Not Exactly Harry Potter

This last week, I've been writing and editing children's passages for English learning books in Korea. I thought I'd share a couple examples to give a sense of where my mind's been lately when it's not studying polls.

Help! My time machine malfunctioned. I wanted to visit the American Revolution, but I looked outside and there are gigantic animals everywhere. I think they are dinosaurs. They are definitely not American.

If you find this message, please send help. Tell my friends that I am stranded many millions of years in the past. I need someone to rescue me as soon as possible. For now, I will try to hide in a cave. I just hope none of the dinosaurs are hungry.

---

Couple seeks reliable computer geek to take care of two baby robots, R2 and R3. They do not need food or love, but they are very smart and like challenges. Their favorite games include Sudoku and chess. They communicate with blinking lights and beeping sounds. They shut down automatically at bedtime.
R2 and R3 are toilet-trained. However, in case of accidents, knowledge of computer programming is a plus.
Candidates must be available evenings and weekends.
Pay rate depends on experience.
Please reply to: Mr. and Mrs. D2

---

Today, I faced off against a wizard named Anzor. He wore dark robes and held a smoking wand.

He cried, “You had better surrender, farmer boy, or I will destroy your home!”

I hesitated. He was a level five wizard and I wasn’t very strong. But I had a secret weapon.

“I will fight!” I typed, lifting my magic shovel.

“A magic shovel?” Anzor laughed. “What will you do? Dig a magic hole?”

He waved a hand. I was pinned down. Behind me my farm disintegrated.

Sigh. So much for the shovel. Maybe tomorrow I’ll go back to playing Scrabble.

Collision

Last night, a small boy was staring at me as he walked up the sidewalk. His head swiveled as he moved past me. I looked back at him. I wasn't sure if he was amused or trying to pick a fight, but he seemed about three or four, so I figured if it were the former I didn't mind, and if it were the latter I would probably win.

He kept staring, and kept walking at the same time, until he collided with a glass wall and began to cry.

A Redcoat Perspective

As a follow-up to my note/analysis from yesterday, I recommend this article that came out today in the UK. It very aptly summarizes the different candidates and their approaches, with a focus on those candidates who leverage fear as a campaign strategy.

Looking ahead, tomorrow should see a spate of polls released. Will be interesting. If time permits, I'll write another ramble.

Less Electable

Today, a friend of mine called me from Austria to share that he used Clorox wipes on himself in the bathroom by mistake. He thought of me when it happened. I'll let that go.

---

On a more serious note, the Iowa caucuses are coming up, and I wanted to offer my two cents in rebuttal to some colleagues and family members who are supporting Hillary Clinton because they think she's the most electable Democrat next November.

I'll qualify my remarks by admitting I don't know that much about Clinton's actual policy positions. I do know she's shifted them quite a bit over the years, or even during debates, but that's easier to criticize than it is to avoid in practice. I'm actually fairly sure she'd make a good president - if she were elected.

So, let's assume a few things for the sake of discussion.

(I'm about to lose my Republican readership.)

(1) Any Democrat winning in 2008 is a positive. This is, of course, a disputable assumption. Let's set it aside for now.

(2) The Democratic candidates are more alike in their policy positions than they are different. They have different health care plans, but they all have health care plans. They all want to change No Child Left Behind (even those who voted for it). Edwards is more protectionist and anti-business, Obama is more into community-building, Clinton is--more experienced. But in general, any of these three candidates will steer the country in a much more progressive direction than his or her GOP counterpart. Democrats should be happy no matter which one wins (if one of them wins at all).

(3) A president is more capable of enacting daring policies if Congress lines up behind him or her.

(4) Congress is more likely to line up behind the president if the president's party has a significant majority in Congress. The greater the majority, the better the chances for the president's agenda to pass, especially once the blush of days 1-100 fades.

(5) Representatives and Senators who oppose a president will be cast as obstructionist if the president is popular enough with enough Americans - a la Ronald Reagan, or George Bush in 2002. Conversely, if a Democratic president is a polarizing figure, Republican congressmen can go home and boast of defying her, while Democrats will face added peril in midterm elections.

With that said, we should evaluate which Democrat has the best chance of (a) winning a general election, (b) working with a supportive Congress and (c) motivating the opposition to support him or her or risk political fallout.

Polls are a good place to start. They are notoriously inaccurate, especially exit polls in Ohio, but my sixth assumption will be that, taken in sum, they have some value for seeing where the electorate is.

