Severe Thunderstorm

I'd never heard an emergency siren before a few minutes ago--a screeching, awful thing, evocative of my childhood nightmares about Soviet nuclear strikes. "What's that?" I asked my driver.

"It is for severe thunderstorm," he explained. "It is to warn us."

"What should we do?"

"Nothing different," he said, "It is just for knowing." He turned left toward O'Hare, hitting the brakes. I'm in no particular rush because my flight is delayed ninety minutes. "Rain turn highway into parking lot," says my driver. The wipers swish back and forth. Mostly, I want to sleep, and with my pillow here, it's hard to resist.

Writing for the Screen and Stage

Twenty years ago, I had no idea I might like to write for the stage and screen someday. In fact, I spent most of my childhood reading novels voraciously and railing against what I saw as the dangers of television. I'm embarassed to admit I once carried a math textbook with me to a performance of Phantom of the Opera.

But there were signs. Early on I was a fan of The Smurfs, Transformers, even, ah, Rainbow Brite. What kept me glued to these shows from week to week were what I now know are called “story arcs,” or plots that unfold over a long series of episodes. There was one arc in particular, in which the Smurfs went exploring the world on a great ship, that seized my imagination. Later I devotedly watched Star Trek—though I was disappointed in how predictable and self-contained most of the episodes were. I knew Picard could never develop a serious love interest, that what happened in one episode wouldn’t matter in the next.

In college, I didn’t have a television, but I was so impressed by Shakespeare that before long I wrote a faux Shakespearean play about my high school Academic Decathlon team. (Imitation is finest flattery, etc.) By my senior year, I was trying to write the lyrics for a musical set in England during the Industrial Revolution. I collaborated with a composer with whom I completed two songs; we both dreamed of writing the soundtracks for Disney movies. Later I contributed (albeit minimally) to the book for a student-authored opera on the voyage of Magellan. In a persuasive technology lab, I worked with an engineer to script the lines and personality for a prototype singing doll, Hap the Happy Bear, that would persuade children to eat more McDonald’s (I’m still uneasy about it.) Later, I created storyboards for new product ideas at CASIO. And not long ago, an Internet communications start-up, Yackpack, asked me to create monsters—in theory, as entertaining characters to converse with users of their service. (Shamefully, I never delivered them, even though I tried inventing them to the soundtrack of Avenue Q.)

In all these instances, I’ve treasured the opportunity to collaborate with others; I like to believe that my imagination, whatever its other shortcomings, has very low walls. All along I continued to think of myself as a writer of prose fiction at heart. I enrolled in short story workshops, and I enjoyed the experience very much. But my stories gradually grew more focused on exchanges of dialogue than on long passages of description and narrative. I just don’t visualize scenes that way, in strings of sentences. And once I was out of college, I began to consume—or, more aptly, gorge myself on—series that I found brilliant and entertaining: shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer (which I had, sadly, resisted in college because of its silly name), Angel, Six Feet Under, Firefly, and, more recently, The West Wing and 24. I am in awe of those producers and writers who successfully balance an evolving storyline and complex cast of characters with the need to draw in new viewers—to keep the story from descending into self-referential soap while also maintaining dramatic momentum from episode to episode.

In my final year at the Kennedy School of Government, I was blessed with an instructor who didn’t mind my taking a different approach than the traditional policy memo. Among other things, I wrote a new chapter to the bible, in which Moses was tried for war crimes, and a dialogue between Lao Tzu and Lincoln in which they contested the nature of good leadership. In writing them—and in watching the dialogue performed—I realized again how much I enjoyed entertaining others in slightly unconventional ways.

I still don’t know exactly in what form I’ll ultimately channel all this. But I've had the good fortune of a career thus far that, while motley at best, affords me the freedom to pursue old dreams in new guises. So, today, I leave to Chicago, in said pursuit. I'm not sure what I'll find there. I figure it's time to pack a coat and see what happens next.

Teatime

This afternoon I needed tea. I was on the verge of falling asleep. Unfortunately, most of the accidents in my life involve me on the verge of falling asleep... otherwise I wouldn't have hit an invisible car earlier this summer, or dropped my cell phone in a toilet two weeks ago. So I astutely filled an electric tea pot with water, placed it on the stove, then lit the stove and strolled away.

It didn't take too long to evacuate the apartment.

An RMB Saved is an...

ATM machines are always polite, asking if you mind extra fees and never hesitating to take no for an answer, but the ones here in Shanghai are extra thoughtful. They say, "Please take cash and advice."

My advise, sadly, looked a lot like a receipt, but I couldn't tell for sure: it was in Chinese.

Tonight I walked back to my "magnificent" hotel through People's Square. There were four benches enclosing a tree at the southeast corner. On one, a young couple kissed desperately. On the bench next to theirs, a prone beggar perspired in the heat.

My hotel room has no chair, only a stool. The last hotel room I was in that had no chair was in Corpus Christi. Since I'm staying here for a few days, I decided to liberate a chair from the hotel restaurant. I'd have made it, too, if the elevator hadn't taken so long to reach the third floor that a waitress spotted me. I was duly reprimaned.

