Yet again, I'm doing things in a roundabout way. Or at least, planning to do things. At several points over my life I have gotten the notion that I ought to start learning some Chinese characters so I can at least read the signs if I somehow get shanghai'd (Ha! Get it?) and am stranded in China. Well at least if somehow I ended up in Shanghai, I'd be okay because I can sort of speak the dialect...But anywhere else, it'd be hopeless.)

I do remember that back when I was about 6 or 7 years old, I went to a sort of day care place (it was called Little Genius Learning Center, if I remember correctly. Pretty arrogant-sounding name, if you ask me), and there was a nice lady who would go over a beginner's Chinese book with me. She'd point to a line and I was supposed to recite it to her, and at the end of the day she'd give me an apple as a present. Actually, I didn't really know what the words said, I'd just memorize what she'd said when she read it earlier, and then I'd just repeat what I remembered. But it sure looked like I was learning Chinese. Now that I think of it, I was good at fooling people when I was a kid. My grandma made me take a nap every afternoon, so if I didn't fall asleep I'd just fake it when she came in to check on me. Eventually, when enough time had passed, I would get up and she'd give me some ice cream. So actually I never got anything near as much sleep as my parents thought I had, especially in preschool, when I never slept during naptime. (But then again, they know that I'm an insomniac, because when I was a baby it took a really, really long time for me to fall asleep. It's still pretty bad now.)

Now that I'm interested in learning Japanese now, though, I'm starting to regret the fact that I never went to Chinese school or at least made my parents teach me. In fact, I was just the opposite for most of my life - I was adamant that I'd focus on English. I really believed that if I tried to learn Chinese, I'd forget English, because I actually learned to speak Chinese before I learned to speak English. Soon as I went to school and was forced to learn English, though, I pretty much forgot all the Chinese I'd learned and now I almost always speak English at home. And on another note, I actually look a weird, irrational pride in the fact that I was Chinese but did not learn my own language. I guess that was an early sign that I would later try to go against the tide in most aspects of my life, if only just to be different from "everyone else", whom I would refer to with slight contempt. I used to want to just blend into the background, but now I kind of think that fitting in means being boring. (That's not necessarily true, though; I probably just don't get to know people well enough to make an accurate judgment.)

Well, although I tried to memorize Katakana and Hiragana with the help of Quizlet, I am still a very long way from reading Japanese because I don't know enough kanji. Guess what kanji is? Yup, it's Chinese characters. The one thing I insisted on not learning turns out to be really important. So I have to start from scratch now if I ever hope to learn Japanese. I was actually planning to work on that this summer, but now that I have the homework from my classes to do...Well, I let myself get too stressed again and now I'm really not in the mood for the things I was doing earlier this summer. Looks like it's going to be a wasted summer and I'll probably be cursing myself for the rest of high school because I won't get to relax again.

Still, I probably should talk to my parents about it sometime. I know that they're going to be busy, what with work, remodeling, and health problems on both sides of the family (grandma on mother's side had back issues and had to go the hospital; dad and his mother were both very ill not long ago. And I should not neglect to mention that my mom is still limping around, although her toe is recovering considerably). But I guess if I'm going to learn a new language, starting late's better than never. I've gotta get crackin'.

Labels: china, chinese, dialect, different, english, family, foreign language, health, japanese, kanji, languages, late, mandarin, nap, pretend, problems, quizlet, sleep

Just today I was given a fright because the guy my parents are hiring to remodel our bathroom came to my house. My parents had been out shopping, at Home Depot I think, but they came home after the remodeling guy did. (I don't know his name yet, actually, haha. You'll see why soon.) Well, he came into the house, so I ran off to my bedroom, since I hadn't even brushed my hair yet, and now here was a total stranger invading my turf.

I heard footsteps in the hallway and the guy's voice calling, "Xiao pengyou? Xiao pengyou?" Literally translated, that means "little friend", and I guess it's something adults use when they're talking to children. It's one of my biggest pet peeves and one of the various other reasons I dislike the Chinese language. Okay, I know that you don't know my name, but please don't call me that. Just say, "Hey, you", that would do the trick. But don't call me little friend. Yes, I am short, but I'm certainly not your friend. (Well, maybe whoever's reading this is my friend, but you know what I mean, right? Regardless, I still find "xiao pengyou" to be a very irritating expression.)

