Weekend wrap up (part 1)

I hate slow talk.

So Ken Carroll of chinesepod.com linked to my post where I said I hated slow input. We discussed it a little on chinesepod.com's discussion section.

I respect his opinion, and I know that most people think they need slow input.

I personally think slow input is a placebo.

Why? Because if you don't know a word's meaning, saying it slowly doesn't help you with the meaning. It also distorts the natural intonation of an utterance, so forget trying to use any paralinguistic strategies involving context.

When we say "input" we mean, technically speaking, the initial presentation of vocabulary and/or grammar to the learner. Those of us who claim to use the 'communicative method' use real communication to present input. Our pronunciation may be a little careful, and slower than, say, a teenager, but as a rule, we present input in context; i.e., in a real sentence, with a real message that is relevant to the student.

I believe slow language is totally inappropriate for input. Slow language is ok for clarification, for pronunciation practice, but input? No.

But JP, some people talk too fast for me to understand!

First of all, this situation is usually not input.

Second, speed is probably not the real problem. Usually, if you don't understand something, it's because they are talking too much, not too fast. That's assuming you're capable of understanding their words. If you don't know the words they're saying, no amount of slow is going to help you understand.

If someone is talking too much at you, interrupt them. Ask for clarification, try repeating what you did hear, whether you understood it or not. Take a wild guess at what you think the person is saying, and say it back to them as a question.

Saying "talk slower please" might get you good results when you don't understand someone in your own language. However, more often than not, if you ask a European to talk slower, chaaaaaaanceeeeees. Aaaaaarrrrrrreee. Thhhhhhheeeeeeeyyy. Wiiiiiiillllll. Taaaaaaaallllk. in a way that is slow, detached, distorted, and ultimately not helpful.

Anyway, whatever. Not important to most people.

Vancouver customer service

Far be it from be to draw sweeping conclusions based on a few experiences. I'll just tell you what my sister and I experienced.

• She called to confirm our hotel room, the guy on the phone said, "yah, we have you're reservation." Period. There was an awkward pause, and then she realized she had to ask him to actually confirm the details (number/size of beds? length of stay?). Hello!
• The waiters at Guu served us some delicious food, but seriously, three of them asked us for our drink orders, and one of the dishes we ordered never came. We asked twice, and finally told them to cancel it after we got tired of being there.
• We stopped at a computer store; they didn't have the part we were looking for, and wouldn't tell us where we could find it. Laughed, actually, that we would ask him.
• Went to another computer store; receptionist told us to follow a passing employee, who did not stop to acknowledge us. Hello?
• Teenage cashiers too busy talking to each other to notice us waiting to buy our kitchen utensils. Manager scolds them in front of us. Smoooooth.
• We were totally ignored in a number of stores on Robson Street.
• Greek restaurant we went to for breakfast only had a few tables, but the one waitress was totally slammed, as she let the few customers sit as far apart as possible. When customers came in, she told them "hope you find a clean table."

To be fair, we got good customer service at La Bodega for tapas, and also at Ecco Shoes and Abruzzo. We tried to draw a generalization that it was white people giving us bad service, and asians giving us good service, but then some asians gave us bad service....

Theoretically Speaking

If you were a fan of Spanish class lip-sync videos, and if, theoretically speaking, you would like to see the best video from the Spanish Class Music Video festival which may or may not have taken place in a certain Spanish class, I recommend you go to youtube and check out this video .

I'm sure their teacher is very proud of their work.

"Look at this! This is a sin!"

My mama texted me this picture; her message was "Look at this! This is a sin!"

I texted her back "Did you eat it?"

Her answer was, "that was your dad's burglar (sic.) two months ago. i took a picture because it was almost disgusting. of course he ate it!"

Funny!

Sorry I haven't been blogging in a while. My grades are due tomorrow, and of course I'm in grading hell. Actually, all the actual grading is done, now I have to put everything in the gradebook and finalize them.

So of course, instead of doing that, I'm writing this post.

I will have plenty to blog about once these grades are done. Hold tight!

Back From Vancouver

I'm back from Vancouver.

Here's what I'm going to write about after my nap.

• Ken Carroll and the not-so-great slow input debate.
• Multi-tasking vs. goal-orientation.
• Customer service anecdotes
• Thai massage and the boat to Granville Island
• 'Skytrain' or 'Death to the Monorail haters'
• Home again, jiggety jigg.

Meet me at Fort Benning

I'm going to the Ignatian Family Teach-In for Justice this year, to protest that piece-of-shit School of the Americas, which takes my federal tax money and turns it into human rights abuses and instability in Latin America.

Sometimes being Catholic is gross. The promise of eternal salvation is about as exciting to me as doing dishes.

But an event like the IFT and the challenge to cross the line at Fort Benning makes me glad that there are people of faith who stand up to injustice. In fact, if it wasn't for the theology of peace and social justice, I would have given up on being Catholic long ago. It's time to proclaim the good news to the poor and broken-hearted; proclaim that the blind shall have sight, that the bound shall be set free; proclaim relief to those oppressed and afflicted.

Some Christians need to stop fixating on eternal damnation and start realizing that we make hell for each other here on earth, and we do it with our ignorance, our complacency, and with our putangina' federal tax money.

