March | 2011 | Little Choices

Archive for March, 2011

Little Brothers Are Awesome!

My little brother is a senior in High School. Going to classes, hanging with friends, meeting girls, etc. He is currently in his final season as a high school soccer player and proving that he is even better than either his older brother and sister ever were. (I mean, I can shoot a mean PK but I’d never be able to block one in my life.) Not everyone gets to read about how skilled their family is in the newspaper, so I am especially proud that I get to. Read the article. Not only is a he a baller soccer player, he’s also a wonderful friend. I am looking forward to watching this season progress, I hope they kick hometown rival butt, and get a chance to show off in the state tournament.

: Forrest is the tallest one, in the grey jersey, with the faux-hawk!

http://www.theolympian.com/2011/03/27/1594231/goalkeepers-save-the-day.html?story_link=email_msg

2011: 03/29
CATEGORY: Friends & Family
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Freedom

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/22/world/asia/22china.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&src=recg

Even I have noticed the restrictions in internet and phone connection. For example, I am doing a lesson on American foods. this coming week and have been preparing a visual aid for my classrooms. Each time I searched for ‘American’ in any of my food picture queries the internet connection was disabled. It took me about 3 hours to complete a project which should have taken me 1. Just to test this, I searched for the terms ‘freedom’ and ‘protest’ after reading the article and got the same response as when I had searched ‘American’.

In addition, one of my friends had his texting disabled on his phone after arranging a meeting between a large group for a basketball game.

There really is no knowing what terms will be key words that the government will block because as people realize they are being blocked they are also coming up with ways to maneuver around it. Seems like the danger words/phrases will get bigger the more they are censored. Who knows, this might be the last post I am able to write from China. Let’s see what happens. This is a test.

2011: 03/24
CATEGORY: Culture Shock
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Teaching

I am in the middle of preparing a mini-memory book of teaching. Time is getting short here and I want to make sure I remember my kids and the innocent and mixed-up ideas they have revealed during my year as a teacher. Safe to say I most likely will not be one again until I have my own children – and then I will be so biased that I will have no business making people read about what I thought about my genius child.

Some of the things are so good I just needed to share a spoiler alert.

I have a kid who named himself John Conner – yes, from Terminator – I hope he saves the world
Some of my students still call me Ms. Lessy
Other notable names: Clever Spider, Sheldon Cooper (bonus points if you get the reference), Greit, Crab, Rock
Chinese Children are ruthless by western standards in their nicknaming. If I kid has a big nose they call him elephant, if she is chubby they call her pig, if her hair is big they call her mushroom.
They use the word keen (and are taught to use it)
They love the game of plants vs. zombies where plants literally fight zombies and play it for hours on end
Every Chinese child loves McDo’s, KFC, milk, ice cream, and sweets – just like American kids

I have a few hundred more papers to go and conversations to recall but I just love my students and had to share some.

2011: 03/23
CATEGORY: Culture Shock
Friends & Family
Travel & Adventure
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Free Will? Were You Meant to Read This?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/22/science/22tier.html?_r=1&ref=science

Here is something to get your thoughts flowing. Yesterday was Tuesday. I didn’t teach until 14:30 (that’s the 2 o’clock hour) which left quite a bit of time in my day for meandering through the NYTimes. Sent this out to a friend, who also shared it with a friend. And as per the norm on Tuesdays in China, I met up with those friends for bowling. Here’s something you don’t see everyday. A group of 20-somethings, putting back Tsingdao beer, hitting 5 strikes in a row, betting on who has to pay for foot massages, and discussing the morals/possibilities/shortcomings/limitlessness of Free Will vs. Determinism.

We had some deep and thought provoking ideas being passed around and challenged during the night but the thing is – you’ll never know. Because there will never be a society on earth that has determinism as its one and only base of behavioral judgement. There will always be the memory of your parents and their parents and the lessons and rules and ideas they were taught and abided by which oppose determinism at its very core. So no matter what is actually true, we as a world will act as though our choices matter. Which is really the answer to the question. If a majority believes, and a majority behaves, and a majority teaches – that must mean its true…right??

