what an exciting day!

Emmie's coming over!
We are planning to
1) watch the Wonder Girls Movie
b) watch videos of the USP talent show from her camera
iii) do whatever else fills up the hours from 10am till Cross Culture time

:D

North Korean Famine, 1997

While half the world away,
these children starved--
a healthy, happy baby
was born.

Why me?

Zombie Attack Survival Manual

Method #1: Follow what the mathematicians say.  “Hit hard and hit often.”

Method #2: Follow what the CDC Emergency Preparedness and Response Zombie Apocalypse Manual says. (Basically, prepare as you would for any natural disaster.)

Method #3: Obtain your own chainsaw and be an awesome hero.

Method #4: Pretend that the zombies outside aren't real and continue to kill the virtual zombies in your zombie attack game.

Method #5: Shuffle.

Mud Flats

Look at how the mud just goes on and on.

ME: You know, I want to go to a mud flat someday and just like, wrestle with somebody.

MOM: I have never had that desire. You're so weird.

BUT IT LOOKS LIKE FUN.

especially if you're doing something as cool as catching octopi.

or maybe football or crab races. Imagine that.

I mean, playing in a mud flat would be like playing in mud puddles x100awesomeness.

So.

 Does anyone want to come with me, or am I alone in this endeavor?

Davina Is A Geek

There is a picture at the bottom. If you don't feel like reading all this, you can just skip to the picture.

By geek, I mean language geek, to be more precise. Though I will admit that I have a distinct bias towards East Asian languages, since I'm most familiar with them after English.
I got so excited the other day when I was reading my Korean language book that I received for Christmas (see? I asked for that for Christmas = I am a language geek), and I could understand an entire written conversation without the use of translators. I suppose that would be rewarding for any student of any language, but this accomplishment was the product of countless hours poring over dubious sources on the internet, pasting words into multiple translators to see what they might really mean, attempting to translate song lyrics, documenting the uses of every single particle I discovered, and writing random Korean words over and over whenever I had pencil and paper to familiarize myself with the writing system.
So reading that conversation felt good. Really good.

One of the most discouraging things in the world is when you paste "dama" into Google Translate, and it comes out "dama."
I think I love and hate Google Translate at the same time. On one hand, the dictionary-ish thing that pops up for single words can be extremely helpful in figuring out various uses for them, and it's great for translating simple vocabulary terms that I just don't know--and for Chinese, the "read phonetically" function aids me tremendously, because it gives me the pinyin needed to type the characters. On the other hand, I will be frank: it's well known that the grammar is atrocious.  
"I like that cat better because it's prettier than other cats" in Chinese becomes "I prefer the cat, the cat because it is beautiful than the other."
Also, I don't know how much to trust the thing, period. I put "한치 (hanchi)" in once, trying to find out what it means after hearing it in a song, and I got "FLAMMABLE LIMIT". I don't think that was quite right.

I also have a love-hate relationship with my Mandarin Chinese course. Firstly, I love it simply because it's teaching me Chinese, and that is a language that I am totally ashamed to not already know. My parents are both fluent in Mandarin as well as a few other dialects. I feel like I should be, too. Most of my relatives speak Chinese. Some of them don't speak good English. I want to be able to talk to them.
One of the good things about the course is that it makes me write and read a lot, which is absolutely essential for any foreign language, but especially so for learning Chinese characters. Another good thing is that when we are given passages to read, my teacher never provides the pinyin (phonetic spelling of the characters, in case you didn't know) along with it. I know that other Chinese students can have problems with learning the actual characters when the pinyin is always included, because they end up just reading the alphabet they're familiar with in order to recognize words. I'm forced to memorize the characters themselves. No alphabet. Just words. MEMORIZE.
But then, my teacher also forgets to include pinyin when she's first teaching us new vocabulary. It took me a while to figure out that I had to just go to the course dictionary to find how to spell something. Before that, I just stared at the complicated characters, baffled as to how she expected us to just understand her sentences, grammar, sounds, new vocabulary, and all. Oh yeah, that's another thing. A lot of times she gives us long PowerPoint presentations to teach us new stuff, and there will be absolutely no translations inside. You have to figure everything out from prior knowledge and the pictures. Perhaps it's an attempt to simulate the way you'd learn through immersion. Just figure it out yourself.
I think that's a little similar to Rosetta Stone. Supposedly, you're going to "learn like a child." I wonder if that really works without actual immersion in a separate culture, where you'd be forced to use the new language all the time. Can you learn like a child while sitting at your computer and listening to one person's voice speak?
Maybe. I've survived through my course so far. All the same, I'd really like it if my teacher gave us translations.

If anyone asked me whether Korean or Chinese was harder--a question I think I've received at least once--I don't have a definitive answer. Both are really quite difficult for the native English speaker, but definitely not impossible for the dedicated student. Korean's writing system and phonetics are simple, a whole ton easier than the Chinese characters and tonal phonetics...but its complicated grammar structure and nearly inseparable connection to hierarchial Korean culture balance out any difficulty advantage that the alphabet provides. (Seriously, you use a different set of vocabulary and conjugate all your verbs differently depending on the societal status of the person you're speaking to.) Chinese grammar is a little more similar to English. IF YOU ARE CONSIDERING PICKING ONE OF THESE LANGUAGES TO LEARN, I RECOMMEND CHINESE, NOT BECAUSE IT IS MY HERITAGE AND I AM BIASED, BUT BECAUSE IT WILL PROBABLY SERVE MORE USEFUL IN YOUR FUTURE, AS CHINA IS A RISING WORLD POWER RIGHT NOW.  AND IF YOU WANT AN EASY LANGUAGE, JUST GO FOR A EUROPEAN ONE THAT IS RELATED TO ENGLISH. 