So next November we're going to try to take some students to tag along with Seattle University's delegation. We take a red-eye to Atlanta, eat at a waffle house, visit the Dr. King center, and then drive a couple hours to Columbus to participate in the teach in for the rest of the weekend.

My biggest problem will be schedule. I'm sure I'll be slammed in October and November, and I have a minor ambition of spending Thanksgiving Break in Montreal or Mexico. So we'll see.

It's been less then a generation since the Civil Rights movement, but I don't think high school students are learning about Non Violent Direct Action. I think that people remember that Dr. King was a great leader and that the movement desegregated the South, but they don't remember how. They're not studying Ghandi, and the only thing they learn about Jesus is that the conservatives use him to keep themselves rich and in charge.

Note to self: try to teach the kids some elementary civics, so they can elect someone to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States," hopefully someone who doesn't think that the Constitution is just a "goddamn piece of paper."

Vergüenza.

What can I throw my money at?

So I get this question all the time: What book/CD/online service can I use to boost my language learning?

The smart answer is this: All of them, if that's what gives you confidence. The easiest and best way to learn a language is to use it daily in real communication, let your language instinct kick in. The second best way is to get a tutor and/or take a class. It's a distant second, but it's been known to work occasionally, when both teacher and student emphasize daily practice and real communication.

In general, all the other stuff is a pile of crap; flash cards will get you through a vocab quiz, but that's about it. The vast majority of everything else is basically just glorified flash cards. Berlitz: glorified flash cards. Rosetta Stone: electronic, glorified flash cards, with an added bonus of operant conditioning.

If that helps you, makes you more confident, then by all means throw your money at Rosetta Stone. Seriously. For many people from predominantly monolingual countries, confidence is a big problem, since they associate an inability to express yourself verbally as mental retardation. When I was in Michigan, one insult I often heard was "Uh, she can't even speak ENGLISH." As if knowledge of a certain language was a minimum for intelligence. Well, the people with this attitude tend to have issues when they're in a second language classroom, struggling; that they're stupid for not being able to express themselves. These are the people that should throw money at confidence builders like flash cards and Rosetta Stone.

Otherwise? Save your money!

However, there are three programs that receive my stamp of approval as supplements. They are not meant to be the primary means of language instruction; they are something you can do in addition to being immersed in the target language and/or taking a good class.

Pimsleur. Native speakers speaking at almost normal speed. The student gets a chance to supply the answer before it's given. Caveats: you have to do a half an hour a day, every day, repeating lessons until you master them. You have to answer out loud and hear yourself; you can't just *think* your answers. Borrow the CDs from the library; don't buy them at Barnes & Noble. Limitations: it's all oral. You won't learn how to read or write. If you have a bad ear for foreign sounds, it won't stop and help you.

Bilingual Book's 10 Minutes a Day series. They make books, audio materials, etc. to help jumpstart your language study. My Chinese in 10 Minutes a Day came with sticky vocab labels, flash cards, a menu guide, and a take-along Pocket Pal. It was written in a way that is not totally useless as a language learning supplement, like some of the other programs on the language learning bookshelf. One annoying thing is that they provide gringo-spelling approximations for target language words.

Finally, chinesepod.com has nice bite-sized, functionally realistic dialog analysis. It's not going to help your spoken Mandarin, but do it enough and it might help you with your listening and reading comprehension. Aspiring Polyglot reviews chinesepod's sister podcast, SpanishSense.com which doesn't look bad. Remember, this might help you with listening and reading comprehension, but it won't necessarily raise your Spanish grade.

One very annoying thing about both chinesepod and spanish sense is that in the beginner levels, the dialogues are super artifical: words are read slowly and haltingly, with ridiculous artificial inflection.

Listen to me: slow input does NOT help you learn language. No! NO NO NO. At best, slow input helps you learn SLOW LANGUAGE. (Ken, I was just being facetious!) Whenever you get mad at someone for "talking too fast," you need to remind yourself that you don't speak that language, and no amount of SLOW is going to help you understand.

Counter-intuitive? Remember when you learned to ride a bike, and you found that it was easier to balance when you had a little speed? Remember when you first learned to drive, and you realized you had more control with a little speed?

Same with language. Slow speech doesn't help your memory. You don't need every word in a sentence in sequence in order to understand what someone is saying.

Besides, that's not how your brain listens to your own native language, anyway. Your brain listens for semantic landmarks and then fills in the information in between. You need to learn to do that in your second language. Slow speech levels semantic landmarks, and over-emphasizes the non-content words that hold sentences together.

So don't bother with slow speech. Negotiate with the speaker. Make the speaker say less, maybe pause for a second. Ask the speaker to repeat. Ask the speaker to explain. Ask the speaker to write. Ask the speaker to show you. Anything, ANYTHING but slow speech.

So chinesepod and spanishsense? You can listen to the crazy slow speech if you want. The good stuff is in the intermediate and advanced levels, when people start talking normal speed.

Update: Ken from chinesepod.com just found this post and linked to it! He called me wholly misguided. I guess it's the wrong time to tell him I'm his secret admirer. So now that serious language learners might be reading, I should clarify....

