Category Archives: Games

Dead Poet’s Society

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Last night I watched Dead Poet’s Society, which is a fascinating movie about an English teacher at an all boy’s school and a group of students who are inspired by him. It isn’t a movie for young kids, but it would be a good choice for discussion with teenagers. Themes include: conformity, pressures on students (academic and parental), thinking for oneself, creativity, and poetry. It is not a happy movie, though the ending does shine a dim ray of hope for some of the students. There are moments of beauty and moments where teenage boys push against the great expectations of parents and headmasters in ways that aren’t always healthy.

But I’m not here to convince you to watch or not watch this movie. Rather, I want to delve into some of the themes brought up by this movie because of how they connect to my own experiences. So let this be a spoiler warning: what comes after the break will reveal aspects of the plot and ending; caveat lector. Continue reading →

Playing Games

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I’ve been keeping myself entertained recently by playing various games. :)   At school I play games such as hide-the-pingpong-rackets-and-balls-that-weren’t-put-away-properly, Fabula (I’ll explain below), and a homemade vocabulary game.  At home I play wash-the-dishes, Total War: Shogun 2, and Minecraft.  I also alpha test Antilia on Sunday, if I have time, and my former roommates are hoping to get an intercontinental Dungeons and Dragons campaign going.

Sometimes I play the computer games on my list because I need to do something that doesn’t require the sort of thinking I’ve had to do at work or because I have time for a little relaxation.  And other times I play them because it’s the weekend and my students’ stories make me want to curl up in a corner and cry, which is not the mood I want to be in for the whole weekend; it’s a way to cleanse my mind of the plot, formating, and grammatical horrors I encountered or build up my fun reserves before I march, pen in paw, against the paper giants.

But rather than just tell you that I play these games and leave it at that, I’ll tell you about them and why I enjoy them.

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The Nearer Your Destination…

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…the more you slip-slide away. (there’s a song with those lyrics, but I can’t remember the details abut it) I feel this way about my den, for it seems the closer I get to finishing the re-imagining, the farther I get from actually being finished. And this feeling of sliding down a scree slope comes up with my novel (I need to do more revising than I have), with my re-inventorying of the school’s library, with taking Korean fencing 검도 (keomdo), and with staying in contact with all my various friends and family who are several time zones away. I don’t want to be distant and yet I seem to be sliding down the slope.

Perhaps if I managed to juggle my time better, I could get everything done in a reasonable manner, but… I’m distractable and there isn’t much outside incentive for most of these. The library project is closest to completion because it’s my job and I want to finish with what we currently have before all the new books arrive. z.z I’ve come to realize that my self-motivation can only take me so far, especially when I have no definite timeline to work with.

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On the Eve of School

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Winter holiday is ending.  School starts on January 12th (so tomorrow).  It’s a new semester and I have new responsibilities!  You see, since three of the four students in my ESL class tested into regular class and the school has more than one ESL teacher, it was decided that I would move to more of a librarian.  In addition to my librarian duties, I will also be the Warden of the Infirmary, the Online class Proctor, as well as teach a creative writing class! ^^

I was going to say something about my adventures yesterday evening at the GOMTV studio, but I think I will hold off on that for this weekend.  I need to be getting to bed… ^_^;

Also, I’m going to be doing a little bit about SOPA and PIPA that are floating around in the US Congress this weekend because researching them is the primary cause I haven’t been writing about my adventures.  So expect more from me this weekend!

Blessings and peace!
~Direlda

Breaking Radio Silence

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I dust off the transceiver and hit the transmit button.  “Is this frequency in use?”

 

No response, so I repeat.  My words fade into the silence.

 

Satisfied that I wasn’t intruding upon giants debating how best to protect their castles in the sky from invasive vines, I say, “CQ, CQ, CQ.  This is Kitsune calling.”

 

Twice more I utter those words, but, aside from the brief techno power washer that leaves my ears ringing, I hear nothing.  I check the time.  I glance at the map and double check that they are within one of the reachable swaths.  They are.  I check my frequency.  I try again and wonder if the only reply will be light years away and won’t be able to answer until long after I have figured out how to have more than one tail.

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Pizza and Chuseok (추석)

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Today is Chuseok (추석), which is the traditional Korean harvest festival.  But more on that later.

I need to take care of a few maintenance things first, and rather than stick them at the end (as I would normally do), I am dealing with them now, since I feel they need emphasizing.

First, I am planning on changing the appearance of the emoticons.  I will be using TaniDaReal’s Foxy Mood Icon set.  Here is what the readme says:

I hope you like the Foxy Mood Icon set. :) Feel free to use it as you wish. Giving credit is always welcome. Please upload the images to your own webspace to use them (please do not just link to my website). The pictures are transparent gif files that work on all backgrounds. Enjoy! :) ~ TaniDaReal (www.tanidareal.com)

So there is credit where credit is due for when the emoticon appearance change takes place.

Second, to those businesses or spammers who have posted comments that my on-page Search Engine Optimization (SEO) isn’t that great: No duh!  That’s not my goal.  I’m naming pages with my own names rather than use the standard because I’m trying to fit a certain theme.  If not many people read my blog, then that is fine (yes, it would be cool to have many readers, but that’s not my primary goal).  I would rather spend my time and effort on creating worthwhile content than advertising and I don’t have a current need to pay anyone to advertise and optimize for me.

