People Die

I was reading some biographies of former high school classmates and I saw one that really made me sad. There's a girl from our graduating class that got married and had children and step children, then her husband got cancer and died last year. Now I have to go to class and I feel down. Death is a sad thing. Jesus cried when people died, he didn't say, "hey it's all my plan!" The bible says that death is the enemy. It's a horrible thing to go through and I feel for that person.

Amen

Yes, I wish women had more sense about the way they dress ( I know I've made some mistakes), but there's no accounting for taste. The taliban claims that women should be covered from head to toe, because if we're not it's like an uncovered piece of meat. I hate to say this, but American men act the same way, they just don't demand the head to toe burka with just the eyes showing. They do send the same message though. You know what? I'm not a piece of meat. I believe in the middle ground. Modest dress, but why should I bend over backwards either way- skanky or completely covered- for a species that considers me meat?

I've been around the opposite sex in situations that really made me understand why I might want to be completely hidden from head to toe with only eyes showing, and then...worry about the messages the eyes are sending...is the burden ALL on me? Can the opposite sex please stop, please understand?

Please, alot of us are people. OK, some of us aren't- but I can't help that a lot of women don't act like people. Please don't paint us all with the same brush. I'm a person, not a thing.

Out of the hospital...

I had an emergency operation to remove the appendix. I also have gall stones, but they couldn't do those in the same op...and some other stuff going on.

ANYWAY. I've been recovering at home and this is really the first day I'm out and about it feels weird. I've been at home watching the news, and laughing hysterically. I want to blog some of this China coverage so badly, but sitting here even now, I'm dizzy and weak. I think also that this illness has caused some depression, which is scary and I hate it.

So, I'm dealing. Really, I expected to hit the computer to tons of messages and what not...NOPE. Nobody cares I guess. :)

More later.

Really Unwell

Some days I wish I was less like Seven of Nine, "You will not engage me in further irrelevant conversation!", sheesh girl, grow a heart. But I've been really unwell the last few days, and today I wish I was more like 7 of 9.

It looks like I need a doctor's visit and I'm scared, don't want to go. I might have to quit the job, if they don't get rid of me first. The issues are kind of yucky, I will say that my ear infection isn't helping the other things, and I might be deaf in my left ear now.

Oh well, we'll see. But there's been quite a few things going on in the news that I'd like to blog about, all I can do for now is apologize and say I'm feeling terrible, so I don't forsee an interesting blog entry soon. Sad face.

Say What?

Two days ago I woke up completely deaf in my left ear. Last night the pain was so much that I didn't sleep. This morning my helper came over and told our friends that live in the space in back of the house, and it turns out that the dad and the older sister of that family have the same thing. It's just nasal drainage that went down the wrong chute. So both these ladies got me some antibiotics and vics vapor rub. I sat over a steaming hot bowl of vics, and it felt great. Then I crashed out and had a comfortable sleep even though my ear still hurt. Ahh...

I had no way of contacting work, both my cell phones are inoperative and my numbers are stored in there also. I don't see why I should tell them anyway, they never tell me anything.

I've never had an earache or ear infection before in my life. While I was deciding if I would try to take the one hour trip to work to personally let them know that I was going home, my older son started barfing like mad. So that settled it for me, I wasn't leaving the house. My poor older guy, he's the glue that holds us together around here. It's so sad when he's sick. All three of us slept a large part of the day side by side on the floor (we always sleep on the floor local style).

Only Salvador Dali Understands Me

This is what my old job was like. I'm so glad I don't have to use words...here's Salvador.

Will You Still Need Me?

Dear Push Pull,

When I get older, losing my hair, many years from now...
Will you still be sending me a valentine, birthday greetings, bottle of wine?
If I stayed out till quarter to three, would you lock the door? Will you still need me- Will you still feed me...

??

*end oboes*

Does The Name Pavlov Ring A Bell?

I have this black t-shirt with white lettering that says the above slogan. When I saw this online I thought, pure comic genius, so I bought it. I was surprised to learn how many people don't know the work of Pavlov, because I learned that in high school, not college or anything. But to so many people...nope, doesn't ring a bell.

I'm wearing this shirt today but ran into no problems with the students, they had no curiosity whatsoever about the shirt and I'm glad. Well my advanced class asked me, and they seemed to understand the explanation, I didn't think it would go that smoothly.

Today online I googled the above phrase to see if my t-shirt came up, but it didn't. Instead link after link after link of people using this line for various reasons on message boards and webpages. I guess it's a common joke. Go figure.

So, Theresa, You got jpod?

All this eluding to Douglas Coupland and the links on the side of your blog to Douglas Coupland news, what's really going on? Who is this person? What can you tell us?

Well in college I had to read Shampoo Planet for English, my introduction to the writing of D.C. We didn't discuss it much in class, and then had to write a final exam essay on it, and didn't know what the questions would be in advance. My essay kicked butt. The teacher used to teach at Stanford and holds a PhD. The college is located in a nice area, so teachers like to live there. This results in having an astounding local small college staff. Anyway, she wrote on my final, "you are the only one that really got this book."

