I've failed the moonwalking 30 day trial splendidly. I'm approximately 4 days into a 30 day trial of failing to moonwalk but I'm considering failing that too today.
On the bright side, I've started studying Chinese a bit again and I think I watched half the shows in the universe this afternoon alone, noodling around on guitar at the same time to trick myself into not feeling useless. Finally I felt so guilty for being unproductive that I did a set of push-ups. If I were half as Jewish as my grandma wants me to be, I'd probably feel guilty enough to punish myself, maybe by refusing myself that third cup of sugar also known as coffee. But perhaps I'm Jewish enough after all; I've decided to watch another episode of Dexter to make myself feel even more guilty.
Back to the not so bright side ("the dark side" sounds a bit too sinister and "the dull side" makes me think of bludgeons), I haven't studied French in three days or so, pretty much since I picked up Chinese. It's frustrating, not being able to keep up with everything I want to do...or rather everything that at the end of the day I wish I'd done. I wonder if anyone has managed to get those two to consistently coincide.
We went to 新街口 the other day and Yuan Yuan got me a new steel-string acoustic guitar. I've been ravaging it on my bed hourly since then (my bed doubles as an L-shaped set of chairs around the room). It sounds really nice to my unwashed ears but I always have my doubts when buying a new instrument. The guy in the store, that is, any guy that works in any guitar store, can make any old thing sound awesome. He can get a tasty blues solo out of a pick alone, and you should see him play the carpet. Meanwhile, I always forget every song I've ever learned the minute I walk into the store. The combination of those two makes choosing a new guitar a process full of eyebrow gymnastics, baa's and meh's. Either way, I'm now equipped with a sweet (if possibly fake) Great Divide that's going to appear in some YouTube videos as soon as I've finished reading and watching everything on the Internet.
Hmm...maybe if I get a job at a guitar store I won't have to practice anymore, I'll just automatically be awesome, or at least awesome to other people.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Friday, January 14, 2011
Drink and drink and drink and drink and drink and drink and fight
The planets (and Pluto) aligned yesterday and I got into my first street fight. I was near SanLiTun village, happily drunk at Lucy's going away party, dancing and enjoying myself, when some guy shoved me cause I was apparently dancing with his girl. I shoved him back, like my daddy taught me to, but it didn't escalate quite then, someone restrained him and I wasn't trying to pick a fight. Five to ten minutes later I found myself dancing with a lot more floor space to myself than usual, especially on a crowded Friday night. I looked around and saw two white guys and a bunch of Chinese guys pushing each other and yelling. I didn't want to get involved, partly because I don't have a death wish and partly because...no, pretty much because I don't have a death wish, but when I saw like ten other guys running out screaming scary words that rang with red and blue and all directed toward white, I restrained a particularly eager dude from leaving with a full nelson. Let's just get this out of the way: I know nothing about fighting. So when I say "I put him in a full nelson," it sounds beautiful and skillful but I'm sure it was exactly the opposite. He was probably just dancing with me.
Still, that guy didn't attack me, he just kept trying to get outside and help his buddies beat the shit out of someone non-Chinese. Eventually I had to let him go, I think there's some kind of rule against bringing combative drunks back to your apartment just to keep them from killing someone. I wasn't too keen on introducing him to my girlfriend's mother either.
Anyway, after I let him go, I went outside to see if I needed to call the police. However, by then the situation had resolved itself. One of the two white guys was now red from the neck up, as in you his whole face was covered with blood, and the other was cut up but not quite as damaged. The victorious mob was taunting them and the bloodier white guy seemed intent on getting himself killed. Having learned nothing at MIT, I rushed in with my "hey guys! Calm down! Let's all smoke a joint together and sing some reggae," which finally got me a smack in the face.
Without really taking a careful look at who it was that hit me, I hit him back. Turned out to be that guy that shoved me earlier. His friend restrained him from attacking me, which was very refreshing to see. He seemed to be the only Chinese guy trying to push the situation toward peace. Unfortunately, he was vastly outnumbered.
It's hard to describe what happened then. Basically six or seven skinny Chinese guys started pummeling me. The first two or three I hit back but it was like some kind of crazy Chinese hydra attacking me, the heads grew back faster than I could chop them off and multiplied quickly. Perhaps according to the Fibonacci sequence.
Luckily they didn't seem to be fighting to kill, just scare/hurt a bit. When I realized it was stupid to fight a hydra without at least a machine gun, I went back to my reggae speech and even quoted Tom Cruise to them from Far and Away: "I have no wish to fight you!" But they were pretty excited, I guess they don't get fed such splendid white meat every day. Plus, I had just gotten a haircut and a shave so I was even more infuriatingly handsome than usual. They just wanted to even the aesthetic playing ground is all.
Somehow I managed to escape, though I remember having my back against a wall at some point and getting kicked in the chest and stomach a few times. It didn't hurt as much as I thought it would so I suspect they were afraid to hit me hard. I was also drunk, which helped, and adrenaline cruised the air like the Gulf Stream. Anyway, all thoughts and suspicions vanished when someone threw a beer bottle at me as I was making my escape. It didn't hit me but it did hit the ground and shatter convincingly.
