DaeScrub's Xanga

dae + ceramics = ?

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 09:54:10 GMT

we had a field trip to icheon, the ceramic village, a couple of weeks ago. while there, we made some ceramics at a studio. the finished products arrived today:

this "dog" holds a spoon and a set of chopsticks.

he's not very happy with this job.

this happy man holds my pens.

i think his head came off and they re-attached it.

he's still happy about it though.

i did not choose the colors. they put the glaze on themselves. this pattern makes this dude look scary. like a goblin or mutant frog. gives me the willies.

i gave him a ginormous mouth for a reason.

look at him proudly holding my pen. thank you pen-holding man!

i can stuff the goblin king's mouth with business cards.

breaking the dog's back.

he doesn't like it at all.

the best drama ever

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 09:23:38 GMT

bear in mind, that i don't really watch dramas. in fact, i've only seen 4. i tend to watch movies since they're less of a commitment and can't drag on for hours and hours like some dramas do. but last week, i was a total loser and watched the entirety of the best drama ever.

nodame cantabile

it's a japanese drama. which makes it the first japanese drama i've ever seen. it's based off a manga which in turn has been made into an anime. there are 11 episodes. 2 tv specials were added earlier this year.

the story centers around a piano student at a music university who really wants to be a composer. he's apparently adored by the entire school and is somewhat of a jerk. he ends up befriending a piano virtuoso who doesn't really take music seriously and just wants to be a kindergarten teacher. the story is essentially about their relationship as well as his rise to becoming a conductor. there are a ton of characters who ultimately comprise his orchestra.

this drama is absolutely hilarious. it's hardly got any of that lovey dovey stuff at all. most of the time, i was rollin on the floor. some of the humor is very japanese. you got a perverted old man and a couple of gay dudes... but if you can bear that it's pretty much awesome. there's a lot of anime style slapstick as well as some purposely ghetto special effects that make this seem like a live action anime. which could have been a bad thing, but it works well here.

juri ueno is absolutely adorable as nodame. the rest of the cast also grows on you as you see them develop. the music is amazing too. if you don't like classical music, you will after you see this. there are so many "payoff" musical scenes that you'll want to see again and again.

this is a drama that you wish were at least twice as long. with only 11 episodes the pace can sometimes seem too brisk. even so, it's all very satisfying nonetheless. there's no dragging going on here.

for those that have been part of an orchestra or band, you'll have a better appreciation of the group dynamics and camaraderie that you see. reminded me a bit of my old days in band when i played the tenor sax.

the 2 tv specials continue the story... but aren't quite as good as the original drama. it gives a bit of closure but you miss out on a lot of the interactions from the original (simply due to separations created by the story). still worth watching if you like the original.

anyways... if you have a good sense of humor and love music... watch this drama. it's awesome. if you don't have both of those things... i feel sorry for you.

the following are mini-reviews of the other 3 dramas i've seen:

coffee prince shop no.1

apparently this drama was the rage of korean dramas in 2007. we watched it while i was in russia. i thought it was just ok. it dragged on way too long in the middle. and the pseudo "homo" feel was kind of disconcerting. even so, i was able to bear it... but perhaps i was just really bored in russia.

money war

we watched this one in russia too. after seeing the first episode... i didn't want to watch this. and we didn't for a few weeks. we finally gave in after seeing it win so many awards to see what the hoopla was about. i actually found the story to be fairly interesting once it finally started to move. the main character always stayed unpredictable which kept my attention. however... the beginning and the ending are absolutely horrendous. the beginning was way too over the top. i could hardly stomach it. the ending was just stupid. made me angry. it's too bad as i actually enjoyed some of the things in between.

my name is kim sam soon

this was the first drama i ever saw. the only reason why i gave it a shot was because so many had glowed about it and it was supposed to be funny. although it had it's dragging moments, it was hard not to be entertained by kim sun ah's antics. the other characters just got on my nerves (especially statue boy henney). having a group to watch it with made it more fun too. if i'd tried to watch this on my own, i may not have finished it. even so, i have fond memories of watching this drama flawed or not.

that sums of my reviews of all the dramas i've ever seen. to quickly summarize: watch nodame cantabile as if your firstborn depended on it.

represent!