So I was forced to walk out, and he asked me, in Chinese (Mandarin, not the Shanghai dialect), how to open the back door, since he and his fellow remodeling man needed to move stuff back and forth or something. I unlocked the door and then escaped before I could feel any more creeped out. I'd been against the idea of remodeling from the beginning, but I didn't count on having two complete strangers in my house for the next couple weeks. I tried to stay out of their way, but even when I was sitting in the living room with headphones on, I could still here the horrible sounds of my poor bathroom being smashed to smithereens.

The morning is probably the worst time of day. The remodeling workers come at about 8 am in the morning. I'm usually already awake before then; usually I'd just try to go back to sleep, but since I haven't got soundproof walls or a decent pair of earplugs (believe me, I've tried; I used my noise-canceling headphones but it was too uncomfortable to sleep), I had to wave bye-bye to get enough sleep. Sure, I could go to bed earlier, but I always forget or get distracted by something or other...I should really just set my clocks further ahead (some of my clocks are already about ten minutes ahead of the "actual" time).

The other really bad part about it is sharing the bathroom. Since one of the bathrooms is occupied, all three of us have to use the other one (at least it's good that I'm an only child). It's not pleasant when the bathroom stinks and you know who just used it. Of course, I am not free from guilt, either, in that regard at least...

I am sure this is going to be a horrible few weeks and I really hope it turns out to be worth all the grey hairs it's probably giving me. I don't mean to put all the remodeling folks out of business, but honestly, I think people should just buy a house that's already in good shape. Or a nice apartment. Just not all the chaos that goes along with remodeling.

Labels: apartment, change, chinese, choice, house, housing, little friend, mandarin, remodel, remodeling, scary, strangers, work, xiao pengyou, 小朋友

Saturday was not such a relaxing day as I had expected. My mom wanted me to come with her to attend a seminar, which would have been okay, except that it was in another city, so it took about fifteen to twenty minutes to get to the seminar location.

Before he started talking, the man speaking in the seminar asked who would be fine with hearing it in Mandarin, and many of the people in the room raised their hands. Then he asked who can only hear it in English, and I was the only person to raise my hand. (Sadly, my grasp of Mandarin is still rather lacking, what with us mainly speaking the Shanghai dialect at home. English, being my main language, is much easier for me to comprehend) I hope that I didn't inconvenience the others there by totally changing the tide. If I hadn't raised my hand then, the seminar would've been conducted in Mandarin, which might be easier for the other people to understand.

After the seminar, since we were in the area, we had ramen for lunch, and then we went to a library. I haven't been to this library for a long time. I used to go when I was younger, when I went with my mom to her workplace. I feel that the town is a peaceful place. It has these buildings (which I believe are probably a school) with murals on them, and I would like to live in one of the townhouses facing the library. The only setback is the odd smell. My parents told me that there is a landfill nearby and that you can smell the trash from the library. Although I don't like such smells, I suppose I could get used to it, if I were to move to that town.

While we were driving, I noticed that there was a large cloud of grey smoke in the sky. Something had probably exploded or a fire had been started. It seems that I see these sorts of things a lot. There was one time years back when I saw orangish smoke coming from the mountains near my home. And when I was in Australia last summer, I saw smoke coming from someplace as well.

Fire is a fearsome thing. I have been burned several times in the past, although it was not from a fire exactly...The first time was when I was in fifth grade, I believe. We were having one of those themed days - probably Colonial Day that time. We were doing some woodburning. But I was holding the little pen-like device the wrong way, so I burned myself immediately. Not a pleasant experience, but I can't remember whether it hurt a lot anymore.

