a fish and a bird love each other.
but where would they live?

there is a snake in my uterus :O
hopefully not a poisonous one;
i'm hoping a garden one
who will plant some morning glories in me.

i slept in my friend may's housemate's bed.
i woke up with a black shadow sitting
on my leg; it brought fleas and they bit me.

eunoia:
beautiful thinking

i am hoping i'll have a chance to visit

a polynesian or melanesian island, such as tonga or fiji.
they are all right there. going to papua
would be pretty amazing too...

i feel strange saying this but without colonialism,
we wouldn't ever have chance to
see or know about most places in the world.

i found an oceania art history reader in the dumpster last year.
i'm going to read it over winter break~

here's a snapshot of a video michelle sent me~*

it made me feel very happy :)

she's going to let me borrow that book!
ps: michelle, you have perfect teeth.

my dad and i walked through the old streets of shenmu.
he showed me the courtyard where he was born,
where his childhood friends lived, where his own dad would walk daily.

1. entrance of an old style courtyard house.
2. old painted mural advocating for the one-child policy;
it says: "giving birth to only one child is good."
3. the old city temple.
4. mostly junk with maybe one treasure.

Words That Don't Exist in the English Language

Forelsket: (Norwegian) The euphoria you experience when you are first falling in love.

Waldeinsamkeit: (German) The feeling of being alone in the woods.

Pochemuchka: (Russian) A person who asks a lot of questions.

Pena ajena: (Mexican Spanish) The embarrassment you feel watching someone else’s humiliation.

Cualacino: (Italian) The mark left on a table by a cold glass.

Ilunga: (Tshiluba, Congo) A person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time.

Bakku-shan: (Japanese) A beautiful girl, as long as she's being viewed from behind.

Espirit d'escalier: (French) When you think of the perfect verbal comeback much too late.

Mamihlapinatapai: (Yaghan) A look between two people that suggests an unspoken, shared desire.

L’esprit de escalier: (French) The feeling you get after leaving a conversation, when you think of all the things you should have said. Translated it means “the spirit of the staircase.”

莊周夢蝶

"totoro isn't a bear, he's a forest spirit."

i
just
spent an
hour melting
& scrapping remaining
candle wax from jars into new containers
so i can get an extra hour of burning.
i cut up some yarn for a wick &
it actually worked!
now it is
flick
eri
n
g.

this is the 1st thanksgiving i didn't spend at home!
may, cynthia and i took a nice walk,
made a feast, cut & glittered paper snowflakes,
played a board game for 3 hours & had a sleepover~*

i made couscous wrapped in eggplant roasted w/ tomatoes & onions

& drizzled with olive oil, salt, pepper basil.may made everything else. cynthia roasted seeds.

i woke up in the middle of the night
and there was a black cat sitting on my leg.
no wonder i had a nightmare.

nanuk wandered into our building.
he jumped on the table and sniffed the bag of green beans.

when he retires, he plans on returning
to his hometown to build an elementary school.
its located in anhui, one of the poorest provinces.
he asked if i would be willing to be a teacher there,
even if it's "just for one class."

i would love to.

our campus always leaves me breathless.
taken on the nature trail walking to mchenry library.

"i have loved the stars too fondly
to be fearful of the night."

i was walking home from the library when i

suddenly realized that i had my camera with me.
twinkling planets and smiling constellations.

just bought a one way plane ticket to there ^

云南 yunnan province; china.

here is a map.

selling jingle trinkets in dali old city; dali

tapestries depicting minority group women; dali

naxi minority group performance.
yes, those are real people on horses; lijiang

minority girl selling silver bracelets; xishuangbanna

baby on board; xishuangbanna

dai minority group girl; xishuangbannaa performance before an extravagant feast
in the jungle; xishuangbanna

i've been wanting to make an origami crane

& hang it above my bed for the past 8 weeks.

last time someone taught me to make
one was a stranger on a train from hohhot to beijing.
i think she was getting fed up with me because i couldn't keep up.
but thanks to youtube tutorials, i made one!

sugar cookies!

vegan little men.

ice cream actually does taste better
with rainbow dots of sugar!

i've already posted this before but i suddenly want to
turn it into a t-shirt i can wear everywhere.
the original was drawn with watercolors & ink.

"FUND SCHOOLS,
NOT BANKS."

i just signed myself up for a
"Victoria International Buddy"

i get assigned a foreign friend who will
show me cool places, tell me about kiwi life,
and plan fun events for socialization and immersion.

whee!

100 % SLUG :)

"linda, you continually produce good thinking and writing.

thank you for paying attention to the structure
of the assignments and your thoughtful engagement.
your hard work shows. some of your sentence structures
are awkward but overall great job."