Later I decided to go by the book and asked the front desk for a chair. Smiles and nods all around. When I got back later in the day, they had delivered a second stool.

Now, if you mount two stools together and stick a pillow between them, you do sort of get a chair. And the air conditioning works. Also, there's a street full of yummy food stalls nearby--today I ate a fresh egg wrap for 2 RMB, or about 25 cents. So I'm not complaining.

Speaking of food, though, I had the best salad of my life (seriously) at a place called the Coffee Beanery near one of the schools I visited this morning, in Pudong. (The Coffee Beanery shouldn't be mistaken for the Coffee Bean, which also operates stores here in Shanghai.) Their so-called "Hawaiian Salad" was a Caesar plus pineapple, fresh chicken bits, and crunchy nuts. It was weird to eat something knowing that any salad I ate in the future would either be the best salad of my life or not as good as this one.

Alas, I doubt we'll be seeing any Coffee Beaneries opening up in California, unless they change their name--preferably to something other than the Tea Leafery.

Throughout the day, I've been editing Dean Webb's "Rest of Us" guide to Chinese history; if at any point the PRC confiscates my computer and finds the file, I might end up writing the sequel to One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich instead.

Kowloon by 'loonlight

I'll admit I don't know as much about the world as I would like to. For instance, yesterday, shortly before procuring pajamas for my former Spanish teacher's grandchildren, I rediscovered that Ottawa is the capital of Canada. I feel like I discover that fact periodically, then forget it again.

In a similar way, I'm embarassed to admit that I had no idea Kowloon was in Hong Kong until I reserved a hotel here: the Ramada, which is generously described as "rustic."

I've been to a lot of Asian cities by now, and a lot of them share the "welcome to the future" aesthetic. Huge neon signs, enormous shopping malls, talking toilets, etc. But passing through Hong Kong on the train, then Kowloon on a bus, I really felt as if I'd shown up in a different century. It was New York washed in halogen and brimming with mostly Chinese people and with shops still open at 11 on a Sunday night--clothing, electronics, espresso. Buildings towered so high over narrow streets that I felt completely enclosed. A city in a cavern, with rooftops in space and lots of ATM machines.

---

I fully recommend Team of Rivals as the single best biography I've ever read.

You're Welcome

A man here in the Cathay Pacific lounge (where I'm camped out drinking tea and editing) just stopped one of the employees in front of the magazine stand.

"Is there wireless here?" he demanded, in a very pleasant British accent.

"Yes," said the employee.

"Does it require a password?"

"No, sir," said the employee.

The man walked away to rejoin his travel companion, a woman in a scarf.

"You're welcome," said the employee, softly.

---

"You're Welcome" was also the title of one of my favorite fifth season episodes of Angel, in which Cordelia briefly returns to help Angel to find his way.

Move Over, Mountain View

In fact, move over Seoul, too. The streets of Taipei have been fully "wiflied" by an ISP called WiFly, with funding from the city government. What's more, you can even roam the network using a Boingo account, though it turns out the service costs 12 cents a minute. I wish that the fine print explaining that had been in English before I blissfully used the network for five hours. Today, I've wisened up. I bought a one-day WiFly account for 100 New Taiwan Dollars (about $3 U.S.) If your path brings you to Taiwan, I recommend one. You'll be able to surf the web on taxicabs. Today, I'll try it on the subway.

It Was Only Ten Days

...and I spent the last three mostly writing my thesis. But it was something on the first night of my spring break in Taiwan that led me back to NTU today. Our hosts had taken us out for snacks at the various food stalls. We wandered in a large group, down to a street that forked at about a 45 degree angle. There was a minimart near the corner, and stinky tofu nearby. I'm not sure why I remembered that particular spot. But this morning, as I rode in a taxi to meet with the Bethany School about joining Scholar's Cup, I looked up from my laptop and saw it.

I felt that quick tingle of recognition as past and present geographies matched in my head. I timidly glanced to the right at the next intersection, glimpsed some palm trees. That was a second clue. NTU is the Stanford of Southeast Asia.

The counselor I met at the the Bethany school confirmed it: we were just a couple blocks away from the university's main entrance. After our meeting she let me me out the school's gate. As we crossed the blacktop one student asked her if she had a date. "August 25," she answered. Then a giant steel grating rolled up and out I went to Roosevelt Street.

Within a block I had passed a dark-haired man making Middle Eastern sandwiches. I remembered him; he spoke English with a French accent. A little further and there was Dante Coffee: Dante, where I'd tried to write my thesis but mostly written in this blog. And within a few hundred meters of Dante was the front gate to NTU.

Palm trees lined it. Students were biking in and out. Girls walked with umbrellas. I stood next the giant campuis map where I once asked someone if I could borrow her cell phone. I felt the flutter of an inappropriate nostalgia. I was here not ten years ago, but one and a few meager months. For some reason it felt like I was visiting a place much older in my life.

I crossed campus, poking my head in the room where once, I screamed like Howard Dean. Microphones lined all the tables this time. I snapped a photograph and in my head I photoshopped in everyone I'd gotten to know here. Our welcome breakfast too.

I walked on. The building next door to our dorm now featured a Japanese tea shop and various other restaurants. The Seven-Eleven that had sprung up there overnight had apparently been only the beginning of a larger renovation.

