Like a Jerk!

Joshua Trujillo of the P-I took this; it's on a closed-off overpass on 520 in the Arboretum. Who is Gina? It's a mystery.

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So you know how I hate flashcards? Well, I'm doing some flashcards.

After my Mandarin summer intensive last year, I knew about 200 characters. Now I gotta get them all back, and more. I've been spending my days reading blogs from people doing study abroad in China, and one blogger reported that in my program they give them 50 new characters per day, with dictation the next day to quiz them.

That's right... dictation. Son of a bitch! What is it, the 50s? Should I bring my cassette recorder, for goodness sakes?

Man! But I can't change China, so I'm studying flashcards. Like a jerk!

Will flashcards help me do dictation? No. Doing flashcards will help me to do one thing well, and that is... flashcards. You know what will help me do dictation? Being able to speak Mandarin, that's what.

Sigh. But for now, I'm going to do my flashcards, and write sentences for the characters I don't know well.

Like a jerk!

I made it, thank you God!

Well, folks, I made it to Thanksgiving break, thank you Jesus. Now I have a chance to catch up on grades, clean the house, redraft an assembly get the fireplace fixed... oh yah, and eat turkey. H and I are going to auntie A's place.

Yesterday I skipped 中文 class, so I could be ready for work today. I took a delicious nap when I got home, but dreamt that I had a crushing muscle cramp... in my thumb. Don't remember which, but it woke me up. Neither thumb hurt when I shook off the groggies, so maybe the cramp itself was a dream. Just to be safe, I drank a bucket of water. Can you get a thumb cramp?

One thing my 中文 teacher taught us was that "Yao Ming, " referring to the the famous center for the Houston Rockets, is just a nom de plume. Or maybe nom de balon. It was meant to sound like the Chinese word for "EXTREME!!!!!!" Anyway, my favorite online 中文/English dictionary shows that they are different 汉字，and 姚 is a common surname.

Trad.	Pinyin	English
姚明	yáo míng	Yao Ming, Chinese NBA star player;
要命	yào mìng	(v) cause sb to die; (adj) extremely; frighteningly; very; (adj) annoyance;

My parents are coming to stay in December for a few weeks; it's time to buy some furniture. I'll post some of my choices here.

It's a take home quiz. Duh.

I went to my new 中文 class today. The instructor seems like a nice guy, but he spent too much time telling us how to say stuff, and not enough time actually letting us say stuff. A few times, he asked "how do you say this?" but we had to interrupt him when we actually wanted to say something. We'll see how it goes. It's going to be a challenge getting homework done, since I'm so slammed at work.

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In August I gave my students a list of all the dates when there would be quizzes and exams. Today was a quiz, and the students complained I didn't warn them. Oh hell no. Well, today I did give them a quiz, and it was a 24-hour take home quiz.

The thing about take home quizzes, and come to think of it, all homework, is that they have the opportunity to talk to each other, use dictionaries, verb books, spell check... if I give a take home quiz, the isht better be off the hook.

Oh it won't be. American students are lazy.

Once I gave a French class a take home quiz, and most of them flunked. Except for the transfer student from Sweden, who got 100%. When people said, hey how did you.... and she said, what? It's a take home quiz. As in, duh, why wouldn't you get 100% on a take home quiz.

Quite a day!

Happy Birthday to H!

(I had this entire post written, but got caught by the Bleu Screen of Death.)

This morning I got up late, had to race to work to read morning prayer. Today it was about torture. Then I drove back home to take the bp meds I'm not supposed to forget. On the way back to work, I picked up a breakfast burrito at the Hop In. Mmm, bacon...

In the faculty lounge, someone had left a box of huge, voluptuous, perfectly ripe peaches. Have you ever seen a bunch of huge, voluptuous, perfectly ripe peaches? It was more than slightly obscene. They should just call them sexfruit. I took two. They were really dusty, which was sexy. I had to wash them, which was sexy. Bastos peaches!

