How Much Am I Worth?

The website is actually very interesting. After you take the quiz it breaks down your value and explains it. It's part lightweight fun and part thinking about how much people are 'worth' - can you put a price tag on a human being? And not even in a more abstract sense, but even in a practical sense?

Once I read that the human body would be worth about 5$ if you sold it for scrap...

???

I've had a sore throat since Sunday morning. At first it was very mild, and I had no other symptoms (except being tired, which may have been completely unrelated). After a while it got worse, and since I had been dealing with it for four days, on Wednesday I called the Student Health Center and made an appointment. So today I went to the doctor and she looked and said it didn't look like strep, and I said that I had noticed the same thing (looking for spots, you know). She conjectured that it might be an allergy thing, so I bought some Sudafed. And she said it wasn't contagious.

Then, suddenly, after dinner today, the sore throat went away completely. And I just looked at my tongue in the mirror and it is bright red with white spots. Looks pretty weird.

What the hell?

Altid Dansk, Aldri Norsk

Det var to danskere på festen i natt, og vi pratet litt hyggelig sammen. Og så må jeg spøre: Hvorfor er de altid danske og aldri norske? Jeg hadde ikke virkelig snakket norsk siden jeg snakket med Eva, den danske jenta jeg møtte på en annen fest siste år - bare pratet litt med Uni på Skandinavisk. Og jeg synes at Uni har ikke hjulpet norsken min. Nei, når jeg prater med ham snakker jeg mer og mer nynosk og mindre og mindre bokmål. For eksempel sier jeg nesten aldri 'en pike' nå, aldri, 'ei jente'... og av og til sier jeg 'ikkje'! Og det var to av dem og en av meg, og jeg kunne ikke høre så bra... vi forstod hverandre ikke så bra som Eva og jeg hadde kunne forstå hverandre.

Men de likte det likevel!! Jeg er så glad i skandinavisker. :P

Jeg måtte selvfølgelig si "rød grød med fløde." Først sa jeg det som norske ord, og de sa at det var veldig godt. Da sa jeg det som norske ord og med en innbilt potet in munnen min. Det var ende bedre, sa de. Da måtte jeg si det igjen og igjen i en mikrofon. "En amerikaner som kan dansk!!"Ja, ja. Men jeg kan ikke dansk, jeg kan norsk. NORSK! Men jeg finner aldri nordmenn.

Jeg kunne kanskje snakke med nordmenn. Istedenfor kan jeg bare prate litt med dansker og si "rød grød med fløde" igjen og igjen. Vi forstår hverandre ikke nok til å diskutere mye mer, særlig når det er musikk og så videre. Jeg forstår godt at jeg er en nysgjerrighet. De reiser nok tilbake til Danmark og sier, "jeg fant en amerikaner som kan et skandinavisk språk!"

Haha, okay. Jeg vet ikke hvorfor jeg følte at jeg måtte skrive dette her. Å praktisere norsken min, kanskje. Før det kommer å bli dansk! ;)

Kanye West and Finland?

I saw this and I just couldn't resist.


Immaletyoufinish.com

Words Slipping like Droplets of Sweat

"I could feel the Japanese words slipping like droplets of sweat from my brow."

- Page 7, Turning Japanese, David Mura

The Japanese words, yes, and the German, the Finnish, the Spanish, the Norwegian, the Faroese, the Italian, the Latin... isn't it startling how quickly it abandons you, especially right after a trip? When you go from living and breathing a language to forgetting it ever happened? Eventually the rate of evaporation does slow down, leaving you a sort of thick, sludge like remainder of words that, you think, you are unlikely to forget as long as you know your own language. Still, the speed of the disintegration, the helplessness of it, is striking...

A month ago I could identify close to 200 Kanji. Two months ago the number was about 100, and I could write nearly all of those. Yeah, during my three intense and in-Japan weeks, the rate was too rapid to be sustained, and even in the weeks of preparation I was half learning and half cramming.

How many Kanji can I recognize now? Perhaps one hundred. Perhaps less. How many could I write? Perhaps fifty.

So it goes.

