I read with my ears. That is: I listen to audio books.
I have loved librivox ever since I first discovered it in my freshman year of college. With a spring break to be spent on campus I needed something to keep me entertained. Fortunately I got a hold of Librivox's The Picture of Dorian Gray. I remember listening to it while jogging and exercising, as I didn't know many other ways to pass unscheduled time. That is my first memory of Librivox.
Since my freshman year I have used Librivox to listen to a lot of stories, and my having "read" War and Peace during the summer of 2008 and my time as a student in China is certainly because of Librivox. I have great doubts that I would have gotten through that behemoth if I had been in possession of a paper copy. Don Quixote was listened to while I did boring manual labor at Kalamazoo college in the summer of 2008, and I "read" some of Leo Tolstoy's and Oscar Wilde's short stories the same way, to keep from insanity while painting walls and moving furniture in exchange for the privilege to live on campus during the summer. During my senior year of college I "read" Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Mysterious Island. After seeing how thick a paper copy of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea was sitting (unfinished, I might add!) on the shelf of another K student, I was very pleased that I had used such an easy way to read it.
A few months ago, however, I discovered that Librivox audio books could be downloaded as podcasts directly in iTunes. I was immensely pleased, as the ease and convenience of listening to audio books suddenly skyrocketed. As a result my rate of "reading" has gone up significantly, and in the past six months of being in China I feel that I have "read" many books: Uncle Tom's Cabin, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and a collection of H. P. Lovecraft stories. I am currently finished up my Mark Twain kick, and after polishing off The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, I am part way though A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. I am definitely enjoying Twain's sense of humor and satire so far
I normally don't listen to audio books in the daytime though. While I am on a bus, bike, or subway I tend to listen to educational or news podcasts, or sometimes lectures from iTunes U. In fact, the only time that I consistently listen to audio books in when I lay in bed before sleeping. A pillow mp3 player that a received as a gift years ago serves this purpose, and is exceedingly more comfortable than trying to drift into sleep with ear buds in my ears of headphones around my head.
I problem does arise though: when I lay down in a vaguely comfortable position in a dark room at the end of a day, egads! I tend to fall asleep! This is a problem when I am listening to especially long chapters, as if I fall asleep before the end of a chapter my iPod will keep playing until the end of that chapter, meaning that I miss out on a part of the story. I can, of course, go back and listen again, or look up what I missed on Sparknotes. It is a little hassle though.
Another downside is that I can only read old (classic, usually) books this way. For all of the more modern books I want to read about China, Brazil, Latin America, lying, zombies or anything by my new favorite philosopher, I still have to actually read the book, rather than drifting into dreams while listening to someone else's voice.
I feel really geeky about enjoying audio books so much, but in kind of a warm and fuzzy way. In the same way that reading a good story often makes me not want to put the book down or makes me excited to pick up the book again, I sometimes enjoy the stories so much that I am excited to go to bed, and I end up turning off my lights and hopping into the covers far earlier than I otherwise would so that I can listen to more of the story. More rest certainly won't hurt my health, but I find it amusing that I hop into bed full of energy and excitement.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
My computer is working... again
I am, for the first time in too long, typing on a computer which is (as far as I am aware) not stricken with any fatal problems, can access a wireless network, and is owned by me. I had a few brief days of use about a week ago before a hard drive problem necessitated the purchase of new hardware and the subsequent installation of a new operating system: Windows Vista.
The whole process took much longer than I had hoped it would, as I bought the new hard drive Thursday January 13th, and today (the 19th) is the first day I have been able to use my computer since. First Mike, a co-worker who knows computers, told me that he would install the hard drive and Windows XP over the weekend. Come Monday mike informed me that the version of XP he had was apparently the Chinese version, so he would try and get the English version ASAP. On Tuesday I accompanied Mike to ZhongGuanCun (中关村) to find a pirated (daoban/盗版, for you Chinese language learners out there) English-language version of Windows XP, and Wednesday I get my computer back with Windows Vista on it (he said he couldn’t find the right drivers to install XP on my computer).