The dorm was mostly unchanged--even the computers were the same, in the lobby. I borrowed one to check my e-mail. The puzzled security guard objected at first, then relented when I pointed toward the stairs and said, "I stayed there." If only it were always that easy.

Not too far away, Jon and David had once stood on a table to make their closing remarks. Presumably, another HCAP group had visited since, and other closing remarks been spoken.

I'm not sure why this last year has felt so--long. I suppose it's a blessing that years feel long: it promises at least the illusion of a longer life.

To end on a less melancholy note, tonight I'll be having dinner with several of the HCAP alumni--Buddy and Tina for sure, and maybe others too. Looking forward to it. Yesterday, I saw Chuan-Mei (and devastated her bathroom)--so this trip has been a nice combination of Scholar's Cup meetings, farce (see "Down the Drain") and reunions with old friends.

Down the Drain

Last night, in my frantic packing for a flight to Taiwan, I dropped my new cell phone in the toilet.

I'll try to post more tomorrow. But a brief recap: I rushed from Taipei airport to the city of Taechng, where I saw Chuan-Mei for breakfast, then worked at a Starbucks tucked in the lingerie section of a local K-mart clone until my meeting at a local high school, Morrison Academy. I was there to invite it to join the Scholar's Cup. It went well! Several students attended, including one who claimed to have competed in the Nevada Academic Decathlon. As Nevada hasn't fielded a team in several years, I was puzzled, but decided not to protest.

Pomimo

A year ago, but only twenty entries or so as the blog goes, my family and I lost a little puppy. A vet gave her too much vaccine; she died a couple days later after clinging to life on an IV drip. We never sued the vet. We probably should have.

On the scale of things, I know losing a puppy is not a big deal. People die, some violently, many prematurely, every day. Every minute, really. Once, in China, I saw a man with a crushed skull sprawled on the side of the freeway, near a motorcycle. And another time, I stood over the corpse of my sister's boyfriend at a hospital while his mother screamed.

That was tragedy. A lost puppy may be a loss, but, surely, not a tragedy. Even when the call comes in at 3 am.

Yet even a non-tragic loss has its impact. I tasted salt. And when the breeder was kind enough to send a replacement puppy, I found her adorable too--but I didn't adore her in quite the same way. I was still grieving that non-tragic loss. That first puppy had been remarkable: spunky and at ease from the moment I picked her up at a plantation in Louisiana.

In a way, that made my summer easier. I didn't mind leaving the house as much as I would have, had that first puppy lived.

I wish my summer had been harder.

Then, one day in Xi'an, I encountered a mischievous little white dog that looked like a mixture of a Pomeranian and an American Eskimo. A crowd gathered to watch me play with it. (They were also upset that I had put my China Lonely Planet guide on the ground.) I watched that puppy leave with its owner thinking I would have taken it with me if I could.

That night, I realized I was--for lack of a better term--ready again. A google search revealed it had probably been half American Eskimo, half Pomeranian--a mixture called a "pomimo." I e-mailed a breeder. She had two small white ones available. Both had a mischievous-looking father, one a more cheerful mother. I chose her.

Last week, she arrived from Nebraska, and I brought her home to my parents. Wrapped in a blue blanket. And this puppy is not--a replacement. Either she doesn't have to keep measuring up to a puppy just lost, or maybe she just measures up very very well. She has that same spunk and ease. Whatever the opposite of a non-tragic loss is, she has become.

And yes, my family and I are a little crazy about our pets. But surely you knew that already. Just wait till I have an alpaca.

Beef Noodles

In one odd incident en route, the beef noodle soup on the flight had beef, and noodles, but no--soup. The flight attendants were mystified. One suggested the noodles may have absorbed all the water. I doubt that, though. They weren't very moist noodles.

Nanjing Road

An interesting thing about coming back with a friend to a place where you've known both pain and joy is that only the joy is there for the sharing.

Game 83

"After nine long years, this wasn't so much a celebration of what happened here. It was a celebration of simply being here." -- Orange County Register

"It started with the suit. It ended with a shot that had all 19,162 fans in Staples Center holding their breath." - L.A. Times

"A sea of red and blue overtook Staples Center, and for the first time in the seven-year NBA history of the arena, purple and gold did not dominate the look of playoff basketball in Los Angeles." - L.A. Daily News

Clippers win, 89-87.

Riverwalk

"Is it natural or manmade?" I asked a waiter at the "cutting-edge tex mex" restaurant downstairs.

"It flows in a circle," he replied.

Enough said.

On every other trip I've taken to San Antonio, which is just about annually for the Texas state competition, I never even made it to the Riverwalk. This time, I haven't left it yet. I've been tutoring an Austrian gentleman named David Schlaff for the GMAT--a test I took once after hitting my head.

The bottled water in the hotel is very pretty.

Frequent Trimmer

I'm now a member of the frequent haircuts club at the Coex Mall. "This way you collect miles," explained the cashier. "Every eleven haircuts, one is free."

I wonder if I will be in Korea enough this next year to collect one.

