A History of the Untied States

I've noticed a disturbing trend developing in which I poke fun at those not originally from this country. I promise I'll stop. Right after this.

You see, I've been saving up savory little tidbits from my class with the adorable Japanese students and now that the class is over, I will serve them up with a delicate lemon cream sauce.


I have spent the past three months in my own personal Engrish heaven.

First, let's talk about the t-shirts. I wish I could have taken photos.

There were shirts that said:

"Knock on a Jumping Door"
"Family Mart"
"Everybody Has Lightening Pace"
"Doesn't Everyone Know That?" on the front and "Recompense" on the back.

I can't decide if my all time favorite is the "Hello Rat Bastard!" shirt, worn by a quiet, nice looking guy who never said a word in class, or the understated, "ALLCAPS" sweatshirt.

Ironically, this class is about Orientalism and Occidentalism, and here I am poking fun. Whatever.

We had numerous painful class discussions in which the instructor would ask a ridiculous question and then stare at us all, unblinking, until someone attempted to answer him.

Example:

Professor: "In Japan, what is the most popular American cuisine?"

The American students do not know the answer to this question, and the Japanese students do not understand the question. We all stare at the floor/ceiling.

Finally one of the Japanese students seated directly in front of me pipes up. "I think, maybe, Crrrr".

Professor: "Excuse me?"

Student: "Crrrrr"

Professor: "I'm sorry, I don't understand"

Student (Making vague hand gesture): "Ah, I wash through Crrrr"

Everyone stares.

The student turns around to my desk and writes "COLANDER" on my notebook.

Me: "He wrote 'colander'. That's more like a kitchen tool, cuisine is a kind of food."

The student in front of me goes back to staring at the floor. The professor moves on.

He often asks questions so obscure that none of us would ever be able to answer. It is irritating and some English speaking students get frustrated and shoot back any old answer just to get the ball rolling again.

Professor: "What is the number one commercial playing on Thai television today?"

We all look at each other incredulously. One student shouts out, "BOXING GLOVES? TOOTHPICKS??"

The professor smiles smugly and says, "No. Face whitener"

Of course. Face whitener. I should have known that.

Things I should have noticed a while ago

1) The garbage truck that picks up our trash once a week has "We guarantee your satisfaction, or double your garbage back" painted on it's side.

2) A review printed on the back of my Organizational Psychology book says, "A Tour de Force...a rich and fascinating read". It must be a typo. I think that the reviewer meant to say, "A Tour de France...a long and painful journey"

3) My deoderant isn't working. I need to wake up to the reality that Tom's of Maine makes a mean toothpaste, but they just aren't cutting it in the deoderant department.

A Poem

Dear Keith (Last name that rhymes with Pagan)

I thought you should know
That we have 86 days to go
Before we wed
Naked in bed
We'll be together until we're dead

I shall rejoice
Because of my choice
To marry Keith (Pagan)
And eat crispy bacon

Your kids will be born
Forehead furrowed like your'n
Worrying and tossing the night until morn

Dear Keith (Pagan)
I thought you should know
I'll be your wife come rain or snow

Come hail or sleet
Or blistering heat
I'll make cheese from our goats who bleat and bleat

If I should die before you do
Make sure our kids don't drink any Yoo Hoo

It's unhealthy

Pobia

A few weeks ago, a student walked up to me on campus and said he was doing a homework assignment, and would I be willing to answer a couple of questions. People walk up to me all the time at school demanding that I sign a petition, give them a quarter, give them a cigarette, go out with them, accept Jesus as my personal Savior, and on and on.

This guy happened to catch me moments after I had pulled my dripping laptop out of my bag, and I was airing it out on the grass. The screen was frozen, and I was panicked. For some reason, I said yes.

