Korean Dramas

 I have recently discovered Korean Dramas on Netflix, and I really like what I have seen so far. I started out with Extraordinary Attorney Woo, and really enjoyed it. Next up was Cinderella and the Four Knights. Again, really good. Now I am watching Business Proposal, which is also good. (I did try a couple that I did not enjoy. Like Boys Over Flowers. I could not even with it. Those four arrogant boys!)

I found someone who explained why she likes K Dramas, and I agree. She said:

1. Acting - As someone pointed out, the actors are very accomplished. Even the idol actors are held to a very high level of performance. I find that the base level of acting skill demanded in Korean Dramas far outstrips the majority of American shows.
2. Values - America used to do this, but doesn’t anymore. Korean shows are a vehicle for transmitting Korean values. If you watch a number of shows you will see a pattern. While some might not enjoy this, I find it refreshing. The bar has been set so low in American media that I prefer watching shows that have a moral compass.
3. Soundtrack - I don’t know how they do it, but Korean Dramas have some breathtaking soundtracks. There are certain songs, that when I hear them, I get verklempt. That is some seriously mad skills right there.
4. Story Arc - Korean Dramas tell a story, more like a book than a series. You get a beginning, middle and usually a satisfying ending. If everything is going wrong, you know you only have X number of episodes before you are either weeping in your coffee for a week or the good guys finally win and the bad guys get what is coming to them.
5. Cinematography - The production values and the cinematography is first rate. Some of these series rival movies in this way. If you think I am kidding watch Goblin, Descendants of the Sun or Legend of the Blue Sea.
6. Love, Love, Love - Korean Dramas know how to present love. Not lust, not sex, but love. You may have to go through six or eight episodes for a single kiss or a back hug, but the wait is worth it.

Employee of the Year

 Bruce had the honour of being selected as Employee of the Year by his hotel. Each hotel in the Woodbury Group selects one EotY, and then they bring them all to Salt Lake City for an entire (paid) day.  The sad thing for us was, they gave very little notice. It was only a week ago today that Bruce was notified that he was the EotY, and he was told that he could bring a plus one earlier in the day, but not for the banquet. (Which seemed backwards?) So...we just decided that I would not go. Today was a busy, important day at work, the only important day of the work week, honestly. Tomorrow is a Tuesday following a Friday schedule, and Fridays are always light because Friday. And then Wednesday is a holiday for the students, so super slow for the employees. And then two holidays. So. Of the days this week for me to go to something with him all day, Monday was not a good choice. (And we are in the middle of a very difficult problem which I, as department chair, had to deal with today for sure since we have a time crunch.)

Then, fast forward to Thursday, and he found that he had been misinformed. He did have a plus one for the banquet. Then the issue became that I do not have good night vision, so how could I go up at night? So, we decided that it would be good if Kelli could go with Bruce. She has been working so hard to get Allen situated, and make home alterations for a guy in a wheelchair or on a scooter, and it seemed it would be nice for her to go with her dad, and it would be nice for all the people on the roads to have me not there. She has excellent night vision, and is a commercial driver. 

Another complication was that Josie needed rides to and from work today, and that tomorrow she has an early morning flight to Atlanta which has been booked for much longer than we knew about this EotY event. And that Bruce was planning to stay the night at the hotel in Sandy, since he would be there all day. And a hotel room was a part of the prize for the EotY recipients. I just could not figure out how to be all of the places at the same time.

So, we asked Kelli to be Bruce's plus one, and even though it was Allen's first day home from the hospital, as this picture illustrates--and by the way, he is doing well. Still cannot walk, but in a few weeks, he will start to try to put weight on the foot that was broken every which way--

they decided she should go with her dad and have a break doing something different for a while. Bruce even remembered to ask for a gluten-free meal for her at the banquet.

He left at 7:15 in the morning--which was early, but he ended up getting lost a bit. Because there was an accident on the freeway, so instead of waiting, he got off the freeway and then all the landmarks that he used to know--were gone. So he could not drive from memory! Still, he arrived on time.

They loaded all the people onto buses for a tour. The Woodbury Group has hotels in Wyoming and Idaho as well as Utah, so a tour of Salt Lake City was on the agenda. (This was less interesting to Bruce, since he grew up in Salt Lake City!) They went to the Capitol Building, to the Mormon Tabernacle for an organ concert, just touring around. Then they went to their company's head office and had a tour of office cubicles and such. (Not totally thrilling.) This was followed by a nice lunch, and by three pm, the guests of honour were in their free hotel rooms to rest and get ready for the banquet, which was a dressy affair.

Kelli was a better choice for his plus one than I would have been--she is more of an extrovert, and also she took all the right pictures, and even a video. I would not have done that as well as she did. I am very grateful for her that she went with her dad.