Counting the Ballots

A quick update: Kent is about to give a presentation to over 1,000 mothers on how their children should balance Friends, Grades, English, Entertainment, Art, Family, Culture and Exercise. I have the diagram in my hands; it looks a bit like a spider's web. He calls it "Wise Moms."

I indulged in the Election Day episode of the West Wing this morning. The result was to my liking, even if I didn't quite believe it. I expected the moderate Republic with a broken hand to win. The startling thing to me, though, was how engaged I got with it--as if states were actually being called for the different candidates. I guess there's a reason I went to the Kennedy School after all.

As for yesterday's presentation--it's too early to call the outcome. But the presentation went, I think and hope, very well. The CDI officers who attended seemed intrigued. They asked lots of questions. David and I took turns answering. If I had to guess right now, I'd say some kind of Scholar's Cup *could* happen--and the next step is... unclear. But should be more clear soon.

Strawberry Milk

Over the course of a generally feverish night, I dreamed of nuclear annihilation. The first time, I was in Chicago and saw a mushroom cloud sprout up over the lake. I think it was the middle of last year's DemiSummit. The second time, I was further from the blast and got to watch the war unfold, at least metaphorically; I saw bright lights zipping back and forth inside a cup of milk. When the lights died out, the milk turned pink.

Election Day

Monday morning, 11 am--that's 11 hours and 12 minutes from now. It's not the be-all and end-all: the meeting could go well, and Scholar's Cup not work out. Or, the meeting could go poorly, and Scholar's Cup still succeed. So many paths possible.

I go to bed a little dizzy and a lot hopeful.

Just Not My Day

I just got sprayed in my ear with cleaning solution. It was an accident involving a trashcan. I'll either have very clean ears or go deaf.

Missionaries

"Hello!" one of them said brightly, as I passed them in the mall: three well-dressed young Korean women.

"Hello," I said, not sure if I knew her.

She answered that by asking, "Do you read the bible?"

"This isn't a good time," I said, honestly, "But I do wish you well."

"Only five minutes," began another, "The bible--"

"Sick," I interrupted, gesturing toward my stomach. "Thank you, the bible is good, but where is the bathroom?"

"Aaaah." They seemed to take in my sweaty expression and vaguely doubled-over condition. I probably looked like I was doing a bad imitation of Jack Bauer craving a fix in Season Three. "That way, to the left," said the first one, pointing to the right.

It's been a long day...

Rehydration Packs

For some reason (well, I guess it's a self-evident reason, as I struggle to hold down a cup of tea) I'm reminded of the day after Paula, Karen and I finished hiking the Inca Trail. We had come down to Aguas Calientes, a small town a few kilometers from Machu Picchu, and spent the night bathing in their hot springs. The next morning Karen woke up very sick to the stomach. Paula and I searched the town looking for something to help her. All we could locate were cholera rehydration packs. I think they helped, though it took a while; we were delayed there a couple days while she recuperated.

I wonder where they are now. Last I checked, Paula was a medical student in Portland. That tends to take a while, so I bet she's still there. I don't know about Karen, though. She was a consultant in San Francisco. I've only seen her once since the night that we parted paths at a hookah bar in Istanbul.

Above the Second Cataract

I'm falling asleep, so a quick post: earlier today, at a Renaissance fair in the desert, I witnessed a pseudo-crucifixion and walked a plank. The CDO team and I also ran into an alpaca. It looked like a DemiDec cover wrought in flesh and sunlight. We asked if we could pose for pictures with it.

"Yes," said the caretaker, who told us the alpaca's name was Peru. "But you might want to give him a flower."

We got him a light green rose. I didn't realize that Peru would eat it out of my hand, but he did--happily. I've never seen an alpaca slurp before. Such big teeth!

Barbarians and fairies were also present at the fair, though like the alpaca they weren't mentioned in this year's Super Quiz curriculum.

Later I had tea with my high school Spanish teacher, Dr. Serfaty, a.k.a. "arbol," then went with her and the most recent iteration of my team to an Ethiopian restaurant, where slow service combined with excellent food, questionable jokes and an erratic paper towel dispenser. Farhan got so hungry waiting for our dinner he went next door and bought a candy bar. We nearly lost Zac to a hot green pepper.

There was also some questionable driving, not mine for a change.

I go to bed with a sunburned nose and tingly ears.

Java City Cafe

I admit it: I'm nutty about coffee shops with wireless Internet access. In the United States, that usually means a Starbucks or, in California, a Coffee Bean. I'm not sure about Caribou Coffee out in the Midwest, but still, at best, there are a few chains, and try as they might with the occasional gingerbread latte, they aren't anything special. They smell of java but reek of sameness.

Enter Korea. I'm in a shameless state of bliss. I type this entry at a Java City Cafe with about 1500 square feet of room, plump pinstriped chairs, cherrywood tables that don't look like they could be dragged onto the patio at a patron's whim. There are ten other chains with equal attention to detail. About half of them imitate Starbucks, but the others transcend it.

I hope they stay in business. But I look around and this enormous cafe is empty. The perfect lighting falls on my laptop, one man reading a book, and two couples. That might be enough to fill the corner Coffee Bean, but here, we're so far apart we could fit additional coffee kiosks between us.