As I backpedaled away, hands out in front of me in the universal gesture of peace and pat-a-cake (hmm, wikipedia's spelling, I always thought it was patty cake), one guy kept following me, chanting "run away!" and waving the two bottles in his hands at me, one beer, one rice wine. I didn't point out the irony of the chasing-me-to-tell-me-to-run-away situation to him, but calmly backed down, suddenly feeling quite ok with appearing a coward. Eventually he grew tired and abandoned, at which point I put both fists in my mouth to restrain myself from advising him to exercise more and smoke less. Then I met up with the two other beat up white dudes and called the police.
The police came five minutes later, which surprised everyone, but they didn't really do anything. The two cops just stood there, as if daring people to start fighting in their presence, but not like "someone throw a punch, I fuckin' DARE you!" More like "I hope you guys don't start fighting because I might have to blow my whistle!"
Meanwhile, the bloodier white guy was going crazy. We spent a good ten minutes restraining him from running back into the mob of angry Chinese guys to "kill them all" and probably get himself killed before he could throw a punch. He wasn't really helping our "innocent foreign lambs getting mauled by rabid Chinese wolves" case with the police. Amidst the bedlam, some Chinese guy came up to me and started complaining that his face hurt. I transferred him to the "dude, seriously, look at that poor white dude, his face is way more fucked up" department. "You want the same?" he yelled at me, and twenty Chinese guys teleported instantly to his side. I mentally congratulated him on his logic and got back into my pat-a-cake stance.
Finally, Lucy and David came out to see what was going on and we all went home to the chorus of "go back to your country!" and worried looks from the police. Then Lucy threw up out of the cab window on the way home.
After looking in the mirror this morning, I was happy to see I got away only very minor damage to my face. My stomach and chest don't hurt but my jacket and sweater have some interesting footprints. A cut on my finger's kind of annoying but it's also totally minor. All in all, I'd say I lucked out. I should go back tonight and give them all a copy of my album.
Still, that guy didn't attack me, he just kept trying to get outside and help his buddies beat the shit out of someone non-Chinese. Eventually I had to let him go, I think there's some kind of rule against bringing combative drunks back to your apartment just to keep them from killing someone. I wasn't too keen on introducing him to my girlfriend's mother either.
Anyway, after I let him go, I went outside to see if I needed to call the police. However, by then the situation had resolved itself. One of the two white guys was now red from the neck up, as in you his whole face was covered with blood, and the other was cut up but not quite as damaged. The victorious mob was taunting them and the bloodier white guy seemed intent on getting himself killed. Having learned nothing at MIT, I rushed in with my "hey guys! Calm down! Let's all smoke a joint together and sing some reggae," which finally got me a smack in the face.
Without really taking a careful look at who it was that hit me, I hit him back. Turned out to be that guy that shoved me earlier. His friend restrained him from attacking me, which was very refreshing to see. He seemed to be the only Chinese guy trying to push the situation toward peace. Unfortunately, he was vastly outnumbered.
It's hard to describe what happened then. Basically six or seven skinny Chinese guys started pummeling me. The first two or three I hit back but it was like some kind of crazy Chinese hydra attacking me, the heads grew back faster than I could chop them off and multiplied quickly. Perhaps according to the Fibonacci sequence.
Luckily they didn't seem to be fighting to kill, just scare/hurt a bit. When I realized it was stupid to fight a hydra without at least a machine gun, I went back to my reggae speech and even quoted Tom Cruise to them from Far and Away: "I have no wish to fight you!" But they were pretty excited, I guess they don't get fed such splendid white meat every day. Plus, I had just gotten a haircut and a shave so I was even more infuriatingly handsome than usual. They just wanted to even the aesthetic playing ground is all.
Somehow I managed to escape, though I remember having my back against a wall at some point and getting kicked in the chest and stomach a few times. It didn't hurt as much as I thought it would so I suspect they were afraid to hit me hard. I was also drunk, which helped, and adrenaline cruised the air like the Gulf Stream. Anyway, all thoughts and suspicions vanished when someone threw a beer bottle at me as I was making my escape. It didn't hit me but it did hit the ground and shatter convincingly.
As I backpedaled away, hands out in front of me in the universal gesture of peace and pat-a-cake (hmm, wikipedia's spelling, I always thought it was patty cake), one guy kept following me, chanting "run away!" and waving the two bottles in his hands at me, one beer, one rice wine. I didn't point out the irony of the chasing-me-to-tell-me-to-run-away situation to him, but calmly backed down, suddenly feeling quite ok with appearing a coward. Eventually he grew tired and abandoned, at which point I put both fists in my mouth to restrain myself from advising him to exercise more and smoke less. Then I met up with the two other beat up white dudes and called the police.
The police came five minutes later, which surprised everyone, but they didn't really do anything. The two cops just stood there, as if daring people to start fighting in their presence, but not like "someone throw a punch, I fuckin' DARE you!" More like "I hope you guys don't start fighting because I might have to blow my whistle!"
