The Internet Ramblings of the QiRanger

So yesterday, the gang and I (from Left to Right: Brad, Chay, Kendra, Myself, and Sungwon) went to Gyeongbokgung, the ancestral Korea Imperial Palace. It was a great adventure, and something that was right up my alley, since I love visiting cultural sites. We were really all looking forward to the trip, probably myself the most, since I can’t get enough of visiting cultural sites. (Please note that this blog is being posted before the video, and while the album can be viewed here, the true beauty will be in the video.)

The Palace is about an hour away by bus, so we jumped on the 5500 bus and rode from Yongin to Seoul. Then it was a short walk to the Palace. Along the way, we saw the Korean National Police gearing up for the Anti-US Beef Protest that would take place later that day. It was really neat walking through a thousand police officers in riot gear.

While we didn’t have the best weather (the forecast called for steady rain), it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. In fact, the most rain we got was a few drops here and there. The main Palace entrance is grand. A true sight to be seen. In front there are about 20 men dressed in period uniform that perform a Changing of the Guard ceremony roughly every 30 minutes. After taking that in, we purchased our admission tickets ($3) and I opted to buy the $1 English Audio Tour (money well spent).

So here’s some history about the Palace:

• It was originally built in 1395 (three years after the founding of the Joseon Dynasty) by Yi Seong-gye and set the capitol of Korea in Seoul.
• The Palace was destroyed by Japanese incursions in the 1592 and was not rebuilt until 1868. At this time, the Palace was expanded to over 300 buildings, 5700+ rooms, and totaling over 4 million square feet in area.
• The Royal Family vacated the Palace for good after the Japanese assassination of Empress Myeongseong in1895.
• The Japanese demolished all but 11 buildings in 1911.
• Reconstruction of the Palace began in 1990 and is expected to be complete in 2009.

Walking through the Palace, you really get a sense of how massive this place is. We spent a good few hours there before they started closing it down because of the impending Protests. I wish we could have stayed a few more hours to really take in it all. The Palace has three main gates one must travel through, as a sign of respect and safety for the Imperial Family. The Ruling Hall, is actually still, for the most part, original and considered a National Treasure. Behind the hall, were the family quarters. One for the King/Emperor, one for the Queen, and one for the Prince. Surrounding these quarters were over 100 rooms for staff.

Hyanwonjeong is a small octagonal building built on a artificial lake inside the palace boundaries. It is one of the most photographed places in Korea, and I can see why. The beauty of the building, looking out on the lake and Palace is amazing.

In the far back of the Palace was Taewonjeon. It was a house that served to consecrate the paintings of the Emperor. It doubled as the royal funeral parlor.

One of the most beautiful places was Gyonghoeru Pavilion and Yeonji Pond. This large two-story structure has detached doors that one could open in the summer and close in the winter. The two story structure was used to house amazing parties. In fact the first President of Korea built a small structure on the pond so he could fish.

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One of the things I am thankful in my life is the ability to switch-off and just let the world go by. There’s nothing more in the world I enjoy than sitting back with a cup of coffee or tea and watch people go about their daily business and see how they act towards one another when they don’t realize someone is watching.

Throughout my travels in Mexico and Asia, I’ve seen first hand that people are usually genuine and ready to lend a helping hand if needed. This was surprisingly evident at the hotel I was put up at in Suji when I first arrived to Korea. Each day I had to check out so the operators could use their rooms during the day. However, since I didn’t know the language or have anywhere to put my belongings, the staff assisted me in calling my employers to make sure they were coming to get me, storing my bags in a secure location, inviting me to wait in an unoccupied room, or use the Internet for free.

True acts of kindness.

However, in many cases when people rise to power, they often lose that connection to their fellow man and become elitist. I see the behavior all the time among those in positions in power, whether it be government, business, or in social circles. What’s more disheartening is that many times these individuals claim to be followers of Christ.

If there was ever a better example of one who strove to not separate himself from another, it was He. I think that’s one of the reasons I am so disgusted by people that try to restrict the rights of others. This is especially true when it comes to same-sex marriages.

I’ve commented before on the rise of secular marriage and how the Church essentially gave away its hold on determining who can and cannot marry in society. I’ve also mentioned how, if religion is the basis for defining marriage, then the First Amendment cannot be used to limit such unions and the definition of marriage should be left up each individual congregation.

