今週

私の誕生日は今週の火曜日でした。
私は　佐藤先生と日本語のクラスメートに　誕生日のカドを　もらいました。
驚いていました (surprised)。
どうも　ありがとう　ございました、みなさん！

今週は　とても　いそがしい　です。
あしたは　Queensへ　いきます。はたらきます。
そして、土曜日から　月曜日まで　ひこうきで　ボストン(Boston)へ　いきます。

日本語のクラスは　とても　おもしろいですが、むずかしいです。
カタカナは　とても　むずかしいです。
このしゅうまつ　わたしは　とても　べんきょうします！やすみません。

だいがくいんせいのせいかつは　いそがしいですね。
たいへんですね！

1/4 century

きゅうは　わたしの　たんじゅうび　です。いじゅうろくさいです。To do a quick math, I've lived a quarter of a century, yet I think there is still so much for me to learn and to explore.  I have to say, I'm not having the best time of my life these days, and today is so far my worse birthday.  I'm under a lot of pressure these days to look for a job.  I never realized that looking for jobs itself can take so much energy out of you.  I guess this is just part of the process of growing up, even though tried to delay it as much as possible - hence the whole graduate school experience.  But I guess I still can't avoid the inevitable - time passes and kids grow up eventually.  So now here I am - getting another year old and facing the world for the first time on my own.

わたしは　こどもじゃ　ありません。

Life is hard.  Life is unfair.  Life sucks, yet everyone needs to face it.

曾经有一个人告诉我：做人，总是要在命运前低头的；理想这东西，只不过是年少轻浮罢了。

Katakana Homework

One of my five Katakana words for today's homework - picture taken while I transfered at Narita airport =)

甲子園

I guess this is a follow up blog to the one さとうせんせい posted on the class blog page.

The anime Touch was really popular when I was little.  It is the story of a Japanese high school baseball team winning the national championship.  I heard from someone that baseball is like THE sport for high school students in Japan.  Anyway, reading さとうせんせいのブログ just reminded me of this anime.

やきゅうをしましょう！

Mochi

I remember seeing it on TV once.  It's a program introducing "exotic" food around NYC on one of the small cable channels that no one normally pays attention to.  But anyway, the program I happened to watch that day was on Asian crusine, and I remember the hostess was using a giant hammer trying to make fresh mochi.

So here is the restaurant.  It's call EN Japanese Brasserie.  If you search their past event list, they had a special event on New Year's Eve for customers to make fresh mochi.  I am a little disappointed to see that we can't do it everyday.  But hopefully someone will remember about this and try it when the time comes!  =)

(also wondering: do they mean the Lunar New Year?  uhm...)

What winning the Noble Prize means...

Knowing about the nomination was about two weeks ago.  The Time Magazine had a one-line coverage about how the Chinese government was condemning the Noble Foundation about the possible winning of the Noble Peace Prize by the democracy campaigner Liu, Xiaobo 刘晓波.

The final announcement came over this weekend:  Liu won!  The jailed human right activist Liu who is still serving his 11 years of sentencing in the Chinese prison, has won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize!  The news took the entire cover page of the local Chinese newspaper and was all over the internet in no time.  The name Liu, Xiaobo was cited by the Western media countless times within hours.  Yet, when I searched the Chinese website on Saturday night, the closest thing I found related to the Noble Prize was that the Physics Prize was given to a pair of UK scientists.

That was not even the worst (Chinese government is known for its censorship and its media control).  The shocking news came out today: Liu's wife has gone missing since Friday after the winning announcement.  According to the article that I read this morning, she was supposed to go to the prison to visit her husband and deliver the news to him.  However, no one could get in contact with her since Friday night and her cell phone service was disconnected.  Her last known contact with the reporter was over the telephone, and she was apparently "negotiating" with the local police at that time.  Even worse, the government was practicing its silencing policy once again: arresting activists all over Beijing, deleting any news or internet posts that had Liu's name in them...

I wouldn't call myself an activist - I used to say that it's because I understand my own capability so I wouldn't dare the impossible.  However, it is during times like today that I wish I could do more.  People say the North Koreans don't think their lives suck under the Kim dictatorship because they don't know life could be better.  Well, the same goes for China and its people.  If those of us who have seen the better don't educate the people, how could they know the difference?  How could they know they have choices?

So I called home and talked to my mom, despite the fact that our 15 minute conversation was disconnected 3 times.  I'd rather believe that it was because we had a bad connection tonight......