Lunch!, T-minus Five Days, Conversation Topics, Three-Way Sex, and SCOTUS vs. Diversity

I met some friends for lunch at Jade Garden, it was delicious! It's the reigning champ of dimsum in Seattle. No, I've never been to O'Asian, but look at the name, children, it's a non starter. They might as well call it No Asian. (I've never been, so who knows. Maybe it's full of Chinese people. The critics like it... but the critics also like Seven Stars Pepper over 老四川 Sichuanese cuisine... in a pinch, follow the Chinese people...)

I bought me a cheap, new microphone that works well, so expect to see some more videoblogs over at my travel blog: jp goes to china (dot) blogspot (dot) com. Yesterday I posted a my first videoblog, but I think I fell short of fullfilling the spirit of the assignment: I only stuck to very basic Lesson 1 items that I know I can do well. Maybe tomorrow I will try to talk about something more substantial, so you can *really* see how much work I have to do on my Mandarin.

So the RD of the program in Hangzhou has been sending us emails, what/what not to bring, what to expect from the language pledge, etc. One of his recommendations was to equip yourself with a PDA and PlecoDict, which IS SO COOL. It's two dictionaries on your PDA, and it breezes between listing and recognizing your English, your pinyin, or your hanzi! All students of Mandarin should equip themselves with this tool. All.

So right now I'm brainstorming some vocabulary for conversations that I know I'll have. Some topics I thought of are:

1. I have diabetes. (vocab: diabetes, blood sugar, blood test, sharps container, carbohydrates, walking...)


2. Leave Asian Americans alone! (vocab: cultural blindspot, not intuitive, ignorant ethnic majority, lack of compassion, refusing to assimilate, children of immigrants...)


3. Bush is a moron! (vocab: I did not vote for him, blue state, dishonest, un-constitutional, un-American, totally incompetent, liar, shameless, dumb cowboy...)


4. I'm not White people! (vocab: Filipino, fighting over milk, removing shoes at the door, fear of Spam, crimes against rice, stand-around-holding-a-beer parties, I'm not responsible for your stereotype...)

If you can think of any other topics, or any other vocab that I should prepare for the topics listed above, please let me know.

On another note, there is a Kia ad, both in radio and on tv, where a couple talks nervously about finding a Kia as if it were THREE-WAY SEX. Yes! Why am I the only one getting bruised by the subtext hitting me over the head? Look at the way they are talking about the Kia, for pete's sake! Am I the only one that thinks this? Obviously, OBVIOUSLY this is intentional.



And, finally, if you want to read about the bullshit SCOTUS decision that diversity is not an academic and social advantage, read what Dr. B has to say. I don't even want to think about it.

To think, I once had faith in this country.

help me think of a new blog title!

So, I've decided to start a new blog, one that will be my travel journal for this summer in China. I want to be able to have my coworkers and students read about my experiences, so this new blog will NOT point back to you don't have to read, although you don't have to read will point to it.

So what should I call it?

Here are some of my ideas.... vote for one, or add your own in the comments section.

the china syndrome
hangin’ out in hangzhou
JP’s travels
The Orientator
Hungry in Hangzhou
Salt and Pepper Blog
Look Ma, I’m in China!
JP’s noodle and grammar journal
jiping de boke!
donde esta el xixshoujin?
zen me shuo....
Do your gong ke!
People’s Republic of Grammar
Must.... study.... hanzi....
JP; Live! from Hangzhou
Orient Expressions
Maybe You Have Bird Flu...
Ciao, Young Fat!
Coolieing off
Learning The New Spanish
Mandarino
To You, Hanyu, Hanyu-u
bù yòng kàn ā!
China Trippin' with JP

Maps of Spanish Verb Tenses

So I'm seeing a lot of people click over to and email links to my Map of the Present Tense, and its companion Map of the Preterit Tense.

How funny! Who knew such a wonkish post would be so popular....

So here are my questions for you all...

• How did you find my site? Did someone point it out to you, or did you stumble across it?
• Are you studying Spanish? Teaching it? How do you plan to use the maps?
• Do you want to see more of my materials? I have other verb tenses, as well as materials for the subjunctive mood, if you're interested.

Hope to hear from you!

Can't Sleep

Had dinner with the family at a place called "All You Can Eat Sushi" on Spring Mountain. Dad swears they're Japanese. Looking at the place from the parking lot, I said, " they are certainly Korean." I heard them speaking Korean while we were eating (we all got bentos, no all-you-can-eat), and finally, I said 'thank you" in Korean, which the waitress was delighted to repeat back to me. I knew it was Korean, dad! His reply: "some of them are Japanese."

