Weighing Anchorage

Well there I went again - months and months with nary a blog post or update. Just goes to show that you all should be striving hard to make my life more interesting, funny, and, ultimately, worthy of being shared. I look forward to seeing what you cook up.

Right now I am plowing my way through a month of teaching SAT skills from a Christian perspective to Korean kids in Anchorage, Alaska (Motto: Look! It's Alaska!). This is an entirely new experience for me in more than one way. For one, before this I'd never spent any more time here in Anchorage than the occasional hour waiting in the airport on my way to Fairbanks, which experience led me to believe that Anchorage was a city primarily occupied by stuffed polar bears and disembodied antlers. Now that I have spent nearly a month here I can finally write that flawed assumption off as a gross error; there are also moose. Or, as my mom likes to call them, caribou.

In addition to the wildlife, this town/city/hamlet has proved to contain its due complement of people. People of all shapes, sizes, and backgrounds. People diverse in heritage and culture. A tapestry of humanity. Korean humanity, from my experience.

I am the first Caucasian (What does that mean, anyway? Where is Caucasia?) to teach at Alaska Oriental Mission Church's Vision Summer School program in it's long history, and I am bearing the banner of diversity proudly by refusing to shave my beard and by giving my students test problems involving characters such as "Sven" and "Tojvo". A tough job, but someone's got to do it. Not that I'm not absorbing a good deal of Korean as well. I have ceased to become uncomfortable when feces are brought up in polite dinnertime conversation, have temporarily surrendered in my efforts to refuse "more food!" ("How can you not eat this?"), and have consumed more spiced and pickled cabbage over the past three weeks than in my entire previous life and the lives of all my second and third cousins combined. As you might have inferred, life here revolves largely around food. And, if I may say so myself, I am getting durn good at them chopstick thingamajigs.

Speaking of my students - which, if you recall, I was some time ago - who knew that I'd ever be called upon to teach SAT skills? And who would have thought that one could forget that much grammar so quickly? Past participle? Subordinating conjunction clause? Fortunately for me, the chilluns have basically had zero grammar thus far, so if I get stuck and don't know what I'm talking about, I can pretty much make up anything I want to. I try to stay within the bounds of probable truth, but honestly, how many of us, when called upon, could give a really good definition of "gerund phrase"? Let he who has never stretched Strunk & White throw the first stone. [Editor's note: My kids were awesome. Superfine. Just... a little hard up in the grammar department. But nevertheless a model class. Don't want to give the impressionable reader an erroneous impression of the impressive impression they impressed upon me.]

I mentioned that I was teaching SAT skills from a Christian perspective, and you may very well be wondering exactly what I meant by that. Well, to be honest, very little. Most of the classes here are divided between math, English, and Camp Sunday School (thank you, David.) Unfortunately, I have found it very difficult to blend SAT skills aptly with Christianity, so I have hitherto stuck to my technical job description of Joe SAT. However, one of the other high school teachers here (Actually, Ryan Hsi's brother, if that means anything to you) is going to be giving a presentation of the gospel message tomorrow, so I'm making my kids read Romans in preparation. Not that I really expect any of them to carry it through in its entirety, but the assignment has had the wonderful side affect of forcing me to read Romans at a faster pace than my usual chapter-a-day. And my goodness but it all falls together much more nicely when taken as a whole. Chapter 8: wow. I feel that I am finally beginning to see the Biblical approach to works and faith, as opposed to the Sunday School approach. This comes after a longish period of not really feeling that I was being shown anything new in the Bible (never a good sign.) I'm not going to expound upon what I've been learning (except to say that, for someone who grew up in the church, you'd think that it would have occurred to me to look into this earlier. Ah well.), but I highly recommend sitting down and reading Romans fast enough to catch the whole argument. And after you finish that you might want to take a gander at First John. Ooh, and Job. Ecclesiastes. Heck, the whole book's a classic.

The motivation for my recent scriptural searching has not entirely been my obligation to my class, though. A large factor has been my proximity these past three weeks to Mickey, who not only teaches in the room next door to me, but also shares a room with me in our host family's house. Dang, but I am looking forward to this coming year. I've never known someone so addicted to knowing just where he stands on matters theological, and knowing where as many pastors as possible stand as well. And he can solve a Rubik's Cube. And tell math jokes. As well as frequently saying things along the lines of "No! I'm going to praise you publicly so that you don't get anything in Heaven!" and "You don't *feel* fat, you just *look* fat." Mickey Sheu, my roommate. I am truly blessed.

So anyway, besides all that, life up here has been pretty ho hum. See you in a few months.

Music of the moment: Aww heck, just go to pastemusic.com and download everything. It will save me time evangelizing.