And I did, Douglas Coupland writes for me and he reminds me of my friend Dave. He coined the now horribly misused term Generation X, that was the book title. He's an artist type that can't see things drably, even the drab he romanticizes[see Souvenir of Canada].

When my thinking gets too literal I need a Coupland antidote, or anecdote...whichever. Not that he isn't literal, but his windows have the right dressing. It's permission to be me, and there's not much media entertainment out there issuing these slips at the moment, especially to females. (Thank god for gay guys? -huh?)I need a hall pass to surreal thinking patterns that are so concrete they could be plans for a futuristic skyscraper (that doesn't scrape anything). I'm an accidental futurist so often and pained souls like me need the kindred spirits.

I'm in need of jpod and The Gum Thief, but I don't know if I can get them out here in the Phils.

BUT the reason for this post is to send readers to a very cool web page that must be played with and clicked, it's really fun and evil. Enjoy.
http://www.jpod.info/ The image of the cat is something I stole from the page ( you have to click around on there) title..."God is a Xkb state indicator"

There are also links on the page that pull up a google search for how to flip a skateboard, and one link to http://www.skateboardingis.com/ and pretty funny http://www.skateboardingsucks.com/, this is rude joke on skateboarders (commercialism) but at a quick glance and scroll and my super speed reading abilities, it looks well written, and there are probably some suckers out there that don't get it, just a guess. It's interesting, but not my sense of humor. I don't know, I don't really care if things go commercial. And certainly the people that write this website, however intelligent in their own areas of expertise, seem pretty standard in keeping with the currently misogynistic times. Even if it's parody, it's likely just reinforcing their readerbase badbrains. I'm tired of jokes at the expense of women. We're not animals, we're people.

I'm a misogynist-o-meter in that if society is currently extreme in women hating and exploitation and control, I become more of a feminist automatically, which normally I'm not.

This is the thing about Douglas Coupland, is that all his media sends me on a thinking carnival ride.

"Evelyn Waugh Was A Man!"

I've been told more than once that this is me. I used to even have my hair kind of like Scarlett's there and I kind of have the same voice. I have to admit, when I saw this part of the movie [Lost in Translation] I cringed a little when her husband told her off. "Why do you have to point out how stupid everyone is all the time? Not everyone has a philosophy degree from Yale you know." (I don't know if those are the exact words, I'm going from memory.) She replied, "I thought it was funny." That's exactly what I would have said. I thought my friend Stephanie was the one who told me that I was like her, but she says it wasn't her and she hasn't seen the movie.

In reality, if someone said they checked into a hotel in Tokyo as Evelyn Waugh, I would have thought that was pretty cool, especially if it was a girl. BUT, I'm snotty about a lot of other things though. Bimbos irritate me. I've been thinking about this lately, because I'm looking at my friends on MySpace, like their friends, and then their friends...through the chain, the looking glass you know. There is just no shortage of dumb people on MySpace.

I'm not like the character in this movie, though because I don't get bored. I would have sang Karaoke in the bar with the blond chick. One of the first scenes where she goes to the Buddhist temple and cries because she felt empty, that was me in high school, but not now. I'm one of those annoying satisfied people that thinks they found the truth.

and don't gimmie that, 'no you're not Scarlett Johanssen', because that's not what I mean...

Flashbacks

I like talking to people from my old job. I worked for a big shipping company that shall remain nameless. However, sometimes my memories do this. And then I feel like I need a pill. I think I'll get a beer tonight.

Sometimes

Sometimes, this is me.

WANT TO GET TO KNOW YOUR FAMILY??

I can't figure out if I'm pissed right now, or what I'm feeling, but question:

Do you want to get to know your family? See if they have a MySpace page!!!

I'm on here with my friends, and one of my old friends, is like, "Hey, wow, I found your brother on here, he's grown up!"

Yeah, I keep in touch with my bro and get to Vegas when I can, but...I didn't know he had a page. Supposedly my sister has one, too. OK. So I search and search and find nothing. I do happen to know my sister's email without busting open the addressbook, so I search by email and found her page.

That's when I saw my dear bro at the bottom as a "friend" of my sister. They live together, they own a house together and are close, so if one's on MySpace, so is the other, no biggie.

I go to my brother's page and it's all tricked out! Dude! Could you shoot me an email once in awhile? What's up? And what's with the skanky chicks posting comments under his picture? Maybe that's why I didn't get an invite (ya think?) And I see this photo and don't approve of your punk ass friends-they look like punk asses to me. Come to think of it, don't even tell me that's danny in the center. I don't know. That's right, I don't know because I didn't know you had a MySpace page!

Joking aside, they don't have the urls to my pages either, so we'll have to change that. Wow family reunion. It seems like all my brother's blog entries are about breaking up with girls and how hurt he gets. He's the kind of guy that makes me think what they say might be true...women don't like nice guys. My brother is the best. But...always bad relationships.
www.myspace.com/Donovan1977
Reading his front page is like...man what a nice guy...and you know what? It's not an act, he really is. Mom wonders why her kids aren't married, but she can be proud of all three of us. We're decent people. *teary*

So Tempting

I'm tempted, because this is my diary, to blog about female bodily functions, because it's all I can think about today.

