Vegemite- Australia’s Beloved Snack
Must Be An Acquired Taste
•December 16, 2012 • 1 CommentWo bu ai chi cai!
•December 14, 2012 • Leave a CommentDo you hate vegetables? Well these children hated them so much they decided to rap about them AND in CHINESE! I was surfing the web and found this amazing video! I am all about learning a language through music and I think this video will assist with those who are learning Mandarin Chinese. There are some basic phrases that would help for beginners. Enjoy this epic video and give the kids some slack, they look like their four or six year olds.
My Class
•November 24, 2012 • Leave a CommentTuesday, November November 20th was my final day of student teaching. It was difficult to imagine I had been teaching for almost two and a half months close to three months. This was the final chapter in my university career at Fayetteville State and I am looking forward to graduating around the beginning of December. Despite my eagerness to graduate, I am going to truly miss my students. Even though I was not the real teacher (only a student teacher), I held all the responsibilities of an actual instructor. These kids mean a lot to me and I hope that they will continue to strive in their studies so as to have a bright successful future. I wanted to post these images earlier in the week, but I have been working on my portfolio for my EDUC 490 course which accompanies student teaching. These photographs are of the cards and gifts my students got me for my last day, needless to say I was shocked and a little teary eyed. I can easily count on both hands how many times I have cried in my life, so getting teary eyed is rather unusual for me. I hope you all enjoy these cards as much as I did!
A Farewell Cake
GoodBye Cards
From My 3rd Period Civics Class
From My 4th Period Civics Class
From the teachers whom I had the privilege of working with.
Bu Yao Bu Yao!
•November 20, 2012 • Leave a CommentGenie Zhuo used to be more of a personal favorite of mine, especially after watching a drama she was in (Love Queen). The drama was just a cute little Taiwanese story of two lovers finding each other after ten odd years. But back to her music, her last two albums, she has been releasing more ballad type music and that is really not my thing. I prefer rock, techno, or pop. So when I saw this music video in my subscriptions feed on YouTube, it sparked my interest. I think it has a very catchy beat and the lyrics are pretty simple for those who are learning Chinese! 😛
After School Chinese
•November 14, 2012 • Leave a Comment
After School Chinese Club
We have been meeting after school since basically the beginning of this semester and these students have been very dedicated in showing up for our Chinese club! Through out the length of this club, we discussed everything from tones, grammar, music, movies and culture. We even read Ailing Zhang’s classic short story “Sealed Off”. But today we had a very special meeting and we enjoyed plenty of good food and good fellowship! I am so proud of my students and I believe they have increased a lot considering the circumstances, especially for those who never studied Chinese before. I will definitely miss this portion of my student teaching and to be honest, this is really what I looked forward to every week. My only prayer is that my students will continue their quest in becoming as proficient as a native Chinese speaker!
Chinese Advert For Presidential Candidates
•October 31, 2012 • 2 Comments
It seems as though China bashing has become a popular thing among politicians and even though I am a somewhat suspicious of China’s role as a superpower, I do not see China as a threat. Only time will tell how China handles it’s territorial disputes with countries like India, Japan, the Philippines and Taiwan. If China handles these issues in a diplomatic and peaceful manner, I think this would establish well deserved precedent on future ways of handling China. This ad that I am discussing was probably influenced from the last Presidential debate on foreign diplomacy. The candidates continued to bash Chinese economic policy, but from what I have seen, the USA is doing almost the same thing for its own economic policy. Though the Communist government in charge of China is still ruthless, they have managed to tone it down considerably in order to obtain international favor. But before I end this blog post, I am very surprised that these Asians took part in this political advert. The last comment made by the Chinese professor and the crowd roaring with laughter was somewhat offensive and I thought that perhaps it may have been even more so for Asian Americans. My only guess is that these are Asian Americans or Asians residing in the United States since this commercial was done for the American political campaign. Either way I believe that this commercial is nothing but blatant propaganda and offensive to the Asian American community and for myself being an East Asia enthusiast. It definitely creates a ethnic divide among American citizens. Hmm if I didn’t know American politics better, I would say this is discreet racism…
First Impressions
•October 28, 2012 • 1 Comment
Windows 8 Screenshot
So my first impressions is that it is definitely different. I unlike many other people did not download a demo of Windows 8. I did a test run of Windows 7, but until recently I was not even interested in Windows 8. Windows 8 is definitely a beautiful looking OS, but I am not sure if the eye-candy is going to be enough to change my mind. My laptop is somewhat old and is not touch capable. From what I have heard from my tech friends is that this distro of Windows is really intended for modern computers with touch enabled screens.
