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.
Showing posts with label french. Show all posts
Showing posts with label french. Show all posts
Monday, January 17, 2011
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.
Friday, January 9, 2009
Enable Adult Content? What A Terrifying Thought
In order to get this French movie I wanted, I had to download a piece of software called Graboid. It's pretty worthless, much like the short-lived Veoh player, but I've managed to squeeze some drama out of it. When I went to Preferences to see where it was putting the downloaded file, I saw a checkbox that said "Enable Adult Content." It was unchecked. I've been staring at it for two hours now with a consistent 120-bpm heartbeat. Is it just talking about the movie I'm downloading? Or is it talking about my life? Do I dare click it? How do I know I'll be able to unclick it if I find out that I'm actually an immature kid inside? Am I really that sheltered? Eh...I don't know, I'm pretty sure it's just for movies. ...But I wonder if it enables it for any movie... then this software wouldn't be as useless as it so wholeheartedly pretends to be. Then maybe I could even be pursuaded to watch The Visitor again. Deep breath. Click.
The 30-day trials are moving along nicely. Crunches are probably the easiest part of the deal, as they take up very finite periods of time to complete. Drinking water is the hardest, especially when your newfound friend in France has a fridge full of Cokes and is willing to email you one duty-free. Not cursing is not too much of a challenge, being as I don't talk to myself outloud, and I spend most of the day alone. Nevertheless, every now and then I fail, though I usually catch myself in the middle of the first syllable.
On a happy note, someone managed to read my novel! A guy I met through Natasha, whose name I will keep to myself for fear of tainting him with my reputation, read it and gave me some comments and pointers. Very exciting. This motivates me to edit it, and perhaps add. It also reminds me that February Album Writing Month is imminent. In the translated words of Song A Day For A Year Superman, "j'ai peur!"
Tomorrow, it's back to NJ for me. I'm stopping for a couple of hours in Boston to wave my hands, and then home.
On consciousness:
Madelyn: hehe, i didnt think much before that sentence
Madelyn: well, like most
Madelyn: of mine
Mark: yea, most of everyone's
Madelyn: you're too optimistic
...
Mark: did u think before that one?
Madelyn: not really
Mark: ur consistent
The 30-day trials are moving along nicely. Crunches are probably the easiest part of the deal, as they take up very finite periods of time to complete. Drinking water is the hardest, especially when your newfound friend in France has a fridge full of Cokes and is willing to email you one duty-free. Not cursing is not too much of a challenge, being as I don't talk to myself outloud, and I spend most of the day alone. Nevertheless, every now and then I fail, though I usually catch myself in the middle of the first syllable.
On a happy note, someone managed to read my novel! A guy I met through Natasha, whose name I will keep to myself for fear of tainting him with my reputation, read it and gave me some comments and pointers. Very exciting. This motivates me to edit it, and perhaps add. It also reminds me that February Album Writing Month is imminent. In the translated words of Song A Day For A Year Superman, "j'ai peur!"
Tomorrow, it's back to NJ for me. I'm stopping for a couple of hours in Boston to wave my hands, and then home.
On consciousness:
Madelyn: hehe, i didnt think much before that sentence
Madelyn: well, like most
Madelyn: of mine
Mark: yea, most of everyone's
Madelyn: you're too optimistic
...
Mark: did u think before that one?
Madelyn: not really
Mark: ur consistent
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Frenching
I continued my French studies today, but from a different direction. I found a wonderful site with "French expressions they don't teach you in school." First of all, I have to acknowledge the truth value in their advertisement, I indeed knew none of the expressions. Then again just cause I didn't learn it doesn't mean they didn't teach it, in fact it probably means they taught it every day and I repressed it.
Anyway, like with every language, looking in as an outsider, everything seems funny. I'm sure French people giggle a little every time they say "it's raining cats and dogs." But from my persepective, they're a bunch of goofy little leprechauns based on their idioms.
The best way to learn these and simultaneously appreciate the humor value is to play it like a guessing game. For example, what do you think "C'est le pied!" (It's the foot!) means? When you give up, highlight the next few lines below to see the answer; it's in a white font so your peripheral vision doesn't ruin the fun.