No, I don't actually think that slow input begets slow output. What I think is that slow input, while catering to the emotional needs of many target language learners, doesn't necessarily help comprehension in the wild.

And the reason I created this hypothesis? Because I fucking HATE it when people slow talk me. Language learning is my passion, teaching language is my profession, and I only ever use slow talk (rarely!) for clarification, never NEVER for input.

For the record, I do use chinesepod.com every day, I know that slowtalk is what customers want and expect from a beginner level, I know that those elementary dialogs are not "language in the wild" situations, and yes, I do have a slight man-crush on Ken. Is that so wrong?

It's not about them.

I found this video over at unfogged. Pretty cheerful.

Are you going to say it, or do I have to?

Maybe the reason there are no brown people in this video is because they all didn't want to stay after work for the shoot. The Asians had to go practice violin. It's New York City, right? Maybe they've all gone incog-negro, invisible amongst all the t-shirt wearing white kids with expensive haircuts.

Over about 8Asians I read a while ago how Asian Americans raised on the East Coast are stunned by the level that Asian Americans have integrated into West Coast society. They're stunned to see older generation Asian Americans with jobs that are not restaurant/grocery/dry cleaning. They're surprised when they see older generation Asian Americans speaking American English.

So while Law & Order makes me think of New York City as a gritty, vertical jungle where people of all races and colors come together to deliver frantic monologues and commit and solve horrible murders, the video above reminds me that it's still possible somewhere in America to have a dot.com entirely devoid of dark skin.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised; prime time sitcoms tell me that it's perfectly normal to go an hour or half hour without seeing the part of society that I live in.

Ok, readers, I know some of you are thinking that I'm victimizing the poor, innocent white people of that cheerful video above. You know what? They're gonna be fine. They're young, they're creative, they're attractive, they're white, and their dry cleaning is going to be ready on time. Nobody is suggesting they're a bunch of Asian-hating nazis....

But you noticed. Didn't you?

No, JP, I don't see whiteness, I just see NORMAL people.

Well, there you go. No brown people = normal.

So Funny

I miss college. Don't you?

When I first moved into the dorms, my mama gave me a lecture that I remember now so fondly. She said that this is such a good time in my life, when I have so few responsiblilities. Your only job is to study. That's it. Study and take care of yourself. After college you have to get a job, and you have to worry about money and raising a family and all kinds of things, but in college all you have to do is study. You're so lucky, she told me.

I don't roll my eyes at my mama, but I didn't fully understand what she was saying at the time. She was so right. I wish I could go back to college now, and do it over again with the understanding this time that my only job is to study. All that 'experimenting with independence' stuff that seems so obligatory in college looks like total bullshit in retrospect.

Not that I did a whole lot of 'experimenting with independence.' Just learning how to stay afloat in a mostly white world was hard enough for me... experimenting was a waste of time and money.

A lot of people seem surprised that I was in a white fraternity in college. I wanted to save my parents some money, be part of a social scene, and frankly, I had a streak of fascism and conformity that still needed to be spent. I spent the peak of the Grunge Era in Seattle's UDistrict.

I was an officer in the fraternity by my sophomore year, and I wielded the gavel like a weapon. I learned a lot about white people, especially dudes. For a while, that was my job, and studying was something I did on the side. Stupid. Four years goes by so fast, and there is so much to learn about in the classroom.

Oh well.

Some of the awsome house culture we had was whenever we took a vote, people had to say "Nay" or "Aye," we'd say "Aye" and somebody would say "pendejo." Cracks me up every time.

I also had a game called "Put stuff on the floor." I would get a bunch of guys together, and we'd all go into Malane's room, take stuff off the shelves, desks, etc., and put them on the floor of of his room. He HATED it. We would just smile cheerfully and explain we were putting stuff on the floor! It's a game!

After we had done this to him a number of times, he had a carefrontation with me. I hate it when you play 'put stuff on the ground!'

me: Malane, it's not called "Put stuff on the ground." It's called "Put stuff on the FLOOR." And you like it when we do that, remember?

him: NO. NO I DO NOT LIKE IT.

me: (smiling cheerfully) Come on, Malane, yes you do.

him: NO DON'T DO IT ANYMORE. Last time you guys did that, I was missing two... things.

me: Malane, we didn't take anything, we just put it all on the floor!

him: I'M MISSING TWO... THINGS!

me: Oh? What are you missing, Malane? Two... things?

Then Malane stomped of in frustration. He was a stomper.

We also used to answer any "where" question with "up your butt." So, the answer to "Where are my keys?" would invariably be "up your butt." So funny!

Here's how it would go:

a: I'm going to kill Malane!

b: Why?

a: He told me he was going to finish my dish duty!

b: Oh yah, he said he'd be right back...

a: Well where the hell did he go?

b: . . . up your butt.

a: d'oh!

Pure comedy! We would do this when speaking Spanish as well... "... en tu culo." French was the best though, because the best translation we could come up with was "il a grimpé dans ton cul," which means "it has climbed into your ass." Subject, verb... it's a complete sentence, so much more satisfying!

