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May 29 The Monster FamilyYesterday my son and I sat on the couch talking about our trip to Hershey's Chocolate World in Hershey, Pennsylvania. At four years old, he's quite creative. With a little help from his dad, who organized his thoughts, my son told this enchanting tale:
I often enjoy sitting with my son and talking to him about whatever is on his mind. He has a very big imagination, especially when it comes to making up new languages. I like to say that he's fluent in Gibberish. It seems so easy for him to make up new words or derivatives of English words that form the basis of whatever language he's developing at the moment. For example, last night he renamed the days of the week to "Mungu, Tugu, Wugo, Thugo, Fugo, Sago, and Sugu." He seems to like to say "gu" or "gee," and often the words he makes up begin with the initial syllables of the English word and end in "gu" or "gee." For example, I am "dagee," (sounds a bit too much like "doggy," I think), and his mother is "magee." Occasionally, he uses Chinese. His name is "baogee," with "bao" referring to the Chinese word for baby.
It's a fun sport, I suppose, although he speaks Gibberish at times when we'd like him to speak English or Chinese, such as when he meets someone for the first time. I think that the fact that his parents enjoy foreign languages and that no less than bits and pieces of four languages--English, Chinese, Korean, and Spanish--have been thrown about in his four years of life has influenced his propensity to embrace Gibberish. Or maybe it's genetic. After all, his dear old dad started inventing imaginary languages when he was about nine years old. Regardless, I consider it a gift rather than a nuisance, because after all, all human languages evolved through the need to communicate between two or more people. It only takes two speakers to form a new language. Maybe our son will be the inventor of the next great language--an Esperanto, Elven, or Klingon in waiting. May 28 This year, remember the diplomats tooDear Reader, you're in for a rare treat--I posted two blog entries on the same day! Happy Memorial Day. I was watching the news earlier today. It reminded that every year on Memorial Day the media outlets drag out and dust off their flags and wave them on television in honor of those who have died for our country. Their coverage inevitably focuses on the U.S. military and the soldiers who have died or suffered in the line of duty. Their sacrifice is noble, and I appreciate their service and sacrifices immensely.
At the same rate, little attention is paid to civilians who serve our country and have died or have been wounded in the line of duty. This Memorial Day, please also remember the diplomats and other civilians who faithfully serve their country in situations that are often extremely difficult and dangerous. In some cases, the diplomats remain behind when the troops go home. For this reason, it is still true that since the Vietnam War, more diplomats have died in the line of duty than commissioned U.S. military officers.
God bless America, and God bless those who serve our country. Happy Memorial Day. I need an all-in-oneI went downstairs to retrieve our digital camera from the car this morning. I realized that I have four small gadgets that I need to juggle on a daily--or at least weekly--basis:
They all do one function very well. Unfortunately, now they're weighty in my pockets, and my computer desk has a mess of cords needed to synch them up with my computer. I decided that I would pay good money for one device that's both compact and can do all of these well. Sure, there are devices on the market now that do some of these functions. For example, my PDA plays music, and some such as the Palm Treo also double as cell phones. Some cell phones have digital cameras, of course. And soon Apple Computer will introduce the iPhone, an iPod cell phone. The disadvantage of these dual-function units is that they lack capacity. For example, the digital camera on most cell phones offers low megapixel resolution, and the storage capacity on a PDA is too small to store hundreds of songs. If a company can produce a compact product that functions as a cell phone featuring a PDA with a full operating system plus productivity software (e.g. Microsoft Office) plus a 30-80GB hard drive that functions as a music player and 5.0 or more megapixel camera. The technology is available to build this device, but it would be too big to be practical. I imagine that in about five years or so technology will progress to the point where this kind of device will be on the market. For now, I will continue to carry around four devices that do these four things very well. May 26 Featured Blog: Our American FamilyI just said goodbye to Matt and Lisa and their children. Their lives are featured on Our American Family, a blog about their family and life in the Foreign Service. They most recently served in Manila, Philippines, and they are now headed to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic for two years. They lived here in Virginia while Matt learned Spanish. We lived in the same proximity until Matt finished his coursework. They departed for the DR last week.