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 02:21:52 GMT

king of the foreigners

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 08:40:52 GMT

so today was the first actual day of class at my korean language program. yesterday i placed into level B. which is supposed to mean that i already knew the korean alphabet which kind of isn't true. i answered my questions in english on the placement test. that's how awesome i am.

i signed up to take danso lessons as an elective. i will learn how to play arirang on the danso. the danso is the korean flute. it's indeed the sound of korea... but i'm not too keen on being a flute player. the main reason why i signed up is because you get to keep the danso. i'm just a sucker for collecting more musical instruments. i doubt mine will be as nice as the ones in this pic:

so when class started i partnered up with a dude who knew less of the alphabet than me. he's an army guy who's being forced to learn korean by the army. it felt good to know that there was someone who knew less than me. then they moved him down to level A for a couple days to learn the alphabet. this lady from level C moved down and became my new partner. she's an american but has lived here for 7 years. i quickly became the stupid guy in class again. haha. naw... it wasn't that bad. i did fine for the first 3 periods which were conversational. they were actually kind of fun. it was the final period that kicked my butt.

let me remind you that i'm virtually illiterate when it comes to korean. so we did some writing exercises. this was the first time i'd written anything other than my name in korean since i was probably in elementary school. surprisingly i was able to read fairly well. this is surprising since the only "reading" i've done over the years is when i have to sing korean songs out of a hymnal which has mostly only been this past year. even so, this writing section kicked my butt. everone else finished pretty quickly. even the foreigners were waiting for me. i suck.

after class, i ended up leading a bunch of the foreigners to lunch. i was just going to go with this aussie from my class but we bumped into half of the level A class. they seemed like little puppy dogs with nowhere to go. so they tagged along with us. i'd been given a very brief tour when i first arrived so this made me the expert of the group. come to think of it... we had some serious international diversity. there was the aussie of course. a dutch guy who now lives in ireland. a korean dude from norway (i think) who knows no korean. a chinese girl from holland. a white dude from denver. and me and two other korean americans. they were so happy to pay $2.50 for lunch. we then went to the school supply store and book store before parting ways. we actually had pretty lively discusions about international health care and world sports. it was fun to be the king of the foreigners. they may very well end up being my default lunch group for the next 5 weeks.

after i came home, i crashed hard. haven't been sleeping well at all here. i really don't know why. it typically takes me a day or two to adjust to a new place and resume sleeping like a baby. but every day i've had trouble falling asleep. i usually just end up lying in bed for a few hours. it's weird though. i'll eventually pass out for an hour or two before some noise outside wakes me up. but it oddly feels like i've slept longer than i did. time starts to pass really slowly as i try to force myself back to sleep for another hour or two. even so, i usually feel refreshed enough to handle the day with just a couple of hours of sleep. it's when the afternoon kicks in that i get really tired. i don't get it. i'm planning on doping myself up with melatonin tonight.

during the night, i'm in a constant battle with the mosquitoes (this may have something to do with why i can't sleep). they've totally ravaged my feet and hands (what pokes out of my blanket). my feet are pretty mangled up already from walking around seoul all day in dress shoes on sunday. let's just say i feel somewhat debilitated these days.

my teacher pointed me to an online korean website that's part of the snu language program. it was actually a great review of the alphabet and for the friggin TEST i have TOMORROW. after spending about two hours on it, i'm feeling much better about class tomorrow. we're going super fast and it's going to be very challenging for me, but it should be a very good learning experience. and even if i bomb this class... i'll still be the king of the foreingers.

booya.

off to korea

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 19:49:34 GMT

my time in russia is nearly up. amazing how fast a year went by.

