The Answer to Life: 42

There are approximately seven weeks left in the school year. I haven't been getting many calls to substitute. I'm sure that teachers are in the crunch to teach their students in time for the big finals. No time for breaks, ergo, no need for substitutes. I need another job. I actually started doing applications for retail/sales-- bookstores, shopping malls... The thing is: I'm a teacher... a professional who was making $$$. I'm sure I'm not getting any calls because I'm overqualified for minimum wage jobs.

I'm stuck in limbo. It sucks. And I'm bored out of my mind as I linger about the house, trying to finding the purpose of my wasted days.

Reverse Culture Shock In Effect... Now

Today was my first official day of going back to work. Yes, audience, I started substituting again. As I walked on campus, marveling at being back in an American high school, I was also at a dismay when I started seeing the way girls dress. Did shirts gets tinier? Did skirts get smaller? Did low-rise jeans get lower? And those boys... sagging that you can see their boxers curve their asses. I hate playing dress code police. Why don't fathers check what their daughters are wearing? I almost began to miss the Japanese school uniforms.

Luckily, the classes I subbed weren't so bad... until the last period. Female culprit; her outfit: low-rise jeans and a black blouse baring a bit of midriff. Sounds and looks tame. In fact, I didn't even think much of it. Not until the very end of class when she turned in her desk and started talking to some of her classmates. She had been talking for most of the period, so when the bell rang, I called her to approach the bench.

In cold female to female honesty, I said to her: "I just wanted to say that when you sit down, your butt-crack shows."

She laughed. I don't know whether she laughed because she tried to hide her embarrassment or because she didn't believe me. Maybe she even laughed because I was just a substitute who had no real jurisdiction and she thought she was going to get away with it today. Or maybe she laughed because she thought she was going to be in trouble for talking so much and she didn't expect me to make a comment about her ass. She laughed and disregarded my comment. I couldn't tell her to pull up her pants. They were already low. I was so itching to say some degrading sexist comment. Must... control... myself.

And damn you, Britney Spears. I blame you for all of this.

Breaking Out of My Shell

Went to the job fair. I handed out 6 resumés! Now, I didn't just hand them out just so I can achieve my goal, but I gave them to districts that I seriously thought about teaching in. Not only that, I got interviewed on the spot by a school representative.

I'm so proud of myself. It's times like these when I feel I can actually conquer the world. I'm feeling more confident that I will get a job this coming school year.

The Psyche of Asian Submissiveness

There's a stereotype that all Asians are politely mannered and submissive, that we're such a friendly people. Maybe it's a cultural thing that all Asian parents teach their children. They encourage them to always do their best. I'm sure that non-Asian parents teach their kids those same ideals and values that hard work pays off, but I think that there's an element that is missing when Asian parents try to instill in their children those same ideals.

I could never actually describe this element... until now. It's that weird submissiveness psyche. I've always been taught that girls should never be forward, and I believed it was some age-old sexism that a woman's place is in the home; an independent and headstrong woman will never find a husband. A husband feels that it is his role to take care of his wife, and a woman who can take care of herself is a turn-off to any man who wants a traditional household. Believe it or not, this ideal is very much alive in Asia.

But I don't think it is much sexism as it is the psyche of being Asian. People from Asia with different cultures are at opposite poles with American ideals. In retrospect, I saw a lot of it back in my old university. And I'm seeing it more now in the job market. Asian parents only encourage their children to do their best, while I believe that Caucasian parents encourage independence. These two things-- doing one's best versus independence-- can alter the way a child will grow.

My parents have always taught that I should just do my best. If I ever failed, well... at least I tried. Those were always the comforting words: "At least you tried." Now as a teacher, I'm seeing it all over again. My Asian kids just seem to do the work, they sometimes participate in class, and they accept whatever I give them. They whole heartedly believe that if they do everything, they will get the best grade they possibly could. My Caucasian students are different. Why do they always challenge me? Why do they always argue with me when I give them a grade that they don't like? Why do they try to bargain with me when they fail assignments?

I took it as a sign of disrespect when they come up to me and argue their grade when it's not to their liking. But then I realized something: it's that very skill that makes them more competitive in college and most of all, in the job market. In college, I rarely participated in class, but all my White classmates said a lot. I begin to wonder, how much of their thinking has influenced the classroom to the point where it had affected my learning? I will never know because I never voiced my opinion and my perspective. I sat and listened. Sometimes I participated. I never argued about my grades even when I should have (like those shitty poetry and grammar classes taught by professors who didn't like their subject matter and obviously didn't care about seriously teaching it.) In the meantime, I've heard stories of my White classmates setting up appointments to see their professors during office hours, they loudly voiced their opinions in a lecture class, and in one case, I remember a male student arguing with a professor about abortion laws. I would never have the guts to do that-- not even in the privacy of an office.

And in the job market... while I hang back and politely introduce myself and answer all the questions, I see my White competitors taking initiative by making themselves known and heard. I came upon this two years ago while I was in the credential program. There was a job fair for teachers. I went and talked to some of the people and handed out my resumé. I made ten copies of my resumé and I only handed out three. I was intimidated at that fair. Intimidated by all the White people; intimidated that when I was talking to a recruiter, a White girl stood behind me eagerly waiting for her turn with resumé in hand; intimidated that while I waited to talk to a recruiter, a White person could talk for an endless five minutes to make himself or herself stand out from the crowd, saying everything from their name to other bits of information that was never on their resumé . They took control of their conversations, asking all sorts of questions. To sum it all: it looked like they were interviewing the recruiters. They took initiative.

After the conference, I talked to some friends in the same credential program. I only handed out three resumés while my classmate, who we used to tease as our "token White guy," handed out eight of his ten copies. I felt like a loser.

I've always believed that doing my best would always get me far, but now I'm thinking differently. Competing for a job is fierce and I have to be aggressive and prove to people that I am the best. Yet doing that is so difficult because it was never in my mentality to be aggressive. It's like being something I'm not. I believe in hard work, but I always thought it would pay off and I will get my rewards. In this case, I have to fight for my rewards.

I feel that that is what's missing in the dynamic of teaching Asian kids success. They are only taught that hard work is good, but hard work is just the basic thing. Competition and taking initiative are just as important. It's a mentality that is not really instilled in Asian culture.

I have a job fair to attend to this week. I may have more experience than those newbie fledgling student-teachers in the credential program, but that doesn't guarantee that I'll get a job. If there's one thing that I learned from Japan, it was that everyone saw me as the aggressive and individualistic American because I spoke my mind too much. But that was Japan; I need to stick out more here in America just as I stuck out too much over there. So, now I have a goal. I have ten newly updated resumés , and I better hand out at least five or more. (It depends on how many interesting districts will be there. I'm picky that way.)

Fledging student-teachers, beware!

I'm the Blonde One, and I'm All Right With That

Even though I'm a teacher (and generally stereotyped as a smart person), I can be really dumb at times. I admit: my degree and credentials only prove I am adept enough in the classroom, but when it comes to social graces and wit, I can be really clueless. One of my friends fittingly described that only in our inner circle do they actually find my naivete as a source of humor. I'm glad of that. I provide some enjoyment and maybe one day, their gentle rebukes --an oxymoron!-- will sharpen my soft-hearted gullible edges. In the meantime, I'm grateful that I have some friends who just let me be that way and don't point out the fact, nor do they demand, that I should be a smarter person just because of my occupation and academic background.

Up and Running

Ever since my return to Stateside, I've had a near-horrific experience when I discovered that the Internet has been unplugged at the house due to redecorating. I never knew how much my life has revolved around Internet-- from checking email (basic communication to friends) to routine paperwork (typing letters for job interviews) to mundane research (what district is hiring now?). I've wasted nearly three weeks doing nothing productive. Not to say that Internet is the only way to be productive, but it was the source of being productive.

Well, now that the Internet is up and running again... my days can finally start off properly.

Traitor to My Own Kind

When I was young, one of my sisters made fun of me because I listened to alternative music, a genre of rock and grunge. She called it "white music" because only white people created it and listened to it. It used to piss me off when she said "white music," as if it was a bad thing, hinting that I was "whitewashed." I argued once that she listened to rap music and pointed out that she wasn't black. But in my time, the majority of Asians in my high school were listening to rap, and her rebuttal was that it was "acceptable." 

Whitewashed. It's a stereotype, and then it's not. Ever since college, I hated this word and at the same time, I can easily identify with it. It's everything I am, and then am not. The first time I ever heard that word was in an old movie about Tom Sawyer where one of the characters was punished for misbehaving in school, so he had to "whitewash" the outhouse. I assumed that meant he had to clean it, so I always associated "whitewash" with cleaning and sterilizing. The other time I heard it, in its more offensive tone, was from my own sister. Just the tone of how she said it made me realize that I was different from her and the culture we grew up. 