Third, I’ve dug out the tunnels to what should be the last of the main areas.  Since some of you may be lost or confused, I’ll provide a guide.

  • Fox’s Den = The home page (because a den is a fox’s home)
  • Ramblings = The blog (because my blog is a collection of my ramblings)
  • Scriptorium = Writing/art showcase (because the scriptorium is where monks copied books and illustrated manuscripts)
  • Chapel Ruins = Bible study information page (because you study the Word in both)
  • Scones & Tea = About me (because you might be served these if you sat down to get to know me in person)
  • The Meadow = Links (because a meadow is filled with a variety of paths going many different places)
  • Starwatching Rock = Contact Me (because of what my name means, this is where you are most likely to find me)

I hope that has provided enough clarity on the matter. If you think I need to provide this guide on a “static” page, then please comment on this post!  And with that, I will get back to rambling on Pizza and Chuseok. Continue reading →

School and Subway Rushes

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I survived the first week of school! It was a bit touch and go at the start, but thanks be to God for helping me through it. I have four 6th grade ESL students (though one is on a family trip and won’t be in class until the 6th or so… >.> ) and nine seniors for a senior seminar that is attempting to get them ready for American universities.  [Before I posted this, another week of school had passed – the school open house and lesson planning took a lot more time than I thought they would.]

The ESL kids are fun – though when I give them a quiz or homework they don’t like, at least one of them says, “Teacher, no.” And I had to make all of the extra thumbtacks disappear because one of the two boys was poking the bulletin board repeatedly with them. That student also likes to lean back in his chair, though after he fell over backwards while doing so, he’s more open to my reminders to keep the chair on the floor! Devotions in the morning are hard – even with my adapting the text for their level, they still look like deer in the headlights. They’re good at math – the first four chapters of their math book breezed by this week (in part because they knew it and also because they didn’t have their matchbooks yet) – their only trouble is the English math vocabulary. I’ve been having them writing every day and on Friday we had a debate on “Are girls better than boys?” – this topic got them talking a lot in English, which was a blessing.

The seniors have been working on resumes – their final draft is due on Tuesday. And once that is done, we’ll do a reflective essay and hopefully I’ll have more to ramble about for them. It is and isn’t a blessing to not have a textbook.
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Of Water Hot and Cold

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I look forward to the day I break the language barrier.  But unlike Chuck Yeager and the sound barrier (hmm… Chuck Yeager and the Sonic Booms sounds like it would make a cool band name…), there is no specific target to surpass.  Fluency is a hard thing to measure and one need not be fluent to be able to read heating controls or tell the landlady about the unexpected wading pool in your living room.  This particular adventure of water hot and cold started with the switch to a new apartment.

On the day my wife and I moved in to our new apartment in South Korea, we received not only internet access, but a new washing machine and a new stove.  We soon discovered, however, that we could not get the stove to ignite (it was a two-burner, self-igniting gas stove).  And no matter how far we turned the handle to the hot side, the shower only poured out cold water.  Unfortunately for us, the person who had been assisting us was swamped with office work at the school, so he wasn’t able to get around to helping us.  We spent a week taking “brisk and refreshing” showers and heating up instant rice in the microwave.

Last night, the School Director took the school staff out to eat at a nice restaurant and afterwards I decided to head to noraebang (Korean for karaoke)  with some of my fellow teachers.  Eruanna decided to head back to our apartment.  I had a lot of fun, especially since the place supplied tambourines in the room we rented.  Unlike in America, where you get up in front of a bunch of strangers and make a fool of yourself, in Korea (and in Japan, I’ve heard) you rent a room with a bunch of people you know and make a fool of yourself with them.  There were plenty of English songs to sing, though some of the Korean teachers did sing one K-pop song (lyrics were in Korean, so I only sort of got the sounds).  There were live-action and cartoon videos playing behind the lyrics and I had a hard time telling if it was random or selected for each song.  I nearly lost my voice on Bohemian Rhapsody… ^^ Continue reading →

Main Quest: Figure out Classes; Sidequest: Save the World

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I’ve almost been in Korea for a week now and I’m still not one hundred percent sure of what exactly I’m going to be teaching.  I’m getting closer to knowing, but it’s hard to say without having the textbooks in my paws.  I do know that four of the classes will involve TESOL and the fifth will most likely be a senior seminar geared towards preparing them for American universities.  At least I now have a room.  There was only so much I could do during the prep. parts of orientation without a room to prepare or textbooks to lesson plan from.  Lord willing, the textbooks will be there tomorrow.  With school starting on the 29th, I sort of need the textbooks to plan.  So that is my current main quest.

As for my sidequest…  While in Seoul on Saturday I encountered many groups of police officers in riot gear and surreptitiously snapped the following photo.
One of my fellow teachers tried to get some officers to explain what was going on, but they didn’t really speak English and eventually one of them made an “x” with his arms and said, “Secret.”  We happened to be in view of a platoon of officers and all of them turned their heads and looked right at us.  Then one of them came over and asked us if we needed any help.  We explained that, no, we didn’t need help, but we were curious as to what was going on.  The officer tried to explain, but repeatedly said, “It’s hard to explain” and mentioned something about it being cultural.  My fellow teacher guesses it is probably some sort of training or drill. Continue reading →