Been busy and stuff. More on Community building

first of all, posts are taking longer now that I resize photos to take up less space. Blogger only gives me a finite amount of space for posting pictures.

Second: been busy preparing logic and rhetoric and public speaking curricula for a really cool class who wants to learn about the art of persuasion. It's been interesting reading up on that stuff. It's also interesting how, back in the days of the greeks, logic and rhetoric were considered part of the same field, where now, logic is usually considered the domain of philosophy or sometimes science, and rhetoric would more likely be found on a languages, composition, communications or media course calendar. Plus, logic is generally trusted, but rhetoric has that slight taint of mistrust.

Anyway, it's been interesting reading up on it. Really interesting. Like, "I might want to pursue something like this in a postgraduate way" interesting, but hard packaging that in a way that will get my students to talk about it, rather than in a way that gets ME lecturing about it.

So, until then... saw this really cool video on facebook. Turns out they totally captured Michael Jackson's ghost on camera when Larry King Live sent some cameras to the jackson mansion.

Warning: not for the jittery. Dad, don't watch this. Everybody else: the audio's a bit low on the clip, so it's better if you turn the volume up.


next:

After being a bit disappointed by the level of response I had to the Community posts I seriously spent all month writing, it looks like things are looking up. Chris in SK responded with a great post, and now Ask the Expat has picked up the ball, and has proposed getting the K-bloggers together, to start with, in order to position ourselves to have a larger and more positive impact in the community at large. He also suggested in a comment that some of the long-termers living in various regions take on a more prominent role in getting the expats in their areas involved in community reachouts at a more organized, formalized level, in order to build up some goodwill and positive PR to counteract the negative press (that's right: he's not just starting an exclusive bloggers-only club: there's an endgame here that's more inclusive, if I'm reading correctly, and if that's not part of the plan, if elected as president, I'll push for it). By that same token, I remember hearing (though I can't remember where) that AFEK was working on pulling together an outreach-type event involving AFEK members and their families, and maybe inviting the press. If Mike Y or other AFEK members read this, would you care to share a progress report with the rest of KBlogLand? I for one, would love to hear how your community is developing.

In other community news, ATEK is having presidential elections. I'll write more about that when I have some time, at The Hub of Sparkle. There are currently two candidates for president, unless things have changed since before. I have more to say about that, but I'll save it for the full write-up.

Aaaaaand... some of those resized pictures for you.

Rather than get into hot water by commenting on the way this ad pretty egregiously uses sex to sell... wine, I think... though it might be engine oil... I'll just wait for Gomushin girl to explain why it's better than the other ads that use sex to sell in the comments.

Been taking nice pictures lately.
Around the blue house compound, west of Gyungbok palace:
this was actually the square where Park Chung-hee was assassinated.

Next: you may or may not have seen the Kim Yuna ads at Smoothie King. I don't know how being white ties in with drinking the yuna smoothie, but several people bought one while I waited in line.

In other "be white" news, I needed something for a bit of razor burn I got from shaving too closely one morning before I went to meet Girlfriendoseyo. When I got to her house, I asked Girlfriendoseyo if she had anything for dry or irritated skin, and she couldn't find one bottle of balm or lotion WITHOUT whitener in it.
More nice clouds. This time near samchungdong.
And the last thing I'll share today: I've always loved the way a bright sun filters through layered tree leaves. Always. Well, I was bopping around Ewha Women's University with Girlfriendoseyo, and stopped under some absolutely perfect trees, on what might have been the brightest and hottest day of the summer, and snagged these amazing pictures. The original files are maximum size, and they're amazing, and we're totally blowing them up and framing them to put up and reflect upon, on those days when the busy city and smoggy traffic is just too much to handle.




have a good one, readers.