Got my city placement!
Erin and I interviewed for our city placement last night, and it went perfectly! Prior to the interview I had jotted down the name of a few places that looked good, mostly decent-sized cities on the coast. The regional director was a great guy, and happy to work with us, but he only had a few locations available for couples. Most people were interested in the largest cities, Chuncheon and Gangneung. He had placements available in Gangneung and Donghae, and assumed we wanted Gangneung. However, Donghae was actually at the top of my list going in. He seemed really excited when we told him that, and was happy to place us there.
Erin will be teaching at an all-girls middle school. I have another middle school, maybe all-boys. We’ll probably be teaching at several schools, but these will be our primary locations, where we’ll have co-teachers to assist us with anything we need.
The location looks fantastic! About 90,000 people, which is small by Korean standards but decent-sized for this province. We’ll have access to all of the stores, restaurants, and recreation we need. It’s right on the coast, with gorgeous white-sand beaches. It’s mountainous, and close to Olympic-class skiing. (Evidently the nearby Yeonpyeong ski resort only missed out on hosting the 2010 games by only 3 votes.)
Here are some photos to make you jealous: (pictures borrowed from the excellent Donghae City website)
Made it to Korea
Made it safely to Korea. We’re housed in dorms at a University. It looks pretty much like any dorm, except there are buttons and switches for everything. We have 10 days of orientation here, then we get shipped out to Gangwon province.
Lots to say but no time to say it. Breakfast time!
Spicybiscotti.com
Just a quick note tonight. I’ve started posting on another blog, spicybiscotti.com. It’s being run by my friends Drew and Nate, and features an eclectic assortment of posts on topics ranging from digital art to designer denium. Today I posted about my bike rack. It’s a fun project, and we’re trying to keep it updated regularly. Check it out.
Super Grub Disk is a lifesaver!
At my apartment, my desktop has moved off my desk and into the closet as a media server. It keeps the heat and noise in the closet, but means that I can’t play computer games anymore. My desktop had a Windows XP partition that I used for the occasional game.
A couple days ago I decided to put XP on my laptop, in addition to Ubuntu 7.10. The common wisdom is that installing Windows after installing Linux in generally more of a hassle than installing Windows first. The Windows bootloader doesn’t play nice with Grub, the default Ubuntu bootloader.
Sure enough, after installing Windows and rebooting, I got the I got the typical “Missing Operating System” message.
I used the Ubuntu live CD to restore Grub, and was able to boot into Windows, once. But after restarting, I saw the same Missing OS message. This repeated several times, and nothing seemed to fix it.
It is possible to install Grub to the root linux partition, rather than the master boot record, and use the Windows bootloader to launch Grub, but I didn’t want to mess with the Windows bootloader.
After hours of screwing around, with no progress, I decided to try the Super Grub Disk, a boot disk for repairing Grub. The disk was able to locate my menu.lst file and boot Windows or Linux. It can also re-install Grub to a partition or the MBR, and can restore the Windows bootloader as well.
The interface is text only, and the menus aren’t terribly easy, but it works great. It installed Grub to the MBR, and it works even after booting and restarting Windows. I’ve had to run the boot disk twice more, after installing updates, but both times it repaired Grub quickly.
My guess is that Windows flagged it’s partition as the active boot partition after updating, even though there was no working bootloader. It seems to be working now, but I’m glad I don’t boot Windows very often.
My laptop isn’t much of a gaming rig (crummy integrated graphics), but it should handle Deus Ex, which I am halfway through.
The pond
Last year, Erin and I found a pond behind our old apartment complex. It involved hopping a fence and hiking down the train tracks for a few minutes, but it’s a pretty cool spot. We’ve finally had some cold weather, so we decided to go check the ice. Here are some pics.
Hurrahs are in order
Today is my 22nd birthday. How ’bout that? To celebrate, I’ll be reading Last Night at the Lobster, which I just picked up yesterday. (Thanks to my parents and aunt and uncle for the Barnes and Noble gift cards)
I’ll also be finalizing my resume, and visiting the Roadhouse Pub this evening. If this snow keeps up, Erin wants to trek to the rolling white hill of Frandor for some post-Pub sledding. Should be a good time.
New Job
I think I’ve mentioned that I’m starting a new job. I just finished up my first week. Well, not technically a week, since I’m only working half time. I’m a professional aide or some such job title. I’m told there are some miscellaneous projects that I’ll be working on, the first being a training program for new student employees.
I work in the helpdesk department at my former university. They hire student employees to staff a call center and a walk-in help desk. There hasn’t been a formal training program for new hires, and it’s becoming apparent that we need one. It should be an interesting project.
Consultants start with a wide range of skill levels. Some have lots of computer experience; some are CS or telecom majors. Some have little to no experience. To be honest, the job doesn’t take that much know-how. Most of our support is very basic. But to troubleshoot any problem takes some knowledge and some practice, and I hope I can help get new employees up to speed more quickly.
The first days at a new job are always a bit weird, though. My bosses are still figuring out what to do with me, and I’m still getting settled in as well. More updates to come, I’m sure…
Comments enabled
I’ve finally turned commenting on, so anyone reading this should be able to respond. Hopefully I don’t get flooded with spam. It is nice to have comments, though. The discussion is half the point of keeping this silly page.
