Fat Chickens and the Soft Parts of Your Body

Learning a foreign language is one of the most rewarding things that I have ever done. It also is one of the most frustrating experiences that could be wished on anyone. You see Chinese is a tonal language. That means that one word has four different ways of saying it. In many cases context determines what a word really means. Chinese has only 400 sounds in the entire language, compared to English’s 2000+ so you can imagine how often I say something wrong. In order to survive the roller costar of language study emotion some days you have to laugh at the mistakes. This is a list of some of the “better” mistakes that my friends and I have said over the last 2 years.

-While walking my dog I told little children that they could grind up my puppy instead of pet him.

-I said that I smelled my wife instead of saying I kissed my wife.

-My friend was speaking with a cab driver about getting tickets; he then told the cab driver that his France was very expensive.

-I was ordering food at a restaurant when I asked for safety eggs instead of quail eggs.

-I ordered the “smell of urine” noodles instead of a vinegar type noodle.

-One friend said he wanted to kill the waitress instead of saying thank you.

-Another friend wanted to comment on his teachers new hair cut and said he liked the soft parts of her body.

-One friend ordered human butt instead of pork ribs

-One classmate said he shaves his monkey every morning instead of shaves his beard.

-My mother said she came to China on a fat chicken instead of an airplane.

There have been many of these incidents, and if not for many gracious Chinese I might have given up a long time ago. I hope you all had a good chuckle.

This is Fatkid saying “listen to what I mean, not what I say!”

I'm Going to Bite Your Face!

I'm in love. I have been in love with the same woman for over 10 years now and it is moments like this that I am reminded of my love for her.

Constant love in a world where trading wives is like super sizing your fast food, is a rare thing. It is this type of love that I think is needed today in the world. we need to have people show that they can continue to love someone in the good times and bad times. We need to sow our kids that just because rough times may come, we just don't quit on the relationship.

Now there have been times where it has been rough. Anyone that has been married will tell you there are times when you ask if this is really all worth it. So I have come to the conclution that it is not how good you love, but how fair you fight. This is the hardest thing about being married. It is so much easier to go for the kill shot when fighting with your spouse than to be fair and keep to why you are fighting.

Our kids will learn these lessons from us as well. Kids watch parents fight and pickup on what to do from us. If we give them a good example of how to resolve conflict it will only help them when they have relationships of their own. We need to think of it as laying ground work for the future. Young people today don't know how to resovle conflict and how to have productive relationships with anyone. Or fast food society and Flash in the pan culture doesn't help kids understand commentment or that something is for life. the only thing they know that is for life is prison.

I posted a picture of a book that is a good read and was rcommended to me. I now show it to the world of the internet.

The Man with the Hammer and the School with the Megaphone

I woke up not able to see anything. My hand carelessly roamed the night stand for the alarm clock and when I felt the familiar cool plastic. I pushed the light button and saw that it was just after 5 a.m.. What was going on? The only light outside was from 4 very dim street lamps. Still I heard the sound of a lone hammer on wood, and then on metal.

What was going on here? I tried to get up, but the generic Theraflu had turned my legs to jelly. The hammer was consistent like the second hand on a clock. All I could do was lay there. Surely someone else at the construction site behind my house would stop him. Wouldn't someone yell at this brown nose?

Hours passed and the hammering became less consistent. Instead, it waited for me to almost get to sleep before starting up again for just a few moments. Then it stopped. Just stopped, almost as if in mid swing. I smiled and thought I could sleep for about 2 more hours. Little did I know that the hammer had a friend set against me as well. A friend that was even closer to my apartment...The school!

Not only do I live by a large construction site, but I happen to live by a boarding school. The school is about 50 meters from my front door, and they all wake up at 7 a.m.. Before classes start the kids are lined up in the court yard of the school for morning exercises. There is a very manly voice that orders them to do different stretches and the megaphone he uses is set on the highest setting and pumped through the school PA system. This goes on till 7:30 and then every half hour and hour the bells sound. The bells are not your typical school bell, with it's harsh ring. The bell at this school is a loud interlude where the it runs down an entire octave about 3 times.

It's 9:33 here in Xi'an this morning and for the last 2 and half hours I have been bombarded with the sounds of children, bells, and the hammering horde of workers in my backyard. What is this originalfatkid to do...

You've been chosen to serve your System on the Game Grid

Tron. I was only 8 when I saw this film for the first time on Betamax. In the early 80's there where many films that questioned the relationship between computers and their human creators. These themes can be seen in more recent films such as the Matrix and I Robot. Still I feel that people have missed the real issue when it comes to how computers have effected relationships.

