Hallo! I'm not dead!

With The Hero in Langkawi

Hello all :) Yes, it's been a while, but this time I actually have an excuse for not writing for ages. So to save time, here's a summary of what I've been doing for the last six months or so:
- Work
- Work
- Work
- Study
- Study
- Work
- Study
- Exam
- Work
- Stress-induced migraine.

Actually, to be fair, "boyfriend" should be in there too, self-dubbed codename "The Hero". Haha, don't roll your eyes too much dear reader, it might actually be justified! Or not, hehe^^ (Actually, it is because he is a hero for putting up with me and not complaining about having to share my time with my studies.)

So as it turns out, studying in one city (Masters of International Law at UTS) whilst working in another (Admissions Assistant at the University of Wollongong) and dating someone in a third city (Canberra, 3 hours away) is not such a great recipe for a peaceful life. But it certainly keeps things "interesting" and challenges your time-management skills (or whatever of them exist).

Oh, so I should apologise here if you haven't heard from me in a while and are wondering if I'm still alive - sorry for being a terrible friend! :)

Which is not to say that I haven't had time for the occasional holiday, namely Langkawi! It was only for about 8 days in my mid-semester holiday break, but it was long enough to relax a bit and enjoy some quality time with The Hero.
There were also lots and lots of "cute" monkeys (read: cheeky bordering on aggressive) and lizards, and since Langkawi also has a crocodile farm featuring a lot of deformed crocs (I'm guessing they are a result of a fair amount of inbreeding), we saw some interesting freak animals amongst all the cute ones.

Oh and of course we had some very yummy food! I won't go into too much detail since most of my photos are on Facebook and yes, I have recently realised that I may take excessive amounts of food photos. MAY. But the Thai restaurant at the Berjaya was AMAZING, and a good distance away from our cabin that it gave us a nice walk backin the evening to digest everything we'd eaten (ok, scoffed).

So apart from that brief interlude, the previous summary has pretty much applied. Due to graduate in July of 2014, but hopefully I will find a job in Sydney next year, or possibly Canberra (if I can transfer to ANU) which will solve at least one commuting problem. We'll see how it goes I guess. In the mean time, am enjoying my job (the people I work with are pretty good, and that's even considering that they don't even know about this blog!^^) and law is proving pretty interesting, so things are manageable in a hectic kind of way.

Well that's about it for now - sorry for the lack of food-related pictures and also the lack of cute fat animal pictures! I'll make up for it next time, promise ;)

Not a food blog.. no, really... :D

Good morning dear victims! I call you victims as I'm about to inflict another dose of random bits and pieces on you :)

Obviously not my hand!
Sample of 10 B.C. awesomeness.

Firstly, let's start with the light stuff. Sorry again about the looooooong delay in replying - I've been busy doing job applications (unsuccessfully so far) and being vaguely sociable, but I've also frankly just been lazy, since I haven't had anything particularly exciting to write about. One of the posts I do need to make though is for Kiran about how to do certain nail art decorations without using a nail pen (which are limited in colours or slightly prohibitive in cost anyway). In the meantime, if you're interested (i.e. female with the time and manual dexterity to do this) or just bored and want to see something cool, check out this blog, 10 blank canvases, out for some amazing nail art ideas. She obviously does have a pretty big array of nail art pens and a very steady hand at her disposal to get that amount of detail, but don't expect anything so amazing from me since my armoury includes a) nail polish b) cotton tips and maybe c) a piece of cardboard if I'm feeling fancy :p

Hmm, what else? Well, I've been doing a fair bit of Korean cooking with my sister since I came home. Her favourite by far is of course red ddokbokkie, but I introduced her to the black one too (soy-sauce based, not spicy), and made some gyeran-mari (sweet rolled omelettes), thanks to a generous donation of fresh ggae-nip (sesame leaves) from the lovely Naomi on my last visit to Canberra. The four back slices are a bit thin there I know - I was running low on batter and the pan was probably too wide - but they were all very yummy! I've also made a few - ok, a lot! - of other dishes and side-dishes, like the Andong jjim-dak (braised chicken, Andong-style) in the last post which my parents quite liked too, and introduced them to the wonders of sweet potato noodles (think chapchae noodles), which are quite glutinous but not gluggy in sauce-heavy dishes, and if you are using the wide flat ones like you need for jjim-dak, hold a lot of flavour.

And of course, there's  been a lot of eating as well as cooking! Most recently, this was with my mum and sister during a trip to Cabramatta (basically Little Vietnam/Asia in the Western suburbs of Sydney) for groceries and a general poke around. My sister, Fran, has a lot of Asian workmates, as well as actually working at Westmead (yes, she's a Westie! But we still love her, haha^^), so she got some good directions and we found the main shopping area and best grocery stores without too much fuss. They also gave her some good recommendations - two separate ones for the same place actually - so we joined the queue outside the Tan Viet Noodle House with a good sense of anticipation. Lucky for us, we got there a bit before midday, but there was still a good 10 or 15 minutes to go while we waited for a spot inside the busy hall of slurping people. The Tan Viet's speciality is crispy skin chicken, so Fran and I got that, while mum got BBQ pork with Singapore noodles. Fran went for rice noodles and I decided to try 'drop noodles' which turned out to be made of tapioca, and we each had a Fruit Cup drink thingie, which was a variety of different fruit popular in South-East Asia like jackfruit, lychee, coconut flesh and a few others, and bright green strands of some sort of agar-agar jelly thing in the bottom, covered in coconut milk, shaved ice and fruit juice (I think). Of course, it was all delicious! We had a spot by the window, which was good in terms of space, but not so much in terms of privacy, as it meant we had the increasingly long line of hungry people staring grimly in at us and mentally urging us to hurry up and finish eating. Somewhat off-putting. If you haven't been, you should definitely Google it and plan to get there relatively early. We paid $45 for the three of us, which is pretty good for anywhere, but especially for Sydney, and you pay at your table after the meal, so you don't have to fight through the people and get in the way of the waiters before you leave.

