His shop is like a cluttered information center devoted to a single life—his own. Mr. Kasol Tanaitapor of Bangkok, Thailand has lived a full life, and he has the goods to prove it.
“Here,” he says, taking me by the hand to a sepia-toned framed photograph, “Here is me with King. Thailand King.” There is a neatly but modestly dressed man standing opposite what is obviously a much younger version of Tanaitapor. The King’s posture has military precision and regal confidence. The young Mr. Tanaitapor seems awed. He might be thirty years old in this picture.
He goes on, “Once a year, I meet King”. To Thais, who idolize their legendary monarch, this is like having an annual appointment with God.
Kasol Tanaitapor is not the kind of person you meet in the states. In fact, he’s not the kind of person you meet anywhere. He’s unusual even by Thailand’s very high standards. But no country in the world is so well suited for a man of his personality and interests. He’s a fish in water—or a Venus fly trap at a garbage dump. Here’s what he does: He sits in his shop facing the street and waits for an opening with a foreigner to present itself. In my case, it was offering to help me make an overseas call. He saw me struggling with the pay phone and told me I could make an international call from his phone, which I gratefully said I would like to do. Trap sprung!
Once you enter the shop, you discover that it is not a shop at all—it is a museum, and the subject matter is the same as the tour guide: Kasol Tanaitapor. The 25’ by 6’ museum has 3 loosely organized “exhibits”. Up front we have “Family history”, in the back we’ve got “All the places I or my family have been” and smack in the middle, in the position of most importance is “And this is where you come in”.
In that order then:
Family History. The first 8 or 10 feet of the shop feature an astonishing array of photographs displaying 5 generations of Tanaitapors. In addition to pictures with the King, there are family photos from 55 years ago, photos of parents, cousins, children, siblings (Kasol is one of 5 children), and neighbors. His grandparents, who lived to be 100, look down impassively over a wall crammed full of their very successful progeny. They will have a grandchild who will fraternize with the monarch, and he will have grandchildren of his own, whose education and professions will take them all across the globe. They are the roots of a tree whose branches will encircle the earth.
The centerpiece of this collection is undoubtedly the enormous panoramic photo of his grandfather’s funeral. Everyone attending is posed for the shot. They are standing 7 rows deep, and the rows stretch on and on, endlessly. There must be a hundred people in each row. When this man died, a village lost its elder. They’re like an ocean. It’s an unbelievable tribute.
We move on to the back of the shop.
In comparison to the august display at the front, our next exhibit looks very humble. We go to the back where we are awaited by… a refrigerator. The first rule of memorabilia is, if you’re going to have a lot of it, put some on a refrigerator. And the first rule of refrigerator aesthetics is, clutter looks good on a vertical surface. With these two things in mind, Kasol is really in luck, because his fridge is absolutely covered in shit.
It’s mostly magnets, but the magnets adhere strictly to a theme. Places Big K has gone. By this time, I’ve been joined by my friend Brent, who’s come to investigate why this call is taking me so long, and K asks us both to look through his huge magnet collection and point out all the places that we’ve been. I see Disneyworld and say I’m from Florida. Brent sees Toronto, his hometown, and several European countries he has visited. We ask K how many he has been to.
“All! All!” he says proudly.
It’s a huge collection. There must be 50 countries represented here, as well as many individual cities. It’s a life time of traveling. Here I am feeling like a traveler in Thailand—my 4th country, and this guy’s got a whole door full of destinations I’ve never seen. Show off!
There are also a few pictures. Kasol tells us how many times he has been abroad (“Ten times! Ten!”) and points to a picture of himself with two young adults. They are his grown sons. They don’t live in Thailand. They are doctors. The three of them are hiking together on a mountain in Central Europe. Boss.
Now it’s almost time to bring this tour to its conclusion. One thing you can be sure of on any tour, though; you will be exiting through the gift shop. The last exhibit in the museum of Mr. K Tanaitapor is called “And this is where you come in”. You see, if you thought this tour was just a man who is very proud and happy about his life, and that his offer to allow me to use his phone was simply out of kindness, oh ho, my friend, you have another think coming. To you, this may have been fun and games. To Mr. K Tanaitapor, this is business. The transaction, as Mr. Tanaitapor sees it, goes like this.
I showed you my life.
You owe me a shirt.
Right in the middle of the shop, across from the phone, there is a desk and a chair, and both are covered in packages. He begins going through them to show his credentials. This one is from Texas. This one is from Switzerland. Here’s one from New Zealand that came with a letter enclosed. He shows me the letter. Some nice Kiwi thanks Mr. Tanaitapor for being such a swell guy and says he hopes the shirt will fit. I assume similar letters were enclosed in the other packages.
I’m being instructed—we’re being instructed, because Brent is a part of this too, now—that when we get home, we should find a shirt in his size, and send it to him. He tells again. He shows us a shirt he was sent from Texas. He makes the point one more time. Send me a shirt. Go home and send me a shirt from your home. I’m going to let you use the phone in just a minute, but first, you need to understand that I want you to send me a shirt.
And there it is. Before I know what the hell is going on, there is a pen and paper in my hand and I am taking down a name and address—so that after I make my phone call, enjoy my trip, and go home, I can send Mr. Kasol Tanaitapor a shirt. Well, hey, what the hell. Every museum has a suggested donation.
Goodnight all. Much love.
Randy
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Free Falling
When I was 13 years old, I had a terrifying experience on an amusement park ride. While on a class trip to Sea World, I had a moment where I was certain I was going to die. I think it remains the scariest thing that’s ever happened to me.
Here’s what happened:
It was on our year end class trip. Everyone was feeling pretty good because summer was about to begin. The weather was hot and sunny, and couldn’t have been better for a day at Sea World. And hey, get this, some skanky girl on the other bus flashed her boobs out the window. Boo-laka-shah!.
But that’s not the story here.
The story happened on the ride “Journey to Atlantis”. It’s a water ride with a big drop. You get in the car and pull the bar down across your lap. You go through a few minutes of themed “story” sections, similar to the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, then you get to a big drop. It’s probably about 60 or 70 feet, and it ends in a pool of water, like Splash Mountain. Your basic water roller coaster type drop.