Stress and Stupidity

This morning I realized that I didn't have my jacket. Or the map I got yesterday. With a bit of mental backtracking, I realized that I left it/them either in the computer lab in Johnston or in my Economics classroom. The Econ Classroom was more likely, since I sort of dashed out right when the bell rang to get to the FIG class on time. I asked at Johnston and they knew nothing. I found my jacket in the back of the Econ room :), but no map. :(

My schedule is now officially full to bursting, and it's jumped straight from quite manageable to full of irreconcilable conflicts. For example, I am supposed to be in two small groups this year.

One, for Cross Cultural Journalism, is one of the largest 'small groups' I've ever worked in. It's about 15 people, and they decided to meet tonight and asked for times we were available. I said I was available except for from 5:30 - 7:30, since that's when I have the South Staff meeting. Guess when they scheduled the small group meeting? 6-7. Right. So it's not even possible for me to leave one early and get to the other one late, since it's a half hour walk from where I live to where they're having the meeting (almost the furthest possible point from where I live). It's not personal, of course, I just think that if you have a 'small' group expected to coordinate and meet outside of class, it should be around 8 people at the most. Because I don't know how I'm going to do this.

The other is for Biological Anthropology. I was supposed to be able to get honors credit through contract for that class by attending a discussion group every week. This would really be my only chance at staying n the honors college, since most Journalism classes don't offer honors credit, and Biological Anthropology would potentially give me 5, and I'd be all caught up. But the teacher says he can't find a time for everyone to meet, so he'll probably have to cancel the honors discussion group. I want to know what he means by everyone - couldn't we pick a time most people could come and sacrifice the others? I mean, it sucks, yeah, but I would be less frustrated if they 'sacrificed' me, than if they just canceled the whole thing. It sucks for everyone.

While trying to figure all of this out, I came back to the dorm. I had a few packages and while I was opening them a lady came with stuff for iLife, asking for a Miranda, so I actually got three packages. Feel popular. :D The problem (of course there was a problem), is that one of the packages is something I ordered from Amazon about two weeks ago, and they didn't charge my credit card until it shipped or something... so here I was thinking that had already gone through and that I had 30$ in my account, and suddenly I have 10$. I was comfortably broke and now I'm just destitute. The other problem is that I had ordered an extra small t-shirt. Yeah, extra small my ass. The thing is HUGE. I mean, insanely huge. Reslife gives out really big shirts, but this is the size of their medium, and it's an EXTRA SMALL. I brainstormed ways to use it but gave up. It's so big I think it would even be uncomfortable to sleep in, and anyway I don't pay 20$ for sleepshirts. So I actually had to email the company about it and we'll see how that turns out.

AHHHH!!!!

The Asian Minority

At one point, on the river, Ju and I realized that we hadn't seen Fangbai for a while. We decided to wait for her, since we didn't know what she might have gotten into. So we found a quiet part of the river and stopped paddling, just drifted and ate some more of our lunch. A long time went by and we started to think that maybe we had been mistaken, and that Fangbai had been ahead of us. At this point some other people, not from our group, were going past.

Ju: "Why don't we just ask them if Fangbai is behind us?"

Me: "But they don't know who she is?"

Ju: "Excuse me! Are there three Asian people in a boat behind us?"

Guy: "Yeah."

Ju: "See? Was that so hard?"

Haha. No, not really. But believe it or not I think I felt the effect of having been to Japan. On a river in Mid-Missouri, yes, it makes sense that an Asian canoeist would be unusual enough that someone would remember seeing them and know who we were talking about with just the one adjective. I might have come more quickly to that conclusion a year ago.

But my trip to Japan seems to have changed things a bit. I no longer take it for granted that Caucasians form the majority. In some ways, that's a good thing. But then again, this situation demonstrates the usefulness of categories, and yes, even 'stereotypes' in a sense, for efficient communication.

A Crazy Week

The last week has been insane - both in good ways and bad. This is what I did:

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Monday - Flew home from Dallas, Texas.

Tuesday - South Hall had a fire drill, which I had to help conduct since I'm a P.A. Afterwards I went and played Racquetball with Ju, Prite, and Zahra for two hours. :)

Wednesday - I put up a bulletin board, had a staff meeting with my CET, then ran straight to Rollins for dinner with Tabi, and we went to see Tulpan (a Kazakh film) at the Ragtag.