Another negative thing about Windows 8 is the operating system is not intuitive. Apparently laptops that are coming with Windows 8 pre-installed will have special buttons called charms. These charm buttons will make the operating system much more interactive than those computers without these buttons. My laptop being an older model does not have this capability. If it was not for the short intro video before Windows booted, I would not have known about pointing my mouse to the corners in order for the menus to pop up.
When I was using Windows 7 all of my laptop’s drivers worked out of the box. The only thing that was necessary was me having to launch Windows Update and update the drivers. Windows 8 is another issue. The audio driver for my laptop is not working and I have been surfing the internet trying to find a fix. My laptop is a Japanese laptop and I am not sure if this is for all Japanese laptops, but finding drivers is a little different from how it is set up for laptop manufacturers here in the USA. My fingerprint reader is also not working…
The last bummer that I will mention is when I heard several tech journalists saying there was a desktop interface similar to Windows 7, I was expecting to use that more than the Metro interface. The only problem though is there is not a traditional start menu, the start menu is the Metro interface . So I am just going to have to get used to some things. But besides the negative, some of the positive things would be that it is extremely fast!
The other major reason why I wanted to purchase Windows 8 is because Windows has finally decided to support display languages! I can finally change the display language to Chinese or Korean! This in my opinion has been a major lacking feature in the Windows Operating System. It was equally easy to install these language packs and corresponding IMEs. So anyways I will definitely try and do another post after I’ve gotten used to a few things in the next week!
Ai Weiwei bailando el Gangnam Style on YouTube
•October 25, 2012 • Leave a CommentI belive that men are endowed with certain unalienable rights from our Creator and one of those rights being the freedom of expression and speech. Even if that speech may be hurtful to certain parties. I have been following Chinese political activist Ai Weiwei for some time now. I sympathize with him having experienced the Great Firewall first hand on multiple occasions. Even though Chinese sites like Youku and Toduo censored Ai Weiwei’s video, thankfully it was uploaded to YouTube. I am sharing his video even though the movie is not as good as the original, it’s a matter of principle. Like this post if you support Ai Weiwei.
Old Vietnam Photos
•October 21, 2012 • Leave a CommentChao! Today’s post is a little unique. I acquired this old photo album at a local auction here in town, it belonged to an old army officer who served during the Vietnam War. I bought it because I love history and photographs, but because of the nature of these photos, I decided not to upload them all. The photo album contained some photos that were taken of different soldiers and an American helicopter crash. I do not condone the Vietnam War, so I did not want to post all the photos, as it might offend others. Most of the photographs though in this album were of the Vietnamese people the various different scenes across southern Vietnam. This was a pretty unique find and I wanted to share it with others than just myself!
This beautiful photo album is hand painted and made of two slates of wood.
Comedy Night
•October 18, 2012 • Leave a CommentToday I have been in a comedy watching mode and I have been watching a lot interviews/ sketches done by Aubrey Plaza! I love how she always has this serious expression on her face and she is constantly cracking jokes. I loved her acting in Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World even though she had a pretty small role in the movie. She has recently done another movie called “Safety Not Guaranteed” and I am excited to check it out once it hits Redbox or Amazon. It comes out at the end of this month (October).
This second bunch of comedians I actually showed yesterday to my civics class. It was the last few minutes of class, so I figured it would be good for them after studying so hard! The Mitchell and Webb Show is a pretty funny British comedic duo and in this skit they are making fun of the Nazis during WWII.
The last comedian that I have been enjoying lately is Tim Hawkins. I first heard about him during one Wednesday night Crosswalk service (Christian Youth Group service). One night the pastor decided to show him and everyone was cracking up. Who says Christians don’t have no fun! Anyways hope you all enjoy these recommendations, I have been enjoying them basically all day!
branhow.com 