Category Archives: Korean

The Return of the Kitsune

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Direlda has returned to his den in an attempt to rescue his ramblings from the clutches of Jabber the Procrastinator.

Little does Direlda know that the MUNDANE EMPIRE has secretly begun construction on a new ironclad routine even more powerful than the first dreaded Class Schedule.

When completed, this ultimate program will spell certain doom for the small band of storytellers struggling to restore insanity to the Library…

What that tells you is true, from a certain point of view. :p

For today does mark the return of this kitsune to his den. :D   It has been a long while, but I have grown in my time wandering.  I am armed now with a cork board, index cards, pushpins, and pens and markers of various colours.  So I should be able to work out a system and hold myself to it.

Today also marks the completion of another orientation session for the Master in Library and Information Science program that I have started.  The Chair of the department said, “You’re all going to be librarians, but you’re not all going to work in a library” and that part of my job is to “make humanity more human.”  I think I’m going to like it here.

This program may also give me the tools needed to finally get my den looking the way I want it to.  Or at least give enough of a kick to the tail to send my scampering to the resources to teach myself how.  The Chair made a spontaneous example for how career paths change of a person who wanted to do storytelling ending up in web design.  And that has got me thinking on how to integrate the two.  Because I do want the appearance of my den to convey a story as much as my ramblings do.  Stories are everywhere.

Speaking of stories, I have a short story being published in the Rainfurrest 2014 convention anthology! Whooo! :D   One of my artist friends, NovaWuff, did an illustration to go along with it that should also be in the anthology.

My story is called Neural Enrichment.  Here is a blurb-in-progress:

After saving for months on his hagwon English teacher’s salary, John finally had enough to afford a cybernetic implant.  He had hoped that his new Rycorp implant would allow him to fully enjoy all that the Korean Technocracy had to offer.  Instead it turned him into an anthropomorphic fox and now bombards his mind with adverts.  John is desperate to shut the world out of his head and is willing to seize any opportunity to do so even if it risks what humanity he has left.

I don’t know the cost of the anthology, but I do know that all proceeds will be going towards a charity of sorts (I think it’s the Clouded Leopard Project, but it could be the Cougar Mountain Zoo).  I also don’t know the content of the other stories aside from all being cyberpunk, but I do know that the anthology I’m in has a content rating of G to PG-13.  Come the evening of September 25 I will be able to give you more information.

That is all the exciting news I have for you today!  But I will be around more now. :)

Count the shadows.

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 →