Books are great!

I just finished a great book and I'm so pleased. I'm so pleased and so affected by this great book that I'm going to begin using words like 'pernicious' and 'occult' and 'diverting.' I am of a higher intellect, thanks to literature! I have 'improved my mind by extensive reading'! However, I am embittered knowing that, had I read this book prior to taking the GREs, I probably could have improved my score on the Verbal section.

Coincidentally, I rented the movie (definitely not as good as the BBC version) based on said book this weekend. While watching, my friends amused themselves by asking about 'Sir Hughes' family fortune' and whether or not 'Mr. Hughes' had taken me to 'the family estate in Derbyshire' yet. I assured them that 'Mr. Hughes has an excellent family estate in Luton-shire' and that 'it boasts all the amenities essential to gentle living.' They were satisfied.

But back to the book! Really diverting (ahem) books are difficult to put down and you never want them to end. They are also, sadly, few and far between. But because I don't understand the TV and there's no social scene in my town, I've had enough spare time over the last eight months to read some very, very good books. That said, few come close to the one I just finished. Sigh. It makes me happy just thinking about it.

I must remember to ask Sir Hughes about that estate . . .

Ailey: English instructor, soccer player, student of Japanese, runner, Spanish teacher?

I just agreed (against my better judgement) to teach the Beginner-Level Spanish class at my town's International Association. Have I gone completely mad?

Oh, a soft-boiled egg? Please restrain me from devouring it right now!

I swear, if I have to watch one more middle-aged Japanese man hoovering food noisily from his bowl, I think I'll go insane. Every night, the TV has back-to-back cooking shows and each one features something new and exciting: Sushi! Yakisoba! Hamburger! Curry and rice!

Oh, wait.

They're not new and exciting; they're what Japanese people eat every day. And yet, when the food is set down in front of them, they react as though they've been given a plate of deep fried gold smothered in diamonds to eat. “Ooooooooooooooooooooooooh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oiiiiiiiishiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!!!!!” Then the cameraman zooms in on one of the diners cutting a soft-boiled egg open with his fork, the yoke spills out, the diner hoovers (slurping sounds included) it into his mouth, and then proclaims: Oishii! Everyone gasps and inquires, “Oishii?” To which he responds, “Oishii!” Then there is a still shot of said soft-boiled egg poised on said diner's fork and the announcer describes what we, the viewers, are seeing.

Am I alone in thinking that this is lame? It’s JUST a soft-boiled egg! I can make it at home! In fact, I can make soft-boiled eggs, hard-boiled eggs, poached eggs, scrambled eggs, and fried eggs with no problems whatsoever and I definitely don't slurp while I'm eating them. For one of the most advanced countries in the world, the Japanese certainly have some of the stupidest television and, if I lived somewhere with any kind of social scene, I wouldn't be bothered to watch it in the first place. If, on my return to Seattle, I act amazed over the stunning feat that is a soft-boiled egg, please reject me from your company. It will be the least I deserve for acting like a twenty-four-year old with a lobotomy.

What's your best guess?

Some excellent Engrish was spotted today. Can you guess what it's an advertisement for?

MANDOM

Everyone loves a lover. Everyone loves Mandom. Man oh man, that's Mandom.


In case it wasn't blaringly obvious, that's an ad for men's hair gel. Man oh man, that's Mandom.

St. Patrick's Day Adventures

“Happy St. Paddy's!” Liz shrieked as Travy and I walked in the door. We'd been driving for three hours and were weary, but Liz was wearing a bright green wig made of tinsel and shoved a beer into each of our hands. “Where in the hell is your green?!” she demanded, again in a shriek. I looked down at my brown and pink shirt. Alas, I'd left my green at home.

“I have something for JUST this situation!” Liz ran into her bedroom and reappeared with a green plastic bowler hat. It looked like something I'd wear while dancing in the follies and singing, “Hello my lady, hello my darling . . .” but in an Irish accent. I gamely shoved it on my head. Celebrating Saint Patrick's Day in Japan is all about flexibility.

The night began with discussions on the Japanese language, world travel, and the state of international affairs (we're really quite deep and intellectual) but quickly – very quickly – degenerated into games of ‘Would you Rather’ and ‘Vegetable.’ Rob mimicked a sprout by punching his arm forward, Travy was an angry eggplant (or aubergine), I was a sack of potatoes, and Liz was, of course, a leek. But she said it more like this: LLEEEEEEEEEEEKkkkkkkkkkkkkk!!! Again, in a shriek.