The best part was when I came back after a quarter in France, Swabbie asked me where something was.... of course I answered "...up your butt." And he yelled OH NO. NO. When you went to France, everybody stopped saying that. We are NOT saying that anymore, that shit is OVER.

Within just a couple days of Swabbie's admonition, the entire house was back to saying it again, especially to Swabbie.

Sigh. I miss torturing those guys.

Lame, Not Lame

Lame:

• I put my spare key in a lockbox on my door for the contractors; when I got home today, I found the code already dialed in, and the lockbox unlocked. Lame. Who knows how long it had been like that.
• They replaced the gutter, but the new gutter blocks my steel security door from opening all the way (see picture above). I have just enough room to squeeze through. Lame. I'm hoping they'll come back and fix that.
• The contractors planted new flowers and put down bark on some of the green spaces in our complex, as a gift for all the damage they did during the construction; not lame! But they didn't fix the three green spaces around my front door. Lame.

Not Lame:

• I live blocks away from an awesome tacobus. I went there just now for a snacky snack; had two chicken tacos, a tamal, and a bottle of water.
  
  

Mmm... cheese....

I want to meet the Cheese Nun. Don't you?

Actually, Dr. Mother Cheese... Nun.

Where the Russian kids hang out.

Yesterday I went to Alki Point to sit in a cafe and go over leadership applications. It used to be that Sunday night was a great time to go to Alki; no traffic, plenty of parking...

I'm not sure if it's a new trend or if it's just another sign of spring in Seattle, but Alki was full of Russian kids!

You can tell they were not the regular wonderbread kids because they were dressed warmly. The girls all had ballarina hair and wore puffy jackets, and the dudes wore shirts with collars, sweaters, and leather jackets. On the sidewalk, they showed some immigrant herding behavior that you see exhibited by Filipino kids from out of town, or when the French kids are in town on their exchange.

Inside the cafe, it was as loud as the school cafeteria, with Russian kids flirting, cooing about the lap dog, etc. Due to my policy of eavesdropping, I eavesdropped on them; their conversation reminded me of my that generation of my uncles who immigrated in the 1970s. The girls all sat in the armchairs, but moved when Alpha and came over and said, "Hey, what is this! You are not princesses here," chuckling, sounding very slightly like a wild and crazy guy.

I used to know a lot more Russian kids when I taught community colllege in the south end. Now I hardly know any. There are huge communties of immigrants that my current school just does not serve.

******

Those new Dairy Queen ads with soft serve on waffle cones with strawberries and chocolate are making me insane. Where is my 24 hour Dairy Queen?

Sweet Dreams

So last night I dreamt that I was driving on a curvy bridge over the water... and I lost control and the car splashed into the water. I reached for the door handle with my right hand (was I driving a British car?) but I didn't get the door open in time... damn, I would have to wait until the car was full of water, so that the pressure could equalize....

.... fade to black...

Seconds later, I was driving my British future car over a curvy bridge over the water... the universe had given me a second chance... and I lost control and the car spashed into the water. But this time, I opened the door right away, and was able to get to shore.

I went home to my big new house, where my sister was there, only she was EVIL. I don't remember much else about her....

I do remember getting into the shower, the walls of which were painted purple. I looked down and realized I still had my jeans on.

Cool Picture.

I just love this image from 1986 People Power Revolution. I found it here.

"Sister insane as well." and "Diabetes vs. doughnuts."

So mama put the dog in the fridge and took a picture. I assume that's how it went.

Now my sister has made the dog a myspace page.

What's next, a dog blog? Damn you, google.

So today I went on a glucose assignment. This morning my blood sugar was 111 before breakfast; I wanted to see what blueberry pancakes with a little bit of syrup would do to it. 200.

Yikes. I walked it off (which helps) and took a nap (which does not help). I got hungry around 2 pm, and checked... 88.

Yikes. I mean, that's a good, but it means I crashed pretty hard. My insane sister flaked on our plans for tofu soup, so I decided to give myself an assignment: baked potato.

So I tried to think of some place where I could get a steak and a baked potato, without going to far out of town, or succumbing to the gross corporate diners. I decided on Pike Place Grill, where there were plenty of white tourists saying "Pike's Market" and tying their sweaters around their waists.

When I get there, the waiter says sorry, no baked potatoes until 5 pm, when dinner service starts. Hmph. So instead I got fries. Don't worry, I didn't eat them all.

What I did eat all of was my 1/2 dozen cinnamon doughnuts from Daily Dozen. That's right. I ate six doughnuts covered in sugar. For those of you pitiful souls who don't know the joy of Daily Dozen, they are freshly fried mini dougnuts. Since there are no churros in this town, the Daily Dozen cinnamon version is the closest thing. Cakier than beignets, softer than churros.... The line went into the next building, but the cashier is fast and puts on a good show. He snaps the bag open against his thigh, making the tourist kids all jump, because it sounds like a gunshot. A delicious gunshot. Then BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM he tongs five hot little doughnutcitos into your bag. The last one he flips up into the air above his head, and catches it in the bag. A torrent of cinnamon sugar goes into the bag, he gives it a shakey shakey, and two dollars later the first one is in your mouth. Warm, fresh, sugary, crispy on the outside, hot and cakey on the inside....