Doubt it!

Breezed through security. Got back into Seattle on Saturday a little past midnight. T$ picked us up.

I spent the next couple days cleaning the house, adding tags to my old posts, and correcting all the misspellings I can find (sorry, orange tangerine).

I had my phone interview with the company in Shanghai. I think it went really well, and my interviewer seemed interested in me... although I had the disadvantage of hearing my own echo very loud a couple seconds after I spoke... very maddening.

The next step is to meet them when I go to Shanghai. We'll see how it goes. It would be a big pay cut, so I will have to see if it will be worth it.... Anyway, I know for sure by next month.

I ordered take out from 老四川饭店 Sichuanese cuisine as my parents rolled into town. The house is clean, and I think as of right now, all my laundry is clean. How long will that last....

Brand New Look

I thought it was time for a clean, new look. Of course, it's just one of the templates, but it has taken me an hour or two to get it just right. I decided I liked the lightbox look after reading Michael's blog, looking for some insights on life in Hangzhou. I considered making the header green, just so Michael doesn't accuse me of being a total copy cat, but I didn't like it. So go ahead and accuse me.

I'm pretty sure I'll change it while I'm in China, out of boredom, but I like the way it looks at this point. Please let me know in the comments what you think, especially if you have suggestions.

Semi-anonymity, hairy backs, and language panic.

When people you know read your semi-anonymous blog, it is wierd. I have met people who were annoyed by my embarassment upon finding out that they were reading; not surprisingly, these were people who don't recognize that I'm always right. Ha.

But, to be clear, semi-anonymous or not: I have an opinion, and I am free in this country to express it. And yes, my opinion is often that some students and some parents are self-important, over-entitled brats whose behavior is often morally, legally, and educationally incorrect. And when I say "educationally incorrect" what I really mean is STUPID. Yes. I said it. Yes. Some parents and students exhibit STUPID behavior.

As a rule, I don't blog about students or their parents. I blog about coworkers as little as possible. But I do not apologize for the times when it may seem that I do not like the students or the parents. When it seems like I don't like them, it is because I DO NOT LIKE THEM. Do they want me to like them? Then they should act LIKABLE. It is not my job to like the people who are unlikable.

So there.
______

Click here if you have a hairy back.
______

In other news, I have bought my ticket to Hangzhou. I've decided that instead of pushing myself over 48 hours to get the cheapest possible flight, that I will do a 20 hour layover in Seoul.
I will stay in a hotel, eat Korean food, sleep in a bed, and shower in the morning.

My original plan had been to arrive in Hangzhou a couple days earlier and to chill out for a while, but then I experienced something I haven't experienced since I first landed in Paris 14 years ago: language panic. I know I am way way too cool to give in to language panic, but listen, I have high blood pressure now. I don't want to get into a taxi with all my gear, point to a printout of a hotel I may or may not like.

I promise, this is the first and last time I will have language panic when it comes to Mandarin.

Retrospective: A Patchwork, If You Will

Ah this silly blog.

I started it in February 2003 as a way to journal; it started off as a journal for that cursed Friendship Bread. Then for a while I posted in Spanish what I was eating as I did Atkins. Ha! I lost a lot of weight, but now I'm fatter than ever.

There was a year starting in May 2003 where I didn't write anything; I came back in May of 2004 with the regular journal type entries. Then in late July to August 2004 there was the short "golden age" where I tried to use my blog to tell stories. August 2004 was a big month, I posted a greatest hits post about eating Asian food, two stories from my mama, and a link to D, a friend of mine from grad school.

Around January of 2005 I tried posting some recipies; that's also when I started posting photos. In October of 2005 I posted a series of memes on my Asianness. January of 2006 was the advent of video blogging.

Anyway, lots of fun stuff. I'm getting tired of retrospecting, now, but lots of good stuff.

It's funny what I've already forgotten about; dreams, ideas, random thoughts. It occured to me that there's some material I haven't blogged about. For example:

• the time I saw Mario Batalli at Zeitgeist
• dinner at DeNunzio's where the risotto was niconico medium grain calrose
• numerous crazy dreams about friends from college

Ah, my blog. Maybe I'll tell those stories, maybe I never will. This blog is a patchwork. It's been fun reading all the old posts, noticing all my old editorial decisions.