My family is Filipino. My sisters and I grew up in America. In the place where we lived, we were surrounded by Mexicans, Filipinos, Blacks (African-Americans, if you want me to be PC about it), and some Caucasians. My high school was mixed with the Asians being the majority, but we never had much of an impact on the school culture. If anything, Black culture was popular-- everything from rap music, style and fashion, and language. My sister and I grew up around this, but she identified with it more than I did. She liked hip-hop and rap and R&B music and I liked alternative music. Simply put: she saw it as black and white. Maybe my sister saw me as an oddball because I wasn't like the majority of Filipinos at school who followed Black culture. 

I thought I found my niche in the world when I entered college. I was with people who had the same experience as I have: growing up in a multi-cultural environment. But college itself posed a different environment which made me want to get out of my comfortable niche. Affirmative Action was banned from campus, but its lingering effect haunted me for the rest of my college years. I went to college to discover myself and my limits and push my beliefs into ideas where I can develop myself further, and Affirmative Action was like a forceful protest of anti-whatever shouting to my face to believe their propaganda. Affirmative Action was a group of students preaching to me to be proud of myself and my culture and to support my culture by supporting Affirmative Action which will help me to support my culture. It was a roundabout argument which did not answer my lifelong question: what is my culture?

I have written before in past entries about biculturalism. It was my perfect niche. I am Filipino but I adapted to American culture. I felt comfortable with this because it perfectly described who I was. But living in Japan has made me rethink this. To the Japanese, I am not American because I am not white. But there are times when I don't feel like a Filipino because of the American ideals and history that I grew up with. Being bicultural means identifying with both cultures-- Filipino and American. And now I realized that I don't really identify with both equally. In truth, I identify more with American than with Filipino culture. As far as my Asian roots are concerned, I only know food. I know how to eat it, but I don't know how to cook it. Language-- I can understand it only a little, but I can't even speak it. And for cultural traditions and history that date as far back as the Spanish occupation in the 1500s, they are lost and meaningless to me. I can easily identify with American culture, but no matter how knowledgeable I am of American life, some people still see me as a foreigner because I am not white. Everyone wants to categorize. I am not fully Filipino because of my Americanized upbringing, but I am not fully American because I am not white. 

I once wrote that I didn't care about fitting into a category, but even after a while, I want to have my place in the world... without being asked those invasive questions about who I am and what I am. I have often thought of reintroducing myself to my own culture by learning the language, learning to cook, and having my mother speak to me only in Ilocano or Tagalog. I once thought about visiting the Philippines to reacquaint myself with Filipino people who have a deeper understanding of our culture and to participate in the daily lifestyle of pure Filipino traditions, but when I see Filipinos, I am turned off by their arrogance and pride. They don't like Americanized Filipinos, yet they try to aspire to be Westernized. The Japanese are the same way: they don't always like foreigners, but try to be Westernized. And even if they are Westernized, the Japanese still have a strong sense of unity and cultural pride, that despite Chinese and American occupations at different points in history, they have retained their core, adapting around cultural influences. 

Filipinos are different. They are fascinated by foreigners, they try to be Westernized, and in the end, when they become Westernized, they have an arrogant air about them which they will look down on their own people. I try to understand this strange mix of pride and disgust, from my perspective and from theirs. My aunt explained to me that 300 years of Spanish rule and then 50 years of American occupation has led the Philippines and the Filipino people into a state of confusion of who they are. After three centuries of submission to an authority that meant to rule and overpower them, and then freed by Americans who helped to educate them, but not really to rebuild their government, the Philippines are in a state of purgatory. They are trying hard to reestablish themselves and who they are, but are forever stagnant in arrested development while corrupt leaders play a game of power. Nearly four centuries of just succumbing to invaders, the Philippines only knows submission. They don't know leadership, and so they vote for actors who plead with emotions to be their future presidents. And for those already in power, it's a euphoria of fame and egomania. They think being on top means having their way, forgetting that they have a duty to the people first. Three hundred years of oppressive rule is the only kind of leadership that they know. So the people are forgotten. They have nothing left but their pride and whatever is left of their battered culture. They come from a country that has forgotten itself, so the people have only themselves. 

These are the Filipino people I see. They are left with their language and a small part of whatever is left of their roots. And when I see these people, they look down on me with condescending stares. I am an Americanized Filipino. They see me as one who has had a life of privilege, who never knew hardship or what it was like to be poor. Language is the only real sign of cultural loyalty, and since I don't speak it, I am a traitor to my own kind. They give me a condescending stare because they think they are better than me, a tainted Filipino, a "banana"-- white on the inside, yellow on the outside. And I return one arrogant stare with another. I am tainted. I am "whitewashed." I may not know true Filipino culture, but whatever I learned about my heritage, I learned from my parents--and maybe that's all I need. I am a traitor to my own kind because I don't have any love for my native country, and because I now fully understand the renunciation of my native citizenship--and I am glad for it. They look at me with loathing, and I return the favor. I look at those Filipinos with disgust because they used someone to get them out of the Philippines, particularly the women. They married someone who promised to get them out of poverty, and once they got out, they think they're better than the Filipinos who were left behind. And when they arrive in America, they still think they are better than the Americanized Filipinos who they deem to be tainted. What a bunch of hypocrites! But who's to blame them for that? The Philippines and the Filipinos were never uprooted per se, but our roots and our foundation have been stomped on, replanted, stomped on, recycled over and over again. The future of the Philippines is being built on shaky ground. The people reflect that: what is there to be proud of when one has to leave their country and try to be anything but Filipino? What kind of roots can one look back on when all we see is the end result of foreign occupation and brainwashing? What foundation do we build for our future when we ourselves embody the confusion that torments our country? 

I am ashamed to admit when I realize I have placed a stereotype on another person, especially on my own people. Time and again, I have been made to rethink about my identity and my position in a long history of personal self-discovery and its connection to my homeland. But I, too, have pride. Why should they have more right to label me without thinking about who they are? They are not any different from me. I grew up in America, and now they come and try to be American, too. I struggle everyday about who I am and the labels placed upon me. I may be "whitewashed," but I am no longer afraid to deny it because it's true. And yet the color of my skin constantly reminds me of my roots and family history and heritage, so I cannot deny that I am a person of color either. Not white, not Asian, but not in-between either. Unlike the other hypocritical Filipinos, I don't deny anything. But who's to say who is better than whom? All I know is that I have struggled with this since high school, and I will probably struggle with it for the rest of my life.

I recently got this email from a friend who I haven't heard from in a long time. He asked me how I was and why I was in Japan. His email seemed fairly long, giving me a quick rundown on his life and then asking me questions about mine. It seemed to me that he wanted to resume contact with a lost friend. We were good friends, and I think we still are, even though I haven't really spoken to him in three or four years.

So I emailed him back. I answered his questions, and I asked him more questions about what he was doing.

I never got a reply from him again.

Really, what is the point of sending out emails to people you have rare contact with in the past few years? Out of the blue, I get an email from a friend I haven't heard from in a long time, and when I send him a reply, we are back to where we were: no contact whatsoever. I'm not mad, but I was hoping to get a reply back, maybe even resume the friendship again.

If you really don't care, don't bother. If you just want to see that my email account is active and that I exist, just send some "TEST--HELLO!!" message. I'll send one back, and at least we made the courtesy to say hi.

Fantasy movies of the sword and sorcery variety don't always succeed in the theaters-- a rare exception for Lord of the Rings though. But what other fantasy movie had great success?

Dungeons and Dragons? Um... No.
Willow? Uh... maybe.
Conan adventures. Sure.

I want to scream because I just discovered that Elric might be made into a movie. I read the Elric Saga by Michael Moorcock when I was in high school. I love Elric. I always dreamed that maybe it would be a movie-- or better yet-- animation because the parallel universe is too complex for it to be realized in real settings. Yoshitaka Amano's Elric portraits are beautiful enough to make me think that Elric was made for animation.

Instead, I find this, comedian brothers possibly creating the fantasy world of Elric and Melnibone. I shall commence praying now...

Book Review: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Five reasons why I like reading Harry Potter:
1. Hermione
2. Hermione
3. Hermione
4. Hermione
5. Hermione

It only took me three days to read. It was so good. What I really liked was Harry's character development and how flawed a person he can be. You think the main character of a book would be like a superstar, a goody-goody who can do no wrong, but this book really showed Harry's narrow-minded view of himself and how his "tragic me" mentality can land him in trouble. Hermione even points this out.

A new character in the book was Professor Umbridge. Rowling did a good job of making me really hate this character. I wish I could just reach into the book and strangle Umbridge and her "hem, hem." I loved how McGonnagall can really bite back at her with her sarcastic retorts.

And Snape. Who can forget our lovely Snape? I like Snape as much as I like Hermione. There's a scene in this book which really humanizes Snape as a person with feelings and a tormented past, not just a teacher who's out to make Harry's life miserable. And of course, I like Alan Rickman's portrayal as well.