I ate them all. I ATE THEM ALL. And then came home immediately and got on the exercise machine. Blood sugar was 143: doughnuts must not have hit the system yet.

(thanks for the video, Kim and Jason).

Mama, you is so crazy....

Mama sent this picture to my sister's cell, who forward it to me. Mama's note was "see her collar."

Ok, everyone's looking at her collar, right? Is anyone looking at the fact that THE DOG IS IN THE FRIDGE?

Mama done lost her mind.

I asked her over text why the dog is in the fridge.... Her explanation was: "probably just wanted to cool off."

Happy Mama's Day

Happy Mama's Day, especially to my favorite mama.

We'll see you in a month, Ma!

Here's a Happy Slip's Mother's Day video. If you haven't discovered Happy Slip yet (thanks Tita) then you should go watch! I recommend Mixed Nuts and the Peelings.

Happy Slip's family humor is pretty obvious to my sister and I. And since we are filipino, 'obvious' is still funny. Her accents sound much more Tagalog than the country-fried Ilocano accents we have in our family, especially the Auntie, who is super magat.

To compare my own mother to Happy Slip's, I think my mama likes flowers. I would never presume to buy her an outfit, though... or maybe it's that I would never shop. If I wrote my mama a song, I'm absolutely sure that either my she or my dad would get up and answer the phone, due to my parents' fascinating ability to only pay attention to me when I am watching a movie.

Finally, I cook for them sometimes, but it is guaranteed that as soon as we sit down, my dad will be late to the table, and then spend ten minutes getting some leftover tomatoes from the fridge, even if there's tomatoes on the table. He's done this since I was little, so by then, I'm screaming at him, so forget cooking a special meal for mama.

Anyway, words are the best. They are sincere, least likely to be sabotaged by dad, and involve zero minutes of shopping.

Life is short! I love you, Mama, every day! Happy Mama's Day!

Colbert vs. 비

Why You Fail at Language Learning

Some of you are experts at failing to learn language. Often, you make up totally stupid reasons, like "I'm bad at languages" or "I'm past my critical period." Bullshit.

You fail because you're doing it wrong. Here are some of the reasons why you fail. A couple of them are the teacher's fault, but the vast majority are your own fault.

1. Your unbelief. When I tell you a feature of the language, whether it's pronunciation, vocabulary, or grammar, you are skeptical. You find the target language illogical, inefficient, or somehow unreasonable. You believe a dictionary more than you believe me, the instructor. Example: people who think the French "R" is too unreasonable. People who don't understand why there are so many "redundant" object pronouns in Spanish.

2. Your shyness. It's ok to be an introvert in life. However, if you can't talk to other people, you're going to learn less.

3. Your fear of making mistakes. If you can't make mistakes, you can't learn from your mistakes. When you get called on in class, your jaw locks up, tears come to your eyes, you hesitate. You look around. Your name. I asked you to say your damn name. Are you so scared you don't know you're own name?

4. Your fixation on English. You ask what stuff means in English, and you only want to hear the answer in English. You blurt out English translation when you figure something out. When I ask you a question in the target language, you try to get confirmation in English before answering. STUPID. I speak English, I don't need your translation, jackass.

5. You give up so easy. You resent the fact that I give you grammar rules, so instead of concentrating on the rules, you just try to do what you think sounds right, i.e., total uneducated guessing. When that strategy doesn't work, you decide it's too damn hard and you exclaim "this is hard" and then you hate it. You will do everything except for FOLLOW THE RULES I just gave you.

6. You do your homework to finish instead of to learn. You don't know or care about the grammar the homework is trying to get you to practice. You try to do your homework as efficiently as possible, rather than practicing the material. You bemoan the busy work. News flash: language is busy work. You want grammar to go into muscle memory, you have to do the drills, kid.

7. You don't use target language enough. You learn to ride a bike by getting on a bike. You learn to drive a car by getting behind the wheel. You learn to play a song on the piano by playing it on the piano. You learn to use chopsticks by using chopsticks. If you don't use the target language, you won't learn the target language. It's not something you can get good at by reading about it.

8. Your teacher doesn't use target language enough. Perhaps your teacher is more interested in communicating with you than forcing you to learn. Sucks for you. You should complain. This is why I didn't learn Filipino: my teachers only spoke it 30% of the time, they didn't actually us it to communicate with us. You'd think that all the Filipinos I know would be sympathetic, but Filipinos are so bilingual that they will look at you straight in the eye and say "Ok, now I am speaking to you in Tagalog," IN ENGLISH. It's maddening. And when they finally do manage to speak to you in Filipino, they rarely do it in a way that is helpful to 2nd language learners; i.e., they don't offer options, they don't help you negotiate for meaning, they don't rephrase or repeat... they just give up and tell you in English. If you want to learn, both you and the person speaking to you must tolerate the temporary and minor discomfort of the vocabulary gap. If either of you just go around it by speaking English, you will never learn. NEVER.

9. Your teacher is too error oriented. Your teacher loves to catch you on the exceptions, the irregulars. You never get to see the big picture. Newsflash, teacher: error correction is ineffective. The learner only learns from mistakes with internal motivation.