Then, when I took cooking back in seventh grade, I was burned when I accidentally touched a cookie sheet that was still hot. I always seem to get injured doing something ridiculous. Like how I pulled my leg muscles while rolling around in bed. And how I banged my knee when escaping from the door (the doorbell had just been rung, and I usually flee when someone is there, unless I've been expecting a person). I wonder if someday I'll really get in serious trouble through my careless actions.

Labels: burn, careless, chinese, cloud, danger, door, english, foul smell, injury, library, living, mandarin, memories, seminar, smoke, town, trash

There are two Chinas, actually, the People's Republic of China (the big country) and the Republic of China (the island of Taiwan), but both countries are Mandarin-speaking and Mandarin-writing.

This poses a problem for me, especially considering the vast population of the big China. Mandarin is becoming more of an important language to know in the world, and I'm already affected, despite that fact that my "world" is still not very big.

On Friday afternoon, while I was at home, the phone started ringing. I decided to pick it up, figuring it might be one of my parents. It was a lady speaking in Mandarin. I was quiet a while, trying to translate it in my head. The lady finally said something in English, something about a clinic, and that made sense to me. Then she spoke in Mandarin asking if ___ (my mom's name) was home, to which I responded she wasn't. The lady seemed slightly worried, saying that my mom had an appointment tomorrow and she wanted to know if it could be rescheduled or something like that. I tried to reply that I would tell my mom, but I couldn't come up with the right words...So after a little pause, I hung up.

This made me realize what a pickle I'm in. I can understand Mandarin to some degree (I know more of the Shanghai dialect than Mandarin because my parents speak that at home), but I am illiterate (the only ones I can easily recognize are 人, 一, 二, 三, 四, 月, 火, 上, 下, 小, 大, 云, and 中). Also, I can only say a few phrases. One of the phrases I know sounds like "Wan Dan La!" (Don't really know how to translate it.) My parents say it is something more commonly said in Taiwan, almost like slang, I guess, and they think I must have picked it up from one of my friends from Taiwan. But that's weird, because usually I speak English with my friends.

Anyways, I will be in a real fix if Mandarin becomes the language of the world. I mean, it's already the #1 spoken language of the world, and the second place language, Spanish, is far behind. I'm kind of worried. I don't think I could easily learn to read Chinese at this age. I did start learning once during a summer, years back, but I've already forgotten. It was more like I was memorizing the lines so I knew what to say; not sure if I actually knew what I was reading. Anyways, it gets harder and harder the older you get to learn a language. So if you want to learn, start early. (I'm jealous of my cousins in France. They have already started learning English and they're not even in middle school yet)

Recently, my middle school had an Electives Night. I didn't attend, though I wanted to (just to get cookies from the cooking classroom! They have great cookies). My mom said, "Why do you want to go? You're going to a different school next year, so it doesn't matter." And so I stayed home.

But some students did go, to help my French teacher out, since she has to "sell" her classes and all. Parents and students tend to wonder, "Should I take French or Spanish?" (I say French, but I'm biased.) Since Spanish is considered to be more useful (because more people speak Spanish, and California is close to Mexico), more students take Spanish. And there is somewhat of a misconception that Spanish is easier than French. (I have no idea about that, but I'm guessing they're about the same once you get used to them. You just have to get more of an accent for speaking French) There is one good argument for French, though, and that's the fact that there is no Spanish Week at my school, only French Week. Haha!

I really wish the schools still offered German. And I'd like to learn Italian (but then again, I hear if you know French or Spanish - or both - it shouldn't be too hard to understand Italian. French, Spanish, and Italian all use the word "Ciao!" for "goodbye"). It'd be nice if my school had Japanese. Then I could learn Japanese 1 in 8th grade and take Japanese 2 in high school. It seems weird that Japanese 2 is an option for freshmen. Only people who learned Japanese outside of school or who already knew Japanese would be able to take it, right? I feel like it's a setback for me and other students since we can't take Japanese in middle school (not even Mandarin, the class got cut, sadly). I'd like to be able to get all 5 levels of a language done.

