Jason, My Hero!

I've had heightened sense of smell lately and all day today, I kept smelling gasoline.

Finally, when we went out to do our errands and came back, the smell was sooo strong and we noticed that there was a pool of gas right on the corner in front of our apartment's complex and it came from a ratty looking white car. My hero and I discussed the prospect of calling 9-1-1, wondering whether it'd be appropriate, you know? All the lights, sirens and traffic obstruction for something trivial?

He bravely called and LO! Hot looking firemen came and rescued the scene and I just am so mighty proud of him for dialing 9-1-1 (big beam). I know this is silly of me to get all excited about this but what the hey, this might be a sign of my extreme boredom!! Ahem. Here are the pictures from today's highlights.





That little girl left bike tracks from the gas all over the street, if you can notice it in the picture. She kept hanging around there and I bet she found the whole thing awesome.

whee! They poured sand on the gasoline and left, leaving the gas scene to the cop that's now behind the car (doing what? no idea).

Reminiscing Asia: A Remedy to My Travel Bugs

I miss Asia. Traveling there last summer for 96 days was the best time of my life (well, one of!). When in Asia, we didn't follow any package plans or have any schedule to meet other than arriving at Bangkok on May 28 and departing Hong Kong on Sept 2nd. Between that, it was random last minute decision-makings with the guidance of our bible, the Lonely Planet. We saw the Buddhism of Thailand, visited islands, main cities and forever ate scrumptious plates. The plate I miss the most is their coconut milk curry dishes.


Emerald Palace: Bangkok, Thailand

Then came Laos. Our visit there was brief, we rode the Mekong Delta for two days on a slowboat... passing scenes of farms, water buffaloes and Laotians sauntering in slow pace. What I do not miss is their crazy driving, and their mile markers had this creepy similarity to a tombstone, capped with bold red paint. Vang Vieng was the best rest, the scenery, the caves and tubing down the Nam Song river; with tube stops including refreshment (always Lao Beer) and jumping off a cliff (that I had also dared).


Laos: Tubing on Nam Song

Cambodia, what a land of beautiful poverty. An oxymoron indeed. The road was so bumpy that I swear my stomach rested up in my brain for a good few seconds. The recently war-battered country from the infamous Pol Pot and their killing fields with beautiful green and rich rice paddies infested with long lost mines rendered the fields useless. A boastful sign bestowing a museum at Siem Reap, "We have dramatically reduced the mine victims from 40 to 20 per month!" You'd see children, adults and dogs with stumps and they were always begging. The temples of Angkor Wat were beyond beauty: ancient, resilient, and silent revelations.


Cambodian Mine Victims: Music for Money (a better version of beggars)


Killing Fields: Phnom Penh, Cambodia


Bayon Temple: Angkor Wat, Cambodia

Viet Nam, “the country of scams,” a phrase coined by me and probably many other tourists who went there. The country where I found myself pushed to the limits with the people but the scenery, nature or city wise, was unbeatable. The roads were filled with cyclos (wheel chair looking bikes where people sat in the front and the driver peddled from the back, pushing you into chaotic traffic) mingling with motorbikes, cars, bicycles and pedestrians: it was complete mayhem yet you never felt so secured when riding on the tarmac.


Typical Scenery of Viet Nam Roads

The fees of riding the cyclos were ridiculously cheap and a costly price to your conscience. Those cyclo peddlers were old men who went beyond their physical capacities to earn some pennies because they were “banned” to earn a decent living just for being affiliated with the US soldiers during the Viet Nam/American War.

I remember there was a moment when riding on the cyclo, I was frustrated and torn apart from seeing the Museum of the American war and thinking of the peddler pushing me into the confusing motion of the road. I kept thinking of the price for freedom and it was all bullocks.


Chau Doc: Life at the Mekong Delta, Viet Nam Border

The landscape, or should I say, seascape, of Halong Bay is beyond imagination. Sapa and her Hmongs (mountain tribes) were povertized because of tourism and lack of government support had tarnished the truth of easy living. The southern culture clashed with the northern culture, the Mekong Delta of Viet Nam collided with the Hanoi city people. Nothing was the same, the food, the clothes, the cultural behaviors and only one common ground the viets shared were, their ongoing scamming of tourists. As I reflect on the moment, Viet Nam is so complicated!