Matt is a good guy with a great sense of humor and sharp wit. Lisa is an amazing mom with boundless energy. Matt and Lisa do a great job chronicling their lives and depicting life whereever they are at the time. They have an extensive collection of photos of their family, and they do a masterful job managing four children, which they accomplished in Virginia in a two-bedroom apartment with a couple of pets to boot. The story of the birth of their youngest child, Atticus, is legendary (don't try it at home). Matt told me that people who don't even know him recognize him from that story. It's fortunate that Matt is trained to respond to crisis and stepped in to deliver their child single-handedly when things went awry.
In this life, people frequently cross paths. I may not see them again for a few years, most likely back here in Virginia before we move on to their next assignments. In the meantime, I will keep up with their lives on their web site. And who knows, maybe a trip to the DR or Paraguay is in the works! May 24 At the Tomb of the Inflatable PigDear Reader, I am still on track to finish one book per month. I've read six so far this year, outpacing my pitiful total in 2007. Although my three most recent readings focus on Paraguay and have to do with my future assignment there, I am still happy to have had time to read them. I finished reading "At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig," a travelogue by British writer John Gimlette. I also read "Paraguay Under Stroessner," a musty book written in the early 1980's during the Alfredo Stroessner regime, and "Paraguay: A Personalist Perspective," an overview of Paraguay written in 1990 immediately following the coup d'état that toppled Stroessner. Both of the latter books provided excellent, if dated, analyses of Paraguayan history, politics, economics, and culture. These dry texts provided historical antidotes to the massive gaps left by Gimlette's sharp-witted, train wreck of a novel.
"At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig" is a fascinating read written geographically rather than chronologically. It haphazardly chronicles over 500 years of Paraguayan history, detailing intriguing facts, innuendoes, and falsehoods at each place he encountered on his trip throughout the country. (Contrary to Gimlete's contention, a full-grown python cannot consume a full-grown man. The rumor about the missing doctor from Buenos Aires is an urban legend.) At each stop on his journey, Gimlette jumps to the events most relevant to each location, from the construction of the massive Itaipu Dam on the Paraná River between Paraguay and Brazil in the 1970's to the devastation of Humaitá during the War of the Triple Alliance (1865-70). His book ping-pongs through Paraguayan history, leaving one often confused about the country's chronological history. The vignettes that Gimlette weaves into the book are colorful and fascinating, albeit fraught with sarcasm that leaves one wondering why he bothered to visit Paraguay in the first place if he seems to despise it so much. His perspective fluctuates from empathetic to sarcastic to spiteful, like a sharp pendulum sauntering over a helpless victim.
I was surprised to learn that a native Paraguayan who had read the book was disturbed by what thought felt was a willful misrepresentation of their country. Granted, Gimlette's book sheds light on Paraguay in a way akin to the manner in which Sasha Baron Cohen's fictional reporter "Borat" increased awareness of Kazakhstan--Gimlette's book attracts attention to Paraguay, although not necessarily in a flattering way. The Paraguayan I talked to mentioned that Gimlette spent just one month in Paraguay collecting research for his book. In fact, Gimlette's biography mentioned that he visited Paraguay in 1982 immediately following the Falklands War. The book implies that it is a bibliography and that Gimlette had lived for quite some time in Paraguay during the Stroessner years. Just as Dan Brown weaves facts and fiction into "The Da Vinci Code" to give the fictional novel an air of authenticity, so does Gimlette with his novel. I was disappointed to find out that for all of its colorful imagery and citations of fact, "At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig" is ultimately fiction. Given this reality, it is probably best read in conjunction with a truer analysis of the country.
