous round of antibiotics. Heck, even being able to teach without feeling like poop, and being able to get to sleep without coughing until I almost puke... It really is the little things in life...

Hope you're all well and happy.

Take care
-Justin-

On Saturday, I ate a grilled cheese sandwich and grinned like a madman.

Allow me to explain. You see, while South Korea is an entirely modern nation, with video-cellphones and the whole nine yards, there are always bound to be a few things that one misses upon moving halfway around the world. A number of the ones we've felt the loss of most keenly are foods. On Saturday (and Saturday mail delivery certainly denotes civilization) we got a package from my family. It was full of gifts to commemorate various Baha'i Holy Days and such, which have passed while we've been here in Korea. In that package was cheese.

Cheese.

Allow me some further explanation. You see, cheese is a vitally important part of my diet. Back in Canada, rarely a day went by in which I did not have cheese in some form or another, sometimes in two or even three meals a day. In a play I wrote and produced a few years back, an entire scene revolved exclusively around cheese. I love cheese. I adore cheese.

They don't sell cheese in Korea.

Well, theoretically they do. In grocery stores they sell something called "pizza cheese" which, as far as I can tell is dried, floury strips of old caulking -- completely devoid of flavour, texture, or any of the characteristics for which one might reasonably choose to eat cheese. Its usage here is purely cosmetic. It comes either in grated form, or in small, plasticy lumps roughly the size of half a Rubik's Cube. Unsatisfactory to a perverse degree. I have never seen a Korean eat cheese, and having tried what passes for it here, I'm certainly not surprised.

I have a wonderful family. They're weird enough to wrap 5 pounds of cheese in lovely blue and purple crepe paper and mail it halfway around the world at great expense (and we are far from an affluent tribe). In addition to the cheese (Extra-old, old and medium cheddar, as well as gouda and parmesan), included in this cornucopia was fabulous chocolate (Korean chocolate is serviceable but bland), oatmeal (virtually impossible to find here since they consider it animal feed), espresso coffee (the preferred coffee here, by a staggering margin, is instant), Knorr soup mix, Fussell's Thick Cream, a huge box of PC Triple Chocolate Fudge Sandwich Cookies, and some other bits and pieces. All of it nicely wrapped. To say that it made our weekend would be a gross understatement.

And so, with these new luxuries in place, we're rushing headlong into Spring and bracing for the Summer. It's been 25 degrees (77 Fahrenheit) during the week, and the summer promises to be much much warmer. The trees, leafless a week ago, are bursting into greenness, strewn with flowers. It's fascinating, since back in Corner Brook there's still several feet of snow on the ground. I'm actually quite scared of the upcoming summer. I hate the heat. In fact, the 25-degree weather we've been getting is what I would consider ideal. Apparently though, it hovers in the high 30s (right around 100F) all summer. The air pollution is also a worry. It's absolutely attrocious, beyond anything I've seen elsewhere. That bronchitis I mentioned, well, it's still here, along with my asthma, and shows no sign of going away any time soon.

Anyhow, I'd better wrap this up. It's bedtime here. Have a happy April Fool's Day. I had fun sticking "kick me" signs on my older students...

Take care
-Justin-

Hi all

I'm not sure where the last week has gone. Crista and I are both still sick. A trip to the doctor confirmed Bronchitis, which on top of the flu has kind of drained away all of our energy. Now that my lungs and sinuses are clearing up, my asthma has decided to act up, so I've been using my inhaler and waiting for all of this to go away........

Today is a triple-threat -- Friday (Yay!), payday (Yay!), and Baha'i New Year (Yay!). This also means that the yearly period of fasting is over, so I can once again munch on the candy given by my students, and sip coffee between classes. This weekend, we're taking a little trip to Daegu, for a New Year's gathering with the Baha'is there.

I also have to get to the bank and transfer some money to Canada. The other day, I summoned the courage to compare the current value of my salary to what it was worth when we arrived here 5 months ago. It's worth $300 less every month, thanks to North Korea's recent obnoxious behaviour. While that may not sound like too much money to some of the more affluent of you, I can assure you than it's a big pain in the arse for us. However, it's something we can't afect in the slightest, so there's no point in worrying. All we can do is hope that it doesn't slide too much more...

One of the biggest achievements I've had lately is that I finally finished another song! As you may remember, I write abysmally slow when it comes to songs, and I have somewhere in the neighbourhood of 35 or 40 of them currently in various stages of completion. Lately, I've been forcing myself to sit down and write for at least an hour several times a week. It seems to be working. If I can keep this up, hopefully I can make a dent in my incomplete song envelope. Ideally, I need to finish around 10 or 12 of the sturdiest songs during the next while. I haven't finished that many songs in the last 2 years, but I want to finish them in the next month or two. Should be interesting to see if I can do it. If only I had Coujeaux's gift for speed-writing. I can write a 2000-word research paper in one sitting, but songs take forever...