Polls consistently indicate that Clinton has a commanding lead nationally in the primaries - 15 or more points on her closest rival, Obama. Asked why they're choosing Clinton over Obama, many Democrats say it's because she has the best chance of winning the general election. For example, according to a recent LA Times/Bloomberg poll, "Democrats seem to agree that Clinton has the best chance of beating the Republicans in 2008--38% in Iowa, 45% in New Hampshire and 48% in South Carolina."

At the same time, polls consistently indicate that of the major Democratic candidates, Clinton fares much worse than Obama in hypothetical matchups with the major Republican candidates. She sometimes beats Huckabee and Romney, but almost always loses against Rudy and McCain. Here's a typical poll demonstrating this. For those of you who don't want to click, here are some numbers from last week.

Obama (D) 53%, Romney (R) 35%
Obama (D) 47%, Huckabee (R) 42%
Obama (D) 48%, Giuliani (R) 39%
Obama (D) 47%, McCain (R) 43%
Obama (D) 52%, Thompson (R) 36%
---
Clinton (D) 46%, Romney (R) 44%
Huckabee (R) 48%, Clinton (D) 43%
Giuliani (R) 46%, Clinton (D) 42%
McCain (R) 49%, Clinton (D) 42%
Clinton (D) 48%, Thompson (R) 42%

(http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1404)

Notably, these are the same people in each sample. That means, for example, that for every 100 people surveyed, six people who would vote for Obama against Giuliani would not vote for Clinton against Giulani. The same phenomenon is evident across the board. Some people who would vote for Obama against anyone would not vote for Clinton against that same anyone. Something similar happens when people are asked, generically, whether they would support a Democrat or Republican for president. The unnamed Democrat runns far ahead, usually about 9% (the same was true before the 2004 election). As soon as names are inserted, we get the results above. That means people who think they would vote for a Democrat change their mind when they learn that she's the Democrat.

This points at a curious contradiction: Democrats who support Clinton because they think she is the most electable Democrat may not realize that she's not - that she's still a polarizing figure for many Republicans. Clinton might manage to win the presidency, but unless she's running against a weak GOP candidate, she would win by a thin margin at best: hardly a mandate. It would be another 49-49 election (or worse).

Furthermore, because she attracts so much of an opposition vote, her presence on the ballot could hurt downticket Democrats in vulnerable areas - that is, Congressional and gubernatorial candidates also running for office next November, especially incumbent Democrats in strongly Republican regions. Many Democrats were elected to Congress in 2006 in a strongly anti-Republican wave. To stay in office, they need a lot of people to vote for them again who would traditionally vote for Republicans.

What the Democrats need, then, is someone who will not only draw more Democrats to the polls, but who would persuade independents and other moderate Republicans to give Democrats a chance - both for president and for lower offices. A person who comes and votes against Clinton by default because they hated the Clintons in the 1990s (even if today's Hillary positions herself as a moderate) is more likely to vote against other Democrats too. (This is known as the "coattails effect".) Even more worrisome, a person who votes against Clinton because she's been successfully cast by the opposition as a political calculator instead of a person of principle is likelier to lump other Democrats in with her.

As John Edwards put it in a recent debate, "America is looking for a president who will say the same thing, who will be consistent..." This shouldn't be a surprise. A lot of admiration for John McCain comes from the fact that he (reputably) always speaks his mind - and usually speaks it the same way. Bush had this going for him in 2004, even if I didn't agree with much of what he kept saying the same way. Obama, too, has shown consistency. To his credit, so has Edwards, except for a brief detour on the Kerry ticket. But Clinton, like Kerry before her, has changed her mind - a lot. Now, I change my mind a lot too. I think mind-changing is morally defensible; as new things come up, old views can change. Changing your mind for political convenience is less defensible, but understandable.

However, the American electorate doesn't like inconsistent candidates. Recent elections have emphasized that lots of people vote for president more on perceptions of character and likeability than on the issues. Republicans flayed John Kerry as a flip-flopper in 2004, and Hillary Clinton suffers from a similar degree of doublespeak. I'm not here to disapprove of her changing her views, but to point out that they will allow her to be caricatured - as in an October debate when she seemed to come out both for and against granting driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. It makes for great campaign commercials. Anyone remember Kerry windsurfing? Here's a little piece from the Edwards campaign that previews how the GOP would treat Clinton. You can trust the Republican ads would be even better. (For example, here's an ad designed by top Republican strategists attacking Mitt Romney for pretending to be a lot more conservative now than he used to be - or for pretending then and telling the truth now. It's hard to know.)