Thursday - One on One Staff Meeting, then helped Kevin with Spanish a bit, and then ran to Middlebush for the year's first Alpha Mu Gamma meeting. We had great turnout actually. I walked home with Lucy and found out that we have a lot in common, and that we both live in South. Don't know how we missed that before. :P Then I made an email list for AMG.

Friday - I went to the Mosque with Zahra for Ramadan, ate yummy food, and then hung out with her and Maria, her roommate, for a while. Came back to the dorm around eleven and realized that the canoe trip on Saturday started really early in the day. So I had to make a really fast run to Schnucks for Canoe Trip Food before it closed.

Saturday - I woke up at 5:30 for the canoe trip. Do the math - I didn't get much sleep. It was really fun though. Ju and Fangbai were there. The river was low but actually the canoe that Ju and I were using was light enough that we just managed to drift over spots where other people were having to get out and drag. We skipped rocks and went swimming a bit. The water was the perfect temperature. On the way home I got to ride in a cool convertible, and I got home just in time to be on call. (First I ran to Dobbs for dinner and Carole happened to be there, so I ate with her and two of her friends) It was a football night. The stadium was packed with about 60,000 people and they were all chanting and shouting. A bit scary. Oh, and someone peed in the elevator and I got to clean it up. Charming.

Sunday - I slept until noon without even noticing. Then I got up, got dressed, and drove to Fayette. The drive was lovely with yellow wildflowers and old barns. Kristel made vegetarian lasagna and garlic bread which was very good, and then we studied Faroese with Uni for a while, interrupted for forty five minutes by an oboe recital across the street and a quick tour of CMU's campus. Then I drove straight back to campus just in time to meet Laura, Laura, and Peter for dinner at plaza. They were late, though, so first I sat with Allen, Esther, Amy, and Tina for a while, which was also nice. Then I was on call again.

Routine Flights

Today I came back home to Columbia after a weekend in Dallas. Usually I absolutely love traveling, am so filled with excitement and positive energy that even annoying things either fade completely away or become part of the epic. This time, however, the flights and drives were isolated and just felt routine. I imagine that my dad feels this way a lot, but it's new to me.

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I was amused by the airport people's expectations of me.

"Take care, dear."

"It's the second stop. God bless you."

"Are you old enough to be traveling by yourself?"

Me: "I really hope so, seeing as I've flown by myself internationally. And I am nineteen, just so you know."

If people actually see me in action, they rarely say any of these silly things. I check my gate and time on the flight monitor without slowing down, I never pause and look confused, I switch my bag from rolling to carrying and back again quicker than any but the most experience business travelers. So take that.

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On the flight from Dallas into Memphis, we were on a smallish plane. There were twenty rows, with four seats in each row. The girls sitting across from me kept freaking out about how it was the smallest plane they'd ever been on. There was pretty bad turbulence at one point, and they shrieked a bit. When we got off, I heard other passengers complaining to waiting family members in the terminal about what a small plane, what a bumpy ride it had been. I laughed.

The plane from Memphis to Columbia had 20 passengers, one flight attendant, and of course the pilots. It was a propeller plane and shook the entire trip.

--------------

With aspirations as lofty as mine, you would think I'd prefer to call some big city home. You know, someplace cosmopolitan and famous and connected. Actually, I'm proud of being a bit provincial. And while Tokyo and Paris definitely had their charm, I also have a perhaps less common fondness for the smaller, more out of the way destinations, and regular flights on a twenty seat plane, among other things, are helping prepare me for them.

And there's something wonderful about Columbia. It's a bit of brilliant civilization surrounded by a mix of ruralness and wilderness that I love just as much. :) I'm not sure I'll be one of the many graduates who stay here after finishing their studies, but I will enjoy my two and a half remaining years in Mid Missouri.

Nativity

I'm out on the highway, feeling the engine roar as I accelerate, soaring past miles and miles of my Missouri - grasses green and golden and all the late-summer wildflowers, cresting gentle hills, passing through shadows the setting sun casts through the pines, and I feel free... ordinary... native.

It is a strange and wonderful feeling.

