Surprise! We're going hiking!

One of the best bits of advice I received about teaching in Korea was to maintain a flexible attitude and be prepared for abrupt and last minute changes. In the States, if a friend/boss/lover was constantly changing plans on you at the last minute, it would be taken as a sign of disrespect.  When a person changes the agenda at the last minute, he/she is saying that your time is expendable.  Sure, occasionally legitimate problems create unavoidable cancellations, etc., but if someone is constantly making and breaking plans or relying on you to come through at the last minute, they are treating you like a doormat.  (Even if they don't realize they are doing this; they could be well-intentioned, lazy, or used to getting their way.) In Korea, at least in the public school...

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Thursday was stupid.

I was going to write this post on Thursday, and title it "Today was stupid," but, in accordance with the stupidity of the day, I never got around to it. I've been spending my free time making my way through some of the classics that I never read, and I'm currently in the middle of Portrait of a Lady. I had no idea of the magnitude of my undertaking until I went to a bookstore yesterday and saw how thick the paperback edition is.  Kindle Deception.  In Portrait, James uses the word "stupid" in the old-fashioned ways; tediously dull, or alternatively: dazed. When I say that my Friday was stupid, I am being fully up to date in my vernacular.  I mean stupid.  As in the word sandwiched between "dumb" and "annoying" when you and your siblings insulted each other as children. Now...

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