Ready to go

The past few days, I’ve been sent away to my sister’s ex-partner’s place while he and the kids are away on holiday. While there I had various phone calls - including a couple of interviews with two branches of Reading Town. One was with a Korean and was a real interview; the other was with what sounded like an American - although, from her name I guess she’s a ‘gyopo‘ - and that wasn’t a real interview, just a bit of information about the hagwon and a few questions from me (so, in a way, I was interviewing her). This racial difference in interviews is typical in my experience. I was offered the second job but not the first.

I also had a phone call from someone called Min in relation to the position I’d been offered previously. She was calling about the contract and was apparently going to send it to me. If she did, I didn’t receive it. After a couple of days of waiting, I finally got the contract this morning from Mi Young. Min then called me again, and I discovered that the e-mail address she had for me was completely wrong.

I headed back up to my sister’s house, where she and her boyfriend were apparently preparing for a weekend at his place. I printed off the necessary documents: three copies of the contract, my resumé, a health statement I’d been sent (consisting of a number of tick boxes to show that I don’t have HIV/AIDS, I don’t use drugs, am not an alcoholic, have not been treated for mental health problems, and have not had a serious disease or injury in the past five years; I ticked no all the way down - I’m not counting my colitis as serious - I wasn’t going to die from it).

My sister said she’d be leaving around one o’clock. I headed out again to collect my things and came back at about 1:15 ready to complete the DHLitNow online form. I’d already called DHL and found that the cut-off time for same-day pick-ups was 11am; I also vaguely remembered having to print out a label for the envelope last time and that even though I missed the cut-off time they still picked it up the same day. So basically, today, I needed the printer and to be prepared for a pick-up. When I got back to my sister’s house - well, the car was there, the door was locked with the key in the lock and there were noises coming from the main bedroom.

I left my backpack in the shed and walked back down to the village, hoping my sweat-soaked top would dry out a little. It looks like I won’t be getting the paperwork off until Monday. And then there’s another wait as it goes to the recruiter’s office, then to Korean Immigration, then my visa issuance gets sent to me, then I have to go to London to get the visa …

Ready to go, but still not able.

voivode

 A last lexeme from Dracula.

voi·vode /ˈvɔɪvoʊd/
-noun
(in Eastern European history) a local ruler or governor, esp. the semi-independent rulers of Transylvania, Wallachia, or Moldavia before c1700.

Also, vaivode.

[Origin: 1550-60; ≪ Slavic; cf. Pol wojewoda, Russ voevóda, Serbo-Croatian vȍj(e)voda, OCS vojevoda commander, governor (translating Gk hégemn and stratégós), equiv. to voj- base of voinŭ warrior + -e- var. (after j) of -o- -o- + -voda, n. deriv. of voditi to lead; vaivode < Hungarian vajvoda (now vajda) < Slavic]

 Source: Dictionary.com.

qua

 Another word from Dracula.

qua /kweɪ, kwɑ/
-adverb as; as being; in the character or capacity of: The work of art qua art can be judged by aesthetic criteria only.

[Origin: 1640-50; < L quā fem. abl. sing. of quī who]

 Source: Dictionary.com.

ptomaine

 More vampiric verbiage.

pto·maine /ˈtoʊmeɪn, toʊˈmeɪn/
-noun any of a class of foul-smelling nitrogenous substances produced by bacteria during putrefaction of animal or plant protein: formerly thought to be toxic.

[Origin: 1875-80; < It ptomaina < Gk ptôma corpse + It -ina -ine]

-Related forms
pto·main·ic, adjective

Source: Dictionary.com.

sperm

 If I remember rightly, this word is used in Dracula in the context of wax dripping down a candle.

Sper`ma*ce”ti\, n. [L. sperma sperm + cetus,gen. ceti, any large sea animal, a whale, Gr. ???. See Sperm, Cetaceous.] A white waxy substance obtained from cavities in the head of the sperm whale, and used making candles, oilments, cosmetics, etc. It consists essentially of ethereal salts of palmitic acid with ethal and other hydrocarbon bases. The substance of spermaceti after the removal of certain impurities is sometimes called cetin.

Source: Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary quoted on Dictionary.com.

Review of Iron Man

When I finally got to the front of the queue at Manchester’s Odeon cinema and asked for a ticket yesterday it was about 2:15. Screenings began every hour so I asked for a ticket for two o’clock - on the basis that there’d be ten minutes each of adverts and trailers before the film started. The ticket person said I’d miss the first five minutes of the film; I didn’t think he was right about that, but anyway I deferred to his infinite wisdom and got a ticket for three. It was actually a good move. I had time to use the toilet first, and then the trailers constitued a geek’s wet dream. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, The Dark Knight, Prince Caspian and The Incredible Hulk … mmm.