About halfway through the ride I realized I hadn’t pulled my lap bar down. I thought it would do it automatically.
So here I am, and let me tell you, I don’t remember one damned thing about the story sections of the ride, because all I am thinking about is how the hell I am going to bail on this ride. I’m completely unsecured in a car that’s going to hit about 40 mph while falling more than 60 feet, and if the drop starts in darkness, I won’t even know when to prepare myself for it. I thought about abandoning the car but there really isn’t any way to do that. The ride is on a sort of flowing river, and the themed scenery is raised up high so that if you to jump in the water you wouldn’t be able to get out. There’d be nowhere to go since all the scenery stuff is too high up for a person to get a hand on anything. And it’s not like I could just swim back to the start or something. The current would have taken me to the drop anyway.
This whole time I didn’t say one word about my predicament to my friends. The cars are two-seaters and there were five of us. I was alone in the third car. I could see them (and that their lap bars were secured right over their thighs) but they couldn’t see me unless they turned around. They had absolutely no idea that while they were having a good time, I was growing increasingly frantic worrying about what would happen at the drop.
I came up with nothing.
Finally, the drop came into view and I realized what I had to do. I had to stand up so that I could get a good grip on the lap bar, push my feet down as hard as I could, and just hold on to keep from flying out of the car. So that’s what I did. I white-knuckled my way to the bottom, crying out in absolute terror.
I decided not to buy the picture of us on the ride.
Looking back on it, it’s really strange that I never said anything. Even after the ride, I didn’t mention it to my friends. I was weak-kneed and bleary eyed but I stayed quiet about it. I was afraid I’d sound like a pussy. In retrospect, that is completely insane, but it’s exactly the kind of decision I’d make back then. I was such a nervous sort of person. The fear of being on the ride was over, but I still had to fear of people finding out that I had been scared. Bizarre.
Anyway, after that I was kind of soured on rides with big drops. The next year our class trip was to Islands of Adventure, and while I had fun riding The Hulk roller coaster, which uses a fast accelerating boost start rather than a big drop, I couldn’t bring myself to go on the Deuling Dragons, which starts with a huge drop. Later that day I went on another water ride similar to Journey to Atlantis, something with a Jurassic Park theme, which also ended with a drop just like the one on Journey to Atlantis. I felt nothing but fear on that drop. The loops and curves of The Hulk were great, but rides that take you down, down, down were just out of the question.
Now, here’s what happened yesterday.
The most popular water theme park in Korea is Ocean World, part of a larger complex called Vivaldi Park. During summer days it is swamped with tens of thousands of people packing every corner as they try to beat the heat of Korea’s notorious Junes, Julys, and Augusts. Our party added six more to the endless crowd.
As we entered the park, the first thing we all noticed is, a lot of the lines were incredibly fucking long. I mean, like, whoa. Some of these lines were the stuff of legend, wrapping around the ride itself and out onto the walking paths. We jokingly started to call the place “Line World”. “This line is famous—it’s the longest line in the world!!” Oh, we’re such jokers.
Anyway, if you’re going to wait in a long line, it might as well be for something awesome, so we found ourselves heading to the far side of the park where its two most famous attractions awaited. Since early spring Ocean World has been running ads EVERYWHERE featuring two beautiful women, one in red clothes, one in blue, who represent one of two rides spectacular rides that are right next to each other. The red ride puts you and another rider on a little inflatable tube and sends you down a very long twisting, coiling slide. Its biggest asset is its length. The Big Red Slide is a journey.
The other ride, the blue one, is called Super Boomerang, and its biggest asset is an absolutely insane drop. We chose Blue.
Here’s the scoop on Blue:
Super Boomerang is a ride in which a whole group boards a circular raft, which the staff then sets spinning, for some strange cryptic reason that I’ll never understand. The raft is pushed onto a slide, which takes you around a little bend, and then straight into Armageddon. The slide gets very, very steep and you have about a second or two of insanely fast acceleration before the raft gets to the wall. Oh, right, the wall. You see, this isn’t a simple case of going DOWN a big, fast slide. The Boomerang also takes you UP a big, fast incline. Your raft slides up a wet wall till you’ve got at least fifty solid feet of air, and then, finally, it’s time for the big drop. Down the wall you just came up, your momentum carrying you away from your starting point and onto a new path, picking up incredible speed, then over one last bump and finally careening into a calm pool at the bottom. The line actually passes by this pool area, so you can see the reactions of riders as they get out. Most are deliriously happy. One woman, though, had to be helped out of the raft, like she couldn’t stand. Daaaamn.
I’m a pretty passive person in a group. I don’t really like to make the decisions. I mean, sometimes I’ll step up if the group is being really indecisive and it seems like no one else wants to decide what’s going on, but generally speaking, I’m happier just leaving it to someone else. I like being along for the ride. I find I like my outings better when I don’t really know what’s going to happen next. And, I’ve got to say, it worked out great for me on Saturday, because there is absolutely no way in hell I would’ve chosen the blue ride, but it ended up being fantastic.
I wouldn’t have chosen it because, frankly, it looked damned terrifying. When you first get in the line, you’ve got a great view of the Wall. You can’t see, from that angle, the rafts coming down the slide that starts the ride off, but you can see them as they go up the Wall, and then back down. We were already standing in line, already committed, as a group, to going on this one, when I first saw a raft go up, up, up, that huge wall. Not only saw it, but HEARD it. The raft has enough speed that you can hear the shlick sound of the water under the plastic from two hundred feet away. And that sound is mingled in there with the screams of the riders. And the damn ride goes UP A WALL. Before stopping from the force of gravity and falling back down a full fifty feet, most of that at nearly a ninety degree angle! Are you SERIOUS, Ocean World? Are you SERIOUS?
When I saw that first raft going up that Wall, I immediately felt my stomach drop. I could not believe I was going on this ride. I couldn’t believe this was actually about to happen. But this time, when I decided not to say anything to my companions, I was making the right choice. And I knew it. You can’t let one bad experience ruin something for the rest of your life, no matter how bad that experience was. It was time to get over the fear and have some fun.
