I tried to break up a fight the other day between two school kids. As I pushed them apart, I growled "Go to God." I meant to say "Go home." They were standing in front of an Islamic school.
@ is looking for a good catch phrase. He's recently tried "Sleep, sleep, sleep" in the local langage, usually as he runs circles through the house. He also likes, "Start your engines," "When I'm a daddy...," "Ka chow," and today "Oh, Jeezle Pete." But my favorites are: "Mommy's alright, daddy's alright, they just seem a little bit wierd" and one that he somehow picked up from Grandmaster Flash - "Don't push me 'cause I'm close to the edge" complete with the stutter in the appropriate spot.
My wife bought me a crate of soda in glass bottles the other day in the hopes that I'll limit myself to one a day. In the two days since then, I've stuck to the diet.
I'm now back in language class since my thesis is done. There's me, a Dutch couple and three Koreans. It's odd but today I got more overhearing the Dutch explanation of a verb than I did when the teacher explained it in English.
Now that we've been here three months, we are not the most clueless foreigners in the city.
Bought one of my favorite animated movies while we were on vacation (Disney's Robinhood -the one with the with the foxes), only to find that it's restricted to a region that won't play on either our computer or DVD player. We'll watch it once we get a universal player...when we get a TV...when we move to the big city...in nine months.
We really like our local church but I realized this past Sunday that sometimes it sounds like their synthesizer-heavy band is playing selections The Cars Worship Album.
Three weeks after I had it approved and I almost understand what my thesis was actually about. And I may have been all wrong.
We now have access to the International School's library so I'm rereading the A Wrinkle in Time books. They are not, no matter what people may say, Christian books. They're not bad, just not Christian.
There's something sad about being in any high school library that doesn't have any Vonnegut or John Irving (World According to Garp, A Prayer for Owen Meany). How many kids could learn to love reading if they just had something horrible but great to read?
While on vacation, I scoured the local bookstores and shopping malls for anything in English I could find. I brought home all three: The Devil's Dictionary by Abrose Bierce, The Best of Sherlock Holmes, and the current Asia Edition of Reader's Digest. The first title I'd rather not have our houseworker see; the last title I'd rather hide from anyone with taste.
Asian television gets around the "no porn on television" laws by calling it "Fashion TV."
When you get used to consistant 88 degree weather, 91 degrees is really hot.
I haven't had a reason to go into a hardware store in at least three weeks.
I can now "juggle" a small playground ball for a dozen or so kicks/headers without letting it touch my hands/arms or the ground.
Amanda's smarter than most people realize. Not just determined or a good worker, as she might admit, but really smart. I taught her Othello the other day and she'll kick my can if I let her play me again. I'm also glad she's a unit ahead of me in language school so I'll see what I'm in for and so she can order food over the phone for us.
2 comments:
As I was wondering why no one in my family had updated their blogs for a couple months, I realized I had accidentally (Freudianally?) deleted the "Family" folder. Ahem.
So, as for your DVD problem, you might try this application, VLC:
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
We used it to watch BBC's Extras DVD in the British Region Code. It's a free download and should work with your PC.
And the fact that my nephew is now quoting, nay, rapping Grandmaster Flash makes me tear up. Nice work.
Also, Madeleine L'Engle said (in Walking on Water) that you would think it would be our Christianity that affects our art, but it's more like our art affects our Christianity.
And that's just in reference to The Cars Worship Album (which is a great idea, by the way).
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