Blogs
Post Thanksgiving Leadup to Christmas Extravaganza!
Thanksgiving feast
Well, I didn't write about the full extent of the thanksgiving dinner because it hadn't happened yet I guess. It was a smashing success. I invited about 16 people, and 13 showed up ^_^ My boss and his friends came to give their regards, but had another dinner they needed to attend to and so did not stay long enough to eat, but they gave me 2 really nice bottles of baijiu (Chinese sake) as a show of face I think. It was really great for me because I had an opportunity to introduce my different networks (I met someone at KFC and we became friends and I got to introduce him and his friends to my CSV friends finally). We had carrots and corn, everyone got a full plate of yams with cinnamon and apples (sweet potatoes, but close enough :D), drinks, 5kg of chicken (3 flavors all slow cooked in cooking bags to emulate a turkey), 15 potatoes worth of mash, 30 devilled eggs, , calendars (yes really), delicious trader joe ginger snaps, 4 pumpkin pies (5" =D), some pumpkin bars, cookies, and my sister had sent me a bunch of decorations so we had a nice festive feel with scented candles as well. I was planning on having the dinner in two rooms, but got outvoted and we all crammed into my living room and sat around talking and eating. Before I knew it, one of my friends (who happens to be a professional guitarist) asked my neighbor for the guitar and we were all singing various blends of festive/Chinese/English/praise/Irish songs for a couple hours. I ended up playing some flute accompanied by the guitar as well (and man does that make the mistakes harder to find :D). After eating well past our fills, we ended the night at about 10:30 and it was good.
Gettin' in the groove for twisters
As the semester has progressed, I think my serious, boring, strict, and tedious style of forcing pronunciation drills (through tongue twisters) onto my students has taken its toll. They now know how to pronounce significantly more than they did before... Of course, when they are in a hurry, they still manage to forget, but whatever. It's kinda funny- I have them read a tongue twister (think she sells seashells) with various difficult pronunciation pairs (she/see, sells/shells) so they can learn how to properly pronounce things in English (specifically: th, V, and long I come to mind). The slackers seem to be getting into gear and realizing that their tongues get tired when they try to memorize it all at once, and that I don't pass people on their second time in the same day (because they forget the next day). But now that some of the students do understand it, they criticize each other (which is nice, because then I don't think I'm going crazy by saying its pronounced wrong when all the students agree that it is fine). It is very difficult to convey the concept of physical understanding versus cognitive understanding. Most of my students have no difficulty understanding you need your tongue to be touching the bottom of your top teeth to pronounce "th," but I've flustered a good number of them with my phone camera by asking them if they actually see their tongue when they pronounce it (when it is hiding behind their teeth making the "sss" sound)... I think most people don't see learning how to speak as a physical exercise, and so think that once it is understood it is over and can be moved on from. But, it actually takes some work and discipline to maintain the 'muscles' needed to make certain pronunciations (thinking rolling Rs in Spanish). I have found that I need to practice pronouncing the "v" (u with dots on it) sound and the 'xue' sound in Chinese a LOT if I want to pronounce it correctly. Anyway, its good to see progress.
PHONE (new, ubuntu, otg)
MY PHONE ARRIVED XD))))) SO HAPPY. Ok no more caps lock. AWESOME... ok. So I got my box (which must have been a transient loaf or something because it arrived late- my guess is customs missed the plane and put it on the next one) from my sister- at the same time as the box I got from my aunt (sent a week later). BUT regardless, it is awesome. I've put my presents under the tree (that Kelly sent me; it's more like a tree wallpaper, but it suffices). I've spent at least 15 hours in the last 3 days working on it getting it exactly how I want it customized (almost there). I bought a couple more cables on tianmao (Chinese amazon) to get it working with external hard drives. Right now, I can't find a cable to buy in China that runs a slimport>vga (it only just recently came to the states). I am holding out until it comes to China because it will be a lot cheaper. My slimport (the usb hardware on the phone) was 30rmb, and goes for $30 in the States (6x more expensive). The timing is pretty good too, because my laptop (record: 3 years old in January) seems to have the sickness. I had the keyboard repaired twice but it has broken again; the monitor repaired once, and it is slowly dying again. The warranty is up on its birthday so I may not have it much longer. That being said, every other laptop I've owned lasted at most 1.5 years before dying, so Lenovo: I salute your quality work. However, it is time to move on, and, though the Nexus 4 (my phone) is not perfect in regard to full destop replacement, with a few tweeks it will be able to do just about everything I need it to do [pro gaming: not needed =( ] I think the hardware won't be able to support an external monitor and external hdd at the same time, so I am going to turn my tablet into a server (because it has no problem connecting to multiple usbs, but does not have external monitor support). My phone will be on screen (when I get the vga cable, or opt to buy my own monitor with an hdmi... tempting...) and my tablet will be next to it connected via wifi (which is faster in theory than usb, though in practice not so much) for streaming music etc. I have a bluetooth keyboard and ordered a bluetooth mouse for full desktop experience. The only thing currently lacking is dev support (android doesn't have any developer apps because it is running in java), so I installed ubuntu on my laptop and am investigating ubuntu touch, which I plan to put on either my tablet or my phone (or both) so I can continue learning how to program Java (I want to make an android game!). I'm about 1/2 done with the super huge 40 lesson tutorial that essential makes a megaman game. I won't nerd out too much on this... any more at least, but the advantages of the phone are it has 2gb ram and a 1.5 quadcore vs 1gb ram on 1.3 quadcore. However the many communication thingies on the phone make it less stable to use in ubuntu tmk. I'll try both and see what works best. I want to have one device running with my private information (bank app etc.) and the other with my social apps (highly invasive QQ/oovoo/skype which try to glean every ounce of private data out of your device as possible) so that there is nothing for them to steal :D Lots to do yet.
