Intrepid Girl Reporter

Let’s start with a few fun facts. Shall we?

• The band Rachel’s comes from Louisville. I had no idea. I didn’t know about Will Oldham, either. This news brings me both pride and nostalgia for what is more or less my hometown. (Although it is not where I live now. That’s somewhere else.)
• Following The Boxer, Daniel Day-Lewis took a leave of absence from acting by putting himself into “semi-retirement” and returning to his old passion of woodworking. He moved to Florence, Italy, where he became intrigued by the craft of shoemaking, eventually apprenticing as a shoemaker for a time while his exact whereabouts and actions were not made publicly known. While, as a consequence, little of these events are known, it has been rumoured that Day-Lewis, in return for room and board, instructed the master cobbler in acting. It has further been suggested that, following Day-Lewis’ departure, the shoemaker took up a career as a traveling Commedia dell’Arte performer. Day-Lewis has refused to comment on the subject, simply stating that “Laurencino [the shoemaker] was a man of many gifts”.
• Sandra Oh wears a hanbok-inspired dress!* (And it’s on GoFugYourself.com. What do you think about that, Korea?)

The speed with which pinkeye is spreading through My School is both staggering and disgusting. While the most significant outbreak occurred last week, and I thought we had maybe eradicated it, two second graders came up to me yesterday and pointed to their eyes with an expression that can only be described as delight. I haven’t worn contacts for a month because I can think of about fifteen things I would rather do with my time than get an eye disease. Ew. (I am also avoiding touching my students, which is difficult, as they seem to want to constantly high-five me.)

This week I taught a lesson borrowed from a Program kid in Gyeongju that was based off Korea’s own national treasure, Muhan Dojeon, a show which translates to “Infinite Challenge” and bears the unique honor of being Soccer’s second favorite television show, after Mary Tyler Moore. I was anticipating the lesson being – well, if not infinitely challenging, then challenging enough – but much to my surprise, some of my worst classes have taken to acting it out quite well. Some of the others prefer screaming. Whatever floats your boat.

I’m still trying to get all my job applications done, specifically the AmeriCorps application, which I have filled out, in whole or in part, no less than seven times, only to have their computers keep eating it. Do you think they’re trying to tell me something? I alternate between feeling like I’m surviving and like I’m thriving. Some days the mosquito trap in my room works, and other days I come home to find that not only has HM unplugged it, but she has also let bananas rot to the point that small fruit flies have taken over the kitchen.

*I would like to state for the record that I do not think hanbok are flattering. I just don’t. They’re neat-looking, and they can be pretty in and of themselves, but the fact that this modernist take on it still doesn’t work is a testimony to the garment’s innate inability to flatter. Not that I’m biased or anything, but I feel pretty strongly that the garment of my people is both more attractive and less baggy.

Figure A: the ao dai

Figure B: the hanbok, for serious

Your call.