I've already shot ahead on resolution #3 (though I'm seriously lacking in resolution #1). Today I asked a few coworkers if they'd like to go to a jazz bar tonight after work. Fun! Social! Instigated by yours truly!
Actually, I'm pretty pumped about it. I like jazz (it was pretty much the only good music you could go out to hear in Oswego, and though I'd like to debate myself on that, [reference Thursdays? at Old City], I'm not going to--reference the guy who was good at Old City playing jazz on Wednesdays at King Arthurs) , and I like bars--it seems a perfect combination.
So I'm doing well on resolution 3, but not so well on 1. As a matter of fact, I'm failing dismally. Today I'm being callous about a sick coworker, and I've only let that abate because I don't have to cover her class after all. I was about to start teaching it when Matt walked into the room and said, Why are you teaching this, I'm her sub... So we rock-paper-scissored and he got stuck with it. Sweet!
And I'm being additionally callous about some friends that I'm trying to drop here because I just don't like them that much and no matter how often I say something isn't appropriate, they don't adjust or even filter themselves when around me, so forget that. I think I'm doing the right thing but that's pretty much the definition of callous.
I do have one more New Year's Resolution to make. Resolution #5: Buy friends things. I have plenty of money, I have generous impulses, but I end up spending a lot of money at the bar and I don't even know where it goes. So I'm going to make some headway on that as soon as possible. Maybe you'll be the next to feel the benefit!
Right now, I'm going to get another cup of coffee (which tends to assist me in all of my resolutions), then either prep for my classes--yeah right-- or go to the paper store--probably not-- or look up a couple books that my friends might like receiving.
Peace!
Friday, December 28, 2007
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Teacher? Student?
One of the good things about teaching that they don't really tell you about beforehand is that you actually learn a lot. I'm here to teach English but I'm learning about:
-the history of soccer (there didn't used to be rules and whole towns would play, throughout the whole town--sometimes, people died, so it was banned by 3 different monarchs. Unsuccessfully. And we think we have sports that surpass it).
-continental drift through reading units with the kids.
-incentives and how to manipulate the will of others through communing with the authoritarian within myself.
Mostly, I've learned more than I want to about that last one, and I have pretty good classes this semester so I'm getting back to focusing on things like the first two. This semester is making me feel like, yeah, I might want to have kids some day, after all.
That's this semester so far, anyway. Here's to sweet kids who turn into devils when they realize I'm a pretty nice guy.
-the history of soccer (there didn't used to be rules and whole towns would play, throughout the whole town--sometimes, people died, so it was banned by 3 different monarchs. Unsuccessfully. And we think we have sports that surpass it).
-continental drift through reading units with the kids.
-incentives and how to manipulate the will of others through communing with the authoritarian within myself.
Mostly, I've learned more than I want to about that last one, and I have pretty good classes this semester so I'm getting back to focusing on things like the first two. This semester is making me feel like, yeah, I might want to have kids some day, after all.
That's this semester so far, anyway. Here's to sweet kids who turn into devils when they realize I'm a pretty nice guy.
Sunday, December 23, 2007
what the hell...spring for the greater of two evils.
In a sincere effort to be a good human, I've recently realized it'll be necessary to avoid talking to certain people as much as possible. I think there's something to be said for repairing unneccessary heartache, especially if I'm the root cause, and I've made an attempt to do so. Sometimes, though, the best thing I can do is distance myself so as not to do any further damage.
In this spirit of bettering myself, it has suddenly occurred to me that New Year's resolutions might be a good idea. I've never had any serious ones, but I'm going to make around four.
1. Don't be callous.
2. Learn more about power plants, waste disposal, and calculus.
3. Become more outgoing.
4. Get out of debt.
Alright, #4 is kind of lame, since four months ago I already committed a year of my life to paying off my college debt. (I understand that a year sounds like a short time to pay off college debt, but I had to invest a lot into this--reference being on the other side of the world. Interesting fact: the sidewalks are made out of metal and we all have to wear magnetic shoes. When we go indoors, we just do a little flip and the building holds us up. Don't even ask me how they anchor the buildings, because I haven't learned much about their magic yet.)
And #3 is just something I've been meaning to do anyway, especially after my main social connection, my best day-to-day friend, told me I was the biggest mistake of his life. I'm going to work on knowing current events so that they can be conversation topics. I'm going to work on number two so that I can talk about the topics that actually interest me.
#2 mainly stems from my desire to quit fucking up our planet, because among the buffet of pick-and-choose bible quotes that I was raised on, one of my favorites has always been "First remove the beam from your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck of chaff that is in your brother's eye." I want to learn to be perfect in my own habits so that I can start proselytizing. And of course, by that I mean converting people to my faith. My faith being in the fact that the earth is important.
And #1...how am I going to manage that one? Sounds hard. I'll try to be more emotional, though. Big reaction when actually I think it's no big deal. I'm going to test-drive the belief that being fake is better than being dull!
That exclamation point shows how exciting the new me is.
In this spirit of bettering myself, it has suddenly occurred to me that New Year's resolutions might be a good idea. I've never had any serious ones, but I'm going to make around four.
1. Don't be callous.
2. Learn more about power plants, waste disposal, and calculus.
3. Become more outgoing.
4. Get out of debt.
Alright, #4 is kind of lame, since four months ago I already committed a year of my life to paying off my college debt. (I understand that a year sounds like a short time to pay off college debt, but I had to invest a lot into this--reference being on the other side of the world. Interesting fact: the sidewalks are made out of metal and we all have to wear magnetic shoes. When we go indoors, we just do a little flip and the building holds us up. Don't even ask me how they anchor the buildings, because I haven't learned much about their magic yet.)