Wait, it this like that phrase my mom used to throw at me about all my friends jumping off a bridge? Obviously I don’t think that something is right just because other people do. hm…

I also believe people are inherently good. However, it was shoved in my face that neither of these schools of thought support that theory one bit. Either people are scared to be punished and are therefore good, or people have no responsibility for their actions and are therefore less than good.

I can’t quite wrap my head around the idea snowballing in my mind, but what if behavior wasn’t the main loss/gain in this tricky philosophy puzzle. No higher purpose that will combine all human lives into a meaningful neat ending tied up with a bow (which I can hardly believe will ever happen). But maybe, instead of an overall determinism, each day you have a determined purpose. So that you smile at someone so that they can see kindness, you trip so that you remember to be conscious of your body, you fail so that you can endure greater letdowns, you break a heart so that the person can value when it is treasured, your friend dies so that you can learn suffering and loneliness. In this way every person is able to learn the vast possibilities of the human soul. I can get behind a lifetime of learning.

I was so vehemently opposed, and frankly horrified, by the idea of a world in which determinism reined because that would mean that the things I value most in human beings – generosity, perseverance, grace, integrity, kindness – are not things that would be worth developing in a person’s self because their life and every aspect would happen as it would. I cannot and will never see the way that a society of that likeness could survive even a decade, but this smaller, simpler idea (the occam’s razor of determinism, if you will) has been allowed to open my mind a fraction and see the less fatalistic side of my opponent. And I must say it doesn’t look as monstrous as I imagined.

What do you think?

2011: 03/23
CATEGORY: Friends & Family
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Escape by Reading

One of my very favorite things to do is find a book that I can totally disappear into. I love when the words in that first chapter grab hold and don’t let go. It makes sleeping, eating, TV, exercise, and even working irrelevant to survival. All I am interested in is words, more words to fill my head full of images and pictures.

I spend a good amount of my time in book stores. Plopped down in aisles ranging from imported magazines to classics to bestsellers. I know where all the book stores with English sections are in Shenzhen and have located a good number in Hong Kong as well. There is just something about books. All the possibilities that hide between the covers. The number of subjects people are inspired to write about. How the words fit together to pull me into their story. And the best thing about being in China is that there are not only the authors from America but best sellers from England, Japan, Australia, and South America cover the shelves as well. In the past few weeks I have gone through a streak of international authors who all wrote some amazing modern literature; from Japanese Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood to Dominican Junot Diaz’s The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. But my favorite of this binge has been a novel by Markus Zusak called The Book Thief.

It’s just a small story really, about among other things: a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist-fighter, and quite a lot of thievery. . . .http://www.randomhouse.com/features/markuszusak/books.html

In addition to being about WWII, one of my very favorite topics, Mr. Zusak’s style of writing is illustrating, visual, graphic, and textured. I was talking about this new favorite book to a friend who was asking me to describe why I enjoyed it so much. It was hard for me to explain to him because a) He’s a journalist, and an English major who has been taught how to analyze and categorize books and b) what I liked most were the images the words created in my head. I had to carefully think about the theme of the book when he asked (I even needed some examples) and I couldn’t quite pin down the story’s purpose.

Here is my conclusion: When I like a book it is usually because I can let go of my analytical thoughts and let the colors of the story lead me through. Many times I cannot remember the exacts words or passages I liked most but I have distinct images in my head left over from the reading. The theme of The Book Thief can be summed up as – words contain all the power, pleasure, and pain that you could ever want them to. They are words and they can do anything.

I don’t know what kind of reader you are but I solemnly swear that this book is unlike any you have read before and will if nothing else entertain your imagination.

