Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Is Starbucks more expensive in Seoul or LA?

This post is replaced by this one:
Starbucks Double Tall Latte Pricing in Four Markets


Inquiring minds want to know: where is Starbucks more expensive, in Los Angeles, California, or Seoul, South Korea?

My double tall latte rang up at 4,600 won in Korea, I believe. I could get 300 won off when I brought my own mug/tumbler/whatever, and I could get the extra shot free with my Starbucks card (500 won).

In LA, I just paid $3.40 for my double tall latte. That includes the extra shot, which rings up at $0.75 somehow. It's possible to get $0.10 off when you bring your own mug here.

At an exchange rate (current today, 2011.5.31) of 1078 won to the dollar, that means that with no discounts we have:

LA: $3.40
Seoul: $4.27

for a double tall latte, making Seoul's Starbucks considerably more expensive, with no discounts applied. Even with all the discounts, the Seoul price is still $3.52; and the LA price could be as low as $3.30, and just $2.65 with the normal amount of shots.

So the answer is, at least for tall lattes:

Starbucks is cheaper in LA than in Seoul!

Saturday, May 28, 2011

The Psychopath Test

The Psychopath Test
Jon Ronson (2011)

I found out about this book when I saw the author on The Daily Show. (May 16 2011 show)

The idea of psychopathology is interesting, and I have been particularly interested because it was an idea that the late great Kurt Vonnegut Jr. took pains to inform people on. He recommended his audience at UW-Madison read a book about it. I tried to read that book, but I quit reading it because it was not much fun.

This book is a lot of fun to read. Ronson weaves a personal narrative filled with interesting episodes and characters, and although they are not always absolutely necessary, it does make for a good story.

In the end I suppose the thesis is something like yes, psychopaths are a problem, a nasty nasty problem, but it isn't really a binary, psychopath-or-not-psychopath thing, but a kind of spectrum, although Ronson doesn't quite say this explicitly. Or is it really a binary thing after all, but determining who's who is hard? What if we could test people with fMRI's? Would that make a yes-no determination possible? Hmm. In the end maybe Ronson's tale is too anecdotal to make a full analysis possible.

Could probably say more about this "psychopaths are another species" angle, but it's all tied up with the spectrum/binary thing, and even then hard to get away from the people are people thing. People have a hard time getting away from the people are people thing, which is a good thing about people.

Anyway, interesting. Don't get killed by a psychopath! Or cancer!

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Congratulations, nothing has changed.

Congratulations, nothing has changed.
A commencement speech to the Bernard Dailey University Class of 2011.

Congratulations on this day of your graduation. I would be smiling if I were you. Please check, and ensure that you are smiling.

I hope that you have enjoyed your college years. If you have not enjoyed your college years, you are in a kind of trouble. You may end up never enjoy anything, if you keep on going like that. Be careful. Enjoy things.

Some of you are going on to more college years. Graduate school, they call it. I anticipate those years will be good too. I really can't emphasize enough just how much fun school is, for students.

The astute listener, perhaps not going on to graduate school, and likewise the graduate of graduate school a few years hence, will note that all this enthusiasm about your past does not bode particularly well for your future. Well, well...

Do you have to go to college? Is it really necessary, in this modern world of blah blah blah? Well, I know my audience here today, so let's just say yes. Unequivocally yes, yes, yes. Good job.

I've already mentioned the prime reason that you have to go to college, which is that it is just so much darn fun. All the rich people go to college, don't they, and I am convinced a person with that kind of money is unlikely to do anything they really don't want to.

So good work! For the very reasonable price of eighteen thousand, four hundred and seventy-two dollars per term, you have spent four years in an absolutely fantastic amusement park, filled with chemistry labs and libraries and lecture halls and bars.

Some of you have managed to stay even more than four years, getting the same sort of degree that your over-eager peers clawed to in four. Five years! Six years! You are the really smart ones. Kudos.