I've already started reading my next book. It's a Spanish version of "The Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe" ("El León, la Bruja, y el Ropero"). I already know how the story ends, so that should help me read a Spanish-language book written for children! May 22 Sea(ttle), it's not so rainyAt last, the results of a scientific study furnish proof that it doesn't rain in Seattle as much as you might think. The honor of the rainiest city in the United States goes to Mobile, Alabama and just about any city along the Gulf Coast and Florida, the so-called "Sunshine State." Here's the list of the top ten cities according to WeatherBill, a research firm:
Seattle's neighbor, Olympia, ranked 24th on the list with 59 inches of rain each year. Seattle is not far behind. While it may not be haven for sun worshippers, Seattle isn't as wet as it seems. It just seems that way. Reputation means everything. May 21 iPod plungeDear Reader, this weekend my wife and I succumbed to the latest fad when we broke down and bought an iPod. I know what you're probably thinking, What took them so long? I know, I know. I'm probably the last American technophile who doesn't work at Microsoft and had never used an iPod. That's right, I'd never used an iPod, let alone bought one. If you're my cousin Wade, a Microsoft loyalist, then you're actually wondering why I didn't buy a Zune, Microsoft's rival product. The main reason we didn't invest in a Zune is that it's a new product and doesn't the clout that Apple has in the music download market. iTunes.com and its $.99 downloads actually sealed the deal, not the iPod itself. Zune will probably be successful in its own way, but much like the ongoing game consule wars between Microsoft's Xbox and Sony's PlayStation (a war that Nintendo's Wii is actually winning), it will be difficult for Microsoft's Zune to unseat the iPod.
We held out buying an iPod for the past few years. I didn't want to buy into all the hype surrounding this little unit that looks like a personal digital assistant (PDA) that only does one thing well. I have a PDA that runs Microsoft's PocketPC operating system, and I find it indispensible. Like the iPod, my PDA also stores music and video. However, it lacks sufficient memory to store more than a few dozen songs or one hundred photos. It is well nigh impossible to store long video clips. Memory sticks enhance the PDA's storage capacity, but it cannot come close to the storage capacity of an iPod. We bought one of those black 80 gigabyte video iPods and a TEAC iPod/CD player/speaker system.
So far I have a positive impresson of the iPod. It's a pretty slick system. My wife is already hooked and wants one of her own. The iPod finally allows us to consolidate all of our music (including CDs) as befits our mobile lifestyle. Instead of carrying dozens of CDs in cases, we can transfer the songs to the iPod and take them in one unit. I've never owned an Apple product and stopped using Macintosh computers in college, but I realize now why so many people rave about Apple's product designs. The end-to-end configuration of the iPod, from synching with one's computer to downloading songs, is fairly seamless and easy to use. I'm very impressed...so far. May 20 Juggling language studiesDear Reader, I've been busy wrapping up my Spanish course. My class ends in two weeks. I'm feeling good about my progress and am increasingly confident that I will pass my final exam. I won't know for certain until I take the exam during last weekend in May. Wish me luck.
In June, before I leave for Paraguay, I will retest in French and German to increase my scores. Although I have studied neither language in the past decade, I've learned the tools and techniques needed to increase my scores at this language school. If I can pass a certain threshhold in both of those languages, then I will qualify for short courses in those language and additional assignments at posts that require those languages. "World" languages such as Spanish, French, and German are spoken at multiple locations in many countries. Other, more difficult languages such as Arabic, Chinese, and Russian are also useful languages from the perspective that they give candidates additional job opportunities.
Next year I will enroll in the online Spanish-to-Portuguese conversion course in order to learn rudimentary Brazilian Portuguese. Portuguese is spoken in eastern Paraguay, and it is also related to Spanish. Learning Portuguese would allow me to pursue assignments in the six countries where Portuguese is the primary language. (Here's a quiz, Dear Reader. Can you name all six nations where Portuguese is an official language? Here's a hint--Brazil is one of those countries. The answer* is listed at the end of this post.) Although I've heard that it's more difficult to convert from Spanish to Portuguese than vice versa, converting my Spanish knowledge to Portuguese will be much easier than learning Korean after studying Chinese. I'm happy that my Spanish has improved to proficiency, because Portuguese would be yet another language I speak and read poorly. My Chinese, Korean, German, and French are all at the beginner-to-intermediate level.