Then again, it's not horrible if you don't take AP classes, is it? I've heard that AP classes are college level classes. I suppose if you take AP classes and then make yourself busy in college, you can graduate earlier or something. But I don't see why you have to be in such a rush in life. Why not take it at your own pace? (Assuming your pace isn't as slow as mine, since I want to retire and all) I guess this competitive world and market makes people feel they must try their hardest, be the fastest and the best, so they can come out on top.

But if you've got friends like these, who needs anemone? (Get it? It's a joke from Finding Nemo.) I know that doesn't make sense, but I just wanted to say that for once.

Labels: ap classes, china, ciao, college, competiton, difficulty, finding nemo, french week, important, italian, japanese, joke, language, mandarin, mother, phone call, reading, school, spanish, taiwan

I think I became a scratching post for cats last weekend or something. Let me start with a bit of explanation.

Lately my dad and I have been going biking once a week, for the purpose of exercise and some good ol' fresh air. Can't do wrong with it. (Unless, of course, you live somewhere very polluted, like China; then maybe you're better off not breathing...) We paid a visit to Hoover Park in my town. I've been there before, but I usually took a different route to get there. You can get to the park by going to the very end of my street and getting to the railroad by finding a gap in the fence. Then, cross the railroad and go up and you'll get to the park. My mom doesn't want me to go in that way since a train could suddenly come, or whatever. Just like this problem about a guy named Bobo that I did last year in math class. (I don't know if this is a true entrance to the park or if someone unofficially made it) The main way to get the park, though, is to go to a different street, and to the very end, and there's the actual sign that says the park name and such.

When we were heading back from the park, I noticed a black and white cat wandering around and so I got off my back. I watched the cat for a while and decided to whip out my camera, which I had conveniently brought should I have a good photo opportunity on the bike ride. I tried to take pictures of the cat, but whenever I thought I had a good position, it (I wasn't sure whether it was male or female, I guess my knowledge of animal genders is rudimentary) kept turning and walking toward me. At first I thought it was going to attack me, perhaps (I know that's far-fetched, but cats don't like me too much. My dad's friend's cat tries to hide its face when she sees me, and another time there was a cat, the cat of my mom's friends, but it was a lazy sort that didn't like people) but then, when it was about to collide with my legs, it would swerve just a bit to the side, so instead it brushed against my pants. My dad said that the cat couldn't reach an itch and so was using me to fulfill that purpose. D: How offensive to be made into a scratching post!

Anyhow, today, one of my friends showed me her Chinese book. She doesn't study Mandarin at school, but she does go to Chinese school, I believe. I am glad that I'm not in Chinese school. Only very recently did my mom tell me one of the reasons why. One reason was apparently because of my dad - he says that he convinced my mom it was not a good idea, though I have no idea if that's true, considering it's my dad. The reason my mom told me had to do with behavior. She said that different cultures can have different views on things, and different ways of doing things. And, well, according to my mom, I was actually in Chinese school for a short time. Apparently there was a woman who needed to pick some other kids and me up to take us to Chinese school. My mom says that the woman was in a rush and she pulled me along too quickly, so I fell and hurt myself. And my mom decided to take me out of Chinese school. So, I guess a good thing resulted of a bad thing. :p

Back to the Chinese book before I forget what I'm supposed to be talking about. To practice for her test, my friend read me a story from her book. It was a strange story. The main character was a guy who had only one eye, no arms, and I think he was missing a leg too. And he had holes in his mouth because he had to write and draw with his mouth (putting a paintbrush in his mouth or something, seeing as he didn't have hands). Then there was another story which she started to read (but she was interrupted by the bell ending brunch) which was about a girl who had only half a brain, or something like that, and she had to get a surgery, and she liked to play sports... (Which I, surprisingly, could understand by hearing my friend read it - I mean, the part about the character liking to play sports) And apparently she got seizures or something. What kind of things do they teach you in Mandarin?! Sounds pretty vicious to me, but my friend says they just write strange stories to make it more interesting. -_-;;

Labels: bike, camera, cat, chinese, chinese school, culture, disability, entrance, injury, itchy, mandarin, missing limbs, movement, park, railroad, rush, scratching post, seizure, story, street

I'm talking about the magazine drive. Every year we have it to raise money for our school. The students try to sell lots of magazines (or they can donate money differently instead, $20 counts as one "magazine subscription").