That's great!
Apparently the French people have a very different opinion of what's great. An American might say "that's the tits!" (if he were in the right movie - specifically The Girl Next Door), and imply the same thing. The other options - "the cat's pajamas," "the bee's knees," the "the eel's ankle," "the elephant's
instep," "the snake's hip" make absolutely no sense in true American style.
"À boire ou je tue le chien!" (Bring me a drink or I kill the dog!)
Bring me a drink or I kill the dog!
Yea, that one's a little more obvious.
"Avoir les jetons" (To have the tokens)
To be scared
Go figure, French people must really love EZPass.
"Avoir le cul bordé de nouilles" (To have an ass full of noodles). Think about this one before you look, it's pretty transparent.
To be lucky
If you wake up in the morning and find noodles in your ass, you best praise the Lord they decided on noodles and not forks or refrigerators. I can't think of a situation where you'd feel luckier.
"Ça me fait une belle jambe" (That makes me a nice leg). Just think about having one nice leg and you'll understand.
A fat lot of good that does me!
Indeed, one nice leg and one ugly leg is probably even worse than two ugly ones. Especially if they differ across many parameters - hairiness, height, girth, color, shape, tatoo genre, number of toes, number of kneecaps, and leg personality traits like temperament and coquettishness. An prudish leg and a slutty leg make a dangerous pair.
And let's do an easy one to boost your self-esteem. "Ne pas avoir inventé la poudre" (Not to have invented gunpowder).
To be a little dumb
Well, I accept the compliment on behalf of the Chinese, along with the insult on behalf of the rest of the world. Good thing there's a lot of Chinese people.
Today was the second day of the 30-day trials. Success is of course at my side and seems like my friends are also doing well. Rock on. The hardest so far is drinking only water. Now, this may be cake for some people, but I haven't drank water by itself since 1964, and I was born in 1986 so this should tell you something. I usually drink ~6 cups of tea and ~3 cups of juice per day. The last two days I've been drinking 1-2 cups of water. This does not bode well; if I continue in this vein, I'll probably look like this:
After all, the average human body's around 70% water. Maybe I'll bring that statistic down to 69.99999999999999%...nah, let's save that for next month.
Let's see...what else... Ah yes, results just in. I asked Natasha today whether she would kill a puppy for a million dollars and immediately received an emphatic no and a cataract of tears spawned of well-imagined puppy murder. Doubtful, I offered her a scenario where the strangulation/throwing in river/lethal injection would be performed by a third party in faraway Kenya and all she would have to do is press a button. Suddenly, doubt and introspection were the main components of her constitution. Well, I guess everyone has their price. Except me of course. I wouldn't kill a puppy for the amount of the US National Debt (a hefty 10.6 trillion dollars) if it had previously chewed through my family tree all the way back to Charlemagne.
Anyway, like with every language, looking in as an outsider, everything seems funny. I'm sure French people giggle a little every time they say "it's raining cats and dogs." But from my persepective, they're a bunch of goofy little leprechauns based on their idioms.
The best way to learn these and simultaneously appreciate the humor value is to play it like a guessing game. For example, what do you think "C'est le pied!" (It's the foot!) means? When you give up, highlight the next few lines below to see the answer; it's in a white font so your peripheral vision doesn't ruin the fun.
That's great!
Apparently the French people have a very different opinion of what's great. An American might say "that's the tits!" (if he were in the right movie - specifically The Girl Next Door), and imply the same thing. The other options - "the cat's pajamas," "the bee's knees," the "the eel's ankle," "the elephant's
instep," "the snake's hip" make absolutely no sense in true American style.
"À boire ou je tue le chien!" (Bring me a drink or I kill the dog!)
Bring me a drink or I kill the dog!
Yea, that one's a little more obvious.
"Avoir les jetons" (To have the tokens)
To be scared
Go figure, French people must really love EZPass.
"Avoir le cul bordé de nouilles" (To have an ass full of noodles). Think about this one before you look, it's pretty transparent.