C'est la vie

Since I stalkerishly keep track of the Google searches people are using to get to my blog, I've noticed in recent days that a number of people have been ending up on the posts I wrote last Spring about my Spanish Composition class. Their search terms? "Latigosa translation" "Meaning of Recontrafranco" "Viboresca Spanish definition".

... Suddenly I realized. These are college students, using the same textbook I used, using Google as a Dictionary. And here I've provided them a neat little roadmap: my comments on most of the stories, my translations of a few key lines and difficult words, etc. :P

C'est la vie...

Japan - Raw Experiences

I know I keep saying, "Tomorrow, Tomorrow" about Japan. But the truth is that it was so different, so fascinating, that I don't know where to begin. I'm trying to unravel my memories and the things I brought back with me. Some days I cling to the material objects I brought home as souvenirs, because the rest of it seems too ephemeral, too far away.

The whole thing lacks cohesiveness. It exists as a whole, don't misunderstand. If I sat down now I could talk and talk and talk and show pictures and videos and cards and candies and fireworks and paper fans and prattle off words and, after a month, I could tell you about Japan. But it's tangled in my mind, and untangling it is not something that can be rushed through. I can't tell you the ten best parts, nor show you the ten best photos. It is all tied together, one giant mass of raw experiences.

That doesn't mean I'm not working with it at all. Today I thought about the video I plan to make, combining video clips I took while in Japan. I gathered those clips today, strung them all together on Windows Movie Maker, and watched. When all was said and done, I took 36 minutes of video in Japan, mostly in the form of five to ten second clips.

- Traffic
- The funicular rising to Mt. Koya
- The water flowing in and out of the Koya Dofu, like a sponge
- Crabs scuttling around Miyajima at low tide
- Flowers blowing in the wind
- Passing sunlit forests by bus
- Mists climbing Mt. Misen
- The reflection of the Golden Pavilion
- Tokyo's most crowded alley
- Waterfalls
- Windchimes in Kanazawa
- The tide coming in around Miyajima's floating shrine
- Clouds enveloping an island in the inland sea
- Miniature rivers in Kenrokuen
- Crowds in the Tokyo subway
- A tame deer attacking in search of food
- The turbulent waters under the Shogun Bridge in Nikko
- Crowds leaving Tokyo Disney Sea as it closes
- A firework festival
- Crows in a graveyard in Kyoto
- The waves on the shores of the lake of the dead
- Bubbling, sulfurous pools of Mount Fear
- Summer fireworks with Mayumi and Mitsuki
- The world's busiest intersection
- A white moth, fluttering in circles over the red earth
- Rainwater hitting the roof of shrines
- The steaming source of the hot mineral waters of Yumoto Onsen
- The Japanese bath in Sanboin
- Karaoke Boats
- The Illuminated Earth in Yokohama
- A giant mechanical spider
- Ginza from the Sky Bus
- A duck feeding in the marshes on Yumoto
- Matsuri Gion procession
- Rushing past houses and rivers and dams on the train
- City bells and strong winds in Mutsu
- The top of the waterfall in Takayama
- The Japanese river Styx
- Lavender Fields
- Looking over Yokohama from the Ferris Wheel


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"The novel looked ragged and unfinished, like the hull of a ship rotting on the beach."
- Turning Japanese, David Mura

A white moth, fluttering in circles over the red earth.

The Faroese Coincidence

So, it had been a while, pretty much all summer, since I had experienced any of the psychotic coincidences that characterized last Spring. Remember, the mutual friends I had in common with the Norwegian guy studying here, the many uncanny similarities between Danial and I, that I knew the exact area this one guy lived in Brazil, that I'd been to Elisa's Naantali, etc...

Another one just hit. And I think it will have more of a useful effect on my life than the others. You see, it turns out that I am not the only person in the world who is learning Faroese. I am not even the only American learning Faroese, or the only Midwesterner. In fact, there are two other people here in my home state of Missouri who are learning this odd but awesome language - and they live a short twenty minute drive from Columbia!

