December 2009
17 posts
Oh, China!
One of the Chinese classes at my alma mater used a textbook called, Oh, China! I can’t imagine a more apt phrase to sum up 90% of what I read/encounter/hear about the place. Here’s an example:
Source: China Daily
Female applicants for the army are being asked to showcase their talents in an interview process never before used and exclusively for women. Aspiring female officers...
November 2009
32 posts
I need to get some in-laws
My sister (who recently moved back home) and I talk on gchat:
CAROLINE: he [our father] said two weird things to me
1.you cleaned your room, you must have a new boyfriend! he can stay in your clean room(CREEPY!)
2. I’m so proud of you
i’m the most proud of you
Caroline: I haven’t accomplished anything
Dad: you are not depending on your boyfriend, you are depending on...
Once there was a golden age
At one point in the 80’s, there were 8 ice cream places in Harvard Square!
Whine
It baffles me how many people think it’s appropriate to watch youtube videos on speaker at The Ohio State University’s library. Percentage-wise, it probably reflects the normal population, but this school is so huge that it’s already happened 3 times today (and it’s only 11:40 am).
Or maybe I’m just mad that I’ve been trying to write a paper for a few hours...
Suburban longing
Mine is not a neighborhood with many trees or any grass. Wildlife is rare save the occasional squirrel or rat. Imagine my surprise when I saw a skunk waddling about the neighbor’s concrete patch yesterday (yard would not be an apt noun)!
Wonderful, I thought to myself, perhaps tomorrow there will be girl scouts!
This is our battle cry
An Email Exchange:
From: me
To: Rob
Hey Rob,
How’s it going? I hope that law school is treating you well. I imagine you’re in the middle of reading or writing of some sort, so I’ll keep it short for now.
The Institute of Politics is organizing a rally this Wednesday (note: that’s TODAY) to raise awareness about the Stupak ammendment to the healthcare proposal in the...
Is there a song about this?
The quick and happy romance that occupied me for the past month ended the other day, cordially but sadly—at least on my end.
The moping period was brief. The very next day, Dan rolled into town and we proceeded to run into the guy at a bar. A real Chinese girl from China clung to his side*, and I noted that Dan spoke Chinese when I introduced him.
She immediately started jumping up and...
What is wrong with me?
The subject line of my email from USAirways says, “Race to Preferred Status update” but at first glance, I misread it as “Preferred Racial Status update.”
A mental slip with terrifying implications. Is my visual field expressing unconscious desire?
Sex and the Internet
While working my paper about the impact of the internet on abstinence-only sex education, and I stumbled upon a great resource for young people called Get Yourself Tested 09 (and you should if you’re sexually active! Even if you have no visible signs!) put together by Planned Parenthood For America, The Kaiser Family Foundation, and MTV.
GYT09 has a discussion board for teen pregancy...
“Before children said their first words, they were highly vocal, speaking a...”
– The Social World of Children Learning to Talk
By Betty Hart
Self-purported
When you review a product on the LL Bean website, they ask you to identify yourself by age, location, etc. There is also a space titled “I would describe myself as:”
Some clearly wrote the descriptions themselves (“avid short story writer”), but the authorship of other identifiers is unclear. Do you think “dog lover” is part of some pull-down menu, after...
On travel and genocide
The Cambodian government has released its first official Khmer Rouge History textbook, as reported in this article in the BBC, which details the gruesome years of a nation under the Pol Pot regime. I’ve heard rumors that many Cambodian youth have a hard time believing that the genocide happened, which—if it’s true—is astounding considering how much of the tourism centers...
Love in the Time of the Internet
Saw Eli Pariser, former executive director of Moveon.org, speak at an Institute of Politics study group last week. The sessions are off the record, so I’ll just say that he’s very smart and optimistic about the future of organizing and all things lefty-progressive. He’s also really cute(!!) in this mild, meek way. This snippet from his NYTimes wedding announcement pretty much...
“I recently saw an old friend for the first time in many years. We had been Ph.D....”
– The importance of stupidity in scientific research
Martin A. Schwartz
Department of Microbiology, UVA Health System, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22908, USA
WatchOne of the people in my Technologies for Creative Learning Class at MIT is in the personal robots group at the Media Lab, and he made this!
Household Woe #2
My landlord fixed my doorknob at the same time and in the same way she fixed my electrical outlet, which is to say she didn’t fix it at all.
While the knob no longer pops out of the door with a BANG (like a gunshot!), it rotates independently of the latch it is supposed to move. Yesterday it locked me inside my own bedroom. All I could do was screw it in and out of its socket while...
I produced this piece in 2007 when I was an intern...
Daylight Savings Time, You're a Thief!
It’s 5:23, and I will be riding my bike back from the library in pitch blackness (save for the streetlamps and headlights).
Blast!
Emails from China
related to the recent series on Tealit
From: Paul
Subject: EEEEW
Look what made it through my spam filter ————— Forwarded message ————— From: Meili <meili@leiju-china.com> Date: Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 10:30 PM Subject: Leiju China - Some advices. To: Paul
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