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Dec. 22nd, 2006 05:31 pm
i should be wrapping presents
But I'm not. I'll probably do that after dinner.
Work is going to be excruciatingly quiet next week, as most of the people in my department have taken off for vacation. Mark is in LA - next year we'll have to figure out a better holiday schedule. Both our families make big deals of the holidays, although Chinese New Year is a bigger deal. And then it's about the only time I see my nieces and nephews and hopefully undo a bit of the years of damage they have coming to them.
My sister tells me that she just saw Kaitlin's report card, and she's doing quite well - she's actually caught up with other kids her age. It turns out that she's pretty good at math. My sister got her a workbook so that she can work on learning about negative numbers. You know what's funny? Her English is getting so good she's starting to translate for me with my mom. I hardly even realized she was doing it, until she said to my mom, "What she's trying to say is that..." and I thought Oh my god is my Chinese that awful? Apparently it is.
I just got a letter from my adopted brother's daughter. It's a long story about how he was "adopted", and how the circumstances of his adoption created a lot of drama in my family - I'm not going to go into it. I guess technically she's my niece. Anyway, the name she chose for herself is Crystal. I spent some time with her in the village - she's about 18 and about to take the entrance exam for university. She was a bit shy at first, but Crystal talks. And talks. And talks. In fact, in the three or four days I spent with her, I don't think I said more than ten sentences. Her letter is short, though, and I wonder if she didn't have enough paper or something. She keeps telling me how beautiful I am, which is really unnerving. I think she's probably translating from her Chinese literally to English, which makes her sentences sound very odd. I'll probably write her after dinner. I'm going to have to get my parents to write the address, though.
Some stuff I've been thinking about:
Did you know that some teenagers make money by teaching people how to play Halo? Are you fucking kidding me? They also get paid $25 an hour, which is way too close to my actual salary for comfort. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! Not that I'd be any good at this - I suck at video games.
Harold McGee lives close enough to me that he can drive to the Ranch 99 at Milpitas.
I found out that Six Apart's offices are only a couple of blocks up from my work. That is so odd. Current_TV is also in the building next to mine. I walk by sometimes and am so tempted to walk in - you can see the workers, dressed like skater boys watching their stuff. And all I can think is, Are they working or goofing off?
My China photos are slowly coming up. I'm so glad Flickr increased their bandwith limit. I'm up to Hangzhou right now, and will post up pictures of my parents' villages next. If you actually want to see my family, you'll have to add me as a contact first. There are also no pictures of me, unless you want to look at the New Orleans pictures.
Oh hey! New Asian-Am show, called My Life Disoriented. Did they make one of the Asians goth? Or is that just a white guy in heavy makeup? Time to add to the TiVo list.
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Season's Greetings, etc!
Work is going to be excruciatingly quiet next week, as most of the people in my department have taken off for vacation. Mark is in LA - next year we'll have to figure out a better holiday schedule. Both our families make big deals of the holidays, although Chinese New Year is a bigger deal. And then it's about the only time I see my nieces and nephews and hopefully undo a bit of the years of damage they have coming to them.
My sister tells me that she just saw Kaitlin's report card, and she's doing quite well - she's actually caught up with other kids her age. It turns out that she's pretty good at math. My sister got her a workbook so that she can work on learning about negative numbers. You know what's funny? Her English is getting so good she's starting to translate for me with my mom. I hardly even realized she was doing it, until she said to my mom, "What she's trying to say is that..." and I thought Oh my god is my Chinese that awful? Apparently it is.
I just got a letter from my adopted brother's daughter. It's a long story about how he was "adopted", and how the circumstances of his adoption created a lot of drama in my family - I'm not going to go into it. I guess technically she's my niece. Anyway, the name she chose for herself is Crystal. I spent some time with her in the village - she's about 18 and about to take the entrance exam for university. She was a bit shy at first, but Crystal talks. And talks. And talks. In fact, in the three or four days I spent with her, I don't think I said more than ten sentences. Her letter is short, though, and I wonder if she didn't have enough paper or something. She keeps telling me how beautiful I am, which is really unnerving. I think she's probably translating from her Chinese literally to English, which makes her sentences sound very odd. I'll probably write her after dinner. I'm going to have to get my parents to write the address, though.
Some stuff I've been thinking about:
Did you know that some teenagers make money by teaching people how to play Halo? Are you fucking kidding me? They also get paid $25 an hour, which is way too close to my actual salary for comfort. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! Not that I'd be any good at this - I suck at video games.
Harold McGee lives close enough to me that he can drive to the Ranch 99 at Milpitas.
I found out that Six Apart's offices are only a couple of blocks up from my work. That is so odd. Current_TV is also in the building next to mine. I walk by sometimes and am so tempted to walk in - you can see the workers, dressed like skater boys watching their stuff. And all I can think is, Are they working or goofing off?
My China photos are slowly coming up. I'm so glad Flickr increased their bandwith limit. I'm up to Hangzhou right now, and will post up pictures of my parents' villages next. If you actually want to see my family, you'll have to add me as a contact first. There are also no pictures of me, unless you want to look at the New Orleans pictures.
Oh hey! New Asian-Am show, called My Life Disoriented. Did they make one of the Asians goth? Or is that just a white guy in heavy makeup? Time to add to the TiVo list.
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Season's Greetings, etc!