Movie Meme: Dystopia Edition

I found this on the blog of another foreign teacher, ::A Geek in Korea:::

Copy the list and BOLD the movies you have seen. Post yours in the comments, or on your own blog.

1. Metropolis (1927)
   
2. A Clockwork Orange (1971)
   
3. Brazil (1985)
   
4. Wings of Desire (1987)
   
5. Blade Runner (1982)
   
6. Children of Men (2006)
   
7. The Matrix (1999)
   
8. Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981)
   
9. Minority Report (2002)
   
10. Delicatessen (1991)
    
11. Sleeper (1973)
    
12. The Trial (1962)
    
13. Alphaville (1965)
    
14. Twelve Monkeys (1995)
    
15. Serenity (2005)
    
16. Pleasantville (1998)
    
17. Ghost in the Shell (1995)
    
18. Battle Royale (2000)
    
19. RoboCop (1987)
    
20. Akira (1988)
    
21. The City of Lost Children (1995)
    
22. Planet of the Apes (1968)
    
23. V for Vendetta (2005)
    
24. Metropolis (2001)
    
25. Gattaca (1997)
    
26. Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
    
27. On The Beach (1959)
    
28. Mad Max (1979)
    
29. Total Recall (1990)
    
30. Dark City (1998)
    
31. War Of the Worlds (1953)
    
32. District 13 (2004)
    
33. They Live (1988)
    
34. THX 1138 (1971)
    
35. Escape from New York (1981)
    
36. A Scanner Darkly (2006)
    
37. Silent Running (1972)
    
38. Artificial Intelligence: AI (2001)
    
39. Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)
    
40. A Boy and His Dog (1975)(www.archive.org)
    
41. Soylent Green (1973)
    
42. I, Robot (2004)
    
43. Logan’s Run (1976)
    
44. Strange Days (1995)
    
45. Idiocracy (2006)
    
46. Death Race 2000 (1975)
    
47. Rollerball (1975)
    
48. Starship Troopers (1997)
    
49. One Point O (2004)
    
50. Equilibrium (2002)

Original list is from Top 50 Dystopian Movies of All Time at Snarkerati, an interesting looking movie new site that I have yet to investigate.

Geek adds: "This is my favorite type of genre film. I can’t wait till I finish reading The Road and it is released as a movie."

It's my favourite type of movie, too. I think most geeks enjoy watching dystopian films because they're usually about how technology and the future are going to be awful. Many geeks have suffered at the hands of the technology they love and seeing get beaten on and maligned this way appeals to some sense of schadenfreude. Another theme that appeals to geeks is the abuse of technology (and associated freedoms) by authorities that don't understand it.

I have seen almost everything on this list but it's far from a complete listing of dystopian themes in film. Bunker Palace Hotel is one I've watched recently, hard to find but a good film. Another great one is Richard III. Or Kafka, a simply awesome film. There are lots of these films, maybe it's a sign of our impotent frustrations in dealing with modern bureaucracy.

Hmmm, cobwebs...

Wow, I hadn't realized that I hadn't posted anything here for so long!

I've been back in Korea for about three weeks now. The weather's hot and humid but I don't find it as bad as last year. I rarely use the air conditioning even though it's 30c and 90% humidity.

Work is about the same as before. It takes a little getting used to teaching at 6:30am but it's part of my routine.

I've been just getting settled and so on and haven't had time to do much really. I did go to a bar on Texas Street this Wednesday past with my friend Lynn. We went to the place I usually only go for breakfast and coffee, Amby's. The lady who owns it os married to a Norwegian guy named Alfred, they were really nice and they can get sour cream (it's a big deal to find stuff like that around here!)

Anyway, I'll start posting more regularly when I'm more settled next month and have a desk and a chair. Right now my furniture and all my living stuff is locked in the apartment of a couple of friends who are on holiday until August. I packed a "crash box" for my return and left it at the school, it had a couple of pots and a few odds and ends and a generous helping of shorts and Hawaiian shirts. I'm sleepins on a 'yo', a traditional Korean floor sleeping mat. It's kinda rough at first, it's basically just a thin cushion, but after a day or two I feel comfortable on it. It's pretty good for your back, sleeping on the floor.

That's it for now. More later.

Home for a rest

I've been home for about ten days now and I'm getting a good bit of rest. I've quit smoking and given up drinking altogether (except for the odd glass of wine) and I've been getting lots of sleep and eating better. Now if the weather would cooperate just a little I'd be out doing some fishing and hiking.

Looks like I'll have to suck it up and go out in the 5c wind and rain though if I'm going to get my requisite fresh air and exercise. Ah well, I've still got 40 days or so to go.

The flight over wasn't too bad, I dosed myself with Gravol and slept through most of it. The worst part of the trip was my 8 hour layover in Pearson Airport. Don't ask me why, 'cause I can't really put my finger on it, but I think Pearson is the most sterile and inhuman feeling airport I've ever been in. Plus Ialways seem to have the longest layovers there. I think that Air Canada and Pearson Airport are likely owned by the devil to give living Canadians a tate of what Hell must be like: unannounced delays and cancellations and long dull periods of waiting, at least fire and brimstone would be a bit festive and interesting.

I stayed at 'Juergen's' for a few days before taking the bus out here to Comfort Cove. The bus ride out was like 6 hours of unintentional massage, I don't think that wheel-balancing is on the menu at the bus service depot for DRL coachlines.