You can earn prizes like Jamba Juice smoothies, Weepuls (little furry collectible things, the sixth grade girls this year thought they were so cute because they went "Awwww!"), even an iPod Touch if you sell enough magazines...But it's really hard to do that unless you have lots of relatives who like to read magazines, you're a superior salesman (and how would that work? You're not allowed to go sell door-to-door. That's lame considering you were allowed to do that for the Walkathon in elementary school. So they're saying older kids are more likely to get kidnapped?!), or you just have lots of money to spend.

This year there was a dog that rolls over. When it senses movement in front of its face, it rolls over. It's a pretty hard prize to get, though. And the class that sells the most magazines will get a 10-foot long snake. Maybe I should win one for my dad. It can be his birthday present or whatever.

Speaking of snakes, I had a dream about a snake. I was in some sort of observatory place in a rainforest, I think. My family and some other people were in it, sitting on wooden benches, peering out at the wilderness. The previous president, George W. Bush, was also there, but he didn't say anything. He had a very small snake. It was short and skinny with a wider head. I forget the exact color but I think it was a dull brownish sort. George W. Bush left and dropped his snake on the floor. I was freaked out since I wasn't sure whether the snake was fond of biting or not.

More recently, I had another dream about an animal. This time it was about dolphins. I don't know much of the specifics of the dream but I was in a room, with my mom, and maybe more people, but I don't remember if there were. There were dolphins there and I tried to get on the back of one to ride it. The dolphin flopped around in a panicked fashion until I let go of it. My mom left the room and I was leaving too but the dolphin, which had been resting on the ground, jumped up and made a really ugly face, like it was going to bite. I was frightened out of my wits and ran out of the room. I hope that doesn't mean I'm going to have a negative run-in with dolphins in the future.

My French teacher told us something amusing recently. She took her class last year to a restaurant called Crepe Daniel. The students were excited since they thought they would be able to practice their French skills...No dice. The restaurant had been owned by a French person a long time ago. Now it was a Chinese owner. The French teacher said, "I don't know, maybe you could practice your CHINESE at the restaurant."

My new camera arrived. It's a dark blue Panasonic Lumix. There is a really funny feature to it. It's called Transform and it says in the manual, "Changes the subject to a slim-looking or glamorous appearance." It's like how before cameras were invented, people would paint portraits of people instead, and they would try to make the people look better than they actually looked.

Labels: camera, chinese, crepe daniel, Dogs, dolphin, door to door, dream, french, funny, george w. bush, magazine drive, mandarin, president, prizes, restaurant, rollover, sales, snake, transform, vicious

My trip to Australia was pretty good overall (because I like Australia as a place), but there was a string of bad things, as well.

- I became carsick a lot. Apparently BMW sports cars tend to be fast overall so if you're driving on a winding road, it's easy to feel carsick. And sometimes you end up with a reckless driver, for instance, Andrew. Sure, he drives alright, but he tends not to drive within the speed limit. I heard he got so many tickets for speeding that eventually he was told that he can either not drive for a while (three months?) or he has to stay within the speed limit. So he set this thing on his car which makes a noise whenever he drives over 60 km/h. But even then I wonder if he notices it. (No offense to him if he does notice it.)

- We went on a tour of the Sydney Opera House - my family, David, Michael, Meggie, and Andrew. My dad used to live in the suburbs of Sydney, but he never went inside the opera house (back then you needed to see one of the shows to get in...My mom muttered to me that he was a cheapskate and they never spent much money on her). My mom had already called Lily, who works for a travel agency, to book English tours for us. The English tour is longer than the Mandarin tour, and anyhow I can't understand much Mandarin, so it would be pointless for me to take the Mandarin tour. But then Gary, my dad's friend, called Lily. First he said he was Meggie's friend (which confused Lily, who didn't know who Meggie was at that point) and then Gary insisted on having Mandarin tours instead of English. Luckily, it got changed in time for us to take the English tour.

