Chronically Sleep Deprived

I've never done a book review on my blog before; that may be because, even though I LOVE to read, I rarely have time to read much these days. But, this one is worth it. It's The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language by John Mcwhorter, and it's awesome. Like languages? Looking for a little intellectual stimulation? (Amy, I'm smiling at you here!) This is your book. The author is amazing, I wish I knew half what he does about language and how it works, and he uses all these cool obscure languages as examples of how gender works and what classifiers do. It's taken me a long time to read it (I keep having to re-read things to follow) but that doesn't mean it would be as hard for someone more intelligent or less sleep deprived. Totally worth the effort though. I'm not even done and already I'm endorsing it! For you non-language geeks. . .um, I got nothing for ya. Maybe next month?

Have you seen The Story of Stuff ? If not, it's worth the 20 minutes. It's a little preachy at times (I don't buy into the whole "the GOVERNMENT is supposed to protect us! It's not our fault we were deceived! thing), but also very thought provoking. Warning: it may completely ruin Wal-mart for you forever. I haven't set foot in Wal-mart since I watched it two months ago.

Last week, one of my tutors was out sick. Happens all the time, sometimes I combine groups and sometimes I can get a sub. This group, though, is studying for the citizenship test, and one of the students has a test date next month so I really wanted her to have all the instructional time she could possibly have. As luck would have it, several of my students weren't able to come and that freed up one of my other tutors. Dan just happens to be a professor of political science. Could you ask for a more perfect tutor for a citizenship group? I think not. Only he didn't know all the answers to the questions. He guessed wrong on more than one. So. . .how many of you could pass the U.S. citizenship test? Here are some questions students have to know: What is one right or freedom from the First Amendment? How many amendments does the Constitution have? What are two rights in the Declaration of Independence? What is the economic system in the United States? What is the rule of law? Who ...

You go to your company's (or, in my case, my spouse's company's) rather posh Christmas party, held in a venue with a beautiful view, and the open bar runs out of . . . . Sprite.

We made it six years. We've really tried to avoid this, but it's inevitable. Six years of marriage, and all the juggling, hand-wringing, and long discussions to work things out, and we can't avoid it any longer. We're getting a car payment. John totalled our car on the way to work day after Christmas. The roads were bad; he took his usual exit off the freeway and the car in front of him fishtailed, then stopped. He'd left a lot of distance between them but it wasn't enough considering she just stopped suddenly. We actually had the body shop do an estimate on the repairs. $7,998 - and he stressed that that was by no means final, since there was a lot of damage and he couldn't see parts of the engine clearly. Definitely a total loss. I tried to convince John to go car-free for a while. I thought it would be an interesting social experiment, not to mention that it would save us over $400 a month (including a car payment, gas, insurance, maintenance, registratio...

#1 Last night at work, my more advanced students read an adapted version of the O. Henry story, "The Gift of the Magi." As you may recall, it's the story of a young, poor couple, Della and Jim, who each sell their most prized possession to buy a Christmas present for the other person. They discover in the end that their gifts are useless, as he sold his watch to buy combs for her hair and she sold her hair to buy a chain for his watch. So, my students are reading along, and the tutor asked John (my forty-something Korean student) to read the characters' dialogue. John starts reading, and he used this very high, very dainty voice for Della and a very deep, manly voice for Jim. It was very, very funny to hear "Oh, Jim, you still like me, don't you? I'm still me, aren't I?" coming from a Korean man reading in a girly voice with a thick Korean accent. The other students were nearly rolling on the floor. I so wish I'd had a tape recorder. #2 I...

Outsourcing is a problem for our economy, right? So, let's start saving the U.S. government and the states some money with outsourcing. We can start with prisons. Anyone committed of a crime with a sentence of, oh, more than 2 years (subject to a cost-benefit analysis, but I think that is a long enough sentence to offset the cost of the plane ticket) gets sent to prison in a developing country. Thailand comes to mind. We'll pay them slightly more than the cost of actually maintaining the prisons; given what I've heard about Thai prisons, and the much lower cost of labor and food, we'll still save boatloads of cash. Maybe we can arrange some prisons in Spanish-speaking countries, or African nations. The prisoners would come back bilingual! Maybe we'll make it so they only have to spend a couple of years there, and then they can apply to finish their sentences here and take advantage of educational and vocational training programs, since I do think that is important. ...