Certainly the GOP could attack Obama as inexperienced. But inexperience can also be portrayed as an openness to new ideas, or as an echo of JFK and Bill Clinton. Inconsistency is just inconsistency.

In 2004, Democrats overwhelmingly favored John Kerry in the primaries over Howard Dean and John Edwards because he was the "most electable" candidate with the most experience in government. They chose to overlook his inability to inspire and his history of saying one thing, then saying another. That didn't work out so well.

Hillary Clinton would run a better campaign than Kerry did, but she has similar vulnerabilities and lots of baggage. Those who want her as the nominee simply because they are hungry for a winner may be in for a disappointment.

Then again, maybe McCain the Man of Conviction or Rudy the Warrior Mayor wouldn't be so bad?

Hot or Cold

Was working at a coffee shop in Korea. It was very warm, so I asked a gentleman behind the counter, who had previously supplied me with a cup of darjeeling, if he could lower the temparature. I did this mostly with pantomimes. "Hot," I said, and demonstrated that I would rather it be cold by hugging my body tight and pretending to shiver.

He nodded in sudden understanding, then turned up the heat.

This is why you don't want me on your team for a game of charades.

The Stars and Bars

I was mistaken for Korean for the third time today, by my cab driver. He proceeded to bash the United States. "They talk human rights, then their kids shoot other kids," he said. "Is that human rights?"

He also expressed concern that my fellow Koreans were being corrupted by American culture.

* * *

Later, I flew out of Changi Airport to Cambodia. I did something that probably means I ought to be on a watch list: I agreed to check in someone else's bag. She was distraught, a Singaporean woman whose son had just left his Chinese flute on a cab. Later, she and her family treated me to dinner in Phnom Penh: Cambodian chicken, Cambodian fish, Cambodian eggs and Cambodian rice. All hormone-free, she explained, and tastier than their Singaporean equivalents.

* * * *

"There's something pointy in your bag," the woman at airport security insisted. She dug into my backpack--and pulled out a Confederate flag. She held it high for inspection: for the first time, the Stars and Bars flew over Singapore. She gingerly poked herself with the miniature flag pole, then carried it over to her shift supervisor, who decided it wasn't a weapon and allowed me to keep it.

They probably thought it was the flag of an innocuous nation in Europe.

I looked around to see if any Americans were present and shooting me dark stares. None in sight.

Of course, you may be wondering what I was doing with a Confederate flag. Would it suffice to call it a good luck charm during the World Series, meant to aid my friend Craig win his furniture? I picked it up in New York a few days before that, not realizing I would soon unintentionally become an international representative of the South. It's a mid-length story related to Robert E. Lee, AK-47s and the Battle of Shiloh; too sleepy to relate it, but at least I had better luck traveling than my colleagues on the Trent.

Enjoy the Experience

I just arrived at my fourth hotel of the day. First, the one in which I briefly showered, changed and edited ditties in Manila. Second, the one I had ostensibly reserved here in Singapore, named for Captain Sulu's old ship. It, however, blamed a burst water pipe on the 24th floor and sent me somewhere else, except it was the wrong somewhere else: there are two Park Royals in town. At any rate, I'm now settled in a triple, very sleepy, not really ready for five meetings today, including with my old friends from ACS who came to Worlds last year.

Also, I should note that Manila seemed less shopping mall and more parking lot to me, but that may simply have been the road to the airport. A variety of public transportation options, too. Little sidecars attached to taxi-like motorcycles ("tricycles"), open-air SUVs with passengers crowded to the edge, a hammock strung on the back of a pickup truck... the last wasn't exactly public, but seemed like a very good idea.

Last thought: it's love at first flight with Cebu Pacific. When checking in, I had pointed out my pillow (it usually comes up) and how nice it would be to have a row in which to sleep on it. "I'll block one off," said the woman behind the counter, smiling. She really did it, and I stretched out and slept for three solid hours. A bargain for a flat bed.

Speaking of bargains, Singapore's Budget Terminal offers this slogan when you disembark: "Enjoy the experience." The experience was fine. Dozens of cabs. And an immigrations officer who didn't mind that I had filled out my form in green pencil.