Although it took several days, this method was undoubtedly cheaper, as my co-worker, Mike, did all the work free of charge. This means that rather than paying several hundred yuan to some guy in ZhongGuanCun to fix it, I instead bought a pizza for Mike.
Not that I have been completely cut off from the outside world since the new year. Anyone who has kept an eye on my online action will have noticed that I stayed active (increased my activity actually) on Twitter, and I did a few things via email and Facebook as well. Using my iPod touch to type is not as convenient or comfortable as using my computer though, and reading is also easier when the text is not so small.
On the upside, I have upped my rate of reading over the past few weeks which I been semi or completely lacking my computer. I finished the book China Candid, started and finished The Geography of Thought, Three Cups of Tea, The Zen of Juggling, and today I finished Foreign Babes in Beijing. With my computer back in action, half a dozen blog posts I want to write, a few update emails, and the continual roll of new blog posts to read, I have great doubts that I will finish four books in the next month. I will aim for one book before the end of February: Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell.
Monday, January 10, 2011
2010 in review, and a preview of 2011
The new year has fully started, so I figure that I better crank this out before 2010 fades too far away. So here is my list of big things in my life during 2010.
SIP - I wrote what I considered to be an absolutely massive paper on the state education of ethnic minorities in China. This involved reading many (many) books and articles, and I distinctly recall feeling that I was probably one of the people in Michigan who knew the most about China's ethnic minorities. After all, such a narrow field doesn't have many scholars. Reading the field work and accounts of various scholars made me get interested in ethnology, and in anthropology more broadly. It made me think more critically about governments' decisions to make these labels, and how they were used as well. I have taken these ideas, and now apply them beyond China so that any time nationality or ethnicity comes up I look at it with a much different view than I did a few years ago. I also remember wishing that I had more time to do more extensive research, but the institution of the SIP didn't allow it. I recall this project taking up a great deal of my thoughts and time during the early months of 2010.
Graduation - It seems like such a small thing in retrospect, but I have to admit that graduating from college is a big step. It signifies leaving youth and entering adulthood (not that I feel clearly like one or the other), the looming debt payments, and a bunch of goodbyes to college friends that I will not see as commonly and acquaintances that I will most likely never see again. The ceremony of it seemed a little pointless and silly to me, but it is nice to be able to claim that qualification. My strongest memory concerning graduation is how unconnected I felt to the majority of the people around me then. Sure, there were a few dozen people who I knew, and a dozen or so people who I valued highly. The majority of the faces that I saw at the special 'Senior events' and at graduation were complete strangers to me, though. Not just people I didn't know very well, but people that I swear I had never seen before in my life. Probably because of my extended study abroad and my hermit-like habits. If you didn't study in China, do circus or take Poli-Sci classes, there are pretty good changes that I didn't meet you.
Relationship with Sara - Since this is fairly personal I am not going to go into too much detail. I will just say that I had a relationship with Sara while I was at Kalamazoo, and it was a very major part of my life for the first half of 2010. We didn't have any fights or arguments, so we had a very laid-back and fun relationship right up until my graduation, when we ended it.
Improv - Since arriving in Beijing, I have gone to the Wednesday evening improv workshop almost every week. It has been great fun to do theater activities again, and the people that I have met there have turned out to be some major figures in my social circle in Beijing. Improv has become, in addition to the juggling club, one of my main social activities in Beijing. I haven't done this kind of thing since high school, but apparently I still have theater in me, because I seem to do it well enough. Even good enough that I was asked to perform for a corporate event once! It is also a good reason for me to be more social, as I would otherwise just hang out at home reading articles, writing more blog posts and watching movies.