There is another reason you have to go to college, which is this: Now, whenever anybody asks you where you went to college, you can honestly use the fine name of Bernard Dailey University, instead of mumbling something about independent study and life experiences and other such nonsense. And that answer, which you now have access to, makes you quite a lot more likely to receive the job being offered by that person asking the question, or to later sleep with that person, or both. And that is something. Welcome to the club!

So far I have built you up, telling you how smart you are, getting you smiling. Now here is the lesson for the day.

Did I learn it in college? No. I learned it after I graduated.

I learned it after I graduated, when I went out into the world and I expected to find adults out there.

Here is what I learned: there are no adults out there.

Sorry.

Maybe because I grew up around mostly intelligent, responsible people, I developed a typically childish idea of the world as divided into children and adults.

Some of you, because of the characteristics of your environment, have always known that everybody is a child.

Sorry.

My childish idea went like this: Some children are nasty and stupid and mean. Sure they are, but then they grow up and become adults, who can be relied upon to do the right thing - or at least to be reasonable.

But it doesn't happen. Nothing changes. If you go to work at a company, however big and respectable, do not expect that you will be working with adults. You will be working with children. And some of them will be good, which is nice for you, but some of them will be nasty and stupid and mean.

There is no metamorphosis of the human animal after which adulthood begins. We are surrounded by people that just kept getting older. Look at the person to your left. That person is twenty-two, probably. Can you believe, can you even fathom, that you are standing next to a person who was a twelve-year-old just ten years ago? Now that person can drive a truck!

Or could have, had they not gone and graduated college.

So what is the point? I don't know how I'm supposed to know. I'm just a kid!

As far as I can tell, we'd all be just as well off committing suicide. I've been told that Kool-Aid will do the trick, although I'm not sure how much of it you need to drink.

But also, I have a hard time convincing people of this suicide plan. As you can see, I haven't been able to convince myself.

And this experimental evidence gives me something which we may as well call hope. Nobody gives their child an ugly name on purpose, after all. So I hope you'll keep smiling. Why not? Today you get your official job and sex paper!

Now the sex I'll leave up to you, but as for the job... There are a lot of jobs out there that somebody is going to have to do. You can get money for these jobs. Money!

It's almost immoral not to do one of these essential, money-earning jobs. Irresponsible! There are companies doing important work, and that work has got to be done!

Listen kid. The whole economy will definitely collapse if everybody just follows their dreams. We need bodies at desks, and so on!

Listen kid. Screw everybody. You are not an adult, and you don't have to worry about waking up as one any given morning. There are no adults. I checked. If you follow politics at all then you already know what I'm talking about.

You've heard people tell you to do what you love. This is not new advice. If you try it, the worst that will happen is death, probably. Is that a risk you're willing to take?

Now is as good a time as any.

Congratulations. Nothing has changed.

Sunday, May 15, 2011

IQ vs. motivation vs. activity level

I enjoyed and generally agree with the thesis of this article from big think. It says, basically, that IQ is not as important as people think, because both a) measures of intelligence are biased by participant motivation (even a genius will have a low score if they just don't feel like doing the test, a dumb kid who tries hard will do relatively better than one who doesn't try) and b) with or without high IQ, success depends on motivation.

This seems pretty self-evident to me, but now there's a study and everything. I really wish they wouldn't be jerks and just put the whole report online for free so I could read the whole thing, but they don't. I wonder chiefly how they really went about measuring motivation. Is it something like, "is the kid still trying to work on the test at the end of the time, or does he just finish quickly and put his head down?" I just don't know. They say in the abstract that they had people watching the kids or something.

Next, motivation itself is a pretty abstract thing. I've thought for some time that the more important thing is probably just the overall level of activity that a person maintains naturally. Some people spend weeks on the couch, other people go do things. Some people say they want to write a book but never put pen to paper, others write novels upon novels. (Stephen King? Ridiculous.) And that kind of prolificacy is not necessarily sufficient for genius, but you'll never hear about a lazy genius either. You only hear about them if they DO something.

This is what I think about for myself, a lot. Am I doing something? I should be. I slip into non-productivity too easily. Gotta keep doing. Not ADHD randomness, but purpose-driven effort. Maybe that's my motivation.