Here's a new editorial decision: my friends have always been represented by first initial in this blog, but from now on, they will get hanzi.

For example, H will now be known as 小猪。 A will probably be 安玛丽。 D, you will probably be 酊, which sounds like "ding" and means "intoxicated."　

Cool, huh!

My New Guestmap? Maybe.

Howdy readers!

Although my old guestmap has served me well, this new one is so much sexier. You can post your own image! Please feel free! --jp

Funny Monday

So I went in this morning to do morning prayer that I wrote just in case the scheduled student flaked. Well, she showed, so she did her morning prayer, and I got to work.

Gave a quiz, got some work done. Scheduled an appointment. Had the last two chicken nuggets in the cafeteria, and a boat of jo-jos. Does everyone know what jo-jos are? Here, they are potato wedges. M had never heard of them. She's from eastern europe, so she pronounced them 'yo-yos.' I found it charming, so I didn't correct her.

Anyway, after work I came home, had some oatmeal and crackers and cheese for snack. Met J and had dinner at the Attic. I wasn't hungry enough for the specials (seafood chowder; pot roast) so I just ordered a Chinese chicken salad. It wasn't what I expected. I expected mandarin oranges and those crispy fried noodles. It had some kind of spicey sesame dressing.

Afterward, we went to the Christmas concert. It's funny how you can tell which songs the kids like to sing, and which ones they don't. There are three sets, an opening ensemble set, a piano bar for soloists and small ensembles, and an ensemble finale. The one thing I want to say about the piano bar... choices, children! Choices! Hee hee.

When I came home, a light bulb had gone out in the kitchen, so I'm going to go to the store now to replace it.

The other thing is that I found a bunch of comment spam on this blog. I erased it all and turned on comment moderation. All though I like it when commenters log in, you can still log in anonymously an comment, but you'll have to wait until I approve your comment before you see it posted. Sigh. Another layer of busy work.

My Wishlist!

Ok, so I put a link to my Amazon wishlist in the panel on the right. See it? Click it! Buy me something.

Or just check out the geeky movies I loved but didn't love enough to buy myself.

Election Night Update

So the Blues have taken the House; if they take the Senate, too, I might go out into the street and start breaking stuff. w00t!

In other news, check out the "my photos" link under my profile. Over there, on the right. See it? Right under 我很有意思。 I created it using Picassa Web Albums. I just discovered it on Picassa one day. Free, easy, awesome; I love Google.

Maybe now I'll eat a fruit cup. Or some yogurt. Or a bowl of oatmeal. I bought the special "weight control" and "good for your heart" oatmeal, because it has 4 grams of soluble fiber, rather than the normal 1 gram in the regular oatmeals. Mmmm, soluble fiber...

And Faith Hill... oh, Faithy, you gotta be more gracious than that.

Slammed and Wasted.

Ok, folks, I'm officially slammed I was awarded a certificate from the Over-Scheduled Society of America.

(Do other people say "slammed?" Where I'm from, "slammed" is restaurant language, meaning that your tables are all full of needy customers. Also, it can be used more generally to mean that you have a ridiculous amount of work.)

So I haven't been writing lately. Two of my hit counters have stopped functioning; when I get a chance I will delete them.

One of the reasons I wish I could go back to teaching at the university level, instead of teaching high school, is nightmare parents, who treat you like you are their personal monkey. It is inappropriate to tell them "you are too stupid to talk to." And that's all I will say about that.

Today I asked my students if they've been studying every night, since last week when I gave them the lecture that they have to study every night. They said they haven't been. They have a quiz next week, and I told them that if they don't practice their Spanish every night, they should expect a C on the quiz. Right? They all agreed.

People don't suck at learning languages because they are not smart. The suck at it because THEY ARE DOING IT WRONG. And it doesn't matter how much I tell them, they don't believe. I tell them exactly what has to be done, and they DON'T DO IT.

I've managed to rid my classrooms of a lot of terrible habits, like "English bombs," when the student blurts out English translation to "clarify." Duh, no wonder they have no natural retention, all they care about is English.

What's amazing to me is when students don't correct their mistakes. They read their sentence, I correct them, and they NOD at me. It doesn't occur to them to correct their paper, to some of them it doesn't even occur to say it correctly.

I am a talented teacher. I am being wasted. I am being wasted on students who at worst refuse to connect the dots, and at best just don't believe they have to study. Present, preterit, imperfect, future... and they've been studying the first three for PAST TWO YEARS.