Needless to say, the ride was awesome. I managed not to think about what was coming all through our long stay in the line, which was maybe an hour or so. It only hit me as we were boarding the raft, and it hit me hard. For about five seconds I thought about bailing, but luckily the line was long enough that I could never have justified it. I went along, and before I knew it, I was screaming my head off—in a good way. Down at the bottom, in the calm pool, before the anxious onlookers going through their own hour long wait, I watched myself, as though it was someone else entirely, babbling away about how great that was, and how it was worth the wait. I hadn’t waited an hour. I’d waited ten years.
Good night folks. Much love to everyone.
Here’s what happened:
It was on our year end class trip. Everyone was feeling pretty good because summer was about to begin. The weather was hot and sunny, and couldn’t have been better for a day at Sea World. And hey, get this, some skanky girl on the other bus flashed her boobs out the window. Boo-laka-shah!.
But that’s not the story here.
The story happened on the ride “Journey to Atlantis”. It’s a water ride with a big drop. You get in the car and pull the bar down across your lap. You go through a few minutes of themed “story” sections, similar to the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, then you get to a big drop. It’s probably about 60 or 70 feet, and it ends in a pool of water, like Splash Mountain. Your basic water roller coaster type drop.
About halfway through the ride I realized I hadn’t pulled my lap bar down. I thought it would do it automatically.
So here I am, and let me tell you, I don’t remember one damned thing about the story sections of the ride, because all I am thinking about is how the hell I am going to bail on this ride. I’m completely unsecured in a car that’s going to hit about 40 mph while falling more than 60 feet, and if the drop starts in darkness, I won’t even know when to prepare myself for it. I thought about abandoning the car but there really isn’t any way to do that. The ride is on a sort of flowing river, and the themed scenery is raised up high so that if you to jump in the water you wouldn’t be able to get out. There’d be nowhere to go since all the scenery stuff is too high up for a person to get a hand on anything. And it’s not like I could just swim back to the start or something. The current would have taken me to the drop anyway.
This whole time I didn’t say one word about my predicament to my friends. The cars are two-seaters and there were five of us. I was alone in the third car. I could see them (and that their lap bars were secured right over their thighs) but they couldn’t see me unless they turned around. They had absolutely no idea that while they were having a good time, I was growing increasingly frantic worrying about what would happen at the drop.
I came up with nothing.
Finally, the drop came into view and I realized what I had to do. I had to stand up so that I could get a good grip on the lap bar, push my feet down as hard as I could, and just hold on to keep from flying out of the car. So that’s what I did. I white-knuckled my way to the bottom, crying out in absolute terror.
I decided not to buy the picture of us on the ride.
Looking back on it, it’s really strange that I never said anything. Even after the ride, I didn’t mention it to my friends. I was weak-kneed and bleary eyed but I stayed quiet about it. I was afraid I’d sound like a pussy. In retrospect, that is completely insane, but it’s exactly the kind of decision I’d make back then. I was such a nervous sort of person. The fear of being on the ride was over, but I still had to fear of people finding out that I had been scared. Bizarre.
Anyway, after that I was kind of soured on rides with big drops. The next year our class trip was to Islands of Adventure, and while I had fun riding The Hulk roller coaster, which uses a fast accelerating boost start rather than a big drop, I couldn’t bring myself to go on the Deuling Dragons, which starts with a huge drop. Later that day I went on another water ride similar to Journey to Atlantis, something with a Jurassic Park theme, which also ended with a drop just like the one on Journey to Atlantis. I felt nothing but fear on that drop. The loops and curves of The Hulk were great, but rides that take you down, down, down were just out of the question.
Now, here’s what happened yesterday.
The most popular water theme park in Korea is Ocean World, part of a larger complex called Vivaldi Park. During summer days it is swamped with tens of thousands of people packing every corner as they try to beat the heat of Korea’s notorious Junes, Julys, and Augusts. Our party added six more to the endless crowd.
As we entered the park, the first thing we all noticed is, a lot of the lines were incredibly fucking long. I mean, like, whoa. Some of these lines were the stuff of legend, wrapping around the ride itself and out onto the walking paths. We jokingly started to call the place “Line World”. “This line is famous—it’s the longest line in the world!!” Oh, we’re such jokers.
Anyway, if you’re going to wait in a long line, it might as well be for something awesome, so we found ourselves heading to the far side of the park where its two most famous attractions awaited. Since early spring Ocean World has been running ads EVERYWHERE featuring two beautiful women, one in red clothes, one in blue, who represent one of two rides spectacular rides that are right next to each other. The red ride puts you and another rider on a little inflatable tube and sends you down a very long twisting, coiling slide. Its biggest asset is its length. The Big Red Slide is a journey.
The other ride, the blue one, is called Super Boomerang, and its biggest asset is an absolutely insane drop. We chose Blue.
Here’s the scoop on Blue:
Super Boomerang is a ride in which a whole group boards a circular raft, which the staff then sets spinning, for some strange cryptic reason that I’ll never understand. The raft is pushed onto a slide, which takes you around a little bend, and then straight into Armageddon. The slide gets very, very steep and you have about a second or two of insanely fast acceleration before the raft gets to the wall. Oh, right, the wall. You see, this isn’t a simple case of going DOWN a big, fast slide. The Boomerang also takes you UP a big, fast incline. Your raft slides up a wet wall till you’ve got at least fifty solid feet of air, and then, finally, it’s time for the big drop. Down the wall you just came up, your momentum carrying you away from your starting point and onto a new path, picking up incredible speed, then over one last bump and finally careening into a calm pool at the bottom. The line actually passes by this pool area, so you can see the reactions of riders as they get out. Most are deliriously happy. One woman, though, had to be helped out of the raft, like she couldn’t stand. Daaaamn.