Update: Steven Johnson, author of "Where good ideas come from" notes that people famous for their good ideas generally had a lot of hobbies. He recommends having a lot of hobbies because it encourages idea cross-polination, basically. But it's the kind of thing you only do if you're very active.

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Computerized Adaptive Teaching?

As I continue to think about how to make the best new teaching thing on the internet, I finally got around to reading up about Computerized Adaptive Testing, famous as used for the GRE. The math used for rating questions and so on is pretty neat. There's a whole thing called Item Response Theory, which is fancier than the chess ranking thing that I was thinking of, after seeing it used in The Social Network. The two are similar, and similar to what I was thinking of, in that they consider questions as ranked in the same way as people, but almost always along just one dimension: goodness-at-chess, or goodness-at-math, or even just "intelligence" or whatever. That seems like the main drawback for adapting such ideas for a more useful automatic evaluation and/or instruction system. A good teacher knows what you're good at and what you need to work at, not just "how smart you are" or some similar unidimensional measure.

And because I was on wiki, I also went and read some about the Likert scale (fancy name for "do you agree? choose 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5). I was scarred for life when somebody mentioned this Likert thing like I should know what it was, and I only knew it as that thing, where you choose 1-5. There's also a whole wiki page just for "rating scale" - for when you need to be particularly scientific about whether she's an 8 or a 9, I guess.

Signs... for my life.

Since quitting my job, more and more things seem like signs. Of course I have a lot more time and interest in noticing them. So when I saw this:
all I noticed was the "Apps to Learn Foreign Languages" bit. I've been looking at a lot of apps to learn foreign languages lately, kind of thinking of making my own, eventually. I feel like I could smoke the heck out of most of the ones available. So the app store is telling me to follow my dreams! of messing with computers a lot.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Litany of Errors (3)

More digging!

원래: 시작한 것도 10분에 불과한데 포기한다구?
수정: 시작한 시간이 10분에 불과한데 벌써 포기한다구?

원래: 사랑을 고백한 여자의 거절을 듣고 하루 종일 무안해서 고개를 숙이며 다녔다.
수정: 사랑을 고백한 여자에게 거절하는 말을 듣고 하루 종일 무안해서 고개를 숙이며 다녔다.

원래: 도둑이 책상 위의 상자 안에 고개를 갸웃겨렸다.
수정: 도둑이 책상 위의 상자를 보고 고개를 갸웃겨렸다.

원래: 제품을 설계할 때에는 누구를 상대로 하는냐는 것을 고려야만 한다.
수정: 제품을 설계할 때에는 누구를 상대로 할 것인지는 고려야만 한다.

원래: 그 명문대학교는 너무 부자들만으로 상대로 하는 게 아닌가?
수정: 그 명문대학교는 너무 부자들만 상대로 하는 게 아닌가?

원래: 수입이 비용의 120%에 이르지 않으면 아예 하지 말세.
수정: 수입이 지출의 120%에 이르지 않으면 아예 시작하지 마세.

not 재작년, 제작년

apparently 38도 북위 / 삼팔선 was only used 1945~한국전쟁
한국전쟁 후: 휴전선 (oh honestly, Korea...)

apparently you can't use 그 twice, like THERE and THERE, but instead 그 and 이 all the time

can't overload the object marker, as ~ 생각을 인식을 해야 한다. (샘 eliminated the 인식을)

낭만 is romance

원래: 우리는 만난 지 일주에 지나지 않으면서 커플은 무슨.
수정: 우리는 만난 지 일주일에 지나지 않는데 커플은 무슨.

"눈에 차다" 그 차다는 동사인가 보다... "눈에 차는 학생", "눈에 찬 학생" 말고

원래: 나는 반대했더라도 여친은 우리 헤어진다고 목을 박았다.
수정: 나는 반대하더라도 여친은 우리 헤어지자고 목을 박았다.

in some places 네가 OR 너는 could be okay, but I guess the feeling is different, isn't it?
THIS COULD BE A DOPE EXAMPLE! comparing 네가 죽는다 vs. 너는 죽는다

looks like I made a mistake with 가고 instead of 가서...

