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When I was studying German, I was given a very cute German’s children’s book talking about a little Tiger and a little Bear, their little adventure to find Banana in Panama. The fact how it also rhymes in German makes the book very fun to read. From the one item of Banana, they further derived that “Oh, wie schoen ist Panama”! (How beautiful is Panama). It became the title of the book. They went about looking for their dreamland- Panama.

Today, I heard differently on the news. The Panama disease is THE deadly disease for all bananas. 50 years ago, it already wiped out many better grade bananas due to the Panama disease. Our current banana from the super market is the most inferior kind of all bananas. (No wonder I do not care for it at all). 50 years ago, the growers had to choose our current brand due to its hardiness and the fact that it can survive the Panama disease. We now are faced with a mutated strand of the disease which will wipe out our current bananas in a matter of 10-30 years!

Since I am not very much a fan of the current inferior kind anyways, it didn’t really bother me much. The part really interested me is the fact that the most popular and profitable banana was not the best kind. (With the current surviving variations, the ones in the Philippines are suppose to be the best among banana aficionados.) That further supported my theory - the most popular choice may very likely to be not the best choice one can possibly get.

Banana may be extinct in Panama soon. For the little bear and the little tiger, that will be such a dream crusher!

This year, I am given a lively bunch of high school girls to teach. Often times, they ask me marginally related questions during class. I remember one time, out of the blue, one girl asked me how would she know she had this much money in the bank. Does that mean the bank can bring out this much money at all times? They are just getting curious with many worldly concepts. However, many still are quite abstract to them. Although we are not in an economic class, I decided to spend 10 minutes to talk to them about the history of money and the current monetary system. In this sense, I like their free style questions very much. On the other hand, they are much harder to manage for me to keep a fast pace for the teaching.

This week, our usual side-tracked questions are related to food. After the usual questions such as “do Chinese people really eat dogs”. (well, the answer is certainly affirmative.) I added that we don’t really like to eat cats. I saw the signs of relief showing on their little faces. I decided to add the comment that it was because cat meat was not very tasty. This started another round of Ews, Yuks… To shock them further (I like to use the shocking method in class to enhance their Chinese impression. It’s been working very well so far.), I told them how in some places people would eat live monkey brains at the table. I went further to describe the setting and the details. The girls were totally appalled. At last, they asked me how would Chinese people feel about American’s eating habits. This is very interesting to me because this means that they are quite open to view things in different perspectives. I would certainly utilize it to the max and therefore, I chose the more extreme answer. I told them that to some Chinese people, they felt sad about the American’s eating habits. Because the world is so large with many resources, but the American people are extremely limited with their food choices. Some girls left the classroom with a thoughtful look, others simply stated that they would rather be limited in food selection than being cruel.

We seem to have a golden touch with cars. Whatever comes to our hands will become hurt not by our own lack of caution, but by mysterious forces.

In the last month, here are the wounds:
My front passenger wheel was severely damaged by ice at night.
My loaner car’s driver side door was keyed by a vicious parker.
Our 5000 mile only rental car was struck by a fallen tree branch in San Francisco.
Our second car was towed due to the snow emergency.

I just want to say sorry to these cars. Unfortunately, we had you… We wish you all well in this year.

Listening to NPR today while driving, the most interesting news I heard was about the state of Georgia’s outdoor water ban. In the recent months, draught has been such an issue that in some counties the officials resorted to banning all outdoor watering activities. One county in particular, the Fayette county, is taken the situation to the next level - they have set a staff of 20 on “water patrol”, cruising the neighborhood. They are encouraging neighbors to call in and tell on the offenders. The penalty will be up to $1,000 fine.

Here are some scenarios for offending the ban:
1. If you decide to water your brown lawn, you will be reported.
2. If you decide to hose down your flea infested dog in your backyard, you will be reported.
3. If you have a disagreeable neighbor (on anything minor), you will be reported.

If you are renting a car in Georgia state nowadays, you will likely receive a dirty car. (They will only clean the interior.)

In conclusion, given the CA wild fire, the drought problem at the South East, the disappearing lakes at the North East, I am believing the globing warming is happening fast, real fast…

Found this interesting image on the web. The artist is experimenting with sun tan and stencil.

Upon closer examination, I noticed that the original stencil does not match the final tan pattern. ?!