Macaroon #4

Yesterday, I lost very profoundly at a game of "Xs" and "Os" at the YBM Teachers Banquet. "The average goldfish lives only two months before being flushed down a toilet," was the statement, and I, for reasons I can't fathom, thought it sounded reasonable, though I did pause to second-guess whether the test-writer had considered goldfish that didn't live in human custody. I should've gone with that second guess. In any case, maybe it's a good thing I don't compete in the Super Quiz anymore.

I'm about to board the least expensive international flight of my life--a $70 fare from Manila to Singapore, on Cebu Pacific. I don't know anything about the airline. Maybe it'll serve sandwiches and be delightful. More likely, I'll pass out on board. My only sleep since yesterday has been on a bus in Seoul this morning and on the cab to Manila's airport a few minutes ago.

Manila is this strange combination, for me at least, of Asia and South America. The language here is enough like Spanish to give me a bit of a headache when it blares on the radio, though that may have been the sleep issue. Neither my cab driver nor I had a watch or a working cell phone, so I spent the whole drive either sleeping or convinced I was running late (the driver had guessed it was 6:30 when it was actually 5:45).

"My hotel's near the giant mall," I said to the principal of the International School of Manila today.

"That doesn't help," he said, "That's all of Manila."

He seemed interested in the Scholar's Cup, which was great--it made this pitstop between Seoul and Singapore very worthwhile. I hope to see a team from Manila in Seoul on May 31.

I passed the Hotel Prince yesterday, where last year's SCUP teams stayed on arriving in Korea (I got evicted due to a room mixup). It was odd to think that we're almost halfway between world competitions. It was odder to think that there'd been a world competition at all. I was a little--distracted--the last time around.

Yesterday's banquet at YBM was inspiring. I'll write more on that later, I hope. Afterward I settled down in the lobby of the hotel where it was held and edited children's workbooks over three cups of coffee and six macaroons. A local band covered American songs; they crooned "even heroes have a right to bleed" around macaroon #4.

The Secretary's Way

Yesterday, Alaina at YBM asked me a question she gleaned from the book she was reading, a Korean business publication called The Secretary's Way. I put it to you: would you prefer to work with someone immensely talented but not entirely loyal, or someone a measure less talented but much more loyal?

Jordan's Furniture Bets Obama will Strike Out

Boston, MA – Jordan’s Furniture has announced a follow-up to its successful Red Sox promotion: any customer who purchases furniture during the month of November will receive a full refund if Barack Obama wins the presidency in 2008.

Other furniture stores have not matched the promotion, though industry sources suggest that IKEA may endorse Al Gore.

The promotion has generated controversy. David Gergen, former presidential advsior and a professor of political leadership at the Kennedy School of Government, warns that, “Massachusetts electors may be swayed to break with the popular vote in their state if they purchased particularly expensive mattresses.”

“We took an insurance policy just in case, just like we did with the Red Sox,” said Jordan’s Furniture owner Eliot Tatelman. “This one cost less.”

Obama has not specified whether he shops at Jordan’s. However, he will be making a previously unscheduled visit to the Jordan’s Furniture factory in Cambodia to discuss worker’s rights and free trade.

In a press statement, the rival Clinton campaign noted that “Senator Clinton shops at a variety of furniture stores, including Jordan’s, and is supportive of most things with which she does not disagree.”

A Headmaster in Malaysia

Once, I wrote a story featuring a character named Malaysia. I don't remember her so well; I think she had something to do with an epidemic raging in New Mexico. I was going through a phase in which I thought I could describe landscapes. I've mostly given up since, but for the sake of argument: a long rim of palm trees, and clumps of tall apartment towers with open-air stairwells. That was my view on the train from Kuala Lumpur Airport to the city center.

A poster in the airport proudly noted that it was voted the best in the world in 2006 and 2005. This year, it took third to Seoul Incheon and Hong Kong. Notably, I started in Seoul this morning and connected in Hong Kong, thus apparently completing the "Top Airport Trifecta." All three are very well-lit, with wide open spaces in which you could fit Air Force One or the entire LAX international terminal.

It was an uneventful journey, unless you count my carry-on tumbling down an escalator into a woman in a veil. (I think she forgave me. I hope so.) On my second flight, I sat next to a Texan who chatted with me industriously before switching his attention to a movie about a haunted hotel room. Where are you from? he asked me at one point, a question my friend Tracy can certify I'm increasingly not very good at answering.