Conversational Spanish - Although I started studying Spanish in 2009, it was in 2010 that I gained a new level of use with the language: I could have conversations. Realizing that I could already use the language to communicate was a thrill, and I remember using it to communicate with my suitemates and friends at times when English would have done just as well. I have no doubt that a great reason for this was the Spanish music that I got into, the BBC Mundo news that I listened to daily, and the fact that I had a great desire to use the language. These things all supported what I learned in class quite well. I was thrilled about this new ability that I had discovered. Since I didn't use it at all, my Spanish regressed a LOT during June, July, August and September, but in October I started up my weekly Spanish conversation night, and since then I have kept at a steady level and improves slightly.
iPod - Strange that a piece of technology should be on here, but getting an iPod really allowed me to do a lot of new things, and it would not be an exaggeration to say that it helped me learn language, study, know what was going on in the world, and generally get more information more conveniently. Indeed, having an iPod touch really increased the rate at which I could learn and consume information, and increased my general quality of life an amazing amount. This is mainly by turning dead time into useful time. Walking to class for 10 minutes, waiting for a friend to meet me for 5 minutes, riding the bus for 20 minutes, or taking the subway for 40 minutes... these were little bits of time that I could now use productively, and they added up over the course of a day. Podcasts are the way that I put it to the best use, although having music to listen to is nice as well. Flashcard applications helped me study language vocabulary on the go, turning a bus ride or any other waiting time into useful studying time. I can also use it to send text messages and make phone calls via Skype and similar apps. Buying an iPod touch was by far one of the best purchases that I have ever made.
RSS feeds and reading blogs -Another high tech thing, I started reading blogs in 2010. I immediately focused on China Watcher blogs, and this gave me a new level of awareness and a new breadth of knowledge concerning current China issues. My discovery of Google Reader made it even easier, and I soon made a daily habit of checking the feed. I quickly realized that I could go beyond China-focused blogs, though, and I began to follow other areas that I was interested in. Following a classmate's lead, I started to read some Foreign Policy Magazine blogs, and I have recently started to follow some Latin America and Brazil focused blogs as well. I especially enjoy that it allows me to easily enter a new field of knowledge. If I want to learn about X, I just need to start following and reading some blogs about X.
As an ending, I am gonna go ahead and make some general predictions for my life for the upcoming year. This should be constant regardless of if I stay in Beijing or if I move to Spain (or even if I move back to the U.S., which is not a likely prospect). So here is what will happen for me in 2011:
Continued interest in Latin America & Brazil - Since I am basically adding a new track to my knowledge here, and since it works well with my desire to learn languages, I am pretty sure that I will continue to be interested in Latin America in general and Brazil in specific. My knowledge of these areas will increase, and I may even get more solid plans to travel there by the end of 2011.
Increase in juggling and dancing skills -This is an easy one to predict, as it is just a continuation of a natural progression that has been happening over the past few years. As long as I practice juggling once a week, I have little doubt that my skill will continue to increase at a slow and steady pace. Dancing is something that is a newer focus, but wherever I am I plan to learn salsa, hip-hop and break dance, or modern/contemporary.
Spanish skills will increase - Again, this is easy. I love the Spanish language, and I want to live in countries where it is spoken. I have managed to find a way to practice it in Beijing so far, and I have full confidence that through music, movies, self-study, reading Spanish language newspapers online and conversation my language skill will continue to improve. Especially since I am gonna live in Spain and in various Latin American countries in the future, my Spanish will definitely reach a new high in 2011. Even if I stay in Beijing I plan to take another course at the Cervantes Institute.
I will continue to move closer to vegetarianism - In great part due to an excellent debate on intelligence squared concerning eating animals, I have made a conscious step toward consuming less meat. I am not a vegetarian, nor to I have immediate plans to become one. I can best describe my current dietary identity as a flexitarian, meaning that I try to avoid meat when possible. For me and for my life I think that this is a realistic compromise between the extremity of veganism and the convenience of eating whatever is most easily available. I predict that this trend will continue and perhaps even become stronger throughout 2011.
SIP - I wrote what I considered to be an absolutely massive paper on the state education of ethnic minorities in China. This involved reading many (many) books and articles, and I distinctly recall feeling that I was probably one of the people in Michigan who knew the most about China's ethnic minorities. After all, such a narrow field doesn't have many scholars. Reading the field work and accounts of various scholars made me get interested in ethnology, and in anthropology more broadly. It made me think more critically about governments' decisions to make these labels, and how they were used as well. I have taken these ideas, and now apply them beyond China so that any time nationality or ethnicity comes up I look at it with a much different view than I did a few years ago. I also remember wishing that I had more time to do more extensive research, but the institution of the SIP didn't allow it. I recall this project taking up a great deal of my thoughts and time during the early months of 2010.
