You know I'm a sucker for these things

Ok here's a new one...You know what to do...

Drinking...Water
Frustrated...that it is still stinking hot
Worried...about the US elections
Excited...That I have friends to spend Christmas with
Reading..."The Shack"
Wondering...if I will meet "the one"
Impressed...with people's generosity even in a bad economy
Missing...Family
Teaching...Individual presentations
Learning...How to really rely on God
Listening...to God
Laughing...with my friends
Sleeping...not enough

"Random Photo"

Sarah O had this game on her blog today, so I thought I would follow suit.

Ok so here's how you play this game.

Go to your "My pictures", click on the fourth file and then the fourth picture...Post that pic and tell about it. Leave me a message with a link to your page when you do this.
So Summer of 2006, I started to notice that my dashboard was starting to separate from the rest of my car. Probably because I never rolled down my windows and the heat basically ruined the glue keeping it together. Well then Summer of 2007, I wanted to sell my car and the dashboard problem was even worse. I called tons of places around town to find someone to fix it. One guy said that if I sent him pictures of the dash he could let me know if he could fix it without me having to drive 40 minutes to his place. Luckily I was able to do that, because once he saw the pictures he knew that he couldn't fix it. I ended up having to buy a brand new dashboard.

The question now is...Why do I still have that file of pictures on my computer. If I had actually taken the time to clean off my hard drive this would have been the picture.

This was from April 2006 at the Gospel Music Association's Music Week. I was sitting in the hotel and in walks George Huff from American Idol. I love American Idol and had really wanted him to win. He was such a nice guy when I met him. I just realized I have never bought his CD. I need to look him up on Itunes and buy it.

Tagged: Amanda, Amy, Andrea, Billy, Dale, Harmony, Jeff, Jim, Julie, Kathleen, Michelle, Mike, Sarah, and Shelley

Beijing Pronunciation

I just read an article online talking about how the wonderful announcers on US television are having difficulty pronouncing the name of the city where the Olympics are being held. Personally I thought it was pretty obvious and easy, but apparently it's not. Here's a video of how to pronounce the name.

Never gonna give you up!

I know it has been forever since I posted last. And for that my dear readers I am sorry. I just haven't been too inspired lately. Anyways, I saw this video online today and thought I would share it with you. I am not endorsing this candidate at all. I just thought it was pretty funny.

Scones take the biscuit and leave linguists in a jam

Last week in the paper was another funny article by Nury Vittachi. I have to share it with you.

*********************************************************************************

Those of you who follow important items of international news will have heard that branches of Starbucks in Asia are now selling a new snack from the West.

I am aware that the serving of Western food makes many people in Asia get extremely excited and exclaim with joyfully pounding hearts: "Please can we go somewhere else."

Anyway, the new snack is labeled "a scone." The British woman in front of me explained to staff it was from Scotland and was pronounced "skon," to rhyme with John. But no. The American behind me said it was an American snack pronounced scone, to rhyme with cone.

But he didn't put up much of a fight. "You can pronounce it scone or skon as far as I am concerned," he added. "The proper name, anyway, is biscuit."

The British woman's eyebrows rose. "Nonsense," she said, pointing to a round, flat snack. "That is a biscuit." The American shook his head. "No, ma'am. That's a cookie," he said.

I phoned a chef to adjudicate. "The American biscuit and British scone are the same thing," he said. "The only difference is shape. If it is circular, it is British, and if it is rectangular, it is American."

The things in Starbucks were triangular.

There are hundreds of words with British English meanings which differ from those in American English. But there are five in particular which can cause huge embarrassment. To help people in Asia who are trying to communicate in English, here they are:

One: A la mode means "in fashionable style" in Europe, but means "adorned with vanilla ice cream" in America. Potentially problematic sentence: "Want to see my wife, a la mode?"

Two: A boob tube is a garment in Britain, but means "television set" in the United States. Potentially problematic sentence: "The youthful Duchess entered the office clothed in elegant but striking fashion, her breasts hidden by a boob tube."