In other developments, DemiDec opened a school in Seoul this week. Yes, it puzzles me too.

This is a good moment to look back at how I ended up in Korea in the first place: one Randy Xu, now in China hedging funds, an agent of chaos who led his Decathlon team to a third place finish in Texas in 2000. Randy had a car accident that led him to need a lawyer that led him to e-mail the Harvard alumni list that led me to e-mail him a reference that led him to recognize my DemiDec connection that led him to work with DemiDec. A few months later he suggested that we go teach in Korea for three weeks as a kind of vacation.

It's been a very interesting three weeks.

And Again

Dante Coffee. Down the street from NTU. The producers of my life are saving money on new sets.

The Streets of Hsinchu

In Taiwan, after a massive day: I woke up Sunday morning in Boston and somehow it's become Tuesday over there. Slept some in the back seat of a cab and on a red-eye flight from Vegas that featured a barking toddler. "Woof!" he cried, over and over, as I tried to edit.

Searched for a shower at Incheon Airport on landing this morning. Helpful flight attendants pointed me toward the basement, in which I discovered a miniature hospital. The receptionist advised me that the neraby sauna was shut down. Couldn't tell if they meant permanently or just until later in the day, but I had a meeting anyway coming up in Seoul proper, and went without.

Now at a hotel, the worse for wear but with reasonable water pressure, called the King Dom. Tomorrow morning, the schools of Hsinchu. For now, I sleep in Hsinchu. I was going to write about the streets of Hsinchu, but I'm too sleepy. They were bright.

Not Knowing Much

"Have you lost a loved one recently?" a close friend asked me today. His father passed away unexpectedly last night.

The answer is that I haven't, not since Sam, and he was my sister's loved one, not my own. I've written on this topic before, but it reminds me again how lucky and unlikely I've been: four living grandparents (knock wood) and not a single friend lost to disease or accident.

One cousin passed away, Benny, in my sophomore year of college. I took the phone call from my mom. It hit me hard, but maybe not for long enough. He drowned in a shower. He and I would play cards a lot when I was small, in a house in Chile with a cavernous dining hall. We'd eat red chicken watching television in the kitchen on nights when my parents and his dad were out on the town.

Benny's death shook my uncle to the core; he hasn't ever been the same. He still smokes out at his son's grave.

I don't know how I would handle a loss like that, or like my friend's, but, given my history, probably not too well. Here's hoping the best for him and his family and that I can help in whatever small ways are possible.

The Iambic Foreclosure

(verses written after watching Henry V and a conversation over rice pudding)

The suburbs perish home by home, the loans
Too large to pay in full; the "owners" moan
And writhe in subprime agony, while banks
Send notes that agitate; a market tanks,
A bubble pops! And there you have it... Kate:
A dismal fate some hedge funds celebrate.

America or Burst

"Sometimes I think my life is like a sitcom," I said to Craig, a few seconds after a large pepper grinder on the stove clattered into me, and eleven hours after we searched the apartment for a pink blanket that turned out to be under his bedspread.

"Daniel," he responded, "We all think your life is like a sitcom."

The other night we played an informal round of "name that tune" with sitcom songs from the 1980s; I instantly recognized the theme from Perfect Strangers. I learned a lot of life lessons from Balki, the sheepherder with a dance of joy who got himself (and his cousin Larry) into one curious fix after another.

As a kid, I was a Star Trek fan foremost, but Star Trek was only silly by accident; I'm often silly on purpose.

A Weight Off My Shoulders

On Friday, I bought a new backpack at Incheon Airport, in Seoul. On a whim, I picked one that was blue. Then I carried it to the Japan Airlines lounge, where I transplanted everything from my black backpack of the last two years in about five minutes. This included all the debris at the bottom; I didn't have time to sort out the chaff before my flight to Tokyo boarded.

(Incidentally, I didn't realize I knew the word "chaff" until I just wrote it down. I've clearly been playing too much Scrabulous.)

I write about it because the experience was remarkably cleansing. Literally, a weight off my shoulders. That black backpack had been lots of places with me: Egypt, China, Korea, Singapore, Boston, half the states in the Union. Some had been good places, but combined they had worn the backpack out. When it was empty, I dropped it in a wastebasket. This probably set off a bomb alert later in the afternoon, though at least I didn't wear a circuitboard around my neck. Then I scooped up the new one, slung it over my shoulder, grinned at how light it was, and hustled to Gate 39.

