Photos of Ghana

Much-delayed, much-anticipated trip to Accra, Ghana. Photos finally uploaded here.

http://thestreetacademy.webs.com

Photos Of Ireland

Part Two can be found here.

Two Months In Ireland

One Month In Ireland

(Click to enlarge)

*Ongoing photo album here.

<< (Also accessible through the link below my picture in the bar on the left.)

中国！

China!

我们在上海的酒店

Our hotel in Shanghai

在学校附近的包子地方，我最喜欢的。

Steamed bun place on the way to school. Favorite stop.

在都可茶饮花时间

Hanging out at CoCo during break

上海外国语大学入口，我的大学

Entrance to Shanghai Foreign Language University, my school

每天三个小时我的生活

My life three hours a day

上午在教室外面准备听写

Studying for our character quiz outside the classroom in the morning

在东方明珠塔玻璃的地板上，几百英尺地面上边！

On the glass floor of Oriental Pearl TV Tower, hundreds of feet in the air!

在晚上的外滩

The Bund at night

在杭州，西湖附近

Near West Lake in Hangzhou

在杭州，六和塔

Six Harmonies Pagoda in Hangzhou

在杭州，龙井茶。在这里我们上很好喝的品茶。

Dragon Well Tea plantation in Hangzhou. We attended a spectacular tea tasting here.

在杭州灵隐佛教寺，旅客点燃香

Visitors lighting incense at Ling Yin Temple, a Buddhist temple in Hangzhou

在上海的杂技表演

Acrobatics show back in Shanghai

在南京的寺市场

Temple market in Nanjing

在侵华日军南京大屠杀遇难同胞纪念馆，

于1937年被日本士兵谋杀了的受害者的名字墙

Wall of names of victims killed by Japanese invaders in the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, at the Massacre Memorial Hall and Museum

在苏州市第一丝厂里，机器解开丝茧

Silk cocoons being unwound at a silk factory in Suzhou

在一座苏州塔我们的团看出来

Our group looking out from a pagoda in Suzhou

现代的京剧。好人谋杀坏人。

Peking Opera, modern version. The good guys get the bad guy.

朱家角，上海的古水村

Jujiajiao ancient water village, one of four ancient water villages in Shanghai

朱家角，桥上

Jujiajiao ancient water village, bridge view

Syntax Forest

Let the studying begin...

Evenings in Quarantine:

The (Pittsburgh-based) Zombie Opera!

Teaser trailer here.

Matryoshka Fruit

Now, I love clementines, but there's this to be said for oranges: seems that every time I open one, I find a mini-orange inside!

Recent Life

*

违禁品

New room decorations!

These were most definitely not stolen from the TV lounge, where some group or another was celebrating the Chinese New Year a few nights ago.

福 is upside down, as is traditional in China. This practice is meant to bring good luck, playing off the homophony of the words 倒 "tip over" and 到 "arrive," the thought being that tipping over your luck will cause it to arrive.

SSsss...

梦影童年

(拼音: mèng yǐng tóng nián; 英文: Electric Shadows*)

DaBing is a water delivery man.

One day he accidentally knocks over a pile of bricks with his bike.

Out of nowhere, a young woman attacks him.

The police decide to send her to a clinic.

DaBing demands she tell him why she attacked him but she says nothing,

only holds up a sheet of paper on which she has written,

"Please feed my fish."

She gives him a key.

The key unlocks her room, which has been transformed into an old-fashioned movie theatre.

Amongst the film reels and posters, DaBing finds a sketchpad.

The sketchpad is a diary.

The film is her story.

这部电影让我流泪, 但是它非常好。

This movie made me cry, but it's really good.

*This is the English title of the film.

The English translation of the Chinese title is something like Shadows of Childhood Dreams.

Galub Jamun

گلاب جامن

A popular indian desert that tastes something like sweet fried dough dipped in honey.

Wonderful.

中文 －》 English

I like to double-check the sentences I write for my Chinese homework on a translator. By the time I finished (for today), my screen said the following:

My Hobby:

Stealing leftover pizza.

Home

Cats, and Scrabble, and the sound of trains.

Why I Love [lɪŋgwɪstɪksmeɪʤɚz]

If you need help: *

Koalagami

Maggie loves koalas, so I made this as part of her Christmas gift. Took a few tries, since the instructions were written in Japanese. Thank goodness for pictures.

Shh! She doesn't know yet!

Today's Headlines

CLASSES END WITH SNOWY AND SATISFYING FINISH

Chinese skits and language logic problems round out the semester.

COED RECEIVES APARTMENT KEYS, CELEBRATES WITH PIZZA

Having officially signed the lease and withstood another two hours of well-meant health advice, Jessica R and friend promptly leave the pistachios in the car in favor of cheesy goodness.

RACE AGAINST TIME: COUNTDOWN STARTS ON FINAL PAPER

The writer calls "finish[ing] the outline, anyway" an "acceptable start," and is confident the paper will make 3,000 words by its Sunday deadline: "Sleep is only for real people."

Word Swapping

There is a rather well-known (courtesy of Slumdog Millionaire) Hindi song called Jai Ho (जय हो). In Hindi, "Jai ho!" means something like "May you have victory!" or even "Hallelujah!"

Unfortunately, this song happened to get stuck in my head today. This was unfortunate not because it's a bad song (I rather like it) but because I spent probably six or seven hours reading, writing, and memorizing Chinese today.

At some point I realized that "jai" and "ho" are both valid sound combinations in Chinese as well as Hindi ("zhai" and "hou"), which gave me the wonderfully procrastinatory (™) idea of finding out what I might be singing, were I singing in Chinese.

Somehow I don't think the dance at the end of Slumdog Millionaire would have been quite as meaningful if Jamal and Latika, finally reunited, had grasped hands and yelled, "Pluck crabs!"