chimaera

It's been 5 weeks or so since my last post. That's longer than usual. I was about to write something about how you can always rely on me to return eventually, but I must tack on this caveat: if tomorrow the NBA Draft Lottery is a catastrophe for the Sixers, and I don't post anything for another 5 weeks, it's likely that I hopped a plane to Papua New Guinea and have elected to live out my days there in solitude. 

As is wont to happen, South Korea has been in the news. It seems it's never for any good things though. It's always disaster or the threat of disaster. Makes me think this place is due for something good happening.

It's like a country has been taking a month-long stomach punch. They were just kids. Korean kids. And I teach Korean kids. I know exactly what they were like and how the talked. It's a stomach punch is all.

I guess there's really not much else I could add. Just that mirth is still verboten around here. I went to a baseball game last weekend, and conspicuously absent were the cheerleaders and songs that typically accompany a Korean ballgame. 

I teach one class of elementary school students. It's a nice change-up from the typical current of middle schoolers I drown in. The other day the in-class assignment was to choose their personal hero, imagine they could spend a day with that person, and then write a fake journal entry detailing what the two of them did together. One of the kids, a 9 year old girl and just the sweetest little kid you can imagine, chose Yi Sun-shin as her hero. Here's her diary entry:

That's pretty funny, right? I mean, sure, you have to push those nagging thoughts out of your head to really enjoy it. You know, those thoughts that tell you that hate like this isn't innate, but learned. Which means that this innocent 9 year old has had her mind intentionally poisoned. Someone thought it not enough to merely instill her with admiration for a National hero, they had to pin onto that a thirst for vengeance. And then there's me, sitting there like a dickhead having to scan this demented chimaera for grammatical errors and correct it with a red pen.

I don't know, man. I just want to live in a world where ferries don't sink, kids don't daydream of mass murder, and the Sixers get the 1st and 10th picks.