Advocacy?

NBC has reversed its recent decision to air the following commercial. As such it has been taken from the air waves during the Superbowl as NBC has decided that advocacy has no place in the spectacle that is the NFL championship.

My question is, doesn't showing a Budweiser ad advocate drinking beer?

Doesn't showing a Pepsi ad advocate drinking Pepsi?

So consumerist advocacy is obviously okay as they are in it to make money.

All bow at the alter of all mighty money.

The singularity

Just to make sure that we are all on the same page from the start, this is not a Star Trek reference, nor is it a general science fiction reference.

I recently watched the movie Surfer Dude and was pleasently surprised at the depth of character portrayed in Steve Addington (Matthew McConaughey). Yes, I understand that this seems like a contradiction and on the surface I would agree. It would be simple to sit back and view this movie as nothing more than a stoner surfer flick, depth not required. I however managed to see it in a different light.

I'm not exactly sure why I ended up watching the movie in this manner but I did. Perhaps I accepted the notion that this was a meaningless movie from the get go and as such rather than focusing on the story as a whole, I focused my attention on the person of Addington. It was long before I began to see this movie in a much different light and by the end I couldn't help but see it as a deeply philosopical treatise on modern life.

Yes, you read that last sentence correctly.

In focusing in on 'Add' (as Addington is refered to throughout the movie) I seen a character who led a very simple and focused life. His passion was surfing and his friends. Everything beyond this small circle was extraneous and therefore unable to influence his happiness or joy with life. Life was simple. Many or perhaps most of the things that cause too many of us grief in life were irrelevant to Add. When something came along necessitating a choice, his actions were dictated by ensuring that he stayed in harmony with his life's focus.

I found this very spiritually enlightening.

I'm not too sure why this example seemed so clear to me. Perhaps it had more to do with where I was at rather than the message being presented (not to disparage the message). 

Christians are called to be just as focused in their life as Add was in his. The focus of our attention (I've taken to calling this 'your singularity') is obviously different but the ideas I believe are transferable. 

Christians are called to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself" (Matthew 22;37-39). Add's was quite different and yet quite similar. While surfing was his 'god' he did love his friends as he loved himself. 

I also found Add's actions to be a good example of the precept to be 'in the world but not of the world'. Meaning that as children of God, the redeemed of Christ, we may live in the world but we are not to be of the world. Add had little to call his own but that mattered little. He lived is life in pursuit of his passion in harmony with his 'singularity'. When the call to sell out for money came, he didn't even consider it. He recognized it for what it was and rejected it. While forces worked against him to force him to bend to their will, Add remained focused and resolute, never giving in, never violating his principles. Add's ability to be successful in this endeavor stemmed from his lifestyle which was simple and austere. He had a simple home in which to live, and few worldly possessions. He had which he cherished and allowed him to live according to his 'singularity'. All else was extraneous and therefore powerless against him. Those fighting against Add were left with little with which to fight him. Money, possessions, celebrity meant nothing.

Christians are faced with the same dilemas, asked to focus their attention on things of this world rather than on God. To give in to the seduction of materialism, consumerism, hedonism and secularism. We are cajoled to seek our satisfaction, happiness, joy and contentment in the things of this world. When we give in to these temptations, when we buy the lie, we give them power over us. There are those that work to see us bend to their will, but as God's children we are called to resist. To stand apart just as we have been set apart by Christ. 

I knew this once but I lost my way. I started to seek my happiness and contentment in the things of this world. Not that they were wrong, but they weren't the source of true happiness, of true contenment. Things are incapable of providing us with lasting joy. They may provide temporary flashes of joy but they are fleeting, leaving us just as quickly as they came, often leaving us feeling worse than before. 

Add served as a wake up call. I can only hope to live my life for God as Add lived his life for surfing.

The sad awful truth

Well I guess that there is no longer any sense in denying it. The shameful truth has been laid bare for all to witness.

I am not a real man, but merely a poseur, a boy playing at being a man.

The fatal proof

***

I am however not the type of person who would think of Spam when it came time to giving a gift. Yes you read right, Spam. That decades old concoction of various meats(?) squeezed into a can and foisted on to the lunch trays of thousands of hapless school children.

Spam as a gift?

Yes indeed, a gift.

The ever popular Spam gift pack for that special someone

By the way, did you ever wonder what Spam was for? Well if you can read the case you'll find out that Spam is actually ... (wait for it) "for your smile."