tl;dr -- I'm happy about my phone.
plane tix
Well I finally got all my plane tickets taken care of and here is the plan as of now: This next weekend: fly to Hong Kong to meet my friend for his bachelor party, fly back to give finals.
The following weekend is his wedding where I will fly to Taipei and be part of it woot. It should be a lot of fun. I'll stay until new years, then fly out to Honolulu where I'll stay for a week and a half with my mentor and his sons and everyone else I love in Hawaii.
After that I'll fly to Vancouver, Oregon (or Washington, I forget) where my really good friend lives right now. After staying a few days, I'll be back in LA for a couple weeks to see family and friends as much as I possibly can.
At the end of January, I'll fly to Bangkok with my awesome sister and her husband and we will see the exotic country of Siam. It should be an awesome adventure.
Afterwards, it's back to China for another semester of English. It's gonna be awesome, but- like everything that involves time except high school- will be too short lived.
Christmas clothes
So something awesome to note, my church in Hawaii wants to send clothes and shoes and stuff out here, and I found an awesome organization that is totally on board. A worker with CSV told me about how she was collecting clothes from college students to donate to some rural areas (because it is freakin' cold!) so they have warm clothing. I told her I had some people who were also interested in the states and she thought it was awesome! so we are sending a box or two yay! Also, rather auspiciously, my friend (who happens to be a car dealer) wanted to help out, and it turned out the organization needed some way to transport things to the rural areas because they had no cars... auspicious ^_^
Anyway everything seems to work out for some real odd reason :D
I think Kelly is putting an honourable mention of me in her Christmas letter (and being a bachelor, I don't think I'm yet required to make my own) so I'll just say, Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and have a great year (I'll probably write another blog after the wedding).
Well, I didn't write about the full extent of the thanksgiving dinner because it hadn't happened yet I guess. It was a smashing success. I invited about 16 people, and 13 showed up ^_^ My boss and his friends came to give their regards, but had another dinner they needed to attend to and so did not stay long enough to eat, but they gave me 2 really nice bottles of baijiu (Chinese sake) as a show of face I think. It was really great for me because I had an opportunity to introduce my different networks (I met someone at KFC and we became friends and I got to introduce him and his friends to my CSV friends finally). We had carrots and corn, everyone got a full plate of yams with cinnamon and apples (sweet potatoes, but close enough :D), drinks, 5kg of chicken (3 flavors all slow cooked in cooking bags to emulate a turkey), 15 potatoes worth of mash, 30 devilled eggs, , calendars (yes really), delicious trader joe ginger snaps, 4 pumpkin pies (5" =D), some pumpkin bars, cookies, and my sister had sent me a bunch of decorations so we had a nice festive feel with scented candles as well. I was planning on having the dinner in two rooms, but got outvoted and we all crammed into my living room and sat around talking and eating. Before I knew it, one of my friends (who happens to be a professional guitarist) asked my neighbor for the guitar and we were all singing various blends of festive/Chinese/English/praise/Irish songs for a couple hours. I ended up playing some flute accompanied by the guitar as well (and man does that make the mistakes harder to find :D). After eating well past our fills, we ended the night at about 10:30 and it was good.
Gettin' in the groove for twisters
As the semester has progressed, I think my serious, boring, strict, and tedious style of forcing pronunciation drills (through tongue twisters) onto my students has taken its toll. They now know how to pronounce significantly more than they did before... Of course, when they are in a hurry, they still manage to forget, but whatever. It's kinda funny- I have them read a tongue twister (think she sells seashells) with various difficult pronunciation pairs (she/see, sells/shells) so they can learn how to properly pronounce things in English (specifically: th, V, and long I come to mind). The slackers seem to be getting into gear and realizing that their tongues get tired when they try to memorize it all at once, and that I don't pass people on their second time in the same day (because they forget the next day). But now that some of the students do understand it, they criticize each other (which is nice, because then I don't think I'm going crazy by saying its pronounced wrong when all the students agree that it is fine). It is very difficult to convey the concept of physical understanding versus cognitive understanding. Most of my students have no difficulty understanding you need your tongue to be touching the bottom of your top teeth to pronounce "th," but I've flustered a good number of them with my phone camera by asking them if they actually see their tongue when they pronounce it (when it is hiding behind their teeth making the "sss" sound)... I think most people don't see learning how to speak as a physical exercise, and so think that once it is understood it is over and can be moved on from. But, it actually takes some work and discipline to maintain the 'muscles' needed to make certain pronunciations (thinking rolling Rs in Spanish). I have found that I need to practice pronouncing the "v" (u with dots on it) sound and the 'xue' sound in Chinese a LOT if I want to pronounce it correctly. Anyway, its good to see progress.
