Friday Follies

Friday’s class is the lovely Japanese Studies kids who are always a hoot as well as the most academically serious of my classes. That’s always a good way to end the week. TSR and I kicked it in the office for a couple of hours and traded stories. He showed me a variety of pictures of his house and apartment buildings in the Philippines and also told me the story of how he met his wife. He was in Israel(!) and planning to go to Thailand. He thought she was Thai and stopped her on the street to see if she would give him lessons. She wasn’t, she was a Philippina nurse in Israel and so not much came of it. Til fate, FATE I tell you(!) caused them to bump into one another again and it eventually led to marriage.

His pictures also included the volcano behind their house and a boatload of relatives. These relatives includes Violetta, his 33 year old sister in law(?) who is looking for a husband. The upside is she is quite attractive and will make a good wife in the traditional Philippina way. The downside is she has three kids. The middle-side is that her kids are all old enough to stay in the Philippines. And, she’s willing to marry someone of up to 55 years of age. This sounds horrible (I can hear the “Pucaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiie!” from here), but it is also pretty much traditional – TSR showed me a cam-site for Philippine women and if they think you are an even moderately wealthy (and their standard is quite low) American you will be swarmed like a bee-hive.

Anyway, if any of you know a single man in the US who wants a pretty, quite, and dependable wife, boy TSR would like him to start an e-conversation. Considering all the losers independent thinkers I used to hang out with, I was boggled no names came to my mind. Surely there is some gnarled mountain-man up there in the high-hills?

Got home and the accumulated exercise of the week started to gang up on my old self. Turned on the ondol floor (damn the bills!) and just laid on my back, with the headphones on, for an hour. It’s the world’s best heating-pad. Got up and headed to the PC Bang, but no one was around online. Did a bit of research for the book review, then came home and read and wrote steadily for about 2 hours. It’s now up to about 1800 words and I can see I will have to hack great chunks away, since there are still 4 stories to discuss. Still, it is at a point that I can start on the little project that BKF and I will hammer out in the next couple of weeks, using “sayings” in language and cultural education.

Something based on similarities (What do the following proverbs say about risk?):

“A turtle travels only when it sticks its neck out”
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

And differences (which culture valorized farming and which valorized hunting?):

“Beating around the bush”
“Licking the outside of a watermelon

It should be a lark – and only over 750 words, so easy to bang out. Blah on about how it can be used as a writing prompt, how it can be used to make foreign cultures seem less intimidating and more familiar, and how it can be used to teach conversational FL.

Tomorrow I bicycle up to the reservoir to go fishing (tremendously shitty weather permitting).

That should be fun.