Here, it’s all Bieber. During week one in Daegu, “Korea’s most colorful city,” which is actually, “Korea’s card catalogue of faded gray sky scrapers, overcast skies and endless stream of black Hyundai’s,” I digress into the infantilization that occurs when relocating to a new country. Neon signs are everywhere: small dashes and zeroes mixed into an array of disfigurement as if someone has jumbled the shapes together in a felt bag and then blindly arranged them into miniature squares. My rationalized excuse for not yet enrolling in Korean lessons is that I’m afraid Korean words might lose their beauty. What are probably cell phone adverts and other mindless billboard messages look like oversized scrabble pieces, as if the whole, uniform city is actually a playing board being used to somehow score points in life.

The Westboro Baptist Church has gained a certain degree of notoriety for protesting both military and celebrity funerals. Their attempts at linking all deaths to God’s condemnation of America’s laxity towards sin have, unfortunately, become hackneyed. Their most typical signs read: God Hates Fags or Thank God for Dead Soldiers. What’s most shameful about these placards is not so much the vitriol of the sentiments, but rather the missed opportunity.

Pity poor Ebenezer Scrooge. Throwing open his window that nippy December morning, he’s so culturally insensitive as to wish everyone a merry Christmas (Pardon my language!). Had he only known how to celebrate the seasonal festivities in a more thoughtful, less offensive way, he could have shouted “Happy Holidays” at all he met. Scrooge, alas, forgot that lots of people out there are not Christians, don’t know what a Christian is, don’t take being a Christian seriously, regard themselves only as nominal Christians, hate Christians, or have vague ideas at best that something Christian is somehow or other connected with December 25th. That’s a big audience ready to be offended. Be very careful.

He was going to be Batman, and then he was going to be the Lone Ranger, and he even considered being the Man in the Yellow Hat, but his mother was pregnant, and the idea of waiting a year so that his sister could be George was brilliant, so out went the Man in the Yellow Hat, and out went Batman and the Lone Ranger, and one week before Halloween, he asked to be Max.

1. Don’t apologize for nervously vomiting on your date. This is to be expected, so a simple “pardon me” will do.

2. Don’t start a savage attack of any PBS or NPR show, one is bound to be a favorite of your date. Saying something like, “Dr. Who is stupid” will usually result in tears and possibly an at-table suicide attempt.