Meanwhile, the bloodier white guy was going crazy. We spent a good ten minutes restraining him from running back into the mob of angry Chinese guys to "kill them all" and probably get himself killed before he could throw a punch. He wasn't really helping our "innocent foreign lambs getting mauled by rabid Chinese wolves" case with the police. Amidst the bedlam, some Chinese guy came up to me and started complaining that his face hurt. I transferred him to the "dude, seriously, look at that poor white dude, his face is way more fucked up" department. "You want the same?" he yelled at me, and twenty Chinese guys teleported instantly to his side. I mentally congratulated him on his logic and got back into my pat-a-cake stance.
Finally, Lucy and David came out to see what was going on and we all went home to the chorus of "go back to your country!" and worried looks from the police. Then Lucy threw up out of the cab window on the way home.
After looking in the mirror this morning, I was happy to see I got away only very minor damage to my face. My stomach and chest don't hurt but my jacket and sweater have some interesting footprints. A cut on my finger's kind of annoying but it's also totally minor. All in all, I'd say I lucked out. I should go back tonight and give them all a copy of my album.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Practice
I think it's time to start practicing guitar again. I've pretty much abandoned serious practicing since I realized I'll never have the patience to become half as fast as Yngwie or Steve or John or even Jimmy, who's the best even if he wasn't the fastest. But practicing seems to be correlated with improvement. Time to investigate that correlation.
Moonwalking practice is going pretty well, or so claims the wall-length mirror on the wall-length wall in my student's house. My student claims otherwise but I think I see the gliding coming through. I wish I could set a 5 second time delay on the mirror so I could see myself from my student's intertial frame of reference. Mirror scientists, you know what to do.
I've been suffering from a cold the last few days, though suffering is a wild exaggeration. More like perpetually inconvenienced. Meaning my nose opens its floodgates during the day to prevent bihandular typing, seals the doors with a vacuum seal at night to prevent shnobular breathing and my throat houses an evil little perpetual tickling machine which the laws of physics have yet to assuage. The only thing that's been out of the ordinary with this cold is that this time I'm being a good boy and taking some medicine. I have no idea what the medicine is; it was sent over by Yuan Yuan's mom, all I know is that it's blue. I also know that I haven't turned blue yet myself, though I've yet to inquire whether that's a good or bad sign. I'm also taking the usual anti-cold concoction prescribed by Professor Karlsson on the Roof: copious amounts of candy and faulty thermometers.
Moonwalking practice is going pretty well, or so claims the wall-length mirror on the wall-length wall in my student's house. My student claims otherwise but I think I see the gliding coming through. I wish I could set a 5 second time delay on the mirror so I could see myself from my student's intertial frame of reference. Mirror scientists, you know what to do.
I've been suffering from a cold the last few days, though suffering is a wild exaggeration. More like perpetually inconvenienced. Meaning my nose opens its floodgates during the day to prevent bihandular typing, seals the doors with a vacuum seal at night to prevent shnobular breathing and my throat houses an evil little perpetual tickling machine which the laws of physics have yet to assuage. The only thing that's been out of the ordinary with this cold is that this time I'm being a good boy and taking some medicine. I have no idea what the medicine is; it was sent over by Yuan Yuan's mom, all I know is that it's blue. I also know that I haven't turned blue yet myself, though I've yet to inquire whether that's a good or bad sign. I'm also taking the usual anti-cold concoction prescribed by Professor Karlsson on the Roof: copious amounts of candy and faulty thermometers.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Meet The Parents. Check!
I'm sleeping over at one of my students' houses today. I'm approximately 95% sure he's not going to murder me in my sleep, way higher than with some of my other students. He went skiing in the morning so we moved our class from 11AM to 8PM and since the subway goes home at 11PM and we have a 3+ hour class, he offered me to either stay the night or he'd pay for a taxi to take me home. My Sunday morning class got cancelled on account of lazy-studentitis so I decided to stay.
I met Yuan Yuan's mom yesterday and I'm pretty sure she likes me. I don't think she's going to try to steal me away from Yuan Yuan, especially since she's already married, but I think the overall impression I made was favorable. Yuan Yuan told me this morning that her mom was saying yesterday how she found me "quite polite for a foreigner," whatever that means, and pretty handsome, not too tall but not too short. Yuan Yuan assured me that she rushed to the defense of the foreigners of the world against such vicious calumny but I don't see why she bothered as it could only hurt my standing. Silly Yuan Yuan, so straightforward.
[WARNING: spoilers ahead]
We got to know each other over dinner, the three of us, though Yuan Yuan and I already knew each other pretty well. Coincidence? We had some roast duck, the Beijing special, and I made sure to order six times the amount we would consume if we were only worried about filling our and the people's at the neighboring tables stomachs. So I definitely passed round 1. Then we talked a bit about what I do, which is a topic ever popular with women and women's mothers. I somehow managed to restrain myself from dropping a Mark's-life-philosophy bomb on her and ruining any chances of seeing Yuan Yuan again in this lifetime without full body reconstructive surgery. When she asked me how long I'm planning to stay in Beijing, I remembered Lucy's advice and said that I had no plans of leaving in the near future except for the purpose of visiting my family. And when her mom asked me which I liked better, China or America, I neatly avoided the question by asking her which of her daughters she liked better. At that point it turned out she had a sense of humor.