Three: On a related topic, hooters in British English are whistles, but are parts of the body in America. Potentially problematic sentence: "He smiled at Sarah and turned to look at the elegant ship: there was a loud blast from her hooters."

Four: A jock is a hunky athlete in American English, but is a somewhat derogatory term for a Scotsman in British English. Potentially problematic sentence: "The debutantes cheered to hear they'd be spending Saturday partying with a group of merry jocks."

Five: Suspenders in British English are sexy, elastic-and-lace items that connect a woman's garter belt to her stocking-tops. But in American English, they are thick straps overweight bankers use to keep their trousers up. Potentially problematic sentence: "In an attempt at male bonding, the London banker told his New York colleagues that what really turned him on was glimpses of suspenders."

Incidentally, the Cannes film festival opened this week, and the star attraction is a movie called The Stone of Scone. This news inspired me to phone a linguist at a university to settle the issue for good. She explained that scone comes from an old Dutch word pronounced "schoon," so both Americans and Brits say it wrong.

I then made the mistake of buying one of the things and leaving it in the fridge for too long. It fossilized. Anyone fancy making a film called The Scone of Stone?

Normal

Many years ago, my mom, a friend and I were talking and my mom said that she has never been accused of being Normal. My friend, Andy, replied "what is normal?" my mom thought that was a great response. What is normal? Just because something is regular for you, doesn't mean that it's regular for someone else.

Case in point, I have been living in HK now for 9 months, and everyday something hits me as not being normal...but normal for HK. My friend Ann has come to stay with me for a few weeks and at dinner tonight we were talking about life in HK and what we missed from home. Sometimes it's hard to pinpoint the exact thing that you miss, you just know that something isn't right. Then Ann said exactly what I was thinking: "I miss normal, nothing here is normal."

It's raining, It's pouring, somethings are really ANNOYING!!

Well today we are under the signal of a Typhoon 3. This basically means that there is one close, and we will get the effects of wind and rain, but it's not on top of us. And IS it ever raining. The wind actually hasn't been too bad it's just POURING RAIN! This morning lucky it wasn't raining when I went out, but knowing that it was going to rain meant that everyone had their umbrellas with them. This is the first of my annoying things today.

• UMBRELLAS--I love them, who ever invented them was genius. Especially the person who invented my Eddie Bauer umbrella. You press the button and it opens and then press the button when you want to close it. No pinched fingers. The problem that I have with umbrellas is that people don't know how to walk with them. A lot of people have those big "Golf" umbrellas and use them as a cane when they are walking. Except that when they are walking they put it very forward of themselves and then walk past it and then let it stay in place behind them for a few steps then they do this crazy swing with it to get it a few steps in front of them again and the craziness starts over. It wouldn't be a problem if the streets of Hong Kong weren't crowded. But hello, people, there is someone walking right behind you and she is getting hit or tripping over your stupid umbrella. Why can't you use it properly.
  
• UMBRELLAS--Wait didn't you just complain about them? Yes, I did. but there's more. the people who use the small compact umbrellas. Since this umbrella doesn't touch the floor it must be swung in a very high arch. I guess since basically there is an extension on their arms, the natural swinging of the arms is made even bigger and if you are walking to close to someone as they are walking up the stairs you might get an umbrella in the eye.
  
• THE POLES IN THE MTR--First for those of you not in Hong Kong you are probably wondering what the MTR is. It's the subway. In the middle of the car is a pole that people can wrap their entire body around and/or lean on if they aren't able to get a seat. WRONG!!! The pole is not for you to lean on, it's not for you to hug, it's for a group of people to put their hands on to keep their balance when the train is moving. Why do so many people feel the need to lean on the pole with their entire body. HELLO, where am I supposed to put my hands. This morning I am standing next to the pole with my hand on it and at the next stop a guy comes on and proceeds to lean his back and head against the pole. DO YOU NOT SEE ME RIGHT HERE??? So, I had to move about 3 steps away to one of the bars that hangs from the ceiling. I was peeved. As I was standing there, I started to look down the car farther. I couldn't believe it...EVERY pole had some idiot leaning or hugging it.
  

