Tech faux pas...

For some unknown reasons, I had a strange vibe last night that today was going to be a weird day. Now I believe in my intuition even more than before.

We were going out for a farewell lunch for a former-classmate-present-colleague. It took a few trys to start the car as usual as it has been happening for a couple tmonths. We found a great parking spot in downtown but my car's engine kept running even AFTER I pulled out the car key! This was the 2nd time it behaved like this and I thought my solution last time was to drive a little bit more and the problem would go away... it didn't work this time. Then came the burning smell, and the smoke as we checked the engine. I couldn't even shut the window or lock the car because they are all electronic. Good thing this is downtown Monterey so I wasn't concerned about the safety of the car at all. We just kept going for lunch while I tried to call the insurance company to have the car towed. Then my cell phone didn't work. It would stay connect for about 30 seconds and then shut down. I tried my best to stay cool in front of everybody so as not to ruin their lunch. Well, to make the long story short I was able to get the car towed right after we finished lunch but I was forced to take a half-day leave but fortunately it is our class break so it's not a big deal. I am still waiting for the car dealer's call and I don't know when I'll get my car back at this moment. And my cell phone is totally fine after the fiasco that I guess it just can't handle stress. My lesson learned is a backup plan is ALWAYS needed whenever technology is involved that you never know when it would fail you. I moaned in pain every time I have to pay my insurance bill but I was so thankful for it today. And thanks to Xinyi for her cell phone while mine just wouldn't cooperate.

Wow, I'm so long-winded.

Ok, change of topic. I'm such a slow reader that often the movie of the book would have already come out before I'm even half way through reading it. Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Da Vinci Code... now even for a non-fiction 1421. I learned about this book when I was invited to attend the Speech Day of my high school. I found it strange as the speaker was so enthused about the book and I checked it out briefly from our school library. The theory proposed by Gavin Mensies was Zheng He, the Chinese navigator reached America about a century before Columbus did. He suggested Zheng even circumnavigated the whole world. Now I found this PBS produced documentary in our school library that I could know what he talked about in one seating without reading hundreds of pages from the book. It's quite fascinating to see the journey but strangely the poor Mensies was ripped apart by the interviewer and scholars because of lack of "scolarly evidence" to support his view. Well, who knows? Weren't Galileo, Newton, and many more of the great minds mocked in the first hand?

Relaxing...

With the students gone for a week for classbreak, I am expecting a very relaxing work week. I watched Hairspray over the weekend without much expectation as I've seen the show on Broadway and I found the movie trailer a little awkward and John Travolta just looked ridiculous. Boy, was I in for a nice surprise! I LOVED the movie! It's even better than the live show probably because it totally clarified what is going on in the story for me and all the cast acted and sang superbly. The theater wasn't even half full because it is almost the final week of the show but the audience was laughing, cheering, and even clapping in the end! I have never experienced anything like this in a movie theater. I just could not help having a big smile throughout the whole time.

They are soldiers...

Just watched another awesome movie...I always like this kind of movie storytelling about survival in the extreme circumstances. As I watched this one, I kept thinking about my students. Sometimes we take it for granted that there are thousands of people risking their lives to protect ours and fight for cause they deem worth dying for. And this mentality of sacrificing for higher cause is something where HK or even China lacks. People there nowadays confuse patriotism with being submissive to the government or political powers. It's just sad. Going back to the movie, I totally admire Christian Bale and Steve Zahn's performances. Very convincing. And there's an oddly interesting quote toward the end by Dieter (Bale): When something is empty, fill it. When something is full, empty it. When you have an itch, scratch it. Hmmmmm...

Talking about the military. I had my close encounter of what they go through last week. There was a gas leak somewhere else on campus and I was in the middle of teaching. All of a sudden there was a guy screaming with maddening voice and my first thought was there could be a student upset by his failing of his test (half of the class did not pass because of its difficulty). Then it turned out a cop banged on our door for evacuation and all my students jumped to their feet and put their caps on. I had a second of panic moment and did not quite know what to do. Everyone ran to the door and one student just asked me to follow suit. I guess I must have looked stupid at the time. I sense that they are so well trained that they are highly alert whenever they hear anything like an order or command and it is just an automatic reflex for them to jump into action.