There was only one slightly awkward moment. We stopped by a little convenience store on the way back because mommy needed to buy some needles and thread. I wondered allowed if Yuan Yuan knew how to sew and she answered me in the typical Jewish answer/question manner "Have you ever seen me sew?" to which my sarcasm reflex responded without my consent: "I've never seen what you do in the bathroom but I'm guessing you might know how to use the toilet." I don't know what her mother made of that. I think she could tell I was lying. That xkcd comic came to mind.
http://xkcd.com/275
Oh yea, I forgot to mention that there were three languages at play during the whole adventure. Yuan Yuan's mom doesn't really speak Mandarin. She speaks her hometown's dialect of Mandarin, which has a lot of words in common with the original, though often with different tones. Kind of like jive. So the dinner went something like this:
Yuan Yuan's mom: Hey Holm, I dig this duck yo.
Yuan Yuan: Col' got to be yo! I pray to J I get the same ol' same ol'.
Mark: I totally agree. Or I would if I understood what you're talking about. Unless it was something I wouldn't agree with of course.
After every few minutes of hometown dialect, Yuan Yuan would ask me if I understood what they were talking about. Against all expectations, I actually managed to do pretty well; I almost always got the gist of the conversation though I'd miss most of the words.
So overall I think I did way better than when I met Chun's parents in college, sometime before graduation. That time I think I forgot to turn on my brain and told them all about how I had no idea what I was doing next but that after I skipped the graduation ceremony because that was totally lame and only lame traditional parents came to see that, I was probably going to Texas to start a band and that maybe we'd sleep with other people for a while as long as there was a steady stream of groupies and if there wasn't then I'd definitely maybe possibly come back and be a good boyfriend for at least a while but who knows if that would ever happen because who knows what's going to happen in the future anyway and that I loved their daughter. By the time I got to that last part I think her father was already halfway to Massachusetts General Hospital with a severe case of reality-overdose. Compared to that, yesterday I passed with flying colors.
I met Yuan Yuan's mom yesterday and I'm pretty sure she likes me. I don't think she's going to try to steal me away from Yuan Yuan, especially since she's already married, but I think the overall impression I made was favorable. Yuan Yuan told me this morning that her mom was saying yesterday how she found me "quite polite for a foreigner," whatever that means, and pretty handsome, not too tall but not too short. Yuan Yuan assured me that she rushed to the defense of the foreigners of the world against such vicious calumny but I don't see why she bothered as it could only hurt my standing. Silly Yuan Yuan, so straightforward.
[WARNING: spoilers ahead]
We got to know each other over dinner, the three of us, though Yuan Yuan and I already knew each other pretty well. Coincidence? We had some roast duck, the Beijing special, and I made sure to order six times the amount we would consume if we were only worried about filling our and the people's at the neighboring tables stomachs. So I definitely passed round 1. Then we talked a bit about what I do, which is a topic ever popular with women and women's mothers. I somehow managed to restrain myself from dropping a Mark's-life-philosophy bomb on her and ruining any chances of seeing Yuan Yuan again in this lifetime without full body reconstructive surgery. When she asked me how long I'm planning to stay in Beijing, I remembered Lucy's advice and said that I had no plans of leaving in the near future except for the purpose of visiting my family. And when her mom asked me which I liked better, China or America, I neatly avoided the question by asking her which of her daughters she liked better. At that point it turned out she had a sense of humor.
There was only one slightly awkward moment. We stopped by a little convenience store on the way back because mommy needed to buy some needles and thread. I wondered allowed if Yuan Yuan knew how to sew and she answered me in the typical Jewish answer/question manner "Have you ever seen me sew?" to which my sarcasm reflex responded without my consent: "I've never seen what you do in the bathroom but I'm guessing you might know how to use the toilet." I don't know what her mother made of that. I think she could tell I was lying. That xkcd comic came to mind.
http://xkcd.com/275
Oh yea, I forgot to mention that there were three languages at play during the whole adventure. Yuan Yuan's mom doesn't really speak Mandarin. She speaks her hometown's dialect of Mandarin, which has a lot of words in common with the original, though often with different tones. Kind of like jive. So the dinner went something like this:
Yuan Yuan's mom: Hey Holm, I dig this duck yo.
Yuan Yuan: Col' got to be yo! I pray to J I get the same ol' same ol'.
Mark: I totally agree. Or I would if I understood what you're talking about. Unless it was something I wouldn't agree with of course.
After every few minutes of hometown dialect, Yuan Yuan would ask me if I understood what they were talking about. Against all expectations, I actually managed to do pretty well; I almost always got the gist of the conversation though I'd miss most of the words.