So, Saturday night I got home around 6. Made dinner, put the kids to bed, decided I was too exhausted to go to the work-related function I'd planned to attend (Saturday was crazy busy). John and I watched some TV and went to bed. Sunday, we headed out the door to go to Church, which starts at one, and the car was gone. Trea noticed first - she turned around and asked John where the car was. He thought she was joking. Then we looked up and realized it was not in our parking space. We filed a police report and still made it to part of church. The detective who took the report said all we could was wait; most cars turned up in a few days, sometimes wrecked, sometimes not. We only carry liability insurance on the car, so there wasn't any help coming from that direction (the car's old and paid for, it would be ridiculous to pay for comprehensive). We never really made an effort to lock it, because the automatic locks are broken, we are lazy, and for real, who steals a 12-year-ol...

and it involves me in the back of a police car at 1:30 am, but right now I'm exhausted so it will have to wait.

So I should probably say something profound. Hmm, I got nothing. So. Saturday night we splurged and ordered Thai take-out from the place up the street. The guy who owns it is SO nice, very friendly, he's Thai and his wife is Cambodian, and their food is awesome. I was eating Massaman curry when Adia walked over and made her "um, um" sounds, which means "I want a bite." I told her it was hot. She insisted. I gave her a teeny bit of curry with some rice, and waited for her to spit it out. Nope. She ate it. And asked for more. Adia loves spice. She won't eat ground beef without some taco seasoning on it. She won't eat bland scrambled eggs. I wonder if the flavor of food a pregnant woman eats affects the amniotic fluid? Hmmm. Trea, on the other hand, does not even like black pepper. But, aside from an aversion to spicy foods, she's a really good eater. She'll try almost anything, and she eats most of the things I cook on a regular basis. I'm not...

I always mean to post, then I get busy, then I try to post in a logical, organized way. . .and it's just too hard. I do NOT have time to live my life and record it in an orderly fashion. So, here's the latest. The Kids Adia is just a little over 20 lbs. She talks CONSTANTLY (she knows somewhere around 50 words). She learned to say "trick or treat" REALLY fast. I think she, like Trea last year, thought we had been holding out on her. All you have to do is knock and say "trick or treat" and you get candy??? She is most definitely a toddler - we hear "no" a lot. She's part monkey, and gets in to everything. My house is always a mess and it's mostly her fault. She's also super cute when she is being affectionate, and tonight she said "I love you" to me without any prompting at all. Her favorite song is "I'm Bringing Home My Baby Bumblebee." She tries to sing along. Trea is cute, and a drama queen. No idea where she g...

Happy birthday to Trea! She's four, and so cute and fun (most of the time). We had a pretty normal day but the fun started when Dad got home from work. She decorated her own cake and unwrapped her gifts, and generally had a good time. I'll post pictures tomorrow. And the election! Wow. Did you see Obama's speech? Did you notice the call-and-response type moments? Interesting. I'm excited that he won - I also have a little bit of an "what have we DONE?" feeling. He's unproven. I hope he can deliver. Very exciting day.

So, a week AFTER the one-year anniversary of us coming home, I'm finally getting around to blogging about it. There are days when I have to remind myself that I really did live in a foreign country for nearly 18 months; it seems so long ago. There are days when a certain smell or sound will bring back a crush of memories, and I wish I were still in Khon Kaen, lying in a huge bed, cuddling with Adia, Trea, and John, while listening to the rain pounding the roof. There are still times, mostly when I'm doing the dishes, when I feel a profound gratitude for things like air conditioning and hot, clean water. I still get giddy about my dishwasher and four-burner stove (with an OVEN!) and the shiny new energy-efficient washer/dryer. I'm grateful for all the modern conveniences and grateful that I know I can live without them (not without some whining, but still, I can cope). And I really, really miss my friends. Nit Noi, Nok, Ged, and Earn, who made going to church worthwhile. The...