As I read the book, I kept thinking of the actors who portray them in the movie. I wonder who will play the young James Potter, Sirius Black, and Snape... If I were an actor to play a part in the Harry Potter movie, I'd like to play Nymphadora Tonks (what a funky name!). I want to be able to change my hairstyle in several scenes.

Good book. Can't wait for the next one.

I once thought that joining a community would give me a wider audience and get more people to reading my site, but I also knew that joining a community, especially an ethnic one and with my bicultural background, would mean excluding one of my cultures. This is why I don't join communities.

In short, some guy (non-Asian expat in Hong Kong) is hosting an Asia Weblog Award and it's causing a rife. The two camps are:
A) individuals who actually have Asian blood (whether or not they live in Asia)
B) individuals who have no-Asian ancestry but are living in Asia

Even though the debate has been resolved, it's probably opened up some questions in the Asian blogging community as to what qualifies as an Asian blog. Ethnic communities, in the end, do not encompass, but exclude.

Love-Hate

Saddam has been captured. Most of the Iraqi people are happy, but some are angry because they liken their position to an occupied country, oppressed by American forces. Now that the hard part has been done-- capturing their hated dictator--they want American soldiers out of their country.

First of all, any new blooming country that's just been rid of a tyrannical ruler shouldn't be left alone. A country that has only the experience of a dictatorship does not evolve so smoothly and quickly into a democracy. If America leaves now, Saddam supporters can still take power. That's like California's governor recall election: what [crazy] person will try to claim power?

As much as I hate to see the US Military stay longer and more soldiers being sacrificed in an effort to maintain peace and order, they should stay until a stable foundation of a new Iraqi government is in place. If that doesn't happen, Iraq will turn out just like the Philippines. They'll call and beg for Americans to help when they hate their ruler, and then they'll spit back when they want the Americans to leave them alone. I hate the love-hate relationship; it's a vicious cycle that drains American finances.

The American soldiers and other advisors should stay until the job is complete. Get it done right the first time. Then they can govern independently for the rest of their lives without our help, without the love-hate we need you please help us--get the fuck out of our country--we need help again--damn you oppressors--can you help us out again? Teach them independence now, not a lifetime of dependency.

I shake my head with disappointment. Another actor vying for the presidency? Did they not learn with Estrada? Not only that, the same political party that supported the corrupt Estrada is going to support Poe. I see my native country going into further ruin.

I'm so irked with disgust at reading the article. The Filipino people think voting is like a prom queen contest, going for the most popular rather than voting for the benefit of the country. Filipino citizens, what will an actor with no political history whatsoever--nothing, nada, zilch-- bring to the Philippines? What will he contribute besides showing off his face to garner more votes? I keep seeing Estrada slowly creeping back into the picture, working the puppet strings, being an "advisor," hoping for more money to house his prostitutes.

God, I hope President Arroyo wins another term.

Come on, Filipinos! Think of your country.

What Is My Subconscious Telling Me?

I had the strangest dreams last night. One dream, I was watching a documentary about people who torture animals. I winced as I saw a white wolf chasing a car in the snow, only to get tired and whine in the cold and shiver in his fatigue. Then, I nearly cried as I saw a man beat the face of a bruised mule that he already blinded in one eye. I woke up at the point.

Then the second dream, I was watching another documentary on forensics and watched three forensic scientists dissect and piece together the remains of a cut up brain. Then I saw the footage of how that brain and victim's head became bashed to pieces. Apparently, some guy on a blind date gets the girl drunk, and when she passes out, he starts cutting her up.

It was not a good night.

It's MY Hair!!

I like my hair short. The BF likes my hair long (and tells me that I shouldn't ever cut my hair again). We're having a dispute. It may sound silly, but from my standpoint, it's an argument all about control and submission.

I'm not giving in.

Book Review: The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

It was a good book. Oscar Wilde seemed to be ahead of his time when it come to depicting morality and reality. I hated his character Lord Harry Wotton, though, but Wotton was essential to the novel. He was the driving force (no sexual innuendoes intended) behind Dorian's actions. He was smart and he was vain about it, and he brushed off all his theories and epigrams about morality and reason with an air of "Oh, don't mind my jibbering." There was a hypocrisy about Wotton, but even I can't describe it. Someone gave him the pet name "Prince Paradox," which I think suited him perfectly. He was serious about all his thoughts, but not once, have I read any of his own immoral crimes. Aside from possible homosexual acts, such as the house in Algiers that he shared with Dorian, nothing was outright explicit--affairs with other women, gambling, opium, or having bad friends--to mar Wotton's reputation. Nothing was in the air except for a divorce-case, and even then, it was his wife who committed the scandal. Wotton was a paradox. It was like he wanted to be embroiled in some scandal to prove that he was living proof of all his hedonistic views and philosophies, but compared to Dorian, he had a clean record.

Dorian, the more I read about him, the more I thought about Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a book that Wilde was familiar with and a work that he admired. I can't help but think that Stevenson's novel may have influenced Wilde a bit: the idea that one can lead a double life.

There are plenty of good quotes in this book, and I've circled the ones I especially like. My favorite is by Dorian, who thought, "It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution." How true is that? We don't need a priest to tell us how we can be absolved. The act of confession--especially to the individual who was wronged--is the very act of removing a burden. We apologize to those we hurt to make amends, and from them do we seek forgiveness.

If this book is a semi-autobiographical to Wilde's own life, I wondered, at several times in the novel, if Wilde was ever dedicated to his own country. Through Wotton, he seems to declare his own dislike of English society and its conventions. But Wilde was already an outcast and through his book, he held up a mirror against society: "The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame."-- Lord Harry Wotton

Definitely a good read.

I considered myself to always be "low maintenance." But I admit: there are times when my perfectionist tendencies do get the better of me. Hmm....

Disorder	Rating
Paranoid:	Low
Schizoid:	Low
Schizotypal:	Low
Antisocial:	Low
Borderline:	Low
Histrionic:	Low
Narcissistic:	Low
Avoidant:	Low
Dependent:	Low
Obsessive-Compulsive:	High
-- Personality Disorder Test - Take It! --

18.75 %

My weblog owns 18.75 % of me.
Does your weblog own you?

I'm keeping an eye on this one. Teacher Ramblings

This reminds me of when I used to be in credential school. I was trying to balance student-teaching and a part-time job, university work for my own credentials and high school work from kids. Then, when I got my first teaching job... oh the hell and stress!!!! Suddenly, credential school seemed easier.

I'm so glad I'm done with credential school, but the experience was exhilarating. I would never do it again though. (^_^)I'm glad I'm a teacher now who is getting more experience as I keep teaching.

Testing Friendships

Once in a while, I get these chain emails from people I haven't heard from in years. It's great to get emails from people you think you lost contact with, but a chain email??? Why a chain email? Why not something of a personal touch to let people know that you thought of them? Instead, I get this chain email with tons of >>>>> marks, which gives me an idea of how many times that email was sent around. It's like getting a "used" email. Do I feel special? No.

The chain emails I hate the most are the ones where you have to send it back to the person who sent it to you. That's someone's cheap way of testing if you are a friend or not. I think people like that are just insecure about losing their friends. Sometimes I think they are still stuck in this high school mentality, where the more friends you have, the more popular you feel because you know that many people. They want to find their email's INBOX full of replies from all the people they sent that email to and feel loved because so many people do care about them.

Not.

Don't get me wrong. There are some of those emails I do actually reply to because they are from people who I keep regular contact with: via email, via phone, via letters, by hanging out, by having lunch, by working. When I get emails from those people, I do reply. But emails from old friends who have become strangers to me, I automatically click on DELETE. I'm not here to provide a brief "self-esteem" fix. Get a life.

I'm All For This!

Playing Dirty in the War on Plagiarism

We should have dirty little papers for the high school level curriculum so we can bait the teenager plagiarists as well.

*august23 does her evil teacher laugh*

This is scary.

Toxic Flame Retardant Found in Breast Milk

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Several American mothers nursing their infants had high levels of potentially toxic flame retardant chemicals in their breastmilk, a U.S. environmental group said on Tuesday."

"The chemicals are bromine-based fire retardants and are used in a wide range of products including furniture, computers, television sets, automobiles, copy machines and hair dryers to make them less likely to catch fire. They can build up in the body over years."

via Yahoo! News.

Now I Understand

When I first saw "Bram Stoker's Dracula" by Francis Ford Coppola, I actually thought it was slightly boring. It wasn't horrific as I hoped it would be. I read the book back in junior high, which means I forgot a whole bunch of stuff when I actually saw the movie. Post-viewing, I read the book over, and my feeling was, "Ugh... the movie was way off." No wonder I was bored.