~*~*~

that awkward moment when you walk into a

group study room at the library to meet up with your
TA and classmates to study mesoamerican archaeology,
but instead make eye contact with 2 people making out against a wall.omg, i am whistling!
i've never been able to whistle in my life.

there is a girl who falcons in
our anthro section. she takes birds of prey to hunt
"pest" birds such as pigeons.
as zach our TA noted, "how FASCINATING
it is to observe the multi-species interactions
that take place in urban shopping centers."

then he went on to discuss towels soaked
in britney spears' sweat as commodities.
however, because she "isn't that popular anymore"
the value of them probably went down.

i can't concentrate.
all i can do is eat this delicious bread with butter,
think about all the crafts i'm going to make:
all the owls i'm going to sew
and all the gingerbread men i'll decorate,
and all the glitter i'll sprinkle on snowflakes,
and all the sugar cookies i'll bake!
~*~*~*~*~
must.write.this.paper.on.japanese.education,
read education articles about taiwan, write a reading response,
read archaeology articles, and write a
reading response, come up with a kindergarten
lesson plan, and read 1/2 a book on filipina
migrants who come to japan to work at hostess bars
to look at various zones of encounters
that situate the everyday intimate encounters
which construct and transform cultural identities.
ALL BY TOMORROW.

oscar the wild cat.

the bargain barn sells clothes by the pound.
i got this jacket for $1.35!

11:11 on 11/11/11!
the next time will be in 1,000 years.

i just made the best dinner i have ever made!
(other than lamb feast)
stir-fried eggplant, bell peppers, onions & quinoa!

it was the first time i've ever made eggplant.
like fermina daza (and after reading love in the time of cholera)
i now <3 them.

i was sitting at my desk, eating my dinner
(quinoa, panko-ed fish fillet, brussel sprouts, potatoes!
earlier, i had blackberries, green tea, and a persimmon)
when i heard a melodic tune coming from sydney's fiddle 2 doors down:

she said after she saw my fairy lights,
she went out to get her own~*
she also "can't stop eating brussel sprouts b/c of me."
tehehe.

i just took a flower personality quiz.

"You are a Carnation:
You are friendly, energetic, cheerful, and bubbly.
You love being around people. Outgoing and talkative,
you rarely meet a stranger. Others feel at ease around you
because of your playful nature."

now back to reading this book on neoliberalism.

the kinders drew family portraits today.
in addition to a picture of her parents and herself,
anna drew a blue fetus looking thing with an umbilical cord.

"what's this?" i asked her.
she points to me and says that it's me.
"you added me to your family picture?"
she nods gleefully and says "lingg da!!"

then she shared it with the class.
it was the sweetest thing ever.
i was very flattered.

during rug time, she kept on sneakily
inching her hand to me and then pulling away
quickly when i glanced at her. except she is a
little kid and doesn't know how to suppress her
giggles and ended up shrieking in hysterical laughter
multiple times during story time.
i got glared at by the substitute teacher
-____-

"WalMart In Talks To Sell Fair Trade Goods."

haha.
O the irony.

"all things are one."
-p. coelho

1:57..
1:58..
1:59...
1:00AM !

"heart it races!" everyone pleaded.
i thought it would have been too cruel for them not to.
people were practically crying.
~*~good thing they did not disappoint for the last song~*~

my video of it didn't come out :-(
oh well; hearts, they raced!
we did the ~whirrlwind, made bones from wishes
and escaped during that beep.

"bread!! i like peanat batter and jeeelly."

i got hugged by one of the kinders today when
i told them it was time for me to go home.

we played a game called ~*cut the cake~*
everyone holds hands and walks in a big circle.
one kid is the cake slicer and he stands in the middle
with his eyes closed and moves to other kids to "cut it straight."
then the two kids who got cut have to run around the circle
to see who can get back to their original place the fastest.
it was great fun. D and N were being
somewhat violent and pulling my arms as hard as they could.

this school really doesn't have same resources
my elementary school did but i feel the teachers here
are much more genuine and affectionate
and emphasize community building.
i don't remember TR teachers hugging or tickling us.
j. dewey would be pleased to see the Constructivist-ism.
it is nice and should be this way.
schools should teach us how to be human, not little robots
(unless we are singing this song
because we know our left and right).

there was a full arching rainbow today.
it must have been for you :)
happy birthday cricket :-)

if i could throw you a nice party, it
would be at a chinese McDonalds with
black swans performing PERFECTLY
and william hung serenading you
with lil oreo men dancing around you while
throwing notebooks, gatorade, and breeches at you
(affectionately).

my ED170 TA and I had a conversation(in chinese!)

after class about anthropology, education,
china, the US, N. Korea, our families
and some other things that have been floating
wildly in my mind these days and hers too.

it felt empowering to talk to someone
who thinks in similar ways I do and also has
such a sensitivity but strong feelings about the same issues. she went to Peking University
(China's #1 uni for humanities!),
has a degree in Korean lang. & a masters in Education.
she studied abroad in N. Korea when she was a naive 20 year old(just like the rest of us).
may took this picture in october. it is one
of my favorite pictures ever.

"fly high mariposa, the truth is up there" -nadya
(she calls me mariposa; it means butterfly).

"mrs. r speaks highly of you. she says you're really good with the kids."
hearing nice things people say about you from other people
is the best feeling ever.

i was in charge at the coloring table. everyone was
genuinely impressed how well i stayed in the lines.
anna tugged at my arm, pointed to my mask and said
"i like." then she poked me later and pointed to hers;
she had colored her flowers the same colors as mine.
leslie kept on complimenting it too then colored her flowers the same too.

during recess, i accompanied them to play at the monkey bars.
mayte dangled there like a limp doll and said sadly "i can't."
so i carried her back down to safety.
she has grillz for teeth & was little red hiding hood that day.