Graduation - It seems like such a small thing in retrospect, but I have to admit that graduating from college is a big step. It signifies leaving youth and entering adulthood (not that I feel clearly like one or the other), the looming debt payments, and a bunch of goodbyes to college friends that I will not see as commonly and acquaintances that I will most likely never see again. The ceremony of it seemed a little pointless and silly to me, but it is nice to be able to claim that qualification. My strongest memory concerning graduation is how unconnected I felt to the majority of the people around me then. Sure, there were a few dozen people who I knew, and a dozen or so people who I valued highly. The majority of the faces that I saw at the special 'Senior events' and at graduation were complete strangers to me, though. Not just people I didn't know very well, but people that I swear I had never seen before in my life. Probably because of my extended study abroad and my hermit-like habits. If you didn't study in China, do circus or take Poli-Sci classes, there are pretty good changes that I didn't meet you.
Relationship with Sara - Since this is fairly personal I am not going to go into too much detail. I will just say that I had a relationship with Sara while I was at Kalamazoo, and it was a very major part of my life for the first half of 2010. We didn't have any fights or arguments, so we had a very laid-back and fun relationship right up until my graduation, when we ended it.
Improv - Since arriving in Beijing, I have gone to the Wednesday evening improv workshop almost every week. It has been great fun to do theater activities again, and the people that I have met there have turned out to be some major figures in my social circle in Beijing. Improv has become, in addition to the juggling club, one of my main social activities in Beijing. I haven't done this kind of thing since high school, but apparently I still have theater in me, because I seem to do it well enough. Even good enough that I was asked to perform for a corporate event once! It is also a good reason for me to be more social, as I would otherwise just hang out at home reading articles, writing more blog posts and watching movies.
Conversational Spanish - Although I started studying Spanish in 2009, it was in 2010 that I gained a new level of use with the language: I could have conversations. Realizing that I could already use the language to communicate was a thrill, and I remember using it to communicate with my suitemates and friends at times when English would have done just as well. I have no doubt that a great reason for this was the Spanish music that I got into, the BBC Mundo news that I listened to daily, and the fact that I had a great desire to use the language. These things all supported what I learned in class quite well. I was thrilled about this new ability that I had discovered. Since I didn't use it at all, my Spanish regressed a LOT during June, July, August and September, but in October I started up my weekly Spanish conversation night, and since then I have kept at a steady level and improves slightly.
iPod - Strange that a piece of technology should be on here, but getting an iPod really allowed me to do a lot of new things, and it would not be an exaggeration to say that it helped me learn language, study, know what was going on in the world, and generally get more information more conveniently. Indeed, having an iPod touch really increased the rate at which I could learn and consume information, and increased my general quality of life an amazing amount. This is mainly by turning dead time into useful time. Walking to class for 10 minutes, waiting for a friend to meet me for 5 minutes, riding the bus for 20 minutes, or taking the subway for 40 minutes... these were little bits of time that I could now use productively, and they added up over the course of a day. Podcasts are the way that I put it to the best use, although having music to listen to is nice as well. Flashcard applications helped me study language vocabulary on the go, turning a bus ride or any other waiting time into useful studying time. I can also use it to send text messages and make phone calls via Skype and similar apps. Buying an iPod touch was by far one of the best purchases that I have ever made.
RSS feeds and reading blogs -Another high tech thing, I started reading blogs in 2010. I immediately focused on China Watcher blogs, and this gave me a new level of awareness and a new breadth of knowledge concerning current China issues. My discovery of Google Reader made it even easier, and I soon made a daily habit of checking the feed. I quickly realized that I could go beyond China-focused blogs, though, and I began to follow other areas that I was interested in. Following a classmate's lead, I started to read some Foreign Policy Magazine blogs, and I have recently started to follow some Latin America and Brazil focused blogs as well. I especially enjoy that it allows me to easily enter a new field of knowledge. If I want to learn about X, I just need to start following and reading some blogs about X.
