2015-09-05 My Working Birthday

Know how you know you love what you are doing? One sign: You don’t stop doing it simply because it is your birthday!
I celebrated my birthday by holding three different orientation sessions. So many wonderful things from today:

Refugees:

* A refugee calling me a “superman for North Korean refugees.”
* Celebrating my birthday with the refugees entering our project.
* Three of the refugees who were Grace’s students the last few weeks joining the program clearly more confident than they were a few weeks ago.

* The refugees were curious about me, they wanted to know why I do what I do. The same with the last group of tutors at the last orientation.
* One refugee mentioned that it is amazing what we do without real infrastructure. We have held our orientations and matching sessions at TOZ, Mulmangcho, Freedom Factory, the Bitcoin Center.

Tutors
* Tutors coming from around the country to join TNKR, including one teacher who wants to fly in from Jeju twice a month to tutor. We definitely need a gofundme account for her…
* We had only two orientations scheduled, but three of the tutors coming from far away, and unfamiliar with Seoul, arrived really late. So Eunkoo Lee and I met them from 7 pm for a third unexpected orientation.

* Special thanks to Christian Kim and Sareena Tanlines for talking us up to TaLK teachers. We have so many outstanding young people signing up to join TNKR.

Website:
* Orlandy Godines and Worth Stokes teaming up to completely revamp the TNKR website.

Fundraising

* An unexpected $100 donation from one of the refugees in the project.
* An unexpected donation from a Bitcoin user.

Birthday messages
* And I checked, I have 195 birthday messages on my Facebook timelines. I have more than 2,900 Facebook friends, so I guess I need to delete the other 2,700 who did not post a message. 🙂* Years ago, I had to work on my birthday. I remember grumbling all day. But this September 5. I loved it.

Michael Breen discussion at 10 Magazine

Yesterday I attended a discussion with writer Michael Breen, hosted by Barry Welsh. Very often, when I attend a speech or discussion about a topic I know a lot about, I often think about ways the speaker/facilitator/discussant could have done better. But I didn't feel that way about Breen, it was one of those times that I really felt like I had a lot to learn and should listen more than talk. He's been in Korea for three decades, working as a reporter, commentator, communications specialist. He reminds me of Andrei Lankov in that his analysis seems to be based on observation of how things work rather than trying to get the world to fit his biases. I don't know him, so his friends may say he is a raging ideologue, but that's not the impression I had yesterday and based on his writings. Michael Breen (L) and Casey Lartigue I first read his book The Koreans about a decade ago. It was a delightful read, that was both warm to Koreans but also critical at times. Yes...

Park Jin welcoming remarks to FSI (and Casey Lartigue)

National Assembly member Park Jin makes the welcoming remarks at FSI's conference featuring North Korean diplomats. Park Jin | Greeting message to FSI and Casey Lartigue mention - YouTube

2020-11-26 My basketball story

This photo was uploaded today by my aunt Annette. This was back in the day, when 1) I had a head full of hair and 2) played basketball a lot. That first year of playing organized basketball, I focused on playing defense. It seemed that everyone wanted to shoot the ball, so I passed the ball and played defense. I probably led the league in steals, rebounds and blocked shots. I enjoyed taking on the best player from the other team, I felt like I would get better, quickly. The second year, I was a different player. I will never forget the first game that second year--we lost 29 to 26, I scored 18 points. I probably led the universe in scoring that second year, although we didn't win much. One thing I learned from that experience is that one great player 9 (at least in his own mind) can't beat a team. An eye injury ended my pro career before it began, to this day I still have floaters in my eyes because of the injury. I started wearing glasses, but the problem never went away. On t...

"Yoegi Anjuseyo!"

* I have a short reflection in today's Korea Times about an encounter with an unfriendly looking Korean man on the subway. It was a reminder not to be too quick in judging people in Korea. 09-13-2011 16:47 'Yeogi Anjeuseyo!' By Casey Lartigue Jr. The recent incident in which an American English teacher bullied an elderly Korean man and other passengers on the bus reminded me of a more pleasing incident from years ago. I was on the subway, taking the train outside of Seoul for a work assignment. I have the habit of standing on the subway to strategically position myself near the doors in case my stop magically appears. On that particular day, there was a Korean man STARING at me. Not just looking at me, but intensely staring at me. He had an incredible frown on his face. Not just for one stop, but for several stops the guy just kept staring at me. If I had known more Korean then I would have been able to curse him ...

From nothing to something super special (2023-02-10)

FSI has moved into a better institutional neighborhood where we are the poorest in the area. In August 2022, I was elected as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Freedom Speakers International (FSI) and in January 2023 FSI achieved incorporation status in South Korea. This has meant that FSI must upgrade operations and structure and I am the one, as chairman and co-president, who will be blamed if it doesn’t happen. I really should not be the chairman, for a variety of reasons, but anyway I am. Eunkoo and I are not the typical executives of a growing organization. In addition to being mainly responsible for building and fundraising for the organization, we are the hands-on leaders who are constantly in contact with North Korean refugee speakers. We look forward to the day we can afford staff to handle many tasks. Until then we can expect to continue having more days like yesterday, even on Eunkoo’s birthday. 2023-02-10 Meeting #1: planning We started Eunkoo’s birthday with a planning...

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