101 Books to Read

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:

1. The Great War for Civilisation by Robert Fisk


2. Quran


3. Talmud


4. Bible, cover to cover


5. Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks


6. Island of the Colourblind by Oliver Sacks


7. Oaxaca Journal by Oliver Sacks


8. The Road to Monticello: The Life and Mind of Thomas Jefferson by Kevin Hayes


9. Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter


10. Gandhi's autobiography

Do I Really Like School?

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.

First Day of Graduate School

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 Testament would be taught by a South African professor. I had been looking forward to his lectures. I was surprised today that he won't be teaching this term, but will be returning to South Africa. He has been in Korea for a few years. Professor E. said he found out that he will be teaching New Testament last Tuesday. I am sure he can teach it well, but I don't like such abrupt changes.
I later went to the hill to the apartments to see if anyone was around. I wasn't looking for anyone in particular, just anyone to say hello to. I found Truddi. We talked for a while. She moved that day to another apartment. I helped her move some heavy things. She gave me a ride to Home Plus and I did some shopping and later went home.
The only thing I dislike about Sunday classes is that it's a long day. Sundays are the only free day I have. With these classes, I no longer have any free time except on vacations.

Mahalia Jackson

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".

Taking Off Emily Dickinson's Clothes

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 whalebone stays,
sailing toward the iceberg of her nakedness.

Later, I wrote in a notebook
it was like riding a swan into the night,
but, of course, I cannot tell you everything -
the way she closed her eyes to the orchard,
how her hair tumbled free of its pins,
how there were sudden dashes
whenever we spoke.

What I can tell you is
it was terribly quiet in Amherst
that Sabbath afternoon,
nothing but a carriage passing the house,
a fly buzzing in a windowpane.

So I could plainly hear her inhale
when I undid the very top
hook-and-eye fastener of her corset

and I could hear her sigh when finally it was unloosed,
the way some readers sigh when they realize
that Hope has feathers,
that reason is a plank,
that life is a loaded gun
that looks right at you with a yellow eye.

Billy Collins

Some Good Piano

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

Best Beany and Cecil Episode: The Wild Man of Wildsville

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

Senator Ted Kennedy Dies at 77

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 because of a car accident on Chappaquiddick Island in 1968. He was with a female passenger when he went off the road after passing a bridge. He went to a party and didn't alert authorities of the car accident until the next day. The woman was dead and he had some charges put on him, but nothing harsh.
I do think that rich and influential people can be admired, but never should they be elevated to anything too high. We are all people.

Noam Chomsky vs. Michel Foucault

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.

updates

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.

Hades Welcomes His Bride

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 appear. The pale things twisting
Overhead are mostly roots, although some worms
Arrive here clinging to their dead. Turn here.
Ah. And in this hall will sit our thrones,
And here you shall be queen, my dear, the queen
Of all men ever to be born. No smile?
Well, some solemnity befits a queen.
These thrones I have commissioned to be made
Are unlike any you imagined; they glow
Of deep-black diamonds and lead, subtler
And in better taste than gold, as will suit
Your timid beauty and pale throat. Come now,
Down these winding stairs, the air more still
And dry and easier to breathe. Here is a room
For your diversions. Here I've set a loom
And silk unraveled from the finest shrouds
And dyed the richest, rarest shades of black.
Such pictures you shall weave! Such tapestries!
For you I chose those three thin shadows there,
And they shall be your friends and loyal maids,
And do not fear from them such gossiping
As servants usually are wont. They have
Not mouth nor eyes and cannot thus speak ill
Of you. Come, come. This is the greatest room;
I had it specially made after great thought
So you would feel at home. I had the ceiling
Painted to recall some evening sky--
But without the garish stars and lurid moon.
What? That stark shape crouching in the corner?
Sweet, that is to be our bed. Our bed.
Ah! Your hand is trembling! I fear
There is, as yet, too much pulse in it.


first appeared in The Beloit Poetry Journal

New Kitty part II

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.

New Kitty, Ilsan Church

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 wearing a white dress.
We later had a social.

Hallelujah

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.

Peter and the Wolf

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 things. I ordered palak paneer, which was good. I like that one and dal makhani the best.

Stuff To Do Before I Die

1. Go on a long-distance backpacking trip.


2. Own a cat named Schrodinger and a dog named Pavlov


3. Read the set of Harvard Classics


4. Visit every continent


5. Get a master's degree


6. Become more familiar with the works of Mendelssohn, Bach, Beethoven, Gluck, Fuare, Schonberg, Liszt, Mozart, Rimsky-Korsakov, Chopin, Debussy, Moussorgsky, Tchaikovsky, Paganini, Verdi.