Later, went to my kidney appointment, got rock star parking next to a telephone pole with one of these ironic signs posted.

The kidney news is good: the condition that I have seems to be not very serious. The doc said I could either a) do nothing and see if my kidney function deteriorates, or b) start on a non-specific therapy that might help but might make me grow boobs. I chose a) do nothing and check back in three months. The doc said he had a patient that he diagnosed in the 1960s who still hasn't shown any sign of deterioration since then.

After the meeting I got back to work to find a fedex on my desk; the refi had gone through! Sweet! After work I went to the bank!

Also, my new contract was finally ready, so I signed it. My Mandarin class bumped me over a column on the pay scale, and actually, I'm only 12 credits until the next column.

Finally, came home to meet the guy who was supposed to deliver my home sleep study equipment. He was scheduled to come at 4pm, but he didn't show up until 7pm, right when I started cooking my dinner of course. (spaghetti with vodka sauce, chicken breast)

Anyway, he finally made it. So tonight I will attach some electronics to me as I sleep, and if I do end up having sleep apnea, they'll give me a cpap, and then maybe I'll sleep better and my blood pressure will go down since I won't need to make all that cortizol to wake me up to gasp for air.

So in summary, machines will help me live. Resistence is futile.

Harbin Hen, Kidney Biopsy, SPU, Sonics

I was at work today working on some stuff for the 'student leadership retreat.' Somebody asked me if we were in charge of it, I smiled and said, "No, we are only responsible for the content." That got a laugh, but it's true.

I found myself saying repeatedly, I don't want my 中文 class to end. I have no desire for my own classes to start. On my way home just now, I started daydreaming about moving to China to teach, either teach English or another language, or to teach in an American school. I was thinking about where to go; I want to learn Mandarin, so north; I want to be in a medium sized city, maybe not Beijing.... my teacher is from Harbin, she recommended it, but it's famous for ice sculptures in the winter, which sounds cold.

That's when I saw a red hen, pecking at the sidewalk, at the corner of Rainier Avenue S and Massachussets, right there across from Toshio's Teriyaki. What kind of omen is an unexpected red hen? I think it means I should go to Harbin.
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My kidney biopsy is scheduled for Friday, September 1st. I will take the day off of work, show up at 6:30am, they'll grab three little plugs of my kidneys through a needle while I'm holding my breath, and then I'll get driven home around noon. Hopefully they'll look at my biopsy and find a no-big-deal reason that my kidneys spill protein.
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Monday I got a letter dated August 2 from SPU, saying that the credit card I had given them to pay for my Chinese class credits had been declined. What! And that I had until the 15th to takee care of it. The date on the charge? June 29th.

That means out of my July paycheck, I have paid for 16 university credits and a deposit on an orthodontic treatment program. It's a damn good thing I'm refi-ing the townhouse; if I wasn't able to skip this month's mortgage payment I'd be broker than a joker.

So why did I not get a letter until over a month later? Because my application had been sitting in a pile. For a month. Because they had such a high work load. Gross. And now I hate SPU.
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The new Sonics owner wants out of the Key. I loved the Supersonics, I watched the amazing teams of 78 and 96 and all the other years, I loved the Sonics. But now if they have to leave, LET 'EM GO. No more public money.

Priorities, people! Professional basketball, or viaduct and seawall? Professional basketball, or rapid transit? Help everybody, or help everbody give their money to some rich people?

Hmph.

Distractosaurus Friday

Changeseeker has a guide for White people on how to be an ally. Not bad. (Thanks, Professor Zero).

Bitch PhD was horrified to watch Barbara Walters describe Plan B as a chemical abortion, and is urging us to write in and encourage her not to misinform a national audience.

