magnetonic

number of law school rejections to date: 2 (UofT, UWO).

number of law schools remaining: 5.

Posted by f r e d at 7:00 PM in grind | Permalink | Comments (1)

So I'm sitting at home doing not much at all, and I keep hearing scraping sounds from outside. I wasn't sure what it was, but I never bothered to get up off the sofa.

I finally took a look and saw something quite impressive. A large number of apartment residents are out there clearing the parking lot and connecting driveways between them. There's a thick layer of hard packed snow everywhere and they're out there with picks and shovels clearing it all away. Apparently there was an announcement on the complex PA system calling for volunteers to help with the clearing. They've got bare concrete showing now. Again, it's quite impressive.

In other news, my left hand is really stiff. I think it's arthritic.

Posted by f r e d at 5:15 PM in ruminations | Permalink | Comments (3)

This country is really strange. Now, they don't get nearly as much snow as, say, any city in Ontario, but they do get snow, and they've been getting snow for the thousand or so years people have been on the peninsula. In my year and a half here, I've seen about three big snowfalls. Yesterday's was the biggest by far. Perhaps even in my life. Back to the point. I am going to generalise this to Korea, but it may only be my city, or others like it, who knows.

The strange thing is: absolutely no one is prepared for even the smallest amount of snow.

Now, I don't mean snow that melts as it touches concrete and glass, but an amount enough to cover the ground and to warrant a bit of shovelling.

Here is a list of things that I observed which shall serve to illustrate my point:

• I did not observe any one of the millions of people who live in this city (the sixth largest in Korea) with a proper snow shovel. I've seen small pointy-ended shovels, like those you see in the movies for digging graves. I've seen people use dust pans. The MacGyver award goes to the building maintainence workers who have long wooden sticks nailed to a rectangular board. Granted if there are no shops that will sell snow shovels I can understand this. But with the number of apartment building complexes in this country that need walks and lots cleared, I can now imagine the green ones rolling in as I sell my $20 Canadian Tire shovels at 100%+ profit from the back of a rented truck across the country.
• No effort whatsoever is taken to melt the existing snow. No sand, no salt. Actually, I did see one guy hosing down a driveway. Smart move. I guess road salt is perhaps a luxury in Canada, but still. Though I should mention that they do salt the highways here.
• Drivers also do not know how to handle snow. Some friends mentioned that they had helped a number of people push their cars out of the snow, but then the driver would stop the car and get out to say thank you, thus getting their car stuck again. Snow/all-season tires are as rare as shovels, as are proper ice scrapers and squeegees/brushes. I've seen people use just their hands, or a piece of stiff paper or cardboard.

Unfortunately, yesterday evening it warmed up and a lot of the snow began melting and through the night the temperature then dropped, coating everything in ice. It should be interesting trying to get anywhere today.

Posted by f r e d at 12:41 PM in ruminations | Permalink | Comments (0)

We've got a near-biblical snow storm going on here. It's not fierce, but purposeful. Chunks of snow are as big as ping pong balls. You can't see more than a few hundred metres ahead.

UPDATE (2004.03.06 at 11:15 AM): Let me rephrase that: it's not a storm, because there's no wind. It's just heavy snowfall. Fifty centimetres worth in 12 hours. They say it's the heaviest snowfall in 100 years in Daejeon. This city got the most snow of the whole country.

Posted by f r e d at 9:05 AM in grind | Permalink | Comments (1)

it's the start of the korean school year. all of the kids starting a new school started today. that is, kids going to kindergarten, elementary, middle, and high school, and university for the first time, went today. as well, i have new classes. i now teach six-year olds (korean age, which means they are anywhere between 4 and 5) who have been learning english at this school for a year now. as you can imagine, my students are really, really small. they're cute, too. i'm hoping it'll be a fun time.

If you don't know anything about the so-called "Korean age," I'll explain as best I know.

For the nine months that you are in the womb, you are given credit the equivalent of one year. Thus, when you are born, you are one, Korean age.

At one hundred days of life, there is a big party.

When the new year comes along (either the solar or lunar, not sure which; it may depend on which birthday you celebrate), one year is added to your Korean age. On your birthday, one more year is not added. Thus, if you were born on December 31, 2003, then on January 1, 2004, one day later, you are two years old, Korean age.

Any Korean quoting you their Korean age will be giving you a number one or two years greater than their non-Korean age, or international age as we sometimes call it.

An easy way to remember: your Korean age is always at least one year more than your actual age. If you have not had your birthday yet in the current calendar year, your Korean age will be two years more than your actual age.

Some things I find strange: despite the norm of utilising the Korean age, when you have a birthday cake, the number of candles is one less than your Korean age, that is, it's the same as your actual age. The reason for this, or so I'm told, is that on a birthday cake, the number of candles corresponds ordinal number of the birthday you are celebrating, i.e. when you turn seven, you get six candles, because it's your sixth birthday. Since calculating Korean age is at best confusing, people tend to just quote the year they were born. Others can then compare your year of birth to theirs.

I am continually confused as to my age. I am 28. In Korean age, I'm 29. All last year, I quoted my Korean age, 28. So when I actually turned 28, I forgot to change my Korean age to 29 because I was so used to saying 28. Between January 1, 2004 and February 2, 2004, I was 27 international age and 29 Korean age. After my birthday, I didn't change my Korean age, buy my international age increased to 28. Confusing? I thought so. Now I usually just tell them I was born in '76.

Posted by f r e d at 10:57 PM in ruminations | Permalink | Comments (1)

i got my LSAT score.

it is not horribly good nor spectacularly bad.

it is 155, plus or minus 3.

it's percentile rank is 66.

it does not necessarily help my chances of getting into law school, nor does it necessarily hamper my chances of getting into law school.

it's pretty much average, i think.

Posted by f r e d at 5:19 PM in grind | Permalink | Comments (2)