But, on the chance that this blog is actually something people accidentally click in to once in awhile, I restrain myself.

But man, this is one of those days where I'm soooo tempted.

There's No Such Thing As A Stupid Question

My student Lino asked me, "Did you ever kiss a black man?"

Recovering...

I'm recovering from my "collapse" last week, but really taking it easy. I feel slow and calm, at times in pain. I'm minimizing all my activities and only focusing on the important. I didn't feel like I was doing that much, really, but it turns out that every little bit of energy counts.

I enjoy keeping up on the news, but will be limiting how I do so. There are plenty of news links on the web, and the science news on Yahoo has been interesting lately. I'm working on curbing the desire to share news and discuss it with others, although I feel that's been stimulating. I love getting feedback from angles I had never thought of before from people smarter than me. But...with people come(s) stress. So enough of that for now. Narrow-mindedness and grudge holding just stresses me out.

There are lots of people in my life that are needing emails from me to update them and they've been neglected. I need to focus on that in my spare time, and not swimming with sharks.

I Finally Collapsed

I finally bit the dust from exhaustion and spent three days sleeping, waking a few hours in evening each day.

I talk for over 6 hours a day non-stop. Not prepared talks, but trying to illicit information from others and adjusting to their communication style. I've been doing this for quite awhile, and had four classes a day for quite awhile, but typically we are supposed to have 300 minutes a day teaching, not 400. I bit the dust finally. I think the only reason is that two of my classes were with only one or two people that almost didn't speak a word of English. Four classes a day is just enough to handle when there is a full group to share the load of speaking, but when you are one on one for 100 minutes with no help from the other party, and its' only conversation (no homeowrk to go over, no grammar lessson), it's tiring.

I can do it, but I crashed after a couple of months. I don't even know how long it's been, but I've had this rigorous schedule for quite some time.

On lunch now I'm reading the Korean Times online. There are interesting expat articles there. If I had a computer at home, I would have an amazing blog by now, but lunch times I am NOT creative. I'm in receptive mode. Output=0.

Last night, I don't think I slept at all. I was really angry, too because Brad Pitt and Angelina Joilie kept running through my mind without my consent. It was really annoying, like watching the same commercial over and over again. This week they are in Vietnam and they just picked up another child for adoption. I hope she's not addicted to this and collecting kids. Although, they've got the money, so I don't really have any complaints. WHY am I thinking about this?, it's like torture.

Stress

This week has been so stressful. A bunch of teachers here got fired with no warning. The office here is very unprofessional, so there are communication issues daily. We have training this week by a visiting British professor, and while I'm excited, it's different and a bit stressful at the same time.

A scad of students finished the school this week, and they were a sentimental crying bunch.

Gotta go, meeting...

No. I logged out of this page, and headed to a meeting that really wasn't a meeting for me; another example of the communication around here.

When the students cry about leaving, it's hard. I hardened after the first bactch left a few months ago and told myself never again. But some of this group were so special.

It seems that many stressors are happening all at once this week, it's not a wonder that I feel the way I do.

I'm going to get some SoJu.

Ugh, Sick

Last night I spent the entire night vomiting and having diarrhea. I am so worn out today.

Right now in the lobby of the college here they are playing some piano music, a little high strung on the vaudeville hijinx side. I'm happy when another song starts.

I'm so embarassed to be at school when I don't feel well. I look terrible and I'm not sociable. I need a nap.

I don't really know what's wrong with me, but everyone in our house from Sunday until now had the same thing. I think it was the hot dogs, but I don't know.

Why is Sprite, and 7-UP so good for this type of thing? I don't know, but it is.
I feel like I've been partying all night, but I don't have any good stories to tell.

I'm blogging because I'm afraid if I stop then I will get discouraged and not start again.

Stuff I should be flattered about:

Since the new schedule came out switching students between myself and the other native speaker, several students have scrambled to change the schedule again so they could remain in my class. For some reason, I feel numb and neutral about it when I should be like, yeah, I rule.

One, I really want the students to have a good time at the college no matter what they are doing. I really don't want them giving info to other prospective students, like, 'one teacher is good and the other one sucks'.

Another reason might be that I already know that I'm ahead of this guy. I guess since there's no competition, I'm just worried about the repercussions on the college instead of feeling good about myself.

This music has to go, someone is now singing Amazing Grace Asian style which is really high pitched and all over the place. Yay, I didn't even finish typing that and someone turned it off!!

Time for my 1:00 class.

Tired

I hate being tired. I hate it, especially if there's no reason for it.

Well, there might be a reason. The weather here is actually cold. The skies are often gray lately. It's not always cold, but lately it has been. In fact in the Philippines it's rarely cold.

Coffee is not helping, eating is not helping, juice is not helping, my students making me laugh is not helping.

Sometimes maybe I just need to accept the mood.

Today I wanted to start posting here on this blog, it's really the wrong day.
There isn't interesting news today, just scary. George Bush seems to be starting a shoving match with Iran.

Ugh.