Saturday, December 30, 2017

Bravery and foolishness

 I had it in mind to carve a "Nune-saram" (눈사람). In Korean, this means 'snowman', but 'Nune' can mean 'snow' or 'eyes' so the carving was going to be two big eyes with a tophat, arms and legs. Oh, Korean snowmen (snow-people?) are made of only two segments, rather than the North American three, so a pair of eyes would fit very well here.

It would look something like this.


I am at a camp and will soon be teaching science at the camp. Ah, the subject isn't important. It is important to my story that I am not at home and only brought a few tools with me. I expected to borrow a saw to make cuts of the big chunks of wood so I could remove them more easily.  Out of impatience or boredom, I decided to start the work without the saw.

And so last night, while pushing my gouge with great effort, it slipped from the wood and ran across the back of my right hand.

I will be okay. The blade cut through all the layers of skin but no deeper. The doctor stitched it up real nice and made a pointed comment about how lucky I was; all my tendons are intact!

So, what do I do now? Naturally, I will not carve tonight. But if I can get a saw, I intend to at least do that work. But will I finish this? Or give away all my carving tools? Will I be able to carve again without my hands shaking?

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