I told myself I'm going to write for one hour without stopping. That means i will stop at one thirty am.
I'm listening to book eleven of the left behind series: Armageddon.
My main tasks today have been to compile the notes for my novel, which are written on the backs of old fliers for Shanghai Daily that Emma brought home, the paper packaging for pirated dvds here (consisting of paper slightly firmer than construction paper and having four segments, the front contains the movie cover and the back description and two other movie related panels.), large papers that i hang up on the hall, timelines already hung up on the wall, and pages from my many never-full notebooks.
oh, my other task is studying HSK vocab by writing out sentences for words that i dont know in my intermediate vocab book. Some of them I know but i forget the tone, like 跨,to straddle, the one to crumble and the one to boast. Sometimes I see the pinyin and I realized that I have been using the wrong tone, or that I have been using the characters without knowing the tones. Thats not as bad, because sometimes I just repeat things direct from memory. I'm good at imitating things I hear. But it's still embarrassing to realize I've been saying the name of the place like the science and technology museum the right way, but doing so unconsciously.
One of the innocent but annoyingly repetitive questions I can rely on my Chinese comrades asking me is whether or not studying Chinese hard. Aside from its frustrating recurrence hundreds of time every year, I am annoyed by the implied simplicity and the insincerity of the question.
I don't think any real student of any language should think in such acontextual terms as hard or easy. Like, I Consider Latin really hard because of all the cases, but its also easy in its sentence struecture and vocabulary (because I know so many latin word descendants in Spanish and English)
So people ask me if Chinese is hard, rhetorically, because they want to sympathize and establish a tentative bond between themselves and a foreigner. But I, in my rigorously analytic, everyones bothering me state of mind, explain clearly and briefly that the hard aspect of learning Chinese is really just the reading and writing. The pronunciation is much simpler than English and the grammar is too.
(It's Chinese New Years, so its so fucking loud right now with all the fireworks. I havent been out of the house all day. I cannot hear much of the Left Behind book that just finished and many a car alarm is chiming in unison with the armageddon like explosions 'round my cave.)
The thing about Chinese is that you cant just read through something and store away all the words you dont know for later. Like, I still dont know what 'eorundem' means in Latin. But see, it has letters and I remember it. However. If you see 甚 with a place/land radical next to it, you have to look up it up in the dictionary before you no how its pronounced. You might get lucky by guessing that, since without the radical it's 'shen', therefore with the radical it might be something close, like 'shen' in a different tone, or chen, or zhen. But that's no guarantee.
(I've now reached the point, as many of us do every chinese new year, when the noise from the fireworks is so loud and so persistent that my instincts have overridden my conscious and I'm quite tense and nervous and looking for somewhere to hide from the noise and gundpowder scent seeping in through my closed windows.)
I see now that it is tweve a clock, so thats why there making all that damn noise.
Well, well, well, I saw the movie "the Ten" which is a very fresh comedy cut up into ten stories, one for each commandment. As I watched, I realized I was seeing the generational shift in comedy formalized.
The trend in comedy that started with Airplane and Police Story, and continuing on to the Simpons, MST3K, Kids in the Hall, The Ben stiller Show and South Park is now becoming perhaps more intensified with this younger generation (actually it is my generation)
Imitation of Pop culture in order to mock, along with intricate absurdity is still the paradigm, but the form is changing. As of yet, I haven't worked out the details, but its good to see that it, at least hasnt degenerated.
Anyways, Speaking of the kids in the hall, I recently rewatched the first three seasons and I was amazed at how advanced they were, both in topic and imagination. The sketch telling everyone to "stand in the new style" , the one where Dave foley goes to ask his boss for a raise and his boss says he doesnt deserve it, since Dave wrote this present Sketch which uses such a cliched premise (a guy asking for a raise)... and "Screw you Taxpayer" which talks about how the whole show is payed for by public funds and flaunts their contempt of the public.
(The fireworks quieted for a second, i felt hope stirring.... wait. there not starting back up, at least nearby, just bottle rockets and distant rumbling and alarms. oh shit, there we go, they're back)
I bought some new under wears, or long johns or whatever they're called at the carrefour when me and steve went to thumb plaza to eat at punjabis.
I am curious to see how long I will wear these new p.j.'s long john's before i actually wash the clothing i wore for the last two months, so that i might change clothes yet again.
The day that we saw The Ten, I also purchased and previewed the new Sweeney Todd with Johnny Depp, what an insult!
I think Depp was good in twenty one jump street and the one where he played the flaming, alcoholic pirate. But Sweeney Todd is a fucking musical!! If you cannot sing with a deep enough voice than you are not fit for the fucking part!!!!
Why does he have to be so arrogant as to ruin a cool musical just because his pseudo artistic goth buddy Tim Burton is too in love to find someone who suits the fucking role???
Are they supposed to be an item? Any self respecting, successful gay man should know better than to go after a straight guy just because he is hot. That's so trite!
Oh shucky shucks, I'm almost done with the hour!!!! Hurray, Ive actually got something done.
Sadly, I feel not much better for the effort, although perhaps i will be able to concentrate on either of the tasks that I have set for myself. I really 渴望很久to出版my 书 any 书都可以。
its been eighteen years since I wanted to be a writer. And to date I have only published/sold six articles. thats not very good Mr. Taylor. But, We've been over this ground to many times before and so has every other failure and successful person.
I think I will finish my notes for Matthews last post regarding his video game. That will get one of the many put-off-in-favor-of-putting-off-something-else-tasks out of the way.
Well, I have been alone for the past ten or twelve days. Here in the apartment, Emma went back to Shaanxi. I want her to get pictures of the food there 扯面，麻辣炒面，and 凉皮儿. Also I want her to make a video of her grandma, who I really like and feel bad about not seeing this time.
I'm going to seperate this into two posts, i'll cut it off at the beginning of the 'Facing Shame' portion. good night and happy new years and 看春着晚，多发点短信。发财，发财， 不要花财on dorritos and punjabis!!!
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