Today is the one-year anniversary of us coming home from Thailand. I'm too tired to blog effectively about it tonight, but maybe tomorrow.

To the guy who found my purse today, after I dropped it in the Wal-Mart parking lot: Thank you for turning my wallet into Customer Service. I really do appreciate not having to replace my license, medical insurance cards (for me and the kids), library card, transit pass, and other miscellaneous cards. It's ok that it took you ten hours to turn it in; I'm sure you had to run home and try the credit and debit cards (cancelled them already, sucker!). Oh, and you're welcome to the five dollars and change you took before turning in the wallet. I do wish you'd turned in the purse as well, of course, but now I get to buy a new one. I hope you enjoy my glasses (although it's a very weak prescription, and they are pretty feminine frames.) There's some lip balm, two pens, and a bunch of receipts. You're welcome to those too. Try to cash either of those checks, though, and I will nail your butt to the proverbial wall. By the way, the nice elderly lady at the Customer S...

Want to know what we spent on gas this month? $84.53 And since we pre-paid for two annual public transit passes last month, we didn't have the usual $40 or so in transit fares.

Trea had her first dance class tonight. She's been begging for months to dance; I called around to some studios, but it seemed ridiculous to spend $35-40 a month, pay a registration fee, a costume fee, a recital fee, and buy her a bunch of dance clothes. She's three. She changes her mind a lot. I'm not making an investment until I'm sure she really likes it. So, I found a class in our community learning catalog. Six weeks for $39, no performance, no special clothes. The class description was "basic creative dance steps in a fun, positive, and nurturing environment" and stated that children would learn "creative skills of expression." Excellent. I took dance at Trea's age, and I learned "I'm a little Teapot" and danced around with a scarf. I loved it. She can try it and if she hates it, no big deal. I told Trea in the morning that we were going to dance class that afternoon. She asked every half hour after that, if it was time for he...

We have no more openings at my school. Sorry, I know so many of you were eager to work there - but the positions have all been filled. We now have M, a BYU grad who majored in Spanish and has a TESOL cert from the U; I like her, though I wish she'd stop snickering when she hears me attempt Spanish. I know it's probably hard NOT to laugh, but some appreciation of how difficult it is would be appreciated. We also have A, who used to be a tutor for our school way back in the day, and liked it so much she lived in three different countries as an ESL teacher before coming back to the U.S. for her master's. She's partway through a Ph.D program. A little intimidating, all that education, but she's very nice and not at all more-educated-than-thou. I like her. Rounding out the staff is our lone representative of the male gender, R. R is Iranian by birth and speaks Farsi, Arabic and a little Turkish. He has a master's degree and oodles of experience. He also has a smile r...

In an effort to help Kate recruit teachers to fill all the empty slots at our school, I contacted an old instructor (who remembered me, yeah!) and asked her to send the job announcement to students and new graduates who fit the requirements. She was happy to help. Yesterday, I received an application - which right there tells you that she didn't read very carefully, because the instructions clearly indicated that inquiries and application materials were to be sent to Kate. In her cover letter, she stated that she is majoring in Geography/Global Studies, with minors in TESOL and International Development. Ok, so far so good. Then she wrote, "I have studied abroad in Hawaii , Country A, Country B, and Foreign City A." A geography major is claims to have studied abroad in Hawaii. Heck no.

I just watched Barack Obama accept the nomination (I know, I'm late, I was at work when it happened and I forgot to record it on the DVR). He made big promises - to get out of Iraq, responsibly; to create five million new jobs; to reduce taxes for 95% of Americans; to end dependence on foreign oil in ten years; to invest 150 million dollars over ten years in clean energy. He addressed healthcare, education, the environment, and the economy. He was inspirational. He looked like a president, someone who could go abroad and not embarass my country. He sounded educated, but not entitled. I don't know if he can deliver on everything he has promised. It sounds impossible: deliver everything you want, and at a lower price. It sounds too good to be true. But I have to vote for him. I don't have a choice. McCain is too aggressive in foreign policy. He is too invested in the "trickle-down economics" idea to change. He doesn't know how many houses he owns. He is not the ...