Keira Brigit Pauline

I was bored so I decided to compile a list of one hundred and one books to read. I think it's a good idea to write a list of books, so that I can have a list of priorities. I own some of the books, and I have read parts of some of them as well and not finished them. Here are some: The Great War for Civilisation by Robert Fisk Quran Talmud Bible, cover to cover Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks Island of the Colourblind by Oliver Sacks Oaxaca Journal by Oliver Sacks The Road to Monticello: The Life and Mind of Thomas Jefferson by Kevin Hayes Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter Gandhi's autobiography

Last week I had a lesson with my students titled "Do I Really Like School?". It was about what is good and bad about school, from a student's prospective. I had some fun with my students. Many said they disliked walking up the tall hill to the school every day. Also, many disliked the cafeteria food. It was unanimous that they enjoyed going to school to meet friends. I have wondered how much I liked school when I was a kid. I liked school itself. I liked learning. I was a good student. Yet I was always an outsider. I wasn't one who followed the crowd. Maybe it was because I read many books for fun, unlike the other children who wanted only to fool around when they had free time. It could have been that I wasn't interested in conversations about fashion, gossip, or most of the shows they watched. I didn't want to talk about the things they talked about. I was content to have my own interests.

This morning I left for Sahmyook University. I went for my first day of graduate studies in religion. I arrived ten minutes late for my first class. Nothing really started yet. The class was "Adventist Lifestyle" by Professor E. It is a subject that I am not too fond of. I know a lot about it already. There are some things in it that I'd rather not ponder. The second class was "Introduction to Biblical Hebrew". It was taught by a Korean professor. He was supposed to have retired. I am glad he's teaching the class since he knows so much about the subject and is a good and respected professor. We went over the Hebrew alphabet which I am slowly getting to memorise. The last class was "Introduction to the New Testament". It was also taught by Professor E. There wasn't much to do there. We stayed around because we were waiting for a textbook for the first class to arrive. When they came we all left. I had expected that Hebrew and New Te...

Mahalia Jackson (1911-1972) had a powerful voice. Here is "Abide With Me" set to old hurricane photos of New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. Here is "Nearer My God to Thee", supposedly the last tune played on the Titanic. Some say it was a tune called "Autumn".

I will be teaching my students about Billy Collins next week. This poem is a gem, but of course I won't use it in class. "Taking Off Emily Dickinson's Clothes" First, her tippet made of tulle, easily lifted off her shoulders and laid on the back of a wooden chair. And her bonnet, the bow undone with a light forward pull. Then the long white dress, a more complicated matter with mother-of-pearl buttons down the back, so tiny and numerous that it takes forever before my hands can part the fabric, like a swimmer's dividing water, and slip inside. You will want to know that she was standing by an open window in an upstairs bedroom, motionless, a little wide-eyed, looking out at the orchard below, the white dress puddled at her feet on the wide-board, hardwood floor. The complexity of women's undergarments in nineteenth-century America is not to be waved off, and I proceeded like a polar explorer through clips, clasps, and moorings, catches, straps, and whalebo...

William Joseph: "Asturias" Maksim: "Somewhere in Time" Raoul di Blasio: "Corazon de Nino" (heart of a child) A cover of Meatloaf's "I Would Do Anything For Love": "Farewell to the Piano" by Beethoven

Here we have a beatnik/bohemian as the main character. haha

Now Massachusetts has a vacant seat for a senator. Senator Ted Kennedy died of brain cancer. He had collapsed at a state dinner earlier this year while speaking at a podium. Kennedy was one of the few survivors of the original Kennedy clan of nine children of Joseph and Rose Kennedy. Many of his siblings, nephews, and nieces died in tragedies. The family was always admired for their wealth and influence. The Kennedys have been a powerful political family for a few generations. I do admire the Kennedys for their influence and some of the good things that have been done. Eunice Kennedy Shriver founded the Special Olympics. She died this month, making Ted's death a double hit for the family. Yet, there has been some things less admirable. Michael Kennedy died in a skiing accident on New Year's Eve in 1997 while passing a football around while going down the mountain. How foolish and rude is that? Ted Kennedy was highly criticized and lost a proposed White House bid beca...

I have a book of Michel Foucault's lectures at the Sorbonne. I haven't read it yet. I should tackle that one when I can, but I am starting graduate school soon. Chomsky taught at MIT, about an hour from my home in USA. I had wanted to go to a lecture of his. He is getting older I may not be able to do that.

The cat finally ate a little food and has sat near me for a while. It took a nap on my bed. I was surprised it was there because it went under the blanket. I thought it was funny when the darker hedgehog started drinking out of the cat's bowl. Later the hedgehog started eating the dried cat food. The cat just let it do that. I do let the critters run around a little.

