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[12 Dec 2009|09:42pm] |
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Chinese Christmas Conundrum: When shopping for Christmas decorations in China, if you bring foreigners (that's us) along, the price triples. If you rely on Chinese people to buy Christmas decorations, you wind up with red dinosaurs and green frogs, and cans of blue and pink spray paint with stencils that say "HAPPY CHRISMIS".
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[02 Nov 2009|09:14pm] |
redux: i would have thought you'd like the pork floss hot dog, you love pork floss
hao: You can't just put all the things I like into the same dish an expect me to like it. It's like gummy bear soup. No.
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[14 Oct 2009|09:02am] |
There are times in your life when you get discouraged and think about quitting. It's times like these that true friends encourage you to keep on going. I'm thankful that in my life, I'm surrounded in friends who refuse to let me quit.
( spoiler )
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[07 Oct 2009|02:11pm] |
There's this city... I keep seeing it in my dreams... It's not futuristic in the way people would generally imagine a futuristic city, it's something that could be built right now. It has a subway system, except the trains are a bit smaller and faster, and curve around a lot more. They have many more transfers and lines, and are designed around the flow of traffic of the city, which makes them geometrically illogical (more like bus lines). They bank like a roller coaster when they turn. It's a light colored sandstoney city, there's plenty of sunlight, the air is clean, but there's very little plant life.
This city speaks a language that's unique to the city. The language is artificially constructed, and contains 3 synonyms for each word, each synonym taken from the three languages English, Chinese, and Russian. Someone versed in linguistic study can guess at the linguistic origin of a word, but the general populace recognize all 3 words as being the same language. In this way, as locals furnish alternate words for something, they cover all 3 language with the same flat accent. With the same ease an English speaker could identify the words "fire, flame, blaze" as meaning roughly the same thing, a speaker of this language can immediately furnish the word for a noun in all 3 languages.
The language results in two things, the first being that if a person from this city is trying to express a noun or a verb, they can cover all 3 languages and eventually be understood by anyone who knows Russian, English, or Chinese, or a similar language with overlapping vocabulary. The second thing is that the populace can immediately understand any simple sentence spoken in Russian, English, or Chinese. The population does not consider this speaking 3 languages, in the same way an English speaker regularly uses Nordic or Latin words without realizing it. A visitor to this city who is bilingual in any 2 of the 3 languages can, if they don't talk too much, almost pass as a native speaker with a funny accent.
In my dreams I'm always lost in this city, overwhelmed by a combination of the difficulty understanding the language, and the generally fast paced lifestyle. Usually I'm in the subway system trying to get somewhere, but the large number of transfers and plethora of lines makes it incredibly difficult to get around. Last night I had a dream that took place in this city where I was late for work, and was unable to find my way. At some point by chance I ran into the district HR manager who handled several locations and happened to be traveling on the subway system. She asked me why I wasn't at work, and I told her I was lost. She either didn't believe me or didn't think I should be lost, and yelled at me. At some point later I ran into Tingting and she gave me directions as to how to get where I was supposed to go.
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[01 Oct 2009|01:14pm] |
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i'm on day 5 of my 7 day vacation. i don't quite remember day 4. think i'll order pizza.
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| Odd dream |
[20 Sep 2009|05:33am] |
I had this dream last night where i was wandering around northern Washington by foot, exploring the countryside. It was a sunny day, and everything was green and beautiful, especially as I headed farther North. I kept coming up to the border of Canada trying to get in, but I had left my passport at home and they wouldn't allow me to enter. I wanted to visit and promised them I would behave if they let me in, but they said only Americans were allowed to go to Canada without a passport, at which point I realized I wasn't an American.
I traveled South trying to figure out what to do, and eventually made my way to Berkeley where I went to college, and was on the south side at my old apartment to rest, where I apparently lived as I found I had the key to the door. My friend Hao called me on the phone and wanted me to come meet him and Ting for dinner, even though everything should have been closed since it was really late at night. I started walking North to meet him, but was confused about whether it was East or West or North because all the maps in Berkeley are sideways, and I couldn't remember which way they face. All he could say was "we're on the south side, we'll find you, just hang out somewhere".