Averting the Debacle

I write this at an airport, which is to be expected. I must have written a third of these entries in transit between places. Today, though, I'm not flying anywhere at all. I was going to travel to Taiwan, to visit a friend and meet her puppy, but a mixup with Thai Airways left me here at Incheon.

There are worse airports at which to be stranded, including my hometown LAX.

A few months ago, we held the first World Scholar's Cup here in Seoul. I was distracted and sleep-deprived, neither of them an uncommon condition for me. For three days, students from Singapore and the United States filed wearily into this airport on the bottom floor. My expanding cohort and I greeted each new arrival with Haagen Dazs and bus tickets.

It's hard to believe, in retrospect, that we pulled the competition off. I owe a lot to my friends and especially to Chris Yetman, scrimmage coordinator extraordinaire. He brought a computer, calculated the scores, set up the Scholar's Quiz and basically managed everything.

It was, in some ways, the culmination of eighteen months. Scholar's Cup had been a glimmer on a mountainside in January 2006. "Let's make it real," I said to David, in an odd echo of the way DemiDec had begun. The previous day we had held a fake Super Quiz for our students at a camp. (I say "we" but, in fact, David had been asleep or looking for something to eat, which was hard on him given his distaste for anything that can fly or swim. He mostly ate candy bars and Ramen for those three weeks.)

It's true I had envisioned something larger. But any larger than this, and it might have turned from "trial run" to "opening debacle."

We'll see what next year is like. By then, there'll be a new Scholar's Cup site at www.scholarscup.org. My old DemiDec teammate Brent Russo has been wandering Asia recruiting schools, with good results. We may hold the competition in Singapore (though it's more likely to be in South Korea one more time.)

Down to the bottom of my citron tea. Time to face a commute back to Seoul, though I may stay overnight near the airport. My housing with Sasha is generous (it includes unlimited advice) but it's a little warm at night (i.e. stifling) and towels don't make the best blankets in the world.

The Straits of Singapore

Singapore is so pretty when the sun is rising; there's a long strip of park along the waterfront that runs nearly to the airport. I wanted to jump off the cab and stroll through it, maybe set up a picnic and gaze across the straits to what I think may have been Malaysia.

It was a quick trip. I landed yesterday, and today I'm off to Beijing. Yesterday, I met a warm welcome at ACS, the school here competing in Scholar's Cup: another school I might been happy to attend. There's a perpetual student in me, that's for sure.

By the end of my visit, I was probably visibly deteriorating: I become a snowman in May when I haven't slept in a day. I got back to my hotel, stripped off my suit and, scarcely one or two e-mails later, pulled myself into the "business-class" bed.

Then my room phone rang. It felt like no time had passed at all since I shut my eyes. Whoever it was hung up, so I figured it was my 5:30 am wakeup call. I called down to the desk in such a confused state of mind that when they told me it was 10:30, I asked "am or pm?" After hesitating a moment, the person on the other side answered "pm."

There, he must have said to his colleagues, is a guest with jetlag.

Hotel Hawaii

I'm at a hotel in Hawaii with a band playing Hotel California outside, and in Korea I used to stay at the Hawaii Hotel. Life can feel so intricate sometimes.

Cafe Les Verts

Every time I think I've encountered the perfect WiFi cafe, Korea does me one better. I came across Cafe Les Verts a few minutes ago walking from my hotel to--what else--Java City. Oversized square maple tables that don't require mousepads, organic teas and coffees, curvy porcelain cups, a bank of iMacs on a shiny metal counter circling a leafy tree--coupled with perfect lighting, and outlets everywhere, with just enough jazz music to put a bounce in your fingertips. And, of course, the Internet is free, not your usual Korean NESPOT "buy our overpiced card only at the airport 50 miles from Seoul" service.

Secret Agent

The woman in a blue suit looked me (and my pillow) over critically. "I am secret agent for Northwest Airlines," she said.

"A secret agent?"

"Yes."

She proceeded to interrogate me (not very secretly) about my travel plans. "Why do you fly so many airlines?" she asked, at one point. "It is more expensive."

I whispered, "Actually, because it's cheaper."

Before she released me, I had to show her my Scholar's Cup ID Badge and a business card. "You're the president of organization?" She seemed incredulous.

"Yes, president with a pillow," I said.

Later, at immigration, I was asked, "Are you soldier?"