Haha, not doing very well at pretending this isn't a food blog am I? But really, it's not - it's just this post is pretty foody. But then, so am I^^ So onto the serious stuff - an article I read on Facebook. K Rudd's not the man he once was, but that's a soapbox lecture for someone else who likes that kind of thing and isn't me, and he still makes some damn good points. Long-winded, but properly pointy, haha^^

By the way, ex-ANU alumni, just out of curiousity, did anyone ever actually manage to see the ANU's copy of Kevin's thesis? During my Honours year (2008) it was most definitely not in the Menzie's library with the others and I heard it was in Harriet Wilson's office under her watchful eye, but never saw it on any of her shelves. Perhaps it's in a secret safe? Or maybe not so now. Anyway, if you are one of the Indiana Jones-like adventurers who knows what happened to it, please let us Curious Georges know before it turns into FAS mythical lore :) Anyway, read on! This is the original and Kevin's website for those interested.

Monday, 16 April 2012

Speech: BUILDING AN ASIA-LITERATE AUSTRALIA

BUILDING AN ASIA-LITERATE AUSTRALIA

Launch of the paper “Finding a Place on the Asian Stage”

by Carillo Gantner and Allison Carol

ASIALINK, University of Melbourne

16 APRIL 2012

I was delighted to accept the invitation to launch this platform paper entitled “Finding a place on the Asian Stage”. 

I have spent most of my professional life, in one capacity or another, engaged on the core question of Australia’s engagement with Asia.

I began studying Chinese 35 years ago at the Australian National University reinforced by further study in Taipei, Hong Kong and Beijing.

I worked as a diplomat in Beijing where it was my delight to have encountered one of the co-author’s of this paper, Carrillo Gantner, who was then our cultural councillor during the earliest days of our engagement with the People’s Republic.

In my years in the Queensland State Government, I worked on our sister relationship with Shanghai – remarkably in those days, deemed the ‘ugly duckling’ of China’s economic reform program Because it was then believed that Shanghai was not keeping up with the reforms of the rest of the country.  

I also worked extensively on Queensland Government policies underpinning the teaching of Asian languages in QLD schools and based on that experience, was asked to deliver for the Council of Australian Governments a report on a National Asian Languages Studies Strategy for Australian Schools (NALSAS), which underpinned Federal and State Government investment in these programs between 1995 and 2002.

After my election to the Federal Parliament, I broadened my Asian odyssey beyond China and as a member of Parliament and later as Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and Leader of the Opposition, made it my business to spend more time in the other countries of the region, most particularly Japan and Indonesia.

Both as Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Australia’s future in Asia remained one of my core policy preoccupations – hence my advocacy of an Asia-Pacific community which finally achieved fruition in 2011 with the expansion of the East Asian Summit to include both the United States and Russia.

This created, for the first time, a regional institution with all the principal players around the table and with a mandate to address the future political, economic and security challenges of this, the most dynamic region in the world.

Over the years I have lived and travelled more in Asia than in any other region in the world, as for me it has always represented a core part of Australia’s long term future.

Asia has also been for us a family affair.

My daughter Jessica’s husband Albert is a Chinese Australian whose parents came to Australia in the 1980s via Hong Kong and Guangdong, where they grew up during the Cultural Revolution. And next month we’re expecting our first grandchild and I’m looking forward very much to the family discussions over the little one’s English and Chinese names.

Over the last weekend, our oldest son Nicholas married the love of his life Zara who he met at law school having come to Australia from Brunei.

And to complete the trifecta, our youngest son Marcus is undertaking his gap year at Peking University studying Chinese full time (and hopefully acquiring a Confucian work ethic on the way through).

The reason I say these things is that I have thought long and hard, written much, and perhaps spoken too much, on this central challenge for Australia’s future: how do we as a country of barely 23 million, many of us relatively recently arrived Europeans, carve out our future in this vast region which Europeans have called “Asia”- a region that is home to some of the most ancient continuing civilisations on earth, some of the oldest continuing religions and philosophical systems in the world, and now the global geo-strategic and geo-economic centre of gravity for the 21^st Century.

Australia has been episodically engaged in this critical national project since the days of Chifley and Evatt in the 1940s.

Chifley and Evatt, despite still being “sons of empire”, actually “got it” in terms of Australia’s alternative destiny in the Asian hemisphere.

Against the assumptions of the time, it is remarkable that Evatt championed Indonesian independence against the Dutch (like the British, a fellow colonial power in Asia) and did everything he could to help the foundation of the Indonesian nation state.

After Mao proclaimed the People’s Republic in October 1949, the cabinet papers tell us that Chifley and Evatt were both well advanced in their preparations to recognise the new Chinese Government – except Menzies won in December, the “red peril” overtook all regional strategic logic and we lost 23 years in our engagement with the country destined to become the new superpower of the 21^st Century.

In the decades since then, we’ve seen great progress under Whitlam, Hawke and Keating.

That policy of engagement continued into the Government I was privileged to lead as Prime Minister and until recently served in as Foreign Minister.

But the truth is there is much more to be done if we are to secure our future in this century of the Asia-Pacific.

Strategically, we have made considerable advances. Our engagement with regional institutions such as ASEAN, the ASEAN regional forum, APEC and now the expanded East Asian Summit have begun to construct a regional architecture in Asia which is better placed to help us avoid the calamities that we saw in Europe seen in centuries past.

In these many initiatives, Australia has prosecuted an activist diplomacy.

Australia was ASEAN’s first external dialogue partner. Australian diplomacy was at the forefront in the establishment of the ARF.

This was the same with APEC. We were also a foundation member of the EAS and Australian diplomacy has driven the expansion of the EAS to effectively form an Asia Pacific community by another name.

Still, many strategic tensions remain. We are all familiar with the unresolved territorial disputes that stretch from Japan’s northern territories through the East China Sea, the Taiwan Straits, the South China Sea, the Thai-Cambodian border, the Sino-Indian border as well as the decades long disputes over Kashmir.

And on top of these, there are the new generation security challenges involving human trafficking, people smuggling, other forms of international organised crime, terrorism as well as cyber security.

The challenges are vast, although we should not be mean-spirited in recognising the progress that has occurred, reflecting the fact that it is now 30 years since the region has seen any significant interstate conflict.

Economically, the regional story, and Australia’s participation in that story, is even better known.

Over the decades ahead, Asia will host five of the largest economies in the world in China, India, Japan, Indonesia and possibly Korea.

Australia is currently Asia’s fourth largest economy, after China, Japan and India.

Eight of our 10 top trading partners lie in Asia.

Asia is now challenging Europe and the United States as a growing source of international inbound investment.

Australia’s overall national economic wellbeing is now overwhelmingly tied to the nations and economies to our north.

A further positive dimension in Australia’s engagement with our region has come about through our immigration policy and a long tradition, largely bipartisan, (although sometimes only honoured in the breach) which is literally changing the face of modern day Australia.