So I walked into a tiny dimly lit music shop that sold records and posters to kill some time. I happened to be carrying a few old black and white photos of an old band that looked a lot like what they had in this shop, and I didn't know where I had gotten them and thought maybe it was a sign that I was supposed to go here, so I wandered in. It was about 20 feet from the front door to the back of the shop, and maybe 4 feet wide, and had about 6 people in it. I think they were just sitting around smoking pot and talking about old music, I kind of ignored them. I laid the pictures on the table so I could wander around. As I was exploring, I looked down a staircase toward the back of the room and saw that there was a basement with really soft looking shag carpet and a few other things. The woman working told me that it wasn't part of the store, and it would "be legal" for me to enter. I asked her to clarify since I didn't hear her clearly, and she said "be legal" again, and I said "you mean not legal, right?" and she said "yes, it would not be illegal". So I said "So it's bad" and she said yes. While I was musing about her confusion of the words "illegal" and "legal", and her odd choice of wording, an older walked past and invited me to come downstairs to her room.
I walked downstairs and there was a huge well lit room, much brighter than the dimly lit sidewalk outside or the smokey record shop upstairs. There was thick thick shag carpet, exaggeratedly soft, fluffy fake animal fur rugs, and old toys everywhere. At first I just jumped around on the carpet, feeling the softness of everything. Looking at the toys, I recognized them as being "old toys", but in fact they were made of plastic and computer printed, and were toys from my childhood... kerplunk, that marble rollercoaster thing you build out of straws, mousetrap, don't break the ice, and soforth. The woman was like a sweet old grandma, and her home was just like grandmas house should be; full of toys from a child that lived 30 years prior, most of which didn't exist today, so even though they're old, there's a newness and a uniqueness to them since you've never seen or heard of them before. I resisted the urge to comment on this, because I didn't know how old she was, and wasn't sure if telling her that I felt the nostalgia of being at my grandma's house would offend her in the event she wasn't old enough to be a grandma and just had a son with old toys.
As I explored, I knocked something behind the bed and looked down at where it had fallen. It was something cheap, disposable chopsticks, and I didn't want to reach and get it because it would be troublesome, so I decided not to say anything about it and continued to wander around the room. Soon afterward, I realised that they would be there forever since the woman and her husband (who had just arrived) would never be agile enough to reach them. The thought of them being behind the bed forever bothered me a little, but at that point I had already decided not to get them, and I felt like going back over would be dishonest... like, "why didn't you get them when you knocked them over"? As if I had tried to get away with something, so I just said nothing and left them.
At that point, their son arrived, he was maybe 35 years old, and he shook my hand, a little confused to see me walking around his moms home in this basement under the shop, and asked me if I was a member of this rock band I had never heard of. I told him I was just browsing and his mom had seen me looking at the room, and he said "oh, sorry, I thought you were someone important". I envied their simple little life under the shop in this soft room, but I had stayed too long, and decided to leave.
I went back upstairs to the shop, which was still packed full of people and difficult to walk through since it was so narrow. At this point I saw that my somewhat expensive black and white photos had fallen on the ground, and were being stepped on. I picked them up and took them out of their paper sleeve and saw that there were high-heel prints on them. The shop owner felt bad, because running a shop that dealt in old autographed rock band pictures, she knew they were valuable. I shrugged and said "life happens", and walked out the front door tossing them into the trash, and bumping into Ting and Hao at the front door. They asked what was inside, and I said "oh, it's just some old record shop. let's eat"
Then I woke up.
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| i nab at the rabbit and out of habit i stab it |
[15 Sep 2009|04:49pm] |
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i nab at the rabbit and out of habit i stab it, i nab at the rabbit and out of habit i stab it, i nab at the rabbit and out of habit i stab it, i nab at the rabbit and out of habit i stab it.
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| Moth Beats Butterfly 13 to 0 |
[10 Sep 2009|11:34am] |
My coworkers all wrongly believe that butteflies are cuter than moths. Just like every other dispute, I settled the discussion with the help of wikipedia, pulling up random images of butterflies and moths.
Wikipedia Pictures of Moths (note the fuzzy, petable heads and cute little faces):
( More Images )
Wikipedia Pictures of Butteflies (note the disgusting faces and mosquito like mouths):
( More Images )
Moths have fluffly little antennae, cute little mouths, and fuzzy heads. By comparison, butterflies practically look like mosquitos with their sharp needle like proboscis and thin ant-like antennae. Moths are cuter than butteflies. Hell, spiders are cuter than butterflies. That's all there is to it. If anyone out there actually prefers butterfleas, post a reason why so that I can tell you you're wrong.
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| sick sick sick sick |
[26 Aug 2009|08:08am] |
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The transition from 3 years of being a hermit and never going around other people to working with children in a foreign country is hell on the immune system.
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| Wisdom from Hao |
[25 Aug 2009|08:16am] |
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"Anyone who walks up to you in public is up to no damn good, because nothing you're given is something you want; if you want something, you have to chase it down."
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| i want a baby |
[20 Aug 2009|07:58am] |
my biological clock went off and the snooze alarm feature isn't working.