While an undergraduate student at Andrews University I took a poetry class. I studied some of A.E. Stallings' poetry. She studied lots of classical poetry and literature of Greece. She does translation of poetry from Greek to English. An interesting thing she said was that when she was at university to study ancient, Greek poetry, she came across some poems that described early springtime flowers such as hyacinths blooming at the same time as later spring flowers. She interpreted that as a "golden age". She was later surprised when visiting the Greek countryside and finding those flowers blooming at the same time . She said that sometimes we do have to take things literally. This poem gave me the chills when I first read it. It is so deep and dark. Hades Welcomes His Bride Come now, child, adjust your eyes, for sight Is here a lesser sense. Here you must learn Directions through your fingertips and feet And map them in your mind. I think some shapes Will gradually...

The cat has been hiding behind my bed or under the couch since I got it. It has come out a little bit. It hasn't eaten. I have been putting it in front of the food, but it won't eat. That is bothering me. I really want it to eat something. Hopefully when I am gone all day it will eat. It is still afraid of me.

Yesterday I took the long 1 1/2 hour subway ride to Yuyeop Station to attend the Ilsan SDA English Church. It is held in the Northwest Pacific Division offices. I went there to meet my friends Brian and Maike. After the sermon we had dinner. I saw some other people I knew: Malcolm, Verna, John, and Baronese. I met some new people, which was nice. I also saw Silver, whom I remember from Andrews University years ago. Afterwards, we had dinner there. There was some soup with noodles and cucumber in a soybean broth. I liked it. I also had some rice, salad, and radish kimchi. I had a good time. I went to the library to look at some magazines for a while and laid down on the couch nearby. Later on I went to get the cat. The cat's name is Nixie I went with Brian and Maike and a new Peruvian acquaintance for a ride in the countryside. We went to a stream and did some wading. It was a beautiful area. It reminded me of Vermont. I took care not to fall in the water because I was we...

I like this version of "Hallelujah" by Kate Voegele. It is beautiful. Her voice reminds me of Amy Winehouse. Katherine Jenkins also has a nice version of thise song as well.

I had the day off and it was raining had this morning. I did some work on the computer and I did some cleaning in the house. I cleaned out the refrigerator, which I always hate to do but it needed to get done. I am glad it's finished. I later went to Gwanghwamun, near City Hall, to meet some friends. I purposely showed up an hour and a half earlier so that I could look through the Kyobo bookstore there. I didn't buy anything, but I did see some titles that looked interesting. Afterward I walked around the area. I had brought my umbrella because it was pouring so badly earlier, but then the sky was blue. I later met my friends at Sejong Arts Center and we saw "Peter and the Wolf". First the orchestra played various tunes. Peter and the Wolf was played with a stop-motion animation on a screen and the orchestra playing the parts. It was very funny. There was some slapstick humour to it. We all had a good time. Later we went for Indian food and talked about various...

Go on a long-distance backpacking trip. Own a cat named Schrodinger and a dog named Pavlov Read the set of Harvard Classics Visit every continent Get a master's degree Become more familiar with the works of Mendelssohn, Bach, Beethoven, Gluck, Fuare, Schonberg, Liszt, Mozart, Rimsky-Korsakov, Chopin, Debussy, Moussorgsky, Tchaikovsky, Paganini, Verdi. Be more familiar with various art movements of the later 19th and early 20th centuries. Visit the Louvre, Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (again), The British Museum (again), Whitney Museum, Guggenheim Museum, Cooper-Hewitt, Hermitage Museum, The Egyptian Museum in Cairo, and Cloisters (extension of the Met). Get more familiar with XML, XHTML, C++, and PERL. Learn Hebrew, Greek, some Aramaic, Spanish, French. Learn more about Middle Eastern history and Sinology. Knit a sweater

Former South Korean president Kim Dae-Jung passed away. He was famous for his Sunshine Policy with North Korea and was a laureate of the Nobel Peace Prize. I do think he was a good man. This is Korea's second former president to die this year. *** I went to taekwondo today and for a little while I was the only student until my friend Cory came. It was nice to have the individual attention. I need to work on my forms and posture a lot. I was told by Master Kim that I need to stand straighter. I do tend to bear down on my left side a lot. I kick better with my right leg, which is the same one I broke. My back has been hurting because of carrying my backpack around the National Museum since there were no available lockers.

