So today is Valentine's Day. I hate this day. The commercialization of love and romance is about as disturbing as equating Christmas to flat screen TVs and a roll of tube socks.
Having said that, I had a day off on Friday, and I still felt conflicted about being the VDay grinch, so I bought a bouquet of roses and surprised Anita at her work. Regardless of my thoughts on the matter, I still had a wife to please... And yes, I know that flower gifts are for the creatively challenged, or the lazy. I happen to be a bit of both.
-G
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Monday, February 9, 2009
The Author
I've decided I'm going to write a book. SAY WHAT, you ask?!
I know, this sounds strange coming from an ESL like myself. My command of the English language is hardly at a professional writing level, but for once I feel like I have something to write about, and could actually pen something that would be mildly entertaining. After finishing reading the Lost on Planet China book, I reflected on all the travel adventures Anita and I have been through, and thought, I've got tons of stories to tell (some humorous, some gross, and some downright unbelievable). So while I'm not going to troll through my previous travel experience for this project, I am going to use my next sets of travel as the basis. Assuming everything falls into place, our plan is to take a 3 month leave of absence next year to travel the world... this post is a commitment I'm making to myself that I will write a book when we're done.
-G (is feeling very ambitious)
I know, this sounds strange coming from an ESL like myself. My command of the English language is hardly at a professional writing level, but for once I feel like I have something to write about, and could actually pen something that would be mildly entertaining. After finishing reading the Lost on Planet China book, I reflected on all the travel adventures Anita and I have been through, and thought, I've got tons of stories to tell (some humorous, some gross, and some downright unbelievable). So while I'm not going to troll through my previous travel experience for this project, I am going to use my next sets of travel as the basis. Assuming everything falls into place, our plan is to take a 3 month leave of absence next year to travel the world... this post is a commitment I'm making to myself that I will write a book when we're done.
-G (is feeling very ambitious)
Friday, February 6, 2009
Comrades!
I'm reading 'Lost on Planet China' by J. Maarten Troost. It's a witty and hilarious first hand account of a gwai-lo's trek through China. The stories remind me so much of my own first experience with the motherland. Would highly recommend this book. Especially for you Dean. I think you would dig the style that it's written in. The author (a white dude from Sacramento) attempts to get a local to teach him how to say "Hu Jintao is sexy".
"Nineteen eighty-nine played out a little differently in China, of course. When thousands of students converged upon Tiananmen Square in Beijing to demand a little democracy - Hey hey, hey ho, Maoism has got to go - they were greeted with a decidedly old-school response. Deng Xiaoping, the chain smoking gnome with the twinkling eyes who then ruled China, simply reached for his totalitarian rulebook, flipped toward the index - Democracy protesters, suitable response - and followed directions. He shot them. And that was that."
The whole book is written in this decidedly blunt, but humorous take on the author's observations about Chinese society. And having seen it myself, I'd say he's pretty spot on with his musings. Check it out.
-G
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