Mad Bum

Frisco, baby. We gets down, baby, up for the crown, baby.

Thought of the Day: Augury
Song of the Day: Lord Tariq & Peter Gunz-Deja Vu (Bay Area Remix)

12 모기s

From midnight to noon, I spent six hours of the night and six hours of the morning catching 12 mosquitoes;at least, I think it was 12. After around 4am, I lost count. After another sleepless night of cyclic buzzing, waking up, smashing, wiping, and going back to sleep, I woke up to find two more vampires hanging on the ceiling, waiting their turn to join the pile of tissue that was collected for all the corpses and stolen blood from the night. I thought rainy days were supposed to reduce the number of mosquitoes, not multiply it! I truly regret not getting that mosquito tennis racket thing.

Thought of the Day: Desktop
Song of the Day: 장미여관-오래된 연인

Nate the Great

I've been gearing up for the NBA by watching some preseason highlights and was surprised to hear that Nate Robinson had recently returned from ACL surgery. I have a bigger heart for basketball players who go through any major injury especially after spraining my ankle during a game yesterday.

Sprains can heal relatively fast, but tears and fractures are a different monster. All these injuries just remind me that we're all getting old and youth doesn't last forever. Remember when Nate Robinson used to be able to fly?



Man, I never knew Iguodala was able to jump and dunk like that.

I may have to retire from my basketball career...in Korea.

Thought of the Day: Deliveries
Song of the Day: Boardwalk Empire Theme

Videos

They say SF has the loudest fans in MLB. Gotta love the resilient Giants...even if it's only during the postseason.


웃찾사 > 개콘

Thought of the Day: GIANTS!
Song of the Day: Weezer-Ain't Got Nobody

Morning Videos

Thought of the Day: Cold Weather

Bye, Bye, Bye

Today is my last day at Whimoon Middle School. It would have been awesome if they had switched Monday's Sports Day with today's Speech Contest, but whattaya gonna do? I'm just glad that my last day happened to be on a Friday instead of a dreaded and awkward Monday.

I've been saying goodbyes to my classes one surprise at a time with lots of mixed reactions from students. Indifference. Anger. Sadness. Joy? Yesterday, I had one student come up to hug me with a bunch of students lining up behind him to shake my hand. I think the box of candy I was holding might have had something to do with that though. But I was really moved when an older student came by my room after school to apologize for his bad attitude and behavior for the past couple of years. A very humble gesture from a very arrogant adolescent. I never saw that coming.

As I went to my last rush hour subway this morning, I reminisced on many of the good times I had at this school. I definitely won't miss certain classes or the writing assessments I had to grade every semester, and I most certainly will not miss my subway adversaries like Mr. Sneeze and Mr. Phlegm. But like a nightmare come true, guess who just happened to want to say goodbye on my last commute to work?

Freaking nasty Mr. Phlegm. :(

Thought of the Day: 10x-20>180

The Beauty of Mount Math

"She said there was comfort to be found in the permanence of mathematical truths, in the lack of arbitrariness and the absence of ambiguity. In knowing that the answers may be elusive, but they could be found. They were there, waiting, chalk scribbles away."

-Pari, And the Mountains Echoed

I just finished going through my entire geometry book that took me exactly one whole month after borrowing it from a former student of mine. I've always had trouble explaining to people why I like math even though I'm not good at it. But I think Pari has come the closest to describing something I feel when I look at the uniformity of all the numbers and formulas that are universally true. It all just "makes sense" even when we don't understand every proof or theorem. But it's especially beautiful when we do understand the concepts presented to us. I hope I can become a great math teacher some day.

Thought of the Day: G2

Song of the Day: Far East Movement-Like A G6

Mount Math

I've been on vacation, but I don't even know what that means anymore. I dream of math problems in my sleep and daydream when I'm awake. I think I'm going nuts here.

I hope grad school is not overrated.

Thought of the Day: 명량
Song of the Day: Lesley Gore-It's My Party

Please Don't Sneeze (On Me)

I decided to wake up 30 minutes later than usual starting from this week since I don't have any work to get done at school. I was surprised to see that I was still able to get on the subway at a decent time, but that coincided in meeting Mr. Sneeze. Getting sneezed on by Mr. Sneeze, rather. Twice. The second time, I was able to smell his breath through the sneeze. Morning rush hour sucks. Mr. Sneeze sucks.

Thought of the Day: GRE Books
Song of the Day: Back to the Future Theme

JCVD

Dinko is probably the biggest JCVD (Jean Claude Van Damme aka Jesus Christ Van Damme) fan I know. One of the funny pieces of trivia he once shared was how Van Damme was infamous for hitting or kicking people in real life during fight scenes. Well, it turns out that the actor still has the Bloodsport in him after all these years!

I miss Lovefest.

Thought of the Day: Whey
Song of the Day: Katy Perry-Firework

ABsolutely

My brother introduced me to the P90X Ab Ripper X video a few days ago. I tried it for the first time and wanted to kill myself. That workout doesn't just rip your abs; it rips your soul. And I still look like Shrek.

Thought of the Day: Argentina
Song of the Day: The 5, 6, 7, 8's-I'm Blue

출근 준비

I was surprised to see so many people in red outside of COEX to watch Korea's first World Cup game at 7 in the morning. At one point, the giant screen turned off and made a lot of Koreans angry, but everyone just took out their cell phones to continue watching the game. I can't believe we didn't lose.

The World Cup has been so fun to watch this year. I'm actually watching the highlights of every single game kinda like what I do with NBA. I just hope all these super early mornings will be worth it.