I am thinking that in the schools here they should start having a class that is "proper use of daily items."

Is there anything like this that drives you nuts. Leave me a comment and let me know.

Asian Olympic Sports

I have recently found this new website. MisterJam.com It is HILARIOUS!! Well maybe I think it is so funny because I live in Hong Kong. Anyways. Here is Mr. Jam's proposed games for the Beijing Olympics.

1. Subway Face-Off: Team A tries to get out of a subway train carriage while Team B tries to get in.

2. Synchronized Smoking: 20 Marlboro in 20 minutes. Korea and Japan are tipped for the gold and silver medals in this one.

3. Moderated Karaoke: An audience of singers and musicians will judge this, their brains wired to a cringe-o-meter.

4. Noodle Slurp: The award goes to whoever can down the longest noodle with a single slurp, no hands.

5. Road Racer: This is a car racing sport with drivers having to swerve around bullock carts, tri-shaw pile-ups and massed platoons of terminally deaf scooter riders.

6. Toilet Gymnastics: Contestants have to use a traditional Asian squat toilet, a Western-style throne toilet and a hi-tech Japanese toilet one after another. Not easy.

7. Chopstick Lunge: Four pork buns in the basket, five diners, ready-steady-go.

8. Elevator Leap: Team A has to close the lift doors before Team B reaches them.

9. Democracy Demand: Each team has to organize a demonstration to ask for political reform in their country. (Most Asian citizens are well-practiced losers in this game.)

10. Chilli Chew-Off: Teams eat red-hot peppers in relay form, finishing with those tiny green blow-your-head-off ones from Thailand. Medal for anyone who survives.

Someone left him a comment on this post of his.
***You have forgotten 2:
1. The longest and loudest throat clearing competition
2. the furtherest snot / spit launching event

Happy Birthday to Me

Tuesday was my birthday. And here's the funny thing...When I lived in Hong Kong before(2003), I celebrated my 29th birthday and here I am celebrating that one again. And this year my little sister caught up to me. She just turned 29 on Saturday. Happy birthday, Sarah!!

In all my years, I have never met anyone who shared my birthday. Until Tuesday and I found out that 2 of my students have the same birthday. How crazy is that?!?!

Since my birthday was in the middle of the week, some friends and I went out to celebrate on Saturday night. We started out at Habibi Cafe for some really good food. Then we went to Honeymoon Dessert for my favorite dessert...Mango and Black Glutenous Rice in Vanilla Sauce. (you have to try it before you say gross...It's very good) Then we went to Lan Kwai Fong for some dancing.

Lynn, Nikelle, me and Rachel

Birthday girls! Harmony's BD was on Sunday

Nikelle and Me

When we were in Lan Kwai Fong we met this guy from the US Navy. You can't really tell but he has a gold grill in his mouth. It was really funny. He was a really nice guy.

Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes, cards, emails and gifts!

Anchors Away, my boys(and girls), Anchors Aweigh

The USS Nimitz was recently in town with its fleet. This time I got the chance to host 5 sailors that are on board the USS Chafee. It ended up that Friday the 4th was a public holiday, so I offered to be their Tour Guide for the day. We started off with a trip to a tailor and then Indian food for lunch. We made it up to the Peak in the afternoon, but unfortunately it was so overcast that they couldn't see the harbor. Then we headed to dinner for some wonderful Chinese. HoHo Mei.

We got together again (plus two more sailors) on Sunday for some Market Shopping. I took them to the Ladies Market and then we went for dinner. It was a really nice time spending those two days with them.

