Apartment Pictures and Open Invitation

I've been extraordinarily lazy about this, but I thought I'd post some pictures of my apartment here in Korea. I am quite lucky, as everyone else I've talked to here has described their apartment as being about half the size of mine, and definitely not across the street from where they work. Because I can't stop fantasizing about being a DJ, I imagine I will one day host a dance party in it. If you can make it to Korea, you're invited.



Bedroom



Bathroom (yes the entire bathroom is the shower. Extremely convenient for cleaning)



Kitchen



And Living Room

I think within the next five blogs, I am going to post one of my own songs. Brace yourselves. It will probably blow you...r hair gently around your ears.

Why hello. Been a little while. This will just be a quick update. So far, the new foreign is absolutely fantastic. No longer does the Wonderland community observe constant arrogance throughout its workdays. No longer am I, or anyone else, burdened with the obnoxious persistence of information spouted for the sake of previous foreign teacher's ego. Work is ludicrously more comfortable, and everyone is happy.

For my birthday, I met my former Chicago co-worker and original South Korea Opportunity informer Mike, friends Joel and Emily, and new friends Leanne, Andy and Ken. After some pretty pathetic decision making while briefly scouring Itaewon, we decided to head for the much more gratifying Hongdae. There we encountered probably the nucleus of all graffiti in Korea, Akira-esque motorcycle groups (I've forgone the term gangs, as they could hardly be deemed menacing), and Club Oi, a bar that would be completely appropriate witnessing the drunken annihilation of the Cat and the Hat. It was low-key and worth every minute. I thoroughly appreciated everyone there and had a great time.

With that boring riff raff out of the way, I am getting ever closer to my DJ goal. With the introduction of the Yongsan electronics market, I've been peeing my pants with anticipation in acquiring one of these (AAAGGH!It can do anything! Midi control, USB input for multiple sources, a stupifying array of effects, and compatibility with nearly any legitimate music making program! I can't believe it). Anyway, Yongsan is quite possibly, no, make that positively is, the largest electronics store I've ever been in. Joel made a pretty apt comparison of it to Marshall Fields (macys shmacys), utilizing 7 gigantic floors for laptops, gaming, cell phones, music making equipment, cameras and an assortment of black market PSP and DSlite game downloading sales. In other words, it was heaven. Now, all I have to do is get my next paycheck, buy the DN-S1200, start Djing, and become the freshest old school Disco DJ in all of Korea (mixes will definitely come within the appropriate timeframe).

Health and the Shape of Time floating in the Internet Universe

I had this entire post set for divulging in an elaborate comparative analysis between South Korea's National Health Insurance plan and the U.S.'s lack thereof after a clinic visit here astoundingly lasted a little under 15 minutes. I'm mean, I'm seriously talking the waiting, the check up, the prescription and all. But after a hefty amount of research, I'm basically going to rest most of my take on the issue on this article. And with that, I officially declare the internet as a 100% legitimate research tool (thus adding to the Internet Universe theory. Oh and this, albeit old, is interesting too)



Anyway, I finished reading the Shape of Time a little while ago and just started reading the abridgment of A Study of History by Arnold J. Toynbee and am feeling a bit analytical. Pardon any over-ambitiousness. But really, if you're interested at all in Art and history (read: NOT art history) and their relation, The Shape of Time is the most thorough analysis of the two subjects' correlation. George Kubler is ridiculously astute at reorganizing the entire structure of observing and placing significance upon all human objects, from "all tools and writing in addition to the useless, beautiful, and poetic things of the world." There is seriously not one paragraph of the book I do not in some way observe as completely profound. Some of my favorite concepts are as follows:

...our ability at any moment to accept new knowledge is narrowly delimited by the existing state of knowledge.

and

How does artistic invention differ from useful invention? It differs as human sensibility differs from the rest of the universe. Artistic inventions alter the sensibiility of mankind. They all emerge from and return to human perception, unlike useful inventions, which are keyed to the physical and biological environment. Useful inventions alter mankind only indirectly by altering his environment; aesthetic inventions enlarge human awareness directly with new ways of experiencing the universe, rather than with new objective interpretations.

and

When the industrial designer discovers a new shape to satisfy an old need, his difficulty is to find enough buyers for the new shape among people who already own satisfactory old forms. Thus every successful manufacture tends to saturate the region in which it was made by using all the occasions that might require the thing.

Simply genius. The book was originally published in my favorite decade ever, the 60s, and influenced a number of my favorite artists including Donald Judd, Ad Reinhardt, and Robert Smithson. It was complete coincidence I noticed it in the bookstore, read the back, and promptly decided to buy it. I seriously believe it has changed my life.

Anyway, I've been enjoying work pretty thoroughly this week, as one of my less favorable co teachers is leaving, a new very nice teacher is arriving, my birthday is Saturday, and there's a DJing prospect completely within my reach. This prospect is not at all any type of a career starter nor anything completely serious, but an exciting opportunity to at least play music in front of people. If I can get equipment, slow, low key Sunday nights are my bounty at Under Construction, a bar just two stops away on the yellow line. All I have to do is save up enough money after maybe two or three paychecks to buy something that mixes songs together and doesn't look like I am following some poor attempt at a trend.

Spam?

I submitted my blog to the Korean Blog List awhile back and was amused to read that it was accepted a couple weeks later. In lieu of this acceptance, I seem to be a new target in a flurry of various promotional emails. Hagwon reviews, Korean language learning websites, other bloggers in Korea, its really bizarre. I can't tell how much of these messages are templates and how many of them are totally genuine. Aside from that, I can't tell if I should really care whether or not they're genuine. Oh well. I think this internet being an alternate universe theory is starting to hold up. Websites like secondlife are pointless given the real second lives people lead on the internet. Getting readership really makes some bloggers livelihoods. I'm not being facetious either.

So, this turns the whole concept into a personal dilemma: should this mean anything to me or should I get a pizza tonight? I have a feeling I'll choose the latter and regret not being able to make free money three months later when I'm getting 2,534,555 hits a day.

Thank you internet gods.