Archives for February 2006
Making tourists’ lives more interesting
25 February 2006 | Random | No Responses
Nothing these days gives me greater pleasure than inflicting suffering and confusion on others. My two favorite ways to do this both involve the clueless tourists here in Beijing.
The first is amazingly simple. Whenever a tourists or business person comes up to you, praying they finally found someone who speaks English, and they ask, “Can you speak English?” Answer honestly!
Where are they now? (Part 1)
25 February 2006 | Random | No Responses
Every now and then, I like to dig up the names of sensationalized figures from news stories of the mid-90s and see where they’ve landed. This week: Glen “Rodney” King and Michael P. Fay.
D0 U hAvE A GF?
20 February 2006 | Random | No Responses
(The title of the post is an actual question. It was copied verbatim–including the sticky-caps and the slashed 0. Oh internet … how you corrupt my students)
As I’ve kept all my same classes this semester, I lost the ability to make the first class a throw-away introduction day. To make up for the loss, I passed around a box with a hole in it allowing students to anonymously submit questions for me to read and answer.
Here are some of the questions my second-year students put in my question box for me to answer.
(more…)
The modern world kills beauty
19 February 2006 | Random | No Responses
The modern world is no place for revenge fueled by emotion.
The modern world is no place for nomads.
The modern world is no place for a Jesus of Nazareth.
The modern world is no place for weird little car companies.
The modern world is no place for ninnies.
The modern world is no place for their brand of barbarism.
The modern world is no place for Nazis.
The modern world is no place for Færies.
The modern world is no place for a whirling dervish.
The modern world has no place for the sacred.
The modern world has no place for farmers.
The modern world has no place for heroes.
The modern world has no place for innocence.
The modern world has no place for superstitious, inefficient avatars of evil.
The modern world has no place for the “wild” and “lovely.”
The modern world has no place for the word “crusade.”
The modern world has no place for Bush-type administrations.
The modern world has no place for barbarians and their kind.
The modern world has no place for you.
(Assembled from Google searches for “The Modern World *”)