I think I'm getting better

Today is the first day where I've actually been able to read while wearing my glasses. For those who haven't been following my blog or facebook notes, I've been having trouble seeing with my glasses on because of a medical condition. The belief was that over time the condition would start getting better (hopefully) and that my sight would start getting better as well. That was weeks ago, and I was really concerned during this time. Today, however, I've actually been able to read normally unlike previous times in the recent past. There's still a bit of fuzziness, but that just means there's still more to adjust, but for the moment, let's just say it's so much nicer being able to read this way and not get a headache every fifteen minutes from not using my glasses.



Not much else going on. My thesis is still going through its Kafka-esque journey of approval from the Graduate Deparment. My God, I never thought ONE person could make it so difficult for a thesis to be accepted. Turns out she "lost" it last week by placing it on her file cabinet, or her desk, or wherever it was in her office. Kat had to point at it and say "there it is", and the women STILL tried to blame Kat for her own screw up. And this is the school that said I wasn't "qualified" to work there when I applied to be an employee while attendng UOP. Apparently, the word "qualified" has a lot of humorous definitions at University of the Pacific.



So, I am assuming I graduate this month. Who knows? They'll probably do something else really stupid. Everything else up until now has been a nightmare with this process. Why are they doing this? It's not like I was an enemy of UOP or the Graduate School at any time? Everyone else seems to be doing just fine with the process. Is it because I'm not physically there and unable to micromanage the process, so they figure I'm easy pickens for screwing with for no reason whatsoever? I don't really understand this.



As for here, my boss is having me create something a little different than I am here for; he wants me to create a debate teacher's program, so that we can train English instructors, specifically the Korean ones, to teach debate as well as English. After my initial uneasiness with the project, I'm actually developing the plan forward. I briefed two of the teachers on Wednesday, and while I can see them being a bit apprehensive (they have zero debate experience whatsoever), I kept trying to reassure them that this would not be a problem, and that with some work, they can actually do pretty well with this. What I don't think they realize (or maybe they do) is that the completion of this project will make them a lot more employable in South Korea, because there are a few schools that do the English/Debate thing here. It's really hard to find qualified people to do it, because a rational debate teacher isn't going to want to go and ALSO teach English for three days of the week. Yeah, I guess I'm really not always the most rational person.



That's about it. Wanted to share some slightly better news than usual. Been doing a lot of complaining lately, although I had a good reason to be doing so. They don't really share any of the same holidays with the US here, so what we do get off is Christmas and New Year's. Unfortunately, both of those days fall on a Thursday, which is my normal day off, so that means they won't be anything special for me when it comes to work. They don't give compensation days or anything like that. I'll just have the normal days off, and have to console myself with the fact that at least I'm not having to work on those days as well. Being in a different country can be a bit frustrating sometimes.



I weighed myself yesterday, and I'm at 147 pounds, which is somewhat near (or at) my ideal weight. My clothes don't fit anymore, and that's a problem because everything I have to wear is many inches too big. I really don't have the money to go out and buy new sets of clothing. This means tightening my belt, which is also a bit of a problem because I've run out of notches to tighten up with, so I either have to buy a new belt, or I'll have to do what I did when I was poor: create a new hole in the belt. But can I really complain, however? I've lost a lot of weight, and it's not some crash diet where the weight goes right back on once I stop being on the crash diet. This is the normal way I eat every day now, and my weight has melted off as a result. I'm kind of happy, foodwise, so there's really no reason to complain.



I sent my novel, The Ameriad, to Ricia Mainhardt's Literary Agency, and I'm still waiting for a response. She's having one of her readers take a look at it, so we'll see what happens. I've received mostly rejections from everyone to whom I've sent my other stuff. As soon as I finish the final edit on Rumors of War, I intend to start sending out query letters to agents for that one as well. It sucks that it takes so much effort to get published properly, but I'm hoping that once it happens, it will all have been worth it.



So, how am I occupying most of my free time? World of Warcraft. I figured that if I can't escape Korea and go to America, at least I can escape Korea and go to Azeroth (the land of World of Warcraft). I've been playing on the Horde these days with my hunter, and he's now 43rd level. I'm in a pretty decent guild on one of the Oceania servers (playing here because at least that way I'm closer to the same time zone as everyone else). Yeah, I know some people treat the game as some geek thing, and that's all right. But it does occupy a lot of free time these days, and believe me, it's been a lifesaver over the last few weeks, because things haven't really been all that great, and sometimes it's really nice to have something like that to take your mind off of real world things.