I’m a pretty passive person in a group. I don’t really like to make the decisions. I mean, sometimes I’ll step up if the group is being really indecisive and it seems like no one else wants to decide what’s going on, but generally speaking, I’m happier just leaving it to someone else. I like being along for the ride. I find I like my outings better when I don’t really know what’s going to happen next. And, I’ve got to say, it worked out great for me on Saturday, because there is absolutely no way in hell I would’ve chosen the blue ride, but it ended up being fantastic.
I wouldn’t have chosen it because, frankly, it looked damned terrifying. When you first get in the line, you’ve got a great view of the Wall. You can’t see, from that angle, the rafts coming down the slide that starts the ride off, but you can see them as they go up the Wall, and then back down. We were already standing in line, already committed, as a group, to going on this one, when I first saw a raft go up, up, up, that huge wall. Not only saw it, but HEARD it. The raft has enough speed that you can hear the shlick sound of the water under the plastic from two hundred feet away. And that sound is mingled in there with the screams of the riders. And the damn ride goes UP A WALL. Before stopping from the force of gravity and falling back down a full fifty feet, most of that at nearly a ninety degree angle! Are you SERIOUS, Ocean World? Are you SERIOUS?
When I saw that first raft going up that Wall, I immediately felt my stomach drop. I could not believe I was going on this ride. I couldn’t believe this was actually about to happen. But this time, when I decided not to say anything to my companions, I was making the right choice. And I knew it. You can’t let one bad experience ruin something for the rest of your life, no matter how bad that experience was. It was time to get over the fear and have some fun.
Needless to say, the ride was awesome. I managed not to think about what was coming all through our long stay in the line, which was maybe an hour or so. It only hit me as we were boarding the raft, and it hit me hard. For about five seconds I thought about bailing, but luckily the line was long enough that I could never have justified it. I went along, and before I knew it, I was screaming my head off—in a good way. Down at the bottom, in the calm pool, before the anxious onlookers going through their own hour long wait, I watched myself, as though it was someone else entirely, babbling away about how great that was, and how it was worth the wait. I hadn’t waited an hour. I’d waited ten years.
Good night folks. Much love to everyone.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Karaoke-fu
In Korea, they don’t have “karaoke”. They have “noraebang”, from “norae” meaning song, and “bang” meaning room. Song-room. I’ve decided, though, for the purposes of this writing to use the term “karaoke”. Karaoke means something to people. It’s more than simply a word to describe a machine. Rather, it describes an act. You do karaoke. Foreigners over here don’t refer to “doing noraebang”. We say “going to a noraebang”. The act of singing along to ridiculous reproductions of popular songs while the words flash on a screen, either to the joy or the despair of present company will always be “karaoke”. So to any of my fellow waygooks who might be reading this, consider that an explanation for my use of Japanese nomenclature.
Conventional wisdom states that being successful at karaoke is all about confidence. Throw yourself into the performance with all the gusto you can summon and you’re sure to win the crowd. Show them your swagger and never look back. Bonus points for singing without looking at the lyrics. Pick songs that people think they’d have a hard time doing themselves, then belt them out without a trace of nerves, and that, in a nutshell, is what a great karaoke performance is all about.
For the most part, I agree with all of that. I have a couple of quibbles with it, but in general, that’s all true. Karaoke, like so many other things, is an activity which is easy to take for granted, but can speak volumes about people. You’ll get a pretty good picture of a person’s confidence level by doing karaoke with them. It doesn’t take long to spot it, either. You’ll know the karaoke pros by two things: their energy and their level of comfort. Comfort-level is the really telling sign. An unconfident person who’s seen a few good performers might be aware that he should put in as much energy as he can, and that’s good, but it’s a hundred times harder to fake being comfortable in your own skin. When you take an energetic perfomance, and add visible discomfort, you get camp. Camp can be fun, too, but whenever I see it (or catch myself indulging in it), I feel like the performer would rather be showing his or her sincere emotions—that is, to be rather than to seem confident—but just can’t quite make it happen. So the quest to deliver a great karaoke performance becomes a challenge where you must triumph in battle over yourself.
One other thing worth noting here is that you should always remember to play to your strengths. If your falsetto is your best voice, sing the Bee Gees, sing Mika, sing Queen, sing Scissor Sisters, but please please please, don’t even consider Marvin Gaye. It’s not a failing of confidence and character to steer clear of your weaknesses. In fact, a false denial of those weaknesses would be the real failing of confidence. To be a good performer, you must know just what it is that you do well. Then, learn to do it even better.
I’m not sure whether, or to what extent, all of this is applicable to other aspects of life. I have a feeling that it’s relevant, but not so much so that it’s worth thinking about all day. I do feel that having regular experiences in noraebangs throughout Seoul has served as a sort of barometer of my self-confidence over the last eight and half months. When I’m all set to belt ‘em out all night long, things must be going alright. And you know what? That seems to happen more and more lately.
Good night, world. Happy 4th.
Randy
Conventional wisdom states that being successful at karaoke is all about confidence. Throw yourself into the performance with all the gusto you can summon and you’re sure to win the crowd. Show them your swagger and never look back. Bonus points for singing without looking at the lyrics. Pick songs that people think they’d have a hard time doing themselves, then belt them out without a trace of nerves, and that, in a nutshell, is what a great karaoke performance is all about.
For the most part, I agree with all of that. I have a couple of quibbles with it, but in general, that’s all true. Karaoke, like so many other things, is an activity which is easy to take for granted, but can speak volumes about people. You’ll get a pretty good picture of a person’s confidence level by doing karaoke with them. It doesn’t take long to spot it, either. You’ll know the karaoke pros by two things: their energy and their level of comfort. Comfort-level is the really telling sign. An unconfident person who’s seen a few good performers might be aware that he should put in as much energy as he can, and that’s good, but it’s a hundred times harder to fake being comfortable in your own skin. When you take an energetic perfomance, and add visible discomfort, you get camp. Camp can be fun, too, but whenever I see it (or catch myself indulging in it), I feel like the performer would rather be showing his or her sincere emotions—that is, to be rather than to seem confident—but just can’t quite make it happen. So the quest to deliver a great karaoke performance becomes a challenge where you must triumph in battle over yourself.