The pillow seems less effective than it used to be as a way of making me look innocent.

Signs Seen in Bangalore

Things are much blunter in India. From my taxi, I see one sign advertising a clinic. Among the things it treats, in bold lettering: “Sexual weakness." Next door, a prim blue building is labeled “Home for the Mentally Retarded.”

Somewhat further down the way, a restaurant offers "Chainese Food"--by which maybe it means it offers orange chicken from Panda Express?

I'm writing this at Cafe Coffee Day, which is sponsored by Microsoft Vista. The menu is shaped like the Windows logo, and the "Vista Coffee" is their classic brew with a "delightful splash" of orange.

It's unrelated, but I should also note that earlier today, a teacher very interested in the Scholar's Cup insisted to me that he was the younger brother of Hare Krishna--and Jesus Christ.

Deutsche Post

I just had breakfast with the managers of DHL's consumer division for Southern India, who happen to be staying in the same guesthouse as me. They were very pleased to hear that DemiDec ships about a thousand boxes a year with DHL.

I didn't mention the lost alpacas of Texas.

Over pancakes, the conversation turned to politics.

"India is a democracy," said Ragu, the older of the two. "Short-term, China will grow faster, because it is military. Government says what to do, people do it. But long-term, India will succeed more. Here, we debate, debate, debate, then in the end, do the best thing."

Laptop Service

I couldn't find a bank that would take my ATM card anywhere within walking distance of my guesthouse here in Bangalore, but I did locate a Chinese restaurant and a Toshiba Authorized Notebook Service Center.

Notes for Future Travel

Notes to self:

1. Always print out the address of your hotel before arriving in an unfamiliar place, particularly if the hotel is a tiny "inn" in Bangalore that no one at the airport has ever heard of.

2. If the hotel is a tiny inn in Bangalore, don't be surprised if they're out of rooms, forgot they were going to pick you up at the airport, have lost your reservation, and proceed to send you to another tiny inn in Bangalore, which they assure you is even nicer but has people sleeping in the hallways.

3. Always carry toilet paper, even if it means carrying fewer alpaca finger puppets.

4. Always bring a towel larger than your hand (and softer than your Lonely Planet.)

5. If there is a bucket placed near a showerhead, be ready for low water pressure. This likelihood is reinforced by signs offering dire warnings such as, "Please save water; it is precious."

6. If the sign at an airport bank advertises, "We buy and sell all currencies," bear in mind before bounding up to them that they may not consider Korean Won to be a currency.

7. You don't really need sheets for sleeping.

Hot and Sour Soup

I've sat here before--about fourteen months ago, on my way home from my first stint in Korea. I'm at a lounge in the Singapore airport, once again drinking hot and sour soup and, this time, writing TOEFL listening questions. (Dean Webb wrote the lectures and conversations on which they're based, which means the depicted professors and students are clever, and a little sassy.)

On that last visit, I had just spent an entire night first wandering downtown Singapore overeating (to recover from three weeks of Korean dorm food) and then catnapping in a public lounge facility. I recorded a "farewell" to my "1% camp" students using a webcam I purchased downstairs--but I have no memory of what I said to them. I probably aimed for profound and achieved melodramatic--or aimed for funny and achieved confused.

Speaking of drama and humor in combination, I've now seen two Korean romantic comedies, When Romance Meets Destiny and Two Hundred Pound Beauty, and I liked both a lot. These Korean films seem to combine the funny and the melancholy in just the right blend to suit me. Maybe that's how I perceive the story of my own life... or maybe they're just good entertainment. It's also true that the subtitles force me to focus on them. I can't multitask, as I do even while watching 24.

Tonight, I'm on my way from Seoul to Bangalore. Earlier I stopped in Bangkok, which had a beautiful and almost empty new airport. I never imagined my first visit to India would be for a three day teaching conference--let alone one that DemiDec is helping to sponsor. I'll be presenting to about two hundred teachers on the Scholar's Cup, which is our new academic competition for Asia that is off to a tough but promising start. I'm hoping that some of them will want to be coaches this coming year.

Meanwhile, next week is the Korean national competition. It remains to be seen how many teams show up.

Leaving Korea on that first occasion last January, I had no idea that I would be back over a dozen times in the little over a year since. I lost track at my fifteenth trip or so. Sooner or later, I'll have visited it more often than my family's home country of Chile.