Oh yes, Hoi An and her delicious cuisine, a mixture of French, Vietnamese and Chinese: now my stomach pines for some Whiterose and Cao Lau.


Stormy Beach: Mui Ne, Viet Nam


Water Buffalo on a Rice Terrace: Sapa, Viet Nam

We had a month left and traveled, in my opinion, the best part of our trip, China. I was surprised, China was nothing like the generally filthy streets in those Chinatowns of USA. The food was delicious, always fresh and came in huge portions. The city was clean but at times, we witnessed strange (refraining from using a negative adjective) cultural habits; vomiting anywhere was the thing, shooting snots out of their noses required uncanny skills and digging for gold in their nostrils was prized. We traveled to nowhere (Tibet) and submersed ourselves in the cities (Beijing), walked in historical places (Simatai Great Wall) and biked through limestone peaks (Yangshuo) and pretended we lived during the ancient dynasties of Dali, Lijiang and Pingyao.


Tibetan Prayer Flags: Zhongdian, Yunnan Providence


A Typical Peaceful Scene: Zhongdian, Yunnan Providence


Simatri: The Great Wall, China


City Nestled in the Karsts: Yangshuo, China

Before leaving Asia, we went to Macao and then found ourselves in shock when in Hong Kong. Hong Kong was the cleanest city of our trip and is the most modernized city I have ever seen.

I am rambling about my Asian trip into a nutshell, undeservingly so! But anyway, the cities I loved when in Asia: Bangkok, Koh Tao, Chiang Mai (Thailand); Vang Vieng (Laos); Siem Reap, Phnom Penh (Cambodia); Mekong Delta, Hoi An, Hanoi, Halong Bay, Sapa (Viet Nam); Old Dali, Old Lijiang, Tibetan Overland, Beijing, Yangshuo (China) and Hong Kong.


Karsts of Yangshuo, our last day in China

What inspired me to yak away? This amazing web-magazine!! DO check it out. I hope they continue to make it every month. It is artistically beautiful, inspiring and more pictorial than words (bad me).

http://www.latitudesmag.com/eng/home.htm

Oh yes, our next destination: Puerto Rico.

me write pretty one day

Me, Clear-Explode, teach-teach deaf English. Them hard write some funny, horrible not make sense.

Me understand-no why must-must teach grammar perfect? Why-not teach index-point write-write? Grammar structure-itself boring. Itself-grammar forever-long consume time. Deaf see grammar-itself scary T-A-B-O-O. When they Deaf see "English" them-index-point run-scream EE-K EE-K.

Write-write must about any, fun enjoy-enjoy-enjoy; write-write-itself need-need about-?-what-? life more real, personal true-work meaning.

When me-tutor, students question-me help need-need, them always command-me "please check grammar." Them never nice ask-me, "question-? me write right?" *pause* O-R, "question-? me make sense?"

brainwashed grammar-number-one must, demand top. Idea-many, express, flow-story, make sense... how-how real write-itself not cherish.

Index point-teacher teach deaf write-write need-need must put positive attitude. How-how avoid, that index-point-grammar-itself need-need emphasize stop.

Write-write for perfection-not. Write-itself for-for? H-U-M-A-N-E rights speak itself-brain.

you get?

Daily Spark: Journal Writing "If I were Ahab"

"You've probably read books from wide variety of genres-- fairy tales, science fiction, poems, plays, romance, mysteries. If you could live the life of any character in fiction, whom would you choose and why?"

Easy question, not!

I cannot singularly choose a character, it would serve an injustice to humanity therefore, I gotta go over the limit and choose a character for EACH genre!

Fairy tales: Any of the Unicorns: magnificent, pure and a myth.

Fantasy: Morgan Le Fay from Mist of Avalon. She was misunderstood, she was strong yet in her heart she craved to be vulnerable and get away with it at times. Her strength fed other people to thrive and she has a kick-ass name.