One other thing worth noting here is that you should always remember to play to your strengths. If your falsetto is your best voice, sing the Bee Gees, sing Mika, sing Queen, sing Scissor Sisters, but please please please, don’t even consider Marvin Gaye. It’s not a failing of confidence and character to steer clear of your weaknesses. In fact, a false denial of those weaknesses would be the real failing of confidence. To be a good performer, you must know just what it is that you do well. Then, learn to do it even better.
I’m not sure whether, or to what extent, all of this is applicable to other aspects of life. I have a feeling that it’s relevant, but not so much so that it’s worth thinking about all day. I do feel that having regular experiences in noraebangs throughout Seoul has served as a sort of barometer of my self-confidence over the last eight and half months. When I’m all set to belt ‘em out all night long, things must be going alright. And you know what? That seems to happen more and more lately.
Good night, world. Happy 4th.
Randy
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Resonance
I feel like one of the most important challenges in life is finding your resonance frequency. Resonance frequency is a physics term that refers to the tendency of systems to show more powerful effects at some frequencies than at others. One example of this can be found in this clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9K93AUFuvk
The water in the class is being moved by nothing more than a steady tone. The frequency of the tone is the water’s resonance frequency. That means that this is the perfect sound to get that water jumping. The tone is just right, strongly amplifying the oscillations in the water. If it was a little higher or a little lower, the effects on the water would be much smaller. It’s as though the water is humming along with the tone.
A more playful explanation is offered by wikipedia:
Imagine yourself pushing the swing. You want it to go very high. What do you do? Your first instinct might be to simply push as hard and fast as you can. But this wouldn’t be the best way to make the swing go higher. If you push too fast, you’ll actually be wasting a lot energy because you’ll be opposing the swing’s natural timing. You need to get in time with the swing. Stand behind it, wait for it to come to you, then give it a little help on its way back the other direction. You’re synergizing with the swing. It’s much better and more effective than just trying to tell it what to do.
I see this as a great metaphor for life.
The greatest feeling, the most fulfilling, the most validating, the most triumphant and certain feeling is when you know you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing. You can be in a quote unquote “good situation” where everything is great—your job is good and it’s very secure, you live in a great place, you’ve got a great girlfriend—and still find yourself feeling strangely unfulfilled. On the flip side, you can be working 80 hour weeks for shit pay, wrecking your health, just getting by on the skin of your teeth—and somehow feel like you wouldn’t trade it for the world. Maybe you’re helping to raise awareness about a cause that inspires you. Maybe you’re an extremely dedicated coach at a lesser-known college athletics department. Wherever you are, what matters is that you know that’s where you’re supposed to be. You are where life is telling you to be, and that feeling is more valuable than health, more valuable than money, more valuable, even, than happiness. There’s no more feeling than knowing exactly who you are and exactly what you are doing. A person with purpose is an invincible thing.
Now, that might be easy to say, but it’s not easy to do. How do you find this purpose? Where do you begin to look for your natural resonance frequency? You certainly can’t find it by thinking about it. You’ll be distracted a thousand times before you reach your final destination by the very tricky human tendency towards wishful thinking. It’s all too easy, when you’re looking for the answers, to convince yourself that the path you’re supposed to be taking is the easiest one you see. If you’ve been offered a nice scholarship to law school, and you don’t know what else to do next, you’ll be very tempted to convince yourself that that’s what you should be doing. But just because someone hands you a pile of money to do something doesn’t mean that doing it will resonate with you. It only means that it’ll be an easier path to start down.
Don’t get me wrong here. If you don’t know what’s next in your life, then it’s very sensible to take the easier softer way. Making the most of a law school scholarship while you have the chance is a very prudent thing to do. On the other hand, if you don’t feel that resonance when thinking about law, and you do feel it when thinking about something else, then you need to reconsider. Push with the swing.
But how to make the call? How can you learn what you need to know?
I haven’t figured this part out at all, but I think all that a person can do is try as many different things as possible. Try to get as many different experiences as you can. Talk to people who seem strange. Go far and wide and look for things you’ve never seen before. Read widely. See a lot of movies. Try having different kinds of jobs. Give different kinds of creative self-expression a try. Oh, and somehow find time to process it all and figure just how you feel about all these things. It might be impossible to do all these things, but that’s not important. More important is the idea of discovery. Somewhere out there, or somewhere inside yourself, is the life that is just right for you—the purpose that will make you powerful. You’ve got to search with determination. It’s not going to find you. You’ve got to find it.
Good luck, folks. Lots of love.
Randy
The water in the class is being moved by nothing more than a steady tone. The frequency of the tone is the water’s resonance frequency. That means that this is the perfect sound to get that water jumping. The tone is just right, strongly amplifying the oscillations in the water. If it was a little higher or a little lower, the effects on the water would be much smaller. It’s as though the water is humming along with the tone.
A more playful explanation is offered by wikipedia:
One familiar example is a playground swing, which acts as a pendulum. Pushing a person in a swing in time with the natural interval of the swing (its resonance frequency) will make the swing go higher and higher (maximum amplitude), while attempts to push the swing at a faster or slower tempo will result in smaller arcs. This is because the energy the swing absorbs is maximized when the pushes are 'in phase’ with the swing's oscillations, while some of the swing's energy is actually extracted by the opposing force of the pushes when they are not.
Imagine yourself pushing the swing. You want it to go very high. What do you do? Your first instinct might be to simply push as hard and fast as you can. But this wouldn’t be the best way to make the swing go higher. If you push too fast, you’ll actually be wasting a lot energy because you’ll be opposing the swing’s natural timing. You need to get in time with the swing. Stand behind it, wait for it to come to you, then give it a little help on its way back the other direction. You’re synergizing with the swing. It’s much better and more effective than just trying to tell it what to do.
I see this as a great metaphor for life.