Robert Downey Jr as a superhero is an unlikely bit of casting, but it works perfectly. Jeff Bridges in his role is also none too obvious, but he too was great, and, with his full beard and shaven head looked positively archetypal as the evil industrialist. In fact, facial hair seems to be a major theme in Iron Man - there’s a full range of moustaches, goatees and beards.

The best part of the film is the first half, where Stark is kidnapped by the Afgan terrorists and begins transforming himself into Iron Man. His tests, helped - and hindered - by the AI that runs his house are certainly the movie’s comedic highlight. The crux of the story, where Stark realises the true intent of his business partner, didn’t work so well for me. From then on, the story loses some of its emotional and narrative dynamic and just becomes a lead up to a fight scene between two men in exoskeletons.

And then that fight didn’t seem all that good. After spending so much time on Stark’s journey to superhero-hood, this climactic scene felt as if it had been condensed to prevent the film as a whole being too long. Also, sitting in the fourth row from the front, I wasn’t best-placed to see it. The antagonists fill the screen and the action is so fast that it often appears as a big blur.

In fact, all the action scenes were fairly modest. After the pyrotechnics of Die Hard 4.0 and the robotic choreography of Transformers last year, action films have a new benchmark - and Iron Man doesn’t reach it.

But it is very good - it’s engaging, it’s humorous, it looks a million dollars … well, make that about $200 milion (not counting the dye on Downey’s moustache in the close-up shots). And if you stay right to the end fo the credits you get to see Samuel L Jackson as Nick Fury providing a prelude to the sequel (although I don’t believe the rumours that it will be a Rastafarian-themed film entitled I an’ Iron Man).

Review of Double Solitaire by Melinda M Snodgrass

This chapter of the Wild Cards saga employs the now-familiar technique of dividing the narrative in two and presenting the bifurcated story in separate volumes. It’s happened before in this series (books six and seven) and George R R Martin has also done it with the last and next volumes of A Song of Ice and Fire. Here in Wild Cards book ten the story leaves Earth and moves to Takis, home of Dr Tachyon and destination of his sociopathic grandson.

Tachyon, or Tisianne to give him is Takisian moniker, was previously jumped into the body of a young woman called Kelly. This body was then raped by his grandson, Blaise - so now Tachyon is heavily pregnant with his own great-granddaughter. (Melinda Snodgrass uses pronouns appropriate to the bodies of Tachyon and Kelly. While this doesn’t cause any confusion (except occasionally for the characters themselves), I would have thought the mind is more important than the body.) Also along for the ride are Jay Ackroyd and Mark Meadows - two of the most likable characters in the world of the Wild Card virus.

Unlike any of the preceeding volumes, Double Solitaire has only one author, and the resulting unified narrative addresses my previous complaint about the linked short story format. On the other hand, earlier on in the series, Snodgrass did strike me as probably the weakest writer of the Wild Cards team. Her turn of phrase tends towards cliché, and something about the way she portrays characters seems a bit superficial - too much like easy soap opera weepiness.

Double Solitaire isn’t bad, but none of the Wild Cards books I’ve read recently have lived up to the high standards of the earlier volumes. I’ve already started on book eleven (which runs parallel to book ten, and tells the story of Bloat and the Rox back on Earth), though, and, from the first 30 or so pages, it looks like the return to form I’ve been waiting for.

May the fourth be with us

While I may be the most famous person to have been born on the fourth of May, some other notable personages share my birthday:

1825: Thomas Henry Huxley. Any hero of evolutionary theory is a hero of mine. Actually, I barely know anything about him.

1923: Eric Sykes. Comedy hero.

1928: Hosni Mubarak. Persident of Egypt. I remember some years ago hearing a news story about Egyptians being arrested for no other apparent reason than they were heavy metal fans. Mubarak isn’t a hero, then.

1929: Audrey Hepburn. Cinematic heroine. The only Hepburn film I can remember watching is My Fair Lady; more prominent in my mind are the Alistair McGowan sketches featuring Ronni Ancona as the Anglo-Dutch cigarette holder-holding pixie.

1937: Dick Dale. Guitar hero of Dick Dale and the Del-Tones fame. You know ‘Misirlou’? No? Well, yes, you do. That music from Pulp Fiction. That guitar thing. That’s Dick Dale. (Although he didn’t write the piece.)

1940: Robin Cook. Not the late Labour political hero, but the cheesy medical thriller hero.

1951: Mick Mars. Another guitar hero, this time of Mötley Crüe.

1952: Michael Barrymore. Light entertainment hero and pool party anti-hero.

