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My Favorite TV Shows:

The Twilight Zone  (1959-1964) USA - Drama/Sci-Fi/Fantasy
The Avengers (1961-1969) UK - Crime/Action
Poirot (1989-2010) UK - Mystery
Mr. Bean (1990-1995) UK - Comedy
Rurouni Kenshin: Seasons 1 and 2 (1996-1997) Japan - Animation/Action/Romance/Historical/Fantasy
Trigun (1998) Japan - Animation/Sci-Fi
Muppets Tonight (1996-1998) USA - Comedy/Family
Whose Line is it Anyway? (1998-2007) USA - Comedy
Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005-2008) - USA - Animation/Adventure
Flight of the Conchords (2007, 2009) USA/New Zealand - Comedy/Musical
Futurama (1999-2012) USA - Animation/Comedy
The Big Bang Theory (2007 - 2012) USA - Comedy

My Favorite Animated Films

Aardman:

Wallace and Gromit: A Grand Day Out (1989) UK
Wallace and Gromit: The Wrong Trousers (1993) UK
Wallace and Gromit: A Close Shave (1995) UK
Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) UK
Wallace and Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death (2008) UK

Disney:

Cinderella (1950) USA
The Aristocats (1970) USA
Robin Hood (1973) USA
The Rescuers (1977) USA
The Rescuers Down Under (1990) USA
Aladdin (1992) USA
Mulan (1998) USA
Tangled (2010) USA
Winnie the Pooh (2011) USA

Dreamworks:

The Prince of Egypt (1998) USA
Puss in Boots (2011) USA

Japanese:

My Neighbor Totoro となりのトトロ (1988)
Spirited Away 千と千尋の神隠し (2001)
Tokyo Godfathers 東京ゴッドファーザーズ (2003)
Howl’s Moving Castle ハウルの動く城 (2004)
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time 時をかける少女 (2006)
Tekkon Kinkreet 鉄コン筋クリート (2006)
Ponyo 崖の上のポニョ (2008)
The Secret World of Arrietty 借りぐらしのアリエッティ (2010)

Pixar:

Monsters, Inc. (2001) USA
Boundin’ - Short Film (2003) USA
Finding Nemo (2003) USA
Ratatouille (2007) USA
Wall-E (2008) USA
Up (2009) USA
Day and Night - Short Film (2010) USA
Toy Story 3 (2010) USA

Other:

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore - Short Film (2011) USA

My Favorite Films

Comedy:

A Night at the Opera (1935) USA
Some Like it Hot (1959) USA
The Pink Panther (1963) USA
After the Fox (1966) Italy/UK
The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988) USA
The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear (1991) USA
The Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult (1994) USA
Beverly Hills Ninja (1997) USA
George of the Jungle (1997) USA
Please Teach Me English 영어완전정복 (2003) South Korea

Drama:

Casablanca (1942) USA
Edward Scissorhands (1990) USA
Amélie / Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain (2001) France/Germany
Together 和你在一起 (2002) China
Big Fish (2003) USA
Finding Neverland (2004) USA
Be With You いま、会いにゆきます (2004) Japan
Citizen Dog / Mah Nakorn, หมานคร (2004) Thailand
The Taste of Tea 茶の味 (2004) Japan
Linda, Linda, Linda リンダ リンダ リンダ (2005) Japan
Welcome to Dongmakgol 웰컴 투 동막골 (2005) South Korea
The Devil Wears Prada (2006) USA
Castaway on the Moon 김씨표류기 (2009) South Korea
The Social Network (2010) USA

Fantasy:

Hook (1991) USA
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) New Zealand/UK/USA
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) New Zealand/UK/USA
Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) New Zealand/UK/USA
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) UK/USA
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe  (2005) UK/USA
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008) USA
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010) UK/USA

Christmas:

The Bishop’s Wife (1947) USA
The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992) USA
Jingle all the Way (1996) USA

Thriller:

Rear Window (1954) USA
Signs (2002) USA
The Village (2004) USA
Lady in the Water (2006) USA

Sci-Fi:

Star Wars Episode 4: A New Hope (1977) USA
Star Wars Episode 5: The Empire Strikes Back (1980) USA
Star Wars Episode 6: Return of the Jedi (1983) USA
Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace (1999) USA
The Matrix (1999) USA
The Matrix Reloaded (2003) USA
The Matrix Revolutions (2003) USA

Action:

Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow 蛇形刁手 (1978) Hong Kong
Wheels on Meals 快餐車 (1984) Hong Kong
Jackie Chan’s Police Story 警察故事 (1985) Hong Kong
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) USA
Jackie Chan’s First Strike / Police Story 4: First Strike 警察故事4之簡單任務 (1996) Hong Kong/Australia/Russia/USA
Jackie Chan’s Who Am I 我是誰 (1998) Hong Kong
The Mask of Zorro (1998) USA
The Bourne Identity (2002) USA
Unleashed / Danny the Dog (2005) France/UK/USA
Fearless 霍元甲 (2006) Hong Kong, China

Family:

The Adventures of Milo and Otis (1986) Japan

Musical/Dance:

The Court Jester (1956) USA
Strictly Ballroom 1992) Australia
3 Idiots  (2009) India

Today I played a game with my students called “Deserted Island”. In this activity, the class is divided into groups of 2 or 3 students. They must pretend that they are stranded on an island, unable to leave. But they are allowed to bring 1 object with them. This object can be anything they imagine. Then I give each group a different survival problem that they must solve using each of their objects. The students delivered great presentations, answered all of my questions, and were very creative.

Group A had this problem: One of you is drowning, but none of you know how to swim. How will you save the drowning person?

The 2 students chose to bring a saw and a girl. The student who was not drowning used the saw to cut down a tree and build a boat (with amazing speed) to rescue his friend. (The girl did not help because she resented being considered an “object”).

Group B had this problem: Two of you accidentally fall into quicksand. You are sinking fast! What will you do?

They chose to bring a knife, water, and the always useful: elephant. They theorized that the elephant would sink faster and plug the hole because of its size, so they could kill it for food and drink water later. I felt sorry for the elephant.

Group C had this problem: You meet a pretty girl on the island. She wants to enjoy a romantic dinner with you. What will you prepare?

They chose to bring a gun, a saw, and a lighter. Their solution was to kill a wild animal using the gun and to cook it using the lighter. My favorite part was last: in order to make the dinner more romantic, the last student used his saw to make a wooden table and chair for the girl. How thoughtful!

After playing this game, the other Teacher introduced a mathmatical problem involving a hunter who leaves his tent to search for animals. Returning to his tent hours later, he sees the backside of a bear running away. What color is the bear? (I left out some details because this was how random the question seemed to me at first). I imagined the bear sitting down in a chair with blue wet paint. Then the teacher re-explained how the man how traveled South, East, and North. How is it possible that he returned to his tent without traveling West? This time I imagined that it was not actually a bear. The man had actually gone backwards in time and was witnessing himself leaving his tent, mistaking it for a bear! (I have the mind of a screenwriter, not a mathmatician.) It turns out that the answer was white, because this unique directional situation could only happen in the North Pole, where bears are white.

Recently, I have been assisting a Math Teacher at Yongmoon High School to teach a Math Class in English. Our 11 students have a unique chance to engage in content-based learning, essentially studying two subjects at the same time. I’m not particularly skilled at Math, so this class has been a great opportunity for me to review and learn new things.

One particular problem that a student presented to us was about satellites. When listening to his presentation, I wrote down questions that popped into my head. My questions were: How many satellites are there currently in space? Where do they come from? Do they drift or remain motionless? Are they ever damaged by asteroids? The image of WALL-E crashing through a wall of old satellites also came to mind. I searched for the answers online later. This is what I discovered:

Satellites orbit the Earth (I guess that may fairly obvious to most people). They range in all different sizes, with the smallest ones costing a few million dollars, while the heavy ones cost tens of millions. Throughout history, there have been about 24,500 man-made objects launched into space. Among those, about 8,000 were satellites. The majority were incinerated when rentering the Earth’s atmosphere, while others fell into unstable orbits. Another source told me that there are about 3,000 satellites currently in orbit, with only about 1,000 still active. Satellites typically have a lifespan of 5-20 years. Russia and the former USSR have launched about 1,400, while the USA has launched about 1,000. (Other countries include Japan: 100, China: 80, Canada: 25, and South Korea: 10). Their purposes range from monitoring weather patterns to possibly being able to destroy other satellites in an event of international war.  (The demon of fear is always out there). But what I find fascinating is that most of us have never seen a satellite in person, yet we now depend on them every day with our smart phones, web usage, TV broadcasting, and weather forecasts.

Sometimes I think people are like satellites. People expect us to follow a certain path, but sometimes we lose our path or change directions or simply stop moving. But unlike satellites, we have the potential to be found again. It is ironic that we connect with people far away from us by using machines which are even further away, drifting through Space on their own.

January 2012.  Kyoto, Japan.  Photos by Andrew Zeller.

Osaka-style Okunomiyaki is sooooooooo delicious!!

Photos by Andrew Zeller

Light rays bounce off windows from a golden sunset in Seoul, South Korea.
Photo by Andrew Zeller.

My students did great work! I’m very proud of them.