10. Your curriculum is based on theoretical completeness, rather than communicative proficiency. This is a big one, especially when it comes to French. Your French book wants to teach you the subjunctive, first by teaching you the regulars, then by teaching you the non regulars, then by drilling you to death on all the exceptions. There are plenty of Americans who NEVER LEARN the French subjunctive, they get along in their lives just fine. Is it worth learning? Absolutely yes; French people are much more impressed when they don't hear awkward grammar mistakes. However, they are much LESS impressed by people who know the grammar rules but can't talk. If your instructor is teaching you grammar rather than how to talk, you should a) learn as much as you can from that teacher, and then b) make sure your next teacher emphasizes communicative proficiency.

10. You've "moved on" from the basics. Language learning is cumulative. Period.

11. You don't have enough strategies. Do you circumlocute? Do you negotiate for meaning? Do you use new items in generative contexts? Do you look for patterns and opposites?

12. You're not being intuitive. Sometimes, you have to put two and two together by yourself. Seriously, use your head.

13. You ask the wrong questions. Instead of asking for the one word in the sentence you didn't understand, you say "What?" When I ask you what it was you didn't understand, you say "the whole thing." Bullshit. Usually, it's just a one word vocabulary gap.

My French host brother once asked me "Tu veux encore du pain?" Because of his regional accent, I didn't understand the last word. "Do you want more bread?" It was the word "bread" that I didn't understand.

But instead of saying "Sorry, do I want more what?" I said, "uh, what? I don't understand."

He said, in French "Doooooooooooooooo youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu......"

"waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnt mooooooooooooooooore........."

Dammit! I undersand all of that! All I want to know was what the last word was!

"BREAD" he said quickly, and by this time he was laughing, so of course I didn't understand it.

So in this case, "uh what? I don't understand" was a FREAKING STUPID question on my part.

Italians are different. If you say "uh, what? I don't understand" to an Italian, he will immediately rephrase the question and restate it slowly in a way that is totally baffling. You have to ask Italians specifically, "please repeat?" if you want another chance at that word.

14. You make stuff up. I thought you couldn't have two verbs in the same sentence! I thought it's subjunctive whenever you have "que"! I thought all adverbs end in "-ly!" No, children. Only memorize the grammatical rules I tell you. Don't memorize the ones you invent while you are drunk.

15. You don't take notes or pay attention. Children, if after a year of high school Spanish you still think "ustedes" means "they," you need to slap yourself on the face with a shoe. If you don't write down new words that you learn on the fly, you deserve it when I ridicule you for not knowing it only 10 seconds later. If you just asked the same question that two other people just asked, you are not taking your education seriously enough.

Five Pounds Later

First of all, please send good vibes to 安玛丽 and 姐尼, whose mother Mary Jane passed away this week. Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon her. May her soul rest in peace, Amen.

******

I had an appointment with my diabetes RN today; she said my levels were good, and she encouraged me to experiment; eat carbs, and see how my body handles them. Say no more.

It seems I have lost five pounds in the last week. The nurse was a little annoyed at such a dramatic loss in one week, but I totally haven't been trying; I've just been eating better and walking a little. Funny.

My sister and I are going out of town on Memorial Day Weekend. I first thought we might go to Vancouver, but then I remembered I sent my passport to the Chinese consulate for a Visa. Is the passport requirement in place yet? If so, we're either going to Portland or the ocean. We'll see.

Rest in Peace, Howard

Seattlest notes the passing of Howard Bulson, a jazz piano player who made a creepy dive like Sorry Charlie's the classiest place in town.

I sang with him twice; I think I sang "My Romance," "If I Only Had a Brain," and then probably "The Look of Love." He just said, "what do you want to sing?" and I told him. And then we did the songs. Awesome. For "My Romance" he asked if I wanted it in the normal key. I said, sure... maybe a whole step lower. Ok, he said, and then he started the intro. Awesome.

He knew the book, the whole book, and his touch on the piano was as soft as a fuzzy sweater.

Rest in peace, Howard.

While you're reading Seattlest, you should check out the blind leading the clueless.

How to make Tamago

It's nice to have a rectangular pan, but I did mine in a round pan, and it worked just fine. Yes, it looked fine. Just cram the folded part into the curve, and un-bend it when you roll it over. No big deal.

I didn't have any dashi so I used chicken stock and salt. It wasn't salty enough. Next time, I will use patis. Unless I find some dashi.

I must say, the my favorite tamago is eggy and salty and delicious, and it can only be found at Takohachi. I don't like the sweet, cold, flavorless cakey stuff that I get at most sushi places.

This to me is much more entertaining than thinking about what the banlieu are like now that Sarkozy has been elected. I have no doubt the business community is excited. How can the son of a Hungarian immigrant be so clueless about the plight of immigrants? Let's say it together: it's 'cause they're Muslim.

No more fooling around

Here's what my Spanish classes are going to translate this week. No more fooling around.

No, it's not a translation class. Sue me. We've done all the grammar. It's time for them to put it together.

