Feature Writing:
Transcend weekday stress, discover empty Zen mind
Text only | As it appeared in print
Climbers conquer peaks above the clouds
Text only | As it appeared in print
To learn gugak, foreigners pay in money and blood
Text only | As it appeared in print
Travel Writing:
A village blooms from the ashes of colonial rule
Text only | As it appeared in print
Entertainment:
Meet Japan's drama queens
(interviews conducted in Japanese)
Text only | As it appeared in print
Bhutan monk's film opens to mark Buddha's birthday
Text only | As it appeared in print
Animators gather as industry faces transition
Text only | As it appeared in print
Interview:
Kishore Mahbubani: Singapore diplomat puts trust in talk
Text only | As it appeared in print
Film Reviews:
The Host (Goemul) | Final Destination 3 | V for Vendetta | Monster House
Audio Interview & Editing:
The Toon Zone Podcast
Episode 4: Jerry Beck Part 1 | Episode 5: Jerry Beck Part 2
Less random:
I was meeting Sumi and Sun Jung for lunch at a Japanese place in Hongik today, so I took the opportunity to walk around for a few hours before hand. Thanks to my handy-dandy transformer my iPod is back in business, so I had the first opportunity to try out my Sennheiser noise-reducing headphones (graduation present-- thanks Dad!) on the "bustling" (deafening) streets of Seoul. Incredible. I flicked that switch and it was like night and day. Unless there was a truck going by or someone throwing boxes around, there was total silence. It was as if I had rerouted my aural nerves directly into the machine. Kinda creepy actually, but awesome.
I took the opportunity to visit a record store (Purple Records) where I found some neat stuff, like Astor Piazzola Remixed (which I ended up not buying) and a 2-disc collection of Indian electronica that I will have to go back for sometime. What I did buy was the new Gorillaz album (freaking awesome-- Fire Coming Out Of The Monkey's Head is really really weird) and a French compilation of loungey Japanese electronica called "Japan Touch: La nouvelle vague pop et electro." Good for kitsch value but not much else.
The entertainment listings appeared in the paper today and I wrote maybe half of them (the rest carried over from last week). You can see them here and here and they're OK except that I MISSPELLED RACHMANINOV!!! I didn't misspell the parts that are usually misspelled, though, instead I made an uncommonly stupid mistake. Which I suppose I should be proud of (the uncommon part, I mean). If you find any other errors let me know so that I might castigate myself appropriately. Diplomatic Pouch comes out Monday. Tomorrow is my day off (I work Sunday) so I'm going to go somewhere. I just don't know where yet.
Huzzah!
]]>Seoul is big and hot and smelly. And totally awesome. My job so far has consisted of preparing "The Ticket," the entertainment listings that come out this Friday. Fortunately we have interns for everything that involves speaking Korean, but even then it's time-consuming. I'm also called upon with every other native speaker in the office to proofread the pages, so in fact you can already see a few of my lovely typo fixes in the pages of the JoongAng. Ticket for this Friday is done (Dad, I hope you enjoy the way-too-verbose orchestra series section) and tomorrow I start learning how to do the Diplomatic Pouch section from Sun Jung.
This morning I had an enormous breakfast followed by some kind of tiny melon pear that I think is called "sawa." Also met the Korean-Canadian English teacher who lives above me.
Went out last night to a tiny place with David, Sun Jung, Sei and Lance, a former editor now working at Samsung. It looked like it was a train car. I was still so jet-lagged I don't really remember anything that was said.
Hopefully I can start on a story as soon as I get settled. Something that involves Japanesitude. Maybe a textbook story for the next time that flares up.
Summary: This is right up there as coolest thing I have ever done.
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Oh right, I'm moving to Korea to work at a
But still, nine days? Plenty of time.
PLENTY. Hahaha.
]]>Against all odds, I'm going into journalism! Incredible. Incredibly awesome.
]]>I suspect this may be why my dad the lifelong Republican stopped voting for Republicans last year.
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I suppose the entire point of this post is that people are morons, and also as an excuse to include the last line of the article:
"Maybe it's time to start a counteroffensive. The brother of a Slate colleague recommends that Ben & Jerry's test-market a new flavor called W.E.B. DuBoisenberry."
That floored me.
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And for some reason I thought this one was really funny...
Seriously, yay for the Pope.
[Thanks to Jay Allman, editor at Toon Zone, for pointing this out.]
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