- My camera broke. Aaaaah! This is probably one of the worst, if not the worst. I have a Nikon Coolpix camera which I've been using for quite some time. So it's dear to me... (I have a strange attachment to objects which I've had by my side) It broke while I was in Cairns, having ridden the Rainforest SkyRail (it's like one of those lift things, which are either amusement park rides or used for skiers...) to get to a place where they have animals, like butterflies, koalas, wallabies, and reptiles. Anyhow, maybe I was swinging the camera too much, or it was just really bad luck, because when I tried to turn on the camera, it would say there was a Lens Error and you couldn't turn it off unless you took the camera battery out... I really don't want to buy a new camera (I don't know how to fix it, and I heard getting someone to fix it for me would cost even more) because of the money and also because I'd miss this camera. My parents insist they could buy the same kind of camera, but that seems pointless to me. If you have camera knowledge, please give me some tips here!

- My mom's wristwatch broke. The strap came apart and we can't seem to put it together again (it still tells time, but now since you can't wear it, it's just like a clock). So now she had to switch watches. She figures she's probably going to try and buy a new one - she wants that is durable and which doesn't need its batteries replaced (like a watch which has a solar battery, which is what she was using, or one that you can wind up every day. Omega watches are the wind-up kind, but Omega watches are pricey... So my mom wouldn't want to use that to wash dishes and do laundry and things like that, and people could steal it, if you know what I mean).

There's more, but I'll continue it in a further post... (I suppose that's more than three bad things, huh?)

Labels: australia, bad news, broken, camera, carsick, drivers, english, mandarin, mixup, opera house, speeding, sydney, tour, watch

...Actually, now that I think of it, that isn't true. But oh well. Some of the tulip bulbs we planted back in late 2008 have started shooting up through the dirt. It's like magic. I think we planted 25 of them, though I don't know if all 25 of them will live to have those beautiful flowers. (One of the places we planted a bulb is just a hole now. Maybe a squirrel or bird dug it up, somehow. I didn't think they ate tulip bulbs, but who knows.)

I was attempting to learn the numbers and a few characters in Chinese. Mostly it all looks like random dashes and lines to me, but I guess that's just the way the language is. I always got confused between the characters for 5 and 9. I'll figure it out eventually, I suppose. I use my whiteboard to practice. (It's hard if you use a bad quality marker, though...Make sure to use new whiteboard markers if possible. Not too dry and not too watery.)

Today, I want to spend some money, for some reason. It's probably bad, especially considering these economic times, but I haven't bought anything for myself (besides food) for a few months. Since I have free time this weekend, maybe I should ask my parents if I can go to Nordstrom or some other place I like.

I tried some strawberry milk this morning. It tastes okay, though the flavor is not familiar to me. I prefer smoothies or yogurt to strawberry milk, personally.

My dad seems to have a lot of free time. He's always watching movies or lurking on a Chinese forum. He doesn't even have an account on that site, yet he's still able to view the forums. I thought that was weird, that he always just reads posts and looks at celebrity pictures but never posts...He's a talkative guy, so I thought he would be like that on the Internet, too.

Anyhow, right now, the TV is on (even though no one is watching it) and the channel is the Golf Channel. We have an inside joke at my house where I say "The Golf Channel would be the best channel if it didn't have golf on it." Golf is such a slow-paced sport, sometimes they film ducks flying overhead instead of filming the players.

My parents sometimes worry about being laid off. I guess my mom's company would rather lay off workers than cut activities. My mom's "group" at work played lawn bowling to celebrate when they finished a "project"...Guess they still have enough money for that, and for eating at restaurants that are at least much better than the school's reheatable food. My mom says she's busy at work, too, since she has to type a weird code, and is constantly visited by people, but it's actually not true. One of her group members visited my mom's cubicle just to tell her that there was free pizza. Then the two of them were gone in a flash. (I always knew my mom likes the crusts on pizza, but...)

Labels: career, golf, leisure, lurk, mandarin, milk, money, nordstrom, pizza, reading, thief, time, tulips, whiteboard

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