To be lucky
If you wake up in the morning and find noodles in your ass, you best praise the Lord they decided on noodles and not forks or refrigerators. I can't think of a situation where you'd feel luckier.
"Ça me fait une belle jambe" (That makes me a nice leg). Just think about having one nice leg and you'll understand.
A fat lot of good that does me!
Indeed, one nice leg and one ugly leg is probably even worse than two ugly ones. Especially if they differ across many parameters - hairiness, height, girth, color, shape, tatoo genre, number of toes, number of kneecaps, and leg personality traits like temperament and coquettishness. An prudish leg and a slutty leg make a dangerous pair.
And let's do an easy one to boost your self-esteem. "Ne pas avoir inventé la poudre" (Not to have invented gunpowder).
To be a little dumb
Well, I accept the compliment on behalf of the Chinese, along with the insult on behalf of the rest of the world. Good thing there's a lot of Chinese people.
Today was the second day of the 30-day trials. Success is of course at my side and seems like my friends are also doing well. Rock on. The hardest so far is drinking only water. Now, this may be cake for some people, but I haven't drank water by itself since 1964, and I was born in 1986 so this should tell you something. I usually drink ~6 cups of tea and ~3 cups of juice per day. The last two days I've been drinking 1-2 cups of water. This does not bode well; if I continue in this vein, I'll probably look like this:
After all, the average human body's around 70% water. Maybe I'll bring that statistic down to 69.99999999999999%...nah, let's save that for next month.
Let's see...what else... Ah yes, results just in. I asked Natasha today whether she would kill a puppy for a million dollars and immediately received an emphatic no and a cataract of tears spawned of well-imagined puppy murder. Doubtful, I offered her a scenario where the strangulation/throwing in river/lethal injection would be performed by a third party in faraway Kenya and all she would have to do is press a button. Suddenly, doubt and introspection were the main components of her constitution. Well, I guess everyone has their price. Except me of course. I wouldn't kill a puppy for the amount of the US National Debt (a hefty 10.6 trillion dollars) if it had previously chewed through my family tree all the way back to Charlemagne.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
30 Days
Yesterday I made some interesting decisions that of course resulted in interesting consequences today, according to one of the more stringent laws of the universe. The yesterday me decided to take Steve Pavlina's advice and do some interesting 30-day trials. The idea is that you commit to giving up or acquiring some habit just for 30 days. It's interesting because it's actually doable; 30 days is nothing special, and you have a much greater chance for success than when you make more dramatic commitments like "I will never eat Komodo dragon or any other kind of dragon meat for as long as I live" or my little sister's favorite: "I will stop drinking cognac in the morning." These belong in the impossible-to-sustain-so-don't-even-bother-trying category.
Naturally, I couldn't let myself suffer alone, so I dragged every person that had the misfortune of being on my buddy list into this experiment. Luckily I regularly purge my buddy list of stale friends, so I only had to bother a few. Some of them needed extra motivation, so I agreed to do their 30-day trials as well. Currently I am signed up for the following:
No drinks other than water.
No cursing in any of the 18 languages I know or the 57 I'm learning. This is not as easy as it sounds. Innocent words in one language are X-rated in another.
50 situps/crunches a day for one friend.
50 situps/crunches a day for another friend.
Being vegetarian (this is actually part of another experiment, but I might as well take credit for it)
Some of these come with clauses. For example, should I have temporary amnesia and regain consciousness to find myself holding a half-consumed non-100%-water beverage, I must call my partner in crunches "master" for an entire day, and vice versa should she do 0-49 situps/crunches instead of the requisite 50. Initially we decided the punishment was a kick to the head in high-heel shoes, but plane tickets from/to China are back over a dollar these days, rendering such a scheme financially impractical. Humiliation was chosen as a close second.
Other people are signed up for situps/crunches, writing poetry, running in the morning, learning French for half-an-hour a day, writing in their journals for 15 minutes a day, and...I think that's it. Good luck to all of you (suckers)! That'll teach you to be my friends.
