Typhoon Kompasu

So, as a native Floridian and multiple Hurricane survivor, I feel like typhoons really aren't that big of a deal. Also, Typhoon Kompasu is named after a compass? What the fuck is that? Not intimidating at all (but then, Katrina isn't particularly intimidating, but you saw the damaged she did).

Yes, last night at about 4 a.m. I was woken up by mildly howling winds and light window shaking. But compared to the hurricanes I slept through in 2003 and 2004, I'd have to say it was nothing. The winds were strong, with gusts clocking in at nearly 60 mph. However, in August and September of 2004, the string of hurricanes named Charley, Ivan, Frances and Jeanne (cat. 4, 5, 4 & 3 respectively) all made landfall in Florida (Frances, the strongest, just skirted my hometown creating only some relatively minor damage, as did Charley). Ivan and Jeanne, however, hit dead on.

For meteorologic date regarding storms of that size, a category 3 hurricane has SUSTAINED winds (not gusts) of 110-130 mph and a cat. 5 hurricane (capable of causing what is called "catastrophic damage) has sustained winds of over 150 mph. As such, 60 mph is childs play by my standards.

Perhaps some of my fondest memories as a child were receiving hurricane days in elementary and middle school and being allowed outside during  tropical storms or the outer bands of low category hurricans (usually cat. 1) and flying those little parachute toy soldiers across our two-acre lot by standing on a small concrete wall and releasing them from a height of perhaps 10 to 12 feet. They flew shockingly far, and it was never my job to retrieve them, which made releasing them that much more fun. Category one hurricanes has sustained winds of 75-95 mph.

However, this typhoon was a bit frightening as it seems no one really prepares for them in any noticeable manner. In Florida, you will see windows boarded up days before the hurricane hits, and grocery market shelves are stripped bare of water, batteries, and non-perishable food items and attempts to prepare oneself for the possibility of days without electricity (I remember my senior year of high school having no electricity for the whole of one week, and with it, no running water to speak of. Imagine that, combined with several inches of standing water in your front yard providing a perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes, plus unforgivingly hot and sunny post hurricane weather, and only triscuits and chef boyardee to sustain you for one week). Here, no one boards up windows, no one protects their crops (granted, there are no crops to speak of here in Incheon) and no one creates any fuss at all.

Understandably so. It's just a real bad thunderstorm.

But that damn thunderstorm sure was a pain in the ass. At about 6 a.m. I woke up to the strongish winds and rain on my window. Then, as I was preparing for my day, the door connecting to the air conditioning utility room to the rest of my apartment blew open with a crash and a sudden woosh of warm humid air, thoroughly scaring the shit out of me. I lept up out of my desk chair and pushed it forcefully shut whereupon it immediately blew open yet again.

"Hmph," I thought, "This will not work"

And I pulled out the packing tape and I had used to save the day the last time this very thing happened to me. Alas, this time, it did not suffice. A mere 5 minutes later, the wind blew the door crashingly open again.

So, I decided enough was enough and moved my coffee table against the door, and then put my desk chair behind that, wedged between the coffee table and my bed. Problem solved.

That's it for now.

xoxo
A

The Hot List

Since Summer is finally here, and it's legitimately HOT outside (or has been until today), I figure it's time for another Hot List. I should do these more regularly, but I don't. This edition will run the gamut of topics, so hopefully you will enjoy:

1. The Rub: I literally discovered them today via the Johnny Cupcakes blog. This DJ crew is composed of DJ Ayres, DJ Eleven and Cosmo Baker. The threesome has been working together for about 8 years, and they are based in NYC. They spin full-time and make mixtapes basically for a living. I haven't been listening to them for long, but I'm already hooked. They mix hip-hop, funk, soul, rock, and other genres to make truly interesting mixes. They also are currently producing a series called the History of Hip-Hop. This series basically puts a group of the hottest songs from a single year into a single long-ass mix. The series starts with the year 1979, which was posted on their site back in December of 2007. Their most recent addition is 2003, which is a throwback to high school for me. I'm listening to the 1993 mix right now, which contains classics like Tribe's Award Tour, Wu-Tang's Protect Ya Neck, Method Man and Wu-Tang Clan Ain't Nothin to Fuck With, Snoop's Gin & Juice, TuPac's I Get Around, Cypress Hill's Insane in the Brain, and Souls of Mischief's 93 to Infinity (which Dumb and Wax sample in 2010 to Infinity), along with 39 other joints from that year. While I was only 6 years old in 1993, and certainly had never heard Wu-Tang, Snoop, or delaSoul when I was in first grade, my respect for these artists is immense. To hear them all on one track is pretty epic. All of their shit is available for download on their website. I really hope I can see one or more of them spin when I go to NYC this summer. Hopefully Diane/Amy/Sarah/someone will be down to check them out with me.