"I am doing a survey on Pobia" the young man said in a heavy Middle-Eastern accent. "Ummm, you mean phobias?" I asked.
"Ahh, yes" he replied.
"Well, you have come to the right girl"
He asked me what my Pobia was, and said, "Do not say the spider. Everyone says the spider or height. Do not say this"
"No problem buddy. My Pobia is cotton balls, velvet, and foamcore. All of those items are rolled into one. It's just one big fear. It's actually not a fear, but more of an extremely strong aversion. You need me to spell it?"
"What is this Cotta Bow?"
"COTTON BALLS. Here, let me write it down for you"
I grabbed his clipboard and began to fill in the little boxes. The first one had me name the phobia. The second box asked me to describe what I felt like when faced with the fear. "It feels like I am having a seizure and my spine is splitting in half" I squeezed into the box. The third box asked me whether or not I wanted to get rid of my phobia. "No" was my answer.

The poor guy was confused, but grateful that I had just completed his little homework assignment for him. He thanked me and walked away.

That was my slightly wine-buzzed and long winded way of introducing this. Arnay, you are my hero(ine). Thank you for sharing your story.

(thanks to Annika for supplying the link)

Engrish does wine

Slog

1) It's about time they invented closed captioning for the weak minded. Instead of a caption like, "glasses clinking" or "soft laughter" the caption would read, "This is a dream the character is having, it's not real" or "He doesn't realize his shirt is caught in the car door. It's supposed to be funny". Sometimes when I am watching a movie and I get lost, my first instinct is to turn on the subtitles. There should be an option to turn on the Idiot Titles.

2) The two three-year-olds I take care of like to mimic each other like parrots, only sometimes they don't hear correctly. Today Bryna told me, "I don't like you when you don't behave" and Katie said, "I don't like you when you don't eat on the hay!" She said this with a strange look on her face, and I could tell it didn't sound right to her.

3) I watched Brokeback last night, finally. And I cried.

4) I got my oil changed today and the date printed on my little reminder sticker is 8/24/06. As if I don't have enough things to do that day! I will have to squeeze it in somewhere between getting my wedding hair and makeup done. Maybe I'll just show up at Jiffy Lube in my gown on the way to the ceremony.

Finally I Can Rest Easy

JesusPets

Dear God.

A Man in a Cowboy Suit

Yesterday Jess and Beth and I went to breakfast and were served undercooked scones. Ever since, I have been craving scone and decided to take a crack at them this afternoon. I logged on to Epicurious, where I am currently spending entirely too much of my young and healthy years, and found a recipe.

I like to read the reviews for a recipe I am about to try, not because I think the people have anything useful to say, but because it is usually entertaining. There is always someone who screwed up somewhere along the line and blames the recipe for the disaster. These people are angry. They are also terrible spellers. They say things like,

"I would rather die than make these wretched scones again. Maybe if you smeared a pound of buter on them they would be O.k. but right now they are the vilest among scones and don't deserve to be on this website"



Then there is the Mom Who Doesn't Get Out Much and is Starved for Human Interaction. Her recipe reviews tend to reveal way to much about her life and not a whole lot about the actual recipe. She says things like this:

"I absolutely LOVED these SCONES!!! I made them for our anniversary dinner and my husband ate three or four of them, even though he forgot to get me flowers! My older son Bernard is going through a phase right now where he says he hates everything, but I think he secretly liked them too :). Sarah was away at a friend's house, so she tried them the next day when they were a little past their prime! I really recommend them!"



Sometimes people actually get into fights in the recipe review sections over politics or perceived ethnic insensitivities. "I spent three whole months in Berlin, and how DARE you say that this Strudel is not authentic!"

After making them myself, my review goes a little like this:

Meh, whatever. They are kinda more bready than sconey. Maybe a pound of buter smeared on them will help.

Fantastic Flickr of the Day

14510036
Originally uploaded by tjchung.

Props to my Pops for introducing me to Anna

Today's assignment:

1) Pour yourself a refreshingly cool gin and tonic. Garnish with fresh mint from your garden. Sip.

2) Go to Ikea's website and click on the "Ask Anna" link.