바람을 맞다, never 바람만 맞다 I guess

일을 그만둬서 친구들에게 빈대 붙고 싶지 않으니까 돈을 아껴 써야 된다.

시치미를 떼다, not 떠다 (오타?)

대박이 나다, not 되다

날개가 돋친듯이, not 돋듯이 (ㅋㅋ) (팔리다)

팔려서 not 팔리고 (that's two mistakes of that type...)

환율 변동, not 변경

기대도 못했던 정도로 apparently doesn't work for "more than we could have expected"

specify a person with 불똥이 튀다, as 나에게까지 불똥이 튀다

원래: 동생은 어찌나 오지랖이 넓어서 주변 사람이면 모르는 게 없고 간섭으로 주변 사람들에게 잘 알려져 있다.
수정: 동생은 어찌나 오지랖이 넓은지 주변 사람이면 모르는 게 없고 간섭하는 것으로 주변 사람들에게 잘 알려져 있다.

하다니 for reported stuff! 하니 if it happened to me!

achieve is 이루다 not 이르다

use an emphasizer with the ~ 못해 ~ 문법, 즉: 불확실하다 못해 두렵기까지 하다

장학금 발표 날 (결과 날 말고)

초조하게 기대하다 (초조하고 기대하다 말고)

use 결국 for in-the-end results...

김이 샜다, not 샌다 (for the past)

원래: 적극적인 사람은 무엇이든 논독을 들이면 빨리 구하도록 한다.
수정: 적극적인 사람은 무엇이든 논독을 들이면 빨리 얻기 위해 노력한다.

~가 바뀌다,
~를 바꾸다.

두근두근 뛰고 있는 심장 (that somebody is eating) (second time I misspelled 뛰다 grr)

원래: 회사원 남편은 늦게 집에 들어가면 아내가 바가지를 긁는데 오히려 더 늦게 들어오게 한다.
수정: 회사원 남편은 늦게 집에 들어가면 아내가 바가지를 긁는데 이 바가지가 오히려 남편이 더 늦게 들어오게 한다.
under-specified subjects...

~었으면 좋겠다, not ~었다면 좋겠다

confusion between 와 달라는 and 오라는

놈이 not 놈은 AGAIN with the 이/는 thing

사람의 죽음 (don't separate those two words with 교통사고로 인한)


Too tired to keep doing this any more right now... ㅠㅜ

School of One, Core Standards, Probability, New York

Continuing to think about the future of education, I went back to the School of One web site to find out more about it. It seems pretty cool, and is up there with Khan Academy in my leading influences right now. Interestingly, I don't know that the two work together, although they really probably should.

And then I saw this: "School of One was designed to align with the New York state mathematics standards but will soon be adapted to align with the Common Core standards." I didn't remember this from when I was doing my MAT and then teaching in NYC, 2006-2008, and sure enough checking the wiki, Common Core was announced in 2009 and the standards came out in 2010. Some evidence does point to earlier development of this project, but I don't have any more history on it. At first blush at least, it seems like a good thing. Almost all the US states are in on these standards for Math and ELA. I wonder how this is affecting other stuff in the American teaching world.

Next, I took a look at the math standards, and found this example on page 81: "a model says a spinning coin falls heads up with probability 0.5. Would a result of 5 tails in a row cause you to question the model?" I guess they're trying to emphasize that such things are possible, but at the same time, if that's all you know about this "coin" then the theoretical likelihood of that outcome is 1/32 or about 3%, which is a statistically suspicious thing to see. (Okay, 6% if you think it's one of two equal-"entropy" events.) So maybe it's just a sort of interesting example, or maybe I'm way off somehow, or maybe even if there are standards a whole lot depends on how people interpret them.

And finally, I'll be in New York for sure from June 1-8! Holla!

Monday, May 9, 2011

Litany of Errors (2)

I continue going through old papers...

