b e h n d i n g

While teaching English in Hong Kong, I was often struck by the limitations of my students’ vocabulary.  Binary terms such as good/bad and sad/happy dominated our discussions and they expressed much frustration with their inability to precisely express anything outside of or in between those markers, words I view as just short of meaningless.  I would read 30 papers, all of which theorized that a poem‘s main purpose was to convey the sadness of death.  I am by no means mocking them, as I can easily recall my own days of second-language study and how pathetically limited my vocab was, how stifling it was to resort to the same handful of descriptors even when none of them really communicated what I was thinking, feeling like the best I could do was approximate, always hitting around the nail rather than whacking it squarely on the head. Each day I study for the GRE I am reminded that words are not just a vehicle for knowledge — how knowledge is communicated — they themselves are knowledge, both convey and constitute content.  In other words, the ability to express knowledge is knowledge, just as the inability to do so is a form of ignorance.  I openly concede that memorizing definitions is no way to spend the dwindling days of summer, but have found comfort in the fact that this seemingly mundane activity has provided me with more stimulation than boredom, more edification than inconvenience.  I only wish the same could be said of my sentiments toward my preparations for the quantitative section of the test.

sextant – n. navigation tool that determines latitude and longitude

sinecure – n. well-paying office job or office that requires little or no work

somniloquy – n. the act of talking in ones sleep

hirsute – adj. covered in hair

lilliputian – adj. extremely small

factotum – n. a handyman

doggerel – n. poor verse (as in poetry)

maverick – n. sarah palin via john mccain

Is it bad that when I saw the words paean the first thing that came to mind was paella?  YES.  I remember a pastor offhandedly mentioning in a sermon once that he believed people spent too much time thinking about food and that it was an injurious phenomenon, spiritually speaking, because it obstructed the full-fledged pursuit of God.  I also remember taking that remark very personally, so it must have set off an deep-seated feeling or belief in me.  Perhaps it was something like the feeling you get when someone talks smack about a person you love and says he or she is “bad” for you.  But I am forced to admit there may have been an element of truth in what he said, which is also probably part of why I found it unpleasant.

What I like about Barrons Test Prep (and what distinguishes it from the rest) is the effort made to inform rather than instruct.  Nuggets of historical and scientific information permeate the prep books and smart, interesting sentences help to keep me alert and engaged.  Once in awhile I will even look up words in the definition or explanation of the actual word I am studying, a sign to me that I am 1) stupid and 2) using the right book for me.

I noted to some people that I really enjoy studying vocabulary so much it is almost obscene to watch.  I realized today one reason why I delight so much in it is that I am revising — refining — much of what I took for granted as fact.  For example, I did not know the word poseur, as in someone who pretends to impress, was spelled like so.  I have especially found that many of the “definitions” of words in my head are actually more like tag-a-long connotations or cultural associations than precise, literal definitions.  That in itself has been a very valuable realization and am unabashedly pleased with myself for the grace with which I have accepted a temporary demotion in intelligence.

a couple nights ago i dreamt that i had an affair with the ex of my high school chemistry teacher — a striking redhead with a sculpted upper body who also happened to have metal rods for legs (both of them). during my nap today, i dreamt that a friend from high school was giving me a foot massage while i popped amoxicillin pills.  there must be something in the jersey air because my synapses are on crack.

for the past week or so, i have been studying for the GRE with all the diligence i can muster.  i spend my mornings at barnes and noble, armed with a kaplan GRE prepbook, a cup of joe, and of course my laptop to distract me.  i inevitably spend a half hour or so browsing on the web, which is not entirely unproductive, as a chunk of that time is purposefully directed toward my housing and employment hunts ( in that order, as it happens).  but i am proud to say i do bunker down eventually and hit the book, finding a rusty but still functioning masochistic pleasure in memorizing vocabulary and solving quant comp.  though my days of studying for the SAT in seventh grade are over, they must have instilled a hefty entertainment value to mastering mind-numbing formulaic exercises and convinced me that by choosing the right letters of the alphabet, and making sure i fill in the correct bubble, i can be on top of the world.