2. Rain: It's monsoon season here in Korea. Now, being from Florida, I'm no stranger to summer rains. In fact, in my personal experience, it (thus far) has rained far less here in Korea than it does each summer in Gainesville or Wellington. But, I appreciate much more here for various reasons. 1) my classes are no longer outdoors (LA classes at the ELI are outside and thus were moved every single day due to midday rainshowers). 2) it makes it significantly cooler in my un-air-conditioned classroom and office. 3) The students like rain a lot and are thus much happier/animated in my class. Plus, I just really like the rain. It's messy and wet and cool and it totally encourages casual behavior/dress. The only really unfortunate thing is that in my perpetual forgetfulness, I manage to consistently lose/leave at home my umbrella. So, in the last two weeks, I've bought three umbrellas. T_T

3. R16 Bboy Championships- OH MY GOD. It's this weekend. I've been on the website every day for the last 5 days just looking at the links and watching videos and checking out the pictures. I'm so stoked for this. I'm going to the pre-party with Words Run Dry and Dre. I'm also going with WRD to the bboy championships. I don't know if she knows it, but we are going eaaaaaaaaaarly to get good seats and be as close to the action as possible. I'm stoked as fuck. There will be an Urban Arts Festival at Olympic Park with graffiti exhibitions and bboy circles, along with a street market. Then, popping/locking battles on Saturday and Crew battles Sunday. ^______^ Tickets are still available at www.r16korea.com

4. FUEL- I just received a bunch of my FUEL gear from BoBo/parents. Everything is really great. It's unfortunate that I just now get the sweatshirt since it's really hot here. Also, more importantly, FUEL released their highlight video on youtube this past weekend and it's fucking awesome. Filled with layouts and skies and nasty d's (I've never seen so many handblocks in a highlight video in my life), it makes me so proud to be a FUEL alumna. Anyways, you watch the video here, and check out their other highlights which I've posted here but deserve more hits.

5. Taeyang's Solar Album: My Young-Bae is dropping his first full-length solo album tomorrow. I've got my copy reserved at ShinNara Records at the Shinsegae near Arts Center. I'm the 60th person in Incheon to reserve it. Clearly I'm a superfan. Anyways, YG has been releasing a 1 minute sample of songs every day since Sunday, and they are all super fresh. I loooooooove it so far. Tomorrow evening you can expect a full review of the album. I will listen to every song like 10 times and then really late at night, after I obsess for a few hours, I'll tell you all just how fucking amazing it is. I mean, jesus, have you seen my Bae lately? SEEEEEEX. See below for one of the audio previews released to youtube. Other previews can be found here, here (this one is really gooooood) , here (see previous parentheses), here, and here.



xoxo
A

Weather

Holy shit, the weather here is OUT OF CONTROL. It looked like an average fall day the whole time I was at school. Not too sunny, but not terribly overcast either. After work, I went home, read a bit, took a nap, and when I wake up, I think I hear some thunder. nah, I think, it was so nice out earlier.

Alas, foiled. Go to Family Mart, top off my T Card, step outside to discover it's raining.

"Okay," I think, "that's how we are going to play this game, huh, Incheon?"

I run back upstairs, grab my umbrella and head back down. At this point it is actually raining, not drizzling. It's not a downpour, but it's enough to make my work pants damp and heavy around my ankles and very relieved to have remembered an umbrella.

It stops raining at some point in the evening, while we are at dinner, and we head to Goose Goose for drinks after (yes, the name of the bar is Goose Goose, what of it?)

Afterwards, I head to the train, take the train to the bus stop. Take the bus to my apartment. While crossing the street, I notice a flicker of lightning just off in the distance and I started urging the traffic signal to change and let me cross.

Got back to my apartment just in the knick of time. I get up stairs, sit down, and it is suddenly POURING. We are talking , blankets of rain, bright white lightning streaking the sky, booming, cracks of thunder, and a positively howling wind. I am sitting at my computer facebooking, minding my own business, when what is obviously a particular stong gust of wind blows and knocks the door to where my a/c unit is hidden away open. I'm not joking, the door is thrown open and wind whips through my apartment like I'm in Kansas, and oh no Toto, here we go again. I force the door shut, only to have it blow right back open again seconds later. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

I finally chose to tape the door shut about 10 minutes ago.

Now? raining, but no thunder, lightning, or wind? What the heck Incheon? What the heck?

As an aside:
After dinner, I tried to go get a copy of Taeyang's new album, "Where U At?' with Miranda but unfortunately had NO luck. We stopped by McDonalds before heading to Goose Goose, and ordered some sundae ice cream (in korea, they flip the phrase so it's not an ice cream sundae, it's sundae ice cream, pronounced sunday i-suh cuh-ream-uh) and coke. We sit down to enjoy our treats (the ice cream sundae is easily the most delicious thing I've ever tasted, with hot fudge in just the perfect proportion to soft-serve, and all for 1000 won, or just under a buck)

While we are relaxing, giggling about how SEXY Taeyang is, this Korean man hustles by us wearing a bright orange zip-up jumpsuit (some sort of uniform) and carrying a net. A large net, in which you might catch something. He goes behind the McDonalds counter authoritatively and disappears behind the soda fountain and burger assembly line. All the customers got suddenly quiet and watched this man, and there were about 8 people outside, staring through the window, trying to determine what was going on. I hardly noticed him (I was so distracted imagining Taeyang), but when another guy in the same orange uniform came stomping in, I couldn't help but take notice. I happened to recognize the picture of a dog on a patch on the second man's sleeve. I quickly put two and two together as a McDonalds employee hurriedly addressed the man, pointing is several directions. She was, I deduced, explaining the route of some sort of animal which these jumpsuited men were to capture and remove from the premises. Luckily I had all but finished my ice cream, and safely avoided a quick vom as miranda and I scurried out like two mice frightened away by the animal catchers.

It was crazy.

That is all.

xoxo,
A