This latest visit (from Monday until this morning, and resuming next Monday) has been a little harder than most. For one, I'm still, as Tom put it, traveling on "a bad wheel." Healing from knee surgery turns out to be a little more challenging than I imagined. Every so often the knee gives out, or I slip in the rain and yelp. The hardest part is sleeping, because the bruised area contacts the mattress. (In the end, I gave in to an opiate after all.) Second worst is getting out of taxis. Nonetheless, I'm better by the day, and expect to be running through airport terminals again soon. But another reason the trip has been harder is that our first Korean curriculum projects are due next week--and it's always hard to pull together good work in time for a deadline, especially in a whole new field. (In addition to the Scholar's Cup, DemiDec is delving into producing curriculum materials for the TOEFL and other ESL-related areas.)

Nothing has gone exactly as expected since then, from Seoul to Evanston, which may be why I find a familiar (if lukewarm) bowl of hot and sour soup in Changi International Airport kind of comforting. At least it's better than its equivalent at the Kong.

Mishaps

This morning, I had surgery on my right knee, five months after falling (for no particular reason) at an Academic Decathlon camp in Northern California. Since then it's hurt to run and to climb steps, both things I like to do (for example, to catch a flight at the last minute.) The surgeon found, and removed, a centimeter-diameter "rock" jammed in my knee joint.

Naturally, I gave him and the nurses alpacas.

I now have a bottle of Percocet I hope not to take, two crutches I probably won't need to use, at least not at the same time, except when I'm avoiding falling down the stairs, and a pouch of ice that I won't let out of my sight for at least another day. All in all, it's been a very relaxing day, with episodes of 24 sandwiched around mailing out of DemiDec applications. By Sunday I'll be on my way back to Korea.

In fact, my only post-operative mishap involved stepping in a puddle of puppy pee, which isn't uncommon, given that my dad likes to keep a special rug for the puppies to pee on (he claims otherwise, but it is the perfect color, fogettable brown, to hide nearly anything unmentionable.)

Mouthwash

After eating fish and chips, I needed something to make the taste go away. A pickle didn't do it, so I went to my room, where I took a swig of hotel mouthwash.

Except... I misread the label. The mouthwash was shampoo.

Aircraft Downgrade

Behind me, two men are arguing; one, about 60, figured out that the other, about 80, had sat in the wrong row. Says the older one, who has a cane and a dog: "I'll have you know, young man, that I'm a Marine, I fought in World War II, the Chinese Civil War, Korea... but I'm eighty now, I'm a little befuddled."

"Young man," responds the younger older man, "I didn't do as much as you did, but I also served my country."

Meanwhile, everyone in rows 23 and beyond has discovered that their seats are missing. An apologetic flight attendant just announced that a last-minute switch to a smaller aircraft means that all passengers in the last five rows need to disembark and ask for new seat assignemnts. "I think there'll be enough," she concludes.

The passengers in question are fighting to get off.

"That's not my dad, it's my dog," says the older older man, now one row behind me, in response to a question he must not have heard quite clearly.

I can't wait for this one to be over.

Library

I'm pleased to report that the Library in Alexandria has recovered handsomely. There's even free wireless--and Turkish coffee.

The Unlikeliest Alpaca

I met the cutest puppy today. It was tucked in a duffel bug, with only its head sticking out: perky ears and a toothy little grin.

"What kind of puppy is it?" I asked the owner, as I scratched it behind the ears.

She looked at me, slightly exasperated, and said, "Kangaroo."

Professional Geek

I haven't written much in here lately, and I'll try to post an explanation for that soon, but in the meantime, I wanted to add that I've been visiting the Texas Academic Decathlon state competitions this weekend, in Houston and San Antonio, and I feel so lucky: I have a job in which I can study interesting subjects, write footnotes, meet wonderful people and share alpacas with the world.

If you're a Decathlete, or a coach, or anyone else involved in the program, thank you so much for this opportunity.

Man and Elevator

"You're welcome to it," said the man, standing in front of an open elevator door.

I figured he was going up, so boarded, noted that the "L" button (for "Lobby") was already lit, and waited a while. The elevator doors didn't shut.

"It's stuck?"

"Yeah."

"Know where the stairs are?"

He shrugged. I looked around, spotted an exit sign, then found the stairs behind him to his left. They led directly to the lobby's "Cafe by the Lake."

"Stairs work," I said. He declined to come with me, which at the time baffled me--but in retrospect, maybe he was injured.