Bang, bang, bang

The thing that I have noticed most about Korea is the economy of space. Everything is thought out in such a manner as to conserve space, even cash registers take up less room here than back home. So with so many people living in a small geographical space, further limited by its naturally mountainous makeup, its not surprising that there are a lot, and I mean a lot of apartment buildings in Korea or that said apartment buildings hardly offer what we in the West would consider spacious living quarters.

I live in what I consider to be a somewhat typical, if on the low end of the spectrum, when it comes to apartments. My apartment runs the full width of the building but is at most ten feet wide, while being about forty feet long. This provides me with a makeshift bedroom (formerly a changing room that I managed to fit my bed into - and only my bed), a bathroom, kitchen area, living room and balcony. For a single person it is adequate but I'd sure love to have more counter space in the kitchen (currently it is zero). I have no idea how entire families live in these apartments, but they do.

Given this lack of space, not only geographically but also in regards to their living arrangements its not surprising that Koreans don't all have home computers, home entertainment centers and the like. They simply take up too much space.

How do they get around it? Simple, they have something called a 'bang'. 

Bang (pronounced closer to bong) means 'room' and is preceded by any number of terms. For instance there are PC Bangs; places where you can pay 1000W per hour to use a computer. I have a friend here who does that (she didn't bring a laptop with her). There are DVD-Bangs, where you and a friend (usually a couple looking to escape the eyes of watchful elders) can sit in comfort and watch the latest DVD on a large screen in privacy. There are Nore-Bangs, which is karaoke with a twist. In North America one would go to a bar to sing Karaoke, but here in Korea they have private rooms of varying sizes that you and your friends can rent out and sing to your hearts content (these are an amazing idea and should come to Canada). There are many others, such as Da-Bangs (coffee rooms where you get some special attention from a woman), Daeddal-Bangs (private massage parlor type rooms), adult PC-Bangs (imagine a private room for your pornographic desires) and other types.

However the best one that I've been to (so far I've only been to a DVD-Bang and a Norae-Bang - honest) is what we've taken to calling a Wii-Bang, as in the Nintendo Wii. 

We went for the first time last night and it was a lot of fun. Imagine a room where there are eight areas for playing a Wii. Each come with a myriad of games and controlers that only costs you 1500W per hour! Thats roughly $1.45 an hour back home. You play on large LCD TVs with leather couches for relaxation. In addition there are 18 PS3s to be used with the same TVs and couches. 

The overhead for such a place must be staggering. Even if you figure that bought low end TVs your still looking at a conservative $1000 per TV, totalling $26,000. Add in 8 Wii consoles at $250, and you have another two grand. Add on top of that the 18 PS3's at $350 each for another $6300 and you have $35k tied up in just hardware. Not to mention the numerous games that sell for anywhere between $40 and $75 a piece, furniture, utilities and the like. Its an expensive venture to be sure. 

But they only charge 1500W an hour!

It was a lot of fun. A group of ten of us went last night. We had three Wii consoles playing various games and a PS3 console going with Guitar Hero. We were there for close to three hours and i only cost 3600W each. 

Next time I go I'll take some pictures to give one a sense of what I'm talking about.

It's a camp life

One of the aspects of the job that I found interesting and beneficial when I looking into working here in Korea was the idea of English Camp. Back in Canada kids go off to Bible Camp, Band Camp or perhaps just simply Summer Camp, but here in Korea students are sent to English Camp to get a little more exposure to the language. The thing that interested me in this was that I would get paid extra money to work such camps.

Yay!

So I spent last week at my first English Camp for Middle School students. Overall I had a good time.

There were 9 foreign teachers and 9 Korean teachers in addition to a few other support staff. All told there about 140 students.

Camp ran from Monday to Friday with teaching only happening on the Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Each of us foreign teachers were given a class on the first day and we went through some ice-breakers and some team building exercises before the actual classes began on Tuesday. I was teaching sports, which had me focusing on verbs and having the students playing soccer-baseball. It was a fun class.

Camp itself was good. The food was good, the students and my fellow teachers were a lot of fun. One teacher brought his Wii gaming console with him so a bunch of us got to play that. I played Settlers of Catan for the first time (a great board game) and was introduced to The Venture Brothers (a very funny cartoon).

Perhaps the only noteworthy thing to happen during my camp was New Years. Camp ran from December 29, 2008 to January 2, 2009 and we weren't allowed to leave the camp, so New Years was spent amongst our small group, but it was good. We had champagne, pizza, fireworks, sparklers and even a remote control helicopter.

All in all it was a rather simple and fun way to make an extra $800. I wish that I had gotten to work more than one week, but there was some heavy competition for spots and those with the most seniority got the first choice. Making the decision to go again will be simple.

Just a few of the students from camp