We are rightly proud of the fact that our country’s political institutions and intellectual culture are derived from Western civilisation.

Our traditions of the rule of law administered by an independent judiciary, of liberal democracy and of a market economy all derived from this civilizational tradition.

In fact, it has been the existence of these institutions, combined with our relative economic success, and our openness as a society, which has caused many to come to these shores over the decades to make Australia their home.

Australia has been greatly enriched by this multiculturalism - our economy, our people to people links and the continued creativity which comes from settler societies which comfortably accommodate new waves of immigration into our increasingly dynamic cultural melting pot.

One of the areas where more work needs to be done lies in our national understanding of the languages, cultures and the arts of the high civilisations of our wider region which we blissfully describe as “Asia”.

The beginning of wisdom lies in understanding the minds of others. How reality is viewed. How ideas are formed from deep philosophical systems that bare little relationship to our own.  Our beliefs are derived from ancient religious traditions, the vast majority of which pre date western Christianity. And how all of the above influenced, different literatures, historiographies, art forms – not to mention the media.

It is in this area that we, as an outpost of the Occidental world, need to do more work in understanding the minds (plural, not just the mind, singular) of Asia.

Some will ask why is this important. Surely English is now the universal language. Surely the elites of Asia are all studying English. Surely the bulk of these elites are being educated in western academic institutions.

At best this reflects only part of the picture and, I would submit, a declining part of the picture.  The truth is, the bulk of the intellectual discourse, political and policy debate as well as economic exchange within Asia occurs in languages other than English.

The truism remains true; Chinese has for a long time been the largest internet language in the world. There are some 300 million users of the Chinese equivalent of Twitter today- through the Chinese Weibo.

This is also now the cultural and linguistic medium of much of the Chinese Diaspora.

Furthermore, there are the cultural assumptions that lie behind English as spoken by non-native speakers in Asia as opposed to English is spoken in the Anglo-Saxon world of the US, the UK or Australia. It is just plain wrong to assume that this will necessarily be the case. The truth is, a lot is simply lost in translation.

But to return to the question that I’ve already proposed- does this really matter?

It matters in the sense that there is a grave danger that individuals, corporations and nations simply talk past each other; thinking that they are talking about the same concept, when in fact that may only be partly the case.

Witness for example the extraordinary national and international debate that has occurred around the Chinese expression “Taoguang Yanghui”. This has been long translated in the West “hide your strength, bide your time” as the best explanation for Deng Xiaoping’s maxim for how China should implement its modernisation program without causing the rest of the world to take fright.

The Chinese interpretation of these four characters is much more benign than that which is rendered by the English translation- a translation which infers that the Chinese are craftily building up their own strength, but will not fully deploy it until they are well and truly ready, and in the meantime either underplay or simply obscure the national wealth and power they have already obtained.

If ever there has literally been a debate that has been “lost in translation” it’s this one.

So much so that China’s leading policy official Dai Bingguo dedicated the better part of an entire article in Foreign Affairs magazine on what Deng really meant and what China really means by this vexed expression “Taoguang Yanghui”.

If this is where we’ve got to on such a critical strategic concept involving intense inter-state dialogue between international elites with squadrons of simultaneous interpreters and translators at the ready, then pity the rest of us.

How much is literally being “lost in translation” in straightforward transactions between individuals, corporations and governments, not to mention the media, everyday around China, Asia and the world.

The capacity for misunderstandings and missed opportunities are profound.

There is a further factor as well. It is simply a mark of respect to take seriously the languages, cultures and deep civilisational traditions of your principal interlocutors.

It is part and parcel of decent human behaviour.

It should also be part and parcel for decent international behaviour.

We seem to be taking a very long time to reach the conclusion that sometime in the next decade, for the first time in 200 years, a non western, non English speaking, non democracy will become the largest economy in the world.

In fact it will be the first time in 500 years that a non Western country has achieved that status.

Finally there is the personal dimension to it all. It is infinitely easier to build a personal relationship with someone from another culture if you are able to speak their language.

This builds on the question of respect that I have just referred to. Common language enables a greater intimacy in relationships- relationships that may well help in building broader economic and political relationships into the future.

This does not mean that by speaking the same languages as the rest of the region that Australians would instantaneously achieve agreement with their Asian neighbours on all aspects of their relationship.

In fact in certain cases, common language may assist in understanding where real differences (as opposed to artificial differences) may lie, and how to most effectively deal with those differences.

There are, therefore, a number of linguistic, cultural and civilisational assumptions about how we in Australia and we in the broader west do business in the future that are going to come under increasing challenge.

As Prime Minister and as Foreign Minister, I often argued that the best vision for Australia was for us to become the most China-literate and Asia-literate country in the 21^st century – the China Century, the Asian Century.

But are we producing enough Australians with the linguistic and cultural skills (including in terms of this paper, the performing arts) to substantiate this claim? The truth is that we are not.

The most recently available statistics suggest that in fact over the last decade we have headed in the reverse direction. If we look at the number of primary and secondary schools teaching the 4 principal languages of Asia, the figures are concerning.

Research by the Asia Education Foundation shows that between the year 2000 and 2008 there was:

• A reduction from 569 schools teaching Chinese to 380 or so;
• From 2276 schools teaching Japanese in 2000, down to 1921 in 2008;
• In the case of Indonesian language 1795 schools to 1077 schools; and
• In the teaching of Korean, we have actually gone up (but don’t hold your breath) from 42 schools in 2000 to 46 schools in 2008.

If we then go to the number of students learning the four principal languages, the picture is also concerning.

• In Japanese, the number of students has gone down from 419 488 to 351 579;

• In Indonesian, the number of students has gone down from 265 366 to 191 316;
• In Korean, the number of students has actually gone down from 3672 to 3190; and
• In Chinese, while the number of schools teaching Chinese has gone down, there has nonetheless been a modest increase in the number of students studying Chinese from 78 765 to 92 931.

As data becomes available, we will have to look at what changes have occurred between 2008 and today. I suspect there will be continuing problems, but the figures should help to focus our minds.

Then there is the question of whether our state education systems have appropriately linked feeder primary schools with high schools specialising in the same languages that kids have done earlier on.

There is the further question of the inter-linkages between year 12 level attainments by students in these principal Asian languages, and what then is on offer at university level.

Another question arises in terms of the quality of our language graduates in our schools and post-secondary school systems.