I have made a curriculum for next semestre. I was told that I should use some topics for discussion. The students should also learn some poems because they don't have any in their English textbooks. I came up with this list for the A and A+ levels: 1. Internet Gaming 2. Billy Collins—poet 3. Westernization of Korea 4. Studying Abroad 5. Emily Dickinson—poet 6. Role of English in Korean Society 7. Environmental Issues (Preserving the DMZ, pollution) 8. Robert Frost—poet 9. Inside North Korea 10. Shel Silverstein—poet 11. E-commerce 12. Korea and Its Neighbors 13. Ai—poet 14. Korea’s Military Heritage 15. Population Issues I have this list for levels B,C, and D: 1. "I Like Calvin Klein"--about fashion. Do labels matter? 2.

This poet came to Andrews University when I was a student there. I got to meet her and have two autographed copies of her work. She won the Pulitzer Prize. Monet Refuses the Operation Doctor, you say that there are no haloes around the streetlights in Paris and what I see is an aberration caused by old age, an affliction. I tell you it has taken me all my life to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels, to soften and blur and finally banish the edges you regret I don't see, to learn that the line I called the horizon does not exist and sky and water, so long apart, are the same state of being. Fifty-four years before I could see Rouen cathedral is built of parallel shafts of sun, and now you want to restore my youthful errors: fixed notions of top and bottom, the illusion of three-dimensional space, wisteria separate from the bridge it covers. What can I say to convince you the Houses of Parliament dissolve night after night to become the fluid dream of the Thames? I will not...

I took some tests on www.similarminds.com. According to the Myers-Briggs personality test, I am an ENTP--extroverted, intuitive, thinking, and perceiving. That says that I am an extrovert, rely on my hunches and think of possibilities, and analyse things. Extroverted (E) 56.41% Introverted (I) 43.59% Intuitive (N) 60.98% Sensing (S) 39.02% Feeling (F) 59.38% Thinking (T) 40.63% Perceiving (P) 78.79% Judging (J) 21.21% ENFP - "Journalist". Uncanny sense of the motivations of others. Life is an exciting drama. 8.1% of total population. Free Jung Personality Test (similar to Myers-Briggs/MBTI) According to another site, the personality type is supposed to dislike routines, like to try new things, enjoy debates, question the norm, and are spontaneous. Popular hobbies for the ENTP include continuing education, writing, art appreciation, playing sports, computers and video games, travel, and cultural events. I was looking up careers for an ENTP. Some of the more in...

I have been wondering when I should get myself one of these. It is an electronic book reader. It can hold 1,500 books on it. Books can be bought online, charged with a USB, and magazines and newspapers can also be uploaded to it. The Kindle can also have a voice read the books. I do see it as something convenient. It costs US299 though.

I went to the National Museum of Korea at Ichon station last month. I went there to see the Egypt exhibit, but didn't get around to it because I saw other things and then was too tired to see it. I saw a Vietnam exhibit and a Chinese collection, as well as Korean history where many of the things were tagged as "National Treasures" and given numbers. I saw an interesting artifact from ancient China, in the 2000s BC. This isn't the same image I saw, but these are the gods I saw depicted in a tomb mural. It is of Fuxi and Nuwa, brother and sister duo who supposedly created mankind. I found it interesting that the gods are holding a compass and ruler. I immediately thought of Freemasonry. I do wonder if there is a connection somehow, that those symbols were used for many years and later became Freemason symbols.

I went back to taekwondo on Tuesday after having two wisdom teeth removed on Sunday. My mouth was a little swollen, but not badly. I went again yesterday and it was fun. I do need to work on some things like the side splits. I was helped again with stretching, but after a while it gets very painful. I kept shrieking. *** I went to Bible Camp last weekend. It was run by the SDA Language Institute, where I worked a few years ago. I saw many people I remembered. It was nice to see them. Unfortunately, I didn't get to talk to most of them for very long. That's the way it is, people just make their rounds at these things. I will have to meet up with some people later. The speaker was OK, but he spoke too loudly. He had a microphone and was shouting into it. Many people were covering their ears. I didn't like how he told a disturbing story of a boy who was hit by a car and died there. I felt very anxious. I was hit by a car once and I do wish that more preachers would...

I had two wisdom teeth removed today. I expected that they would remove all four of them. They took out the two on the right side. Well, I am glad that not all four of them were removed because I think having two taken out is enough trouble. Only my top teeth ever appeared and they were fully formed. I was told before that either one or both of them had cavities. The bottom ones were totally under the gum. The right bottom one was crooked and had its roots pointing backwards. I was also expecting to be knocked out. Well, I wasn't. I was awake for it. I hated being awake for it. The top one came out quick. I didn't even know it was out until the dentist said "now for the bottom one". That one took about 40 minutes to remove. I laid there with my hands clasped, wishing it were done. That was among the most unnerving things I have gone through. I was glad to go home.