The greatest feeling, the most fulfilling, the most validating, the most triumphant and certain feeling is when you know you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing. You can be in a quote unquote “good situation” where everything is great—your job is good and it’s very secure, you live in a great place, you’ve got a great girlfriend—and still find yourself feeling strangely unfulfilled. On the flip side, you can be working 80 hour weeks for shit pay, wrecking your health, just getting by on the skin of your teeth—and somehow feel like you wouldn’t trade it for the world. Maybe you’re helping to raise awareness about a cause that inspires you. Maybe you’re an extremely dedicated coach at a lesser-known college athletics department. Wherever you are, what matters is that you know that’s where you’re supposed to be. You are where life is telling you to be, and that feeling is more valuable than health, more valuable than money, more valuable, even, than happiness. There’s no more feeling than knowing exactly who you are and exactly what you are doing. A person with purpose is an invincible thing.
Now, that might be easy to say, but it’s not easy to do. How do you find this purpose? Where do you begin to look for your natural resonance frequency? You certainly can’t find it by thinking about it. You’ll be distracted a thousand times before you reach your final destination by the very tricky human tendency towards wishful thinking. It’s all too easy, when you’re looking for the answers, to convince yourself that the path you’re supposed to be taking is the easiest one you see. If you’ve been offered a nice scholarship to law school, and you don’t know what else to do next, you’ll be very tempted to convince yourself that that’s what you should be doing. But just because someone hands you a pile of money to do something doesn’t mean that doing it will resonate with you. It only means that it’ll be an easier path to start down.
Don’t get me wrong here. If you don’t know what’s next in your life, then it’s very sensible to take the easier softer way. Making the most of a law school scholarship while you have the chance is a very prudent thing to do. On the other hand, if you don’t feel that resonance when thinking about law, and you do feel it when thinking about something else, then you need to reconsider. Push with the swing.
But how to make the call? How can you learn what you need to know?
I haven’t figured this part out at all, but I think all that a person can do is try as many different things as possible. Try to get as many different experiences as you can. Talk to people who seem strange. Go far and wide and look for things you’ve never seen before. Read widely. See a lot of movies. Try having different kinds of jobs. Give different kinds of creative self-expression a try. Oh, and somehow find time to process it all and figure just how you feel about all these things. It might be impossible to do all these things, but that’s not important. More important is the idea of discovery. Somewhere out there, or somewhere inside yourself, is the life that is just right for you—the purpose that will make you powerful. You’ve got to search with determination. It’s not going to find you. You’ve got to find it.
Good luck, folks. Lots of love.
Randy
Sunday, June 6, 2010
The profession
Children are complicated.
People have the perception that they are simple, but in fact, it’s much harder to understand a child than an adult. Adults are articulate. Adults have far greater insight into their character. Children are all at sea in life. They go where the tide takes them, and they have no idea where they’re going or why.
I’ve been watching a lot of my kids very carefully, trying to figure out what makes them tick. I’ve always loved studying people. Whether it’s a friend, a family member, co-worker or even myself, I’m always analyzing behavior, forming hypotheses, and imagining what it’s like to be in their head. This is my most practiced pasttime.
With that in mind, it should come as no surprise that I’m finding it pretty fascinating at times to be working with young children. The kids I’m working with are young enough that it’s easy to see changes in their character. By the time we reach adulthood, change is slow in us. People continue to change throughout their lives, but it usually takes much longer the older we get. With kids, it’s totally different. Even a month can make a huge difference. A kid at four can be one way, and another way entirely at five. After all, that a period equivalent to 25% of her life that just passed! Think how quickly a month passes. Now try to remember how long a month felt when you were in kindergarten. It was like an eternity.
When I first arrived I didn’t think about how much I’d be learning about kids. I hadn’t been around children much before I got here, so I didn’t really know what they were like. I mean, I remember how I perceived childhood, but that doesn’t tell me anything about how adults perceived me. I hadn’t seen childhood with an adult’s perspective. I didn’t think much about it as a way to learn about people because I assumed none of my students would have enough English to really talk to me. That assumption had two problems. The first is that many of the kids speak very good English. The second is the idea that it would matter. I know the kids in my homeroom class very very well, even though they none of them can carry a conversation. They figure out how to get their feelings across.
The things that’s been the biggest surprise to me is just how much children are like adults. They’re dead complicated. Classroom politics change all the time. The battles may revolve around crayon use, but don’t let the subject matter fool you. These kids are actually fighting for their place in the social order. And they do it with striking ability. In one of my classes, a student brought a little notebook with nicely decorated paper to school, tearing out sheets to give to her classmates as a gift. The next day, another girl in the same class struck back. She brought a notebook of her own and did the same gift-giving, except she added a twist: first she let everyone pick a sticker from her sticker book to add to their paper. The first student knew she was one-upped. You could see it. It turns out, five year olds can go to war. Or at least the girls can.
The biggest difference between children and adults, though, is that children are very impulsive. They are pushed and pulled in a thousand directions by their emotions, which they are almost helpless to resist. Everything is a whirlwind for a child. Everything is a rollercoaster. When something is funny, they laugh hysterically. When they are upset, the world is ending. Just as their pencils are wobbly under their hands, with their motor control still loose, their emotions are the same. All the tools are there, they just haven’t figured out control yet. They have a thousand complicated tasks to master before they are ready to be on their own. This is why I don’t see myself as just an English teacher. They also need to learn how to get along with others, how to express their creativity, how to stay focused on the task at hand, and dozens more essential skills. If all they learn is English, then we are failing them. They’ve got about 10 or 12 years to learn how life works, and after that, good luck to them.
In any case, I just got the book “Teach Like a Champion” by Doug Lemov. I talked about this book before. Lemov compiled a slew of teaching techniques commonly found in the most successful classrooms, named them, and explained them in a very detailed and clear book. I’m about a fifth of the way through it and it is just rocking my socks. But one thing I notice is that Lemov and I seem to agree that there’s a lot more to a teacher’s job than teaching kids the answers. Over and over again, the book explains how certain teaching techniques will encourage kids to become more intellectually curious, or to push themselves harder, or to be more self-disciplined. It seems the best teachers don’t just teach facts and figures. The best teachers teach life.
I must push myself harder as a person to be worthy of teaching of the subject.