아무리 문학에 깊은 의미가 담겨 있다고 해도 문학의 의미는 독자가 그 문학을 어떻게 만나서 해석하는가에 달려 있다.

원래 수학은 일상생활의 필요에서 비롯된 것이다.

not 물꼭지, 수도꼭지

not 5분도 안 돼서, 5분도 안 되어

not 했다는 걸 듣고, 했다는 말을 듣고

꿩 대신 닭 is used followed by 으로

not ~보니 십년 감수 하다, ~보고 십년 감수 하다

쉬는 날에 바쁜 일정을 세웠는데 늦잠을 자는 바람에 날샜다.

친구한테 받은 메일을 보니 친구의 사정이 급한데 나도 일을 그만두고 나서 내 코가 석자인 상황이라 도와줄래야 도와줄 수가 없다.

어제 회의는 1시간으로 예정되어 있던 것인데 사장님이 자꾸 삼천포로 빠져서 3시간이 돼서야 끝날 수 있었다.

쌤 does NOT think it's cute to use 쌤 instead of 선생님

기업에 파산하다 for go bankrupt, but apparently for small businesses like a coffee shop just 망하다.

이 not 은 talking about what they did, not describing them...

서로 not 서러 (오타)

내리다 not 나리다 (오타?)

개인이 운영하는 커피숍, not 개인사업인 커피숍

that kid is 걔, not 개

in my usage of the 속담, 윗물이 맑아야 아랫물이 맑은 것, not 맑다는 것. Didn't need to 간접화법 it.

in my usage of the 속담, 보기 좋은 떡이 먹기에도 좋다고, not 좋다던데, explaining reasoning for an action or thinking.

not 돌이서, 둘이서. (오타)

in my usage of the 속담, 뚝배기보다 장맛이라는 말을 믿고, not 장맛이라더니 (with contrasting subsequent phrase).

not 그가 죽었어, 그 녀석 나한테 죽었어.

김연아 선수는 세계에서 다섯 손가락 안에 들 만큼 잘하는 피겨 스케이팅 선수다.

내가 그 사람과는 거리가 멀었다. "문법적으로는 맞지만 의미가 충분하게 전달되지 않는 문장"

a cryer is 울보, not 울부 (huh!)

apparently can't say "국제상 의견을 의하면", suggests 뉴스위크 주말판에 의하면

사람들이 not 사람들은 (huh, that's twice I over-은'ed)

샘 suggests 비교적으로 instead of 극적으로; maybe it only works for things that are human-dramatic, not just impressive or substantial?

미국은 not 미국이 (well, now I have the other mistake, huh)
"미국은 다양한 기후에 맞추어 지역별로 옷과 집의 모양도 다양하다.

not 이 숙제를 끝냈다고 여길게, 이 숙제를 끝낸 것으로 여길게.

조지 워싱턴은 미국의 첫번째 대통령으로 훌륭한 사람으로 여겨진다.

I used 의하여 where I should have used 의하면
의하여: on the ground of, by virtue of, by reason of, on account of
의하면: according to, like a 소문 or whatever
they are different, usually (?)

미국 국기 (don't need 의)

50개의 주를 상징한다 (don't need 들, as 주들을)

I wanted 여기 7년이 되고 to be "it's been 7 years here" but I guess it doesn't work; suggested "7년이나 일했지만"

아이들을 not 애들을

장학재단을 세우다 (장학 재단 scholarship foundation; you can't just set up a scholarship)

not 경제에 자극호다, 경제를 활성화하다
stimulate x, vitalization-ize o

편 does not mean version or edition, I guess...

주머니에 밀어낸 지감 does not parse

수학은 학교 과목에 머무르는 것이 아니라 일상생활에도 적용할 데가 있다.

I omitted subjects that I guess I should have had to make a good sentence... notes like 누가, 뭐가...