They don't master these tenses, and then they have the NERVE to expect to get an A.

Hey! Just "looking over the material" DOES NOT HELP YOU.

No language practice = no language learning = no getting an A.

I am being wasted.

Maybe next week I will have a knock-knock joke festival.

Geez, single digits

My readership numbers have crashed down to single digits. I'm not sure if the people that subscribe to the feed are counted or not, but yesterday, Sunday, I had three hits.

Three hits! Good thing my self esteem is not tied to my numbers.

In other news, my house is a mess, my workshop is over, I want to write some bossa nova songs, I have a day off from work tomorrow, but of course I have meetings.

So here's some puppies.

Maybe it's time to open up for questions. Does anyone have any questions for me?

cool names for future blogs

All Intensive Purposes
Die and Stay Black
Methinks
My Bottom Hurts
Ay! Huge Vagina!
Silence! You Are Confusing Them
Hammer Time
Double Damn
You're Mother's Elbow!
Fistfight in Heaven
Paradise Garden
Lipstuck
40 Nights
Flied Lice
没有空儿
Supersonic
Two Deluxe, Fries, and a Coke
Operation Just 'Cuz
Mission Accomplished!
Your Panty
Hmph!
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!
All the Bleeding Saints.
You Got Options
A Can of Whoop Ass
A Can of Shut Up
Everybody Dies
Songs In The Key I Know
Marriage is Gay!
Generation XL
Everyone Likes Pie
Wait, what?
Oh my God, you guys!
You like me, you really like me.
Don't Forget To Floss
The Sound of One Hand Slapping
The Romans Killed Jesus
And I Have A Beautiful Wife
Annals of Brown America
When Brownimals Attack
A Little Bit Pregnant
I'd Rather Eat Glass
Oedipus Rox!

Who's Reading?

I went to J & B's tapas party this evening; it was really fun. The food was great, the sangria was tastey, it was a perfect evening, to sit out on the "veranda" and meet other people's friends.

Spanish D had an explanation of why I always got poured a free drink where ever I went in Catalunya. First of all, they liked me, because I'm charming. Agreed. Second, he said, they are nicer to non Spaniards, wanting to ensure that we have a better time in Catalunya than in the rest of Spain, so that we would be sympathetic to Catalan separatism.

Perhaps. I am hella charming, though.

There was some discussion about who reads my blog, and one person specifically seemed to disapprove, finding it unsympathetic to colleagues, parents, and students.

First of all, it is a surprise when I meet someone who reads my this blog, especially when it's someone I know. This blog is my journal, and yes, it's open for the public to read. The premise is that I have a life outside of work, my work is not my identity. My life is interesting and worth reading about. Sometimes, when my work life becomes very important, then I blog about it. But I'm careful when it comes to collegues, students, and parents; the purpose is to remember it for posterity, not to expose anyone. Besides, this blog is about my life, not about theirs.

Some of you might find me to be judgemental, and I've noticed that there is a belief that teachers should be impartial and non judgemental. For some reason, when students, parents, or collegues behave like garbage, I as a teacher am supposed to remain impartial and non judgemental in the interest of fairness.

What a fat pile of shit. In society, words count, actions count. People judge you, and you have to take responsibility for your words and actions. Teachers are not supposed to love everybody unconditionally. I don't even think that teachers are supposed to love ANYBODY unconditionally. We do, as a matter of praticality, have to forgive more than most people, but honestly, when we sign our teaching contracts, we are still human beings.

And like human beings, when you lie to us, we resent you. When you dress inappropriately, we think less of you. When you do not pay attention in class, we don't want you there. And you know what? YOU DESERVE IT.

And if the issue becomes important to my life, I will blog about it. And if it's unflattering or unfair, tough shit. I'm not here to blog about fair. I am not the arbiter of fairness. I am a person who is entitled thoughts, feelings, and opinions. And I will take responsibility for my words.

Anyway, chill out, because I prefer not to blog about you or remember you. You will only appear on this page if I find something you did or said more interesting than ME. So not often. Remember, I am an egomaniac.

So who reads? My family. My friends from grad school, and some of their readers. Also, some people who stumble across my blog through Google; included in this group are Swedish Arne and all the people that came through Crispy Waffle, inlcuding all the St. T's pinoys. Right now, there's a bunch of kids from all over the Korean diaspora, amazed at the thought of strawberry gochuchan. I do have some work-related readers, my friend A and her sister J. There are some mystery people, like the regular mystery reader from Dublin.