I recently attended a Church in Arizona and I thought the message given by the Senior Pastor fairly interesting. In an open discussion with the congregation, he stated that his goal was to make the Church a welcoming place for all people to learn about Christ and grow in their faith. One of the groups he mentioned that wanted to make welcomed was those within the homosexual community. However, when I asked him via email what the “official position” of the Church was on the topic (essentially to gage how welcoming homosexual believers would be), I never got a reply. A few weeks later in a message about sex, the Pastor expanded on how same-sex relationships were wrong and how the California decision was going against God’s plan.

I thought that was quite interesting for a number of reasons. First, the fact that he and the Church did have a position on the topic and chose not to respond to a genuine question, lead me to believe that the earlier statement was nothing more than lip service. Second, I felt sad for him. Mainly because I see so many people get caught up in their beliefs that they refuse to look at how they can be manifested in the environment.

Whether or not you believe homosexuality is natural or a choice is not the issue when it comes to same-sex marriage. It’s how the First Amendment of the Constitution is upheld. Essentially, it comes down to a freedom of religion issue. In my opinion, the moment in the 1500s when governments started becoming involved with sanctioning marriages, Churches gave up their right to dictate public policy on marriage. For in many cases, the same arguments used to denounce same-sex unions are the same ones used in the past to vilify interracial marriages.

But a passage from the Old Testament sheds some interesting light on this practice. God gave guidance to the Israelites on social responsibility and the laws of justice and mercy:

“Do not mistreat an alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in Egypt.”
Exodus 22:21 (NIV)

It’s repeated a few versus later:

“Do not oppress an alien; you yourselves know how it feels to be aliens, because you were aliens in Egypt.”
Exodus 23:9 (NIV)

I think the main reason for so many of our problems today stem from the fact that in many cases we do not remember what it feels to be the outcast. Denying someone the legal right to spend the rest of their life with the person they love certainly sounds like oppression to me.

I love reading the news bits on SlashDot… Today’s little gem…

From: Bill Gates
Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 10:05 AM
To: Jim Allchin
Cc: Chris Jones (WINDOWS); Bharat Shah (NT); Joe Peterson; Will Poole; Brian Valentine; Anoop Gupta (RESEARCH)
Subject: Windows Usability Systematic degradation flame

I am quite disappointed at how Windows Usability has been going backwards and the program management groups don’t drive usability issues.

Let me give you my experience from yesterday.

I decided to download (Moviemaker) and buy the Digital Plus pack … so I went to Microsoft.com. They have a download place so I went there.

The first 5 times I used the site it timed out while trying to bring up the download page. Then after an 8 second delay I got it to come up.

This site is so slow it is unusable.

It wasn’t in the top 5 so I expanded the other 45.

These 45 names are totally confusing. These names make stuff like: C:\Documents and Settings\billg\My Documents\My Pictures seem clear.

They are not filtered by the system … and so many of the things are strange.

I tried scoping to Media stuff. Still no moviemaker. I typed in movie. Nothing. I typed in movie maker. Nothing.

So I gave up and sent mail to Amir saying – where is this Moviemaker download? Does it exist?

So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated.

They told me to go to the main page search button and type movie maker (not moviemaker!).

I tried that. The site was pathetically slow but after 6 seconds of waiting up it came.

I thought for sure now I would see a button to just go do the download.

In fact it is more like a puzzle that you get to solve. It told me to go to Windows Update and do a bunch of incantations.

This struck me as completely odd. Why should I have to go somewhere else and do a scan to download moviemaker?

So I went to Windows update. Windows Update decides I need to download a bunch of controls. (Not) just once but multiple times where I get to see weird dialog boxes.

Doesn’t Windows update know some key to talk to Windows?

Then I did the scan. This took quite some time and I was told it was critical for me to download 17megs of stuff.

This is after I was told we were doing delta patches to things but instead just to get 6 things that are labeled in the SCARIEST possible way I had to download 17meg.

So I did the download. That part was fast. Then it wanted to do an install. This took 6 minutes and the machine was so slow I couldn’t use it for anything else during this time.

What the heck is going on during those 6 minutes? That is crazy. This is after the download was finished.

Then it told me to reboot my machine. Why should I do that? I reboot every night — why should I reboot at that time?