Recently I've been reviewing French in an effort to lower my overinflated self-esteem (I have no doubt that I totally rule). Chinese helps in that department, but I figure the more the better. So I've met some French girls from Paris on Palabea - a language learning site, and started reading Mysterious Island by Jules Verne, in French of course. In between, I read vocabulary lists and study verb conjugations.
All this is much more fun that it sounds (and this is only half-meant to trick you into doing it). I realized I forgot how cool the French language is; when I last heard it, it was being so uninspiredly taught that I lost my appetite for it for 5 years. Well now we're back, and without teachers standing in the way of my education, success is inevitable. Vive la France et la langue francaise!
Oh yea, lastly, some excellent poetry inspired by sitting on the edge of a bed all day:
I am sitting with bad posture
now I'm sitting with good posture
I sure am good about my posture
and we're back to crappy posture
Remember what I said about "rhyming a word with itself" being the domain of the incurably brave badasses? K, just thought I'd remind you.
Naturally, I couldn't let myself suffer alone, so I dragged every person that had the misfortune of being on my buddy list into this experiment. Luckily I regularly purge my buddy list of stale friends, so I only had to bother a few. Some of them needed extra motivation, so I agreed to do their 30-day trials as well. Currently I am signed up for the following:
No drinks other than water.
No cursing in any of the 18 languages I know or the 57 I'm learning. This is not as easy as it sounds. Innocent words in one language are X-rated in another.
50 situps/crunches a day for one friend.
50 situps/crunches a day for another friend.
Being vegetarian (this is actually part of another experiment, but I might as well take credit for it)
Some of these come with clauses. For example, should I have temporary amnesia and regain consciousness to find myself holding a half-consumed non-100%-water beverage, I must call my partner in crunches "master" for an entire day, and vice versa should she do 0-49 situps/crunches instead of the requisite 50. Initially we decided the punishment was a kick to the head in high-heel shoes, but plane tickets from/to China are back over a dollar these days, rendering such a scheme financially impractical. Humiliation was chosen as a close second.
Other people are signed up for situps/crunches, writing poetry, running in the morning, learning French for half-an-hour a day, writing in their journals for 15 minutes a day, and...I think that's it. Good luck to all of you (suckers)! That'll teach you to be my friends.
Recently I've been reviewing French in an effort to lower my overinflated self-esteem (I have no doubt that I totally rule). Chinese helps in that department, but I figure the more the better. So I've met some French girls from Paris on Palabea - a language learning site, and started reading Mysterious Island by Jules Verne, in French of course. In between, I read vocabulary lists and study verb conjugations.
All this is much more fun that it sounds (and this is only half-meant to trick you into doing it). I realized I forgot how cool the French language is; when I last heard it, it was being so uninspiredly taught that I lost my appetite for it for 5 years. Well now we're back, and without teachers standing in the way of my education, success is inevitable. Vive la France et la langue francaise!
Oh yea, lastly, some excellent poetry inspired by sitting on the edge of a bed all day:
I am sitting with bad posture
now I'm sitting with good posture
I sure am good about my posture
and we're back to crappy posture
Remember what I said about "rhyming a word with itself" being the domain of the incurably brave badasses? K, just thought I'd remind you.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
New Hampshire exists! That's 23 confirmed states!
Yesterday Natasha and I drove to Dartmouth, though technically she did all the driving. It took five and a half hours and I received my usual rate of $0/hr for it, totaling roughly $0. We got in around eight, unpacked Natasha's entire house worth of stuff from her car-sized car and by midnight we were sitting in the cozy kitchen devouring her mom's more edible gifts.
Then we watched Leatherheads. Now this is a movie which has absolutely no idea what it's about. Most movies are pretty transparent and straightforward, even the bad ones: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is about proving to you that there are things in the world that make even a well-balanced ridiculously good-looking individual like myself contemplate suicide from boredom, namely watching The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Last Orders is about British people doing absolutely nothing in realtime. For two hours. 27 Dresses is about the estrogen injection you forgot to take before you watched it. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days is about a two-hour long kick in the balls, not my favorite thing to experience even vicariously.