On a totally different note, even though I am not an avid dancer at all but I'm hooked with the show "So You Think You Can Dance" because this is the only reality show that the contestants do have real talents. I got tickets to the finale but I can't go because of work! Grrrrrrrgh!


And I can't wait to see Survivor China! I'm such a geek!

Shows

Watched a few more interesting shows lately.

The Constant GardenerReally liked it. Reminds me of Blood Diamond. I find both the African continent and its people gorgeous and beautiful. It's my lifetime goal to go visit and do humanitarian work there.

Evan AlmighyPredictable but funny. Steve Carell is my current favorite comedian. He is not as wild and over-the-top as Jim Carrey and Robin Williams. I was surprised by a couple lines from the movies that struck me:
~Let me ask you something. If someone prays for patience, you think God gives them patience? Or does he give them the opportunity to be patient? If he prayed for courage, does God give him courage, or does he give him opportunities to be courageous? If someone prayed for the family to be closer, do you think God zaps them with warm fuzzy feelings, or does he give them opportunities to love each other?
~Change the world through the ARK: Acts of Random Kindness!

The Office (UK & US)Thanks to Netflix that I am able to watch both the UK and the US version of the Office with just a couple clicks. I just saw Season 1 of the US version and barely started with the UK version. At this point I prefer the American version as I can relate to it more and understand the humor and jokes better. Steve's character creates such discomfort that makes you cringe but laugh out loud at the same time. The characters' occasionally looking into the camera is the funniest part to me. It's a wonder to see "The Office" phenomenon spread to France and Germany as well with their own takes on the mockumentary of the office culture.

幸福... Happiness...

Came across this cute little story that I used in my class as the vocab fits perfectly with what we just taught. As soon as the students understood they let out a "sigh of sympathy" --- oh...

小猪问妈妈幸福在哪里，妈妈说幸福就在自己的尾巴上。于是小猪开始用嘴咬它的小尾巴，却总也咬不到，它沮丧的告诉妈妈自己抓不住幸福，妈妈笑笑说：傻孩子，只要你一直往前走，幸福就会一直跟着你的……

Little piggy asked his mom where happiness is, and mom said happiness is right there on his tail. Therefore piggy began to bite his little tail but with no success. He desperately told mom he could not catch happiness. Mom said with a smile, "You silly, as long as you keep walking forward, happiness will always follow you..."

Learning...

Lately have been reading and learning a lot more from areas I am not familiar with but find very interesting once I started getting into those. Things like US politics, immigration issues, environmental issues, modern Chinese history, world economy, and even Middle East conflicts. I always hear about the dispute between Israel and Palestine but find it very puzzling and I'm clueless about what actually is going on. Little did I know it has a lot to do with the cultural and historical clashes between the Arabs and the Jews. Anyways I've been reading all these partially for work (course material and OPI practice with the advanced students), the rest is just leisure reading, especially from free magazines like Businessweek, the Economist, Forbes, etc. that I got from my unused air mileages.

Talking about the students again, once in a while I would have totally blanked out class periods because of various reasons. One happened the 2nd day of this 2nd semester last Thursday. The students just barely learned the long list of vocabulary but apparently haven't digested them all. And I was not aware of what the previous teacher has done and I just taught at usual pace and it was a disastrous class. One slower student just gave up and the atmosphere just went downhill from that point. Everything that could go wrong did. Problems with the computer, stumbling on reading in pinyin to the students, students losing concentration because of the difficulty in the materials, failing of group work, etc. It truly was a test of everyone's patience.

One more extremely interesting but strange and almost kind of creepy incident was at the immersion activity a couple weeks ago. A higher rank student from the other class was introduced to me because he used to live in Hong Kong and his parents are natives form there. We found out he's just one year older than I am and we lived in the same community back in HK and attended the same kindergarten!!! We may have rubbed shoulders there. Crazy.