Spring is starting to show itself here. They're plowing the rice fields in preparation for planting, grass is green, and there are buds on the trees. It's been hitting 18 or 20 degrees (Celsius) during the days, although the evenings remain cool. We finally managed to climb the mountain behind town two weekends ago, and it was great. I'll post something some time on the subject of Koreans and mountains... Anyhow, I've been wanting to get up there ever since we arrived. It was gorgeous. The view was spectacular, especially since several days of rain had washed all the crap out of the air. I didn't have the camera with me, but that's okay since it gives me an excuse to go back soon. I'm going to take a multi-shot panorama simailar to the one you may have seen on my pictures website. If it turns out well, I'm going to have it enlarged to 8x10s.

And in one final bit of news, Byron and I may be completely revamping and rereleasing the first Ticklish Brother CD. At the request of an enthusiastic producer and promoter, we'd be cutting and adding, remastering, rerecording, and repackaging the thing. It would be a vastly different beast. Not completely sure it's going to happen, but it seems likely. This would make it much more commercially viable, and allow us to take advantage of some opportunities which have been opening up recently in Canada and Europe. Plus, it would make a great springboard for the second CD (for which I've been writing the aforementioned songs...).

OK, well, I'm sure that's enough of a mouthful for now. I hope today finds you happy and healthy. Thanks for dropping by!

Take care
-Justin-

We received some food from a friend of ours. It's kind of runny and difficult to identify. I fed the the name of it into an online translator to see if I could figure out what it is. It came out as:

Feeling affection sesame kken river gruel

So, now I know.

Take care
-Justin-

Goodness gracious how the time flies these days!

Sorry to be away for so long. It doesn't seem like a little over a month since I've posted, but evidence seems to support that bizarre hypothesis. So much has been happening that I don't think I can possibly begin at the beginning. I guess I'll start somewhere in the middle, hit the main points, and try not to bore you all to tears.

So. Here we go.

The biggest news is probably that we've acquired a computer. It was a thank you present from my employer, for some extensive volunteer work my wife did for him during December and January. It's a snazzy little machine, too. Brandname and all. It's a Samsung MV 20, sporting a P4 1.8GHz processor and a lovely big monitor (I'm not sure whether it's a 17" or a 19"). It's very snazzy-looking.  It's hooked up to a 1.5-4 Mbps VDSL connection too, which sure is nice. Its arrival has brought about a dramatic reduction in my stress level. We can now phone Canada cheaply from the comfort of our own home. We can also watch English television, which is a huge relief. We've ben downloading CSI and West Wing and other goodies unavailable in this part of the world. Ironically, this lovely new toy has probably played a large part in my recent absence from Xanga. The only stressful thing about the computer is the operating system. It's running Windows XP Home Edition, which is all well and good. I can live with that. But it's in Korean. I know this shouldn't be surprising, and it isn't. It's just annoying. Everything -- buttons, settings, error messages, help menues... all indecipherable. I'm hoping to get the company to deal with it soon, but for now it's a major source of irritation.

As far as work goes, change continues to be the name of the game. Morning classes came to an end, so my day now starts at eiher 2pm or 3pm, depending on the day. It means that I don't get to teach the littlest kids any more, and I miss them. But they may be back once some more sign up. We shall have to see. So my day is shorter now, which is nice. The other big change is that I'll be switching to a co-teaching format with my evening Jr. High classes. If you recall, until now I've been all on my own, devising my own curriculum and trying to keep up. This new format will see me working from a series of textbooks and having a Korean speaking teacher (probably my boss) in class with me to explain the concepts. It's good in that the lessons may become more intelligible to the students, and I no longer have to struggle to make up an endless supply of class material. On the negative side, it takes a lot of the fun out of it, I'll be losing most of my classroom autonomy, and the classes will become rather drab in comparison to the high-energy stuff I've had to prepare in order to keep their attention. The new format hasn't started yet, and I don't know when it will, but the end is nigh...

Another prominent event in my life at the moment is the Baha'i fast. Every year at this time, for one Baha'i month (19 days) we abstain from food and drink between sunrise and sunset. It's a time for meditation and study. You'd never realize how much of your daily life centers around food until you try fasting. It's fascinating! This year is actually quite easy, since my actual physical activity level is much lower than in past years, but it still takes a lot of focus to make sure I don't slip up when students hand me candy!