I know that Hollywood always distorts things to make them more interesting for their audience, but a decent bloodfest would have been just as good rather than promoting the idea that vampirism, especially in Dracula, is erotic; there was nothing erotic in that book. You want erotic? Read Anne Rice.

I wanted to see a movie that depicted Dracula in his horrific nature, as the book intended. But if I can't get a decent movie, maybe I'll get to read a decent comic. Thank the heavens for comics!

While surfing, I came upon this: Poppy Z. Brite's LiveJournal. I find it definitely cool that a popular writer like her has time to write in a personal livejournal.

Ever watch The Actor's Studio? A bunch of acting students get to sit and talk to a famous actor and ask him/her about their acting experiences and methodologies and practices. As someone who likes to read and write, reading a weblog or livejournal from a known author is like The Actor's Studio for me. I get to see what they write about, and actually look at their writing style-- all the way to the grammar and punctuation and semantics. Not that I am dissecting their words and meaning, but seeing it all together is like seeing a work of art. Break it down and see if I can learn anything new, too.

I wonder if Anne Rice has a blog or livejournal?

Remembering

Yesterday, while watching TV, I came upon a newshow that replayed footage of commemoration ceremonies of September 11th. It still shocks me to this day when I see old footage of that fateful day... of planes crashing, of people falling, and of towers burning and crumbling. I still cry when I think about it too much. And even seeing just commemoration ceremonies was too much. I sat in my living room and started crying all over again.

I still ask, "How can someone do this to my country? How can someone's blind faith see death and murder as a good thing?" I never felt so much hate, anger, and pain in one day.

It is still hard to even express my emotions. It has been two years since that day, but not a day goes by when I don't think about the world we live in now. I love my country even more for pulling together, for finding strength with their fellow Americans, and I know that we'll get through this together.

That which doesn't kill our American spirit will only make the American dream that much stronger.

I was reading the Japan Times, and I found a small article regarding Barbie dolls. Here's a snippet:

"RIYADH (AP) Saudi Arabia's religious police have declared Barbie dolls a threat to morality, complaining the revealing clothes of the "Jewish" toy--banned in the kingdom--are offensive to Islam."

The tiny article continues, explaining that the Saudi Religious Police have a website (in Arabic), and one poster said this:

"Jewish Barbie dolls, with their revealing clothes and shameful postures... are a symbol of decadence to the perverted West. Let us beware of her dangers."

Since I couldn't find the link in the Japan Times website, I did a search and found a similar article.

Fat People and Their Fat Pets

"In tests where animals were allowed to eat whenever they wanted, cats ate smaller meals, more often, than dogs. Cats ate 12 to 20 meals, spread out through day and night, while dogs ate seven or eight times, mostly in daytime."

When my family first got a dog, we read that feeding it twice a day was enough. This is a shame.

via Yahoo! News.

Obesity Is A Choice

"NEW YORK - For a second time this year, a federal judge threw out a class-action lawsuit Thursday that blamed McDonald's for making people fat."

When I read this, all I can think of is how stupid people are for even coming up with this lawsuit--and for the second time! The issue is not that "McDonald's food causes health problems in children" or McDonald's violation of "consumer protection laws and engaged in deceptive advertising," it's about the lack of common sense that people have that they have to ask a court to help protect them from unhealthy fast-food. Just because there are packs of cigarettes in stores doesn't mean you have to buy them.

"In his earlier ruling, Sweet [the ruling judge] said consumers cannot blame McDonald's if they choose to eat there. 'If a person knows or should know that eating copious orders of supersized McDonald's products is unhealthy and may result in weight gain ... it is not the place of the law to protect them from their own excesses,' Sweet wrote at the time."

Good ruling! If you don't want to get fat, just don't eat there! If you don't eat there, you will never have to complain about unhealthy fast-food. If you don't complain about unhealthy fast-food, taxpayers would never have to pay for frivilous lawsuits to help other stupid consumers.

Practice common sense, people!

via Yahoo! News.

Bothersome Spam

Everytime I check my email, the folder with the spam and junk mail gets bigger and bigger when the page refreshes. That is so irksome.

A friend of mine once described what his telemarketing job was like: "I call people up, but no one really wants to talk to telemarketers, so it feels that I all I did was disturb them."

Why don't marketers see that spam is the same thing? It's just junk that takes up space, and no one ever reads them anyway. Why bother still sending them?

Happy Birthday from UCSD

It was my birthday recently. Check out this email letter I get from the old alma mater:

"UCSD wishes you a HAPPY BIRTHDAY! As another year has passed so quickly, we would like to share some big changes that have happened on our campus.

This past fall, the UCSD community expanded on both undergraduate and graduate levels to include students for the new Sixth College and the School of Pharmacy. Sixth College opened its doors to an entering freshman class of approximately 250 students. Sixth College features the Culture, Art, and Technology (CAT) sequence that integrates learning in the arts and humanities, social sciences, and science and engineering.

The new School of Pharmacy accepted its first class of 25 Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm. D.) students and plans to increase student enrollment at a steady rate of 60 students per class by 2005. The School of Pharmacy is a great addition to the health-sciences professional education offered here at UCSD.

We also anticipate the opening of the Graduate Management School, offering a Masters in Business Administration, in the Fall of 2004.

Now that we have shared a little bit of what has been going on here at UCSD, we would love to hear what you have been up to this past year. Please keep in touch by replying to this email or by clicking over to http://alumni.ucsd.edu/update/index.asp?millid=0100017344&name=XXXXXXX, or feel free to update us via our toll-free number at 1-888-UCSD-785.

We at UCSD hope you have an amazing year. Thank you and once again, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

External Relations
University of California, San Diego

Yeah. I was greatly moved that my university really wanted to wish me a heartfelt birthday.

*XXXXXXX=modified to protect ID

Paradox

I read this article and I'm puzzled. I first heard about the rape case when I read about it in the Japan Times back in June. A 19-year old woman was sexually assaulted in Okinawa by a U.S. serviceman. So many things went through my mind, from feminism, anger and hate for all men, sexist and cultural oppression, and international relations. As a woman, it sickens me when I hear and read about rape cases. It's violation, plain and simple. It's an act of violent aggression that cannot ever be justified. Unlike a murder case, the act of killing can be an act of unjustified rage, or it can be an act of self-defense. In a case that involves sex, the act is done by consent by two willing individuals. Rape is a violation of sexual rights and human rights. Raping a woman is the same as saying that a woman has no rights whatsoever. I immediately hated the man who could do such a thing, and I was even more disappointed when I learned that he was a U.S military serviceman, Lance Corporal Jose Torres of the Marines. 

There are many stereotypes of military personnel that describe them as having insatiable sexual needs. If you think about the history of military bases around the world, especially around Asia, prostitution rose where bases were founded: Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, and Japan. Areas like these only add to the stereotype of "horny sailors," and sexual interaction between individuals who have language barriers can be misinterpreted. Jose Torres did the opposite of breaking the "lusty military-man" stereotype; he only added to it. The residents of Okinawa already hate the presence of the military because of its long history of sexual assaults and other military accidents. Given these incidents, the relationship between the U.S. military and the Okinawans is highly sensitive, and Jose Torres only added more fuel to the fire. 

Many Americans are proud of the U.S. military. There are so many slogans about the pride of serving in the military. It advertises honor and perfection with its straight, clean cut image of soldiers. When I read about Jose Torres, I thought, "What a dishonor, what a disgrace." Not only that, he committed this act at a very crucial time: during the war on Iraq. Iraq and other non-supporters hate the U.S. and its military. They cry that American troops are evil. You think that American troops would watch their backs and watch their steps at a time like this, so that they don't make the U.S. look any worse than it is. American troops stationed out in foreign countries represent America, and it's the same for civilian travelers and tourists. When you step into another country, whether you want to or not, you represent your country and its culture. Someone is always going to ask about it. American troops are the same, but they have a heavier responsibility because they also represent the government. 

In the midst of war as the military is fighting Iraq, Jose Torres rapes a Japanese woman. Although it is the act of just one man, he represents the U.S. military and government, contributes to tarnishing stereotypes rather than maintaining a pristine image, violates a woman's human and sexual rights, breaks laws in another country... and people wonder why the U.S. is the most hated country in the world? Just because the U.S. is the most powerful country in the world does not mean its individual soldiers should exercise that power freely by breaking laws in foreign countries. It reeks of "imperialism" and cultural oppression. We hate the word "imperialism," but many people will read this as just that. What gives one man the right to rape a woman? Did it ever occur to him that he was breaking a law in another country? Did Jose Torres think that "I'm an American and I know my rights!" would bail him out of this? When you break a law in a foreign country, there is that strong possibility that you will be subject to that country's laws, no matter how much the U.S. might intervene. Did any one learn from Michael Fay's public caning in Singapore (and that was just for vandalism)? 

