Lord, teach us to number our days

 


Lord, teach us to number our days, that we may learn wisdom.

Every so often it's good for us to reflect on death. This picture is to stimulate your reflections.
 

Various quotes on nothing in particular

"Wherefore my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God" (James 1.19-20).

 

"Who doesn't like a parfait?" (The Donkey in Shrek).

 

"And above all things have fervent charity amoung yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins" (1 Peter 4.8).

 

"He that but looketh on a plate of ham and eggs to lust after it hath already committed breakfast with it in his heart" (C.S.Lewis).

 

"Children's children are the crown of old men; and the glory of children are their fathers" (Proverbs 17.6).

 

"Next time I see you, remind me not to talk to you" (Groucho Marx)

 

"Honour thy father and thy mother, as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee; that thy days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with thee, in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee" (Deut. 5.16).

 

"The bible tells us to love our neighbours, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally they are the same people" (G.K.C.).

 

"Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them" (Oscar Wilde).

 

"I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing" (Jonathan Swift).

Birthday party

This will be a fairly short post as I have class in fifteen minutes. I was alone at school all day. It was the kindergarten birthday party... they have one every month for all of the children who have had birthdays that month. Only one foreign teacher is required to be present for it and this month it was my turn. It's pretty easy, the birthday children hold candles and are paraded in front of the other children as the other children sing a korean song to them, then I shake hands with each of them individually and ask... what is your name? How are you? and How old are you? Some of the children answer, some give blank stares. Then myself and their korean home room teacher pose with each of them for pictures. The party only lasts for about two hours and then I had nothing to do until my afternoon classes at 3pm, so it was a pretty boring day, alone in the teacher's room for more than 3 hours with not much to do. It was interesting though, I guess.

Well, that's all for now.

ta ta

New job opportunity

Deborah, trying to waste some time, went to the Kellogg's website. There are some new cereals here in Korea, which are not available in America. They are various bean cereals. One is red bean, one is black bean, and the last is another variety bean. They are expensive, though, and we probably won't buy them. We are fairly cheap.

More to the point, on their website there was a section for careers at Kellogg's. At first I didn't take much notice of this, because hey, it's Kellogg's. Who wants to work at a cereal company, licking the covers of the boxes, thus activating the glue to keep the boxes shut? However, Kellogg's has just a new cereal box, one that will help them compete with their shrewd competitors, Post and General Mills. Also, this new, state-of-the-art cereal box can be considered Kellogg's entrance into the profitable market of technology.

This cereal box will keep the familiar cardboard exterior with pictures of their loveable mascots, such as Tony the tiger and the disjointed chicken, but will have a metal interior. It has eye-recognition technology, and, once closed, will open only once it has scanned the eyes of the owner. All it takes to program who the owner will be the owner is a quick eye scan. This all sounds wonderful, but they have met with some serious problems so far.

Kellogg's has released the cereal boxes for testing in several supermarkets. Some frantic cereal lovers have scanned their eyes into all the boxes, and now the boxes will open for no one but them. What's worse, Kellogg's hasn't created a way for the programming to be reversed, so these boxes are lost. They can only be destroyed.

Also, teachers have been having more than the usual trouble teaching children.  School children are crouching over and holding their stomachs, whining that they're hungry.  Apparently, their dads, whose eyes are the keys that will open the boxes, have already left for work by the time they get up. Some fathers have remarked that they do this on purpose because they're sick of sharing their cereal.

Another group that has been affected by the new boxes is the blind. Some have bought the cereal thinking that it was just regular Kellogg's. When they arrived home, however, they were unable to open the boxes. Some, probably because of empty stomachs, were enraged. The National Institute for the Blind is already trying to sue Kellogg's for unfair treatment of blind people. The Kellogg's representative for this issue made things worse when, obviously frustrated by the accusers complaints, he insensitively attempted to fob off the accussers by saying, "Nonsense! Go cry your eyes out."

Despite these difficulties, Kellogg's plans to continue with its new cereal boxes, and they are already developing new models with built-in mp3 players so that people won't have to be bored while eating their breakfast.

With this new technology, Kellogg's will need technical writers to write clear handbooks on how to troubleshoot with these boxes when there's a problem. With my philosophical training, I think that I am amply qualified for this job, and so I've sent in my application. Just an update on our potential futures.

Goodness

Over the past few weeks I've been stumped for writing. I've been knackered, as the English say. There was nothing to put on the blog. There were no ideas to put in the journal.  Happily for me, though, I've discovered the problem.

There was nothing to write because I was ignoring one of the biggest things in my life, namely, teaching. I quite enjoy teaching, and now that I've started writing about it writing comes easier.  Now, I'm writing about the things I'm thinking about, and not trying to write something great and profound about something I'm not thinking about. The problem was quite simple, really.