My plans were momentarily disrupted by a planned two weeks of housesitting for Juergen suddenly being cancelled without warning. Fortunately it wasn't too late to take Will and Julie up on a week of housesitting I had turned down earlier. I'll head back to St. John's on Tuesday to pick up my gear and move it over to Will's place for a week or two with some hiking and fishing on the agenda. So, I have a place to stay in town for a week or so, a couple of fishing trips to look forward to and hopefully a couple of overnights when the weather turns warmer. My cousin Byron and I have planned some boating and fishing here around Comfort Cove in June when I come back up.

Last night Byron and I toasted some of his dried capelin over a fire in the yard. I'll have to take a bag or two back to Korea when I go, along with some other Newfoundland produce like blueberry wine and such rarities.

That's enough blather for now. That's pretty much all the news I've got. Stuff is status quo, I'm getting a bunch of rest, acting and feeling healthier and planning some much needed roaming and fishing.

What's Monk Been Doing?

Well, I know that some of you still look here now and again, so you must be wondering what I've been doing the past while.

The short answer is "not much". Well, nothing crazy, anyway. I have gone out to dinner a few times. Galbi with Captain Im, a great guy who attends my adult classes in the mornings. He's invited me out for dinner with his family a couple of times, a couple of weeks ago we went out for galbi (barbecued marinated beef short ribs) that is possibly some of the best barbecue I've ever tasted. Seyoung took me out for samgyeopsal this weekend past, we always have a good time. She also made me a tasty pound cake and some banana bread. She started a teaching job a couple of weeks ago and she bakes when she gets stressed out, lucky for me :D

I think that Korean barbecue is possibly my favourite style of dining. Everyone sits around a little tabletop grill and cooks little pieces of marinated meat or seafood. There are endless little dishes of, well, side-dishes (banchan) and everything is shared. Awesomely friendly, usually lively and often involving lots of drinking. I recommend it highly. Maybe in a few years when I settle down somewhere I'll open my own galbi house.

Cherry Blossom Season

It's officially one month 'til I board the plane back to my cold and soggy homeland. It's starting to get warm here in Korea. The cherry blossoms have arrived and some of the broad avenues of the city are lined with pink-white blooms. It's kinda hard to go home when I know I have 2 months of what amounts to Korean winter (hehe), but at least most of the snow will be gone when I get there. I bit of leisurely tromping in the woods and some trouting will take my mind off the weather.

I'll try and grab a pic of one of the roads lined with cherry blossoms before they fall.

Crime and Punishment (sort of)

Here's a pic of a couple of my students in a typical pose.


When Korean kids misbehave they're put into this "hands up" posture for punishment. They really hate it and it is very effective at bringing the unruly crowd to heel. Not that I run any kind of super-strict classroom but the kids sometimes go a little crazy or can't stop making a racket. As you can see in the photo they're kind of smirking a bit 'cause I snapped their picture with my phonecam.

Sometimes I used to yell at the students but this has little effect on those intent on mischief and upsets the "good" students. (I have the voice of a drill sergeant, you can hear me all over my (small) school when I do cut loose.) I've been avoiding yelling at all for quite a while, but sometimes it's still called for. You can only say "Please be quiet" so many times under the din in the classroom before a dramatic increase in decibels is called for.

Other more creative "punishments" include having the misbehaving student sit at my desk for the class. This has two effects: they don't like it and are less likely to "do something to have to sit next to Rod-teacher" next time and they actually seem to get some studying done. It's funny, sometimes the students who have had the "front-row special" for a couple of classes start sitting in the front of the class on their own. I think it might be because they get a bit more positive attention about actually doing their classroom exercises.

When they get the "hands up" punishment it's usually for something like repeated outbursts in class, being a complete lunatic in the hallway or for something more serious. I usually place them at the end of my hallway by the front desk where the director can see them. They get scolded by teachers passing by if their behaviour was really bad. Usually a 5 minute application of justice is enough of a reminder and they are then invited back to class. I haven't had to do it very often for the past couple of months but a sudden influx of new students had a reaction similar to something you'd see in a prison yard scene from Shawshank Redemption.

What's really funny is that the kids who are the "worst offenders" (they aren't bad kids, they just need time outs now and then) are some of the kids who bond with me the most. They usually end up being much better students after a while, too. I've also noticed that the "smarter" students are also, more often than not, the ones who are more prone to mischief. Or at least that's the way it seems.

Anyway, I know that if I did anything like this in a school back home I'd be keelhauled. I'll be damned if I see anything wrong with this style of punishment though. A little instructive contemplation and redirection does wonders for classroom order.

[sob] I'm a MONSTER!! [sob]

So why the hell do the little buggers climb all over me and stick to me like fly paper all the time? Damned if I'll ever figure it out. I'll have to have some of my own sometime to see if I can figure it out.

It's spring and the sap is rising...

So in the interest of gracing this planet with my existence for a few years longer I've decided to repent of some of my wicked ways. My bad habits aren't what you'd call extreme but lately I've been feeling a bit run down. Step one is curbing my terrible long-standing sleeping hours. Almost non-existent. I have been habitually going to bed at 3 a.m. for so long that it's the time that my internal clock has set itself to, making it very difficult to reset myself to a normal daily routine. I don't have circadian rhythms so much as circadian syncopation, everything seems a little out of phase, almost, but not quite, somnambulistic.

After that I'll have to give up my other nasty habits. Which I won't enumerate here for fear of harming the kiddies. I will say that I've been working on this for a while now and though I haven't exactly succeeded, I haven't given up trying either. Who knew what a fight it would be to do something that you know is only going to be really good for you.