So overall I think I did way better than when I met Chun's parents in college, sometime before graduation. That time I think I forgot to turn on my brain and told them all about how I had no idea what I was doing next but that after I skipped the graduation ceremony because that was totally lame and only lame traditional parents came to see that, I was probably going to Texas to start a band and that maybe we'd sleep with other people for a while as long as there was a steady stream of groupies and if there wasn't then I'd definitely maybe possibly come back and be a good boyfriend for at least a while but who knows if that would ever happen because who knows what's going to happen in the future anyway and that I loved their daughter. By the time I got to that last part I think her father was already halfway to Massachusetts General Hospital with a severe case of reality-overdose. Compared to that, yesterday I passed with flying colors.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Breaking News: Milk-in-a-bag Spoils
I made an absolutely stunning discovery today, truly world-tipping, given a flat or cow-shaped world, and mind-blowing, given you have a mind and not just a head full of brain. I had just gone five straight minutes without consuming something sugar-rich and nutrient-free...which reminds me, why don't they print that on snacks? I want to go into the store and see an honest Coke can that says in big letters cut from a Santa Claus suit: "No nutrients. Just calories." Assuming Nike doesn't own the rights to that phrase yet. Then I'll probably look around to make sure no one's watching me and grab the Coke Zero instead. They could be making billions with this strategy. If only people were up to date on their Jewish humor.*
Where was I...ah yea, I had just gone five straight minutes without consuming something sugar-rich and nutrient-free and was crawling like the legless T800 from the bed to the squat little table that houses all my snacks, intent on making myself a cup of coffee. The current coffee-making procedure, honed by a year of...honing, is as follows:
1. Buy a 90 (Chinese) cent packet of coffee+sugar+stuff-not-on-ingredients-list.
2. Buy a 200ml bag of milk.
3. Get a Chinese girlfriend.
4. Wait till said girlfriend gives you a cup for a present. It's one of those few things in the universe that even entropy is powerless to prevent. That and my pants from falling down without a belt.
5. Take the cup and fill it with recently boiled water, which will be known as "really hot water" from now on.
6. Wait 10 seconds. Empty the cup.
7. Pour the contents of the coffee packet into the cup.
8. Fill the cup approximately halfway with really hot water.
9. Mix.
10. Add milk to taste.
You know those games where you can't save? Where you go back to the very beginning if you die? Think Wii Tanks, the original Prince of Persia, Einhander. When you first start playing the game, it's mildly annoying, having to redo the first 2-3 levels over and over. Then as you get better things get a whole lot worse. By the time you can make it to the second to last boss, you probably have no hair left and the walls are spattered with blood.
Something similar happened here. I fulfilled all the requirements. I bought the coffee, wooed the Chinese girl, got my cup and all for nothing! Cause when I added the milk, my coffee turned into a Pollock painting, though slightly better-looking. The milk had gone sour. I smelled it to be sure. Who knew? Maybe those chunks coming out of the bag were chunks of unspoiled milk. They weren't.
However, on the whole this blood-curdling experience has led to a very positive discovery. Namely that the "milk-in-a-bag" is real milk! Hmm, that might be a bit of a stretch. Ok, it contains real milk. No, still not it...ok, it has something organic as an ingredient. And it's taken me a year to discover this as no matter how long I've kept the milk-in-a-bag unrefrigerated prior to today, it has never gone bad. Bag open, bag closed, bag empty with the contents in a puddle on the floor...never. If it weren't for the lack of coffee coating my synapses, I'd have jumped up and down excitedly. As it was I crawled back to the bed empty-stomached and gagging on an unwritten blog entry and sour milk fumes.
* Two beggars are sitting reclined against a wall, their cups in front of them. Each one also has a sign.
One sign says: "Please help an old war veteran."
The other sign says: "Please help an old Jew."
The passers-by provide a continuous stream of coins into the soldier's cup while largely ignoring and often snickering at the Jew.
Finally one passer-by asks the Jew: "why don't you change your sign? Can't you see you're getting nowhere with this one?"
At this, the Jew turns to the other beggar and says: "Did you hear that, Moishe? This goy wants to teach us how to run our business!"
Where was I...ah yea, I had just gone five straight minutes without consuming something sugar-rich and nutrient-free and was crawling like the legless T800 from the bed to the squat little table that houses all my snacks, intent on making myself a cup of coffee. The current coffee-making procedure, honed by a year of...honing, is as follows:
1. Buy a 90 (Chinese) cent packet of coffee+sugar+stuff-not-on-ingredients-list.
2. Buy a 200ml bag of milk.
3. Get a Chinese girlfriend.
4. Wait till said girlfriend gives you a cup for a present. It's one of those few things in the universe that even entropy is powerless to prevent. That and my pants from falling down without a belt.
5. Take the cup and fill it with recently boiled water, which will be known as "really hot water" from now on.
6. Wait 10 seconds. Empty the cup.
7. Pour the contents of the coffee packet into the cup.
8. Fill the cup approximately halfway with really hot water.
9. Mix.
10. Add milk to taste.
You know those games where you can't save? Where you go back to the very beginning if you die? Think Wii Tanks, the original Prince of Persia, Einhander. When you first start playing the game, it's mildly annoying, having to redo the first 2-3 levels over and over. Then as you get better things get a whole lot worse. By the time you can make it to the second to last boss, you probably have no hair left and the walls are spattered with blood.
Something similar happened here. I fulfilled all the requirements. I bought the coffee, wooed the Chinese girl, got my cup and all for nothing! Cause when I added the milk, my coffee turned into a Pollock painting, though slightly better-looking. The milk had gone sour. I smelled it to be sure. Who knew? Maybe those chunks coming out of the bag were chunks of unspoiled milk. They weren't.