Japanese prosecutors are out to get Torres, and as much as I would love to see him get tried in the hands of the Japanese justice system, I don't fully trust the hypocrisy of the Japanese justice system. Japanese society is still primitive with its male dominant ideas. Sexual assaults are blamed primarily on the victim and the suspect serves only a light punishment that most victims describe as nothing more than a "slap on the wrist." If a Japanese man were to rape a Japanese woman, you never hear much about it because the victim is told that it was her fault. She is persuaded not to press charges and that she will learn to cope and move on with her life. As for their assailant, a light sentence and a pep talk. The Japanese are inconsistent when handling their own sexual assault cases that I find it hypocritical of them to suddenly want to prosecute Jose Torres with full force. I do hope that he will be discharged him from the military (without honor), and that he serves time in prison--whether in an American one or a Japanese one. All the better if it were a Japanese prison, so he will know how his rights have been violated. 

Read: Okinawa Nights

Military Misogyny 

Women Demand End to Military Violence 

US Troops in Okinawa 

Tons more of articles on Google.com, keywords: Okinawa, sexual assualts, U.S. military

Pop Culture as Cultural Literacy

According to E.D. Hirsch, "cultural literacy" is the basic foundation of knowledge that Americans should know in order to succeed in American cultural, both socially and professionally. I once read an article by him and he listed things that should be common knowledge if one was educated in the American school system. If you know these, then you are considered "culturally literate" in American culture and hold the key to succeeding in American society:

[looks into her old college reader]

1. Name the important events that happened during these years: 1066, 1492, 1776, 1861-1865, 1914-1918, and 1939-1945.

2. What is important about this year: 1984? (Hint: don't think of events, think of literature)

3. The meaning of these expressions or the origin of the quote:
-- Read between the lines.
-- Remember the Alamo!
-- Alas, poor Yorick...
-- All's well that ends well.
-- Beggars can't be choosers.

4. Defining words: bas-relief, aficionado, red tape, realpolitik, adagio, al fresco.

I used to proudly know all these things, but now that I haven't been in college for at least a year, nor have I seriously studied like I was a college sophomore, most of these things I have forgotten.

I write this because something struck me one evening as I was hanging out with friends. At this moment, I'd like to point out that many of my friends graduated college and have pursued professional careers. So, one evening, while drinking up beers and Smirnoffs, conversation topics varied from personal daily activities to TV episodes and pop music. Now, everyone has a different taste when it comes to watching television and listening to music, but I was surprised to discover that many of my friends can make references to the random everyday things, like television and music, and still maintain the fluidity of discussion and conversation as though it were a college lecture hall. Knowing the joke of a certain South Park or Seinfeld episode is just as important as knowing the politics of the California gubernatorial recall election, yet no one ever alluded to Hamlet or MacBeth and their similarities of characters usurping power.

Cultural literacy sounded good to me seven years ago, but I question its validity now that I am a teacher. Not only that, I found it to be pointless at times because then you just sound like a person with too-much-random-information-who-has-too-much-time-on-your-hands-so-you-read-up-on-random-American-historical-tidbits-so-you-can-sound-intelligent. I never liked watching TV too much, but it seems that knowing pop culture is just as important as knowing current events.

I better start watching the tube.

Perfectly In-Between

I took this Asian IQ test and I scored 50%. I guess that means I'm perfectly bicultural. ^_^

Wal-Mart: The State of America

Wal-Mart is becoming the shopping store of America. There are so many Wal-Marts in the country that some people protest its building or future construction sites. It's also become an icon of American living: goods at affordable prices for the middle class family.

I went shopping yesterday at Wal-Mart. Normally, I don't shop there because it gets crowded and chaotic with all the kids around, but I wanted to get some children's books, and books do get expensive, and since Wal-Mart was right next to Best Buy... why not?

I didn't buy any books. The book section was practically non-existent. It consisted of only two aisles, mostly of magazines, young adult, and tons of self-help books. Hmmm...

As I was leaving the store, I passed by the women's clothing section. Before I head back to Japan, I thought about stocking up on some clothes before leaving because I can never find my size there. The average waist size of women in Japan is 64cm (or 25in), so slacks are pretty slim there. As I browsed through the women's clothes, I was a bit shocked to find that I still could not find my size. It's not that everything was small-- it was all too big... and I mean BIG, for heavy set women.

In most stores, I find that average sizes overtake the floor, while plus sizes have a small section. It wasn't so at this particular Wal-Mart I went to: it was the other way around. When I looked at the advertisements around me, they were all heavy set women. The blouses were huge, like tents, and the pants were like balloons. I eyed the junior section, but I wanted something conservative, not T-shirts that bare my mid-riff and tight low-cut jeans that would expose me more than if I were naked.

Wal-Mart must really know their customers when they know what they're offering, but I wonder if this is the state of America: people who don't read unless they have a low self-esteem, and eating excessively to the point where the average size of women has gone from a size 10 to a size 14, and teenage girls dressing like miniature prostitutes-in-training.

I'm all for good health, and Americans hate the waif-thin models that adorn the pages of a magazine, but obesity is just as unhealthy. People need to lay off the sodas and potato chips.

And pick up a piece of literature or other book other than a self-help one. Self-help books only point out that one has low self-esteem.

And parents need to start watching their daughters. At Wal-Mart's affordable prices, girls can buy more of their clothes just by wearing them.

Absolutely Wrong

I heard the most awful thing today: Mariah Carey singing "Bringing On the Heartache" by Def Leppard.

She should be shot.

Reconfirmation

I'm back... and it's time to refamiliarize myself with politics in a language I can understand.

First of all, something interesting happened today. Upon my return from Japan last week, my father handed me a letter from one of the local universities. In this letter, they were requesting my presence to do a formal interview regarding my immigrant background. I had been part of this study for the past ten years, starting in 1992 when I was in the ninth grade. During that time, I had done numerous questionnaires regarding my educational experience in high school and college. They are now at the final phase of this study, tracking all the students they had once studied to see how they are in adult life. I was glad to do the interview for many reasons, mostly revealing my current beliefs about immigrant children, biculturality, cultural identification, and affirmative action... and the $100 check at the end of the interview played a part, too. =)

The woman who interviewed me was Filipino, and she had been helping the two sociological doctors who started this study eleven years ago. She interviewed me for roughly three and a half hours, starting with questions about my birth country and upbringing, trudging through my high school experience, comparing high school and college, living situations and experiences, all the way down to personal relationships, dating, friends, and career and personal goals.

She was particularly interested in my ideas of affirmative action. She said she doesn't normally ask the "affirmative action" question to some of the interviewees because many of the interviewees are not firmly grounded in their political beliefs. She was eager to jump on this question as much as I wanted to answer it. I told her about my thoughts and personal experiences about why I was against such a program, and how it seemed to invalidate everything I had worked for as an individual with my own merit.

So now it's on the record of some sociological study: I don't support affirmative action, and I hope to be successful without it.

This site will no longer be updated due to the fact that august23 has gone to Japan. She will return near the end of July. Please check back until then.

For now... a small poem to the people who protested the war...

"Wish You Were Here"

For all the free people that still protest.
You're welcome.
We protect you and you are protected
by the best.

Your voice is strong and loud,
but who will fight for you?
No one standing in your crowd.

We are your fathers, brothers, and sons,
wearing the boots and carrying guns.

We are the ones that leave all we own,
to make sure your future is carved in stone.

We are the ones who fight and die,
We might not be able to save the world
Well, at least we try.

We walked the paths to where we are at
and we want no choice other than that.

So when you rally your group to complain,
take a look in the back of your brain.

In order for that flag you love to fly
wars must be fought and young men must die.

We came here to fight for the ones we hold dear.
If that's not respected, we would rather stay here.

So please stop yelling, put down your signs,
and pray for those behind enemy lines.

When the conflict is over and all is well,
be thankful that we chose to go through hell.

written by
Corporal Joshua Miles and all the boys
from 3rd Battalion 2nd Marines, Kuwait

I got that from an email. Tah tah for now. --august23

Another Cowardly Act

From the NY Times:

"BAGHDAD, Iraq, Thursday, March 20 — Iraqi television broadcast a speech by a defiant Saddam Hussein this morning, a few hours after the first blasts on Baghdad. In it, he exhorted his people to "draw your swords" against invaders and referred to the United States government as "criminals" and "Zionists."

Now he's recruiting his people--untrained civilians--to participate in the war. Given that some of his own people don't like him, I don't think his call to arms will be taken seriously except for those who are as delusional as he is.

Saddam Is a Coward

From the NY Times:

“American military officials have been saying for some time that Mr. Hussein plans to make his final stand in Baghdad, a move that would allow him to play to world opinion and confront the United States with the prospect of urban warfare, possibly inflicting many casualties.”