Who else? Some random clickers.

What happens when a gross parent finds this site, put two and two together, and read about how they act like they own me?

The problem is not that I posted it. The problem is that I believe it.

Anyway, thanks for reading. Look, there's the comment button!

My New Blog

So I've decided to create a new blog, where I can write regularly in 中文。 It's basically a target language journal. I'll try to write there at least weekly. Don't feel bad if you don't read 中文； I'm definitely writing at an Novice/Beginner level. That means present tense descriptions, lists, likes and dislikes. I'll let you know when I advance on the ACTFL chart: past narration, comparison/contrast, conditional/hypothetical situations. It won't be for a while.

This blog will keep its English Plus policy. You can be pretty sure that if I'm posting in a language other than English or Spanish, that means I'm gossiping or complaining about people at work.

Today I went to the orthodontist for a consult. They want to put me back in braces, and they want me to pay $7100 for it. Whimper.

Tomorrow morning, the appraiser is coming to look at the house for the refi. There will be construction/repair later this summer, and then after that I'll try to get new floors .

I've been asked to do music tomorrow at a memorial service.

We watched "To Live" in Chinese class; it was awesome. In this culture, we usually associate orwellian political paranoia with the future, but it's wierd to think that its China's past and North Korea's present.

I'm going to go to a samba drumming session on Tuesday. We'll see how that goes.

No More Anonymous Comments

Hey readers! .... all three of you!

I am disabling anonymous comments because of some cheap shots taken by an anonymous commenter on a post that no one has read in years.

Basically, has a beef against Dr. Mary Lou Ridinger of Jades SA of Antigua, Guatemala. Is the beef legitimate? Who knows. Maybe! But the commenter posted anonymously, and rather than accusing her of anything, the anony-mouse insinuated that Dr. Ridinger was hiding information, and that her product was junk. What a coward. This is the internet, man. If you've got something to say, then say it. "Dr. R is a crook because of X, Y, and Z." It's a question of cojones. Especially if you're gonna be anonymous; if your position is so weak that all you can muster is an anynomous insinuation, then maybe you should ask your mommy to give you a pillow, so you can lie down and cry into your pillow.

So for the moment you all (all three of you) will have to get blogger IDs if you want to leave a comment. What if ass-nonymous just gets a bogus ID? Well, I'll burn that bridge when I come to it.

_______________

Today there was a crazy freak rainstorm, with hard, crazy rain and wind. More wind, and ten minutes later it was sunshine and blue skyes. More wind, and the ground was dry.

I finally went to the secret Korean restaurant for mool naeng myun. It was a converted highway Denny's just off the freeway. So it wasn't much of a secret. But when I went in to the (very nice) dining room, there were only two other customers, both Korean. It's a family establishment, and the Mom brought me a nice salad before my mool naeng myun hit the table, with six panchan. It was good! With shaved ice! But they forgot to put in the meat.

Afterwards, I discovered Pal-do Korean Supermarket and bought two packs of ice cream novelties. One is a sweet coffee-and-creme push up, and I don't know why I have to go to a Korean supermarket to get such a nice dessert. The other ice cream novelty is like a dove bar. Yum!

Later, I met S and company for happy hour drinks and tapas at Peso's. I had a mojito. We sat there and yapped in Spanish for hours, as beautiful people came and went. L's friend P theorized that the waitresses were hired for their looks, since they didn't have a lot of chops as waitresses. In fact, he went as far as to suggest that they were exotic dancers. P is a bartender himself, at a pretty prestigious martini bar for old people and stressed out financial advisors who come to him for their martini lunch of shame.

Came home, ate some potato salad from Pal-do, practiced my guitar, .... reset my blog to disallow anonymous comments. And now it's time for bed.

Another anonymous commenter called this blog a scatterbrained vanity website, which is not so far off the mark. It's my journal, and I am the thematic thread. So what? I don't write for a wide audience, although a wide audience is certainly welcome to read. But please do remember, kiddies, you don't have to read.

You love to. Admit it!

all better now.

double adds, no editing, no posting. boo!

First post

Hey, folks. Here's my first blog. I'll probably do it twice and then stop.

I shouldn't be doing this. I should be grading papers. In fact, the only reason I'm doing this now is because I ran out of monorail stuff to read on the net.

I don't know what to say to anyone reading this; Enjoy, I guess.