Nos queda tres leccioncitas en el texto de chino y una semanita para terminarlas. Si hubiéramos podido terminar Lección 8 hoy habríamos podido teminar todo el libro el semana que viene. Pero hoy es viernes, y a pesar de ser excelentes estudiantes hasta nosotros no somos capaces de enfocarnos en el tema cuando hace tan buen tiempo aquí en Seattle. Bueno, yo sí puedo estar muy seriocito, pero no puedo solo. Los demás se distraen facilmente.

Hoy al llegar a la escuela el pescador cuya vida me afascinaba llegó afeitado y con pelo cortado, lo que me quedó desilusionado. Cuando él tenía la barba y el pelo selvaje, yo me imaginaba a mí también con pelo selvaje y barba fuera de control, allá sobre el mar, trabajando duro para un sueldo tan grande que me permita pasar semanas o meses sin tener que trabajar. ¡Qué vida!

Pero al verle al pescador sin barba y con pelo corto, cayó un poco en mi mente la imágen romántica de su vida. No es que yo quiera ser cómo él que digamos, es que quiero tener el pelo selvaje. Ahora se ve... normal... lo que me aburre. Estoy seguro de que sea buena gente, pero ya no tengo ganas de pedirme que me enseñe la vida de pescador.

Hoy durante la clase empezó a tocar la orquestra de la Navy en la plaza a la que da la ventana de nuestro salón. Tocaron, y tocaron muy bien, el tema olímpico de John Williams. Yo en secreto quería que tocara un tema de Aaron Copeland o algo así, pero seguían con marchas militares y patrióticas. Aparte del tema olímpico la única cosa que me interesaba fue Sing Sing Sing. Las demás canciones eran tan over arranged que tuve que reírme a voz alta durante la clase.

Después de la clase, esperé mediahora para que saliera la C, con la que iba a almorzar. La cola para Salumi alcanzó la calle, y a patrona de Takohachi no nos dejó ni entrar. Entonces fuimos a Hing Loon lo que le encanta a la C. Pedimos chow mein al la Hong Kongita con pollo y col chino, y broccoli chino con carne y ajo. Los dos platos estaban muy ricos.

Mi barrio por ser tan cerca del Lago Washington se está preparando para la corrida de los hydroplanes. Ay ya! Y siguen los aviones sobre mi techito. Yo debo programar una salida de urgencias.

Low Point in the Blogging Cycle.

We've all been there. Interesting stuff happens, but we're too busy to blog, or it just feels like a chore to have to put something out there.

Last week was the awful shooting at the Jewish Federation in Belltown. There's two directions I'm thinking about following. The first is that whole "Fight 'em over there, so we don't have to fight 'em over here." The second is how the shooter had been baptized christian, a fact that sends that pangit Malkin grasping at straws (sorry, I refuse to link to that diseased gorilla). Something tells me she's not so hard on Mel Gibson's anti-semitic tirade..... Sure, he didn't shoot anyone, but you have to admit, we're talking about degrees of hatred; the hatred itself is not in question.

One of my classmates in Chinese class loves to make jokes about communism, and how funny it is. Our laoshi is not always find it funny, and today when it started to get weird, my other classmate started reading out loud from the textbook. I love that class! I'm sad that it's coming to an end.

I just want to do my Chinese homework and play my computer game. I don't want to face the orthodontist (I'm totally about to get braces again). I want the re-fi to be finished. I'm coming to a crossroads in my "music" career, suddenly big opportunities but no inspiration. The school year is about to start again; time to get into the 'stance.' I missed half a blood pressure pill last night. Sigh.

Well, if you ever needed to be reminded of American air superiority, you should come to Seattle this week. The Blue Angels are screaming across the sky all this week, to the delight of all of us, right? Just think, in some parts of the world that sound means death from above! We're so powerful.

I'm toying with the idea of writing about how to successfully learn a language. It might actually be a list of terrible habits that keep people from learning. If language learning is an instinct (and it is), then it may be more helpful to look at the ways people manage to sabotage that instinct.

Big Day

Today was a big day for me.