Any man who puts his military defenses in a downtown area full of civilians and hopes to play on the sympathies of the United States military is a coward. He hides behind the safety of his people and puts them into harm’s way. Saddam is not a leader. He is a delusional power-hungry dictator who will ensure his “leadership” at the cost of innocent lives.

And the world calls the United States as heartless and blood-thirsty warmongers? Why haven't they seen first that Saddam is a monster for bringing the war so close to civilians?

Thank you, Kristina Sheryl Wong, for your humorous site. I'm still reeling from the Filipina Heart thing, and I needed a good laugh.

Filipina Heart, My A$$!

While working on this blog last night, the advertisement above my site caught my attention with this link: Filipina Heart. I thought, "Cool! A Filipino site!" So I clicked on the link, and I was almost offended. I did not think that mail order bride services still existed today, but maybe I'm that naive. 

Why did this site offend me? Two reasons: one--I am a bit of a feminist, and two--the site perpetuates stereotypes. First of all, the feminist inside of me screamed out, "Women are not possessions!" Although these women are not being bought or sold, per se, the site offers unfair services to men. Since this is a mail-order bride service, the men are not from the Philippines. Why would a Filipino man pay to meet Filipina women, you know? The men have to pay for using Filipina Heart's services, such as obtaining addresses of the women they are interested in. If they would like to meet the women, it's money out of their pocket to obtain immigration papers, such as visas, and possibly the plane ticket itself. This can get expensive, and the only men who would be willing to pay the financial costs and go through the legal paperwork often come from rich countries, such as the U.S. 

The fact that the women don't have to pay for using Filipina Heart's services perpetuates the "gold-digger" stereotype. In many third world/developing countries, people are desperate to leave their country for better opportunities. Filipino citizens are no different from other poor Asian countries, but the Philippines is a special case because of their connection to the United States. The U.S. acquired the Philippines in 1898 after the Spanish-American War and it became U.S. territory. The U.S. military built their bases and prostitution rose, giving birth to many stereotypes about vigorous Filipinas behind closed doors. And it was the military men in early 1940s that started stereotyping Filipina women as submissive and loyal--a stereotype that is still prevalent today about many Asian women, not just Filipinos. Here is a sample of Filipina Heart's generalization about its women using that very stereotype:

Why choose a Filipina? Women from the Philippines are noted for their beauty, grace, charm and loyalty. With their sweet nature and shy smiles, Filipina's posses an inner beauty that most men find irresistible. Filipinas are by their nature family-orientated, resourceful and devoted. What's more, English is one of the official languages of the Philippines, so communication is straight forward, and as the majority of Filipinas are Christian, cultural compatibility is easier than some other Asian countries.

I can give you socioeconomic reasons for why Filipina women are this way. The family structure in third-world countries is traditional with male dominance and female submissiveness. It's not surprising to find women in abusive relationships, or to be surrounded by husbands, brothers, or fathers with Filipino machismo running through their veins. Sweet nature and shy smiles, my ass! It's fear, and it's a catch-22. This same fear is what keeps them at home. 

For those who are already married, let's face the reality that the Philippines is a poor country. Even if these women decided that they could leave, where would they go? They've got kids, no job, no money, therefore, they are "devoted." Filipina women--whether they were prostitutes or not--found it easy to leave the Philippines if they married a man from the military, giving rise to the "gold-digger" stereotype. I realize that the owners of the company have decided that the men have to pay for their services, and that indirectly makes the women look like gold-diggers. But I've looked through the ads and some of these women are well-educated with Bachelor degrees or students working towards a degree. They must have decent-paying jobs. So why don't they pay? Even if it is a mail-order bride service and they are the ones being "bought," if they can't afford the plane ticket or the visa, they can at least shell out some money for the international on-line service if they can pay for college. That's a pittance compared to what the men have to pay. 

Unlike old traditional mail-order bride services of yore, these women are not recruited. The feminist inside of me believes that this service should be fair and equal to both men and women. If women willingly sign up to use the service just like men, then they should pay for it just like men. The fact that Filipina Heart's owners have decided that only the men have to pay makes me suspicious of the owners' intentions. The owners of Filipina Heart are an Asian-Western couple, so they say. That's great, but it makes me wonder why they specialize in mail-order brides. If they had met through a regular on-line dating/personals service, like Yahoo! Personals, I'm assuming they wanted to start a matchmaking service to advocate that on-line dating is successful. If that were the case, they would have had equal services for both men and women to open up the field a little wider, like having Filipino men post ads, too. I'm sure that all on-line dating services like to hear that the people who used their services ended up in marriage. It's a success story that any service would proudly advertise, but marriage is not the ultimate end-goal. Yahoo! Personals encourages friendships, pen pals, and dating. If there was a fee for subscribing, it's equal that both men and women pay for it if they are interested in it. 

With Filipina Heart, the end-goal is marriage, and since it's the men who shell out the cash, it makes me think that Filipina Heart is merely a service to help Filipina women get out of the Philippines. The men pay a fee, and this obviously goes to the owners (part income, part website maintenance, I'm sure). The marriage aspect guarantees that the Filipina women will leave their poor country behind them, and that the men who sponsor them out of the Philippines are usually financially stable. For the men, it would appear that they are getting a "perfect" bride who is submissive and loyal. And vigorous. If any man is interested in using their services, I should give fair warning about a Filipina woman's loyalty. After you marry her, she'll start asking you to sponsor her family to come over. That's extra $$$ to get her mother, father, give or take a couple siblings to come to the United States or wherever you live. If not, both of you will be sending money to her family. Also, like adopting children from poor countries, you want to make sure that your new bride is healthy and free of disease, and that she gets the proper immunizations upon arrival. That's right, "upon arrival;" poor people can't always afford regular doctor check-ups. 

Anyway, I'm a bit sick of this right now. I need to forget the sadness of my country's situation. Not that I take this mail-order bride thing lightly. Quite the opposite. I do think about poverty every once in a while because my mother has lots of stories about it. I am Filipina, but I was raised in the United States. My parents met in this country after they had immigrated from the Philippines. No mail-order bride services. They met the traditional way: bumping into each other, and falling desperately attracted to each other's Filipino wiles and common interests in ampalaya recipes. Maybe I take it for granted that I live in a country that is rich, and I don't know how desperate I would be either if I were living in the Philippines today. While writing this, I realize the good fortune I have. I have the luxury of making choices and of having numerous options that I can choose from if I want to improve my life, and not one of them involves getting married to fulfill a financial need. I do feel sorry for some of these women. Their option is to find a way out of poverty first by "selling" themselves.

Nuances of an Accent

This past Thursday, my parents and I drove up to Los Angeles to visit my sister in college. She was going to present her senior project to a committee of advisors and fellow students. Guests were welcome, so my family and I drove to see her. When we arrived, my sister was dressed in her sharpest suit. She looked very professional and confident. We sat down while her group rehearsed the last minute details of their speeches and refined the timing with their Power Point presentation. Her entire group consisted of fellow Asian students: a Chinese girl, Vietnamese guy, a Chinese girl raised in the Philippines and spoke with a Tagalog accent, and my sister the Filipina. 

While each member of my sister's group went up to present, their accents were noticeable, but the English was not difficult to understand. What I found most fascinating was my sister's speech--not the content of her presentation, but the way her voice sounded. Please excuse me while I go off on a tangent here, but my sister's presentation reminded me of an incident that happened approximately three years ago....

A friend of mine was driving me home, and while passing through the community that preceded my neighborhood, my friend asked me, "What are some good Filipino restaurants around here?" 

With excitement, I replied, "Oh, there are some good restaurants around here. If you go to that one, they have really good pancit. There's two shops on Eighth Street. One has really good lumpia, and the other sells baked goods like pan de sal, hopya, and --" 

"Stop it!" he sounded disgusted, but he was laughing. 

"What?" I didn't understand why he sounded so... "ugh." 

"You have an accent." 

"No, I don't. Do I?" The concept of me having an accent was impossible. 

"Yes. When you say Filipino words, like lumpia and pancit." He said the words without an accent, with elongated vowels and without the fluency of dipthongs. 

"Lumpia and pancit," I repeated. 

"You have an accent. Lumpia and pancit," he repeated as though I were to imitate him. 

"Lumpia and pancit," I repeated again. 

"See!" he exclaimed. 

I heard no difference, but he had. He said that there was a slight change of accent from English to Tagalog when I included foreign words in my speech. Since then, that incident has made me self-conscious of when I spoke. Not only that, I became more aware of accents--even amongst fluent English speakers. In the past years since that time, I've attuned myself to listen to the way people talk, and if I heard even the slightest difference in cadence, or even the way people talk in general, I ask where they are from. Most times I have been able to guess that they were not from California, or if they were from Northern California, from the east coast, or from the south. One time, I insisted that a co-worker had a southern accent. He told me was raised in Berkeley, in Northern California. I insisted that he had a southern accent or at least influenced by someone who spoke with a southern accent. He then revealed that his parents were from Georgia. 