Perhaps the most fulfilling aspect of studying Spanish is that it has revived my confidence that I can successfully study a foreign language. After ten years of exclusively studying Asians, I found myself increasingly frustrated at language learning. For western speakers, Asian languages can make you feel stupid. I recall several times during my Korean language study when I felt like an idiot. I'm frustrated a bit now by Spanish verb tenses, but the feeling is very mild compared to what I went through studying Chinese and Korean.
* The six nations where Portuguese is an official language are Portugal, Brazil, Angola, East Timor, Mozambique, and Sao Tome & Principe. May 15 Paraguayan Independence Day celebrationHappy Paraguayan Independence Day! On this day in 1811, Paraguay became an independent nation, the first in the New World after the United States (even earlier than Haiti). The Spanish actually withdrew on May 14th, but Paraguay celebrates its independence on May 15th. Last night my wife and I went to the Organization of American States (OAS) building near the White House and attended the independence day celebration in the grand ballroom. It's a gorgeous building with an ornate interior. Guitarrist Dani Cortaza gave a wonderful performance, and the reception immediately following featured a Paraguayan buffet. The evening was balmy, and we enjoyed the opportunity to break away from home for a change. My mother is in town now, and she watched our son for the evening. Although life has been hectic lately (hence, I haven't been blogging), last night was a nice diversion from the frenetic pace of life that seems to have sped up in the last week. May 11 U.S. news on ParaguayDear Reader, I haven't had much time lately to write, so I'll have to post a short entry today. News from Paraguay is rarely picked up by the U.S. media, so it is with great interest that MSNBC reports on Hezbollah's purported operations in Paraguay. A big 10-gallon Texas cowboy hat tip to my good friend Tortmaster for sending me this story. Here's the link for your reading pleasure:
It's not exactly the kind of news that positively portrays Paraguay in the American media, but at least it gives the country a bit more visibility--perhaps more than it would like. May 08 Me divierte en EspañolandVoy a hablar sobre Españoland. I am in Españoland. Where's that, you might ask? It's an imaginary place where people speak a peculiar variant of Spanish known as Españolandes. It's a dialect spoken by a couple hundred people who happen to be in Españoland at any given time. Españolandores use just six tenses (present indicative, present progressive, future, perfect past, imperfect past, and subjunctive). They also have a functional vocabulary of about 1,000 words. They never use the familiar (tú) or plural (vosotros) forms, and they avoid any obvious English cognates like "software" and "desafortunadamente" (unfortunately). They always start conversations with "Voy a (put verb here)," which means "I'm going to (put verb here) and you better listen to my flawless Españolandes." And inevitably they always end conversations with "En pocas palabras, eso es todos." Roughly translated, this means, "I'm finished, now go do something else." Españolandores are quite competent when it comes to discussing nuclear disarmament, the ancient Roman concept of death, and the affect of methamphetamines on rural Bolivians, but they sometimes have difficulties buying goods in markets, ordering food in restaurants, or asking directions. It makes for lively conversations of numerous topics of dubious relevance. Those who care to speak on common Españoland topics typically speak English too well to put up with broken Españolandes, and those who speak Españolandes cannot communicate with those who need to speak Españolandes because they don't have enough vocabulary and don't know the appropriate verb tenses.
