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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.

Two and half months have gone by without any updates… I think this is probably the most amount of time gap I’ve had since I started this blog.

One’s growth in experiences in life can never be constant. In other years, the two + months can be considered a blur. This year, standing where I am now, I have the sensation that last Nov. was a long, long time away. My theoretical understanding of life has gone a step further with the recent string of events and drama. Finally, I am back at home settling down to become myself again.

Aside for the serious news, I am also playing constantly (if I have the leisure mood) these “room escape games” online. One has to use their wits and the limited resources within a defined space to find a way to escape. The best designed ones are in Japanese, which further motivated me to learn the language. Starting next week, I will be going back to school with my old Sansei. My goal is to be able to read the Japanese instructions on these games and my Japanese gadgets…

This new year arrived without my much attention since I was preoccupied by all the events. Only at 12 days after the ringing in the new year did I contemplate my resolution. Nothing much came to my mind, except my conviction to seek spiritual development to help me navigate better in my own destiny.

This is a serious update.

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. ?!