7. Be more familiar with various art movements of the later 19th and early 20th centuries.


8. 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).


9. Get more familiar with XML, XHTML, C++, and PERL.


10. Learn Hebrew, Greek, some Aramaic, Spanish, French.


11. Learn more about Middle Eastern history and Sinology.


12. Knit a sweater

What's Been Happening

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.

Pathway Near My Home

Schedule for Teaching

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.

Monet Refuses the Operation

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 return to a universe
of objects that don't know each other,
as if islands were not the lost children
of one great continent. The world
is flux, and light becomes what it touches,
becomes water, lilies on water,
above and below water,
becomes lilac and mauve and yellow
and white and cerulean lamps,
small fists passing sunlight
so quickly to one another
that it would take long, streaming hair
inside my brush to catch it.
To paint the speed of light!
Our weighted shapes, these verticals,
burn to mix with air
and changes our bones, skin, clothes
to gases. Doctor,
if only you could see
how heaven pulls earth into its arms
and how infinitely the heart expands
to claim this world, blue vapor without end.

~ Lisel Mueller ~

ENTP

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 interesting careers listed are:
* entrepreneur
* inventor
* photographer
* journalist
* attorney
* architect
* politician
* political analyst
* university president
* social scientist
* organizational psychologist
* detective
I also took the Indie Test:

Indie Personality Test Results

61% Indie Scoring highly suggests you are likely to be very liberal, independent minded, self identify as an outsider, shun materialism and popular culture, and have an aversion to organized religion. While high scorers are more intellectual than average, they are probably more artistically astute than intellectually avante guard (i.e. they are more likely to know of new interesting new bands/artists/writers than the best way to extract energy from a hydrogen atom. Low scorers, will generally tend towards the opposite of the above. They will tend to be more materialistic, conservative, corporate friendly, social and are more likely to be religious.

Take Free Indie Personality Test
by Indie Harbor.com

I also took the cerebral test:

Cerebral Personality Test Results

74% Cerebral Scoring highly suggests you are likely to be very inquisitive, exploring, scientific, contemplative, self-examining, and philosophical. Low scorers, will generally tend towards the opposite of the above. They will tend to be more conventional, less curious and analytical, less focused on the big picture / global variables, and more comfortable identifying as part of maintream culture.

Take Free Cerebral Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

Main type	Variant

Take Free Enneagram Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

I think this means that I need a job where I can use my mind, do some independent work, and use some innovation. I don't like the idea of being tied down and not being able to have enough new experiences and go after the things I am interested in.

Amazon Kindle

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.

Hedgehogs

Fuxi and Nuwa

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.

What Has Been Happening

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 be sensitive when it comes to the stories they want to tell at the pulpit.
I do miss the old company because of the sense of community I had. I also miss doing things with my students. Yet there are some things I don't miss.
***
I finally got to talk to one of the other foreigners in my apartment building. I have met some of them briefly before. It turns out that the woman upstairs grew up in Kenya. She is the child of missionaries. Her parents were also raised in Kenya because their parents were missionaries as well. I don't know which denomination she is, but she says she goes to a church in Kangnam. She said we should hang out sometime. When I was a kid I dreamed of being a missionary in Africa, or else southeast Asia. I never thought I would be in Korea, yet I like it.
***
I was talking to two friends on Tuesday. The first conversation was with an online friend. This friend and I were both the outsiders in school. We were among the better students, yet we were labeled as "different". My friend said that we should just embrace our uniqueness and not let other people get us down. I do agree. It's not worth it to have low self-esteem just because of what others think. I do have lots of people that I know like me.
After taekwondo I went to McDonald's with a friend. He said that I shouldn't call myself a "nerd". I had thought of it as something to be proud of, yet it is a stereotype. He said that I am very intelligent, and maybe because of that I wasn't working on my social skills in school. I was busy doing other things. It's true that I didn't care to talk about clothes, sitcoms, sports, the dating scene, and the other regular topics teenagers talk about. I wanted to talk about more interesting things, and I didn't get to do that often.
I don't follow the crowd, and I don't need to do so. I do need to just be myself and be happy being myself. I can be confident in just being Christine.

Best Selling Postcard of All Time

Wisdom Teeth Removed

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.