3) Ask Anna some deeply disturbing and inappropriate questions not related to Ikea home furnishings.

4) Let me know how it went.


Anna is a modern Magic 8 Ball, except snarkier.

Everything is Illuminated

Here we are folx, me and my boo, back together again. It feels so right.

In wedding countdown news, we have 100 days to go before Keith and both lose our shit in front of 200 lucky guests. We often wonder which one of us is going to vomit/faint/hyperventilate in front of our loved ones. I've got my money on me projectile vomiting on the guests as I walk down the aisle, and him losing it and not being able to get it together for the entire ceremony, sobbing into his best man's lapels and trying to squeak out the vows through giant snot bubbles. You gotta be there to see it!

Our six month separation has taken a toll on both of us and Keith has commenced to rip out a finger/toenail for every week we are separated in order to dull the pain in his heart. I guess I don't love him enough to do the same.

She's a fighter

You know it's that time of the something or other when you begin sobbing, somewhat uncontrollably as a father and his little daughter ride by on a tandem bike outside the window and she says, "Daddy, this is so fun!"

I almost broke down in the Apple store last night as well. Okay, I completely broke down. Yes, I was at the Apple store on a Friday night harassing the employees. As you can see, I am a wreck.

The poor guy who gently pried my fingers from the badge around his neck as I pleadingly asked him to check on my DATA! told me that everything had been recovered. It is all going to be okay. She is coming home on Monday and she will recognize me. She will be tired and she can't be over stimulated, but she is going to be fine.

OH THANK GODDDD!!!!

Yes, I was on my knees when I said this. Yes, I made the Sign of the Cross in the Apple store and wept openly, praising Jesus. Shut UP.

Then Annie and I went out for celebratory cocktails and we had to take a cab home.

The end.

lapdog

lapdog
Originally uploaded by jessmonster.

attention

This morning Mollie and I were horrified to find two (TWO!) one-eyed dogs. Both were missing their left eyes, the other eye glassy and sightless. AHHHHHH!

At the park with my two three-year old charges, I was pushing them on the swings. Bryna was straining to look behind her. I asked, "What's going on, Bryna?" to which she replied, "Oh, just hanging out, watching the back of my front"

I LOVE three year olds.

As you were.

Dough Ashes

Written on Tuesday
Jess went to work, and I am taking the opportunity to use her computer to check up on the world I miss so much. I first went to The Knot to add a reply to our scarily large guest list. The Knot has some sort of useful checklists that I check every once in a while. Apparently at three months before your wedding you should start to take better care of your body. "Huh" I thought as I washed the chips, salsa, guacamole and chocolate pudding down with a Hefeweizen.

On Sunday I started a grease fire in my kitchen.

Let me back up. My little brother wanted to come over to my house and make donuts with me on Sunday afternoon, and I agreed. He ended up searching for aircraft to purchase on Craigslist while I did all of the work.

Donuts are fairly simple to make, but there are two simple things you can't really do without:
1) a metal slotted spoon
2) a thermometer

I have neither of those things, but I thought I could improvise. The oil just needs to be really hot, and I can use a...cheese grater to fish out the donuts. Perfect!

I ended up burning myself and putting my loved ones in danger, starting a grease fire on the stovetop, and weeping over a charred plate of congealed dough ashes. I took a photo, but of course cannot download it from my camera. This is so hard.

My brother was not impressed, although he did find this and spend the rest of the afternoon brainstorming on how to get it up to Portland.

I also had an appointment with the Lady Doctor at the student health clinic. I assumed that the Lady Doctor would indeed be a Lady, but as I was sitting there, twiddling my thumbs and making faces at myself in the lid of the tongue swab jar, in walks this guy. And I have a panic attack.



Needless to say, I had to quit school, get a job, get health insurance and go to a new doctor. I am exhausted.