사촌이 김치를 사 온다고 했으니 엄마가 굳이 나가서 사 올 필요가 없다.
: 사 온다고
: 사다 준다고
다 with an action with that thing, I guess

not 학생이, 학생은 god I make this kind of mistake a lot

not 안 돼서, 안 되었기 때문에

치즈는 소가 많은 위스콘신의 대표적인 음식으로 여겨지고 있다. (not 여겨져 있다)

weird mistake; not 말씀 하시다는 (maybe I meant 하시다가는?), 이야기하면

일본 방사능 물질로 말미암아 수질 오염이 심각해졌다고 하고 난리가 났다.

not 오신 교수님, 이번에 모신 교수님.

니까 (not ~어서) followed by ~를 바라다

히틀러가 화가로서 성공했더라면 제2차 세계 대전이 일어나지 않았을 텐데 그는 그림을 그리는 재능이 없었다.

미국을 비롯해서 영국, 러시아 등등의 국가들이 유엔을 구성한다.

돈을 아껴 쓰다, not 저렴하게 쓰다

유엔 가입국 가운데 미국과 중국 사이의 긴장이 팽팽해지고 있다.
: 긴장이 팽팽하다

자유 무역에 방해가 될 수 있다는 점에서 저희는 이 환율 조절 제도가 바람직하지 않다고 봅니다.

최신 발전된 기술을 이용해서 그 다음 기술이 발전하니까 발전의 속도가 눈이 부실 정도로 가속화되고 있다.

not 대중 전달 매체, just 대중 매체

경찰이 방사능 피폭의 위험을 무릅쓰고 사람들을 살리러 나갔다.
: 무릅쓰다: almost always 위험을

입이 열 개라도 할 말이 없을 만큼 미안하기 짝이 없었다.

~만 못하다 does NOT ever get written as ~만 홋한다. 형용사! 형용사!

it's 얄밉다, not just 밉다, in 때리는 시어머니보다 말리는 시누이가 더 얄밉다.

모습은 야속하다 (don't need 보기가)

현대 문화가 소비적으로 되면서 뱁새가 황새 따라가려다가 가랑이가 찢어진다는 말처럼 요즘 명품 등 가지고 싶은 욕심으로 불량신용자가 되는것은 흔히 일어나는 일이 되었다.

화해 is reconciliation/making up

설사 ~다고 해도

팔 뼈가 부러진 후 팔이 흔들흔들 움직이기만 했다.

카페 not 가케 (오타)

두근두근 뛰는 심장 (not 띄는)

weird changes that are NOT the meaning I intended

칭찬 not 칭창

길가 따라 (not ~에)

이마가 책상을 부딪쳤다. (not 부디쳤다) (오타?)

길에 달리기 경주하다

발목을 다치다, not 발목이 다치다

맨날 not 매날

매끈매끈한 피부를 가꾸다 not 기르다

일을 그만두고는 not 그만둬서는

? after ~냐고

투덜거리는 학생의 말을 듣지 마라; 숙제는 좋은 거니까 (not 숙제가 좋으니까)

결혼하려면 반짝반짝 빛나는 다이아몬드 반지가 필요한가? (not 반지는 필요한가, again with those frickin' 조사...)

전쟁이라고 해도 민간인들을 죽이는 법이 어디 있습니까?

원래: 사랑이라면 말로만 표현하는 법이 어디 있냐?
수정: 사랑한다고 꼭 말로만 펴현하라는 법이 어디 있냐?
possibly interesting culturally: I tried to write something like "If you're in love, are you just going to say it in words?" with the assumption that words are easier and less meaningful. My teacher changed it to something that seems more like, "If you're in love, who says you need to say it out loud?" Hmm.

사람들은 돌아서서 도망치기 시작했다. (not 돌려서)

주걱 is one of those rice scooper things, damn it!

학생으로서 공부해야 되는데 집중도 안 하고 그냥 우두커니 멍하니 있다니 이게 뭐야? (I don't really know what this grammar is... 멍하니 있다니? weird)

도둑질 not 도둑짓

계획을 바꿀 때는 미리 내 양해를 구해야지.


Okay, so I mess up 이/가 with 은/는 a lot, huh?

