The Post-Apocalyptic Techno Poem

I've recently discovered the joy of creating custom Facebook groups that can henceforth be blocked from viewing selected content on your profile page. This makes me especially happy because I've recently decided that I dislike having certain members of my family view certain things that I post. For one thing, I know it disturbs them, and for another, they consequently make snarky remarks that disturb me.

Social networking is an interesting beast. It's designed to bring people closer together, and it does that. But it can subsequently force loved ones to face uncomfortable truths about one another.

For me, it's not such a big deal. I've always known this part of my family's religio-political leanings. Grounded as they are on faith, I've always had to swallow them with a smile and keep my own opinions (not grounded on faith) to myself.

But I don't do that on Facebook, and it's generated some seriously mixed results. People who never knew before now know that I'm an agnostic, that I specifically don't believe in their god, and that I support a socio-political agenda that they consider to stem from moral bankrupcy, now know all that. And that's all okay; in fact, a part of me is glad that Facebook has made matters so plain.

But another part of me doesn't want to do the dance anymore. So into the special group they go, to hear no more of my opinions about a woman's right to choose, a man's right to love another man, an artist's right to display something offensive to the church, and the government's right to mind its own damn business, and so on. It'll worry them less.

Because my decision is motivated out of love for them.

That's the intriguing thing about family, you know. The bonds of family can be stronger than ideological divides (although they aren't always). The family unit is small enough to negotiate those confrontations successfully where the village, town, city, state, country, and world may be too big to adequately address them to everyone's satisfaction.

Which is good for me. I wouldn't want there to be strain between me and my loved ones, and I'm lucky that I don't have to make a choice between them and upholding the things that I believe are right. But enough [of the cyber weirdness] is enough.

And just for the record, if you're reading this blog you're unlikely to be in the special group for people-who-just-can't-accept-my-viewpoint-without making-well-meaning-though-ultimately-snarky-comments. So don't worry about that.

I need a better one.
That is all.

As an addendum to the last post, I do want to go on the record as being rather tired of something that I've noticed in my various exchanges with the tea-partiers: that "socialism" is still the epithet de rigueur when it comes to dismissing a person's argument without either understanding or confronting it.

( Consider the exchange on the subject of the Ground Zero mosque... )

I'm really growing to love debating. I can't wait to do some more with folks who can actually argue back.

EDIT: I'm honor-bound to point out, in fairness to my friend, that she apparently did not mean to use "socialism" as a dismissal - merely to alert her other friend that I was on a radically different page, so that he might better understand my argument. I clearly misunderstood her.

She seemed to feel that my response was fair and that my point about the perils of defining hate speech was especially crucial. I'm feeling better and better about these exchanges. As I expected, they are growing into something very productive for both of us.

I had an interesting experience recently at a restaurant.

Since returning to the US, I've regularly found myself unable to eat all of the food I order at a restaurant. I generally eat only half. Not surprising, really, given that I've grown so used to the smaller portions and lack of doggie-bags that proliferate the world beyond US borders.

About a week ago, I went out to dinner with a couple of my friends - unapperent and his wife - to a very nice restaurant where we each enjoyed a three course meal: appetizer, entree, and dessert. I ate all of the appetizer, but only half of the entree. Midway through the meal, I began to sense that eating much more would result in my being unable to finish the dessert, and I did not want that to happen.

(Dessert was a cherry cake with whipped cream and amaretto.)

So, I turned my utensils parallel to indicate that I was finished, and the waiter immediately approached in an ecstasy of concern. "Are you done?" he asked me. "Was there something wrong with the meal?"

I assured him that the meal was delicious, but that I'd been unable to finish and would he kindly wrap it up for me to take home and finish later. He took the plate and returned in record time with a box. I thought no more of his reaction.

It wasn't until a couple of days later that I discovered how upset he was with me.

Upon opening the box to finish off the leftovers for breakfast one day, I discovered that the waiter had literally thrown the contents of the plate into the box - not even taking care to ensure that everything made it in. I was quite astonished that exercising my right to indicate when I was full would result in such a retaliation. I haven't had someone go off on me for not cleaning my plate since I was eight. Talk about passive-aggressive!

And seriously, talk about unhealthy.

Cleaning one's plate can be a very bad thing to do; particularly if the plate in question is overloaded (as almost all restaurant plates are). I'm not one to argue that the Hollywood standard of beauty is a healthy one. Nor am I one to argue that all people who are technically overweight are so because they overeat. (I know for a fact that that is not true.) But there's no question that many Americans have a serious problem with overeating, and with overeating stuff that isn't good for them. This weird defense of overeating (by a random service professional, no less) was somewhat unsettling to me.

And it got me thinking about the bizarre habit some folks have of inserting themselves into other people's diets. My mother and I dealt with commentary about our food choices all the time when we lived in Paris, and I've grown accustomed to the Japanese tendency to discuss food at length (out of a deep and abiding love rather than anything else), but I was always under the impression that the American protocol was to avoid any reference to the eating habits of others, there being nothing more rude in a polite society.

UPDATE: Apparently, it's not just eating a healthy amount of food that's perceived as problematic. Eating healthy food has recently been deemed a mental disorder by a group of psychiatrists.

Healthy food obsession sparks rise in new eating disorder (Guardian UK).
Via.

In the month of May I had one, quick post. The rest of the time I was either too busy to post or too tired to post. Periodically, I had ideas for interesting topics of inquiry, but there was nothing that sent me running for the blogosphere. My apologies to anyone who might have missed my blathering.

I've been working hard and enjoying time with friends as much as possible in these last few days and weeks, and now I have fourteen days remaining to me before I board a plane and wing my way back to the land of my birth.

I'd say that the time's flown faster than I thought it would...
...but the reality is that it has not.