As an ending, I am gonna go ahead and make some general predictions for my life for the upcoming year. This should be constant regardless of if I stay in Beijing or if I move to Spain (or even if I move back to the U.S., which is not a likely prospect). So here is what will happen for me in 2011:
Continued interest in Latin America & Brazil - Since I am basically adding a new track to my knowledge here, and since it works well with my desire to learn languages, I am pretty sure that I will continue to be interested in Latin America in general and Brazil in specific. My knowledge of these areas will increase, and I may even get more solid plans to travel there by the end of 2011.
Increase in juggling and dancing skills -This is an easy one to predict, as it is just a continuation of a natural progression that has been happening over the past few years. As long as I practice juggling once a week, I have little doubt that my skill will continue to increase at a slow and steady pace. Dancing is something that is a newer focus, but wherever I am I plan to learn salsa, hip-hop and break dance, or modern/contemporary.
Spanish skills will increase - Again, this is easy. I love the Spanish language, and I want to live in countries where it is spoken. I have managed to find a way to practice it in Beijing so far, and I have full confidence that through music, movies, self-study, reading Spanish language newspapers online and conversation my language skill will continue to improve. Especially since I am gonna live in Spain and in various Latin American countries in the future, my Spanish will definitely reach a new high in 2011. Even if I stay in Beijing I plan to take another course at the Cervantes Institute.
I will continue to move closer to vegetarianism - In great part due to an excellent debate on intelligence squared concerning eating animals, I have made a conscious step toward consuming less meat. I am not a vegetarian, nor to I have immediate plans to become one. I can best describe my current dietary identity as a flexitarian, meaning that I try to avoid meat when possible. For me and for my life I think that this is a realistic compromise between the extremity of veganism and the convenience of eating whatever is most easily available. I predict that this trend will continue and perhaps even become stronger throughout 2011.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
LDTX is beautiful
Every now and I then I have experiences that make me wish I could go back several years and walk a different path of life. I am generally very happy that I have decided to take the "polyglot and globe trotter" path, but sometimes I do feel deep desires to life a different kind of life. These moments of desire and reflection are usually focuses on dance.
As I am sure that most of my friends who read this blog know, I spend my senior year of high school at an arts school where the mornings were spent on academics and the afternoon on various arts. For my junior year there I was in the theater department and for my senior year I was in the dance department. I loved using my body everyday, rather than just allowing it to be a simple vehicle to help me walk from point A to point B. The skills that I had gained from doing karate as a youth helped me use my body for dance, and although I felt that all of the other students were years ahead of me in terms of technique I still loved the learning and the moving.
When choosing colleges the book recommended that I shouldn't pay attention to what majors a college had, and so I didn't. I had planned to be a dance major and to continue dancing, and if I had gone to the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis I almost assuredly would have started out as a dance major my Freshman year. I actually didn't find out that Kalamazoo College lacked dance classes until after I agreed to go there, so when I was signing up for classes I was surprised and changed my planned major from dance to undecided. If I had known I might very well of not gone to Kalamazoo, and I would almost certainly not speak Chinese, think about working for the U.S. State Department, or be a globe trotter.
To bring this back to the present, my time as a dancer in high school left in me a great appreciation for dance. Whenever I go to a new place I always look to see what the local dance scene is, and in Beijing I think the local modern and contemporary dance is defined my LDTX (雷动天下). Last night I went to see their Spring Thunder (春雷) performance series, and I was awestruck by the beauty of it. There was some very excellently done partnering, and much of the movement pulled at me in such a way that made me wish I had studied dance instead of China, languages and international studies. I lack the skill as a dance critic and writer to describe them fully, but I will attempt to give a brief overview of the final piece in the performance.
Name of a Rose (以玫瑰之名) involved strong red lighting on the entire stage, and six dancers dressed in strong and dark colors, mostly blacks and reds. On the left part of the stage there was a rosebush, and throughout the stage there were rose petals scattered on the floor. In this way a strong mood was already established for the dance before any of the artists moved a single limb. Throughout the dance, strong partnering was used, and the various duets between the male and female dancers (who were evenly matched) made it clear that passionate relationships were beyond played out before my eyes. Although various pushes, pulls, and struggles were played out in these on-stage romances, the climax involved a female dancer tearing apart the rose bush and leaving her former partner to mourn her leaving.