This in turn raises parallel questions about the level of fluency of Asian language teachers in Australia and whether we are making the best use of native speakers who may not be fully qualified as general teachers.

Then there is the real question of the adequacy of curriculum and the fairness of assessment systems both at the high school and university levels when it comes to comparing native and non-native speakers, including the proper classification of non-native speakers who may only have partial fluency. Many Australian students, their teachers and their parents are often discouraged by the ability of their children to get a decent grading in an Asian language taken to year 12 level, particularly when these gradings may count to university entry.

Another question arising in the university sector is whether the specialist study of Asia (including the relevance of Asia to other university disciplines on offer) is being appropriately supported. This goes to the question of specialist skills in Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Indonesian language, literature and history. But equally critical, the role of these countries in mainstream university disciplines in economics, law, political science, and business.

My friends in the University sector tell me are now confronting something of a crisis across the nation’s universities in the study of Asia – running in precisely the reverse direction to what Australian will actually require for our future.

There is also a much deeper crisis in the lack of Australian student interest in studying in the principal academic institutions of Asia.

We may have hundreds of thousands of Asian students studying in Australia. But the truth is we barely have even hundreds of students studying in the elite tertiary intuitions of our region.

This is limiting significantly Australia’s future, not least because the political, business and social networks created out of the major universities of Asia will have a very limited Australian alumni.

Of course all these are questions which are raised on the supply side. The refrain is often heard; “what about the demand side?” and whether businesses and governments are appropriately emphasising the employment of graduates with Asia-specific cultural and linguistic expertise?

Once again the answer is apparently no. Yet peak industry bodies are apparently regularly telling universities that they (the universities) are not producing enough such graduates for the future needs of industry.

This in turns creates confusion for both students and parents who fear that even if their children slog away at school and university on one of the more difficult languages of Asia, that this will not necessarily equip them for a decent career.

The fact is something is not quite working out there between the supply and the demand side of Asian language and Asian studies graduates. And we need to get to the bottom of why that is the case.

It is for these reasons that I propose to speak on these questions at some greater length throughout the course of this year.

In doing so, I hope to be able to promote an intelligent national discussion on what we should then do to lift our national game.

And in that sense, I’m not remotely interested in the traditional “blame game” of blaming one level of Government or the other; state education bureaucracies or teachers; academic institutions or the business community, we all need a clearer handle on what is to be done.

And all this of course is directly relevant to the future of the arts and the performing arts as well – as we seek to encourage more Australian creative artists to study, to work and to tour in Asia rather than simply the capitals of Europe and North America.

The paper of course goes to specific institutional and funding models as to how this might all be achieved for the performing arts. I do not propose to enter that debate here this evening. Rather, what I have sought to do is to locate this debate within the broader national discussion that is necessary on how well prepared Australia really is for the Asian Century that lies before us.

All this is relevant in turn to what the Government is currently examining though its white paper process. For Australia, these are important challenges.

And in the case of the languages and cultures of our wider region, it is critical to understanding difference, understanding the minds of our interlocutors, and therefore in helping forge common futures for us all – common futures which are both prosperous and peaceful, and, in the spirit of this occasion, inspiring, innovative and creative.

Unpacking and pigging out

Cockatoos outside the house

Hello loyal blog-fans! Sorry for the long delay between posts - it's no good me making excuses so I won't. Since my last post, I've arrived home and am settling back in nicely. It took a while to readjust to life back here and to start truly thinking of it as 'life' rather than as a holiday. I got my last box that I'd posted myself from Korea yesterday, much to the disappointment of Greg the courier who has been having a lovely time making comission from my accumulated fluff. I'm still on the job-hunt too, although probably not as energetically as I should - I'm afraid the luxury of having saved a decent amount of money has robbed me of the burning incentive to find paid employment, so I've been ambling along, rather than doing a mad scramble like I probably should. Oh well, I expect that will happen soon enough when reality kicks in :)

Kookies!

 I've also been making very slow headway against unpacking all the stuff I've brought home - or rather, I've unpacked it all, I just haven't been able to find places to put it. I feel like there's not much point since I'll hopefully be moving out again soon, but as my long suffering parents put it, it's nice to be able to see the floor occasionally you know? Haha^^

Oh and also, it was brought to my attention that I have some underage readers, so I'm going to try and remember to keep my posts PG or warn you guys ahead of time if not :)

So apart from the job-hunting and nominal tidying, I haven't been up to much. This has been in part because I'm struggling through my third bout of bronchitis this year - it's nowhere near as bad as last time, when I was stupid enough to let my antibiotics run out for a day and then couldn't physically drag myself to a doctor to get more by the time my working day was over. This is of course because - no snow! Hurrah! ^_^ It's been a miserable summer, but still empteenth times better than Korea right now. At any rate, it's been making me a bit mopey, on top of other things and missing people in Korea (and let's face it, 맛있는 Korean food!) but another couple of weeks of drugs should see me right.

Jjim-dak feast

Helped in a large part by the yummy food I've been eating! I know everyone says this, but my mum is an awesome cook, and there are many out there who have left our house a great deal fatter than they entered it who would agree. My mum's Christmas cakes in particular are near legendary - even people who profess to hate fruit cake have changed their minds on tasting my mum's white Christmas cake or chocolate paneforte. It's no secret that we are a family of foodies, and my mum has been known to judge people by how well they eat and how picky they are with food. The more gusto you bring to our table, the better the impression you'll make. I have a few friends who have also accused me of being a 'feeder' and trying to fatten them up, and I'm sure my sister's would say the same, so yes, it's a bit of a family thing, haha^^ So understanding the foodie thing, you'll hopefully understand how happy I am to be home in a house with a real kitchen where I can bake and roast and do all sorts of things I couldn't in my tiny Korean flat. We actually had a Korean night and I made jjim-dak (braised chicken) and a bunch of side dishes, one of which I dropped my new smartphone into^^ But more importantly, one of those other things includes making ice-cream! A few years ago Fran and I bought mum and dad an ice-cream maker, but I seem to have done most of the ice-cream making in it so far. I've made quick vanilla, real vanilla, a luxurious and velvety strawberry, rich chocolate, stricciatella (chocolate-hazelnut), frozen yoghurt and lemon sorbet, and a couple of weeks ago had a whirl at coconut. It was delicious! My dad had been barracking for it for a while after having it in Vietnam, so it went down very well.

