The Tubes

Image via Wikipedia

Image via Wikipedia

It’s funny-when you have been overseas and away from home for an extended period of time like I have these past 20 years-how you start thinking about something back home that you haven’t thought about for sometime and then before you know you find yourself and your mind wandering down memory lane waxing nostalgic.

It can be anything from remembering your Mom’s cooking, the sweet smell of freshly mown grass to sitting on the porch on a hot summer night with a tall glass of iced tea watching lightning bugs flicker on and off that opens the floodgate for all those memories to pour out and for you to feel a little (or a lot depending on how long these memories have been stored away) homesick.

On the other hand, it might be something that you have never thought about before or something that one might not normally associate with waxing nostalgic, especially when you are living and working overseas.

It can even be something really weird and bizarre.

Today it was tubes.

That’s right, vacuum tubes and electron tubes-TV tubes, radio tubes, and amplifier tubes.

Tubes.

Now, you are probably asking yourself, “How on earth did he start thinking about tubes? For crying out loud he’s an English teacher in Korea! Maybe if it were The Tubes, one of his favorite bands and listening to their classic teenage angst anthem “White Punks on Dope” I could understand, but tubes-vacuum and electron tubes? Maybe he’s been in Korea too long.”

I won’t argue the “I’ve been in Korea too long” spiel (19 years is too long) but interestingly enough, the topic of tubes came up in class today right after I taught my students “it’s a little chilly out there today” and “it’s a little on the chilly side.”  Well, this tube topic didn’t really come up in class per se; I sort of brought it up in my mind when I was teaching the class some vocabulary about jobs and occupations. We were talking about A/S (After Service) which is a kind of warranty service provided by companies like Samsung that sends a repairman round to your house or apartment if your Samsung product is on the blink (not surprising, Samsung has the best A/S in Korea.)