Jatan, Nate, Matt, Paul, Me, Nick, Michelle and Jen

Help, I've sat down and I can't get up

So you have a friend, girlfriend, brother, mother or father who sits down on the toilet and they don't get back up. How long do you wait to make them get off the pot or call someone for help? 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, 2 years? Well a guy in Kansas waited 2 years to finally call the police to help his girlfriend. So for the last two years, he has been in a relationship with someone who wouldn't move from the toilet and he brought her food and water everyday. During this time, the woman's behind had grown around the toilet seat. (just typing this is making me sick) I'm not even going to write anymore if you want to read more about it read the full story.

Famous Footballer (soccer player)

So this week the big news in Hong Kong is that Da*v*id Be*ck*ham is in town (I really don't want my blog to come up on searches for him) Well I now can say that I have sat where he has sat and I have touched a paper that he has touched. On Sunday, my friend Mary and I went to a store that custom makes athletic shoes for you. She mentioned to the sales person working with her that she had tried to come on Friday to do this and was told at the door that they were closing early. She wondered why. Well it was because DB was having a private shopping time at the store. He had 4 pairs of shoes made: 2 for him and 2 for his son. The salesman got out his order form and we got to see what his new shoes were going to look like. Surprisingly he ordered Basketball shoes.

The 80's live on...

I have a friend here in HK that just turned 8 years old. Her birthday only comes around every 4 years because she is a Leap Year Baby: born on Feb 29th. So to celebrate her 8th Birthday, she threw a great 80's party. Here are some picks from the party.

Nikelle, Me and the Material Girl (Birthday girl, Amy)

Aren't you just loving the side ponytails that we all have?!
Me, Nikelle and Michelle

Dancing the night away. I don't know who the Jem-want-a-be is,
but she's got the wrong color hair, we all know that Jem had pink hair. Hello!!

And of course an 80's party isn't complete without Boy George!!

Book Meme

My sister Sarah tagged me to do a book meme.
Here are the rules:
1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

(ok so I'm changing some of the rules. It doesn't have to be the nearest book or even the first book you pick up. It can be the 20th book that you pick up, just as long as you use the rest of the rules. It seemed that every book I picked up had a depressing or dumb page 123, so I am choosing another one) (ok so now I have literally tried to do this book Meme with 10 different books. Nothing really felt right, I guess that means you should just go with the first book no matter what. Well here goes. It's still a bit of a depressing kind of 3 sentences, but it's something)

"It was Sharon. 'Holly, I know you're in there so just listen to me, ok?' Holly sniffed back the tears that were beginning to well." P.S. I Love You by Cecelia Ahern

Even though those lines are not great the book is pretty good. I'm a fan of reading the book before I see the movie, so once I get this book finished, I am going to go see the show.


I am tagging the following people: (if you don't have a blog do this on my comments and you get out of tagging other people) Cindi, Julie, Kathleen, Bridget, and Nikki.

Past Reads

I really enjoy reading and want to share with my beloved readers all the books that I have enjoyed. But I have found that my list is getting long and is taking up too much space on the side of my blog. So I have decided to make it a post and on the side of my blog you can find the link to take you to this post. I will continue to add books to this posting. ENJOY!!

The order of books is "Most Recent at the top"

• "I am not but I know I AM" by Louie Giglio
  
• "Confessions of a Shopaholic" by Sophia Kinsella--The entire series 5 books
  
• "The Other Boleyn Girl" By Philippa Gregory
• "Whitethorn Woods" by Maeve Binchy
  
• "P.S. I Love You" by Cecelia Ahern
  
• "Vanishing Acts" by Jodi Picoult
• "The Memory Keepers Daughter" by Kim Edwards
• "The Nanny Diaries" by Emma Mclaughlin and Nicola Kraus
• "The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak
• "Mao's Last Dancer" by Li Cunxin
• "The Devil in the Junior League" by Linda Francis Lee
• "Hiroshima" by John Hersey
• "True Devotion" by Dee Henderson
• "Gweilo:Memories of a Hong Kong Child Hood" by Martin Booth