here's hoping when i get to korea, i won't wonder, "what am i doing here?"

so it goes

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 21:10:19 GMT

my teaching career officially ended yesterday.

end of the year class video

Sat, 31 May 2008 09:36:11 GMT

CLICK HERE

we made another video primarily because half of my class will not be here for our final concert. this video is a continuation of the one from the christmas concert (though my class is almost completely different now). i used my mp3 player as a recorder to improve the audio quality (you can spot it in nearly every scene).

here's what's on the soundtrack:
adagio for strings - samual barber (from the platoon soundtrack)
a clip by james iha from the linda linda linda soundtrack
oh yeah by yello (ferris bueller soundtrack)
acappella version of eye of the tiger (not sure which group it is)
push it by salt n peppa
a bunch of clips by explosions in the sky from the friday night lights soundtrack
start the commotion by the wise guys (zoolander soundtrack)
school's out for summer by alice cooper (dazed and confused soundtrack)

this video will be presented this friday at our end of the year concert.

most amazing thing update and attack of the bboys

Sun, 25 May 2008 06:20:04 GMT

i tried rehyrdating the dried pineapples i bought the other day. here is how they turned out:

they look like fresh pineapple but they don't quite taste the same. either pineapples are really sweet in the philippines or pineapples lose their sourness when they're dried. these pineapples taste like pure sugar. there's no tartness to them at all. i've noticed in general that all dried pineapples seem that way. that's why i'm not a very big fan of them. i love fresh pineapple because i like the tartness with the sweetness. so sadly, this didn't turn out so great. it's not bad. but it's way too sweet for my tastes. one big plus though is that they're much cheaper than the mangoes (which have since gone sold out at my supermarket).

attack of the bboys:

one of the missionaries here is in charge of promoting korean culture here in vladivostok. as such, he organizes about 20 concerts per year from various korean performing artists. usually this entails opera singers, pianists, choirs, and the like. this past weekend however, we've been hosting a bboy group from korea, last for one. they're actually pretty famous since they won the boty (battle of the year) in 2005 which makes them former world champions. they even made front page of the new york times as the group ushering in break dancing as a new art form. i wasn't planning on going to the concert but my dad really wanted to, so i tagged along. i was skeptical but they put on a great show. they performed routines in between video clips that first detailed the basic foundations of break dancing and then their rise to fame. i can see why they won boty 2005 after they performed the routine from it. the choreography was perfect and they were spot on as a group.

the turnout was the best i've seen at any concert here thus far. it was nearly sold out with tons of young russians and koreans. it was pretty funny that there were a bunch of korean parents in the audience. this concert was actually put together by the korean government and some corporate sponsors. it's part of korea's desire to build upon relations with russia ever since the first korean astronaut who went up a couple of months ago. as such there were a bunch of old korean diplomats who were there amidst screaming teenagers to show face. pretty funny.

i thought it was odd that we were hosting this group since they're pretty famous. normally people like this would stay in hotels and such instead of our site. the korean government asked our culture director to do this because of all of the connections he has putting on so many shows each year. apparently our kitchen staff has been quite surprised with how much these guys eat (they ran out of eggs during the first breakfast). also my mom's been their personal launderer since they arrived. i'm greeted with bboy underwear hanging everywhere whenever i go upstairs. they all seem to wear calvin klein. must be the preferred supporter of bboys everywhere.

if you haven't heard of these guys, they have a bunch of clips on youtube. last for one. i have no idea what that's supposed to mean. i don't think they do either.

the most amazing thing ever

Wed, 21 May 2008 06:14:21 GMT

i like fruit but i always hesitated from buying a lot of fresh fruit from the supermarket because it tends to spoil before i can eat it (namely due to my hectic schedule back in the states). so dried fruit was a nice happy medium because i wouldn't have to worry about it going bad. however, dried fruit can't hand a candle to fresh fruit taste-wise.