Enter Kristel and Zac. They approached Uni in Uni's Meebo chat, and Uni thought he'd put us in touch with one another, since we all live in the same state. As it turned out, we live close enough to meet weekly! Kristel even used to be an MU student, so we decided to meet at nearby Memorial Union, which we both knew well.

So far it's awesome. They're very nice and we've had fun together. We have the Lockwood text from the MU library (which they repaired over the summer - the new binding even matches the title on the cover :D), and they are planning to order the famous 'new' books any day now. What I'm trying to figure out is what's the most unlikely part of the whole situation:

A.) That I exist

B.) The they exist

C.) That despite living twenty miles away from each other, we met through Uni, who lives thousands of miles away from any of us

:)

Not only is this all fun, it is giving me the motivation to actually work on Faroese, both because I have people to be accountable to, and because I sort of take the whole thing as a sign. Faroese is not easy and it's not even always fun, but I'm starting to get there. I'm at least starting to understand the complicated framework on which everything hangs - and, once you can visualize the framework, the language becomes possible. I remember when this started to happen with Finnish.

Uni and I have put in a lot of long hours working on my pronunciation, and I'm actually starting to learn. It's a thin line, though, since I don't want to forget how to pronounce German and Norwegian on the way, so I'm trying to break it up and speak those every once in a while. The spelling doesn't seem quite as chaotic as it used to - patterns are starting to emerge. And it amuses me greatly that however I mangle a word initially, Uni always seems to say, "You sound just like people from ____oy!!"

Mini-Onigiri with Hint of Lemon

Onigiri are a traditional and delicious Japanese snack consisting of a ball of sticky rice, handrolled around a salty or sour filling, and then wrapped in a thin layer of crisp seaweed. Today I was craving the basic idea of Onigiri, especially the delightful texture, but I didn't have Japanese rice, any of the traditional fillings, good quality Onigiri seaweed, or the dedication to do things 'exactly right'. So, I played around and invented these Mini-Onigiri with a Hint of Lemon.

I found them delicious, and shared them with some friends. They were extremely apprehensive at first - I think it was their first time eating seaweed. But they were all amazed by how much they enjoyed it, and kept asking me if there was some sort of sauce in it. Nope! Just yummy sticky rice. (and a hint of lemon)

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This is what you need:

1 cup uncooked calrose rice (or Japanese rice. Just make sure it can get good and sticky)
1 teaspoon-tablespoon of oil
1 teaspoon of salt
A bit of lemon (I cut four very thin slices from a real lemon. Just lemon juice or peel would be okay I'm sure - add to taste)
Some seaweed (the low quality, sesame oil covered, snack variety works fine. Just make sure it comes in at least small flat sheets, so you can use it to wrap the rice)

A Rice Cooker (or you can try cooking the rice in a pot. You're on your own)


First, you'll need to cook the rice. If you're confident in your own sticky-rice-cooking skills, feel free to skip this section - but do add the oil, salt, and lemon whenever you feel is appropriate. Otherwise stay with me. Heat the oil in your rice cooker. Add the uncooked rice and stir until the hot oil is coating each grain. Let cook like this for a minute or two.

Add the water and the salt. Stir. Turn the rice cooker to the warm setting and let sit for a few minutes, if you like to soak your rice. I did, the first time I made this recipe. After that, turn the rice cooker on and let it cook.

Most rice cooker turn themselves to the warm setting when the rice is finished. When the rice is almost finished, (there's still a bit of liquid and a lot of steaming), add the lemon. You don't have to stir it in or anything, (in fact, don't, unless you just put in peel or something else you can take out before eating) just leave it on top of the rice and shut the lid. The aroma and taste of the lemon will permeate the rice nicely.

When you're finished, let the rice cool until you can handle it easily with your bare hands. Then, take a bit (about a handful), and press it between your hands. It should hold shapes relatively easily, since it's sticky rice. Make a circle - oval -triangle - whatever, then take a strip of seaweed and fold it over the outside of your riceball. You don't need to fully wrap the onigiri, so that no rice shows, although you can if you want. Normally I just wrap a square of seaweed around one edge, so I can hold it and get a bit of salty crunch. Repeat until you've used up all your rice and seaweed, and you should have a lovely place of rice balls.