"Did someone say food?" Floss, cadging expert.

This weekend however, I thought I'd try something a bit different, seeing as it's Dad's birthday today. On the menu? A triple-layered caramel ice-cream cake. Now I've actually been a bit bad with photos lately - didn't even take a single one from my weekend in Canberra catching up with people - but I made sure to take some of this latest experiment. To make it, I used a basic recipe I found for a Caramel Toffee Ice-cream Pie, but changed it around a bit to include sugared almonds and make it even more decadent than the original. I don't know how big these chocolate graham crackers are (a kind of plain biscuit), but I used about 2/3 of a pack of Arnott's Chocolate Ripple biscuits (those plain chocolate ones) which gave me enough for decoration too. I also don't know how on earth that recipe-er rated this as 'healthy' but then.. it IS American... ㅋㅋㅋㅋ

So here's what I did:

Amy's Triple-layered Caramel Decadence Ice-cream Cake

Ingredients:
2/3 pack of Arnott's Chocolate Ripple biscuits, crumbed in a food processor
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp sugar

Layering ingredients

1 egg white, beaten
8 or 9 mini Crunchie snack bars, crumbed in a food processor
500 ml caramel - I used Nestle's tart caramel but you might want to use something less rich and thick if you want something less decadent.
500mg blanched almonds (pour boiling water over the almonds, soak for a couple of minutes, then put them in cold water - the skin should come off easily when you rub them)
1 cup sugar
3 tbsp water (I actually had to use 4 because I used concentrated extract and it was too strong and thick)
2 tsp vanilla extract


Method:
1. Make the base (1 1/2c biscuit crumbs, butter, sugar, egg white; mixed, pressed into a greased 20cm springform tin and baked for about 8 mins at 180 C).

2. Make the almonds by chopping them, then baking them until golden brown (about 10 minutes at 220 C), then heating the sugar, extract and water until it bubbles and the sugar melts, then adding the almonds. Spread them out on greased paper until they cool, then crumble or pulverise in a food processor if you want it finer. FYI, this is also how you make praline!

3. Layer on some vanilla ice-cream. I was actually going to use a plain chocolate one but we got the wrong one and I decided it would be too rich anyway. Cover this layer with the Crunchie bits and a layer of caramel (about half the tin).

4. Add another layer of ice-cream, then cover this with the sugared almonds, and then the rest of the caramel.

5. Add the final layer and garnish like so with the Crunchie dust, biscuit crumbs and sugared almonds!

ta-dah! calorie-overload heaven^^

** If you have a problem getting the cake out, stick a butter knife in some boiling water, then run it around the inside of the tin to separate the sides.

We haven't tried it yet of course but I'll post up a picture of a slice when we start scoffing tonight!

F-words!

So first of all let's start with the F-words "flavourlicious" and "frickin' amazing!" to describe the Baskin Robbins ice-cream cake Christy, Kiran, Heidi and I had a go at demolishing on the weekend. It had eight different flavours - one in each slice - and has by far been the most popular of my posted photos on Facebook :) As far as I can remember, the flavours were mint choc-chip, strawberry cheesecake, raspberry mousse, 'Mother's specialty', green tea, almond 'bon bon', shooting star (pop rocks in bubble gum flavoured ice-cream) and blueberry cheesecake (I could be wrong though). Yummy! Even though we didn't quite manage to finish it. (I don't have an 'after' photo - it was too sad!) And a great way way to celebrate my last weekend in Korea with my KBFF (II)^^

 Oh and just 'cos it's a nice picture ... :) 

Anyway, on to the main point - I found an interesting article in the Sydney Morning Herald (anyone remember my rant against "dumb bitch" female comedians?). I haven't seen material by all of the female comedians mentioned, but it's a good point and I guess not too far from the Slutwalks issue either. I'm actually kind of interested in going to the forum and hey, it's getting to the stage where I can actually plan on following through on events like this :) Anyone keen on joining?

From http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life/putting-the-fun-into-feminism-20120209-1rjyk.html#ixzz1mENZng00

Putting the fun into feminism

February 11, 2012

Pushing the boundaries ... not everyone is amused by Margaret Cho.

These new poster girls like their bras and know how to have a chuckle, writes ANNIE STEVENS.
''The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue.'' Dorothy Parker

Women marched across London in December to protest against a matter of great concern to the female population. They were defending muffs: big, bouffant ones. The Muff March was against the pornography-influenced obsession with removing pubic hair and the rise in cosmetic gynaecological surgery. Some people came dressed in nude body suits adorned with cheerful patches of pretend pubic hair and signs that read: ''You've got my chuff in a huff.''

Caitlin Moran

If the spirit of the protest was light-hearted, the message was not. The event reflected the sense of fun sweeping through feminism - a subject not often thought to be especially amusing.

Women are no longer burning their bras. As British newspaper columnist Caitlin Moran wrote last year in her book How to Be a Woman, they like their bras. Moran has become the poster girl for funny feminism.
As she also writes in How to Be a Woman, ''We need to reclaim the word 'feminism'. We need the word 'feminism' back real bad. When statistics come in saying that only 29 per cent of American women would describe themselves as feminist - and only 42 per cent of British women - I used to think, What do you think feminism IS, ladies? What part of 'liberation for women' is not for you? Is it freedom to vote? The right not to be owned by the man you marry? The campaign for equal pay? Vogue by Madonna? Jeans? Did all that good shit get on your nerves? Or were you just drunk at the time of the survey?''

Tina Fey

In her memoir, Bossypants, American actor and comedian Tina Fey gives tips on how to be less like her 30 Rock alter ego, Liz Lemon, and learn how to make it in a man's world. These include not wearing tube tops or eating diet food in meetings.

Melbourne academic and co-author of The Great Feminist Denial, Monica Dux, believes such exuberance is rejuvenating feminism. ''It cuts through the bullshit and serves it back up,'' Dux says. ''When you're funny you can get people to listen. When you write about feminism, you're delivering bad news. What [Moran has] done is say, 'Look, here's a lot of the bad news' but she's done so in a way to make it accessible and to make women feel good about things that don't seem good.''

Sarah Silverman

Germaine Greer wrote in The Female Eunuch in 1970 that it would be highly unlikely for women to not have a sense of humour considering what they were up against. Four decades on, little seems to have changed: the wage disparity between men and women remains, ''raunch culture'' rules and for little girls, pink still washes over all.
Greer and Naomi Wolf will appear at the Opera House next month for The F-Word, a panel discussion that poses the question: is feminism is a dirty word?