On what is probably a completely uninteresting note, I went to the dentist today. He did a fabulous job, though the experience was strange since they generally don't use anaesthetic here. I'm not saying it was primitive or anything -- it was state of the art, with tiny videocameras and everything. I had a big hole in a front tooth that needed fixing. He did a beautiful job, and it's undetectable. I'm not a vain person, but one of my few weaknesses is that I will always pay the extra for porcelain fillings. I want my teeth to look like teeth. I've always been blessed with good teeth, and this is only the third cavity I've had in my life (although the dentist did find a small one in a molar, so I'll have to go back some time...). So, a positive if painful experience. They say people can tolerate less pain in the part of their body with which they associate their "self". Well, I live in my head, so tooth pain is very unpleasant. Stick a fork in my leg, and I'm fine...

Well, I think that's the gist of things as they stand. Still no progress on any new pictures on the website, but hopefully before too long I'll find the time to spend some quality time with the scannner at work. Songs continue at their dismal pace... We continue to flip flop on the issue of whether or not we'll renew my contract after this year...

Thanks for reading and commenting, everyone. I hope you're all well and happy. I do my best to try and visit you all and comment as best I can, but sometimes I get behind. I certainly won't take another month before my next post, though!

All the best

Take care
-Justin-

Hello all!

This evening finds me in an unusually cheery mood. You see, after two weeks of trying I finally got the internet phone going! Crista's sitting next to me talking to my mother right now. It's just after midnight here, and just before noon back in Canada. The sound quality is great, the price is fabulous, and I can finally talk to my family again! Those of you who have been reading for a while know that I'm very close to my family. Yet because of the exorbitant cost, I've only spoken with them two times in the 3 1/2 months I've been here in Korea.

The day has actually been good all around. A package arrived from Canada yesterday, including my stovetop espersso-maker. So at lunch time today, with the house empty, I opened the windows to let in the beautiful sunshine, brewed up a fabulous cup of coffee (my first since September 30th), and relaxed to the sound of some early Leonard Cohen. It was just wonderful, making me feel both homesick and more connected to Korea at the same time. Kind of an odd contradiction, but I'm not knocking it!

Another highlight of the day was, oddly enough, my evening at the Junior High. I had two great classes. As you may remember, for my 6 Jr High classes every week, I am not provided with a curriculum or any teaching materials. This is both a blessing and a curse. It's a curse in that it's damn difficult to come up with material. It's a blessing in that I have an extreme degree of latitude over what I choose to teach. Basically, as long as the students don't complain, I can do whatever I want.

Anyhow, since I have the freedom to teach whatever I want (my job is basically to talk at them so they can hear the correct pronunciation), and since it's so dificult to hold their attention, I've gravitated toward teaching something I'm passionate about. And what am I more passionate about (at least that could be taught in a Jr High setting...) than music. So for the past few weeks, I've been teaching about music. I lug my stereo and about 150 CDs to each class, and we listen and discuss. Today, both classes centered around a list of descriptors by which one migh talk about a piece of music. Is it fast or slow? Is it happy, sad, or angry? Is it beautiful or ugly? But since I love the subject so much, I really get into it, and I feel free to clown around and hold their attention. Today's classes went extremely well, and I feel rejuvenated about a teaching situation which can extremely challenging at times.

Although I've now rambled on for far too long, I do have to mention the other reason I'm in such a good mood. I mention it last not because it's unimportant, but because it seems kind of tacky to start by talking about how somebody said something nice about me . That somebody is Coujeaux, one of my very favourite writers here at Xanga. In a recent entry, he mentioned me in his Top 10 list of Xanga writers. To say I'm flattered is an understatement. His writing is great, and the energy, honesty and vitality of his posts keeps me coming back. Artistically, we're almost opposites in many ways, especially in terms of production capacity -- I write abysmally slowly, with songs sometimes taking years to complete. Coujeaux writes amazing, erudite blues poems faster than I can write a shopping list! If you haven't visited his site, you really should. He alternates between autobiographical entries and poems, and whatever it is, it's worth reading. So thanks, Paul. You really brightened my day!

So that's that. If you've read this far I congratualte and thank you. I'm glad that you find worthwhile reading in my rough little dispatches. I love that you all stop by and read and let me know what you think. I'm sorry I don't get to stop by your sites nearly as frequently as I would like.

It's 2am, so I'd really better haul my arse off home to bed. I have class in the morning. I Just chatted with my mother and brother for 20 minutes, then my best friend, Byron for 45 minutes. It's kept me out late, but I just couldn't resist!

All the best to you!

Take care
-Justin-

Hello again!

