Have yourself a merry little christmas...

I'm bad at writing Christmas cards to each and single one of you out there, but I do want to say "Merry Christmas and happy new year to y'all!!!" (along with the best voice and nicest sound on the planet... I think).

Holiday Mood

All the students are gone, the work place has gone back to quietness, and it's funny how human psychology works: when the students were around and work was abound, I often dread going to school and wonder how much longer I could last without going insane; right before they left for home, myself preparing as well, I already missed the fun times (sometimes not so fun times) in the classroom already. Better enjoy and relax NOW before I have to drag myself back to work in a month.
I actually enjoy the all quiet and almost uneventful Christmas here, rather than the parties, feasts, gift exchanges, etc. which are sometimes a little too much for me to handle. It's Christmas, i.e. Christ's festival according to etymology (I still identify myself as a linguist!), after all we may be better off spending time on reflecting and contemplating what HE really means to us and what we can do to others to be more like and become closer to HIM. And I'm glad I'm going home after Christmas which gives me more time and space to regroup and get organized for the beginning of a new year.

A couple posts ago I promised myself to express thanks to people that matter to and have great impact on me. As I happened to get in touch with a few former teachers and professors of mine at the Y these past few days, I am going to reflect and write a few anecdotes on them. There are six particular teachers/professors that I truly appreciate at the Y.I met my thesis chair Dr. Eggington almost by accident. I felt like taking a religious class at the Y and I decided to take a D&C class and sort of randomly chose a section 2 weeks into one semester. Dr. E was the instructor and surprisingly he was so kind to give me a 1-on-1 tutorial to make up the classes that I missed. Then we started talking as we realized we are in the same department and in no time he became my mentor, my boss for my research work, assisted me in obtaining scholarships, hooked me up with another professor for TA work, and eventually played a key role in helping me finished the thesis, passed the oral defense, and graduated. He is such a typical nice Australian dude with a very similar work style and philosophy as mine: slightly unorganized by multitasking a million things but have a very clear priority set for what matters most.

As for the other professor Dr. E hooked me up with, it was Dr. Dallin Oaks. No, he's not the apostle but his son. It was another random acquaintance that I was in Dr. E's office when he came in and said he was looking for a TA and I couldn't believe I had the courage to recommend myself there on the spot when I didn't quite have a clue who he was and what I was getting into. Since then I had tutored four sections of a total of about 360 students of mostly English and English Language majors on English linguistics while not being a native English speaker myself! I was quite nervous to begin with and I was horrified to substitute for Dr. O when he was not around but it turned out to be such a great learning and teaching experience that I felt like I've got more out of it than most of my graduate courses. It solidified my love for linguistics as a subject.

Both Dr. Christensen and Dr. Bourgerie in the Chinese department have given me ton of opportunities to work and gain experience on Chinese teaching and translation work both on campus and off. Dr. C often talks to me on a personal level while Dr. B on a professional level.

Dr. Anderson was rather intimidating when I first met him, and to be honest, maybe it's his bow tie. I'm so blessed to be hired to teach at the English Language Center to gain insight on the art of language teaching while having a blast with the fellow teachers and the great students from around the world. I will never forget I was really amazed that I could somehow communicate and teach the level zero community English class when some of the students almost did not speak a word of English. I also loved one of my grammar class so much that I treated them all to a buffet meal after the last day of school. How can one not love them when they gave me a standing ovation to welcome me into the classroom as they found out I passed my thesis oral defense! And Dr. A at one point tried to help me from losing my job because of my change of work status.

The last amazing teacher and friend of mine is Sister/Mrs./Dr. Tinney. I was not excited about an ESL advanced academic writing class I had to take as an international student. But Sister T was very serious but at the same time easy about the class that I did enjoy it. She talked to me a lot out of class and shared her personal stories in words and in a book she published. She offered to let me attend the LDS Book Association Convention several years in a row that I thoroughly enjoyed and received many goodies from it. I was pleasantly surprised she took her time out of her busy PhD work schedule to attend and cheer for my thesis oral defense. I'm glad I passed and otherwise it would be so embarrassing and disappointing to both her and myself.

I feel strongly about putting these on record which probably do not mean much to anyone else and I doubt it if anyone is still reading up to this point. Nevertheless I cannot help but still am in awe that these mentors would go out of their ways to help students succeed and many of them have become personal friends. Having one or a couple in life is a miracle itself, let alone having half a dozen. This is what I cherish most while attending the one and only BYU. A BIG THANK YOU to you all!

Surviving China

I confess that I am a Survivor fan. I have pretty much watched every episode of the past 15 seasons, except the second half of Palau I think. At one point, I thought the show was losing originality and good cast that I thought I would lose interest but I was sure glad to find out they finally came to China for the latest season and it turned out to be quite interesting.