Watching this beautiful and inspirational performance had renewed the desire in me to dance, so whether I am in Beijing, Southern Spain, Minneapolis, or I may go in my life I will do my best to find local dance companies to teach me and to inspire me.
As I am sure that most of my friends who read this blog know, I spend my senior year of high school at an arts school where the mornings were spent on academics and the afternoon on various arts. For my junior year there I was in the theater department and for my senior year I was in the dance department. I loved using my body everyday, rather than just allowing it to be a simple vehicle to help me walk from point A to point B. The skills that I had gained from doing karate as a youth helped me use my body for dance, and although I felt that all of the other students were years ahead of me in terms of technique I still loved the learning and the moving.
When choosing colleges the book recommended that I shouldn't pay attention to what majors a college had, and so I didn't. I had planned to be a dance major and to continue dancing, and if I had gone to the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis I almost assuredly would have started out as a dance major my Freshman year. I actually didn't find out that Kalamazoo College lacked dance classes until after I agreed to go there, so when I was signing up for classes I was surprised and changed my planned major from dance to undecided. If I had known I might very well of not gone to Kalamazoo, and I would almost certainly not speak Chinese, think about working for the U.S. State Department, or be a globe trotter.
To bring this back to the present, my time as a dancer in high school left in me a great appreciation for dance. Whenever I go to a new place I always look to see what the local dance scene is, and in Beijing I think the local modern and contemporary dance is defined my LDTX (雷动天下). Last night I went to see their Spring Thunder (春雷) performance series, and I was awestruck by the beauty of it. There was some very excellently done partnering, and much of the movement pulled at me in such a way that made me wish I had studied dance instead of China, languages and international studies. I lack the skill as a dance critic and writer to describe them fully, but I will attempt to give a brief overview of the final piece in the performance.
Name of a Rose (以玫瑰之名) involved strong red lighting on the entire stage, and six dancers dressed in strong and dark colors, mostly blacks and reds. On the left part of the stage there was a rosebush, and throughout the stage there were rose petals scattered on the floor. In this way a strong mood was already established for the dance before any of the artists moved a single limb. Throughout the dance, strong partnering was used, and the various duets between the male and female dancers (who were evenly matched) made it clear that passionate relationships were beyond played out before my eyes. Although various pushes, pulls, and struggles were played out in these on-stage romances, the climax involved a female dancer tearing apart the rose bush and leaving her former partner to mourn her leaving.
Watching this beautiful and inspirational performance had renewed the desire in me to dance, so whether I am in Beijing, Southern Spain, Minneapolis, or I may go in my life I will do my best to find local dance companies to teach me and to inspire me.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Reflections on my time without a fully functioning computer
I am alive. I did not (purposefully) crawl under a rock or take a Buddhist retreat. Upon returning from my Spanish conversation night on the 28th of December I discovered, to great horror, that my computer had such a severe software problem that it could not even start up. This is within two days of my iPod unexpetedly failing to turn on as well. Both of these probelms were far beyond me, but I fortunately have resources at my disposal. A trip to the Apple store in Beijing revealed that my iPod had no fatal issue, and although I do not know why it wouldn't turn on then, it does now. Regardless, I once again have a functional way to listen to audio material and get news, translate, look up words in multiple languages, email, send texts and make calls, and find public transit routes, so issue the is more or less solved.
The computer was MUCH harder. Mike is a Jamaican man who works as an English teacher at American House. Upon hearing my computer woes, he mentioned that he studied computer science and he could probably fix it. Due to CD and flash drive problems, internet access issues, and technical issues which are either too complicated or not interesting enough to relate here, as well as an unknown and unresolved problem which prevented Windows XP from being installed, yesterday (January 7) at work I received my computer, fully functional with Windows Vista, from Mike. YES!