Well, it's the arse-end of the Lunar New Year long weekend here, and it was quite a pleasant time. Today was good. We took the bus to Pohang and met up with friends. He's a helicopter pilot with the Marines, she volunteers, and their two young sons generally disturb the peace in a good-natured sort of way. It was a nice short 2 1/2 hour hike, so we coped with it far better than they expected. Always nice to impress people. After the hike, we got a fun tour of the massive multi-branch military base (got to see some planes, a Black Hawk helicopter, and the largest military assembly field in Asia, which can accommodate 15000 troops) drank tea in the office of a special forces division commander while perusing a supposedly classified map of the area. It was fun, with armed guards, lots of salutes, rows of tanks... After, they cooked us a nice meal before it was time for us to head home.

Friday and Saturday were more relaxed, with a short visit from the people mentioned in the last entry, and a special New Year's dinner at the home of one of the women I work with. Other than that, we just sort of relaxed and watched movies.

My work schedule, which has been rather pleasant lately (9:30am-6:30pm) reverts to its usual form (10:50am-10:00pm) after tomorrow. I'm not looking forward to it. I've really enjoyed having my evenings free. By the time I get off work at 10pm, I just don't have much energy left for anything. I just lounge around the house until it's time to go to bed... We shall have to see how it goes. After March, it doesn't look like there'll be any more morning classes with the youngest kids, so lord only knows what my schedule will be like then. I really shudder to think. I have been mulling over a few possiblilities, and none of them are at all appealing...

Anyhow, I should be moseying off home soon. The good part of resuming evening classes is that I'll have access once again to the computer at the school with Photoshop and a scanner, so I can begin dealing with the massive photographic backlog I have.

So, that's that for now. Thanks to you all for dropping by!

Take care
-Justin-

Hi all!

Well, another week has come and gone, and I find myself here on a Friday night, typing at a PC Room. Most of the time since my last entry was pretty unremarkable, but Wednesday and Thursday were pretty noteworthy:

It snowed!

For those new to the site (or with iffy memories, like mine) my not know that I come from the west coast of Newfoundland. During a Corner Brook winter, the snow on the front lawn is 5 or 6 feet (2m) deep, and the snowbanks on the side of the road are 9 feet (3m) or more. It hovers around -20 Celsius (-4 Fahrenheit) most of the time, and usually bottoms out around -35C (-31F) on a significant number of occasions. In short, I'm used to a pretty beefy kind of winter.

As you may or may not know, I'm currently living in a small town in South Korea. It doesn't snow in this part of the country some years. But it started snowing Wednesday afternoon and kept at it. The result was that by 10pm, there was 4 or 5 inches (15cm) of snow on the ground. It was just gorgeous. Apparently it's the heaviest snowfall in 10 years or something. My wife and I grabbed the camera and the tripod and headed out. We wandered around and shot a full roll of pictures of the neighbourhood, including a retake of the panorama on my pictures page. Nice stuff.

As we were taking some pictures of us up in a tree (ah, the joy of having a tripod and a timer), a couple in their early 50s came along, also with a camera and tripod. They were so cute, taking pictures of themselves in from of snowy trees. He spoke fairly good English, so we chatted and took some pictures of the 4 of us. After, even though it was late, we went to their apartment for tea. He's the president of a company which exports bakery machinery to China. It was nice. We excused ourselves just before 2am and dragged ourselves home (after doubling back for some more pictures) to sleep before work.

Luckily for us, work was cancelled. I had to go to work to find this out, since they forgot to call me, but still. It's only a 2 1/2 minute walk from the apartment, so not a real hardship. I went home, took a little nap, and then we walked downtown. Crista, you see, had to buy rubber boots. She had to buy rubber boots because she now takes care of a horse. She's always loved horses, and a local kindergarten has one for the students (I know). She went and talked to them, and now she gets to take care of it whenever she wants. To say she's pleased is definitely an understatement. She has a pet horse!

Well, that's a somewhat disjointed entry for you. I'm afraid it's still going to be some time before I can post any pictures. However, this PC Room has a scanner, so maybe... I'll probably get the film developed tomorrow, and maybe the Kyongju World one too. That'd be fun. I love getting pictures. It's just kind of time-consuming to scan in several dozen photos, crop and compress them and then post them to the website. I have hours and hours of work to do on the pictures site... Oh well. Suspense can be good

So that's that for now. I'm puttering around looking to try a internet phone company. Calling Canada costs me about $1.40/minute, so I've only called my family twice in the three months I've been here. Not good. Dialpad.com offers 3.9 cents/minute, so if the quality is tolerable, I think I'll give it a try. It'll mean calling from computers, and calling from computers will mean calling from public places, but oh well. I'm not going to be saying anything that shouldn't be overheard, and even if I was, nobody here can understand anyway!

Anyhow, that really is it for now. Hope you're all well and happy.

Take care
-Justin-