아름다운 스위스

유럽의 핵심이 되는 스위스는 독일, 프랑스, 이탈이아, 오스트리아, 리히텐슈타인으로 둘러쌓여 있다. 스위스의 면적은 남한의 절반이지만 인구는 남한의 1/6에 지나지 않는다. 그러므로 스위스의 인구 밀도가 한국의 3 분의 1인 것을 알 수 있다. 사람이 별로 많지 않은 반면 유럽 가운데에 위치해 있고 극단적인 지리로 예로부터 중립국으로 알려져 있는 스위스는 세계적으로 크고 다양한 역할을 하고 있다.

스위스는 역사가 굉장히 긴 나라다. 지금으로부터 15만년전인 선사시대부터 사람들이 스위스의에 살고 있었다. 농경 사회의 흔적은 BC 5300년부터 나타난다. 남아 있는 기록에 따르면 1291년에 스위스라는 연합이 형성되었다는 것을 알 수 있는데 그 밖의 다른 기록이 없는데도 그 전에도 그런 연합이 있었던 것으로 추정된다. 정확한 날짜에 대한 기록이 없지만 스위스는 매년 8월 1일을 국가건국일로 정하여 축하하고 있다.

현재의 스위스는 1848년에 작성된 헌법으로 형성되었다. 정부는 연방공화제인데 부분적으로 직접 민주주의의 형태도 있다. 역사적으로 전쟁에 휘말리지 않았던 나라다. 오랫동안 중립국가였던 스위스는 오늘날 많은 국제 기구들의 중심이 된다. 흥미롭게도 역사적으로 전쟁을 피했음에도 불구하고 스위스에서 한국과 같이 징병 제도가 있다.

스위스는 단일 민족 국가가 아니라 다문화 나라다. 공용어는 독일어, 불어, 이탈리아어, 그리고 비교적 소수가 사용하는 로만시어 4 가지 언어가 있다. 8월 1일에 국가를 부를 때 4 가지 언어를 다 들을 수 있다. 스위스의 남쪽에 쓰여 있는 독일어 사투리는 참을 수 없는 정도로 귀엽다.

스위스는 해안이 없는데 높은 산에서 흐르는 하천이 많고 아름다운 호수도 있다. 기후는 온대인데 세계적으로 유명한 알프스 산맥에 스키를 타러 올라가면 물론 더 춥고 눈이 많은 기후가 나타난다. 스위스의 사실상 수도는 베른이고 제일 큰 도시는 취리히다. 산이 많은 스위스의 도시들이 철도와 긴 산을 뚫는 터널들로 연결이 된다.

스위스는 시계와 초콜릿으로 유명하다. 도시에는 금융 기관이 많고 시골에는 낙농업이 많다. 스위스 소들이 행복하니만큼 사람들도 스위스에 가면 행복해질 수 있다. 가볼 만하다.


[서강대 한국어 교육원 2011 봄 6급: 애런 슈마커]

Litany of Errors (1)

One of the great benefits of having teachers is that they correct my mistakes in writing, so that I can go back and learn what I have wrong and improve. And yet I hate looking at my papers when I get them back, for the most part. I do love, however, putting random stuff on my blog, so I will write notes here as I go through a bunch of old papers, corrected by the fine teaching staff of 서강대학교 한국어 교육원.

Okay 만사 means "everything" as in 세상만사가 그렇게 돌아간다: everything comes around like that (very roughly) a suggestion for my essay on 사형.

괴짜공제학 -> 괴짜경제학 (오타)
별만 -> 별반 (오타, b/c I didn't know the word: 별반 is like 별로, as "별반 차이가 없다".
둘러쌓야 -> 둘러쌓여 (오타)
귀엾다 -> 귀엽다 (오타 - or did I really think it was spelled like that?)

I should have used 결국 to show the in-the-end-ness after a 는데 transition.

원래: 돈도 줘 봤자 나는 널 좋아할 거 아니야.
수정: 나한테 돈을 줘 봤자 나는 널 좋아하지 않을 거야.