Computers have taken over, but not in the way these films would suggest. Computers have changed the way people relate to one another. The anonymity that the computer screens gives has cause a fundamental shift in some key cultural aspects. One of which is the use of language, and the ablity to express ourselves through the written word. With text messaging and IM many senior high students have trouble spelling simple words. This has spilled over into blogs and sadly, term papers at some schools. The text messaging phenomanen also has cause people to write in a condensed fashion void of any true expression. This has lead to countless "miscommunications" at schools and offices across America.

Second, computers have comtributed to the decline in manners among young people. Online gaming is a festuring swamp of juvenile banter. These young people have lost contact with real communication and substitue a discourse of explitives. The computer supplies a buffer, allowing for a false sense of security. The internet for these kids is a consequence free zone. Their virtual persona is much like the character in The Matrix. These are egos out of control. Hour in front of a computer screen has caused common civility to decay. This has cause kids around the world to be more brazen, and has hurt real relationships with parents and teachers.

Last, computers have hurt this next generations chances of crossing cultural bridges. The lie was that computers would even the playing field and those differences that trip up relationships would fade away. Instead, the worse in human nature has come to the forefront. All we see is a selfish, rude and childish reflection of ourselves. It is almost as if the computer has given us a licences to show humanities 'hind side.

The computer has known from the begining that a direct attak would never work on mankind. Instead, computer has turned humans against themselves, and stolen the value of culture. Without a proper view of personal relationships the world is looking at a dark and dismal future. These futre leaders will not have the natural skills to communicate with their countrymen, much less people from around the world.

So, you have been chosen to serve your System on the game grid. This is the Master Control Program...End of the Line.

The Divide

Today is that day. It is the day many will cry as they remember friends. It is the day that many more will point fingers of blame. It is also the day that The Divide is seen.
What has happened to my home? Americans hate Americans. Where is the helping hand? Are we not the ones that say we can be different and still work for a common good? We have crippled ourselves with infighting. One side seems to blindly follow while the other roams blindly in other directions. Who stand on the other side of The Divide? Who will reach their hand to many and help the place we call home?

Echo

Well, the echo here is very clear. Blogging on Myspace is almost like a contest. Here it is more like talking to yourself. That's more that alright with me. I need a place that I can write my thoughts and not really concern myself with who is reading them.
I had a good day today. It is one of the first in a real long time. Ever since the surgery I have not been the same. My upper lip is still numb and stiff. It has effected the way that I speak and has caused me to shy away from things that I normally would have no trouble with. I try to tell myself that it is just one more thing, like getting older. It doesn't work. My job is speaking, and now I have a rough time with that. I wish that I had some outlet to let people know what is going on in my head. Oh to be free...
I have been noticing somethings around here, and noticing the people as well. The team is in a constant state of flux, and that makes it hard to make solid friendships. Still, for the person that doesn't mind change it works. I thought I was one of those people, but as I get older I want something to be the same. I want it always to be the same. Just one thing.
I grew up overseas. My life from as far back as I can remember has always involved moving to distant lands, and sacrificing relationships with family and friends. I learned that work was important and sometimes, the most inconvienient times, came befor family. It was always for someone else. this has pasted through me to the present. I seem to be worried about others that I forget myself. I do not have it all together. I feel like some have set me up, and that I and in a place I do not deserve. I feel like I have to be at the top of my game all the time. Inspite of what I am going through. I have to overcome the surgery as soon as possible or even sooner. I have to work at 100% when I'm sick. I have to fill in the gaps because no one else will. I must, I must, I must...
So I am ranting and raging here in the hollow of the internet. All I hear back is an echo and that is alright with me.

just thoughts

So I have been looking at different blog sites and came back to this one. I realized today that Myspace is "fixed". They had issue with the blog ranks and with postings for about a month. It seems that when they hit 100 million plus users the servers slowed way down. It was a rough go for a while. A friend of mine, that happens to be a very good writer left Myspace to find something...anything else. So I did some of the same thing. The blog world is pretty big and after looking for about a week, I find that it might be to big.
Another trend that I noticed was that many in teh blog world, or the elitist "blogsphere", was that many people get thier news from blogs. Now I know that there are plenty of blogs that have news, but the vast majority of them are opinion blogs. There is no real research or credible sourcing. This has made the world a twisted place. No wonder people think that they are right about anything. All they have to do is go to a blog and feel better about themselves. I see a great mis-information war going on. Both sides, liberal and conservitive, have won battles but lost battles as well. The saddest thinng about this war is the fact taht people do not realize that they are only calateral.