That's pretty much it for now. I'm at work right now, about to get ready for Writing and Composition classes with some middle school kids. One positive thing so far about being here is that I've found myself really liking the kids. They may get annoying at time, but that's because they're kids, and that's what they're supposed to do. But they like me, and I feel they respect me as well. I listen to the classrooms of other teachers, and the kids seem almost completely out of control. In my classes, they participate, and we get along without that loud, racuous noise I hear from the other classes. I'm not sure why it doesn't happen in my classes, but I'm not a strict teacher either. I do make them laugh a lot, and I think that has something to do with it. It also took weeks of working with the kids before they started to warm up to me; I have one of those strange senses of humor that takes time to get used to. One day, with one of my classes, it seemed like things were never going to get better (it was feeling like a bad class), so I just started talking about how squirrels are evil, carry machine guns, and one must always be on guard to warn if squirrels might attack. That, alone, did it. The kids have so much fun with this little joke, that sometimes they'll answer questions, using squirrels as the prompt to lead them to answer even more questions. The thing was: I wasn't planning to use this dumb joke as a starting pointi to anything, but it just worked. Another day, I talked about mind-controlling teddy bears, and it just worked great with another group of kids. It's partly because it's absurd, and kids often live in an absurd world where things don't always make sense. It creates a strange bond between the teacher and the students, when both can joke about the same thing, yet still manage to get the work done that is required. Anyway, I'm just pontificating about something I don't really understand anyway.

Stumble It!

The problems of getting sick in a foreign country

I finally got to see a doctor today, and they ended up admitting me so they could put me on an IV. Unfortunately, they want to keep me for a week in the hospital, and I just don't have the time to do that because there's no way in the world my job would allow me to miss that much time. Yeah, I'm not kidding. It's just not an option. My employer lives in a different world than that of reality, and I can already see how such a request would go over. Basically, it wouldn't go over at all.

So, I'm trying to do the best I can without being admitted into a hospital for a week's stay. My blood tests haven't been all that great, which means something has to be done, and I really am starting to run out of options.

Spending my day off on a hospital bed with an IV coming out of my hand was not exactly what I had intended for today, but I can't really fault them for trying to save my life now, can I? One positive piece of news was that my potassium levels were not actually the problem (something I thought was the case, as this is why I ended up in the ER right before I left for Korea). Same symptoms, different cause.

So, I have to go back for more testing on Thursday, and they'll probably admit me again for another day's worth of IV fun.

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Current word count for Rumors of War: 22516. Took a few days off because of health reasons. Will try to get back to finishing this. On another note, my old agent got in touch with me today by leaving me a phone message. She's going to take a look at The Ameriad, and there's a slight chance she might be representing me again, although it still feels pretty much like a long shot. That's how the whole publishing industry seems these days. A long shot.

Stumble It!

The frustration of bratty little foreign kids

Sometimes the job can be all right. Other times, it can be just massively frustrating. Yesterday, was one of those times.

Most people who know me know that I'm pretty easy going on most things, but there are some specific issues that I do find myself to be passionate about. One of them reared its head in class yesterday when one of my little snot nose kids decided he had a new insult word he wanted to start using throughout the entire class. The word was Nigger.

First, it took me a few hearings of this to even realize what he was saying, and then I just stopped the class and told him that word was MASSIVELY inappropriate. Well, tell this to a 12 year old kid, and suddenly it's THE WORD to use. I then stopped class completely and explained in what had to be a five minute diatribe about how some words are swear words and kids can find them "cool" to use. I didn't give examples, but he was quite willing to produce a few of them to fill in the swear word gap we were obviously having.

I then explained that the word is not something you "insult" your friend with because it's not that kind of word. I then went on to explain about how the word is used specifically through hate, that to call someone that name is to truly hate that person. Not to be mad at him and think you've come up with a good insult, but to REALLY, TRULY WITHOUT A SHADOW OF DOUBT, AND FOR ALL TIME hate that person and everything he or she stands for. You would have to hate that person so much that you would want them dead and would be willing to give your life to make sure that person dies. THAT MUCH HATE.

I then went on to explain that not only was it about hate, but that anyone who would use this word towards another, at least in the United States, would reveal how little education he or she has, how disgusting a creature that person would be, and how no good person would ever have any respect for that person ever again. I said, if that's the kind of person you want to be, then you should be the kind of person to use that word. I had to keep stopping them, especially him, from interrupting me with an attempt at using the word as a joke until they got the picture. About four minutes into it, I think they finally realized this was NOT a word to be used in Duane's class EVER again.

I, of course, didn't get into the whole situation of how African-Americans sometimes call EACH OTHER that name, because that would just confuse them and somehow make them think it was "cool" to use somehow.

Again, I'm usually pretty easy going in these classes. Hearing that word coming from a little 12 year old kid really just set me off to no end.

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Back to my log of my latest novel, Rumors of War. I am now at 9797 words.

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Rumors of War

The second to last book I wrote was the first of a series called Rumors of War, part of a series called The Deck Const. I finally got around to start editing it so I can submit it. This book is already 504 pages long, so I need to cut it down a bit. So far, however, I'm only making it longer.

But I'm completely rewriting it, so it's like it's a brand new novel. So far, I'm up to 4,855 words. That's about 23 pages. Yep, long project ahead of me.

Stumble It!