Non-Fiction
Seoul Oatmeal
I know ice cream is dessert, but I can justify eating it for breakfast. Time is confusing enough without bringing food into it. Plus, plain milk ice cream is barely even ice cream. It's not even flavored. It's the ice cream used in an affogato. It's just a scoop, maybe two, that I plop on my hot oatmeal, cashews, and cacao powder. Some Italian cafes refuse to label affogato as a dessert. It's a beverage, they say.
I like that kind of thinking.
I cook my oatmeal with water, so adding a scoop of ice cream is no different from adding sugar and milk.
Normal people do it.
While I don’t usually buy ice cream, the previous night was special. This is the story of the ice cream that ended up on my oats. The previous morning, I traveled far south of Seoul’s Han River to attend an event with Minervans and schoolchildren from North Korea, only to arrive and learn it was canceled due to Covid. Instead of traveling for hours on a series of trains and buses back north of the Han River to our Minerva residence near Namsan Park, I stopped to look around.
It is springtime in Seoul.
The difference between summer and winter is like the difference between a film and a photograph. In winter, all signs of time slow to a stop. Many insects lose all ability to move when it gets too cold. The ponds and rivers become parking lots and roads of ice. The ducks have long migrated away, leaving only turtles brumating in the mud. Above ground, we mammals with enough fur or intelligence frolic in frozen time when all else is still. My favorite superpower is stopping time, and luckily for me it nearly happens every winter.
As spring comes, the sun sets the world in motion. Faster and faster the semester in Korea spins ever faster, and I can't keep up with the speed of the growing buds, blooming cherry blossoms, and my own emerging but quiet addiction to bungeoppang.
I stop at a street stand to buy three of these red bean paste fish-shaped pastries.
In an effort to slow down and digest my snack, I walk to the nearby Yangjae Citizen's Forest. It’s warm enough to pull out a guidebook and identify the bird in the tree as an Oriental turtle dove, but cold enough to still wear a hoodie and a light jacket.
Like a good Minervan, my phone has two primary uses: opening Telegram only to ignore the messages people send me and performing internet speed tests. By Korean standards, the wifi in the forest is slow: 40 mb/s, though it is fast enough for a Forum class. My session on sunk costs and discount rates is coming up in an hour.
At Minerva we learn one should not base decisions on previously sunk costs because you can land in sub-optimal situations. If your ice cream business invested money in buying high quality vanilla beans, but your customers really want plain ice cream, then you ought not to stubbornly persist in mixing vanilla into your batches of plain ice cream. But today I found sunk costs encouraged exploration rather than stagnation. I already invested time in going to southern Seoul, so even if my reason to be here evaporated, I could always condense a new purpose out of the fresh forest air.
My wandering takes me to an aesthetically pleasing, if not entirely comfortable, root system that proceeds to hug me against the trunk of a pine tree. I join the Forum class from my laptop, and I twirl the linear pine needles into hyperbolic and exponential discounting curves, mimicking the ones on my screen. I let go and they bounce back. I do not mind my inability to shape the world today.
One of my favorite things about Minerva is I find myself bored after, not during, class. To find relief from the pain of nothing, I start to walk. The secondary uses of my phone are to orient myself in space (Google Maps) and time (Google Calendar). The calendar tells me I have nothing to do for the rest of the day. The map gets me out of the forest and heading north back to the residence near Namsan Park.
My phone has no tertiary uses.
The battery dies by the time I reach Gangnam.
Unlike running or biking, walking is easy enough on my body to move for a full day. It is also slower, which means when I walk for a long time, I walk through time as much if not more than I walk through space.
The previously empty afternoon streets flood with suits leaving important office buildings in Gangnam. Construction forces the flow of people into a narrower stream. Reinforcing loops blur my consciousness. People go to work to make money to buy their suits, watches, and cars, to impress people so they can make more money to buy more suits, watches, and cars. I see a Dunkin Donuts and walk in because I feel homesick for New England, thus reinforcing my own association between Dunkin and the place I come from. One person a few meters ahead steps to the right or left and changes the motion of everyone snaking behind them.