1. What money?! The money (that) my girlfriend gave you to give me. The money (that) you had promised to give me! Gimme it now!
2. The truth!? Don’t tell (it to) her. Let me tell (it to) her. If you tell it to her, she will be sad that we (had) lied to her.
3. That song, you all! Sing it to us again! Sing it so that we will be happy, like when you all sang it the night of the wedding, after the mean people finally left.
4. Chinese? Let’s all learn it before we lose the opportunity. Our parents will be glad that we’re learning something useful, and if we speak it well, we can hang out with our Chinese friends in Tiananmen Square.
5. Mmm, tacos! Chop me some onions, we can go buy fresh tortillas after my mom gets home. If you can’t wait, we’ll go to the taco bus on Rainier Ave. Then we can eat us some tacos.
6. As soon as the teacher shows up, tell us “quiet.” We will hide ourselves,; Billy should turn off the lights. As soon as he enters the room, Billy should turn them on again, and then everyone should yell (at him) “Thief! Liar!”
7. I can’t believe it! What an idiot! If he doesn't apologize to us for it, I am going to write a letter to his boss. Let the boss know everything! I’m sick of that idiot always coming around here and saying stupid things to us!
8. Oysters? Buy them small. Let them not be too big. It’s not easy to eat the big ones. Wait a moment, let me open it for you. Eat it up as soon as I open it.
9. Teenagers! If I had had the opportunity to study Japanese painting as a student, I would have done it seriously. They’re not going to have another opportunity! But don’t waste your time telling it to them; they don’t listen to adults!
10. I hate to wash dishes. I hate that nobody washes my dishes. Please wash them for me, you all. If I paid you all a hundred dollars, would you wash them for me?

Diabetic Neuropathy... NOT.

So all week, I've been tingling. It's hard to describe; my nerves have been pulsing and tracing.

You know how you can go to your "settings" and change your mouse arrow so that it leaves an extended tail? That's why my sense of touch was like, all over my body. I thought, this must be what "rolling" on ecstasy feels like, except totally scary.

So I've been preparing to tell my doctor that I have diabetic neuropathy. Right? My blood sugar levels are way too low to indicate neuropathy, but what else can explain it? Then I thought, maybe my doctor won't clear me to go to China this summer, maybe my latest escape plan is in the toilet because no one wants to hire a 34 year old health disaster that I'm becoming.

So all week, I have limited my carbs. I haven't been doing Atkins-level carb avoiding, but my carb intake has been lower than normal. During the school week, the only carbs in my body were from a couple tapioca spring roll wrappers. The result? Blood sugar levels in the normal range. Yay! So why are my nerves tingling?

On Thursday, the tingling finally went away, after book club dinner. There was some sugar in the salad dressing, carbs in the croutons, and then a sweet fruit salad. On Friday I had a pastrami wrap with a big flour tortilla, and then chicken tacos with corn tortillas. No tingling. Yesterday, I had half and English muffin for breakfast; no carbs at Ipanema for lunch, but then in the evening, I ate a bag of popcorn. No tingling!

A little bit of good carbs = no tingling.

So I'm going to ease up on my carb restrictions. My blood sugar is so close to normal; I don't have to avoid carbs as much as I thought. I'll still avoid the dangerous ones: steamed white rice, birthday cake, etc. But I think there is some whole wheat toast in my future. Maybe even a pancake.

By the way, I tested at 104 this morning at 9 am, after 12 hours of fasting. That's just five little points above normal.

If your wondering how long this blog is going to remain all blood sugar, all the time, ease your mind. I myself am growing weary of the diabetes posts, so it might be time to start paying attention to the world again.

For example, L.A. Jane is the Master of Shit and has a job interview! Somebody high-five that woman!

Yah, Right.

I want to eat popcorn. I'm not supposed to, right?

I googled "popcorn" and "diabetes and found this page, which seems to say that it's good for me.... In that case, extra butter and salt!

That's a neat trick! Now I am going to google "pizza" and "diabetes".... somebody out there is going to say that pizza lowers glucose levels in the blood....

Next: liqueur-soaked cake with fruit covered with a sugary puree.....

Screw diabetes! I want dessert!

It's 5 pm now, I just took my blood sugar, it's 104.

That's right, 104. After a big lunch at Ipanema only 3 hours ago.

However, when I wake up tomorrow morning after fasting all night, my blood sugar is going to be 115.

Raise your hand if you're confused.

I feel like going out and having cake, caked soaked in liqueur, topped with fruit in a sugary sauce. Coffee with two sugars. And a cigarette.

I've made a decision: I don't have diabetes! Not during the day, at least. I have what's called nocturnal mystery diabetes. And it is widely know that people with nocturnal mystery diabetes can eat all the sugary desserts they want.

Maybe I should stop watching cooking shows.

SAM opening.

Wood burning pizza oven, on a trailer!

I didn't catch what restaurant they were from; I think it began with a V. They were parked underneath the Hamering Man.

There was also a giraffe woman, the electronic drummer guy who is usually on 6th and Pike, a juggling white kid, and a dude that wore a harmonica collar and did tricks with his guitar.

And there were these people, who were painting the flower smiles in the street.

小猪，老虎 and I went to lunch at Ipanema Brazilian Grill. Dammit, I love that place. Some old people at the next table ordered off the menu. Whatever, man! Rodizo! My nutritionist can bite herself. Yes, I had a large meal, but I had plenty of veggies and no sugar or starchy starches.