Life in Españoland is improving. I'm starting to plough through some of the rigidities of the language. I'm learning to give the teacher what they want to hear. The end is near. I have about three weeks before my Spanish test. Simply put, I've given up learning Spanish for the next month and am focusing on learning what I need to pass the final exam. I don't want to do that. I'd rather learn Spanish than Españolandes, but I don't have much choice. I learn by osmosis, meaning that I prefer to absorb as much as I can fix my mistakes as I go along. I rather make a mistake ordering food in a restaurant and using a seventh (gasp!) verb tense incorrectly than stay silent because I don't have the vocabulary needed to order food and can express my wishes because I didn't learn that tense. Once I leave Españoland in June, I'll go back to learning Spanish. En pocas palabras, eso es todos. May 06 Who says Paraguay is a small country?Dear Reader, I'm not sure why my blog titles lately have been exclamatory or rhetorical--I must be asking a lot of questions. Actually, I've had a habit lately of finding instant answers to questions that pop into my head. For example, today I wondered what the suffix "-stan" means. I don't mean the name "Stan," ala the dude featured in the tragic Eminem song. I mean the suffix attached to scores of countries and provinces ranging from Pakistan to Kurdistan. I went online tonight and found out that "-stan" is an old Persian root referring to "the place where one stays." Interestingly, modern Persia is named Iran, not Iranstan or Irstan or Perstan. How many "stans" can you name? How about Tajikistan, or Kyrgyzstan? Or Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan (of Borat fame), Hindustan, Kurdistan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Baluchistan, Dagestan, or Waziristan? Yes, those are real places. Can you find all of them on a map? If you know a "-stan" I missed, please feel free to post a comment. It would be fun to be feature the ultimate collection of "-stans" from around the world.
I digress. Yes, the Internet is a wonderful information resource, but it doesn't have the answer to everything. Today I found a map in a musty book on Paraguay (what else?) that depicts what I've heard time and again--that Paraguay is about the size of California. The book has a map showing Paraguay superimposed over California. Sure enough, it is about 1/8th smaller than California by land mass. Paraguay, with a population of about 5.7 million, has a far smaller population than California, but it is by no means small. It just seems small because it is wedged between Brazil and Argentina, two countries that are far larger in both size and population. Some call Paraguay a "buffer" state between those rival nations. Perhaps. Imagine if Texas were still independent (Texas was an independent nation during 1836-1845, a fact Texans will proudly tell you). If it were, Texas would surely be a buffer state between the United States of America and the United States of Mexico (some would argue that it in fact a buffer state). Calling Texas a buffer state though would diminish its stature as an large country. The same goes for Paraguay.
I posted the map of Paraguay superimposed over California for your viewing pleasure. Now it's available on the Internet. Just one more trivial fact that you might enjoy. May 05 ¡Feliz Cinco de Mayo!Happy Cinco de Mayo! If you are Mexican or of Mexican descent, I hope you have a chance to enjoy what is one of Mexico's most prominent fiestas. Cinco de Mayo honors Mexico's victory over the French at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. I should be down the National Mall in Washington, D.C. right now enjoying the annual Cinco de Mayo festivities sponsored the Maru Montero Dance Company, but alas, I am at home studying Spanish (and taking a break to write this short blog entry, of course). Maybe I'll make up for it by having Mexican food for dinner.
Of course, other Latin American nations such as Paraguay don't celebrate Cinco de Mayo, but this uniquely Latino festival is one of the few observed in the United States. Paraguay's Independence Day celebration will be on May 15 and on the evening of May 14 (Paraguay's Flag Day) my wife and I will attend Paraguay's Independence Day celebration at the Organization of American States (OAS) in Washington, D.C.
Blog Notes: My thoughts are with those who were affected by the tornado that destroyed Greensburg, Kansas today. Greensburg is less than an hour from where my father lived. My father passed away, but my mother-in-law still lives there. Meteorologists have issued a tornado warning for a large swath of Kansas and Nebraska. I hope that no more touch down in the aftermath of what happened in Greensburg. May 04 Is your heart in North Dakota?This seems to be my week to focus on finance and economics, especially real estate. The topics on this blog tend to rotate depending on my mood. Maybe I've been so disenchanted with Spanish lately that my focus has shifted to investing. That's not far from the truth. Now isn't the time to be distracted--my Spanish test is at the end of the month. One can only cram so much language into one's brain.