So I did the reboot because it INSISTED on it. Of course that meant completely getting rid of all my Outlook state.

So I got back up and running and went to Windows Updale again. I forgot why I was in Windows Update at all since all I wanted was to get Moviemaker.

So I went back to Microsoft.com and looked at the instructions. I have to click on a folder called WindowsXP. Why should I do that? Windows Update knows I am on Windows XP.

What does it mean to have to click on that folder? So I get a bunch of confusing stuff but sure enough one of them is Moviemaker.

So I do the download. The download is fast but the Install takes many minutes. Amazing how slow this thing is.

At some point I get told I need to go get Windows Media Series 9 to download.

So I decide I will go do that. This time I get dialogs saying things like “Open” or “Save”. No guidance in the instructions which to do. I have no clue which to do.

The download is fast and the install takes 7 minutes for this thing.

So now I think I am going to have Moviemaker. I go to my add/remove programs place to make sure it is there.

It is not there.

What is there? The following garbage is there. Microsoft Autoupdate Exclusive test package, Microsoft Autoupdate Reboot test package, Microsoft Autoupdate testpackage1. Microsoft AUtoupdate testpackage2, Microsoft Autoupdate Test package3.

Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable? The file system is no longer usable. The registry is not usable. This program listing was one sane place but now it is all crapped up.

But that is just the start of the crap. Later I have listed things like Windows XP Hotfix see Q329048 for more information. What is Q329048? Why are these series of patches listed here? Some of the patches just things like Q810655 instead of saying see Q329048 for more information.

What an absolute mess.

Moviemaker is just not there at all.

So I give up on Moviemaker and decide to download the Digital Plus Package.

I get told I need to go enter a bunch of information about myself.

I enter it all in and because it decides I have mistyped something I have to try again. Of course it has cleared out most of what I typed.

I try (typing) the right stuff in 5 times and it just keeps clearing things out for me to type them in again.

So after more than an hour of craziness and making my programs list garbage and being scared and seeing that Microsoft.com is a terrible website I haven’t run Moviemaker and I haven’t got the plus package.

The lack of attention to usability represented by these experiences blows my mind. I thought we had reached a low with Windows Network places or the messages I get when I try to use 802.11. (don’t you just love that root certificate message?)

When I really get to use the stuff I am sure I will have more feedback.

When Seattle Pi recently asked Gates about the email, he replied, “There’s not a day that I don’t send a piece of e-mail … like that piece of e-mail. That’s my job.” There was no mention as to whether or not Gates had time to take names.

Seriously, I can’t even begin to say how funny I thought this was today. The following is a true story.

Beginning in Level 2.2, students must give short presentations. The presentations consist summarizing the reading selection, defining two words, listing their synonyms and antonyms, and then use the word in a sentence. Then the student chooses a word from the pages, visits a website and chooses an idiom and explains how it’s used.

This is what was presented in a colleague’s class today by an 10-year-old:

Word: earth
Idiom: The earth moved.
Explanation: A descriptive way to describe a sexual encounter.
Example: That was great. I felt the earth move. How did you like it? / I felt the earth move too.

We seriously need to frame that!

Well, I have finally completed a full week of teaching. I started observing classes on Monday and Tuesday of last week and took the helm on Wednesday. I’ve gone through the cycle and here are some observations on the students…

For the most part, the students are like others from around the world… fun kids. But the manner in which the system drives them is utterly crazy. So much is placed on memorization, that they spend little time on thinking for themselves or enjoy being a kid. In fact, in July, most of the students have major exams that they have already started preparing for… and they’re ages 9, 10, and 11. I cannot even begin to think of any test I took at that age that required a month’s worth of studying.

But there are also those in the age 13 bracket that have incredible days that I can’t believe that they endure. Let me tell you about one of the students I have very high hopes for. I’ll call him Jose.

Now Jose had a reputation of being a bad kid in class. And that was partly correct. He did cut up in class, but not because he wanted to be bad, but because the classes he was in were far below his level. I have him in a reading class, and he can look at a fairly complex story, read it perfectly, have minor pronunciation problems, and consistently score 80% or better on reading comprehension without re-reading the story again. The behavior problems rose from he being bored to tears in class. It doesn’t help the fact that my class is 9:20pm – 10:05pm.