The Keys to the Kingdom are Locked Inside the Kingdom

I need those PTS reports
"Give it to me straight Sven, tell me the truth or so help me, I will carve my own eye out with my grapefruit spoon"

Sven relented and told me aboot Option Five. Option Five is a secret. Sven made me swear on the life of my iBook that I would not tell a soul, but my iBook's life hasn't technically started yet. It has not yet been re-incarnated, as it were. I swore, and Sven told me everything.

Option Five allows you to talk to Real Live Person at your Apple Store rather than Betty, the Automated Bitch From Hell With Some Major Hearing Loss. I say, "iBook Representative" and she says, "Okay! I'll get you an iPod* representative!" I say, "Please let the repair be done soon" and she says, "Okay! I'll get you a grapefruit spoon!"

At the end of the day, I am right back where I started. Basically I get no information out of these guys. Sven knows nothing, Betty know, but she is not telling, and the Real Person at the Apple store says that there is no change on my account, meaning that my iBook is currently being used as a booster seat or a foot rest for the Apple technicians. I am working on breathing in and out on a regular basis.

Muse
I don't really have much to say because I have employed myself as Jessmonster's blog muse. Since I carved up the juicy bits for her, I don't have a whole lot left to give. We had a partay on Saturday to commemorate the birthdays of Mollie and Kitri who turn 8 and 24 respectively on the 12th. Mollie got wasted and ended up passed out under the table with her collar off.

Scraping the Bottom of the Blog Barrel
I swear last night I got 8 hours of REM sleep. It was exhausting. I had intense, crazy dreams involving a deceptively tiny yet heavy red wagon that I had to maneuver through heavy highway traffic.

*Blogger spell check wanted to replace Kitri with "Kidder" and iPod with "wiped"

woe is me. woe.

From now on I will not longer be drinking water. Period. Nothing good comes out of hydration. I'm done with the water. No more liquids at all, actually. I'm done with liquids.

After spending a much longer time than I needed to yesterday, talking with the tech guys at Apple, I began to notice that they all have Canadian accents. I imagined a group of about five blinking, pasty Canucks sitting in a room wearing "bunny hugs" and "tooks" while reaching down periodically to pet their sled dogs. They answer calls from irate United Statesians and continue to be friendly. I know them all by name now. I say, "Hi Otto/Vincent/Olaf/Sven/Doug, how's my baby doing today? Has her data been recovered? When can I see her?? Will she know me?"

I miss my iBook. So. Much. It's kind of sad how lost I feel without it. I don't know what to do with myself these days. I wander around the house, Mollie follows me from room to room. I sit on the red couch and stare. I moan a little. I over-water the garden. I am a shell of my former self.

Tourettes

OH GODDD!!!! FUUUUCCKKKK!!!!!!!!! SHIIIITTTTTTT!!!!!

Hrm. Excuse me. I've been doing that all afternoon. I got a call from a very nice young man at Apple who told me in a friendly Canadian accent that I am royally fucked. The Apple technicians opened up my computer and found standing water. The motherfucking motherboard is fried along with the hard drive, lcd screen, keyboard and everything else.

I believe that the toggle switch used to open the computer was unharmed, thank God.

I have to pay Apple $709.95 plus shipping and taxes to get my iBook back. My iBook that is less than one year old.

I can't believe this. Tonight's agenda involves lots of alcohol.

Breathe

Hi all,
I am posting from Jessmonster's computer and it feels strange. I won't be posting as much for a little while as my faithful iBook was submerged in four inches of water in my bag for an indeterminate amount of time on Monday. Needless to say, it had to go in for repairs. I think that everything will be okay, and all of my info won't be lost.

Please Lord.

I hope to get it back soon, although it might be a whole week. Until that time I shall be wandering listlessly around the house and forgetting important appointments.

Seriously, I had no idea how much my every day life is tied up in that thing. Wedding plans, school work, blogging, schedule, my photos, Google... the list goes on and on.

I must now get back to re-creating papers and other boring tasks.