I spent pretty much all of Friday night (and into the morning) configuring it, figuring out an operating system that I hadn't used before, and installing and tweaking programs. Getting my music from my iPod to the computer was the worst. It is surprisingly hasselsome to do. It all got taken care of though, and I know I and more or less back online. I caught up on reading (selectively) the blogs I follow, watched the juggling videos that I had missed, and now I feel the urge to write a dozen blog posts.
The time without computer and iPod were pretty different from how I normally spend my time (which is either at work, out and about, in bed [sleeping] or in front of my computer). I resorted to DVDs and the television that my apartment came with (the first time I have touched it in months), and in addition to a movie about compensated dating in Hong Kong, I finished up the last few episodes of Chinese Paladin 3 (仙剑奇侠传三), which I enjoyed a lot. I watched it in Chinese, and since they speak is a fairly classical way in that show I didn't get everything, but I definitely understand enough to get the basic plot and character relations, and the sacrifices and decisions that some of the characters made near the end of the show basically made me cry.
I also ended up reading off of paper a bit more than usual. I recently finished the compilation of various interviews and oral histories that I was reading (China Candid), and in the past week I managed to finish a book about differences in thought patterns between east and west (The Geography of Thought) as well. I have just started Three Cups of Tea, which I am enjoying so far, and about 1/4 through. I hope to get to the rest of it soon!
The computer was MUCH harder. Mike is a Jamaican man who works as an English teacher at American House. Upon hearing my computer woes, he mentioned that he studied computer science and he could probably fix it. Due to CD and flash drive problems, internet access issues, and technical issues which are either too complicated or not interesting enough to relate here, as well as an unknown and unresolved problem which prevented Windows XP from being installed, yesterday (January 7) at work I received my computer, fully functional with Windows Vista, from Mike. YES!
I spent pretty much all of Friday night (and into the morning) configuring it, figuring out an operating system that I hadn't used before, and installing and tweaking programs. Getting my music from my iPod to the computer was the worst. It is surprisingly hasselsome to do. It all got taken care of though, and I know I and more or less back online. I caught up on reading (selectively) the blogs I follow, watched the juggling videos that I had missed, and now I feel the urge to write a dozen blog posts.
The time without computer and iPod were pretty different from how I normally spend my time (which is either at work, out and about, in bed [sleeping] or in front of my computer). I resorted to DVDs and the television that my apartment came with (the first time I have touched it in months), and in addition to a movie about compensated dating in Hong Kong, I finished up the last few episodes of Chinese Paladin 3 (仙剑奇侠传三), which I enjoyed a lot. I watched it in Chinese, and since they speak is a fairly classical way in that show I didn't get everything, but I definitely understand enough to get the basic plot and character relations, and the sacrifices and decisions that some of the characters made near the end of the show basically made me cry.
I also ended up reading off of paper a bit more than usual. I recently finished the compilation of various interviews and oral histories that I was reading (China Candid), and in the past week I managed to finish a book about differences in thought patterns between east and west (The Geography of Thought) as well. I have just started Three Cups of Tea, which I am enjoying so far, and about 1/4 through. I hope to get to the rest of it soon!
I can't cook?
I think that I am more competent in the kitchen than a majority (not all, but more than half) of my college classmates. I am pretty sure that Jocco and Chinzi were both more competent than me in the kitchen, but I felt fairly competent in a culinary sense compared to Caleb and Jamie. (Okay, I felt kind of like a culinary God compared to Caleb, but he set the bar pretty low. Sorry Caleb) Of course, I assume that these people have learned things since graduating, while I have spent a year eating at cheap Chinese restaurants and munching on lunches provided by my preschool. So what good does a skill count for if I never use it?
When I was at the WWOOF farm go, the perception of me as a person who can't cook might have been exaggerated by the humility with which I readily stated that "I know very little," "I can't cook many dishes," "I am a novice in the kitchen," etc.. This might be a culturally Chinese thing that isn't done here in Europe. Chinese people often deflect compliments, denying one's skill or ability (藏龙卧虎, anyone?). Where as a Chinese person might not may as might attention to such statements knowing that they are mere humility, perhaps the people on the WWOOF farm took them at face value. This will be a difficult part of adjusting to a new culture for me: tailoring my behavior from what I am used to to what is considered the norm here. Another factor was the ingredients and the tools that I was familiar with using simply didn't exist there on the farm. So does the skill exist if it is never used?