And yes, Korea has those too. I photographed a few today in a futile quest for the Chinese embassy. I'll post them at the fotki site soon.

The World Turned...

In Korea, "La Paz" isn't a Tex-Mex restaurant, it's a coffee shop.

But never fear: burritos are available, from Hyundai.

Don't Know How Long This Link Will Work

Click here

Congratulations to Zac, Dean, Julia, Monica, Farhan, Atish, Michael, the two Davids, Miss Paul, and Dr. Berchin...

Shorn

One pastel smoothie bar in the CoEx Mall advertises that "we are coffee." Nearby an actual Coffee Bean attracts a trickle of patrons; behind it a larger Starbucks is crowded to the brim. As for me, I've found a Holly's Coffee about one underground block away, where I'm not sipping my green tea--since I plan to nap in a few minutes. Afterward I'll be meeting David at the thirteenth entrance to a designated subway station.

Elsewhere in the Coex Catacombs I got my hair cut. Haircuts in places where no one speaks your language are not only fun, they're low-stress: there's no need to make small talk, and I don't have to figure out how I want my hair styled, since there's no way to communicate it anyhow.

The stylist, who introduced herself as Sohyung, had an assistant whose job was to occasionally tap what looked like an eraser against my face and neck.

The Closest I've Ever Been to Hawaii

After a long absence, I'll see if I can rouse this blog back to life.

Last night I returned to Korea. On the plane, I sat next to a small Japanese man in a tophat.

I'm back to work with David Kimel to start an academic competition for middle and/or high school students. We've dubbed it (tentatively) Scholar's Cup. Our hope is that someday it would become the Scholar's World Cup. I'm convinced it could succeed, but as with many plans, it's not clear how to execute it. We'll see what happens. But something's bound to.

David found me a place to stay: the Hawaii Hotel. It's a mid-sized, perfectly rectangular black structure with small windows looking out on a construction pit. This is how he describes it:

"...in the area, very comfortable (American television, Internet access in every room, near a giant mall, etc.) and pretty cheap (about 50-60 bucks a night, if memory serves)."

I should add that it's also the most decked-out hotel room I've ever been in. There's a Sparkletts-style water dispenser. Gigantic shampoo, conditioner and body wash pumps. Shaving cream, toothpaste, something called an "emulsion." A computer with an LCD monitor. Robes. Sandals. And, tucked discreetly by the bed, two complimentary packets of condoms.

"It's a business hotel," the woman at the front desk assured me, when I asked for a discount.

I see. Business. Uh-huh.

"G for Gendetta"

Not sure why, but my gmail account was suspended overnight, for "up to 24 hours" (though you never know.) With typical google humor, it describes this as a "lockdown in sector four"; more seriously, it alleges that my account violated gmail's terms of service.

I figure one of two things did it: the e-mail I sent to coaches about the resurrected message board, or my downloading messages to Thunderbird to respond to on my way home. Since I send e-mails to coaches from time to time and this hasn't happened before, it was probably the latter. Either way, I'm probably "going dark" as an e-correspondent till it revives.

All in all, this is the perfect bookend to a trip that included my luggage visiting Tennessee, my cell phone taking up permanent residence at O'hare, my solitary confinement at an abandoned airport in Madison at 2 am, and my (brief) assignment to someone else's hotel room.

La Vida Loca

I don’t write random musings very often anymore, which maybe makes it even more cliché than usual that I would choose to write on a dark beach on the coast of Mexico. I’m sitting about twenty feet from the water. It foams but doesn’t rise very high. The Beatles are singing “Let it Be” somewhere in the nearby hotel; they’re louder than the surf. I once karaoked that song in Boise; another time, in Shanghai. The song is bittersweet enough without the memories.

I walked nine kilometers today, maybe ten. From the center of Mazatlan to this “golden” periphery peppered with motels and mid-tier resorts. I limped the last few blocks, but I don’t think it’s my age catching up to me. It seems to be more a matter of bad shoes and thin socks. Conceivably I should also exercise more.

I’m not really sure why I’m in Mexico. At least in London, I had a secret mission and could enjoy the first class seat. Here, I think I came to prove that I could follow through on a travel whim. I had, after all, just cancelled a trip to East Timor in order to work with Bill Cathers at L.A. High this coming Saturday. More than once I had driven toward the airport, then not actually gotten on a plane. So this time, I did. It wasn’t unlike my motivations for doing Decathlon the second time. Regret minimization.

Also, I had told Chuan-Mei I would come—and this was my last chance to make good on that. Of course, I had abortively visited so often that she assumed I wasn’t actually flying here and made other plans. So I’ve been wandering Mazatlan on my own. Not a bad thing. I needed the peace and quiet. I do my best storytelling with an audience, but not my best planning.

I caught the tail end of Mazatlan’s Mardi Grass. Steaming crowds of—Mazatlani?—crowding the beachfront to watch a series of floats. The floats were crawling with dancers, some disinterested, others flaunting their curves. One float was for Alamo Rent a Car. I bought a coconut pastry of some kind, which left my fingers oily, then a cup of corn kernels mashed with cream and cheese. It was tasteless, maybe because I asked them to hold the chili; I tossed it out at a pharmacy where I bought water. I had expected it to taste of Chiapas and my journey with Sanjai.