Leatherheads puts these all to shame. After all, why go for one topic, when you can go for all of them? Football, mud wrestling, unrequited love, male bonding, fat people, the Great Depression, the Prohibition, betrayal, lies, Renee Zellwegger's oily face that's so slippery your eyeballs can't hang on, George Clooney's loony O Brother Where Art Thou character, broken telephone and World War I are just some of the broad range of topics which would take almost as long for me to list as for you to just watch the movie yourself. Anyway, each topic from this veritable zoo of plot devices gets about two minutes of play. As a result it feels like you're watching two-minute-long episodes of some show where the characters stay the same, but each new episode has only minor relevance to the previous 17. I give this movie an "eh." (with an audible 'h')
Today we went to have lunch with one of Natasha's friends here at Dartmouth, Seth, whose buoyant gregarious personality belies his terminal case of astronomy/physics dorkiness. We chatted for a while on some innocuous subjects that leave no memory imprint while munching on veggie pseudo-Mexican burritos. After lunch Seth felt sick (I sometimes have that effect), and had to depart in a hurry, looking over his shoulder every so often with that look Sam Neil gives the T-Rex in Jurassic Park. Another good first impression by me.
We attemped a language experiment today. Natasha and I agreed not to speak Russian or English for what ended up being about an hour and a half. We had at our disposal a combined total of a couple of years of Spanish, French, and a semester of Chinese, the last of which unfortunately lying entirely on one side of the conversation. The first couple of minutes were full of inauspicious silence, Hitchcock style. Then awkward first words were breathed, mostly "..." and "uh..." But then, breakthrough, after fifteen minutes or so, we were chatting in a language I would hesitate to call Spanish, but which definitely was neither English nor Russian. A success by any standards, as long as they're really really low.
Lastly, I was thinking about blindfolds earlier today because Natasha was crocheting something that had the potential to become one, and I was wondering, does anyone purposely make a blindfold? Seems like blindfolds are usually items that have an alternate intrinsic purposes, like scarves or shirts or hands. There are precious few people in the world who (when you catch them crocheting) reply to "whatcha makin?" with "oh, it's a blindfold, can't you tell?" Let's just acknowledge that there's a demand for blindfolds and start making them and calling them what they are eh?
Then we watched Leatherheads. Now this is a movie which has absolutely no idea what it's about. Most movies are pretty transparent and straightforward, even the bad ones: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is about proving to you that there are things in the world that make even a well-balanced ridiculously good-looking individual like myself contemplate suicide from boredom, namely watching The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Last Orders is about British people doing absolutely nothing in realtime. For two hours. 27 Dresses is about the estrogen injection you forgot to take before you watched it. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days is about a two-hour long kick in the balls, not my favorite thing to experience even vicariously.
Leatherheads puts these all to shame. After all, why go for one topic, when you can go for all of them? Football, mud wrestling, unrequited love, male bonding, fat people, the Great Depression, the Prohibition, betrayal, lies, Renee Zellwegger's oily face that's so slippery your eyeballs can't hang on, George Clooney's loony O Brother Where Art Thou character, broken telephone and World War I are just some of the broad range of topics which would take almost as long for me to list as for you to just watch the movie yourself. Anyway, each topic from this veritable zoo of plot devices gets about two minutes of play. As a result it feels like you're watching two-minute-long episodes of some show where the characters stay the same, but each new episode has only minor relevance to the previous 17. I give this movie an "eh." (with an audible 'h')
Today we went to have lunch with one of Natasha's friends here at Dartmouth, Seth, whose buoyant gregarious personality belies his terminal case of astronomy/physics dorkiness. We chatted for a while on some innocuous subjects that leave no memory imprint while munching on veggie pseudo-Mexican burritos. After lunch Seth felt sick (I sometimes have that effect), and had to depart in a hurry, looking over his shoulder every so often with that look Sam Neil gives the T-Rex in Jurassic Park. Another good first impression by me.
