I just read a note on SOHH about Cee-lo of the Goodie Mob making the nominations for the shortlist awards. While I wasn’t overly impressed by “… His Perfect Misperfections” I do think he is an amazing artist and I will be digging through my CDs to give it another shot.

If you have never heard Goodie Mob’s first album, “Soul Food”, then you should go pick it up today. Now!

Although I just posted a monstrously long negative rant about a horrible experience I had tonight, there are a lot of positive things in my life right now too.

Probably the most important of these things is that I am getting married.

At the moment it looks like the wedding will be held sometime this winter, possibly in December. I?ll keep you up to date.

Maybe…

I love Korea. Generally my life has been pretty good here, in many ways even better than it was in Canada. Also, the Korean people have been quite good to me as well. And then one person comes along and almost ruins my image of Korea.

I am a pretty easy going person. I never bother people, interrupt people, harass people, I usually stick to myself. I am very respectful to Koreans; although I may not agree with some of their customs I follow them and do my best to be a good citizen here.

Along came ?Mr. I?m Better Than You? and his broken English which he is overly proud of. First he interrupts me to give him an English definition of my PDA which I am playing solitaire on. I know now that I should have just ignored him, but as I am Canadian I feel like it is kind of in my nature to be polite and help someone when I can. So I briefly told him what it was but he wanted a more complex definition, which I wasn?t about to give him since I had just finished work and I wasn?t getting paid to be a walking dictionary. Then he proceeded to ask me questions that where none of his business such as what I do in Korea and if I have a girlfriend. Now I know that I should have just ignored him again here but as I was on a very busy train and I didn?t want to cause any problems I went along with it and told him things that he had no right to know. Then he went on to critize me for having a job that ?has no merit? and calling me a ?thief? for having a Korean girlfriend. He also made a completely unacceptable comment against his own people as he suggested that my girlfriend was probably out with another mad if she was interested in a foreigner. I openly told him that I disagreed with him and that he can believe whatever he wants. And I completely understand that at this point that it is my fault for letting this go on. Even though people have the right to have opinions and free speech, it is also my right to have freedom from harassment and I should have just put my headphones back in. However, I did not.
Things progressed along the same lines for a while. He told me that he was planning on going to Australia to study and asked what he should do to prepare his English. I openly told him that he needs to relax and calm down. He replied, ?Take it easy?? To which I gave him a definite, ?Yes!? Apparently he did not get the hint and continued to ask about how well Koreans speak English and to give him evidence to back my opinion. To which I told him that it is my experience and that I need no evidence to have an opinion when I have direct experience. He asked me to give him an example of common speech and I gave him a ridiculous idiom, ?Go fly a kite!? And then I told him a simple explanation to which he did not catch my drift. Many times during this conversation did I go back to playing solitaire or staring out the window and he would continue to show his small mind by saying negative things as I looked at him in disgust and began to pity him for having so much unjustified self-confidence. When I finally arrived at my transfer point and he made another attempt at criticizing my Korean accent he proceeded to tell me to have a good day, even though it was nearly midnight, as I walked away without giving him so much as a last glimpse.

To make a long story short, I guess I had to experience the racism and closed minds in Korea eventually however I never expected it to be so pathetic and in an attempt to prove superior intelligence. I accept much of the blame for this event however since I possessed the power to walk away or ignore him at any point and I did not. I let my good nature get the best of me. I learned a valuable lesson tonight, one that I will not soon forget and I hope it does not affect my dealings with Koreans in the future. Also, this man was only one year older than me, which is not what I expected from someone of my own generation. I guess I was na?ve for thinking that people today couldn?t be as racist as they once were.

Well going back to work has kind of put a cramp in my style. I don’t have that much time to do the things I like to do, namely hang out in front of the computer for hours on end. I’m working 2PM-9:40PM now but I always have to go into work early to get my classes ready. Plus I have to travel an hour each way on the train.
Anyway, a week or two ago I got a new Lite-On LTD-163 DVD-Rom and it works great. The first thing I did was flash it to be region free even though I don’t have any DVDs other than region 3. I guess that’s just the geek in me. And then on Saturday I went and got a new Lite-On 48x CDRW. Now this was kind of dumb. I really should have bought the 40x or even the 32x if it was available. I haven’t been able to get any reliable 48x media and the burning difference between 32x and 48x is only a few seconds. So if you want to take my advice, don’t buy a 48x, especially since some Lite-On drives can be overclocked to 48x with a simple flash.
Back to ripping and burning…

I forgot to notice that I have passed the 100th blog mark. This is actually my 105th blog. Yay for me!

Well I return to work in about 4 hours. I work from 12PM to 10PM now but I have 3 hours off during that time. It shouldn’t be that bad except I won’t get home until late.
I’ll keep ya up to date.

P.S.
I didn’t even notice the typhoon.