I think this moment may have made the whole overnight venture worthwhile. Writing on the beach. I’ve always been a sucker for melodrama. Yet there’s something to it. Buried in me—perhaps entombed, at this point—is still that writer who loves words more than alpacas. It takes a lot to let him out. But when he comes out—or, as he is doing now, pokes a tremulous finger through a crack in the wall—he proves that he wants to come out.

I hear threads of The Hunchback of Notre Dame in my head. Memories of the summer after my sophomore year, driving to Venice Beach to meet Sasha and Jessica. Two years earlier I had tossed a Frisbee and run back and forth through Serrania Park. At night I would sprint through a different park with Ali and Jeff. Already I already felt like that had been the distant past. It’s startling how quickly Stanford installed a wall for me between high school and the thereafter.

A lighthouse blinks in the distance. A faro. Last year, I worked for a Grupo Faro, in Quito. That almost feels like Frisbee already. The walls come up more often now. I finished the “thesis” the first couple days of April, from a beautiful hotel in Taipei—after a week of good times and transient friendships.

Taipei. China. Singapore. When did Asia begin to feel more comfortable than Los Angeles? Maybe I am a natural expatriate—or someone who needs regular doses of alien-ness. One could argue that I always feel different from those around me, and that being in a foreign country allows me to manifest that difference, shamelessly.

The Fifth Airport

When I booked my flight back from Seoul to Los Angeles, I paid little note to the stopover in Singapore. Only much later did I learn that Singapore is no closer to Korea than Los Angeles is to New York City--and that it's in the opposite direction from both of them.

Then, as soon as I boarded my flight in Singapore, the pilot announced we weren't headed straight back for Los Angeles, but for Tokyo. It was the first time I ever boarded a flight not knowing where it was going. This also meant that I flew six hours southwest from Seoul to Singapore to catch a connection six hours northeast back to Tokyo. Er. My flight path looked like a noose.

I'm still in a state of bliss from the Singaporean night markets. I wandered up and down the streets, first of Chinatown, then of Little India, stuffing myself with as many treats as possible and forgetting, bite by bite, a month of spicy pickled things.

Now I'm in LA for two full days of pupsitting while my family is away before begining my journey back to Boston (not, thankfully, via Midway Island.) So far, LA's included a concert (Josh Rouse), two maverick Israelis (www.trustedopinion.com) and a DHL man delivering my own puppy back to me.

Stopover

Writing this in the lounge on the second floor of the airport in Singapore. Eating tiny bits of ham and cheese while sipping coffee and green tea at the same time.

Fragments of a journey thus far:

My shopping marathon ran out of steam circa 3:30 am, when I abandoned Mustafa's and checked into a "napping center" at the airport. Windowless little chambers without doors, separated by shoulder-height wooden partitions. Blanket and extraordinarily effective air conditioning provided. I bought three hours of time; exactly at the three hour mark, a woman tapped my foot to wake me up. Definitely more effective than an alarm clock: I experienced a momentary adrenaline surge and prepared to defend my bunk.

Such yummy food. The approach of Chinese New Year meant that the streets of Singapore were crammed with people and booths even at midnight. Somehow, before I knew it, I was the proud owner of a red pillow displaying a happy dog. And after weeks of Korean cuisine, I was a veritable glutton--sipping from a coconut while eating dried fruits, tea-soaked eggs, mooncake, mushrooms and something not unlike mu shu pork. Also spicy Indian pancakes. Mmm. Street stalls.

I think my copy of the Star Wars Holiday Special--which I hoped would supply entertainment on the flight--lacks subtitles. Who in their right mind would broadcast a movie 90% in the Wookie language? Eeew. I counted. Ten minutes of mewling noises between lines of English dialogue that make Revenge of the Sith a veritable work of Shakespeare--most of that time filled with Chewie's little son snatching cookies, then courting death upon a balcony. The existence of Wookies would discredit intelligent design in a heartbeat.

Time to board. Farewell to the tropics--fifteen hours of seatbelt fastening and unfastening ahead...

Epiphany

I discovered tonight that when students appear to be looking up
words on their little electronic dictionaries, as often as not they're
actually playing Tetris.

Human Rights Violations

Yesterday night, three Koreans at a bar asked me if I realized what Hollywood movie star I looked like. "Here we go again," I thought. Their verdict: Ed Norton. My inner penguin was nonplussed.

Speaking of movies, I'll admit a little bashfully that I've consumed about two seasons of The West Wing since leaving London. I tend to read, and watch things, in bursts; I love seeing story arcs unfold.

Debating what to teach tonight... I'm thinking of doing "bad" leaders for a change: "Bin Laden and Buddies." Or maybe fan campaigns to revive TV shows (Star Trek, Firefly, Family Guy) as (rare?) examples of successful popular movements in modern-day America. Fictional leaders could be fun. Ooh, Ammar versus Rodrigo (from The Lions of Al-Rassan, perhaps my favorite novel.) I'm going to miss this job.