I walk past the time when everyone finishes their commute. The streets darken and empty. Multicolored lights outline bridges over the Han River. I lose sight of Namsan Seoul Tower, my North Star, when I reach the northern river bank, but I have strong faith in my internal compass. I tell myself I’m not scared of being alone at night in the city.
Revision: I’m not scared of being scared.
I know I will make it home. I can always stop in a small restaurant and ask them to charge my phone. But I don’t. I’m close. I’m hungry and should treat myself to a reward after my long walk. Bright plasticky lights entice me into a Baskin Robbins. They ask if I want dry ice to keep my plain ice cream cold and I say no. I don’t have far, I think. I do not want to impose. As soon as I step out of the store, my doubt doubles down.
I walk back in and ask for dry ice.
My ramble reiterates versions of unknown Seoul spaces, though time clearly continues. The sun already set, restaurants start to close, and bright lights illuminate signs and point out a security camera watching the neighborhood.
Big Brother knows where I am better than I do.
I need to get a better view of the city. I’m pining for a glimpse of Namsan to reorient myself. I go to the top of a forested hill. With a fresh view of Namsan Seoul Tower to my west, I stop to rest and eat ice cream. A combination of gravity, a body, and a winding path covered in layers of what looks like matted rope bring me down the hill closer to home.
After another hour I stumble into a few recognizable blocks of Itaewon with cafes in which I have studied. Up and down a few more hills and I make it to our residence hall at the base of Namsan. Minervans wander in Brownian motion between common spaces filled with cushions, ping-pong tables, fake grass, and washing machines. I say hi and ask if they want ice cream. Some friends take a scoop, but by the time I want to go to bed, there is still enough left over that I need to put it in the freezer.
I walk in my dreams, dancing with gravity down hills, over rocks, and through frozen waterfalls that swim with bungeoppang. Everything changes. I wake up and feel like a freshly made candle, waiting for the day to first illuminate me and then burn me down again.
The res hall’s wooden deck outside the first floor calls out with an echo of the pine tree roots that hugged me yesterday in Yangjae Citizen's Forest. I step outside before everyone else is up, cradling my bowl of hot oatmeal, cashews, cacao powder, and a scoop of plain ice cream. I sink into the city as the morning begins. In a strange loop that will reinvent itself every three and a half months for the next few years of Minerva, I’m confused by my own certainty that it is morning, I am awake, and I happen to know where I am.
I like that kind of thinking.
I cook my oatmeal with water, so adding a scoop of ice cream is no different from adding sugar and milk.
Normal people do it.
While I don’t usually buy ice cream, the previous night was special. This is the story of the ice cream that ended up on my oats. The previous morning, I traveled far south of Seoul’s Han River to attend an event with Minervans and schoolchildren from North Korea, only to arrive and learn it was canceled due to Covid. Instead of traveling for hours on a series of trains and buses back north of the Han River to our Minerva residence near Namsan Park, I stopped to look around.
It is springtime in Seoul.
The difference between summer and winter is like the difference between a film and a photograph. In winter, all signs of time slow to a stop. Many insects lose all ability to move when it gets too cold. The ponds and rivers become parking lots and roads of ice. The ducks have long migrated away, leaving only turtles brumating in the mud. Above ground, we mammals with enough fur or intelligence frolic in frozen time when all else is still. My favorite superpower is stopping time, and luckily for me it nearly happens every winter.
As spring comes, the sun sets the world in motion. Faster and faster the semester in Korea spins ever faster, and I can't keep up with the speed of the growing buds, blooming cherry blossoms, and my own emerging but quiet addiction to bungeoppang.
I stop at a street stand to buy three of these red bean paste fish-shaped pastries.
In an effort to slow down and digest my snack, I walk to the nearby Yangjae Citizen's Forest. It’s warm enough to pull out a guidebook and identify the bird in the tree as an Oriental turtle dove, but cold enough to still wear a hoodie and a light jacket.
Like a good Minervan, my phone has two primary uses: opening Telegram only to ignore the messages people send me and performing internet speed tests. By Korean standards, the wifi in the forest is slow: 40 mb/s, though it is fast enough for a Forum class. My session on sunk costs and discount rates is coming up in an hour.