However, on the whole this blood-curdling experience has led to a very positive discovery. Namely that the "milk-in-a-bag" is real milk! Hmm, that might be a bit of a stretch. Ok, it contains real milk. No, still not it...ok, it has something organic as an ingredient. And it's taken me a year to discover this as no matter how long I've kept the milk-in-a-bag unrefrigerated prior to today, it has never gone bad. Bag open, bag closed, bag empty with the contents in a puddle on the floor...never. If it weren't for the lack of coffee coating my synapses, I'd have jumped up and down excitedly. As it was I crawled back to the bed empty-stomached and gagging on an unwritten blog entry and sour milk fumes.
* Two beggars are sitting reclined against a wall, their cups in front of them. Each one also has a sign.
One sign says: "Please help an old war veteran."
The other sign says: "Please help an old Jew."
The passers-by provide a continuous stream of coins into the soldier's cup while largely ignoring and often snickering at the Jew.
Finally one passer-by asks the Jew: "why don't you change your sign? Can't you see you're getting nowhere with this one?"
At this, the Jew turns to the other beggar and says: "Did you hear that, Moishe? This goy wants to teach us how to run our business!"
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Superday #30
The 30 day supertrial is officially over in ninety two words, no, eighty nine words, no, eighty six words...if there were only some way to write it down without changing it...damn observer effect. I'd draw a picture but I don't want to be charged with going over quota for drawing today.
Success all around I'm afraid, no way to break it gently. The supersummary:
Pushups: at 200 pushups a day, the max number of push-ups I could squeeze out per set went up from 37 to 53. It still surprises me every time though when I hit 40 and still have a few more in me before having to take a deep breath and start bouncing my pecs off the floor to make it up off the ground on the last couple. I wish there were some way to skip the first 45 and just do the last back-crunching, eyeball-popping, vein-dilating, sphincter-cramping 7 or 8. Do pushups on one hand at a time maybe? Or do Tenacious D style push-ups?
Drawing: still an effort to do 20 minutes in a row...oof. The cartooning book made it slightly more interesting though.
French: piece of cake, I can study it hours at a time. Little Nicolas is hilarious.
Knots: fun in the beginning and then boring and forgettable after the wonder wears off. Will review though.
Blogging: highly enjoyable and never gets old, like looking at like myself in the mirror.
In other news...
My newest student is taking her IELTS this weekend. I've prepared her twice a week two hours at a time for a month now but I'm not sure the impact on her English has been big enough. She's still a bit behind ("under" somehow doesn't make sense) that hump; she knows tons of English but can't get it out of her mouth unless I'm holding it pried open with a pair of garden pryers (priers? pry-openers?).
I noticed today that English is the only language I know that capitalizes "I." Are English-speakers the cockiest cocks on the planet?
And the last knot of the trial is...The Monkey Fist:
image borrowed from animatedknots.com
I wish the one I made looked even remotely like the one in the picture. Alas, it looks more like a monkey tied into a knot and then fluffed up slightly with a shotgun blast.
Success all around I'm afraid, no way to break it gently. The supersummary:
Pushups: at 200 pushups a day, the max number of push-ups I could squeeze out per set went up from 37 to 53. It still surprises me every time though when I hit 40 and still have a few more in me before having to take a deep breath and start bouncing my pecs off the floor to make it up off the ground on the last couple. I wish there were some way to skip the first 45 and just do the last back-crunching, eyeball-popping, vein-dilating, sphincter-cramping 7 or 8. Do pushups on one hand at a time maybe? Or do Tenacious D style push-ups?
Drawing: still an effort to do 20 minutes in a row...oof. The cartooning book made it slightly more interesting though.
French: piece of cake, I can study it hours at a time. Little Nicolas is hilarious.
Knots: fun in the beginning and then boring and forgettable after the wonder wears off. Will review though.
Blogging: highly enjoyable and never gets old, like looking at like myself in the mirror.
In other news...
My newest student is taking her IELTS this weekend. I've prepared her twice a week two hours at a time for a month now but I'm not sure the impact on her English has been big enough. She's still a bit behind ("under" somehow doesn't make sense) that hump; she knows tons of English but can't get it out of her mouth unless I'm holding it pried open with a pair of garden pryers (priers? pry-openers?).
I noticed today that English is the only language I know that capitalizes "I." Are English-speakers the cockiest cocks on the planet?
And the last knot of the trial is...The Monkey Fist:
image borrowed from animatedknots.com
I wish the one I made looked even remotely like the one in the picture. Alas, it looks more like a monkey tied into a knot and then fluffed up slightly with a shotgun blast.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Epileptic Verbiage
I don't know if anyone noticed but Michael Jackson's been spinning in his grave like a driedel on X for the last fifteen minutes. No...that would imply he's buried standing, maybe more like the spoke of the wheel on The Price Is Right...or a piece of pecan pie in the microwave/centrifuge. He was spinning so fast that the angular momentum of the Earth fled straight into the complex numbers. Yes, I started the "learn the moonwalk" 30-day trial. 10 minutes a day is the commitment, unless my kneecaps pop off, in which case I'll take my day of rest like God did when his did.
