Further enlightenment on the matter of how South Koreans dispose of used toilet paper (and evidence that someone actually read my blog and stayed awake to tell of it) : a colleague's mom is a native South Korean who, when quizzed in this regard by the colleague, was surprised to hear of this "custom" of discarding used tp in the garbage rather than flushing away.
Here is what the colleague says herself and reports from Mom:
"I read the little bit in your blog post this morning and had to call my mom immediately. Why, you ask? Because thanks to her, I'm half Korean. :P
Now, she came from an affluent family in South Korea, or so that I could gather... Anyways. I asked her about the toilet paper/garbage thing. She had never heard of it. (She did know of an older lady here in town that did that, but let's not go there...) I do seem to remember from her last trip to Korea, she was really excited about someone's bidet. I think it also had an air dryer or something in there as well... (Who needs toilet paper with that? ha ha!)
So, my assumption is that the whole "wipe and toss" thing might be a class (low vs upper) thing or the toilets in that particular area may not be up to standards... Maybe my mom didn't want to dirty my mind with nasty Korean customs... "
An intriguing sidelight appeared in the young American teacher's latest blog entry from SK when she described staying overnight in a bungalow on a South Korean beach. She said the bungalows were tiny, not especially comfortable for sleeping, but had really clean bathrooms--cleaner than those at US campgrounds--not difficult for me to believe, having had some unpleasant campout experiences which led me to draw my line in the sand over family campouts. Tried it 3 times, not good at it, not going there anymore.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Wrapping Up the Loose Thoughts
Glad I did this, if for no other reason than working through the lessons removed some of the fear of the unknown. Web 2.0 turned out not to be such a fearsome gargoyle after all; it's good to have a little background knowledge of and experience with what everyone is talking about and, apparently, doing. Didn't evolve into an expert by anyone's definition, but learned a bunch, didn't feel it was a waste of time, and found several tools that could be both useful and interesting.
For example, I find myself checking my bloglines account most days, following what colleagues are writing about the Lib. 2.0 experience and checking the latest entries from some RSS feeds like Free Technology for Teachers, Rotten Tomatoes (about recent movie releases), cute cat pictures and info, and, of course, library stuff. A colleague's stepdaughter just began the adventure of a lifetime, teaching school in South Korea, and I've added her blog to my account. Her first blog entry was fascinating and I look forward to more. Who knew South Koreans discard used toilet paper in wastebaskets, rather than flushing it away? Whoa!
A Delicious account could be the best thing since white bread for those of us who travel a lot and need a way to share the many websites we know would be helpful but can't begin to remember off the tops of our heads (and really don't care to save and organize in endless paper lists). I've tagged a bunch of those with the heading "toshare" so retrieval on the road should be quick and painless. Just got a cool new one last week from a colleague, saved it in Delicious and tagged it--easy-peasy, the first time I'd tried that since we learned about tagging.
Nov, about google docs. That's a keeper. Another PB&P Team 2 member and I were able to share online our opinions of the books we were reading, considering for the 2010/2011 nominees list, after I created a simple spreadsheet. That was cool and I can see umpteen other potential uses. The PB&P committee chairperson is wondering whether we could create and add to the SDSL website an interactive form of some kind where librarians and teachers could go in and make suggestions for books to review for the 2011/2012 list. Perhaps a google document would work? And next summer I'm hoping the third PB&P Team 2 member will set up a google account so she, too, can get her ratings added to the spreadsheet as we read our assigned books. I intend to learn more about google docs.
Not sure about FaceBook, but maybe I'm just not good enough at it yet to appreciate it. Will keep trying, but right now don't find myself compelled to keep up with monitoring it. My daughter has her account locked down pretty tightly; I should've asked for her advice right away. We live and we learn. Maybe I'll get used to it as time passes, but right now I feel inept with this one.
Twitter? I may be too old for that one, just couldn't get into it. But Flickr could become addictive, and I think I'll keep playing around with it. We're having a bunch of work done on the exterior of our house. I took a "before" picture; now it would be fun to share that and some "after" pictures with the children who live hundreds of miles away and rarely get home. Assuming, of course, that "after" actually happens during my lifetime.
All in all, this challenge wasn't so awfully challenging, was even fun much of the time.
For example, I find myself checking my bloglines account most days, following what colleagues are writing about the Lib. 2.0 experience and checking the latest entries from some RSS feeds like Free Technology for Teachers, Rotten Tomatoes (about recent movie releases), cute cat pictures and info, and, of course, library stuff. A colleague's stepdaughter just began the adventure of a lifetime, teaching school in South Korea, and I've added her blog to my account. Her first blog entry was fascinating and I look forward to more. Who knew South Koreans discard used toilet paper in wastebaskets, rather than flushing it away? Whoa!
A Delicious account could be the best thing since white bread for those of us who travel a lot and need a way to share the many websites we know would be helpful but can't begin to remember off the tops of our heads (and really don't care to save and organize in endless paper lists). I've tagged a bunch of those with the heading "toshare" so retrieval on the road should be quick and painless. Just got a cool new one last week from a colleague, saved it in Delicious and tagged it--easy-peasy, the first time I'd tried that since we learned about tagging.
Nov, about google docs. That's a keeper. Another PB&P Team 2 member and I were able to share online our opinions of the books we were reading, considering for the 2010/2011 nominees list, after I created a simple spreadsheet. That was cool and I can see umpteen other potential uses. The PB&P committee chairperson is wondering whether we could create and add to the SDSL website an interactive form of some kind where librarians and teachers could go in and make suggestions for books to review for the 2011/2012 list. Perhaps a google document would work? And next summer I'm hoping the third PB&P Team 2 member will set up a google account so she, too, can get her ratings added to the spreadsheet as we read our assigned books. I intend to learn more about google docs.
Not sure about FaceBook, but maybe I'm just not good enough at it yet to appreciate it. Will keep trying, but right now don't find myself compelled to keep up with monitoring it. My daughter has her account locked down pretty tightly; I should've asked for her advice right away. We live and we learn. Maybe I'll get used to it as time passes, but right now I feel inept with this one.
Twitter? I may be too old for that one, just couldn't get into it. But Flickr could become addictive, and I think I'll keep playing around with it. We're having a bunch of work done on the exterior of our house. I took a "before" picture; now it would be fun to share that and some "after" pictures with the children who live hundreds of miles away and rarely get home. Assuming, of course, that "after" actually happens during my lifetime.
All in all, this challenge wasn't so awfully challenging, was even fun much of the time.
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