1968: Julian Barratt. Comedy hero - of The Mighty Boosh fame. I’ve never actually seen The Mighty Boosh, but a fellow Englishman in Ansan showed me a compilation of Moon clips. They were fairly amusing.

So there you have it. Next year I’ll do famous events.

Happy birthday, fucker

… To quote one of my favourite Faith No More songs.

Yes, today is my birthday - well, by the time anyone reads this it’ll be yesterday.

I hadn’t planned on doing anything in particular - all my friends live in distant lands (like the south of England), and I don’t have much money or motivation to make an event of the day. I spoke to my friend Lawrence on the phone on Saturday and he suggested doing something, however minimal - giving myself a little treat. I considered going to see Iron Man (which I will do anyway, because it’s the kind of thing that really needs to be seen on the big screen. The trailer excites me - if only because of the great music - I mean, it has Black Sabbath’s ‘Iron Man’! Obvious, but frackin’ cool), but it was raining. And it’ll be cheaper to go during the week.

So instead I watched the last six or seven episodes of season three of Battlestar Galactica. Quite enjoyable. I may - or may not - get round to writing a post about the series at some point.

Apart from that, it hasn’t been the most joyous of weekends. The reason being that on Friday night my sister’s new boyfriend came round to tell me off for being here. On the two occasions when I’ve spoken to him, my overriding impression has been one of stupidity. To be more specific, he swears far too much and he speaks over me when I reply to him. He’s spent the last two or three weekends here having sex with my sister, while my niece and nephew are at their dad’s house. Being woken up by the bed banging and your sister moaning in the next room is … kind of annoying.

So his message was one of wanting privacy, telling me I was taking the piss by staying here so long, and that I should hurry up and take the job I’d been offered. The really annoying thing is that he’s not far from the truth on the second of those issues. My sister has been very generous letting me stay here, and, while I haven’t been dwelling on it, I’ve felt a sense of awkwardness that the visa process is taking so long.

I have, though, been dwelling on the confrontation between him and me. My first thought was that he was speaking on behalf of my sister. She’s never hinted at anything like this, and it didn’t make sense that she was getting him to do her dirty work for her. But then she might be scared of confronting me with it (I know I would be) - although, she’s always seemed quite assertive to me. But then I considered that he may well just be speaking for himself, so he can ‘frack’ her without an eavesdropper next door (… when I say ‘eavesdropper’ I mean, only by virtue of happening to be there when it’s happening … I’ve been taking the dog on some long walks these last two weekends).

I also thought of asking my sister about this. My reasoning now is that if the latter of the two theories above is true, then I don’t want to cause further problems. The truth is I’m just scared of an awkward conversation.

As for the last part of his message - hurry up and get a job - well, that’s just telling me to do what I’m already doing. Nevertheless, I did send a few more e-mails to recruiters on Friday and Saturday. I also e-mailed my Korean recruiter-cum-fiancée-of-a-friend to see what was happening about the job I’d had the interview for. She said she’d sent my comments on the contract to the school, and addressed some of them herself, and they should reply on Tuesday.

I have a feeling I’m going to be accepting that job. Part of me just wants to take the first offer that comes along - part of me wants to refuse it just to spite the abovementioned individual (… of the male variety). It’d be somewhat amusing if I agreed to work there and then they said they wanted me to start in July.

No news is - the absence of news

Having received a contract on Wednesday, I posted it on the contract review thread on Dave’s ESL Café. And got some off-putting comments on it. The person commenting concluded, ‘I needed a really good laugh and this was it. Terrible terrible contract. Run! No amount of correction will change that. Move on.’

The thing about the ESL Café is that some of the most prolific posters are rather cynical. I worried about it for a while, and settled on two opposite opinions: a badly written contract isn’t a good augur, and yet it may only be a symptom of inept contract-writing and the feedback I had from the foreign teacher at the hagwon is perhaps a better guide. Being in two minds, I didn’t want to either accept it unconditionally or reject it out of hand.

So late last night I wrote an e-mail to my recruiter, Mi Young, pointing out some of the problems and suggesting improvements. It’s been nearly 24 hours now, and I’ve had no response. Presumably, she forward my comments to the hagwon and they haven’t given a response yet. No other news to report.

Except that I bought a couple of pairs of shoes yesterday. My primary footwear for the last few months are the cheap boots that served me well in Canada and India, but are getting increasingly worn away on the bottom - so much so, that the water that’s entered through the holes in the soles provides an almost permanent squelch. So I got a new pair of boots - brown, laceless - and a pair of blue sneakers. The latter I’ve tied loosely enough that I can put them on and take them off without bothering with the laces - this will be especially useful in Korea, where taking your shoes off is a way of life.