Out of all things, I usually enjoy the food challenge and the final reunion show the most. Seriously I think I would not be able to go through any of the challenges myself easily. But this Chinese food challenge would have been a piece of cake for me. Maybe not the turtle part. I have even had Balut once. Thanks to Sister Malana and Sister Gellor on my mission. I only drank the content of it and could not down the fetus with feathers and the beak. It did taste like chicken soup and was not bad. But if it was a million bucks on the line I would have no problem eating the whole thing. Ha! And the so-called "thousand year old egg" is a myth to most non-Chinese. I was talking about it with my students the other day and it is actually a fermentation process caused by alkaine that turns the egg black, not because of age and mold. I never find it disgusting and it is so true that taste is a cultural habit and a nurture thing. It's funny finally a Mormon won this time but I did not root for him at all! I was betting on Amanda since almost all past winners had high EQ and she seemed to have it all. Thanks to Todd's calling her out in the last second (accidentally or not) and Todd's better performance facing the jury she lost. He deserves it though. And the whole season is available at www.cbs.com if you want to watch it now!

In the news...

I'm soooo relieved having finally done with projects under pressing deadlines and now can be prepared for the upcoming holidays both mentally and physically. While working in front of the computer a lot, I've been following the news quite a bit mostly during breaks in between work sessions (and more often the breaks lasted longer than the work sessions...)

First of all, finding out Mr. Tung to be receiving an honorary degree from my Alma Mater was really disturbing and even enraging. People say give him a break as he is old or the protesters should not have ruined the ceremony. You give me a break! He was not young when he stepped in as the first Chief Executive of the SAR to begin with and look at what he has done to HK. Does the so-called "contribution to the smooth transition" offset the cost of lives he is responsible for (the magic number 85,000, SARS, messing with the legal system, to name a few)? I actually applaud the students and graduates who voiced their opinion on that day. As for "ruining" the ceremony, who's the culprit? The party who honored a criminal, or the students who just disagree and ask for justice? If I were one of the parents, I would be more upset of his presence than to the protesters. His patronizing tone totally bugged me as h/well. Now I feel for the graduates at the Y when Cheney came. The issue was the students had no say of who the honoree would be and that could potentially spoil the fun of graduation. Lately I feel like academic credentials and titles often times do not mean anything anyways. Not that they are bad per se, but often times the system which grants them is not without flaws. My first hand experience is quite a few colleagues at work boast their such and such PhD degrees from so and so Ivy League schools but the way they run things are just horrifying. I can't help questioning how come I almost died getting a Master's while these maniacs get their PhD's with no common sense.

I'm glad than Anson Chan won the election in HK and she seems to be one of the rare "colonial leftovers" that is actually sane and makes sense with the clear conscience of what is right and wrong. Thanks to YouTube that it only takes a few clicks to take one back to 1989 and see the passion of HKers and mainlanders. People have changed a lot and they seem to have lost values and morals. Along with that I find political elections in general to be more interesting than I used to. I used to stay from anything political but I guess now as one grows up, or gets older to be exact, things seem to matter and relate to life more. 2008 will definitely be a much anticipated year with interesting outcome.

Enough of "serious" stuff. Has anyone seen this? People should know that I'm a die-hard Gene Kelly guy and who would have thought Usher would do something like this?It's almost exactly like the original except in the ending he's supposed to be giving his umbrella to the cop (See? I know the movie well!) but I like his stylized rendition of such a classic.

Holiday Season

It's December already! Holiday season has begun and for me this year is marked by this movie. "Enchanted" is the second movie I ever watched in the movie theater ended with applause from the enthused audience in the theater (the first one being this one). Almost every plot was predictable but the production and acting are very fun and enjoyable that people totally are entertained by Disney poking fun at themselves. Amy Adams totally shines and stands out in the show.

It's very very rare that I get to talk to every single person from my family on the phone the same day while I'm over here in the US (well, Doris through MSN but I guess that still counts). I'm so glad mom brought up the idea that these days even though the internet has virtually connected the whole world but people actually communicated less. People spend more time in front of the monitor screens more often than really talking to people. I did a google search on the word "addiction" because of work (we are teaching about "drug addiction" in class) and surprisingly in China the top searches are all about internet addiction. I think people in China are in desperate need to fill their apparently empty social and spiritual lives on the internet. Of course I'm sort of isolated here in this part of the world the computer has been a major way of communication for me but I do not consider online communication the replacement of real life communications. And I have learned the hard way more than once not to take things on the web too seriously. Anyways, I can never say enough that I am truly grateful for my family's unwavering support and freedom provided these many years.