In The Same Boat

Posted on June 4, 2008 by Meg

I gave one of my classes a lesson on idioms, as part of my ongoing guest to eliminate certain abused phrases (like overuse of what a pity or using not at all as a response to thank you) from my students’ English. I gave them a handout with a list of idioms and some example sentences using those idioms, and we talked about the literal meaning and the figurative meaning. Then I asked my students to write a short dialogue using one of the idioms we’d discussed.

Most of the students made minor changes to my example sentences, but one group of usually unmotivated boys really stood out from the crowd.

Tracy: Hello. Bill is the president and David is the mayor.

David: Hi Bill.

Bill: Hi David.

David: Haha! I have just embezzled 1 billion dollars!

Bill: Now I know your secret! You must give me half of the money!

David: You have stolen from the embezzler, we are in the same boat now.

This is exactly why I love teenage classes.

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In Which I Prove I’m A Complete Dork

Posted on June 3, 2008 by Meg
If we were Sims, we’d be married now.

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Blog Schizophrenia

Posted on June 3, 2008 by Meg

Sorry for the recent blog schizophrenia! I think I’ve got most of it worked out now…

My PayPal adventures became less funny when they decided that I didn’t really pay WordPress for domain forwarding, and canceled the charges as an added benefit for my security. I’ve called a few times and sent 4 or 5 emails to explain that the charge for a blog about a Jersey girl with my name living in Beijing really is me, but they weren’t able to help me because I’m calling from Beijing, not New Jersey. My options at this point involve photoshopping my name onto a utility bill from my parents’ house.

PayPal assures me that their primary concern is my security. Unfortunately, my primary concern is being able to spend my money, and I’d prefer not to do that on listening to the hold music on Skype calls to customer service.

So I installed the WordPress.org package on Simpsonsparadox.com, which was what I intended to do with the site eventually, but I wanted a few months of regular blogging with regular WordPress to learn my way around. Fantastico makes setting up WordPress pretty easy, but it’s still a work in progress for me. The next steps are figuring out how to change this template to black text on white background, adding my Violet Eclipse blogroll to the sidebar, and making sure all of my links actually go somewhere.

On the plus side, I found this cute new banner!

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DJ Stick

Posted on June 2, 2008 by Meg

I didn’t notice when I snapped the picture, but the old lady in the background seems a bit confused by DJ Stick’s turntables.  Maybe he needs a microphone.

This little one got a kick out of taking a picture of me taking a picture of him taking a picture of me taking a picture of him taking a picture of… well, you get it.

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Hugo And Diana

Posted on June 1, 2008 by Meg

Hugo and Diana are coming to Beijing next week! I’m so excited! Hugo and Diana are our college friends, we picked our Amherst apartment mostly because we’d live across the parking lot from them. And Hugo was Stick’s roommate most of the time I was in Yantai. I love them so much that if I could pick two people to live in a tiny one-bedroom with us for a month, that’s who I would pick!

Stick, however, is using their visit to make my life miserable. When I ask if he wants to rent a little boat and go out on the lake, he says no, we’ll do it with Hugo and Diana. He doesn’t want to check out the drum tower, the bell tower, Jingshan park or any of the cool landmarks near our new house, because we’ll go with Hugo and Diana. He doesn’t want to eat hotpot or go to Ganges because GUESS WHY.

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I think I’ll try the mojito…

Posted on May 31, 2008 by Meg

Truth in advertising?

Edit: No, I didn’t add that in photoshop! This is real sign at a bar by Houhai. It was midafternoon when we passed, though, so we didn’t stop to see if it was true.

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Paternal Guidance

Posted on May 30, 2008 by Meg

I told my dad about our new hutong home. He said I could live even closer to the Forbidden City but I’d probably have to become a concubine.

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Orient-ation

Posted on May 30, 2008 by Meg

Nate James’ Orient-ation is a new China expat blog. He’s heavy on descriptions of daily Chinese life (as he gets, uh, oriented), like this one:

The waitress comes out with the plate, steaming hot, mouth-watering. Your nose picks up the intense aroma. The flavors. You’re seething

Then she places it…IN THE CENTER OF THE FRICKEN TABLE!

Your date immediately ploughs into it as if they haven’t had a meal in weeks. They hoover every inch of the plate within seconds graciously leaving you two bites to enjoy. Your life is now over.

Food is put in the center and it doesn’t matter how much you LIKE IT, if you have a party of 6, you won’t get more than 3 bites of it. The procedure isn’t always like this but it does happen, and as a lover of all things delicious – it makes me sad.

May I suggest some Yanjing beer to dull the pain, Nate?

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Priorities

Posted on May 29, 2008 by Meg

Some of Stick’s students will be receiving their red scarves in a Children’s Day ceremony next week. I believe they’re called honglinjin (or is it honglinjian? Not entirely sure). You see them on Chinese schoolchildren all the time. These red scarves are a mark of distinction for high-achieving students of good moral character, and receiving one is a prerequisite for joining the Party as an adult. Although my colleagues tell me that the best students get the first honglinjin, but virtually every student in the class gets one eventually.

“You know what that means?” Stick asked.

“Um, some of your kids are right on track to join the communist party?”

“No! It’s almost Children’s Day! We have to get on WarCraft to run the Children’s Day seasonal quests!”

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PayPal: Part 2

Posted on May 29, 2008 by Meg

PayPal isn’t letting me withdraw any money since they’ve cleverly detected that I’m using the account in China. I still know my mother’s maiden name and my secret numbers, but the customer service guy says that’s not quite enough, and to prove that I’m really really me, I have to receive a phone call at my number on file. Which is in New Jersey, and I’m not.

Their security is so good that the only way I can get to my account is have my mom call and pretend to be me.

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