Thought of the Day: 빨리 빨리
Song of the Day: The Beatles-Let It Be

Baskets & Goals

I've never cheered for the Spurs in my life, but I grew so much respect for them this season watching them play very unselfish basketball with the NBA's toughest coach. I'm happy for Parker and Timmy but still don't care for Manu.

So with the playoffs of my favorite sport coming to an end, I have the World Cup games to look forward to. Unfortunately, I have very little excitement or hope for Korea's team this year, but maybe such low expectations will protect me from disappointment, especially if I'm waking up at four or five in the morning.

Thought of the Day: Own Goal

Four Chords

I often have interesting conversations with the Chinese (language) teachers at my school. We have many similar yet different experiences with teaching our respective foreign languages to our students. For example, we can agree on many of the classes that are very active and hardworking while others are inactive and just make our work hard. But one major difference I learned today was that the Chinese teachers tried to incorporate music into their lessons, as in having the students sing along to some songs. I'd probably do more harm than good if I had to sing in front of my students, so I'll leave that teaching method to our non-English teachers. Godspeed, Mr. Kim.

Thought of the Day: D/C

Song of the Day: Axis of Awesome-4 Four Chord Song

No Pain, No Gain

As I'm coming to an end with my school contract, this is the last time I will have to grade all the school writing tests of the semester. The two topics for this semester that I've seen so far have been:
-writing a letter of apology or gratitude to parents
-writing a letter of apology or gratitude to family members/friends.

It's amazing to see how many students shout, lie, steal, and forget when it comes to their loved ones. Foreign language students are also brutally honest with their faults, so I read some pretty sincere stuff around this time of the year. And of course, I also get a handful of letters that say some of the most ridiculous things, intended or not. This year, one of the students wrote a letter of thanks to his grandfather saying:

I hope you are getting better from your cancer. Grandpa! No pain, No gain.

Probably not the best time to use American mottos to a dying relative, but you can see the encouragement behind the words. It's also funny seeing futile attempts at kissing my butt with finishing words of "I love you, Mr. Jung" written inside a lopsided heart with happy faces. I wonder if this is a tiny experience of what God sees and hears with our prayers. I probably crack Him up all the time.

Thought of the Day: 40 minutes

Despicable YOU

Taking the same subway train at the same subway door at the same time every morning introduces you to a lot of the same people with the same routines. In fact, two out of five weekdays I can even predict who will be sitting at the very last seat ready to get off two stations later. I usually aim to stand in front of that person. These are some of the "good" people in the subway.

Unfortunately, there are a handful of "bad" subway commuters that I see almost every week. One of these despicable people is called Mr. Phlegm. Approximately every 45 seconds, Mr. Phlegm makes the sound of gathering phlegm from his nasal cavity at a really loud volume for his commuting audience to hear. It gives me pure disgust. Not the greatest way to start your day.

I hadn't seen (or rather, heard) Mr. Phlegm in a while until this morning, but the main inspiration for this blogpost comes from Mr. Sneeze. I don't know if he's just sick for months on end or his allergies have kicked in, but this guy will not stop sneezing...with his mouth uncovered. He's awful generous with his germs to whoever happens to be sitting in front of him. The first time it happened to me, Mr. Sneeze even shared some of his spit with my bare arms. I gave him a look. He responded with another sneeze.

So, with "bad" subway people come "bad" subway days. Today was a "bad" subway day. I had Mr. Phlegm and Mr. Sneeze stand next to each other. In front of me. I'll let your imagination tell the rest.

Thought of the Day: Dream
Song of the Day: The 5, 6, 7, 8's-I'm Blue

Conan and Jim

Conan has been around for a while, but I started to enjoy his interviews more after watching some random clips on Youtube during lunch. Here's one of my favorite ones, so far.


It's Friday!

Thought of the Day: Can Not
Song of the Day: Turbo-회상

Clippers Advance

There's nothing worse than losing when you've had the lead for the majority of the game. The Warriors are infamous for their turnovers and careless defense, especially from their superstar shooter, Stephen Curry. Klay is like a light switch. He's either on or off. Hot or cold. Draymond Green commits stupid fouls and takes way too many three pointers with his low shooting percentage. It doesn't help that their big men are prone to injury. Ultimately, they're a very unreliable team.

But that's also why I love the Warriors. They're very human. They remind me of a group of people who are so imperfect and inconsistent yet still have the ability to work together and accomplish some amazing things. Kind of like the church. Today's loss was heartbreaking, but I look forward to cheering for them again next year but this time with my brother. I'll finally have someone to scream and cry with. Till then, let's go Portland!

Thought of the Day: Good News
Song of the Day: Fun-We Are Young

Playoffs

Mr. Lee chews. He spits. He scores! I can't believe I'm getting (someone else's) food on me every single week now. I wish the school gave technical fouls and ejections for such flagrant behavior.

The NBA playoffs are so fun this year. Already there are so many games that have gone into OT with some breathtaking moments. I am fortunate to work at a place where I can watch many of these exciting events in my classroom and even cheer in solitude when class is not in session. My brother is convinced that I'm going back to Cali because my school is firing me for watching basketball and not teaching English. Either way, I see it as a win-win. :)

Let's go, Warriors!


Thought of the Day: Copies

In this week's episode...

Mr. Lee accidentally spits food onto Mr. Jung's arm during lunch, and both teachers pretend nothing has happened (again). What will our victimized hero do? Stay tuned.

Thought of the Day: Mario Game

Song of the Day: Green Day-Tired of Waiting