Jose’s day starts out at 6am. He has a quick breakfast and then hast to catch the bus to school. If he misses it, he has an 8km (5 miles) walk to school with a heavy backpack. School starts at 8am. Then he gets out at 3pm. Goes home, changes, and goes to his extracurricular Academy until 6pm. He goes home, has a bite to eat, does a little homework, then comes to my school at 8pm for 2 classes. After he finishes his English courses, he goes home and does homework until midnight.

That’s nuts!!!!!

I really don’t see the benefit of that much schooling at such a young age. Now, Jose is very intelligent and I enjoy challenging him, but to be pushed that hard at such a young age doesn’t make sense. Now I’m a firm believer that US schools are soft and the kids need to borough back in line and focused, like when I was in school. But to have a 18 hour days when you’re 13 is the extreme.

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When I was taking my Massage Therapy courses for my license, I chose to participate in 16 hours of classes on reflexology. It was a fun, and very easy class, because for the most part, you’re massing someone’s feet for an hour and nothing else. I won’t bore you with the physological theory behind the practice, but I’m bringing it up because within a five minute walk from the apartment, there’s a Reflexology Park.

When I brought this up to my fellow teachers, they all proclaimed, “Really? Where?” When I went on to explain it, they all knew about the park, but had no idea what it was for (I guess the reflexology sings escaped them).

So I took the Bible this morning for a little reading as the sun was rising over the city and also snapped a few pictures. It really is a great park. It’s resigned for quiet contemplation and also health. You take off your shoes and walk the path barefoot. The stones and wood hit the pressure points and positively affect your body. It hurts like hell, but that’s only because the points that hurt are the ones that are screwed up. When you’re done, you can sit back and wash your feet before returning home.

It’s a great experience. Something I’ll do on a regular basis.

The Album

Life is grand. I love waking up in the morning, the earlier the better. One thing I am really looking forward to this winter are the late sunrises. While I have no intentions of going out by the creek and freeze my ass off to watch the sun come up over Suji’s skyline outside, I will be gazing at the event through my windows with great regularity.

That being said, I’m extremely thankful for most of the choices I’ve made in my life. Don’t read regret into the last statement, but rather disappointment. Like in all things, sometimes you make good decisions and sometimes you make bad ones. But for the past 10 months, as I’ve made a decided effort to put God first in everything I do, life has been incredible. Makes me wish I would have done it earlier (although I wasn’t ready to do so yet), as the Command was given throughout my youth:

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

Deuteronomy 6:4-9 (NIV)

In the past twenty-four hours I’ve had two profound conversations and one fun one regarding religion. The first came in via an email message from a 19-year-old boy who recently saw some of my homosexuality related videos on YouTube. He was unclear of his sexuality, but more importantly was concerned for his eternal soul. The overlying message that he sent was that he was glad to see a Christan message that wasn’t full of hate towards the LBGT community. The second came from a friend online, who isn’t happy with her situation (work). She commented that I’m always so happy. I simply responded that I know that I can’t control every little factor in my life and live life the best I can and leave the rest up to God. I try to make good decisions and do what’s right, but being happy is a choice… and that’s what I aim to be.

The last conversation took place in school last night. During a test, one of the students started uttering prayers to God for help. When I commented back that God asks us to be responsible in our lives (and that means studying for tests), he was shocked to find out that I do Ministry… and instantly became better behaved.

It’s no secret that I love coffee. It’s a passion of mine that dates back to my undergrad days. In the last year, I’ve become quite spoiled with the plethera of good coffee places around my home and the nice roasts I can purchase at local markets.

Asia is not the place for coffee lovers. I have yet to find a place that can make good coffee. I know that makes me sound like a snob, but I know what tastes good and what doesn’t. Now that doesn’t mean that I’m not drinking the watered down stuff… I’m just not enjoying it… as much.

I was able to find one Starbucks today at E-Mart. But hell if I’m going to pay $4.30 for a Grande cup of coffee that is $2 back in the US or when I can get a half-way decent cup at Dunkin’ Donuts for $2.80.

One thing I did find strange on my walking trips today was this:

It’s a normal coffee press you can pick up in the States for about $25 or less. Here it’s going for almost $32. Talk about one hell of an import tax!

Now all this coffee talk is making me thirsty to use one of my two presses here. I think I’ll make some right now…

Picture Slide Show of my apartment and my trip to E-Mart.

A YouTube version…