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June 28 My grandmother passed awayMy grandmother passed away today. I am very distraught. She was my last living grandparent. My father also passed away, and only my mother remains. My ancestry is quickly becoming a thing of the past. June 27 Getting ready to moveI didn't realize that it's been 11 days since I last posted a blog entry. During that time, I've been busy with a hodge podge of things to do before our departure to Paraguay. Moving is always an arduous process, but it's especially trying when you're heading overseas. Why? Because of all the preparations involved in myriad ways not needed for a domestic move. For example, yesterday the movers came and took everything. Seems easy enough. I didn't have to do anything, right? No, I had to schedule the move two months ago, then reconfirm one month ago and submit paperwork and a list of consumable items to ship, then purchase additional items for shipment over the course of a month, meet a mover for a pre-departure survey three weeks ago, and spend more than a day sorting things into four categories--items that will travel with us, items shipped by air, items shipped by boat, and items to be left with the apartment. Then, on moving day, I had to disassemble some electronics and monitor the movers as they packed to make sure everything is sent correctly.
Sounds easy enough. OK, then move on to insurance. Once upon a time, I could go to the doctor and give them the name of my health insurance provider and that would be that. Nowadays, the process, complicated by overseas medical care, involves going to the doctor, getting the paperwork, filling out claim forms and submitting the claim(s) to the insurance company, get reimbursed, and then submit the remainder for an FSA pre-tax reimbursement. It's these kinds of logistics replicated throughout one's life that makes constant moving--my seventh in a little more than three years--a monumental task. One would think that moving becomes easier the more frequently you do it. In some respects that's true. I now have a better sense of what to bring and what to ship. However, logistics such as address changes never become easier. It isn't much fun contact 20+ companies every two or three years through a variety of means (Internet, phone, mail) to let them know you're moving (again) and then arguing with half of them that an APO is not a post office box. (Companies prefer physical addresses over P.O. boxes.) I don't mean to turn this blog entry into a gripe session, but I wanted to give you a sense as to why I've been offline for almost two weeks. I may not be able to blog frequently again until mid-July when we're safely ensconced in Paraguay.
On a sad note, my grandmother is very ill. She suffered a stroke last Thursday and remains paralyzed on her right side. She is receiving nourishment, but fluid is building in her lungs. The prognosis is not good. I've very sad. I'm also conflicted because I want her to live but don't want her to suffer, and what she's going through right now is akin to drowning. She's the only grandparent I have left, and I'm very close to her. I'm thankful that I said goodbye to her last February when I saw her in Montana. Each time I visit her feels as if it will be the last time. It seems that our last visit will be our last one. June 16 Is God a Democrat or a Republican?Having read that potential Democratic candidates discussed their faith at the Sojourner Forum sponsored by the Sojourners, a progressive Christian group, I've been pondering the question of whether God would vote Democratic or Republican in the next national election. I've come to the conclusion that...
God is an Absolute Monarch. June 14 It really worksI'm happy to report that I improved my French language score by almost one point to 1+ / 2. I tested in French three years ago and earned a 1 / 1 for speaking and reading (on a scale of zero to five, five being native fluency). Two weeks of brush-up did the trick. That, coupled with my previous French study (over 15 years ago!) and my recent Spanish study, helped me improve my score significantly. Knowing the testing methodology helped more than any other single testing factor. I made many grammatical errors, but I was able to keep the conversation going well enough. My reading also improved. I learned many of the key words I needed in order to read intermediate-level texts. Plus, my knowledge of Spanish helped me guess the meaning of some French vocabulary words.
Why did I do all this work studying French after I spent three months cramming Spanish into my brain? Simply put, it opens up job opportunities in Francophone nations. I now turn to German. If I can improve my German score, I would qualify for assignments in Germany, Switzerland, or Austria. Not a bad plethora of countries. I will spend the next two weeks polishing my German using the same methodology and will test again at the end of June. Wünsch mir Glück! June 11 Why didn't I think of that?They say that imitation is the best form of flattery. When I was a youth, I wrote several stories about superhuman soldier ants who lived in a boy's closet. I called them "G.I. Ants." Years later, DreamWorks produced the movied "Antz," and Pixar released "A Bug's Life." Both computer-generated animated features were commercially successful. I still have a nagging feeling I should have published those stories (maybe someday I will). Who knows what might have happened.