Whether there is a ''right'' way to be a feminist remains a thorny topic. Melbourne comedian and author Catherine Deveny thinks humour has become the movement's Trojan horse.
''We tried hitting them over the head with it, we tried burning our bras, we tried engaging in an intellectual polemic and now we're trying it with humour. We're always attacking in different ways,'' Deveny says.
When she started doing stand-up comedy in the early 1990s, ''there were comedians and then there were female comedians''.

Catherine Deveny

''All [the female comedians] did stuff about, 'I'm so fat', 'I'm so single', 'Oh my period'. I just thought, 'I don't want to be thought of as a female comedian, I want to be a comedian.'''
Challenging people with her views on race, gender, beauty and sexuality is how American comedian Margaret Cho wins over audiences. For her, feminism is a no-brainer. ''Feminism is my life! It's who I am,'' she said in a 2009 interview. ''For me, it's just a logical way to be. It's the way I approach everything. I guess I approach everything as a feminist first and then I'm thinking about racial issues and then I'm thinking about queer issues.''
She's not the only female comedian pushing the boundaries of taste. A recent New York Times article dissected Sarah Silverman's rape jokes: ''For a certain strain of stand-up, dating to Lenny Bruce, it's essential to talk about what's taboo … Ms Silverman belongs to this tradition, under the guise of a shallow bigot. What she proved is that there are areas of aggressive, shocking comedy where women could go further than men.''
But does humour have limits in the feminist argy-bargy, where there are deeply unfunny topics such as abuse and the oppression of rights and dignity?
''Humour is helping to broaden the feminist message … but there are some aspects that are pretty hard to joke about [such as] child sexual abuse, domestic abuse,'' says author and academic Catharine Lumby.

''They're not funny subjects but then again, when people who are working in these areas get together, it's fairly uncommon for them to not find things to laugh about. It's that pressure-valve thing and there is a resilience there that is sometimes expressed through humour.''

For Melbourne journalist and blogger Clementine Ford, humour has not helped her find a voice as a feminist but has delivered the message in an easy-to-swallow way.

''You have to make your approach palatable to people because the simple fact is, they don't respond to 'shrieking feminists','' she says.

''Humour is a way of making indifferent people side with you, like-minded people laugh and opponents get outraged. I feel like I gently poke fun at people who can't see the inequalities that exist in the world. And sometimes I roast them.''

Not everyone agrees.

In an article for the New Statesman last year, journalist Julie Bindel wrote: ''These 'fun feminists', who have little or no idea about the theory or practice of this movement, take advantage of the benefits that radicals have fought long and hard for, whilst contributing nothing. In fact, they are damaging to other women and are destroying progress won by those of us who do not weep when men disapprove of our views.''

Perhaps the debate ignores that feminism is not a one-size-fits-all theory. As Dux says: ''Communicating to ordinary women is how change comes about.''
And far from diluting all that feminism stands for, making 'em laugh is a powerful rallying cry. If feminism has a new voice, it is still stroppy, still strident, still passionate. But in being knicker-twistingly funny, there is hope, there is a fresh sense of camaraderie and most importantly, there is heart.

The F-Word feminist forum is at the Sydney Opera House on March 4.

Putting my cantankerous pants on one leg at a time...

Since I know this is going to be a bit of a controversial topic, I'm just going to go ahead and rant about it anyway since it's something that severely annoys me and what the hey, this is my blog anyway.

Ok, so I know that people who say this mean well, but seriously, don't bless me or offer to pray for me. If I don't share your beliefs it has no positive effect on me and in fact it's a bit insulting - it's almost like a threat sometimes and feels like you're forcing them on me, in the vein of "I'm going to do it whether you like it or not!" I know people often say it because they either don't know what else to say or do, or possibly that they genuinely believe that it works, although even as someone who respects belief in other people if not what they actually believe in I still wonder how often that situation could really be claimed to be entirely true. Maybe it's a way for them to still their own doubts. Or looking at things cynically, a way for them to relieve their own feelings of guilt about not actually wanting to do anything to help. But really, if I was a Satanist and said "the devil be with you" or "may you rot in hell as an eternal reward for your good works" I doubt people would take it as gracefully, even if I genuinely believed in Satan (or let's say Hades to try and avoid negative associations) as the creator of life and mediator of eternal justice. Even though if you're Christian you should at least know that God originally created Satan as an angel, who (like humanity) chose his own path and actually looking at it from a human perspective did pretty well out of it, becoming his own boss and owning his own Realm of Darkness compared to the other chump angels who stayed in Heaven. I'd say he's pretty happy with how his Eternal Reward is paying out. And if I said that to the average kind of person who tries to bless other people they'd be very upset.

Anyway, that digression aside, I can't fault hope and sympathy, but I can fault the hypocritical approach to respect that many religious people take, regardless of what that religion is - respect is something you have to give if you want to demand it. And sometimes I feel like people trying to bless one or pray for one who doesn't share their beliefs is kind of like a smoker blowing their second hand smoke into your face just because they want to share the lovely tar-filled joy of their habit with you. If you feel like the other person is in a hard or hopeless situation and want to lend your sympathy or even if, being honest with yourself, you are loathe to actually do anything to help, what's wrong with just saying "I'll be thinking of you" or "I'm here for you if you need to talk" or even offering to do something with them that will help distract them from their troubles for a while? Save the sanctimonious stuff for someone who will appreciate it much more or at least just say it quietly to yourself. Or at least don't act offended if you offer to pray for me and I tell you not to bother because there's no such thing as God and people only believe in him because they don't want to accept that this one life is the only chance they might have and they're probably worried that they've already blown it, but if you want to really help me you can buy me a Belgian dark hot chocolate from Holly's coffee anytime you like. You believe what you want and I'll believe what I want - I'm sure each of us is secretly pitying the other for it.

And hmm, thinking back I really should have tried to learn to say this all in Korean so the damn Evangelists downtown would stop harassing me when I'm trying to get somewhere. It's freezing cold! If I didn't want to stop and talk to you when the weather was fine why the hell would I want to do it now when it's -11 degrees??? That's not what sparked this off by the way, it's just an observation :)

And yes, this is also the same thing I feel about those stupid Facebook "repost if you support OOO" chain letter things. Sure it worked that one time when it was still a new concept but now they do nothing to help and the only thing they raise awareness for is for whatever gimmick they are running. If you want to help get off your arse and do something, even if it's just opening your wallet and donating $5.