the other day i was delighted to find philippine brand dried magoes in the supermarket here in russia. they weren't cheap. at 100 rubles for a 6 ounce bag (about $4.25 these days), it's a hefty markup. i couldn't resist, however, and bought a few bags. i brought some to share with my mom when she talked about how my aunt who lives in the philippines. my aunt had brought about 10 big bags of these here and had told my mom the best way to eat them was to put them in water to rehydrate. she said it was like eating it fresh all over again. the missionaries here weren't willing to wait and just ate them up as is immediately. so my mom didn't know if it could work or not. i decided to give it a shot by throwing a couple of pieces of dried mango into some water. we popped it into the fridge and checked on it a few hours later. lo and behold, it had transformed into fresh hydrated mango. it was awesome. then my mom drank the water and was shocked at how delicious the water was (it honestly took me a few minutes to recover from my mom's initial reaction... it was hilarious). so not only do you get "fresh" fruit from this. you get a "juice" that tastes kind of like a mango spritzer (the flavor will vary depending on how much water you use). DOUBLE SCORE!

granted this worked with philippine dried mangoes which are arguably the best ones out there. i don't know how well this works with other brands. i'm tempted to experiment with some other dried fruits. i bought some dried pineapples to see how they turn out.

will give an update on how the pineapples turn out later.

an odd thing about russian supermarkets:
you get no discount when you buy large volumes. the bag of dried mangoes pictured is actually the 20 ounce one. the price is 323 rubles which is essentially the same per unit price as the 6 ounce bag. so let's say you want to buy some chips. it's not any cheaper to buy a big bag and to eat it over time. if you just want a little at a time, you might as well just buy a bunch of little bags since it's the same per unit price. so not only do you pay big markups since everything is imported here, it also doesn't pay to buy more. the sam's club concept is dead to the russians.

the only things that are reasonably priced in russian supermarkets are things from russia. sadly, there aren't so many products from here. the vast majority of what you find in the supermarkets is imported from other countries. i have however recently become addicted to a russian product: croutons. they sell tons of flavored croutons. i imagine they're not very good for me since they also have "light" versions (these croutons are likely deep fried instead of baked). but i've been on such a "salty" kick these days that i can't stop eating them.

i pick up the small bags to try to limit my snacking. as you can see, i like the meat flavored ones.

the final round of egg drops

Tue, 13 May 2008 02:25:25 GMT

so we had our third and final round of egg drops today. not surprisingly the boys all copied the design that worked last time.

kyum jae's is the same as his old one without the side protection (he chose to use less paper for potentially greater rewards)

hongmin made a short stubby cylinder.

dong hyun was coaxed out of embarrassment to copy everyone else.

young gwang made yet another cylinder but attached a pathetic parachute. after i made fun of its lack of utility, he fixed it.

chanmin and his "hammer."

in woo and his cylinder with random stuff on the sides.

dong hyun went first and got partial credit because his egg only had a crack.

in woo's design was not balanced.

look at all that egg goo. FAIL 3X

hongmin's stubby cylinder fell on its side.

you can see the crushed egg remains. FAIL 2X

the look on chanmin's face here was about the same when the egg hit the ground. that "hammer" of his fell directly on its side. the egg goo poured out immediately. FAIL 2X

you can see that young gwang's parachute is improved here. it fell very softly and this time the egg was actually protected for impact.

the first student to pass through skill. chute FTW!

kyum jae's design fell straight (as opposed to the others). but then it took a really hard bounce and flipped over.

the second bounce is probably what broke his egg. close but still FAIL

all in all, it seems like my students have a better understanding of impact physics now. i finally shared with them what my design was in highschool. the cylinder is a good design as it can absorb a lot of impact but it also has to fall almost perfectly to work. instead i used the cone which helps disperse energy well. i covered my egg all around with cones to make a "star." it didn't matter how it fell. there were enough points all around the egg to absorb the impact from any direction. in my physics class i wasn't allowed to use a parachute of any sort.