I saw two former colleagues today, one at a memorial service we held at school for an alumnus who had ended his struggle with addiction and depression with a revolver. The other former colleague I passed on the street outside of the SAM, he asked if I had been in to the museum yet, and I said, yah, I went last week. That's right, baby. I'm a VIP.

I can't wait to go to China.

******

Last night I went to see Spiderman 3 with 小猪 and 老虎. I was expecting a stinker, but I was throroughly entertained. Of course, if I was the director I would have made cut some more tasteful choices. There was enough plot for two movies, and a lot of retconning. The characters have to try hard to fail at having emotional restraint because there's no time between all the plot points for character development to reveal itself.

The biggest problem with the choices in this movie is that Americans want to admire their hero, they want to see the best of themselves in him. It's ok if he is a nerd, as long as he mades the correct moral, rhythmic, and fashion choices. Peter Parker's nerdiness in this movie went past the point of being charming, and into the realm of alienating the American audience.

******

I got home at midnight after the movie, and tested my blood sugar: 109. I tested it again when I woke up at 8:30 am.... 115. What? I must be eating some time released glucose in the evening.

The Badness of it All

Book group was last night. We talked about the book and ate grilled sausages. I brought a caesar salad. When I got home, I cooked a bunch of diced chicken for our Cuatro de Mayo language department party.

In my class today I gave a "pop fun" on mandatos; the Spanish imperative. The students have a hard time with a) the verb forms and b) all the different permutations of pronominalization. Do I teach it correctly? Of course I do; communicative method, etc. But the students don't follow. They guess, and get it wrong. Then they guess again, and get it wrong. Then they give up. Then they fail a quiz and blame me.

So then I re-teach it to them, the old fashioned grammar way. And then drill them until they whimper.

So much time is wasted because students don't believe to begin with. There's always a "guessing" stage, and only when you convince them that doesn't work do they bother to even look at the rules. It's not trial and error; it's error-trial-error.

I had a meeting with a parent after that class, and then putzed around until the end of the day, when our department threw a Cuatro de Mayo party. I reheated the chicken using a hot plate and piled it onto little tortillitas, which I warmed on a pancake griddle. I chopped way too many onions and cilantro... gringos don't pile them on like mexicans do.

I also served some of that salad that book club didn't finish. My latest theory: any faculty party, whether there are 8 people or 80, will eat one bowl of salad. I had been counting on refilling the salad bowl both at book club and at Cuatro de Mayo, but it didn't happen. Perhaps culturally we have developed a salad proportioning instinct.

Tonight 小猪 got us tickets to Spiderman 3. Students who saw it last night were disgusted, and told me to get my money back. A colleague who went to a preview at Cinerama said people walked out. She seemed entertained at least by the badness of it all. I think she compared it to the Phantom Menace. You know, the one with Jar Jar Binks....

Today in diabetes: pre breakfast 129, post Cuatro de Mayo 127, after eating carbycarbs like corn and flour tortillas. I wonder if my liver is releasing blood sugar in the middle of the night.

What an odd day

Last night I had a nice bowl of spicy tofu soup with seafood, some kimchi, some bean sprouts, and some zucchini as panchan. I checked my blood sugar about an hour later; it was 117.

Not bad. Actually, that's in the normal zone.

I did some mild exercise. Later that night, I snuck a bite of broccoli and chicken, and a few pieces of finger jello. This was around 9 pm.

I got up this morning, and my fasting blood sugar was 116. What? Come on! Again, not terrible, but it should be under 100!

Anyway, I had two boiled eggs for breakfast. For lunch I made two salad rolls (mache, bean sprouts, chicken, in a tapioca spring roll skin) and had a few pieces of finger jello. Blood sugar at 4:30 pm: 106.

Why the hell is my afternoon blood sugar lowerthan my fasting? Did I get up in the middle of the night and eat?

Hmph!

A parent had some catered lunches; she bought me a salad, which I brought home to eat for dinner. It was a cob salad (yum!) but I threw out the thousand island dressing and dressed it with vinegar and oil. I also threw out the gooey caramel brownie and the roll. Sigh! I did not throw out the apple, in fact I'm eating it RIGHT NOW. I'll check blood sugar again later to see what kind of damage an apple does.

It's a small apple! Not as small as the plastic apple that the fracking nutritionist showed me.

I will not eat past 8pm tonight; maybe tomorrow morning I will be under 100.

I told the dean about my plan to go to China in the fall of 2008; she was annoyed. She said she'd write me a bad recommendation, so that I wouldn't leave! Ha ha.

I asked the Hangzhou program people twice now if I could pay most of the program fee now, and another $1000 after my May paycheck, two weeks after the payment deadline. They haven't answered either email, so I'm assuming that's their passive-aggressive way of saying "no."

I would appreciate it so much more if they just said "no," rather than giving me the silent treatment.

Mass with the Archbishop tomorrow. I think I'm going to go buy some pants.

There is a half-cup of artificially sweetened mint chocolate chip ice cream in my future tonight.

UPDATE: I didn't end up buying pants. Or shoes. Not sure what I'll wear tomorrow.

Nobody noticed my haircut today.