My Favorite book of the year

2011: 03/22
CATEGORY: My Events
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Thailand

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2011: 03/20
CATEGORY: Culture Shock
Food & Beverage
Friends & Family
Photography
Travel & Adventure
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Cambodia in Pictures

Food. I know everyone pretends to be super-interested in cultural sights the first day they are in a new country, but let’s just call a spade a spade and say it. I love food. I love trying food in new countries. I love smelling good food as I walk on the street. I love looking at market stalls and into shop windows at food. I love food, and it’s usually the first thing I want when I get off a plane. Can I get a “Hell yeah!”? Anyone?

This was one of the first people I met in Cambodia and also the first Cambodian to make me food. That alone left a special place in my heart for him, nevermind that his spicy-noodly-vegetables were hot and tasty. I ate this every day. And I named him ‘Man with Pan’.

This was not the only amazing food in Cambodia, just the first of many amazing foods. For breakfast each morning I picked up a bag of tiny light-as-air coconut muffins and hoarded them all day to get as much pleasure as possible. On our quad trail ride through the country we stopped over for some fried sweet potatoes sprinkled with brown granular sugar. And in Siem Reap I ate fresh mango like it was my job.

Cambodia was also the easiest place to meet people. Everyone was smiling, and asking questions, and ready to help. I have no idea where these little boys were headed but we had a pleasant conversations as their tuk-tuk rolled by.

I just really liked this guy because he is old and ornery. Got his cigs, his unusually tiny body, and his puckered face to part the crowd.

I found these people praying at the top of a busy temple in the middle of town. At the bottom of the “mountain” there was a gathering of people watching a worker prune tree branches. There was an elephant you could feed and pet. Monkeys that you could feed (and pet if you were brave enough to get that close). And just a lot of people milling about. But the top was quiet, and peaceful, and full of people paying their respects to Buddha.

I liked seeing how many people came here just to relax, wait, read, talk, wander, eat, etc. Made it feel like more than just some temple to check off your list.

Some of the carvings like this were used as molds to create paper art as souvenirs to take home. It impressed me that the actual bricks from the temples were used to create the art that had the flaws of time displayed in it.

Jenna, exploring wings of the temple. There were so many entrances and exits and paths to take to get through the whole thing. Couldn’t take a wrong turn if you wanted to.

We got up with all there other crazy people to watch the world famous sunrise over Ankor Wat. Look how many people come at the un-godly hour of 5:00am just to see some back lighting. No, just kidding, it was totally worth it. I get a special thrill just to be up before the sun anyway so it was wonderful that I got to watch hundreds of other people experience the same thing and see a lovely golden-pink sunrise as well.

See? B-E-A-utiful.

And there’s me! Proving that I am here, and getting some of Ankor Thom in the background.

So the guy who built Ankor Thom, had 16 towers built with 4 images facing each cardinal direction. Guess who those images looked like? Yep, his royal highness. This is one of the closest ones I got to. It must have been hard and extremely intricate work.

I don’t know what these girls did, but I found it really cool that they got ready for it at the top of the temple just tucked away into a corner that looks like every other corner.

This is one of the littler buddha figures on the grounds of the temples but I liked how decorated he was. After I snapped the picture I noticed how he looks like he was giving comfort to the man at his feet and also like he had been crying.

The scenery for Laura Croft Tomb Raider was filmed here and I can see why. These last two show just how amazing the trees that grow here are and how the temple has been crumbling but it has been left just the way it fell in half-tumbled glory.

2011: 03/20
CATEGORY: Culture Shock
Food & Beverage
Friends & Family
Photography
Travel & Adventure
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Today’s Quote

“Dear God,” she prayed, “let me be something every minute of every hour of my life. Let me be gay; let me be sad. Let me be cold; let me be warm. Let me be hungry…have too much to eat. Let me be ragged or well dressed. Let me be sincere – be deceitful. Let me be truthful; let me be a liar. Let me be honorable and let me sin. Only let me be something every blessed minute. And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost.”

- Francie Nolan -
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

*I know it has been a while since my last post and I haven’t even finished my New Years Holiday Extravaganza, so look for a few new posts in the coming week.