Sometimes I get really sick of Chinese thinking. I'm supposed to meet Yuan Yuan's mom one of these days and as I made some delicious Salad Olivier a few hours ago, I offered Yuan Yuan to swing it by tomorrow, give mommy dearest a taste of Russian medicine. To my surprise, Yuan Yuan, who can shotgun a keg of salad faster than you can say "damn it! I wanted some too!", told me to forget it and just invite her mom out to get some hot pot. Confused, I got to asking stupid questions and eventually got to the blunt answer that it's more meaningful to ask someone out and throw down some shekels than to cook a delicious foreign meal for them that'll probably give them the runs.
I guess in one respect this is good: it evens the playing field. If you can't boil an egg--and I have to say I've failed many a time in this department...there's just so many steps, I always forget to turn on the fire or turn it off or wait long enough or peel the egg after instead of before, or spin the egg counterclockwise, which as you know doesn't work as eggs have intricate networks of gyroscopes lying in ambush in case you should attempt this--you can still make your girlfriend's parents feel like you're earnestly sucking up to them. But it also obviously takes no effort. It's like getting money on your birthday; it's simultaneously great because no one really knows what you want to buy except Google, and meaningless because they obviously didn't make any effort to divine your secret wishes.
But whatever, I guess. When in Rome, buy your Chinese girlfriend's Chinese mother a typical Chinese meal. Or maybe this is all a ploy to keep her from noticing that I have white skin and a nose with extra nose on it.
The knot of the day is The Rapala Knot! Oops, scratch the exclamation point.
image borrowed from animatedknots.com
Unfortunately I haven't been able to locate explicit directions on how to tie the Pocket Knot - the one where you put your earphones in your pocket and take them out the next day and then go to the Apple store and get a free iPhone cause they can't prove there isn't one trapped in the middle of your Pocket Knot. If I were a sailor, I'd get on that right now.
Mario's soliloquy of the day:
i was looking at some of the stock games of real masters or something, there is one where a guy sacrifices rook and queen to get a checkmate
unfreakin believable
did u ever have any victories like that ?
i have many losses like that
without the checkmate part
I think my writing style is getting more epileptic.
Sometimes I get really sick of Chinese thinking. I'm supposed to meet Yuan Yuan's mom one of these days and as I made some delicious Salad Olivier a few hours ago, I offered Yuan Yuan to swing it by tomorrow, give mommy dearest a taste of Russian medicine. To my surprise, Yuan Yuan, who can shotgun a keg of salad faster than you can say "damn it! I wanted some too!", told me to forget it and just invite her mom out to get some hot pot. Confused, I got to asking stupid questions and eventually got to the blunt answer that it's more meaningful to ask someone out and throw down some shekels than to cook a delicious foreign meal for them that'll probably give them the runs.
I guess in one respect this is good: it evens the playing field. If you can't boil an egg--and I have to say I've failed many a time in this department...there's just so many steps, I always forget to turn on the fire or turn it off or wait long enough or peel the egg after instead of before, or spin the egg counterclockwise, which as you know doesn't work as eggs have intricate networks of gyroscopes lying in ambush in case you should attempt this--you can still make your girlfriend's parents feel like you're earnestly sucking up to them. But it also obviously takes no effort. It's like getting money on your birthday; it's simultaneously great because no one really knows what you want to buy except Google, and meaningless because they obviously didn't make any effort to divine your secret wishes.
But whatever, I guess. When in Rome, buy your Chinese girlfriend's Chinese mother a typical Chinese meal. Or maybe this is all a ploy to keep her from noticing that I have white skin and a nose with extra nose on it.
The knot of the day is The Rapala Knot! Oops, scratch the exclamation point.
image borrowed from animatedknots.com
Unfortunately I haven't been able to locate explicit directions on how to tie the Pocket Knot - the one where you put your earphones in your pocket and take them out the next day and then go to the Apple store and get a free iPhone cause they can't prove there isn't one trapped in the middle of your Pocket Knot. If I were a sailor, I'd get on that right now.
Mario's soliloquy of the day:
i was looking at some of the stock games of real masters or something, there is one where a guy sacrifices rook and queen to get a checkmate
unfreakin believable
did u ever have any victories like that ?
i have many losses like that
without the checkmate part
I think my writing style is getting more epileptic.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Guitarnapping
I had to say goodbye to my acoustic guitar today. It wasn't mine to begin with, though neither is it the person's whom I returned it to. A French guy named Cyril brought it to the hostel a bit less than a year ago and when he wasn't able to take it with him upon departure, left in his Spanish friend Alex's care. When Alex temporarily returned to Spain, he left it in the exquisitely carved hands of a Russian Jew named Mark. By pure coincidence, whatever Gibbs might say, that happened to be me. Alex came back a month or so ago and I've avoided broaching the subject of his guitar, figuring if he wanted it back he'd have to demand it from me explicitly. Yesterday he did just that so I begged a day's time to bid my farewells and recorded a couple songs today: Genetics and Strings. Hopefully at least one of them will offend someone. If not, I'm going to have to start looking for more radical viewpoints to write from. Like a vegan's or crack addict's...or a vegan crack addict's.
I also wrote another song today, about dieting. It's in first person from the point of view of a girl whose boyfriend is forcing her to lose weight by giving up sweets. With my affection for sugar, I have to classify that in the horror genre, PG-13 at the least.