[ ] Impregnate coworker
[ ] Impregnate boss
[ ] Impregnate roommate
SUGGESTIONS?? 8D
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[18 Aug 2009|12:41pm] |
beware of heard, a dreadful word that looks like beard and sounds like bird,
And dead: it's said like bed, not bead... for goodness sake don't call it deed!
watch out for meat and great and threat (they rhyme with suite and straight and debt)
a moth is not a "moth" in mother, nor both in bother; broth in brother
and "here" is not a match for "there", nor "dear and fear" for "bear and pear"
just look them up - and goose and choose
and do and go, and thwart and cart - come come, i've hardly made a start!
a dreadful language? man alive! i'd mastered it when i was five!
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| I haven't named her yet |
[17 Aug 2009|12:35am] |
I grabbed this in the middle of the store and started hugging it. My frugal friends told me it was too expensive and not worth it, but I was having a "not leaving >:O" moment and you can guess the rest.
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| Act 4, Scene 2: The Gokarting Adventure |
[10 Aug 2009|11:04am] |
--Draw Curtain--
Scene depicts Nina sitting on her bed with an open textbook and a worried look. Redux standing in the doorway with a huge grin on his face
nina: "i don't wanna go"
redux: "sure you do, it'll be fun"
nina: "i really don't want to go"
redux: "i can tell you want to, you shouldn't lie to yourself"
nina: "no i have to stay here and study"
redux: "no, you just need to study twice as hard when you get back"
nina: "i said no, and that's final"
redux: "ok ok i get it i get it. anyway, i'm going to step outside so you can get changed"
nina: "alright, give me 5 minutes"
--bedroom door slams shut, leaving redux outside--
--redux turns to face the audience with a huge shit eating grin--
redux: am i good or what? =D
--Close Curtain--
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[28 Jul 2009|10:18pm] |
Thursday the 23rd, 1000am - Put in first job application
Thursday the 23rd, 1015am - Received a callback to schedule an interview Friday the 24th for Job#1
Friday the 24th, 100pm - Received a callback while on the way to Job#1 interview to schedule Job#2 interview same day
Friday the 24th, 300pm - Missed interview to Job#2, rescheduled to Sunday
Sunday the 26th, 1200pm - First interview at Job#2, Second interview scheduled Tuesday 28th
Tuesday the 28th, 1138am - Showed up for Job#2 interview 38 minutes late
Tuesday the 28th, 400pm - Received job offer from Job#2, Read over contract
Tuesday the 28th, 440pm - Contract signed, Hired.
Job breakdown:
Employment Type: English Teacher to 3-6 year olds through singing and interactive overhead projector flash games.
20 classroom hours per week (12 classes, 90 minutes per class; 45 as teacher 45 as assistant)
12 paid vacation days per year
12 paid holidays per year
5 day workweek, 8 hours of work with 1 hour lunch (40 total hours; 10 teaching, 10 watching, 20 administrative)
Workdays: Wed/Thurs/Fri 1230 noon to 930pm, Saturday & Sunday 900am to 600pm
Monthly sallary: 12,000¥ ($1,765 USD)
Bonuses: Max 100¥, Min 40¥ per class; 1200¥ per week, 4,800¥ per month ($705 USD)
Total Income With Bonuses: $2,070 - $2,470 USD/month
Potential Annual Income: 200,000¥ ($30,300 USD)
Cost of Living:
Rent: $441 USD/month
Delivery Food: $1.75 per meal
Subway Fare: ~$25 per month
Massage: $3.25/hour
Maid: $4.80 per 4 hour workday (~$19/month)
Total Cost: ~$600 USD/month
Excess: $1,870 USD/month
In reality I will probably hit right about 2,000 per month income, and expenses couldn't possibly exceed $1,000 a month even with regular delivery food, daily massages, alcohol, and every other concievable debauchery... there's just no way to spend money here, even if you're trying to...
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[26 Jul 2009|04:53pm] |
last night i ate a grilled cheese sandwich made with french toast, smothered in caramel, and drizzled with a cheesy mayonaise substance at a restaurant that has giant swings hanging from the ceiling for seats.
the night before I ate a giant bowl of crayfish and a deep fried pizza made entirely from corn on a 4th floor walkup in a tiny attic that's only big enough for 4 tables.
2 days ago I ate dinner at a place that serves giant bowls of soup with fire under them that are constantly boiling, and you add stuff to eat as you go. Earlier that day i drank soup out of a giant dumpling with a straw.
I've only managed to successfully digest about 40% of this, but gastrointestianl disaster is a fair exchange for palatel delight
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reduxde's journal
