A War Casualty

Apparently the military is cracking down on soldiers' blogs. Here's one casualty: MY WAR - Fear And Loathing In Iraq, who has discontinued his blog without specifically saying that he has or why or anything. The title changed to "Over and Out," though, and the only entry still there quotes some singer: "Ever Get the Feeling You've Been Cheated?" Even his archives have been deleted. A supervisor found out about the blog a couple of weeks before, but he was supposed to be able to continue blogging after the supervisor read it. I find the soldiers to be careful not to release anything that could put themselves in danger. The enemy can get plenty of info from the news! I guess the 1st Amendment doesn't apply to soldiers. I think hearing stuff straight from Iraq is helpful, especially for people with no military experience.

Over the weekend Norton caught two viruses (the same one) on my computer. How did they get there?? I don't download stuff, my firewall is up, what's wrong?

The first two days of the week were really good, perhaps because of my determination to have a positive attitude and enjoy my last month here. Even Joelle yelling across the room, "BETH! Pick student diaries!" like I was an animal didn't bother me. Less than 4 more weeks of her; I can make it.

Monday Jim came in briefly to get Mr. Kim to put his stamp on a housing form or something. Jim's been only doing privates this year (because he's gyopo he's got the good visa). After 5+ years in Ulsan he's moving to the Seoul area to see what kind of trouble he can stir up there!

The secretary was upset about something tonight. She's usually so cheerful, yet today was barely holding back tears. Did she get bad news? Did Mr. Kim yell at her? I felt so helpless--she doesn't speak much English. As I left I asked her if she was okay (yeah, great question when it's obvious she's not) and she tried to say yes in the "Hey, I don't really want to talk about it right now" embarrassed way. She looked like she needed to go home and have a good cry, but had to work for another hour or so. I felt bad leaving when she had to stay--let's trade places! I'll answer the phone and handle balancing the books--let's see parents' response to my horrible accent and awkward Korean!