In Boston, I frequented a Korean tea shop, called Dado. So I came to Korea expecting bountiful and delicious tea. Alas, tea isn't as easy to find as I had hoped; there are coffee vending machines at every corner, and more Starbucks clones than you can shake a fist at, but tea seems to be the choice of a past generation. And not a single tapioca shop. It's clearly not Taiwan.

When I was little, I was so addicted to teatime on my family's visits to Chile that once, when we had skipped it, I was inconsolable until my grandparents agreed to serve teatime as the first course of dinner. Me, spoiled? Absolutely.

The number of camp casualties continues to increase, a fact little-noted in the Korean media. Yesterday, one girl broke a finger playing basketball during the obligatory PE hour, and another chipped a tooth running down the hall and tripping over an object (she's exercised her fifth amendment right, or the Korean equivalent, not to identify what the object was.)

In creative writing, most of the kids' short stories so far have featured murders and/or love triangles involving Katalina, usually both. (The latter suggests they might be more perceptive than they're sometimes given credit for.) In one story, another TA (the engimatic EJ) got flushed down a toilet, whereupon Katalina turned into King Kong and ravaged the town. For their final story, David and I instructed them not to include any camp personnel as characters, and to secure permission from a teacher before killing anyone. Yes, we're cracking down on free expression. It's fun to be authoritarian, even south of the DMZ.

I shared the opening of The Lovely Bones with them as an example of how to hook a reader. Not everyone knew what a salmon was (oh, how I miss sushi) but they all gasped at "I was murdered on December 6, 1973..." I'm trying to figure out why I found that novel so compuslively readable too. I think it's very much the characters (they're roomy characters; I find a place to fit inside each of them) and the smooth narrative; it's also the unique, understated yet weirdly believable point of view. I think I'm better able to suspend my disbelief regarding an omniscient narrator when that narrator is in a place where she has every right to be a little bit omniscient... yet still very human, and very young. I cringed when her father got his knee bashed in: not moving on literally made it harder for him to move. I loved the flashes of Ray's family (I forget his mother's name--Ruana?) And I was cheerfully surprised when the situation with the despicable yet frail Mr. Harvey was resolved off-stage, or at least out of focus. I wish you all a very good life.

Back at camp, the youngest student, Doyee, set his story on the USS Enterprise. He was captain, of course, implying Picard either met a grisly fate or left the fleet to perform in a Klingon version of the Christmas Carol. It's nice to know Star Trek fans survive--and continue to spawn--abroad.

To my surprise, the girl who got tortured a few days ago now walks arm in arm with her alleged torturers again. I'm not sure if I'm witnessing a great reconciliation, poor short-term memory, or the tip of some sociological iceberg.

Randy and I recently finished downloading the Star Wars Holiday Special. I won't subject the kids to it but I do plan to watch it on the flight home--probably on the Seoul-Singapore leg, as there'll be more cities nearby for an emergency landing should I require defibrillation.

Drama

A new soap opera unfolds: one of the students, a girl named Anne, gossipped about three other girls and they found out. They exacted retribution, first creating disgusting beverages for her to drink (including toothpaste), pouring what she refused to drink down her shirt, and then hitting her, etc. No word on whether they tried to make her faint. The ringleader is the youngest girl in the camp, who seems exceptionally sweet-natured but writes short stories about serial killers. Her name is Jenna. The camp coordinator is holding a summit with the TAs on what to do next.

Of Modes and Medians

I type this quick, quasi-furtive entry as students listen a practice TOEFFL oral response section playing on my laptop. From time to time they present me with their answers, which I then score on a scale of 1 to 5. Average score so far, closer to 2 than to 4. Yep, I've been called to emergency English-testing duty because one of the other teachers (the one who was going to host "Old Boy") was hospitalized for food poisoning after eating raw fish this weekend.

The Korean sashimi experience is a little different than I'm used to. Among other things, you pick your own fish.

Chicken Soup for the Expatriate Soul

Things are fairly quiet over here. I'm getting to know the town, which seems to be of uniform density. Lots of fish for sale, though no giant felines in sight, unless you count Hello Kitty dolls. In fact, several of the students keep inventing things with Hello Kitty themes, such as a Hello Kitty sandcastle mold. David has declared he would marry Hello Kitty if he could.

I'm also getting lots of practice speaking in public (a presentation a day keeps the jitters away) though the public in this case comprises 17 Korean children ages 12-15 and one camp coordinator, Kent, who nods a great deal and occasionally draws inappropriate things on the board.

I arranged to have French fries delivered in the middle of my talk on the history of McDonald's last night: edible multimedia. Every evening is turning into a kind of storytelling hour. Tuesday I did FDR; tonight is the rise and demise of the American department store, and tomorrow, maybe Ronald Reagan and the 1980s.

But--speaking of McDonald's--a quick thought on Korean food. Yesterday, Kyle knocked on my door to wake me up from a morning nap. (Eh, my mornings aren't very hardcore.) He explained that there was a very special meal in the cafeteria that he didn't want me to miss. It turned out to be chicken soup. Only in a country where nearly all the food is pickled and/or spicy would boiled chicken in plain broth be considered remarkable.

Okay, time to hike back from town to campus to prepare for tonight (and for the afternoon invention workshop--hopefully featuring no more Hello Kittiness.) It's a very pleasant n degrees below zero out there. I love my earmuffs.