In January 2002, as I stood before the Citadel of Qaitbay in Alexandria, Egypt, trying to imagine what Pharos Lighthouse, one of the Seven Worlds of the Ancient World, looked like when it stood on the same site until an earthquake destroyed it in 1323. I suddenly thought of founding a travel agency that takes tours to ancient sites and uses technology to recreate what those sites would have looked like. I envisioned using 3-D technology to recreate imagery of the ancient world. Each tourist would wear a pair of goggles that would allow them to see images of ancient sites recreated for them. The technology would marry cinematography with the real world, allowing travelers to view either the present-day site or a reconstructed image of what it would have looked like when it was new. Today, I realize that my idea is one step closer to reality.
Researchers at the University of Virginia and other institutions built a simulation of ancient Rome called Rome Reborn 1.0. It is most amazing! While the project began before my revelation in Egypt, I think I am still ahead of the team who built Rome Reborn by envisioning future applications and business opportunities for such a wonderous technology. Imagine visiting the Pyramids at Giza, Egypt, viewing them as they looked four-thousand years ago. While the technology is not yet ready to accommodate this vision, this project brings it one step closer to reality. You read it here first. While this is one dream I don't plan to pursue to fruition, other ideas are struck in my mind, waiting to come to life. I just need to unleash them before someone else does. June 10 Empty nestDear Reader, my family left for China to visit family for a few weeks. Fortunately, they made it to China without incident. They were in transit for about 21 hours from Washington, D.C. to Shanghai via Chicago. Although taking a trip to China right before heading to South America isn't ideal, it's better than flying from Paraguay to China, a 31-hour nightmare journey via Los Angeles. The 14-hour flight trans-Pacific flight from Chicago to Shanghai is the longest my wife and son have ever taken. My wife said that they were tired but that they both made it none the worse for wear. Relatives in China are happy to see them. My son did very well considering the long flight; he rotated his time between watching children's DVDs, reading books, sleeping, and wandering the airplane. He loves airplanes and was happy when I told him that he would fly on the "white" airplane versus the "blue" or "grey" ones. I asked him whether he would rather fly back to Seoul to see his friends, and he responded that no, he would rather go visit family. That's quite a change in attitude--my little boy is really growing up!
In the meantime, I am an empty nester. Several friends have told me to enjoy temporary "bachelorhood." OK. I do appreciate the peace and quiet, although it feels too quiet, and it feels strange having no one else around. So far, I've been a homebody. I ran some errands in anticipation of our trip after I dropped my family off at the airport, but I've stayed home for the last day and a half brushing up on my French. (I will retake my French exam on Thursday to get my score on the books; I hope to improve my score from 1/1 to 1+/1+.) I worked out a system where I write dialogues. Microsoft Word automatically corrects the grammar because it recognizes French. If I don't know the vocabulary word, I look it up using an online dictionary and then add it to my language database. I've also been looking up the same German and Portugese words and adding them as well; German, because I will retest in German at the end of the month, and Portugese, because I will study Portugese next year. Improving my language scores to 1+/1+ in French and German and testing in Portugese next year will allow me to qualify in the future for jobs in French-, German-, and Portugese-designated assignments.
It's not too exciting, I know that. I might sneak away and catch "Pirates of the Caribbean" at the cinema later this week. June 08 A foray into GuaraníLast Wednesday I met the Paraguayan Spanish instructor to learn Guaraní, an indigenous language that is one of two official languages of Paraguay (Spanish is the second). Spanish will be the medium of instruction. We plan to meet each Wednesday at lunchtime for the next three weeks.