Now I'm writing in my journal again, but about ways to teach and ways to discipline, ways to run a conversation class and ways to get children to shut the h...be quiet (phew). It's actually quite fun, and it helps me to think of how I can serve my boss as though I were serving Christ.  To write about it helps me to put my whole heart and mind into it. I have often told us that we had to serve Mrs. Kwak as though we were serving Jesus in heavy sky-blue eye makeup and tinted glasses, but had disregarded it. Now I'm doing something that feels right. We'll see how it goes. I tend to begin with a bang and end with a whimper.

Not that my writing or thinking will be limited to teaching, but it's a good place to start, and to ignore in thought the greater part of my life is stultifying and foolish.

To all my dear friends,

I hope to talk with you later.

P.S.

I've recently read a great idiom for drunkenness, from the good folks at Credenda magazine.   www.credenda.org
"He's over in the corner, running for Congress."

Pepero Day

Friday, November 11th was Remembrance Day back home... but in Korea it was Pepero Day. Peperos are the long cookie like stick dipped in chocolate pictured here. On Pepero Day, one is to give peperos to the people you love. It is a huge commercial thing like Valentine's Day, every corner store and grocery store sell thousands of the cookies in all different sizes. You can get specialty ones from the bakeries as well.

Students and teachers are expected to exchange peperos as well and so as a result we ended up with piles of peperos from our kindergarten, elementary, and middle school children. At school, Scott made a rather humerous cultural error as he gave a box of peperos to his female co-teacher (blue teacher) out of politeness.... however, it gave his kindergarten students the wrong idea and they began chanting "Scott teacher love blue teacher... Scott teacher love blue teacher... he want to marry her".. they continued to chant it as Scott protested in English that no, it wasn't true, he loved Deborah teacher and he was married to Deborah teacher. Some of the students caught on.. but others continued their Scott teacher-blue teacher chant until the embarrassed blue teacher explained to them in Korean that Scott teacher was married to Deborah teacher. Oh the trials of Pepero day... I had no such problems, my co-teacher gave me peperos and no one thought anything of it... because we're both female.. it is quite another thing for a male teacher to give peperos to a female teacher.. so it was pretty funny.

They also celebrate Valentine's Day.. but it is only a day for Men to give chocolates and flowers and gifts to the women. They have a separate day for women to give gifts to men... it is called "White day". So, all in all, they have three "love" holidays.. kind of interesting.

So, that day went well. We are doing well in other parts of our lives as well, we bought a digital camera and have been taking pictures of the apartment and stuff, to show you all where we are living... we should have them posted soon.

Oh yeah, I have another nephew... Reuban Jonathan Dixon was born to my sister Sharalyn Dixon and her husband Jonathan Dixon... their third child after Caleb Andrew MacDonald Dixon and Kathryn Joy Dixon... we were very excited, his pictures look like he's quite the screamer... we can't wait to see all of our new nephews in person... unfortunately they'll be almost a year old before we get to hold them.
Congratulations guys!

In other news... very shortly, we're having quite a problem in our apartment with these little bitty brown bugs that are all over the counter and table and get into the cupboards.. they are attracted to bread products and so are always infesting our cereal etc... causing us to have to throw it out... they're driving me nuts! If anyone has any suggestions on how to rid ourselves of or improve this situation, we're open to them. The only thing I can think of now is to keep our cereal and bread in the refrigerator... but that might make it hard and stale. I spray with bug stuff like everyday and then wipe the bodies up with a cloth, but just hours later, the place is infested again... it's really gross!

Anyway, that's all for now, I guess I've started to ramble.

Kids say the darndest things....

Just kind of a short funny story to begin with... In one of my Kindergarten classes recently, one of the six year old boys came up to me and pulled on my shirt. "Teacher... Teacher" he called, I asked him what he wanted and he said "Ab-ra-haam... Lin-colnnn..... Ab-ra-haam... Lin-colnnnn..." and continued to repeat it a few more times. I said "what about Abraham Lincoln?" and he gave me a thumbs up sign and said "I like him" and then he went and sat down. So, it was a bit strange... but really funny. He must have thought I was an American or something and was trying to get brownie points. Don't ask me where a six year old Korean hears about Abraham Lincoln though?.

Well, that was my funny story. There's not much news in our lives right now... I've been pretty lonely lately and have been missing home a lot. Scott works late most nights and I don't, so I don't really have anyone to talk to. I've joined the gym though, in the hopes that it will take up some of the down time and make me healthier (I've been sick for going on two months.. pretty much since I got here... it feels like it might be getting better now though, I've been trying to drink more water and get more vitamin C).

In family news... My sister Sharalyn's third baby was due yesterday, but no action yet, so I've been told.. the doctor thinks that it will be late. Hopefully she'll have it soon though, everyone's really excited, especially Caleb and Katie.

Oh yeah, and we are buying a digital camera this weekend, so stay tuned for some pictures of our life in Korea.

Well, that's all for now I guess... talk to some of you later.