Anyway, if this offends anyone, well you know how to close the window or unsubscribe from updates so I might as well go ahead and rub it in - suck it! ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

Twice in one day? Phwoar!

.. you can tell I'm stuck at school deskwarming^^ Anyway the first was just pictures of random fat animals so I figure you can deal with it. And this might actually have some content - it's a reblog of a post by Burndog giving some credit to GEPIK (Gyeonggi-do EPIK) co-ordinators and telling everyone to give them some much deserved slack instead of getting their panties in a twist over mini-crises they don't have the common sense or mental wherewithal to deal with themselves. Now fair enough, there are some real problems that many teachers, both Korean and NESTs, run into in these jobs that require not only teaching skills but interpersonal skills and not a bit of cross-cultural understanding, but let's face it, a lot of the "horror stories" you hear from people teaching overseas are either greatly exaggerated, extremely biased and likely selectively told, or come about mostly because people are selfish idiots incapable of seeing things from someone else's point of view or because they have never lived away from home or by themselves before (and often certainly not together) and are just not at the stage where they can deal with problems on their own. And fair enough - we all run into problems like this in our daily lives, but it's a whole 'nother thing to take it beyond whinging to your friends (or the uncaring cyber world, hehe) and create such a fuss that it makes further problems for yourself and everyone else you drag into it, as well as making a bad reputation for other people in your situation who have managed to do ok.

And this is where my problem is - our EPIK co-ordinators and the staff at our Office of Education here in Cheongju for the whole of the Chungbuk province work really hard to help us and try and give us a good start to our lives here, probably more than they might feel obligated to were we not in Korea. And yes, that isn't always the case - you might be really unlucky and have a crappy co-teacher who has no interest in helping you and in fact hates and resents you (which is quite common) but there are most certainly also a good number of lazy bums working as NESTs with a huge sense of self-entitlement who are only here for the money because they couldn't get a job at home. And frankly, that's the major reason I came here when I did too, as did a lot of my friends, but the major difference there is that we all also had at least some vestige of a positive attitude and tried to make some adjustments to living here in another country and enjoy the things that worked for us, beyond soju and samgyopsal. Even those who never managed to learn more than "kamsahamnida" or get beyond trying soondae that one time they didn't really know what it was, the people I've actually stayed friends with have all done at least a year and stuck it out with varying degrees of success, and problems and crying and drunken rants aside, we've all had a generally positive view of some aspect or another of the experience in common. So there is a lot less thankfulness out there than is deserved, and people always seem much quicker to bitch rather than laud, so maybe if you haven't done it yet and are still teaching, you should take the time to write a quick thankyou email to your co-ordinator.

Not to gloat but personally, I think I've actually been really lucky and had a good school with supportive teachers. Sure there have been minor problems (14 hour teaching day anyone?), but nothing to blow out of proportion that I had to run crying to my mummy (the Office of Education/POE) about. I know this has been helped by the fact that I do speak some Korean, and the teachers here like that I can at least understand them a bit, which I think has also made them more forgiving of my quieter personality (i.e. why not all foreigners are as loud as most North American teachers), peanut allergy (a surefire topic for conversation at any meal featuring the dreaded nut) and inability to drink soju in large quantities. I've also had a great EPIK co-ordinator (by this I mean the head of the NEST liason office-y person), Mary Hahn, who I'm pretty certain is asked to do everything and anything involving English or English speakers at the POE rather than just what her job description says, and who has always done her best to help us resolve our issues and questions here, no matter how trivial. Case in point at our Orientation - someone asking why they didn't have an oven in their place and when the POE would be buying one for us (yes, I'm serious). Even though Korean apartments generally don't have ovens, we have more than enough money to spare to spring for a small one on our own and no-one has the room for a real one anyway. Mary calmly explained that our school sets up our apartments for us (which we had just been talking about) and recommended a few places we could go to buy one. Or the person who asked the same thing but about an air conditioner who seemed to think it was a life necessity rather than a luxury.

Well anyway, organising going home has made me think about all of this, as there is a new teacher coming in to replace me that I'm going to write a letter to (ala Lara-style! which I know Edithe was very grateful for) who I hope at least appreciates the teachers at the school and the things she has easy, as I know she's probably not going to be able to appreciate the students.
  
Anyway, this is the reblog - sorry for the rant :) I actually went off ole Burndog a bit and actually unsubscribed from his now main Tumblr blog as he apparently got a new smartphone or discovered Instagram or something because he started filling his blog with slightly wanky Instagrammed photos of pretty much nothing anyone else but him would have any interest in seeing (and even then I can't imagine him being thrilled to look at those pictures more than once), rather than the bile-filled but well written rants I quite enjoy reading, but hey, it's his blog. I'm sure there are people out there who rolled their eyes and instantly closed my blog page after finding more pictures of fat animals eating this morning too :)

Thank-you GEPIK co-ordinators!

Hello Burnchums...the below is a re-post of something I posted over on Tumblr...BUT...I decided that it's worth posting here too. For your reading joy.

Howdy Burnfans!

Today, I'm gonna re-post a Facebook status update that I wrote...and I'm going to add some shit to what I wrote. Anyways...here's what I wrote -

"As we enter the final stretch of the current school year...how about all of my GEPIK teaching friends spare a moment of their time to think of the great work that our GEPIK co-ordinators do. They get served shit sandwiches all day, generally dealing with the worst kind of teachers (both domestic and imported) and their stupid demands...YET...they always do their best to help us, train us, and make sure that we still have jobs! So...let's all say something that we humble teachers never seem to say...thank-you GEPIK co-ordinators...you're a bunch of champions and we'd all be fucked without you!

Sorry...but sick of the sea of negativity toward everything lately...especially when most of it is based on rumours, innuendo, or ignorance!"

Now...I'm horribly biased...I've been in Korea for almost four years...and I've only ever worked for one GEPIK school. When I first arrived at my school…I was very worried. I wasn’t told a lot about what was going to happen or how I was going to do my job, and to make matters worse, I had no co-teacher. When I decided to come to Korea, one of the great perks of the job was that an experienced and dedicated Korean teacher would be available to help me plan and teach every lesson. So, when I realized that my school had gone a different road, I freaked out. I spent most of my first morning looking for flights home, and most of my first afternoon on the phone to GEPIK. I was frightened. I was freaking out. GEPIK couldn't do shit to help me. The bottom line is that they can talk to the school and suggest that the school follow the more conventional model...but at the end of the day, the Principal decides how shit works.