Guaraní is a very interesting language. Unfortunately, Spanish and Guaraní have little in common except a few Spanish-derived cognates such as "problema" (problem). Today I memorized a short conversation in Guaraní in anticipation of my next Guaraní session. Here is the short conversation I memorized, which I found on the web site of Professor Lustig of the University of Mainz, Germany:
Mrs. Natividad: Good morning. Do you speak English / Spanish? Ña Nati: mba’éichapa ne ko’ê. Reñe’êkuaápa inglépe / karai ñe’ême? Jasy: I'm sorry, I dont speak english. Mrs. Natividad: Unfortunately, I speak only a little Guarani. Jasy: No problem. You speak already very well. Mrs. Natividad : Thank you. Jasy: ; Qu te vaya bien I want to learn a handful Guaraní phrases and dialogues so that I can better function linguistically in Paraguay. Although only four-to-six million people speak Guaraní, most live in Paraguay. 94% of Paraguayans speak Guaraní, while just 40% of Paraguayans speak Spanish. In Paraguay, at least, Guaraní is more useful than Spanish. Guaraní has an intriguing sound. For example, the pronunciation of the vowel "y" sounds like a drop of water when combined with the consonent "b". Considering that the Paraguayan have been known to use Guaraní to define their national identity and confound those who are not Paraguayan, I feel like I'm learning a special language by learning some Guaraní. During the Chaco War (1932-1933), Paraguayan soldiers spoke Guaraní exclusively, eluding their Spanish-speaking Bolivian adversaries. I'm happy to have a chance to pepper my Spanish with a few indigenous phrases. June 05 Featured Blog: The Stand-Up EconomistNow that I've finished my Spanish class, I've moved on to another class that crams as much political and economic theory as is physically possible into three weeks. (Really, how much can you learn in three weeks? A LOT, apparently--they've crammed an amazing amount of stuff into a short course.) In today's economics segment, the presenter talked about the fact that economics, the dismal science, is fraught with statistics with built-in margins of error. Virtually every sacrosanct measure we trust to accurately measure an economy, from the average price of a gallon of gasoline to gross domestic product, is ultimately an estimate with a varying margin of error. As I heard this, I thought, but so much depends on these economic measures! Interest rates, Social Security expenditures, the Federal Budget, you name it--they all depend on the veracity of economic statistics that are merely estimates. So I got to thinking, how can one bridge the gap between economic assumption and reality?
Sometimes it takes humor to get the job done. The Stand-Up Economist, a jovial chap named Yorum Bauman, an economics professor at the University of Washington and part-time stand-up comedian. His YouTube presentation, "Mankiw's Principles of Economics, Translated," is a classic. In it, Dr. Bauman boils the ten principles of economics into the following, easy to understand translations of generally accepted precepts:
After watching The Stand-Up Economist, it all makes so much more sense to me! June 04 Hershey's Chocolate WorldDuring Memorial Day weekend we headed to Hershey, Pennsylvania to visit Hershey's Chocolate World, one of several attractions on the site of Hershey's large entertainment complex. (For those who haven't heard of Hershey's, Hershey's is one of the world's largest candy companies.) Although the large complex features multiple attractions, including Hersheypark, an amusement park, the Hershey Museum, Hershey Gardens, and ZooAmerica, among others, we only visited Hershey's Chocolate World. Hersheypark is celebrating its centenniel this year, so it was a momentous time for us to visit. What we saw was plenty for one day. We visited the animated moving exhibit that highlighted the chocolate-making process, and we spent some time mingling through the shopping area. Our son became an honorary factory worker at the Kiss Works center and took home three boxes of Kisses. Dad wondered humorously whether any child labor laws were sacrificed in the name of fun!
We also milled through the entrance to Hersheypark and the Hersehy Museum. We spent just the right amount of time at Hersehy, because it started to rain immediately after we left town. In fact, the drive home from southern Pennsylvania to Washington, D.C. was hideous. I've driven through heavy rain, and I've driven through lightning storms, but I've never driven through such a treacherous combination of both. I almost stopped the car to wait out the storm, but we pressed on and passed the storm after about half an hour. I'm glad we did, because it was a massive storm. We could have been waiting a couple hours for it to let up.
For the shutterbugs: I posted some new photos for the shutterbugs of our visit a couple weeks ago. They're probably the best imagery of our trip there. June 03 Is Windows clowning around?Am I the only one in the world who thinks the Windows XP log-in screen (a "splash screen" in geek speak) looks like a digital version of a circus clown? See for yourself and decide. June 02 I passedDear Reader, I was offline for a few days while I prepared for my final Spanish language exam. I'm happy to report that I passed my exam at the proficiency level (3/3, or three out of five in speaking and reading). I am now linguistically armed and fully capable of butchering the language with the greatest of ease. Watch out, Paraguay, here me come!
I'll write more soon and dive back into learning Spanish at an advanced level in a way that suits my own learning style. For now, I'll rest and recuperate, savor a beer or two (Yeungling, the East Coast brewer that sounds Chinese), and contemplate going to Disneyland (is that still the "in" thing to do when you reach a milestone?). For now, chau. |
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