PHONE (new, ubuntu, otg)
MY PHONE ARRIVED XD))))) SO HAPPY. Ok no more caps lock. AWESOME... ok. So I got my box (which must have been a transient loaf or something because it arrived late- my guess is customs missed the plane and put it on the next one) from my sister- at the same time as the box I got from my aunt (sent a week later). BUT regardless, it is awesome. I've put my presents under the tree (that Kelly sent me; it's more like a tree wallpaper, but it suffices). I've spent at least 15 hours in the last 3 days working on it getting it exactly how I want it customized (almost there). I bought a couple more cables on tianmao (Chinese amazon) to get it working with external hard drives. Right now, I can't find a cable to buy in China that runs a slimport>vga (it only just recently came to the states). I am holding out until it comes to China because it will be a lot cheaper. My slimport (the usb hardware on the phone) was 30rmb, and goes for $30 in the States (6x more expensive). The timing is pretty good too, because my laptop (record: 3 years old in January) seems to have the sickness. I had the keyboard repaired twice but it has broken again; the monitor repaired once, and it is slowly dying again. The warranty is up on its birthday so I may not have it much longer. That being said, every other laptop I've owned lasted at most 1.5 years before dying, so Lenovo: I salute your quality work. However, it is time to move on, and, though the Nexus 4 (my phone) is not perfect in regard to full destop replacement, with a few tweeks it will be able to do just about everything I need it to do [pro gaming: not needed =( ] I think the hardware won't be able to support an external monitor and external hdd at the same time, so I am going to turn my tablet into a server (because it has no problem connecting to multiple usbs, but does not have external monitor support). My phone will be on screen (when I get the vga cable, or opt to buy my own monitor with an hdmi... tempting...) and my tablet will be next to it connected via wifi (which is faster in theory than usb, though in practice not so much) for streaming music etc. I have a bluetooth keyboard and ordered a bluetooth mouse for full desktop experience. The only thing currently lacking is dev support (android doesn't have any developer apps because it is running in java), so I installed ubuntu on my laptop and am investigating ubuntu touch, which I plan to put on either my tablet or my phone (or both) so I can continue learning how to program Java (I want to make an android game!). I'm about 1/2 done with the super huge 40 lesson tutorial that essential makes a megaman game. I won't nerd out too much on this... any more at least, but the advantages of the phone are it has 2gb ram and a 1.5 quadcore vs 1gb ram on 1.3 quadcore. However the many communication thingies on the phone make it less stable to use in ubuntu tmk. I'll try both and see what works best. I want to have one device running with my private information (bank app etc.) and the other with my social apps (highly invasive QQ/oovoo/skype which try to glean every ounce of private data out of your device as possible) so that there is nothing for them to steal :D Lots to do yet.
tl;dr -- I'm happy about my phone.
plane tix
Well I finally got all my plane tickets taken care of and here is the plan as of now: This next weekend: fly to Hong Kong to meet my friend for his bachelor party, fly back to give finals.
The following weekend is his wedding where I will fly to Taipei and be part of it woot. It should be a lot of fun. I'll stay until new years, then fly out to Honolulu where I'll stay for a week and a half with my mentor and his sons and everyone else I love in Hawaii.
After that I'll fly to Vancouver, Oregon (or Washington, I forget) where my really good friend lives right now. After staying a few days, I'll be back in LA for a couple weeks to see family and friends as much as I possibly can.
At the end of January, I'll fly to Bangkok with my awesome sister and her husband and we will see the exotic country of Siam. It should be an awesome adventure.
Afterwards, it's back to China for another semester of English. It's gonna be awesome, but- like everything that involves time except high school- will be too short lived.
Christmas clothes
So something awesome to note, my church in Hawaii wants to send clothes and shoes and stuff out here, and I found an awesome organization that is totally on board. A worker with CSV told me about how she was collecting clothes from college students to donate to some rural areas (because it is freakin' cold!) so they have warm clothing. I told her I had some people who were also interested in the states and she thought it was awesome! so we are sending a box or two yay! Also, rather auspiciously, my friend (who happens to be a car dealer) wanted to help out, and it turned out the organization needed some way to transport things to the rural areas because they had no cars... auspicious ^_^
Anyway everything seems to work out for some real odd reason :D
I think Kelly is putting an honourable mention of me in her Christmas letter (and being a bachelor, I don't think I'm yet required to make my own) so I'll just say, Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and have a great year (I'll probably write another blog after the wedding).