And #3 is just something I've been meaning to do anyway, especially after my main social connection, my best day-to-day friend, told me I was the biggest mistake of his life. I'm going to work on knowing current events so that they can be conversation topics. I'm going to work on number two so that I can talk about the topics that actually interest me.
#2 mainly stems from my desire to quit fucking up our planet, because among the buffet of pick-and-choose bible quotes that I was raised on, one of my favorites has always been "First remove the beam from your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck of chaff that is in your brother's eye." I want to learn to be perfect in my own habits so that I can start proselytizing. And of course, by that I mean converting people to my faith. My faith being in the fact that the earth is important.
And #1...how am I going to manage that one? Sounds hard. I'll try to be more emotional, though. Big reaction when actually I think it's no big deal. I'm going to test-drive the belief that being fake is better than being dull!
That exclamation point shows how exciting the new me is.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
in today's episode of Hogwan...
Tom works upstairs with my brothers Brandon and Patrick. I often go up there to see if my brothers want to walk home together.
--Brandon: We're taking a cab. There's no room for you. What're you making me for dinner?
--Me: Uh..tofu?
--Brandon: It better be crispy.
--Me: I just had fried food yesterday, so I'm not going to batter it or anything...
--Brandon: Of course not.
--Tom: You're going super-healthy today!
--Me (walking out of office): I don't know. I just don't want to eat fried food two days in a row.
--Tom (following me to the elevator): It's not like batter's that unhealthy.
--Me: I completely disagree.
--Tom: Bread's not that bad for you.
--Me: Batter's not bread.
--Tom: What's the difference? Just some yeast.
--Me: And trans-fatty acids.
--Tom: ...
--Me: I mean, not acids. Fat.
--Tom: I've been cooking my whole life. You trying to tell me I don't know what healthy is?
--Me: You cooking your whole life is not going to convince me that batter is healthy.
--Tom (elevator doors closing, him out, me in) : I'm not trying to say it's healthy. I'm just saying... (stop the elevator door with my foot) Carbohydrates are good for your brain.
--Me: They may be good for your brain, but batter is not healthy.
--Tom: No. They're good for your brain.
--Me (letting go of elevator door): OK.
--Tom: Batter's not so bad.
--Me: OK, Tom.
(elevator door closes)
(end scene)
Blazing a Trail (where Many have Gone Before)
Don't be mad...I've been blogging on myspace. We'll call it practice.
Here I go. My official blog. Home of my thoughts on the net. Aka, Michael T thinks.
That link was the second result in a google image search of "michael t thinks." Obviously, I think I'm going to convince people to vote for Mitt Romney by pretending to blog as a A Common Gal in Little 'Ole Idaho, Rooting for Romney. In fact, I don't think anything of the kind, because I've only been really non-committally following the presidential business, rather than blog-committally following it.
It's not that I don't want to be one of those people who blogs about a specific subject. I even tried to determine something about which I feel extremely passionate, in order to narrow down what I could blog about (among other motivations). Didn't work out that way.
Instead, I realized that I liked that introspective feeling a lot. Too much, maybe, but I'm going to get away with it, because this is my blog, and that's how I do. So I'm taking the larger blog, rather than just a single entry, and trying to determine what it is I think about.
These days, it's often about commas. --Actually, I started this post with the express purpose of linking to The Laughorist, so don't be surprised if I wrap it up kinda quickly after this. I knew I couldn't link to it on myspace. Not upscale enough.
I'm not going to take a lot of time getting down to my deepest thoughts today. First of all, I never do that, and second, it's 10:41. That means that I'll be locking up the office in about 15 minutes and heading home with my brothers. I've got to have more protein in my life, so I'm going to hit up the grocery store for some tofu. (I was actually reduced to buying my dinner at OK Mart last night--for those of you who don't live in South Korea, OK Mart's a gas station. Alright, so I bought some delicious frozen dumplings and a bag of roasted almonds...doesn't mean I don't need tofu back in my life.) Turns out, peanut butter and jelly isn't good enough to be a staple in your diet, nor are eggs. Good--but not good enough.
Besides, I'm out of butter.
Here I go. My official blog. Home of my thoughts on the net. Aka, Michael T thinks.
That link was the second result in a google image search of "michael t thinks." Obviously, I think I'm going to convince people to vote for Mitt Romney by pretending to blog as a A Common Gal in Little 'Ole Idaho, Rooting for Romney. In fact, I don't think anything of the kind, because I've only been really non-committally following the presidential business, rather than blog-committally following it.
It's not that I don't want to be one of those people who blogs about a specific subject. I even tried to determine something about which I feel extremely passionate, in order to narrow down what I could blog about (among other motivations). Didn't work out that way.
Instead, I realized that I liked that introspective feeling a lot. Too much, maybe, but I'm going to get away with it, because this is my blog, and that's how I do. So I'm taking the larger blog, rather than just a single entry, and trying to determine what it is I think about.
These days, it's often about commas. --Actually, I started this post with the express purpose of linking to The Laughorist, so don't be surprised if I wrap it up kinda quickly after this. I knew I couldn't link to it on myspace. Not upscale enough.
I'm not going to take a lot of time getting down to my deepest thoughts today. First of all, I never do that, and second, it's 10:41. That means that I'll be locking up the office in about 15 minutes and heading home with my brothers. I've got to have more protein in my life, so I'm going to hit up the grocery store for some tofu. (I was actually reduced to buying my dinner at OK Mart last night--for those of you who don't live in South Korea, OK Mart's a gas station. Alright, so I bought some delicious frozen dumplings and a bag of roasted almonds...doesn't mean I don't need tofu back in my life.) Turns out, peanut butter and jelly isn't good enough to be a staple in your diet, nor are eggs. Good--but not good enough.
Besides, I'm out of butter.
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