is the drone of the lawn mower and the smell of freshly mowed grass, the sound of car doors slamming and scent of meat on the grill.  i have been back home for nearly one month and have spent most of it re-familiarizing myself with the singularity that is American suburban life.  while jogging around my neighborhood loop, passing house after house after house, i feel like a hamster on his exercise wheel, spinning round and around, under the illusion of moving past while everything around me remains the same.  not much has changed, at least outwardly, in my hood, but i dont embrace it as i once did.  i see it as a specimen now, no longer somewhere i recognize as my own but a kind of creature, not necessarily malevolent but not the nurturing, comforting body it formerly was. time and space have begotten distance and while i have enjoyed my homestay immensely, i am also getting antsy because it is a temporary assignment.

butteryfly twitching or trembling still, found outside my office.  picture a printout of new yorks chinatown, to be used for presentation of self while on english teaching assignment in china.

will be in china from 6/8-6/21.  teaching, curveballs, frustrations, feel good moments, uncomfortably high heat and humidity, mountains, biking, hiking, rock climbing are all expected.

smushed birds and smushed flowers look very similar.

i’ve been hemorrhaging money lately.  i guess it has to do with the whole goodbye thing — saying farewell costs money, it turns out.  and it’s not really the goodbyes to people but to the place that runs up the bill: doing the things you kept putting off, being inclined to think less about spending more because, hell, you won’t be here for much longer.  spending money has become a manifestation of early onset nolstagia.

in college, i learned to be suspicious of the word ‘normal.’  the summer after i graduated i read the trouble with normal by michael warner, which pretty much closed the book on those carefree days when normal just meant normal: no red flags, no second guessing, no mental energy diverted to unpacking the assumptions behind this apparently innocuous, dangerously familiar word.  it’s like the uncle at the family gathering who’s a little too nice, pays a little too much attention, too avuncular for his own good: at some point, you realize he’s a creep.  i saw a sign in a dorm elevator that read, this elevator is being monitored by surveillance cameras.  videotapes are kept for 14 days…the normal procedure.  the questionable need to monitor college dorm elevators aside, what i noted about this particular use of ‘normal’, as with the common legal, moral, and cultural deployments of the word, was the presumed authority it carried.  as in, ‘because it’s normal, it shouldn’t be questioned.  we do it b/c it’s the normal thing to do, and the fact that it’s normal justifies the act.  keeping the tapes for 15 days is not normal, and therefore not the appropriate course of action.’  what a joke.  ’normal’ is a hoax but it keeps b/c it helps people sleep at night.

after reading a memorable stretch of prose that ended with a donkey getting drunk off his ass, i looked up and glanced out the window for a visual breather.  the air was thick with rain, angry grey bullets ricocheting hard off the pavement.  it went on for a good 8 hours today, the same as yesterday, straight through the heart of the afternoon and letting up only after nightfall.  the place due for a good thrashing, given the humidity thats been hounding us the past week or so.  too bad its the kind of rainfall that pounds one into a lethargic and vegetative state, not that which leaves one exhilarated, breathless.

one of my biggest pet peeves is people staring, though the pet peeve behind the pet peeve is people who don’t mind their own business.  even when i’m returning the favor and giving them my best “what the fuck are you looking at?” glare – and it’s a pretty good one — some people don’t back down, or don’t see it any reason to.  it’s especially annoying when they stare with their mouths slightly ajar, leaving a gap big enough for me to stuff a wad of tissue inside.  i surprise myself with the malevolent nature of my impulses to say/do things to these people.  i have to stifle creeping urges to knock cyclists off their bikes as they pass by or jab between the eyes of strangers on the subway.  i’d never actually act on such obviously wrong instincts, but the fact that they exist scares me a little, i guess.

shame on me for not posting in a week — i think i started this little blurb 4 days ago.  chalk it up to my lazy bum of an existence.

walking into the pantry to retrieve some water after my afternoon run, i stumbled upon two of my hall’s gregarious cleaning ladies chatting in the kitchen.  as they just so happen to see me quite often in my post-run, sweat-drenched state, more than one has remarked positively on my choice of physical activities.  one now pronounced me ‘fit-la’, suggesting that i no longer needed the slimming benefits of working out as direly as i did upon my arrival eight months ago.  besides, she noted, it was getting too hot to run outside now.  i thanked her for her flattery but spoke, managing to piece together some Cantonese to formulate a universal truth, ‘no run, no more fit’.  after a moment, she nodded in acquiescence.  as i was about to take my leave, she, being the knowledgeable Chinese woman that she undoubtedly is, granted me a final word of sage advice, recommending that i not eat for at least 2 hrs after exercising to avoid getting fat.  when i asked ‘why,’ the language barrier arose, so all i got by way of explanation was, ‘b/c you’ll get fat’.