I drove in to class today, which was good but I should never do it again. Nine bones for parking, caray. Had breakfast at Seattle's Best, which yes, I know is owned by Xingbake but still doesn't feel as gross. There were lots of non Xingbake people there, and the atmosphere was decidedly more neighborhoody. Next time I'll try the Cherry Street Cafe; I saw a sign that they have breakfast.

While I was in class today, the contractor came and reglazed my window. Yay! I went to the office today to finally pick up my replacement computer; it's HOT, I love it. So sexy and fast.

Then I went to my piano lesson, which was GREAT. I am learning a lot about jazz. I can read chord changes already, no problem, but for the last ten years, I've just been pounding out chords, with no right-hand noodle to speak of. Well, my piano teacher D is showing me how to put all those chords in my left hand, so my right will be free to do melody and noodle. What a concept!

And then when I got home, I put all the great programs I used to have on my new computer. The download from the server at work is taking a while, but I'm just so glad to get my digital life up to speed again.

Funny stuff from class; S was asked to demonstrate the verb "to find" so he said in Chinese that he had misplaced his opium. Funny! Laoshi told me the other day that Z, a student she taught 10 years ago in China, is in the French class next door to ours. Today he was sitting at the desk when I came back from break. After his travels in China, he speaks Mandarin just fine, now he's learning French so he can visit a friend in France. What kind of person can afford to travel and learn languages full time? Either you have to be a teacher with a grant, like me; or independently wealthy (unlike me), or you can be like Z, who, it turns out, is an Alaskan fisherman. He crews a fishing boat for a few weeks, makes money, and then has long stretches of time with which to spend his money. Traditionally, you were supposed to blow your salary at the bar and brothel before signing on to the next boat, but it seems the new fisherman spends his money on travel and language school.

Is that a great life, or what? Work hard, long vacations, no students. I wonder if I could cut it on a fishing boat. But then again, what's to keep me from living a life of bars and brothels now.... Oh yah, a lack of money.

Anyway, the other option is to be independently wealthy; I have to look into that...

Gray Monday

I had trouble sleeping last night, so I slept in today.

Had breakfast at Xingbake. I know I said I'd wouldn't be back there, but it was an emergency.

Class was fine. We started Lesson 4. Somebody pointed out that we had only been in class for 10 days, but I was able to have a conversation on the bus ride home with my laoshi, and it was mostly in Mandarin. We talked about good students and bad students.

We talked about my class; one guy knows a lot of vocab that he's picked up from his friends. Another classmate had 3 years of Mandarin in high school. She claimed she had forgotten everything, but now that she's exposed to it again, it's coming back. The laoshi noted that I have excellent language learning method. The last student is younger and so very capable.

We sat at the very back of the bus, next to a couple of good looking kids, one of whom had a gun and some fireworks in his back pack. He was playing shooting himself with the gun to the dismay/delight of his lady friend. Laoshi and I were annoyed.

I got home and made Aunt Y's chili.

I finally got a call back from the $250/eye lasik place. Also, the contractor will come tomorrow to replace my window. My new laptop is finally ready; I will try to pick it up tomorrow. Piano lesson tomorrow. The lock on my steel door seems to be broken; I'll have to replace it.

I think I'll take a nap now.

I need to buy an adjustable wrench.

I don't know how a toilet flushing lever can break, but mine did, and in order to replace it I will need to unscrew and remove the broken hinge. *Sigh*

Sometimes, students in foreign language classes like to speculate about etymology or grammar. Then they raise their hands and ask me about their crazy ideas.

Student: How do you know which verbs to conjugate?

Me: The ones that have a subject.

Student: But I thought you only conjugated the first verb?

Me: You made that up.

Student: No, but I thought....

Me: Nobody told you that. You made that up. Stop believing it.

Student: So then I'm confused, which verb are you supposed to...

Me: You're not confused. You don't believe. I told you, conjugate the ones that have a subject.

Student: Yah, but how come...