Wash your hands, since they'll be sticky. Onigiri are finger food, and you're supposed to hold them with the seaweed wrapper. Enjoy!!! ^^

Universität Bonn

I have been date and prerequisite checking like mad. It looks as if my crazy plan of studying abroad in German, Spain, and Norway is actually going to work. Last Friday I went to the Journalism School to ask some questions about my sequence, and I also met with the Study Abroad Adviser for Journalism. None of it's going to be easy, but she said it would probably work out. The main problem is going to be applying for my Spanish Visa when I'm in Germany. :S I really don't want to be passport-less for a month in central Europe. But I'll do what I have to do.

Today I went and talked to the adviser for Germany. It's come to my attention that it may not be the easiest thing in the world to prove that I've fulfilled the prerequisites for studying in Germany, thanks to the whole class skipping thing. Also, my German teacher last semester, who was awesome and would totally write me a letter of recommendation, is IN Germany this year, so it may be hard for me to get a hold of her if I need such a letter.

But those are relatively minor issues. Otherwise it looks pretty good. The German adviser is nice, although I got the feeling that she deals with a lot of students who don't know what they're getting themselves in for with Study Abroad. (Probably a direct result of strongly encouraging everyone to do so. They'll learn a lot, yes, but they'll probably have some rough times adjusting to doing things by themselves, meeting deadlines, etc)

Also, she doesn't speak German, which means that it's very much up to me to figure out all the fancy German on the University of Bonn's websites. Probably a good thing - I can't hope to pass a class if I can't even decipher it's name. Still, they pretty much use the fanciest words they can, which makes it an interesting exercise in breaking down compound words.

https://basis.uni-bonn.de/qisserver/rds?state=wtree&search=1&category=veranstaltung.browse&topitem=lectures&subitem=lectureindex&breadcrumb=lectureindex&k_semester.semid=20092&idcol=k_semester.semid&idval=20092&purge=n&getglobal=semester&text=Wintersemester+2009%2F09

When I am in Pamplona, I will be studying Journalism. I should have a class or two of availability left after I max out my Journalism abroad credits, though, and I'm filling those with Spanish. On the other hand, in Germany and Norway, I really can't take any classes for Journalism or Spanish. If I see an opportunity to knock out a Spanish credit, I'll take it, regardless of the weirdness of studying Spanish in Norway, but still, it's only one credit.

Which means I'm pretty much free to drool at the other course offerings. This is my chance to take Anthropology, Art History, Psychology, even... OTHER LANGUAGES!!

This wildly exciting thought first occurred to me when, still trying to get my bearings, I stumbled upon an Italian class. I've always wanted to actually study Italian, I thought! And Russian too! I also clicked on the Asian studies section to look into that Japanese class I've always wanted to actually take. And... Wow.

Just Wow.

Arabisch

Chinesisch

Hindi

Indonesisch

Japanisch

Koreanisch

Mongolisch

Persisch

Sanskrit

Tibetisch

Türkisch

Urdu

Want want want want.

Especially Tibetan. I mean come on.

And suddenly I have this image of myself in Bonn, the former capital of Germany, eating Brötchen every day, and studying German (natürlig) alongside Art History, Italian, and Tibetan. It could happen.


Five Other Reasons why Universität Bonn is awesome:


1.) It Saves my Eurocentric Dignity

By some awful twist of fate, University of Navarra (Pamplona) and University of Bergen are both very young schools. Disturbingly young, actually, for European countries. After all, they're supposed to be thousands of years old, the site of dozens of historical events, and the alma mater of all of history's greats, right?

Add to that the interesting fact that University of Missouri Columbia is the oldest University this side of the Mississippi, and you have the threat of an irony that just cannot be allowed to happen. "Yes, I've studied in three European Universities, and my Midwestern University was older than any of them! Plus Brad Pitt went there!"

But lo! The day is saved by Bonn! Founded in 1818, it is a whole 21 years older than my University of Missouri-Columbia.

And Forget about Brad Pitt - he didn't even graduate!

Let's talk real notable alumni:

2.) Nietzsche

The Famous Philosopher!

3.) Goebbels

The Famous Nazi!

4.) Karl Marx

The Famous Communist!

5.) The Pope

Enough Said.