Helicopter Ride

I bet you thought this was going to be about my ride in a helicopter, but you were wrong. My friend, Ben, told me about this game online and now I'm addicted. Ben's best score so far is 1111 and I'm not far behind with 1103. I am warning you that it is addicting, but it's fun. Let me know what you score on it. Can you beat my score? Loren, if you are reading this, I want to know how you score on it...This will prove if you are really a good pilot or not. :)

Word of the Day

I know this might surprise some of my regular readers, but I don't know the meaning of every word. (I know what a shock!!) Because of this lack of knowledge, I often use a very convenient tool on the internet. dictionary.com Well today when the webpage was brought up, I noticed the word of the day feature...and what was today's word of the day you might ask. It was none other than my favorite word of all. copacetic \koh-puh-SET-ik\, adjective: Very satisfactory; fine.

I also saw that you can sign up for a word of the day email. What a great way to learn a new word each day.

Leave me a comment with your favorite word. or maybe even a word that you can't stand.

Navy Visit

This week the USS BlueRidge was in Hong Kong. As I mentioned before I have gotten involved with the American Women's Association and I host a group of sailors for dinner when they are in town.

Caysie, Me, Loren and Steve

This time I hosted Caysie, Loren and Steve. Caysie is originally from Brooklyn, New York and is 21. She has been in the Navy for almost 2 years. Loren (a fellow Boilermaker) grew up in Haiti and is now a helicopter pilot. Steve is from Springfield, Missouri and is the Chaplain on the ship.

I took them out for a true Chinese Meal. They loved it.

Dried Beef and then you put it in the pockets behind it.

Peking Duck...(A Christmas Story anyone?)

Dumpling Soup.

Everything was delicious (hohomei)

Who has been looking at my site?

Every week I get an email from Sitemeter, telling me a little information about visitors to my site. I get to find out the location of my visitors, how long they were on my site, how they got to my site (google search or clicked a link from some one else's site) Usually I just glance at the information, but I recently read my sister's blog and she did a post about her site's stats. So this time when I got the email, I decided to look to see what drives people to my site.

There were quite a few people that used Google for searches which lead to my site. The #1 item googled to get to my site: "Sound of Music Sing Along" I was amazed. Before I went to the SoMSA, I had never heard of it. So I decided to Google it to see what else comes up in the search results. Apparently, I am missing out on entire world of Sing alongs.

Some other interesting topics that were googled:

1. croutons or bacon bits
2. Answering machine messages
3. crazy carrots
4. stupid questionnaires
5. super sample hong kong
6. carrot tacos
   

Quite interesting topics.

Another interesting thing is where do all my visitors come from:
The number one place is Evansville, Indiana. Big surprise, since that's where most of my friends live.

Some other interesting places people are from:

1. Appleton, Wisconsin
2. Greensboro, NC
3. Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan
4. Northampton, Northamptonshire, United Kingdom
5. Waukegan, Illinios
6. Chicago, Illinois
7. Mississippi
   
8. Bombay, Maharashtra, India
9. Canberra, Australia

And these were just in the last week.

My total number of hits on my site are 1,456.

So many people have visited, but hardly anyone leaves me comments. How about leaving me one today. ;)

Learn Chinese

You must read them aloud

Chinese (English)

Sum Ting Wong (that’s not right)

Kum Hia Nao (see me ASAP )

Tai Ni Po Ni (small Horse)

Wai Yu So Tan (did you go to the beach?)

Ai Bang Mai Ni (I bumped into a coffee table)

Chin Tu Fat (I think you need a face lift)

Wai So Dim (it’s very dark in here)

Wai Yu Mun Ching (I thought you were on a diet)

No Pah King (this is a tow away zone)

Lei Ying Lo (staying out of sight)

Yu Stin Ki Pu (your body odor is offensive)

Su Pa (Great)

I hope you enjoyed your Chinese lesson for the day. Keep practicing and one day you will be fluent like me