I haven't dabbled much in other languages. I took a little bit of Spanish when I was maybe ten, so I forget virtually all of that. I took an eight-week course in German once, but I forget most of that too. I tried learning Irish once. It's not as bad as Welsh, but the phonetics and spelling hardly made any sense to me, so I never really got past that. Japanese is one of those languages that I think I'll get to studying sometime in my future, but I'm not too interested at the moment. And Latin...eh. I learned that for a little while too. I will probably find my old books and go through them at some point soon, since I'm aiming to study biomedical stuffs, and it'll help.
Then, I'll learn Icelandic and Nahuatl and Aboriginal Australian. 'Cause I totally have the time. Pfft.

Oh wow. This is a pretty long post. I guess that suits the title.

 To make it even longer, here's a cool infographic I found:

**Heart Attack**

I love cute things. When coming into contact with anything remotely cute, my heart immediately goes into spazz mode. This, of course, has interesting implications on the sounds I produce at such a time.
I will henceforth present you with various examples of the reactions I may have upon being exposed to cuteness of all kinds.


Spazz Catalyst #1:

Reaction:
**begins grinning like a maniac**
*eeeeeeeemmmmmmmmppphhhaaaakkkkkkeeeee*
**bounces in seat**
*guaaaaaagggg*
**looks away for a second**
**looks back, grins again**
**small giggles**




Spazz Catalyst #2:

This only has one reaction. Here I commence a silent wheezing chuckle that starts small but ends up racking my entire body. Then it stops, and I look at the picture again, and the process repeats itself.




Spazz Catalyst #3:

Reaction:
“SMALL CHILDREN!!!”
**violent swaying from side to side**
**headtilt**
*kkeiiiiiiiiiiiyaaaaaaooooo*
**big, dopey smile**
**slow, halting laugh, mouth still wide open**
(Here I may eventually drool from having my mouth open for too long)




Spazz Catalyst #4:
!AEGYO!
[Aegyo (애교): n. the act of being overly cute, commonly by way of high-pitched voices, small sounds, and beaming facial expressions. May cause in others desires of strangulation and/or punching in the face.]
This is best explained through visual means.

(Okay, the second one is not so much aegyo-ish but they are definitely doing it at some points)

Reaction:
*GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACCCCCCCCCKKKKGGGHHH*
**thrashes**
**covers eyes**
**peeks**
*eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEE*
**puts hand in mouth to stop from making further noises**
**bursts into nervous-ish silent laughter**
**wipes drool from hand and re-inserts it to mouth**
**thrashes again**
**closes tab because it’s too unbearable**
**watches again**




Spazz Catalyst #5:

This, like Catalyst #2, elicits a single response from me.
“D’aaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww **breath** awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww **breath** aaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwww...(etc.)”


My point: I absolutely adore cute things and would eat them for breakfast if I could.
So...if you ever need to incapacitate me for a small amount of time...




P.S. (Feed me in the comments if you’ve got stuff.)

깝 - Kkap/Kkab

Kkab- adj. "comes from the phrase 'kkab chi neun' which means you are so energetic that you are almost annoying. It can also mean that you are overdoing and overreacting." (according to the urban dictionary)
n. a kkab action, most commonly applied to dancing.


In case you can't recognize the Hangul in the title, this is not Chinese or Japanese. It is Korean. Yes, the writing systems are different.
Anyway, a while ago I discovered a Korean singer by the name of Jo Kwon, who is known in Korean pop culture as the King of Kkab. At the time, I was too lazy to find out why, but last night I had nothing better to do and so Googled "jo kwon kkab". [<<note: this is a great solution for boredom, but do not attempt if you feel conscientious about wasting time.]


Lo and behold, I discovered that the title is not an empty one. Therefore, allow me to introduce to you the wonders of kkab, first and primarily through the one and only Jo Kwon, who is truly the King of Kkab. 
Well, the king of recorded kkab, anyway. 

(Jo Kwon's part ends at around 1:07)

Kkab dancing commonly involves reinterpreting an already well-known dance into the kkab version of that dance. Here, Jo Kwon does exactly that. In the first video you see Taeyeon from Girls' Generation doing her own dance (Gee) the right way...while Jo Kwon, behind her, mutilates it into kkab. The second video shows Jo Kwon kkab-erizing After School's Bang!. You may want to watch at least a bit of the original versions first, as it helps to appreciate how much the dance is being exaggerated. 


Jo Kwon does it again, this time with the Wonder Girls' Tell Me, but we also get to see him perform his audition dance...yes, that skinny little kid in the middle of the clip is Jo Kwon at age 13. 

Though Jo Kwon is rightly called the king, others are quite capable of kkab, too. In fact, Key was good enough that he was challenged to a dance-off:

   

(Obviously you need good hip control to kkab dance the most effectively.)

But do not be deceived! The world of kkab is not restricted to boys. To demonstrate my point, meet Min.

 

The first video begins with Yuri (also from Girls' Generation) demonstrating the proper dance to the chorus of Hoot. Then Min takes over with her own rendition and from her death-glare when she's doing the bow-and-arrow part I deduce that she is seriously out to kill me. 

It's great, isn't it? I, for one, am a big fan of dance kkab now. 

I wish I could do it myself, but as I regularly walk into walls without meaning to and lose my balance while sitting on the floor, I doubt my ability to even attempt dancing. 

I'll just have to stick with being hyper all the time.

Oh, one last parting gift:

 

It's a little bizarre but...I drooled.