Anyway... Now, back to my sister's presentation. My sister speaks perfect English. English was our first language growing up. In the house, with friends or family, English isn't spoken with an accent, not like a recent immigrant who arrived and has a noticeable thick accent. But when my sister stepped up the podium to present her section of the presentation, it was like listening to a different person. Her regular English appeared to turn up a notch to even straighter English. It was like professional English; she sounded like... a "white person." After she presented, she sat back down with her group. 

After all the presentations were finished, she came back to us and we talk a little about where to eat lunch. Her English went back down to the comfortable English... the English that is fading away from Tagalog influences, but never really was. Maybe the only thing that I heard was the difference between comfortable English used at home versus the professional English that is used in conference rooms. But it was like listening to someone who spoke with an accent suddenly erase it. 

Given that I live in a community with Spanish and Tagalog speakers, whenever I say foreign words, I naturally switch to their respective accents. I always thought that language was unique because of its sound. When another friend said that I had a beautiful accent when I tried to learn Japanese, I was flattered. I'll never be a native speaker of any foreign language, but I want to at least sound like one.

On Saturday night, while driving home from a party, a driver of Nissan Maxima (a very old one) drives into my lane without looking that I was there. I was able to avoid him, but not until I made it known that he could have avoided me. I honked the horn of my car then sped past the asshole. I swear I had flashbacks from my last accident; I almost collided with the center divide, and almost spun out of control. He drove casually like nothing happened--the damn fucker! What is it with Nissan drivers? It was also Nissan driver who cut me off and blocked my view before I hit that desk on the freeway last year.

This morning, I discovered that someone ran their key or knife alongside my car. There's a long scratch from the rear passenger door all the way down to the tail lights. It wasn't there yesterday afternoon when I was out with my parents.

My car is jinxed. When I go to Japan, my dad can do whatever he wants with it. There's been talk behind my back about trading my car in for a truck. I don't care anymore.

Live Journal vs. Blog

I've been trying to understand the difference between Live Journals and Blogs. These are two different Internet tools where people can express themselves and be published. But what makes one more appealing than the other?

Here's a fun link: Live Journal Drama. They don't have these for blogs, do they?

Squirrel fishing. I still can't decide if it was a valid experiment.

My Damned Writing Process
a vicious cycle that is stuck at step three

I tried my hand at creative writing again. I've only written a two page prologue so far. I've emailed it to my sister, who recommended that I should rework it because she got confused. Ah... the writing process...

Should I define what English teachers call "the writing process"? It's a step-by-step scaffolding method in which we teach to students to try to understand their own writing style and process. It goes something like this:

A) Pre-writing: students jot down ideas. They can outline them with the traditional Roman numerals, they make bubble clusters, they can draw diagrams, etc... It's like making a layout of all their ideas. If they have a ton of ideas, this is where they can see what is relevant, what should they focus on, and where their ideas are going.
B) Rough draft: students write a rough draft. This is where they are to actually write in words, in a structured format, no bubble clusters or diagrams. This is where they develop their ideas into a focused paper.
C) Editing/Revision: students share their work to edit. This can be with the teacher, who reads the rough draft and puts comments on it; or it can be a peer-edit with their own friends or classmates who also put comments on it. Then the student can revise their work.
D) Publishing: this is the final draft where the student turns in their work. Publishing doesn't necessarily mean that it gets published; it just means that it's a final draft. In some cases, like creative writing, publishing can mean "does it appear publishable?" With Internet activities, could the piece that the student wrote be put on a website? If it was a writing project, is the paper in a publishable format, such as in a writing portfolio; does it have a writing cover?

Before I even taught, this was already my writing process back in sixth grade when I first started writing silly stories. When I saw this method in a teaching course from college, it was like putting a name to a face. I already knew it, I just needed to put it in words. I still have short stories and ideas from eighth grade that are either at step one or at step three. These stories haunt me because I never finished them.

With my current story, I'm stuck at level three. I'm either a perfectionist, or I'm just never satisified at what I write. I've gone through a dozen revisions with this story already. The prologue alone has gone through several drafts and revisions. Then there's the other questions that come into play: first person narrative or third? Third person limited narrative or omniscient? Female narrator or male narrator? Was this character useless? Should I change that character's name? Was this scene needed at all? Did the mood and tone come out right?

I'm looking at my prologue, and I like it. Sure, there are a few loopholes that my sister noticed and got a bit confused. If I revise this prologue, I hope I can stick with this draft that it can move on to step four, at least. Back to the drawing--er, writing board.

Once in a while, I'm tempted to publish something of a creative endeavor on this site. But I'm paranoid that someone will read it and then steal my ideas...

I'm going to write... the old fashioned way... with pen and paper.

Marilyn Monroe Rediscovered

This is a cool story. I wish I could view that short piece of film.

I did 11 miles of bike-riding yesterday. My legs feel like heavy cramped iron. Next weekend, with a new riding buddy, we're pushing for 15 miles around a lake. I feel it's going to be torture, but I'm going to do it anyway.

Yes, it's fun.

If California's school district superintendents were to hire a professional fundraiser, who would it be? Certainly not Governor Gray Davis. I wonder if Californians would support massive fundraising beyond bake sales and car wahes for their schools?

In my quest to find something to do on a weekend, as I am no longer a full time teacher, I invited a friend to attend a recital with me on Sunday night. It's been a long time since I stayed up on a Sunday night without feeling guilty, and it's been a long time since my friend's been to a concert. So, who did we see? My one and only favorite satirical goth band: Rasputina.

I've always wondered how Melora Creager can play a cello and sing at the same time with a tight corset wrapped around her stomach. I was amazed by her versatility and talent--that woman has got some mad skills with a cello. She plays that instrument like Joe Satriani plays his guitar. I wish I could play like her. The bow literally bounced off the strings of the cello yet there is a full complete sound and timbre that doesn't scratch like screechy violins. It resonates like a natural echo in a grand auditorium.

I've been a fan of Rasputina since their debut in 1996, but I have never seen them in concert. My first impression of Melora: she's really tiny. All the pictures in the albums make her look tall. In reality, she's a petite thing, but that's the lovable irony that is her--she's cute in her small petite way, yet she's got bite in her whole attitude when she plays. Zoe, the relatively new cellist, was tall and graceful. During the recital, she whispered to Melora that she had to go to the bathroom, and Melora made the general announcement to the audience that they had to take a pee-pee break. That was funny.

I wish I had known that cameras were allowed on the premises. I would have taken pictures to last me a lifetime. But really, there are no words to describe the bewildering awe I felt while watching Melora and Zoe play heavy rock music on classical instruments.

I subbed again today. Given it was a Friday afternoon, the kids were very squirrely. They pushed my buttons but I was lenient... until one of the students drew phallic pictures on the white board. I drew the line and started writing up referrals to the assistant principals and started holding students after class. Their regular teacher called me after school was over, and we laughed and discussed the penalties for these students. When I handed the referrals to the AP's secretary, she nonchalantly shook her head as she read the names off. They were familiar to her, and she knew that I wasn't over-reacting by handing out referrals to these students.

During the day, I bumped into more of my former students, and they complained about the grades I had given them for the last semester. When one of the teachers who inherited my kids approached me about parents calling her regarding first semester grades, it raised some flags in my head. I think I may have bubbled the incorrect grades for one class of students. I'll have to go back in on Monday to see the roster of grades for my former classes.

Ugh... I have to look over grades and make parent phone calls again. >_<

*august23 pounds her head on the keyboard*

I bought Lasgo's new album. I don't know why I did. For the past two months, I've passed by their CD at the listening stations numerous times at three different stores. Each time I've always stopped to listen to it. It always appealed to me in that mind-candy way. Now that I bought it, it's not all that great. I'm not really a fan of repetitive techno-dance music, but I thought I was expanding my musical tastes. At least it was on sale.

I should just stick to what I know.

Subbing

Since I won’t be doing anything for the next month before I leave for Japan, I decided to help out my fellow English teachers and offered my services as a substitute teacher. Today was my first “sub job.” It’s a whole new experience. I actually have to sign-in and pick up stuff from the front office.

You know that feeling when you’ve been given a pass to access entrances freely without question, like having an ID with an access code that can get you through the back door? Let’s just say that having to sign-in at the front desk was like having those privileges taken away. I don’t have a parking permit, so I can’t park in the staff parking anymore; I don’t have my own keys to a classroom, and my computer account expired last week. Out of habit, I went to the teacher’s lounge and almost picked up my mail from my mailbox. But it’s not my mailbox anymore… it’s someone else’s box… although my name is still on it. Oh, the memories…

I’m a substitute now. *sigh* This bites. I feel like I'm totally out of the loop.