We attemped a language experiment today. Natasha and I agreed not to speak Russian or English for what ended up being about an hour and a half. We had at our disposal a combined total of a couple of years of Spanish, French, and a semester of Chinese, the last of which unfortunately lying entirely on one side of the conversation. The first couple of minutes were full of inauspicious silence, Hitchcock style. Then awkward first words were breathed, mostly "..." and "uh..." But then, breakthrough, after fifteen minutes or so, we were chatting in a language I would hesitate to call Spanish, but which definitely was neither English nor Russian. A success by any standards, as long as they're really really low.
Lastly, I was thinking about blindfolds earlier today because Natasha was crocheting something that had the potential to become one, and I was wondering, does anyone purposely make a blindfold? Seems like blindfolds are usually items that have an alternate intrinsic purposes, like scarves or shirts or hands. There are precious few people in the world who (when you catch them crocheting) reply to "whatcha makin?" with "oh, it's a blindfold, can't you tell?" Let's just acknowledge that there's a demand for blindfolds and start making them and calling them what they are eh?
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Long Day
Mom's looking over my shoulder, so I can't unleash my full writing potential. Half will do.
Went to Hana's house today. They were definitely unprepared to entertain me. I was counting on at least some singing, money showering, and "we're not worthy"'s accompanied by heads banging against the floor, but all I got was a good meal and an even better serving of boooring. They all camped out in the den and watched a recorded Turkey-Germany soccer match, and no amount tears or begging succeeded in making them tell me to shut up and go home. I don't understand, if you have a match taped and can watch it any time, why would you ever watch it? Especially when I'm around waiting to be entertained.
Mom's learning Stairway to Heaven so she can go to Guitar Center and piss them off - all guitar stores have Stairway to Heaven on their blacklists. Luckily for them, she only practices once every couple of months, usually in different and not always consecutive years.
Chun studying for MCATs is reflecting poorly on my self-esteem. Every now and then, she'll come at me with a "hey, I've got a really easy question for ya...," just to make sure I feel like a moron when I can't even understand what it's asking. I of course proceed to do just that, and she has her fill of laughs. Then she leaves me and returns to her career-building, while I frantically shake my computer upside down so my tears don't short its circuits.
Michelle's having a sleepover today, so there are suddenly two Michelles in the house (her friend is also a Michelle). This is pretty much your classic domestic nightmare. Right now they're upstairs and judging from the sounds, they're either mudwrestling, practicing dropkicks, or sacrificing an uncooperative goat. I hear thud after thud, and lots of giggling that'll soon make its way downstairs, meet Mom, and seamlessly become sobbing if not screaming.
Went to Hana's house today. They were definitely unprepared to entertain me. I was counting on at least some singing, money showering, and "we're not worthy"'s accompanied by heads banging against the floor, but all I got was a good meal and an even better serving of boooring. They all camped out in the den and watched a recorded Turkey-Germany soccer match, and no amount tears or begging succeeded in making them tell me to shut up and go home. I don't understand, if you have a match taped and can watch it any time, why would you ever watch it? Especially when I'm around waiting to be entertained.
Mom's learning Stairway to Heaven so she can go to Guitar Center and piss them off - all guitar stores have Stairway to Heaven on their blacklists. Luckily for them, she only practices once every couple of months, usually in different and not always consecutive years.
Chun studying for MCATs is reflecting poorly on my self-esteem. Every now and then, she'll come at me with a "hey, I've got a really easy question for ya...," just to make sure I feel like a moron when I can't even understand what it's asking. I of course proceed to do just that, and she has her fill of laughs. Then she leaves me and returns to her career-building, while I frantically shake my computer upside down so my tears don't short its circuits.
Michelle's having a sleepover today, so there are suddenly two Michelles in the house (her friend is also a Michelle). This is pretty much your classic domestic nightmare. Right now they're upstairs and judging from the sounds, they're either mudwrestling, practicing dropkicks, or sacrificing an uncooperative goat. I hear thud after thud, and lots of giggling that'll soon make its way downstairs, meet Mom, and seamlessly become sobbing if not screaming.
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