Goodnight folks. Lots of love.
Randy
People have the perception that they are simple, but in fact, it’s much harder to understand a child than an adult. Adults are articulate. Adults have far greater insight into their character. Children are all at sea in life. They go where the tide takes them, and they have no idea where they’re going or why.
I’ve been watching a lot of my kids very carefully, trying to figure out what makes them tick. I’ve always loved studying people. Whether it’s a friend, a family member, co-worker or even myself, I’m always analyzing behavior, forming hypotheses, and imagining what it’s like to be in their head. This is my most practiced pasttime.
With that in mind, it should come as no surprise that I’m finding it pretty fascinating at times to be working with young children. The kids I’m working with are young enough that it’s easy to see changes in their character. By the time we reach adulthood, change is slow in us. People continue to change throughout their lives, but it usually takes much longer the older we get. With kids, it’s totally different. Even a month can make a huge difference. A kid at four can be one way, and another way entirely at five. After all, that a period equivalent to 25% of her life that just passed! Think how quickly a month passes. Now try to remember how long a month felt when you were in kindergarten. It was like an eternity.
When I first arrived I didn’t think about how much I’d be learning about kids. I hadn’t been around children much before I got here, so I didn’t really know what they were like. I mean, I remember how I perceived childhood, but that doesn’t tell me anything about how adults perceived me. I hadn’t seen childhood with an adult’s perspective. I didn’t think much about it as a way to learn about people because I assumed none of my students would have enough English to really talk to me. That assumption had two problems. The first is that many of the kids speak very good English. The second is the idea that it would matter. I know the kids in my homeroom class very very well, even though they none of them can carry a conversation. They figure out how to get their feelings across.
The things that’s been the biggest surprise to me is just how much children are like adults. They’re dead complicated. Classroom politics change all the time. The battles may revolve around crayon use, but don’t let the subject matter fool you. These kids are actually fighting for their place in the social order. And they do it with striking ability. In one of my classes, a student brought a little notebook with nicely decorated paper to school, tearing out sheets to give to her classmates as a gift. The next day, another girl in the same class struck back. She brought a notebook of her own and did the same gift-giving, except she added a twist: first she let everyone pick a sticker from her sticker book to add to their paper. The first student knew she was one-upped. You could see it. It turns out, five year olds can go to war. Or at least the girls can.
The biggest difference between children and adults, though, is that children are very impulsive. They are pushed and pulled in a thousand directions by their emotions, which they are almost helpless to resist. Everything is a whirlwind for a child. Everything is a rollercoaster. When something is funny, they laugh hysterically. When they are upset, the world is ending. Just as their pencils are wobbly under their hands, with their motor control still loose, their emotions are the same. All the tools are there, they just haven’t figured out control yet. They have a thousand complicated tasks to master before they are ready to be on their own. This is why I don’t see myself as just an English teacher. They also need to learn how to get along with others, how to express their creativity, how to stay focused on the task at hand, and dozens more essential skills. If all they learn is English, then we are failing them. They’ve got about 10 or 12 years to learn how life works, and after that, good luck to them.
In any case, I just got the book “Teach Like a Champion” by Doug Lemov. I talked about this book before. Lemov compiled a slew of teaching techniques commonly found in the most successful classrooms, named them, and explained them in a very detailed and clear book. I’m about a fifth of the way through it and it is just rocking my socks. But one thing I notice is that Lemov and I seem to agree that there’s a lot more to a teacher’s job than teaching kids the answers. Over and over again, the book explains how certain teaching techniques will encourage kids to become more intellectually curious, or to push themselves harder, or to be more self-disciplined. It seems the best teachers don’t just teach facts and figures. The best teachers teach life.
I must push myself harder as a person to be worthy of teaching of the subject.
Goodnight folks. Lots of love.
Randy
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Someday they'll say they learned all they know from me!
Hello. Today I thought I’d share with you some essays that were written by 5 year old Koreans. Enjoy!
“Name: Beth
Once opon a time
miss duckling and Mr. snake
Went to The shop
to Buy lemons to eat
and they get home.
So they get scissors
and they eat the lemon.”
Good story.
“Name: a mom man Stephanie
Bunny is very cute.
The bunny swam.
The bunny read.
The bunny”
Not sure what went wrong on the way to writing her name here, but my theory is she was testing how to spell words that she didn’t end up using. That wonderfully unresolved ending makes me think the bunny was supposed to have adventures with a man and a mom but, sadly, never got around to it.
Also, the alphabet is written in capitals down the right side of the paper.
“Name: (no name at the top)
Jan has new friend
Jan walk by the street
but there is another
boy friend. It was ugly
Jan hit the boy
but Yap Yap Yap oo oo oo YaYaYa
The boy became bird.
and Jan became bird to
and they married.
Minnie”
Everything about this is amazing. I have no idea who wrote it. There is no one named “Minnie” in the class.
“Name: Henny
When There is Kimchi and
There is only man and man very
love very much and man eat
the kimchi and man eat
and eat eat eat and eat
eat eate aand eat eat
and eat and tow much eat and
then that man is very fat
then finish and this store is kimchi and man store”
Can’t argue with that.
Another nameless one.
“Once upon a time
in house and a ugly
shoes. But ugly shoes
love the pretty shoes
But pretty shoes Dont’
like agly shoes
But agly shoes goes pretty
shoes house But pretty
Shoes shout and agly
Shoes go out agly
Shoes goes agly shoes house
and eat bread
and juice and sleep
But pretty shoes like agly
Shoes and pretty
Shoes goes agly shoes
house and agly shoes
is love the pretty shoes!”
An epic worthy of Homer.
Have a good one folks. Remember to love your neighbor.
Randy
“Name: Beth
Once opon a time
miss duckling and Mr. snake
Went to The shop
to Buy lemons to eat
and they get home.
So they get scissors
and they eat the lemon.”
Good story.
“Name: a mom man Stephanie
Bunny is very cute.
The bunny swam.
The bunny read.