I couldn't resist passing this Yahoo! news article on to you, Dear Reader. Of course, the rumor about Microsoft's possible buyout of Yahoo! was even bigger news today than the one I'm about to share. The purported YahooSoft rumor apparently isn't true, so it's not worth mentioning...yet. It might come to pass, in which case I'll probably blog about it. Here's the article I really want to highlight:
If the thought of buying a cattle ranch in Paraguay or a former U.S. Embassy building overseas, then maybe owning a historical piece of North Dakota could intrigue you. For no more than $500,000, you could own the heart of Sibley, North Dakota, a town founded by a family who saw the opportunity to build a town in 1954 near a popular fishing lake not far from Fargo. They paid about $2,000 to buy the land--you're going to have to pay for the value they added to the area. It reminds me of when I passed through Jordan, Montana a few years ago and noted that the town gas station/convenience store was for sale at a bargain price of $350,000. I thought checking out and managing the store in this quiet eastern Montana town that is a transit point for fisherman en route to Fort Peck Lake. I'm not sure why Yahoo! felt it necessary to feature this news article. In fact, many quirky real estate-oriented "news" articles have been popping up lately (ala yesterday's Washington Post article). Perhaps the real estate market has been such a downer with looming bankruptcies and subprime travails that media outlets have no other recourse than to publish articles on the fringe.
Speaking of media, I recently subscribed to "The Economist." It's the "in" thing to do, apparently. You aren't running with the big dogs unless you read it. I can't bring myself to read "The New Yorker" or "The Atlantic" quite yet, because I'm still an East Coast transplant and have limited bandwidth to read weeklies. "The Economist" is cool, though. I've read "BusinessWeek" for years, but I realize that it doesn't have the international scope that its British counterpart does. Interestingly, there is probably a simple explanation for this. "The Economist" limits its coverage of the United Kingdom to about six pages. If it focused on Great Britain as much as "BusinessWeek" concentrates on United States, it would be a small magazine indeed, even pamphlet size. There is only so much you can write about on the British economy in a weekly magazine. May 03 Wanna buy a former embassy?Special thanks to a Dear Reader for pointing out an interesting column in Wednesday's Washington Post advertising great bargains on former or soon-to-be-former U.S. Embassy buildings, including chanceries and diplomatic residences. On the heels of my blog entry about the Paraguayan cattle ranch for sale, these real estate opportunities seem even better; well, more historically significant, at any rate. Who wouldn't want to own the Ottawa, Canada residence featured in the Paul Newman/Joanne Woodward classic, "Mr. and Mrs. Bridge"? It could be yours for just U.S.$2.25 million.
I searched the Web and found photos of these properties. Which one(s) would you like to buy?
Granted, the London property is gorgeous, but $180 million is a lot of money. The other properties have a distinctly U.S. government ambience. With a little paint and some nice curtains, you could enhance their inner beauty. Me, I'm partial to the soon-to-be-former chancery in Kathmandu, Nepal. At just $6 million, it's a steal!
If you like living among embassies but don't want to leave the country, then why not try to find a place on Embassy Row in Washington, D.C.? They're not quite a steal, but it's pretty cool living where the diplomats hang out. May 02 Have a rest, Sr. Presidente ChávezHappy International Worker's Day (May Day). I took the day off from blogging in honor of the national day dedicated to workers worldwide. Are you a worker too, Dear Reader? Well then, why are you reading this blog? It's too much work. Go on, relax and have some fun for a change. You deserve it.
On the same day Venezuela officially nationalized its oil industry, Venezuela President Hugo Chávez announced that the country would raise its minimum wage by 20% and will work to decrease the standard work week from 44 to 36 by 2010. I wonder what these changes will do to Venezuela's annual inflation rate, which currently stands at about 16%? Or its productivity rate, which has decreased annually by about 2.2% during the Chávez years? What do I know? I don't have a degree in military arts and science from the Venezuela Academy of Military Sciences, and I didn't drop out of Simón Bolivar University while I was doing my master's degree in political science. I'm sure that everything will be just fine as Venezuela moves closer to becoming a worker's paradise. Mmm, OK, whatever. Check back in about 10 years.
Sr. Presidente Chávez, go on, take a break. Give it a rest. |
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