The Trilene Knot...
image borrowed from animatedknots.com
...is the knot of the day. After this one there are only two left to learn before this trial is over. Medieval people had it right: there should be a healthy variety of torture devices at one's disposal. I'm psyched for my future suffering already, just let this one be over.
I also wrote another song today, about dieting. It's in first person from the point of view of a girl whose boyfriend is forcing her to lose weight by giving up sweets. With my affection for sugar, I have to classify that in the horror genre, PG-13 at the least.
The Trilene Knot...
image borrowed from animatedknots.com
...is the knot of the day. After this one there are only two left to learn before this trial is over. Medieval people had it right: there should be a healthy variety of torture devices at one's disposal. I'm psyched for my future suffering already, just let this one be over.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Revenge a la Confucius
My student got me on the topic of revenge today. It seems to be a popular one with Chinese people. My friend Pei in Shanghai was always an advocate and an active practicioner and I never succeeded in persuading her that revenge was silly. But it did get me noticing myself committing petty acts of revenge on a daily basis, which is wonderfully hypocritical.
We were talking about "an eye for an eye" and blind people and throwing loaves of bread at people, when my student summoned Confucius to his aid. He translated an efficient 8-character Chinese quote for me as follows: "let's say someone does something bad to you and you give them your smile. Then what will you give a person who does something good to you?" Seeing my bemused expression, he explained that the point was that you'd then have to give that good-doer something even better than a smile (though neither of us could think of any examples). With the giving season over, neither of us wanted to give a damn thing even hypothetically so we nearly agreed.
However, I still don't really understand the reasoning. It doesn't sound like normal logic, nor does it have the bitter taste of female logic (which isn't exclusively the domain of females so don't get your thong in a twist). But we breezed quickly past the (un)understanding part and into practice and it turned out my student is just biding his time until he's rich and powerful, at which point he'll dole out punishments to all those who've wronged him. I remained on my tippy-toes for the rest of the class as he'd previously demonstrated a samurai sword of his to me and I wasn't too keen on finding out how keen he was to test the keenness of the blade. Ah Commander Keen...if only my parents let me play it in peace, maybe I'd be dumber but with better teeth.
Arbor Knot:
image borrowed from animatedknots.com
I feel like I'm cheating every time I learn a knot whose components are knots I already know. Somebody punish me please.
We were talking about "an eye for an eye" and blind people and throwing loaves of bread at people, when my student summoned Confucius to his aid. He translated an efficient 8-character Chinese quote for me as follows: "let's say someone does something bad to you and you give them your smile. Then what will you give a person who does something good to you?" Seeing my bemused expression, he explained that the point was that you'd then have to give that good-doer something even better than a smile (though neither of us could think of any examples). With the giving season over, neither of us wanted to give a damn thing even hypothetically so we nearly agreed.
However, I still don't really understand the reasoning. It doesn't sound like normal logic, nor does it have the bitter taste of female logic (which isn't exclusively the domain of females so don't get your thong in a twist). But we breezed quickly past the (un)understanding part and into practice and it turned out my student is just biding his time until he's rich and powerful, at which point he'll dole out punishments to all those who've wronged him. I remained on my tippy-toes for the rest of the class as he'd previously demonstrated a samurai sword of his to me and I wasn't too keen on finding out how keen he was to test the keenness of the blade. Ah Commander Keen...if only my parents let me play it in peace, maybe I'd be dumber but with better teeth.
Arbor Knot:
image borrowed from animatedknots.com
I feel like I'm cheating every time I learn a knot whose components are knots I already know. Somebody punish me please.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Sleepy
I've never been so low on sleep and simultaneously so high on chunky peanut butter. I can't wholeheartedly recommend the combination but licking the second off my fingers is currently the only thing keeping me from succumbing to the first.
Tomorrow is another work day, though only one class remains after the flurry of cancellations on account of proximity to New Year's and lack of dedication to paying me money.
Pushups were the biggest challenge today. I've switched to a cartooning book for drawing material so that's gotten slightly more tolerable, but it hasn't made pushups any easier, paradoxically. And gravity is severely limiting my speed in completing them.
I'm reading Le Petit Nicolas in French and it's pretty funny. I don't know if it's translated into English but I'd recommend it to people who like children's books like Pippi Longstocking or Karlson on the Roof.
The Nail / Spoon Knot
image borrowed from animatedknots.com
So called because you use a nail as a guide for the rope, or in my case a spoon.
Me: Let me tell you a joke
My newest and cutest student: Which one?
Tomorrow is another work day, though only one class remains after the flurry of cancellations on account of proximity to New Year's and lack of dedication to paying me money.
Pushups were the biggest challenge today. I've switched to a cartooning book for drawing material so that's gotten slightly more tolerable, but it hasn't made pushups any easier, paradoxically. And gravity is severely limiting my speed in completing them.
I'm reading Le Petit Nicolas in French and it's pretty funny. I don't know if it's translated into English but I'd recommend it to people who like children's books like Pippi Longstocking or Karlson on the Roof.
The Nail / Spoon Knot
image borrowed from animatedknots.com
So called because you use a nail as a guide for the rope, or in my case a spoon.
Me: Let me tell you a joke
My newest and cutest student: Which one?
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