As I walked through the halls, many of the teachers were surprised to see me, and they were glad that I was subbing for a while. I bumped into a few of MY students, who all objected to their new teachers. My supposed white supremacist spotted me in the parking lot, and he said to me, “Hi, Ms. G. You’re supposed to be our teacher.” (Yeah, he said it just like that.)

“Hi, K------. How’s the new teacher?” I asked with a suppressed laugh.

“She’s mean.”

“She started this week, right? It’s only the second day you've had her.”

He shook his head. “She's mean. She's young like you, but she's mean. We all want you back.”

When I smiled at this, he said, “Have a good one. I’ll see you around.”

Oh, be still my aortic valve! They miss me. Throughout the day, I've encountered more of my students who all insisted that I come back because I was still their teacher. Oh, how sweet… But remember: I am only the lesser of two evils.

*august23 radiates with egotistical glow* Until I hear that my kids have warmed up to their new teachers, I shall bask in all the flattery they give me.

So many thoughts go through my head as I read Mr. Baluchi's story. I laud the man for an honest and humble attempt at world peace, acts like his are futile when you think about the world at this moment: peace will not come in our lifetime. Then again, he could be a border jumper, just like INS suspects. Why else would he want to delay bail, stay in jail, and not want to go back? The most that Mr. Baluchi can get is a nod from the Guinness World Book of Records.

There are artists... then there are weird artists...

Just Me

I went to have lunch with a friend today at the nearest Subway. I love sandwiches--they're healthy and yummy. At this Subway restaurant, I ordered a foot-long Southwest Turkey and Bacon. I’ve had this sandwich before; the crisp bacon is the best as it gently cracks between the brisk lettuce and bell peppers. The employees must have been new... all four of them. My friend and I watched as they read the list of ingredients for each sandwich that they were making. I didn't mind this, but the worker almost forgot the essential ingredient: southwestern sauce, for that mild spicy kick.

"You forgot the sauce... the orange one," I gently reminded her.

She smiled and added the sauce. As I proceeded down to the register, the cashier--an elderly Filipino woman-- charged me nearly $9.00!!!

"You want the meal, and that was extra bacon," she said in her Filipino accent as she rang up the register.

"Extra bacon?" I repeated. "I didn't order extra bacon. Bacon comes with the sandwich."

"Oh..." She looked at the register. "Which one did you get?"

"The Southwest Turkey and Bacon sandwich. Bacon already comes with it."

So, she rings up the register again, but only the sandwich.

“I wanted the meal, too,” I said shyly. My usual Asian submissiveness kicks in, so I wouldn't appear to be rude.

She does the calculation again, and it comes up to $8.32. I pulled out the debit card to pay. She handed two receipts to me, and I tried to figure out which was my copy and which one I had to sign. At this point, the woman starts to talk in Tagalog to another Filipino employee. I don’t understand Tagalog, but I understood what she said as she spoke to her co-worker.

[In Tagalog]
“She complained about the price, but they’re still the same."

"Is she Filipino?" the co-worker asked.

"Yeah, she’s Filipino.”

Obviously, they were talking about me. I signed the receipt and handed it back to her.

“Salamat,” she said, which is Tagalog for “thank you.”

I knew the respectful and proper way to respond to that, but I decided not to say anything. I was a bit pissed off because they were talking about me. The cashier incorrectly assumed that I was fluent in Tagalog, which I’m not. What if I were Guamanian? What if I were Chinese? I think it’s wrong for employees to talk to customers in a different language unless the customer initiates the conversation first. I hate it when Filipinos assume that I’m fluent, and they start talking to me in Tagalog. Then when I tell them I’m not, they look at me as though I should be ashamed of myself. Well, I’m not ashamed of not being able to speak in my native tongue. I grew up in the United States, and my parents knew that I would be primarily educated in English. They knew that I would not be speaking Tagalog for most of my life, so they never fully taught me the language. They do, however, speak another dialect, which they still use around the house, which I do understand. I’m not totally void of my culture. But that’s what most of these elderly Filipino people think. They think it’s shameful if the young Filipino generation don’t know their Filipino roots, or if they don’t know how to speak the native tongue; they go as far as blaming the parents for this cultural gap, claiming that they let the younger generation be “Americanized.”

It’s called biculturalism. I’ve lived with two kinds of cultures in my life. I can’t fully embrace both—but that itself is a culture. It’s also a skill that my generation has mastered in order to survive in two worlds. I am enriched with culture, and it’s nothing to be ashamed about, but I’m not going to live my life trying to prove that to the older generation.

The Great Outdoors

Ah… the great outdoors… Mountain biking across hills, the cool morning breeze in your face, the evaporating mist in the shade as the sun rises higher, the peaceful sounds of a babbling creek… piles of cobblestones to throw me off balance, acute dips in the road that slam against the front wheel, the wet squeaky shoes when I ride through the water, the precarious single trails on the edge of a steep hill, sharp rocks that protrude from a smooth path, scratches from a bike pedal, and of course… the crashes that leave bruises and welts on my legs and thighs. But when I crash, I'll either land on sharp rocks on a hard dirt path, or on wet grass with sharp twigs…

Ah… the great outdoors…

Driving With Idiots

I thought the only idiots that I had to deal with were drivers who left their furniture on the road, but I came across another idiot this evening.

When I heard a friend of mine was sick, I went to visit him to see how he was doing. He was doing fairly well, but a bit fatigued. He was getting ready to watch a couple of DVDs to pass the time away, so I joined him. Fear dot com was a waste of time. After that horrible movie, we both got hungry. Although I was willing to do a food run for the both of us, I wasn’t familiar with the area he lived in, and I wasn’t going to go out by myself at 9:30PM (three hours earlier, I would have had no problem), so I dragged him along for navigational purposes. He suggested we go to In-n-Out. He warned me that In-n-Out has the longest lines for drive-thru service, but I didn’t mind. I don’t usually go to In-n-Out, so their service and their food would be a first for me. While we waited in line, we discussed the menu and how to pay when we noticed that the car in front of us passed the speaker for ordering.

My friend said, “Don’t pull up too close. If he realizes that he didn’t order, then he might want to pull back.”

“True,” I nodded. I stayed my car well behind the driver of the red Acura to give him room to reverse if he needed.

A couple minutes passed and he continued through with the queue.

“Did he order? I don’t think he ordered,” I said.

My friend only shrugged. If he didn’t worry, I wasn’t going to worry. I pulled up to the speaker and I placed our order for one cheeseburger, a 3x3 animal style, and a medium Dr. Pepper. Our total was given, and we proceeded through the line.

Suddenly, I began to muse about the driver of the Acura. “What if the cashier gives him our food? That, or we’ll end up waiting in line longer because he’ll end up ordering at the window and they have to prepare his food, you know?” Yatta, yatta, yatta.

“No, they would make him pull aside. Besides, they know from your voice that a girl ordered," he pointed out to me. Then he added, "How can he forget to order anyway?”

When the driver of the Acura approached the window, we watched while there was an ordinary transaction of food and money. I watched the driver as he nodded and paid for the items simply and without complaints. It appeared that everything was in order and he drove off. I slowly approached the window, with money in hand. The employee poked his head out the window with a paper bag ready to go, but he had a suspicious look on his face. He hesitantly asked me, “Did you order the double-double with ketchup... and fries…?”

“No?” I replied, like a question. “I had a cheeseburger, a 3x3 animal style, and a medium Dr. Pepper.”

The employee’s jaw dropped and looked out to the street for the driver of the Acura. “I can’t believe that guy. He said that was his order.”

“What?” My jaw dropped. “He said that was his order?”

“Did he order?” the employee asked. “I didn’t think he ordered.”

“No,” I nearly laughed. My friend was laughing, too. “He never made it to the speaker.”

The employee, seeing as we were not upset about it, smiled, quickly apologized, and immediately got started on our order. From the conversation of the window employee with his other co-workers, it seemed that the driver of the Acura confirmed that the cheeseburger, the 3x3 animal style, and the Dr. Pepper was, in fact, his order. He even paid its full total of $6.52.

I turned to my friend. “He said it was his order,” I said. “How can you go up to the window and say it was yours when you never ordered?”

“How can he pass the speaker?” he laughed. “It has a big stop sign on it.”

“I know! It should have a different sign on it, like ‘Step One: Place Order Here.’”

“Stupid.”

So, not only did the cashier give our order to the driver before us, but my friend and I ended up waiting for our order to be prepared. When our food came (pretty quick, too), the employee confirmed our items. I smiled and nodded that it was our order. We paid him and went on our merry way. My friend and I had a good laugh on the way back home. Burgers were good, too.

Dear readers, beware of idiotic drivers who leave furniture on the freeway and stupid lying drivers who don’t know what to do at the drive-thru.

For every little thing that is popular, there is always someone with too much time on his hands.