Me: Stop. Conjugate the verbs that have a subject. Conjugate. the. verbs. that. have. a. subject.

I know all about it because I did this when I was in college. I don't know why, maybe it's a stage. It's not that they don't understand, it's that they don't believe. Their skepticism won't allow them to understand.

Anyway, I'm bringing it up because it's happening in my Chinese class. I don't worry about it, I just thought I'd mention it.

Oh one funny thing from class today; Mandarin is a tonal language, so "ma!" is different from "ma?" They have different meanings. They are two totally different words, and to Chinese people, they don't even necessarily sound the same.

Today in class today we learned the word "hao" with a falling tone, meaning N-th, as in sevenTH or fourteenTH. One of my classmates mistook it for "hao" with low tone, meaning "good." So she remarked that we now know two "hao's." Our Chinese prof was totally stumped; she didn't know what hao the other hao could possibly be. Oh, says my classmate, the hao with the other tone, you know, they sound the same.

Our Chinese prof was wondering how the two haos could possibly sound the same, and was about to launch into explain mode. So I said something like 'they sound the same, unless you are Chinese.'

And then the prof was relieved, and just moved on with a "yah, they are different."

When I was in grad school, I heard that when Chinese parents are trying to guess what their infant kid is trying to say, the parents assume that the pre-verbal kid gets the tone right. So if the kid says "mama" with falling tones, the parents won't think the kid is saying mama (mommy) because in chinese, mama has high, level tones.

Instead, they parents will assume that the falling tones are what the child really meant, and might guess the kid was trying to say baba with falling tones (daddy). They don't assume that the kid was trying to say mama because the kid got the tones wrong. In other words, to Chinese people, "mama" with falling tones sounds more like baba (with falling tones) than it sounds like mama with high, level tones.

Isn't that interesting?

The Day After a Karaoke Emergency

The day after a karaoke emergency is not easy. I like weeknight karaoke, and I don't regret going, but next time I can't stay so late. I bussed to class instead of walking, I didn't finish my character homework, and I was seriously fading around 11:30.

Still, we took some time during class today to see how many characters we rememebered. The other students remembered around 30. I remembered 53. That's right.

I have to remember to write an article on how not to learn a language; learning strategies that work, the ones that don't work, the ones that are actually harmful.

One thing that is almost irritating is that one of my classmates, when we're in conversation practice, always compliments me before answering my questions, and I can tell sometimes he doesn't listen to my questions. I always try to tie-in the new vocabulary with the stuff we've already learned (it's a technique), so instead of sticking to the patterns (I want soup, you want soup, don't you?) I mix it up (I want cat soup. You have a cat, don't you?).

Anyway, although it's nice to compliment other people, it makes the conversation just that much faker. Keep up with me, and compliment me later. Upon relflection, I could probably offer more positive reinforcement.

Lunch was at Takohachi, ordered the bento, which was PERFECT. What did I pay, $7? Two little pieces of fried chicken, a bite of salmon, some squash, edamame, a mini potato croquette, miso soup, a perfect tempura shrimp, and an AMAZING piece of tamago. That's right, I'm SHOUTING about the tamago.

Bussed home and took a nap. Neighbor lady thinks someone has been digging up a flower, not a squirrel. She gave me a lecture about getting out and meeting new people; if I don't, I'll never get married.

After the lecture, I came inside to write this blog and then study Mandarin. Friday night in Seattle, baby!

Too Much Information

So my new meds (I'm not even up to my whole dosage yet, according to the schedule) has kicked in. I just took my bp, no resting, no quiet time, tv on.... 151/91. That is way lower than what I was scoring just a few days ago.

I walked to school today. It's 7:15 and my pedometer has counted over 14,000 steps. Not bad. A normal day for me is usually less than 3000 steps.

It's too hot to cook or do anything else.

Chinese class is fun. It will be even more fun when we stop talking about Chinese, and finally start talking in Chinese. I don't hate my classmates yet!