Here is Bruce's photo on one of the awards table:

Here he is, standing beside the picture of himself on the awards table:

Here is the elegant table setting at their banquet table:

And here is a picture of Bruce's page on the program:

That is a lovely tribute to him! And also you can hear it, because she took a video of it!

And here is his physical award.

And last of all, some very nice pictures of father and daughter together. They look so great in these pictures! I am so proud of both of them! Kelli, for bearing this difficulty with Allen and his accident with grace and dignity, and for being there for her dad. And Bruce for winning this award for his diligent work at his hotel.

Good job, Bruce!! Congratulations!!

October Books

 Wow. What a month was October. It went fast, and was packed full.

And I did not get a lot of reading done. I think I have lost the ability to read! Or I have too much to worry about. I just can't seem to gather the concentration that reading requires. To quote a play called Jocko, "my mind is on fire!" When your mind is on fire, reading is asking too much of it. Apparently.

Which is all to say that I only read four books this month. Which is one more than last month! 

1. Dwelling in the promised land as a stranger by Scott Abbott. I read this nonfiction book because Scott was my department chair when I taught at UVU, so I wanted to read about his difficult experiences at BYU. This is a BCC book, which means that Andrew did the typesetting, and he is mentioned in the thank-yous. My takeaway from this book was that sometimes we--the well-meaning people who think we are living the gospel--are the thorns that choke people. I listen to the Four Gospels while I do my planking every day, so it happened that I was listening to Mark in the mornings at the same time that I was reading this book, and Mark 4 just really resonated with me in re Scott's experiences:

"And he taught them many things by parables, and said unto them in his doctrine, Hearken; Behold, there went out a sower to sow: And it came to pass, as he sowed, some fell by the way side, and the fowls of the air came and devoured it up. And some fell on stony ground, where it had not much earth; and immediately it sprang up, because it had no depth of earth: But when the sun was up, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit. And other fell on good ground, and did yield fruit that sprang up and increased; and brought forth, some thirty, and some sixty, and some an hundred."

Because I felt like Scott was choking, like he just couldn't even breathe. And it made me sad. And I thought that sometimes we do that to people--we are thorns to them. Sigh.

2. Death and the Conjurer by Tom Mead was the only fiction book I read this month. It was a locked room mystery. Dr. Rees' murder seemed impossible, and yet--it happened and needed to be solved. Here is part of the blurb from Amazon: "In 1930s London, celebrity psychiatrist Anselm Rees is discovered dead in his locked study, and there seems to be no way that a killer could have escaped unseen. There are no clues, no witnesses, and no evidence of the murder weapon. Stumped by the confounding scene, the Scotland Yard detective on the case calls on retired stage magician-turned-part-time sleuth Joseph Spector. For who better to make sense of the impossible than one who traffics in illusions?"

3. What the eyes don't see: A story of crisis, resistance, and hope in an American city by Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha was our book group's choice for the month of October. It had been last years chosen book at UVU, so we had access to a bunch of copies. It was about the problem with lead in the water in Flint, Michigan, and I thought it was a riveting read. Lead is very scary!

I seem to have lost my ability to write as well as read, so I am going to borrow from Amazon again: "Here is the inspiring story of how Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, alongside a team of researchers, parents, friends, and community leaders, discovered that the children of Flint, Michigan, were being exposed to lead in their tap water—and then battled her own government and a brutal backlash to expose that truth to the world. Paced like a scientific thriller, What the Eyes Don’t See reveals how misguided austerity policies, broken democracy, and callous bureaucratic indifference placed an entire city at risk. And at the center of the story is Dr. Mona herself—an immigrant, doctor, scientist, and mother whose family’s activist roots inspired her pursuit of justice."

4. Crying in H Mart: A Memoir by Michelle Zauner was a beautiful book. Michelle Zauner is the Korean-American singer-songwriter of the group Japanese Breakfast. (When she named the group that, she was not expecting the success they got, and did not expect to have to explain where the name came from, since she is not Japanese at all, but in fact Korean, but oh well! What can you do?) The book documents much of Michelle's life, but especially is about her mother's death from pancreatic cancer. Michelle and her mother had not enjoyed a great relationship. Very close when she was a child, her teen years were turbulent and difficult. Part of it was normal teen rebellion, part of it was a Korean mother raising an American child, and the culture gap that neither could bridge. 

I loved this paragraph, in which Michelle comes to terms with her mother's choice to be a mother, first and foremost. (Teenage Michelle had thought her mother should get a job or whatever, so she would stop smothering Michelle.) quote from p. 159: "I wanted to uncover something special about her that only I could reveal. That she was so much more than a housewife, than a mother. That she was her own spectacular individual. Perhaps I was still sanctimoniously belittling the two roles she was ultimately most proud of, unable to accept that the same degree of fulfillment may await those who wish to nurture and love as those who seek to earn and create. Her art was the love that beat on in her loved ones, a contribution to the world that could be just as monumental as a song or a book."

And that is it! My four books for the month. I liked all of them.