The bunny”
Not sure what went wrong on the way to writing her name here, but my theory is she was testing how to spell words that she didn’t end up using. That wonderfully unresolved ending makes me think the bunny was supposed to have adventures with a man and a mom but, sadly, never got around to it.
Also, the alphabet is written in capitals down the right side of the paper.
“Name: (no name at the top)
Jan has new friend
Jan walk by the street
but there is another
boy friend. It was ugly
Jan hit the boy
but Yap Yap Yap oo oo oo YaYaYa
The boy became bird.
and Jan became bird to
and they married.
Minnie”
Everything about this is amazing. I have no idea who wrote it. There is no one named “Minnie” in the class.
“Name: Henny
When There is Kimchi and
There is only man and man very
love very much and man eat
the kimchi and man eat
and eat eat eat and eat
eat eate aand eat eat
and eat and tow much eat and
then that man is very fat
then finish and this store is kimchi and man store”
Can’t argue with that.
Another nameless one.
“Once upon a time
in house and a ugly
shoes. But ugly shoes
love the pretty shoes
But pretty shoes Dont’
like agly shoes
But agly shoes goes pretty
shoes house But pretty
Shoes shout and agly
Shoes go out agly
Shoes goes agly shoes house
and eat bread
and juice and sleep
But pretty shoes like agly
Shoes and pretty
Shoes goes agly shoes
house and agly shoes
is love the pretty shoes!”
An epic worthy of Homer.
Have a good one folks. Remember to love your neighbor.
Randy
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Saunain'
Another weekend, another first, this time as authentically Korean as it gets. Jjimjilbang.
A jjimjilbang is a public spa/sauna. You pay a pretty reasonable price to get in the door and then all the sauna rooms and hot tubs are free. You get a little scanable bracelet that charges you for any additional services, which you use in lieu of carrying your wallet around, what with being semi-naked and enjoying some hot, steamy, bath related action. What kind of "additional services" you ask? How about massage chairs, holmes! You feeling that? Get yourself all loosened up by a steaming hot sauna, then when you go back out to the main room, have a chair run it's wubbly knobs all over you back. MMmm-hmmm. Oh yeah. The chair loves you. You love the chair. You're just a couple of cool cats finding love in the unlikeliest of places. In a chair.
Jjimjilbangs have been around forever in Korea. There are references to them in court documents from King Sejong, this king from 500 years ago who was basically the dopest pimp in the history of Korea. If he was doing it, it must have been the thing to do. And that remains true to this day. Jjimjilbangs are among the most popular form of recreation in Korea, especially for families. There are typically arcade rooms and other kid-friendly stuff, so mom and dad can drop off the little ones and then go relax on their own. Even in the middle of the afternoon on a weekend, the main hall area will be surprisingly crowded, and at night, the place is packed. People often stay overnight, sleeping on the heated floors, and the main area will be simply crowded with bodies. Careful not to step on anyone on your way to the toilet! I could never sleep at one of these places though. Too noisy, and the floor is too hard to sleep. I opted for the sunrise subway myself.
Oh! One more thing. The jjimjilbang we went to had a restaurant on the top floor called “Indian Barbecue Café” or something like that. I was imagining, based on the name that it was Indian food, like curry and whatnot, except with barbecued meat. Nope. The “Indian” in that title refers to American Indians—Native Americans. O…K. Not sure if I can name a lot of cuisine in that category. Corn? I guess?
In any case, the restaurant featured a few statues in full on Indian caricature mode. Like straight up, “Holy mother of Choctaw, that is some racist shit” type statues. You see this stuff now and again around here. Racial stereotypes are no big deal, it seems. I would have been a lot more surprised if the décor wasn’t off the wall offensive. Here’s a story for you: I asked kids in an elementary school class if they knew anything about Africa. The response? “Oh, Africa… OOGA BOOGA OOGA BOOGA!” Yikes.
Till next time,
Randy
A jjimjilbang is a public spa/sauna. You pay a pretty reasonable price to get in the door and then all the sauna rooms and hot tubs are free. You get a little scanable bracelet that charges you for any additional services, which you use in lieu of carrying your wallet around, what with being semi-naked and enjoying some hot, steamy, bath related action. What kind of "additional services" you ask? How about massage chairs, holmes! You feeling that? Get yourself all loosened up by a steaming hot sauna, then when you go back out to the main room, have a chair run it's wubbly knobs all over you back. MMmm-hmmm. Oh yeah. The chair loves you. You love the chair. You're just a couple of cool cats finding love in the unlikeliest of places. In a chair.
Jjimjilbangs have been around forever in Korea. There are references to them in court documents from King Sejong, this king from 500 years ago who was basically the dopest pimp in the history of Korea. If he was doing it, it must have been the thing to do. And that remains true to this day. Jjimjilbangs are among the most popular form of recreation in Korea, especially for families. There are typically arcade rooms and other kid-friendly stuff, so mom and dad can drop off the little ones and then go relax on their own. Even in the middle of the afternoon on a weekend, the main hall area will be surprisingly crowded, and at night, the place is packed. People often stay overnight, sleeping on the heated floors, and the main area will be simply crowded with bodies. Careful not to step on anyone on your way to the toilet! I could never sleep at one of these places though. Too noisy, and the floor is too hard to sleep. I opted for the sunrise subway myself.
Oh! One more thing. The jjimjilbang we went to had a restaurant on the top floor called “Indian Barbecue Café” or something like that. I was imagining, based on the name that it was Indian food, like curry and whatnot, except with barbecued meat. Nope. The “Indian” in that title refers to American Indians—Native Americans. O…K. Not sure if I can name a lot of cuisine in that category. Corn? I guess?
In any case, the restaurant featured a few statues in full on Indian caricature mode. Like straight up, “Holy mother of Choctaw, that is some racist shit” type statues. You see this stuff now and again around here. Racial stereotypes are no big deal, it seems. I would have been a lot more surprised if the décor wasn’t off the wall offensive. Here’s a story for you: I asked kids in an elementary school class if they knew anything about Africa. The response? “Oh, Africa… OOGA BOOGA OOGA BOOGA!” Yikes.
Till next time,
Randy
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