What I got out of this situation was an understanding of how shit actually works, and exactly where GEPIK's responsibilities start and finish.

So...near the end of my first year, Dain Bae asked for people to volunteer to become GEPIK Reps...which was basically a system where people who have been with GEPIK for a year or more, make themselves available to new starters who need help. I wasn't keen to do it...but my best mate John wanted to give it a go...so I jumped on board! Now...the GEPIK Reps have been replaced by GEPIK co-ordinators...but here's an example of the kind of emails that I would get when I was repping -

"I am a ESL teacher in Suwon. I have problems with my Korean co-teacher, and not a soul to talk to about how to deal with them. In the recent past I have spoken to my Principal and Vice-Principal, but as far as I can see they just want to sweep the problems under the nearest rug. I am angry and depressed over my situation here; and feel so alone that I wish I could sprout wings and fly across the ocean. I asked the Vice Principal of my school to please provide me with someone I can go to, but I have heard nothing from anyone. I know they just wish I would just stop "being a problem". Unbeknowest to them I am not the problem, but she is Korean and I am not so to me that pretty much says it all. My Korean co-teacher has many people to discuss what she sees as the problem. I have no one, and I fantasize about just packing up and leaving.
I don't know what to do. Any suggestions?"

Now...that's just one email. Most of the emails were a LOT less dramatic. The above email doesn't really contain any information...the person asks for suggestions...but doesn't explain what the problems are...aside from the fact that the co-teacher is Korean. I ended up giving up an entire Sunday to go and have coffee with this teacher...and the problem was that they had told their co-teacher to 'shut the fuck up' in front of an entire class...and then when the co-teacher spoke...they slapped her (not very hard!) across the face. Suggestions? Well...going home seems a good one...or at the very least moving to a different job. Once you slap your co...there's no coming back.

Now...that's an example of an email that I received as a GEPIK Rep...here's an email that was sent to the blog a year or so ago...when I mentioned that I was going to be giving a speech at GEPIK Orientation -

"I am currently having a very hard time with the replacement Korean English teacher. She replaced a Korean teacher that I was working with for six months. She told me to my face how the Korean language is more important than the English language. Well, that is fine, but not in the English classroom. In an English classroom, English should be the dominant language.

I actually had to raise my voice and shout. I have spoken to not only the Vice Principal but also the Principal of my school with her and without her. Along with a hard copy writing about what she did. She is more than mean and she said that I do not even know how to do word processing. That was more than a problem comment. My old job was in the computer industry and my fiance is a computer developer. He does not like how she has been treating me also. Along with, the computer that she made me have is in all Korean (since she has the computer with the English programming and words that I use to have). I can not read Korean. I have had to ask her for simple things regarding the computer and I feel as though it was not fair at all. Her bad flow is now starting to affect/effect my fiance's work. I do not want that to continue. That is not fair for either of our futures.

Lastly, she knows that I might be pregnant. The doctor told me to wait until August to come back in until then. Since having this new Korean teacher (she only has a year of teaching under her belt before here), I have been sick a lot more than usual. How much abuse do I have to put up with? Her actions make me sick. I am bi-polar and am being treated for it. She did cause it to act up after being stable with high fluctuations. That is not a joke. That means loss of money somewhere. Along with, she definitely loves to feed off my cousin who was a Vice Principal in Illinois and my other cousin who was born in South Africa. Oh, plus my family members who actually do have a lot more than she will ever make. Know what, that is fine if she wouldn't be such a for real bitch. She even used a ruler on the students right in front of me in class. Who is going to pay for all the backlashes from that? The school district?

She decided that she wanted my room painted and wanted me to move everything. Well, for real I don't feel like I should be moving everything. Should I be pregnant, it is considered high risk since I am over the age of 35. She does not seem to understand that since she already had a child at an age of 24. Some of us were not so lucky at that age. She continuously smirks and is not even close to being nice.

Please respond when you have a chance. Oh, I can not always remember here either since she definitely does not watch the flow like I have always had to.

Lastly, someone stole $1,800 out of my bank account. Magically, it disappeared and within one week - my Dad did have a heart attack. Oopsy, that money would of covered him to not have the heart attack.
Not exactly fair, administrators from South Korea even. Not even nailed down to Gyeonggi Province since the Principals wife had cancer. That cancer might spread somewhere not good if that Korean teacher doesn't start behaving. That I did learn from the doctors in my family and from the other doctors that I am required to assist. Don't really want to help her anymore at all. Not even a little bit. I did hold my tongue for four months also with her."
Now, if a humble blogger can receive an email as loopy as that, can you even begin to imagine the sort of shit that the GEPIK co-ordinators get every single day? See...the trouble is...when we think of GEPIK co-ordinators and the questions that they must be asked...we think of the perfectly reasonable shit that we think about. For example...I don't know whether or not I'm gonna need a TESL or TEFL or TESOL or whatever it is, next time I renew. I have NO IDEA! I don't even know who to ask. The question that I have...is perfectly reasonable...so I imagine that everyone else is reasonable...BUT...they're not. There are a lot of nutjobs out there...and the GEPIK co-ordinators get calls from foreign teachers, Korean teachers, and recruiters and administrators...all with questions, queries and complaints. What a fucking life hey?

Well...why not add into the mix the constant shit pouring downstream from the government reducing funding, demanding more training hours, changing paygrades, and altering hiring requirements (all of which GEPIK gets criticised for by NETs who somehow think that GEPIK hates NETs)? Why not throw in teachers who do selfish and stupid shit like midnight runs, that have a huge negative impact on the students and teachers at the schools that are left behind? Well...it's a lot of shit to deal with isn't it?

Now...I'm not entirely sure why I decided to write this. I mean...I'm out of here in the not too distant future...so there's no real reason for me to care about this stuff...but...I guess that I feel like there's a lot of shit that gets said about GEPIK, and there's not much that gets said on GEPIK's behalf...so this rant is my way of trying to get people to understand why it might be difficult to get their GEPIK co-ordinator on the phone whenever they want to, and why the co-ordinator might sound a little wary when you do get hold of them!

Let's all just be nice to one another hey?
I seriously could barely even understand what that bi-polar woman was talking about. It makes me annoyed that people who can't even write coherently are English teachersㅠㅠ