Friday, May 07, 2004
Gangneung-si, Gangwon-do, South Korea
So I haven't updated in awhile, just want to let everyone know I'm still alive. Things have been going really well here. The weather is beautiful everyday which always makes it easier. My students are still pretty crazy, I'm not putting up with anymore shit now and at the first signs of conflict I send them out of the room, it's just too much to deal with them myself anymore, they refuse to listen to me.
I spent last weekend in Seoul and saw some of the sights I was planning on visiting. Club Night was a wash, but that's another story...
I bought a burned copy of "Lost In Translation" in Itaewon and watched it Sunday night. It was great; the last really, really good movie I've watched. Most of it was funny because of the parallels between Mr. Hollis' experiences and my own here in this foreign country.
I also bought and finished, in two days, Chuck Palahniuk's "Lullaby" from What The Book? (I also ordered Alex Garland's "The Tesseract" which should be arriving any day). He wrote "Fight Club" if his name doesn't ring a bell. "Lullaby" was the story of a journalist who discovers an ancient culling spell in a book of rhymes and poems. He reads it to his family and kills them. Soon after, he discovers that the same poem has killed many newborn children across the country and goes on a quest to destroy all copies of the book. It's very anti-establishment, like Fight Club, and dark and twisted. Carl Streator, the main character befriends a real-estate agent who has harnessed the power of the spell. She now works secretly for governments across the world as a hit (wo)man, using the spell as her weapon. She works in exchange for large cut diamonds. The two travel together searching for the Grimoire or "Book of Shadows," the original witches spell collection from which the spell was plagiarized. It was a really good book, amazing how Palahniuk mixed witchcraft with his beliefs on government and big corporations and the fate of humanity...and there were many parallels drawn in the tone of the writing between Tyler Durden and Carl Streator....both glorious, unforgettable, anti-heroes...
Well, I've got more to say, not now though, class starts in ten minutes...I'll do a bigger update this weekend and should have some new photos in the next couple of weeks...
So I haven't updated in awhile, just want to let everyone know I'm still alive. Things have been going really well here. The weather is beautiful everyday which always makes it easier. My students are still pretty crazy, I'm not putting up with anymore shit now and at the first signs of conflict I send them out of the room, it's just too much to deal with them myself anymore, they refuse to listen to me.
I spent last weekend in Seoul and saw some of the sights I was planning on visiting. Club Night was a wash, but that's another story...
I bought a burned copy of "Lost In Translation" in Itaewon and watched it Sunday night. It was great; the last really, really good movie I've watched. Most of it was funny because of the parallels between Mr. Hollis' experiences and my own here in this foreign country.
I also bought and finished, in two days, Chuck Palahniuk's "Lullaby" from What The Book? (I also ordered Alex Garland's "The Tesseract" which should be arriving any day). He wrote "Fight Club" if his name doesn't ring a bell. "Lullaby" was the story of a journalist who discovers an ancient culling spell in a book of rhymes and poems. He reads it to his family and kills them. Soon after, he discovers that the same poem has killed many newborn children across the country and goes on a quest to destroy all copies of the book. It's very anti-establishment, like Fight Club, and dark and twisted. Carl Streator, the main character befriends a real-estate agent who has harnessed the power of the spell. She now works secretly for governments across the world as a hit (wo)man, using the spell as her weapon. She works in exchange for large cut diamonds. The two travel together searching for the Grimoire or "Book of Shadows," the original witches spell collection from which the spell was plagiarized. It was a really good book, amazing how Palahniuk mixed witchcraft with his beliefs on government and big corporations and the fate of humanity...and there were many parallels drawn in the tone of the writing between Tyler Durden and Carl Streator....both glorious, unforgettable, anti-heroes...
Well, I've got more to say, not now though, class starts in ten minutes...I'll do a bigger update this weekend and should have some new photos in the next couple of weeks...
Kiran Parghi Friday, May 07, 2004