The folks at the WWOOF farm also had an assumption that I do not know how to prepare food I because I lived at home for a long time. This is false, though. Even though I was younger than most of them, I stopped living with my parents full-time when I was about 16 years old. I also factually disproved it by asking the Italian girl how long she had lived with her parents (which ended up being much longer than I lived with mine) and if she felt she could cook (which she could). For me, at about 16 I left home for a boarding school, Perpich. Throughout my time at Perpich and at Kalamazoo, I would usually make use of the cafeteria, or if need be I would make simple meals for myself. I remember intensely saving money, during the weekend often eating a single meal a day in order to save money, and often subsiding on nothing more than ramen noodles. This wasn't due to a desire to not cook, but rather to a desire to not spend money. At Kalamazoo college I usually ate in the cafateria, although ocaisionally I would make simple food for myself. I made simple food not because I was afraid of the kitchen or some nonsense like that, but because it didn't take much time to make, and the less time I spent cooking the more time I could spend studying (or doing whatever else I prioritized more).
During my junior year in Beijing I would eat in either a cafeteria or in restaurants, never making anything for myself beyond and an occasional 方便面, which is basically ramen. This was for the same reasons of simplicity and time. During these years cooking and eating was just something that I wanted to get out of the way as quickly as possible so I could go back to reading, studying, or something that I considered more important and enjoyable. During my senior year at Kalamazoo I cooked for myself considerably more often, only eating in the cafeteria for special reasons (language practice, personal sloth, schedule, quality time with people that I wouldn't see often enough otherwise, or some special event). In retrospect I think that I ate there too often, and therefore wasted money on it. Usually, though, I would make food for myself. It is true that I did eat a decent number of frozen food-style meals, which I would place at about 50% of my meals. But I often made very simple food for myself, such as pasta, burritos, stir-fried rice. Due to their portability, I nearly always had sandwiches for lunch. Nothing else strikes me as so appropriate for a Tupperware container.
None of the foods I regularly made are particularly impressive. In fact, the only reason I would have to make an impressive meal would be to impress a date, perhaps one of the reasons I can make a number of breakfast foods: on Saturday or Sunday morning we needed to eat something, and munching on cereal is fine for myself, but not something I want to do with a date. Whereas a meal together on Friday or Saturday night would more likely be at a local restaurant or made with friends, I consider myself fairly competent at making “morning-after breakfasts,” which were always a hit.
In general, my philosophy of food has been aimed at something quick, cheap, and simple; something that needs to be done and not something to spend a lot of time on and to enjoy for it's own sake. Perhaps this is due to a busy schedule, or perhaps it is just because of my desires to do so many things and the reality of the limited time that is available to me. Regardless of why I have this concept of food, this is very different, perhaps completely opposite, from people who enjoy food for its own sake and spend a long time at the table on a regular basis. My experiences this past summer may have started to change this a little, and I hope to have a full kitchen in Albacete (In Beijing I didn't even have a kitchen), which will provide the opportunity to spend more time cooking.
I hope to do a lot more cooking for myself this year. With Sean Bennet and Nolan as models (and with the help of the internet) I hope to learn how to make a number of tasty dishes. Isa has already showed me a website with videos of how tomake Spanish dishes, and I hope to find more resources from other friends.
Ironically, when I was in Chicago hanging out with Isa we made several meals together, and she thought that I was a wonder in the kitchen. During one breakfast (This breakfast was banana pancakes with slices of apricot and peach mixed in, with a topping of Nutella. It looked and tasted pretty good, if I may so myself) she told me “Joe, this is happiness.” Seeing that this was just a few days after other Spaniards felt that I couldn't make anything beyond mashed potatoes, I guess that my cooking skills were really judged from different perspectives and based on different samples of my skills. The philosophical takeaway from this: the tools available to me significantly shape the utility and the result of my skills.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)