Some many, many months ago, in the midst of brightly lit summer day, one of my dearest friends lamented the length of time that I would be gone from home. And I answered that it wasn't as long as they thought it would be; that I would be back before they knew it.

The truth is that time becomes so much more precious as we grow older, as our perception of it shifts and makes it seem to slip through our fingertips. I came to the realization a few years back that time no longer lingers for me, as it did when I was a little girl and a two-week vacation lasted until the end of world, but contrary to being depressed I was happy. Happy to have made that realization, and happy therefore to always make the most of whatever time I am gifted with.

I have missed everyone back in the US deeply. But I have loved living in Yokohama; have loved having the opportunity to grow so much in such a short stint, to meet some of the most brilliant colleagues that I will ever respect - some of the best friends that I will ever know.

And I will cherish every moment of the next two weeks (because I know they will not last long), and when they have passed I will remember them with fondness and focus on the time I have with my family and friends stateside.

Until then...

I think that I've finally managed to find worse Olympic coverage than what you get in the US - which I always thought was the world's worst. I mean, they didn't even bother to show the complete free skates for two of the top four pairs! (Not to speak of showing anything other than those four at the top, and I remain convinced that the only reason the Russian team got coverage was because the female skater was Japanese.) What the hell is that about? Way to suck, NHK. Spare me the stupid animal mascots and get with the quality programming already.

Sheesh.

In other news, I absolutely hate this term. I don't know if this is the way things have always been done, or if it's something new they're trying, but it needs to stop. When there's no way to get your homework done if you also want to also take an hour of leisure while you eat dinner and get good night's rest, the school is assigning too much fucking work.

I've almost hit the point where I don't care anymore.

Almost.

I foresee a mental health day in my future. Sadly, it will not be tomorrow.

The philosophical Sagittarius New Moon prods you into thinking about things that don't normally concern you. You are excited about exploring new ideas and exotic places now, and less interested in being practical. But you don't have to travel anywhere to bring these archetypal desires into your life. Studying a foreign language or learning about another culture allows you to go to fantastic places in your mind.

Oh, how wrong you are, Daily Horoscope...
...how wrong you are. ;>


In other news, it looks like the smash hit Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is going to be made into a movie. Does it get any more awesome than that?

I was chatting with my mom, alateaqoe, this morning and the subject of language difficulty came up. She mentioned a statistic she'd heard about recently on the subject. To whit, to become proficient in...

...French. You need 575-600 hours of instruction.
...German. You need 750 hours of instruction.
...Hebrew. You need 1100 hours of instruction.
...Japanese. You need 2200 hours of instruction.

And those numbers don't even cover self-instruction times - they're just classroom hours.

I wondered where the numbers were coming from and did a little searching, finally identifying the probable source of this statistic as the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) branch of the US Department of State. They've divided a large number of languages into three categories of difficulty (from the perspective of a native English speaker). The numbers above refer to the time it takes to reach level 3 proficiency: speaking with structural accuracy and employing a rich enough vocabulary to communicate on diverse topics. At that point, you're still not fluent.

You can check out a full breakdown here.

So Japanese is one of the hardest languages for an English speaker to learn. French and German (the language that my colleagues are always complaining about), by comparison, are a "cinch." Not that I want to disparage my colleagues at all. It's just that sometimes when I'm rewriting a kanji character forty-thousand times I start to feel a wee bit bitchy about it. But it was my choice to study Japanese, after all, so that's the way it goes.

My mom and I agreed that choosing one of the most difficult languages I possibly could to study was "so me." (It's kind of like how I always instinctively choose the most expensive item on the menu.) Oh, and when I'm done with Japanese I'll move on to Chinese - also on the list of category 3 languages.

There's something seriously wrong with me. Heh.

EDIT:
Check out the comments section for more discussion on language between myself and lordameth. He makes the very important point that language difficulty varies by person according to individual strength, and I agree. I'd like to further state that I should have noted more explicitly in the original post that all languages are difficult to learn - a point I tried to imply through the use of quotations around the word cinch. I hope my irony wasn't completely lost there, but if it was I apologize.

From Questions Naturales, ed. M. Muller (1934):

...one thing which clearly takes place in the air is an object of wonder to all nations: the death dealing disturbance called thunder. By it not only are all nations terrified, but fear weighs heavily also upon irrational creatures... is then your science bold enough to give the cause and origin of thunder, or is it unable to solve this most difficult problem? For in the face of thunder, the philosophers are no braver than the rest.

Displayed at The Museum of Jurassic Technology
(aka: one of the most badass places in the known universe)

---

Also, I just intruded on someone's conversation about Oak Park. They mentioned that they worked there, but wouldn't want to live there because it's too rough. Their companion noted: who would want to live there? and in I jumped.

Oak Park is easily the raddest place in town.
So there.

[pbbfft]

Officials found a note in the car of James von Brunn, the white supremacist who opened fire in the National Holocaust Museum yesterday and killed 39-year-old security guard Stephen Johns. In addition to the hateful screed you could expect from this type of individual was the statement: "Obama was created by Jews."

O RLY?

I wasn't aware of the vast conspiracy by members of the Jewish faith (who are everyday and generally awesome human beings, you fucking asshole) to create presidential nominees in their super secret secret robotics labs of doom. Thank god someone was on to that one, hey?

/sarcasm.

Jesus, we've got some crazy fucking people in this world. I mean, first Dr. Tiller (whose tragic murder made me way too furious to even discuss, btw) and now this?!

[sigh]

Blessed be, Stephen Johns. May your family, friends, and all of us who are heartbroken by this senseless hate, find some way to make peace with this horrifying occurrence.

Holocaust Museum Shooting Suspect James von Brunn's Chilling Racist Note (NY Daily News).