This is my christmas present to every one back home. It's a Chinese recipe that's tasty and appallingly easy to make. In English, just call it tomato-egg.
Class was minutes away from starting, when my TA, Amy II, walks up to me. She had the usual TA look on her face: one of grave earnestness.
She said to me, "you know the little boy, Richard?"
"Yes," I said, expecting her to tell me that he had dropped the class. Richard was learning very slowly, as were most children in this particular class. Richard's pronunciation though, was exceptionally horrible. I do not spend a lot of time drilling Richard. There are reasons for that. Reasons that are obvious when he is happy or when he is trying to bite another student. Richard has no teeth. Many sounds are simply not available to him.
Richard and I, I feel like we have an understanding. He's not ever going to be a star student and I'm not ever going really get on his case about it. No teeth, you know.
Still if his parents feel like he should wait until a time when he can produce a nice "the" to continue with English education.
"His father has died." she said.
"oh," I said, totally, reasonably unprepared for such news. It did not take long for my brain to be filled with sympathy for a little boy and thinking through of consequences.
"Is he coming to class?" I asked the question, more than half knowing the answer.
"Of course," said Amy. Chinese TAs are from a friendly, earnest, naive planet. It's just not the planet you or I are from.
"That's ridiculous." I said, probably choosing a word outside her vocabulary.
"Maybe you could give him some fatherly advice," she tells me. I am overwhelmed by having to contemplate so many disperate things so quickly: anticpation of a drop, sympathy for a boy, the madness of his relatives and now the bizarre psychological malfunctioning of my TA.
Richard is not of my quickest students. Even so, I'm not sure I know more Mandarin than he knows English.
My absurded brain had a brief, grave image of myself and a five year old sitting down.
"Spoon," I would say to him.
"Monkey," he would respond sadly.
I would nod and pat his head, "lambstick, lambstick."
He would look up, as if to ask why, but would instead ask, "is it a banana?"
"No. It isn't."
I did not know how to answer my TA, and did not.
So my little sister has graduated from college. I would love to give her a bunch of wise older brother advice, but unfortunately she would know better than to take it from someone who spent a year and a half doing post grad work at the university of Starbucks.
What that means is that I will have to get her a real present. I can't skate by on advice.
Believe me, I tried. I spent a whole month trying to think of good advice for my little sister now that she's being pushed out the womb of college. Except for one sound, specific and now totally moot bit, I came up dry.
The trouble is that the sound decisions I have made make for astoundingly modest advice. These are gems like
*Don't move to Turlock.
*Don't let wasted junkies sleep on your porch
*If it sounds like a pyramid scheme, it's probably a pyramid scheme.
* If you know how basic statistics work, it makes you smarter than 95% of the country and probably smarter than any given president elect.
What I've learned from the poor decisions sounds, in retrospect sounds quite obvious.
*Never be the most fiscally sound person on the lease. Especially if you aren't fiscally sound by any conventional definition.
*Never move in with a seventh day adventist, a communist, or a chihuahua. If you absolutely must pick one of the three, go with the communist.
*Try not to get a career by accident.
The nice thing is, advice is probably a gift she doesn't need. A remarkably self-sufficient girl, she can probably make the most of her lack of obligations. I look forward to hearing about how she does it.
me: We need to think some sort of joke along the lines of, "what's more useless than a Chinese cop?"
Claire (looking slightly puzzled as she inspects a bag of milk): They can't be that useless. There are like however many million of them.
me (long pause, furrowed brow, then comes up with suitable punchline): "I don't know but I bet it's pretty useless."
Claire: Yeah, in my bed, certainly.
me: I said, "cop" not "cock."
Claire: Oh. That too.
Old 97's Curtain Calls
Lucinda Williams - Car Wheels on a Gravel Road
Tom Waits - Gun Street Girl
Nuetral Milk Hotel - In an Aeroplane Over the Sea
Billy Bragg and Wilco - California Stars
Los Lobos - Good Morning Aztlan
Josh Ritter - Golden Age of Radio
Gillian Welch - Revelator
THe Mountain Goats - See America Right
Sleater Kinney - Call the Doctor
Modest Mouse- Never Ending Math Equation
The Velvet Underground - Sweet Jane
The Shins - Gone for Good
Tom Waits - Cold, Cold Ground
Jesus & the Mary Chain - Just Like Honey
John Hiatt - All The Lilacs in Ohio
Nick Drake - Day is Done
Gillian Welch - Barroom Girls
Blur - Coffee and TV
Wilco - Via Chicago
So the comments seem to be broken for the time being. They were attracting website crashing amounts of spam anyway. The Cornertable Wiki, where I was going to write and store whole pages has been destroyed by spam as well.
What that means is submissions for "What is the greatest Irish band?" and "What is the greatest Scottish band?" will be sent via email. v_arouetAThotmail.com.
I already know what I think, but I won't spoil the discussion.
I see that some of you out there still have a hard time meeting the minimal standards of social interaction. Here I am, helpful as always, to direct your gazes up from your feet, to shape the sounds in your mouth into words and to advise on the picking of those words so as to cause minimal alarm amongst your peers.
*Starting with hello or some simple greeting can work wonders. Yes, people do love jokes and observations about the general environment. It's just best to acknowledge their presence in the room first. Otherwise it seems like you are only talking to or for yourself.
*Eye contact! Remember to look at people, but not too much. A good rule is look at them when you they are talking or when you are talking to them. Otherwise you are free to stare off into the distance, as is your wont. Blinking is a good idea, too. You have to make it seem random in order for it to work, though.
*Try to avoid the impression that you are gnawing on your own shoulder. The finger should be removed from the nose as well. Especially while you are talking.
*Fun as is it is to take off your shirt and jump on the couch, there are really only a very few occasions where it is appropriate to do so. Consider for a goodly amount of time before jumping in.
*Try not to be overly sensitive, especially over the plight of absent minority groups. Sensitivity to the opinions of others about yourself can be a big handicap as well, though that can also keep your clothes on in crucial moments. If you are accused of being overly sensitive, it is probably not a good idea to get really offended. The abuse follows from such an episode would be both inevitable and deserved.
*Crying is bad. Try not to do it, especially in front of acquaintances or strangers. Even amongst friends you should try to save it for when you are actually bleeding. Tears of joy have a limited scope in a social milieu as well. Tears on account of anniversaries or graduation are acceptable. Tears stemming from religious ecstasy and the release of a Johnny Depp movie are not.
* Remember that people treat people they know differently than people they don't. You should too. Try waiting a while before revealing embarrassing or emotional childhood stories or deviant sexual preferences. Better yet, try not to have emotional childhood stories or deviant sexual preferences.
*Since you have a hard time conversing with people try and develop a conversational hook to remember you by. Something unusual yet harmless, "he's the guy who's seen Ringu, but not The Ring" or "she doesn't like Radiohead." Hooks should not involve ping pong balls, draconian dietary practices, religious beliefs nor children of any variety.
*If you have a stupid name, change it. People are more inclined to dislike other people if it sounds like they were named after a My Little Pony. If you have a normal but spell it oddly, don't make a big deal out of it. People will either not care or hate you. The chances are also very good that they will point out that you are not really any different from any other "Zack" for having spelled it with an X.
*Try not to be or be like any one who was in Scream.