편차가 더욱 커졌다 (편차: 차이, as in 성적의 편차가 더욱 커졌다)
so, not 편차가 더욱 크다, but 더욱 커졌다 or 매우 크다.

웃돌다 exceed (밑돌다 not amount to)
원래: 친구들이 생일 파티를 해줘서 내 기대를 웃돌았다.
수정: 친구들이 생일 파티를 해줬는데 생일파티가 내 기대를 웃돌았다.

미쳤더라도 -> 미쳤다고 한다면

일이며 -> 일이므로

우리 보통 사람들은 -> 우리 같은 보통 사람들은

결론적으로 -> 결론적으로 말하면

원래: 면적으로는 2개의 스위스가 남한 안에 들어갈 수 있으며 단 스위스 사람에 한국 사람 6 명 씩 있다.
I really wanted to say it like that, but teach isn't having any of it...
원래: 스위스의 면적은 남한의 절반이지만 인구는 남한의 1/6에 지나지 않는다.

밀도 needs to be 인구 밀도 to mean population density...

and it isn't 한국보다 3 분의 1, but 한국의 3 분의 1

not 가운데인 위치, 가운데에 위치해 있다

"극단적인 지리" for "extreme geography" does not parse... ㅋㅋ

not 선사의 15만년전부터, 지금으로부터 15만년 전인 선사시대부터

apparently 스위스의 국도 안 doesn't work for the territory now known as Switzerland... she cut it to just 스위스

남아 있는 기록에 따르면 1291년에 스위스라는 연합이 형성되었다는 것을 알 수 있고 기록이 없는데도 그 전에도 그런 연합이 있었던 것으로 추정된다.
changed to
남아 있는 기록에 따르면 1291년에 스위스라는 연합이 형성되었다는 것을 알 수 있는데 그 밖의 다른 기록이 없는데도 그 전에도 그런 연합이 있었던 것으로 추정된다.

changed one of my 는데's to 지만...

국가건국일, not 국가건립일

가볼 뛰어 만하다
스위스의 뛰어 도시들이

쌤 wanted me to take out 사실상 from before 수도, but darn it all, Bern is not officially the capital of Switzerland! wiki says so!

moved 부분적으로 to before the thing that was 부분적으로...

국제 기구, not 국제적 기구

not 했기에도 불구하고, 했음에도 불구하고 (what was I thinking?)

공용어는 4 개의 언어 독일어, 불어, 이탈리아어, 그리고 비교적으로 드문 로만시어도 있다.
to
공용어는 독일어, 불어, 이탈리아어, 그리고 비교적 소수가 사용하는 로만시어 4 가지 언어가 있다.


God this is exhausting. So exhausting I want to keep putting things in italics. But it's not necessarily very useful.

시: 사랑한다는 것

I like this poem that we read in my Korean class at 서강:


사랑한다는 것
안도현

길가에 민들레 한송이 피어나면
꽃잎으로 온 하늘을 다 받치고 살듯이
이 세상에 태어나서
오직 한 사람을 사무치게 사랑한다는 것은
이 세상을 전체를
비로소 받아들이는 것입니다.
차고 맑은 밤을 뜬눈으로 지새우고
우리가 서로 뜨겁게 사랑한다는 것은
그대는 나의 세상을
나는 그대의 세상을
함께 짊어지고
새벽을 향해 걸어가겠다는 것입니다.

Thursday, May 5, 2011

NO FRIENDS: photography at Gallery Jungdabang

I was invited to this little café gallery show on facebook. I decided to check it out and found that they were still setting everything up, but the crew was really cool about letting me poke around and even take pictures. The main event was really just these five large-format photos. Reading Joon-ki Kim's artist statement, the focus is on loneliness, and that's easy to see, but it seems more specifically like a meditation on the problem of other minds, or the intense loneliness that comes from the realization that there is no way to prove that you are not surrounded by philosophical zombies. I think about that kind of thing with appalling frequency. The settings also capture some of the gritty reality of Seoul, and the sense of being alone even in places that are (usually) crowded with people.

The pictures look better if you click on them and see them displayed bigger!



This one might be my favorite.