Aslan from The Chronicles of Narina: mighty, powerful, light and unforgettable.

Treebeard the Ent from Lord of the Rings: sage, ancient, appreciative and brilliantly dumb because of his deep pace.

Poems: e.e. cumming's poem on driving a car with a shift (a personification of sex actually); I would love to be the lady welcoming his expertise in shifting skills.

Emily Dickinson, the bird that perches in the soul, "Hope is a Thing With Feathers."

Romance: A character from Winter's Heart (trashy novel) because one little itsy bitsy touch of air sends her clit into a quivering glee.

I didn't include mysteries or plays; you see, I have this rule of thumb, don't get stumped for more than 5 minutes when writing.

Here's something for you all:

Bolton, DeLay and Coulter
things getting a wee bit extreme
Gallaudet, Bell and Keller
a reactionary backward pace
Santa Claus, Glaciers, and global warming
our stupefied frozen stance;
this surely has you go, huh?
that's probably because you're not
doing your homework.

Well. whatever that is. You see, I typed that up in few minutes without thinking... not that it matters but the point here is, sometimes strange thoughts emerge and you go, heeeeeeey now that is arse jolting piece of work!

((not this one))

Like I said... nonsense.

the difference is?

I had this discussion: what's the difference between a bastard and a jerk? Is "bastard" just a static label whilst jerk is an active terminology? Seriously, a male can be a bastard just because he is while a male is a jerk because he did something.

bas·tard
n.
A child born out of wedlock.
Something that is of irregular, inferior, or dubious origin.
Slang. A person, especially one who is held to be mean or disagreeable.

Well. A synonym for bastard would be "bitch." We can say, the father was a jerk and abandoned the mother making the child a bastard. A dilemma here, do we say the mother was a jerk for having a bitch? Is the term, "jerk," gender-based solely for masculine pricks?

I looked up in the dictionary for the word, "jerk" and there were well over 6 different definitions and only one applicable, "Slang. A foolish, rude, or contemptible person" and then there were these definitions:

Phrasal Verbs:

"jerk off" (Vulgar Slang)
To masturbate.

"jerk around"
To take unfair advantage of, deceive, or manipulate.

We very well cannot connote the term, jerk, to a female. Now, what do I say about a bitch's mother? A bastard's father is a jerk... this is where I think I feel stumped.

I decided to check "bitch" under the thesarus and was humorously entertained, for example: backbreaker, ball-breaker, ball-buster, bone breaker, bullwork, chore, dail grind, donkeywork, elbow grease, grind, gruntwork, hack work, labor, menial labor, moil, plugging, rat race, scud, scut, slavery, slog, struggle, sweat, toil, travail, workout

Good riddance: back-breaker? chore? donkeywork? "Your mother was an elbow grease and that's why yer a bitch!" or how about this, "A bitch's mother is a ball-breaker!"

Does this tell us something?

However, the thesarus for bastard had no limit... check this out: boor, bounder, clown, creep, cur, curl, dog, heel, knave, louse, lout, maggot, rake, rascal, rat, rogue, rotter, rounder, scoundrel, sleazeball, slimebucket, stinker, worm, abject, awful, base, beastly, cheap, contemptible, degrading, detestable, dirtbag, dirty, disgraceful, disreputable, down, gross, grungy, ignominious, infamous, insignificant, loathsome, low, mean, no-good, pitiful, reprehensible, scurvy, shameful, sleazy, slimy, sordid, vile, worthless, wretched, yucky

My favorite synoynm for bastard: infamous. I think it is pretty much self-explanatory.

My father is a dirtbag which explains why I am a bastard but my mother is a grunt worker which explains why I'm a bitch. Though my father's a maggot, my mother's a slog. My father is a no-good, pitiful scurvy and that gives me a right to be a bastard but you see, my mother was a menial laborer, a ball-buster and a bone breaker which will clearly explain why I'm a mean angry bitch!

I got to stop. Word play. Halleujah.