At Minerva we learn one should not base decisions on previously sunk costs because you can land in sub-optimal situations. If your ice cream business invested money in buying high quality vanilla beans, but your customers really want plain ice cream, then you ought not to stubbornly persist in mixing vanilla into your batches of plain ice cream. But today I found sunk costs encouraged exploration rather than stagnation. I already invested time in going to southern Seoul, so even if my reason to be here evaporated, I could always condense a new purpose out of the fresh forest air.
My wandering takes me to an aesthetically pleasing, if not entirely comfortable, root system that proceeds to hug me against the trunk of a pine tree. I join the Forum class from my laptop, and I twirl the linear pine needles into hyperbolic and exponential discounting curves, mimicking the ones on my screen. I let go and they bounce back. I do not mind my inability to shape the world today.
One of my favorite things about Minerva is I find myself bored after, not during, class. To find relief from the pain of nothing, I start to walk. The secondary uses of my phone are to orient myself in space (Google Maps) and time (Google Calendar). The calendar tells me I have nothing to do for the rest of the day. The map gets me out of the forest and heading north back to the residence near Namsan Park.
My phone has no tertiary uses.
The battery dies by the time I reach Gangnam.
Unlike running or biking, walking is easy enough on my body to move for a full day. It is also slower, which means when I walk for a long time, I walk through time as much if not more than I walk through space.
The previously empty afternoon streets flood with suits leaving important office buildings in Gangnam. Construction forces the flow of people into a narrower stream. Reinforcing loops blur my consciousness. People go to work to make money to buy their suits, watches, and cars, to impress people so they can make more money to buy more suits, watches, and cars. I see a Dunkin Donuts and walk in because I feel homesick for New England, thus reinforcing my own association between Dunkin and the place I come from. One person a few meters ahead steps to the right or left and changes the motion of everyone snaking behind them.
I walk past the time when everyone finishes their commute. The streets darken and empty. Multicolored lights outline bridges over the Han River. I lose sight of Namsan Seoul Tower, my North Star, when I reach the northern river bank, but I have strong faith in my internal compass. I tell myself I’m not scared of being alone at night in the city.
Revision: I’m not scared of being scared.
I know I will make it home. I can always stop in a small restaurant and ask them to charge my phone. But I don’t. I’m close. I’m hungry and should treat myself to a reward after my long walk. Bright plasticky lights entice me into a Baskin Robbins. They ask if I want dry ice to keep my plain ice cream cold and I say no. I don’t have far, I think. I do not want to impose. As soon as I step out of the store, my doubt doubles down.
I walk back in and ask for dry ice.
My ramble reiterates versions of unknown Seoul spaces, though time clearly continues. The sun already set, restaurants start to close, and bright lights illuminate signs and point out a security camera watching the neighborhood.
Big Brother knows where I am better than I do.
I need to get a better view of the city. I’m pining for a glimpse of Namsan to reorient myself. I go to the top of a forested hill. With a fresh view of Namsan Seoul Tower to my west, I stop to rest and eat ice cream. A combination of gravity, a body, and a winding path covered in layers of what looks like matted rope bring me down the hill closer to home.
After another hour I stumble into a few recognizable blocks of Itaewon with cafes in which I have studied. Up and down a few more hills and I make it to our residence hall at the base of Namsan. Minervans wander in Brownian motion between common spaces filled with cushions, ping-pong tables, fake grass, and washing machines. I say hi and ask if they want ice cream. Some friends take a scoop, but by the time I want to go to bed, there is still enough left over that I need to put it in the freezer.
I walk in my dreams, dancing with gravity down hills, over rocks, and through frozen waterfalls that swim with bungeoppang. Everything changes. I wake up and feel like a freshly made candle, waiting for the day to first illuminate me and then burn me down again.
The res hall’s wooden deck outside the first floor calls out with an echo of the pine tree roots that hugged me yesterday in Yangjae Citizen's Forest. I step outside before everyone else is up, cradling my bowl of hot oatmeal, cashews, cacao powder, and a scoop of plain ice cream. I sink into the city as the morning begins. In a strange loop that will reinvent itself every three and a half months for the next few years of Minerva, I’m confused by my own certainty that it is morning, I am awake, and I happen to know where I am.