Campus Store

Randy and I took a day trip there to Taegu yesterday, where our discoveries included giant chestnuts, the cleanest subway stations I've ever seen, and a "campus store" selling exclusively Harvard and Yale merchandise. They really do like Harvard here.

Accidental Daybreak

So I just woke up, showered, put on my teacher costume, and then walked out to have breakfast with the other teachers--only to discover that everyone was still asleep, except for one masked man prowling the corridors with a vacuum cleaner.

It turns out I miscalculated the time. It's not 8 am. It's 6 am. The last time I did this I was a freshman in Canaday. Similarly disorienting to realize the sun won't rise for another two hours. I now have all that time to (1) sleep a bit more, which is a more appealing prospect by the minute, and (2) perhaps more pressingly, figure out what I should teach today. There really is no curriculum. In my class, I have three girls, three boys and one TA, Kyle, with a crush on the other TA, Catalina (who helps David next door and claims descent from Confucius.)

In my case, he's not a family relation, but the students think I look like Mr. Bean.

Hello, My Name Is

I'm falling asleep in the "faculty lounge"--really, just a classroom with a chalkboard, two podiums, and a bunch of ethernet cables. Happy to report that my first class was a really good experience (at least for me--I hope for the students too.) We discussed a number of quotes--from Mark Twain to John Keats. I asked students to share personal experiences related to the quotes to break the ice. It turns one lied to his father about comic books and was caught; another poked her cousin in the eye for, er, pooping in the bathtub. One fought a schoolyard bully and lost, but won a moral victory. All talked about their images of love and beauty. Each shared a mistake. They argued the distinction between ignorance and stupidity. Michael Jordan came up (no mention of the Clippers, however.) Most of all, I think they got comfortable with one another. I'm looking forward to the next few weeks.

Heat Pump

Walking back from the welcome party, Randy and I spotted a plate of food in front of David's door.

"Look," I said, "David left pizza in the hallway."

Randy walked toward it, saying that though he wasn't hungry right now, it couldn't hurt to have some extra pizza. Then he stopped and doubled back.

"Wait," he said, "It's probably in the hallway because it's so cold out here that he's using the hallway to refrigerate it."

If Not You'll Go to Liechtenstein

The students arrive in about 3 hours, and then... the fun theoretically begins. But in the meantime, the camp coordinator, Kent, decided that it would be a good night to sneak out of the dorm (which locks up at 11 pm) and check out the night life in our little mountain town.

This translated to a bar, followed by a karaoke place, followed by another bar, where we stayed till the dorm reopened at 6 am. At the karaoke bar one of the TAs announced her boyfriend had just broken up with her, at which point several other guys in the group sought to, ah, comfort her.

While watching the requisite soap opera develop, I also learned a lot about Korean drinking games, at which it turns out I do well enough to avoid drinking. Despite being nominally in charge, Kent drank himself into a stupor, roused enough to reenact the "king of the world" scene from Titanic, then slumped back into his seat and began to snore. He also mentioned his mother a lot.

An update to come on the students and whether, in fact, Kent wakes up in time to host the "opening ceremony." If not, I might volunteer to substitute for him and offer a lyrical verse or two for the occasion. Something like,

"Welcome, students, to the camp,
we'll make you into creative champ!
Just do your work, and you'll be fine,
If not you'll go to Liechtenstein."

Shutruk Nahunte

I'm about to teach my first class. I met my students this morning. There's only six. With any luck, I'll learn all their names in a day and won't confuse them too much. In other news, the camp coordinator drank himself into a stupor last night.

Pink Down Jackets

I'm writing now from Gimpo Airport, near Seoul, at a stand available for public use by passengers on Asiana Airlines. I'm usually an American Airlines kind of guy, but this trip is an exception: Star Alliance all the way. I flew on the top floor of a 747 for the first time from L.A. to Tokyo, writing my application to an MFA program at Columbia and watching West Wing episodes for eleven hours. It was beautiful.

Alas, because I procrastinated on the application, I've only slept about 5 hours since New Year's Eve, but I'm holding up surprisingly well so far. A couple observations before my flight to Taegu boards.

As my bus--a.k.a. "airport limousine"--pulled up to Gimpo Airport, I spotted a woman in a puffy pink down jacket and white skirt standing in the middle of a crosswalk, dancing, smiling and not moving out of our way. Her cheeks were blushed bright red. Just when I was starting to wonder if she was a deranged courtesan waiting for us to run her over, she curtsied and moved aside.

The bus rolled on, and someone dressed exactly like her waited at the next crosswalk.

---

(A little girl in a blue coat just looked at me, then whispered something to her mom. I said, "hello," and she shyly responded, "hello." Her mom laughed.)

---

At the airport cafeteria, I was pressed for time. My flight was about to board on the other side of security. I must have looked hurried, because when I ordered the sushi combination platter, the woman at the counter warned me, "That will be slow. Take ten minutes."

"Ah, I said, "That won't work. How about the kimchi and pork cutlet?"

"Faster," she said, smiling, "Take ten minutes."

I ordered that. Really good. And took only eight.