It was great fun and an excellent way to take my mind off St. Paddy's Day one year ago, which is when I started dating my boyfriend, Ritchie. Celebrating your one-year anniversary is difficult when one half of the couple is in Seattle and the other is in BFE Japan. Instead of a romantic dinner, I ate Liz's drunkenly prepared carbonara. In lieu of champagne, I drank cheap Japanese beer. Instead of watching a movie together on a comfortable couch, I curled up next to Travy on the floor of Liz's apartment. Very romantic, indeed.

But we had fun with our make-shift holiday. It's also quite possibly the only anniversary I'll spend wearing a green plastic bowler hat and sharing a futon with one of my girlfriends. Travy is definitely not as good of a cuddler as Ritchie.

How would YOU describe a semicolon?

This morning, one of my students called me over to her desk and showed me a scribble on a page of her notebook.

“Miss Ailey, what called this?” she asked.

“Oh!” I said. “That's a semicolon!”

She looked at me questioningly, which I took as an unvoiced plea for explanation. But how does one explain a semicolon? More importantly, how does one explain a semicolon to someone who's only been studying English for twelve months? I was perplexed. I was flabbergasted. I was embarrassed by the fact that I probably couldn't explain a semicolon to a natural English speaker – and I majored in Creative Writing.

In the few seconds between the student's questioning look and my shaky explanation, I did some deep thinking about the nature of the semicolon. I thought about how creative it was for someone to combine a colon with a comma. I pondered the graceful curve of the semicolon's lower half and how it seemed to beckon the reader on – don't stop here, the best is yet to come! – while warning them to slow down, something new will be revealed on the other side of this punctuation mark. Do you really dare to venture on?

I pointed at a sentence in the student's textbook, “See this? This is a comma. And this? This is a period. A semicolon is somewhere between a comma and a period.” Then I drew a mini graph that looked like this:

, (comma) ---------------- ; (semicolon) --------------------- . (period)

Does it matter that I completely left out the existence of the colon? I don't think the student will notice. But my question is this: How would YOU explain the semicolon?

And why don't I have a better explanation for what it is?

I'm going to grad school!

I found out the good news today - I've been accepted to the University of Washington graduate school! This is very exciting and, hopefully, will be a good start to a . . . gasp . . . career. I'm really excited to be back in school. As nerdy as this sounds, I really like studying and learning and being in a mentally stimulating environment. For those who are curious, I'm going to get concurrent Masters degrees in Public Affairs (with a focus on International Development) and International Studies. I also hope to keep up with my languages by taking Spanish, Japanese, and possibly Arabic or French throughout my time at the UW. So, wish me luck!

And please send money.

School Lunch, Part III

This is 'natto,' quite possibly the most foul concotion known to man. To quote Wikipedia, natto "is a traditional Japanese food made from fermented soybeans, popular especially at breakfast. For some, Nattō can be an acquired taste due to its powerful smell, strong flavor, and sticky consistency." Wikipedia says 'powerful smell,' but it's clearly trying to avoid offense; the odor of natto is far beyond powerful. It smells like dirty socks left in a puddle of vomit and then dried under a very hot sun. The taste isn't too far off, either. But even grosser than that is the 'stickiness,' as Wikipedia calls it. A bowl of natto actually looks like one thousand slugs melted into it - when you take a bite, a string of slime connects the beans in your mouth with the beans in the bowl. Care to try some?

This thing called cooking.

I was raised by an indifferent cook. My Mom, wonderful soul that she is, has professed to hate cooking and, under her tutelage, I learned to make tacos, spaghetti, breakfast-for-dinner, and (in case of special occasions) beef burgundy. It's not a very diverse menu and, here in Japan, it's often difficult to find ingredients for tacos or beef burgundy. I also don't have an oven. But something has come over me! I don't know if it's the constantly repeating menu at my school or the dead fish glaring at me out of the sides of their heads when I go to the supermarket, but I've been overcome by a fever to cook anything and everything that I can. Who knew I had it in me? I've made curries and cacciatore, alfredo and mussels. There's no limit to what I can make! Wait, I take that back. I can't make anything that involves an oven. But anything that involes a stovetop is within my range! I can't wait to show off to my parents and Ritchie.