Leap Year 闰年 run(4) nian(2)

Today is February 29th, which makes it a leap year this 2008.

When I watched Channel 5, KTLA morning news, their anchor challenge question today is:
What's the official name for leap year? The answer is -- Intercalary year.

"Intercalary" is an adjective, which means being inserted, put in between.

The funny thing is when all the anchors had no clue at all about the answer, they tried to guess through all the answers. When they read the answer D. "intercalary", they said, "Mm... I don't know what this word means, must be a "Canadian" term...". Haha. That's a good excuse to get away with it...

This incident this morning also reminded me that there're so many "terms" between "Mainland" Mandarin Chinese and "Taiwanese" Mandarin Chinese. Languages are constantly evolving into different forms and meanings. And we also have to consider the regional variations. One dictionary (Liang'an Xiandai Hanyu Changyong cidian) I purchased about 2 years ago comes very handy when I have to look up words for its different written forms (traditional & simplified) and usages.

Workshop for IC @ Pasadena

One of my tutoring students forwarded me the following info today:

******************************************************
CLTA-SC Workshop on Chinese Instructional Materials

Attend the CLTA-SC Workshop on Chinese Instructional Materials and meet authors of the best-selling Chinese language series, Integrated Chinese (中文聽說讀寫).

When: March 8th, 2008 1:00 ~ 5:00 pm
Where: Room C333, Pasadena City College, Pasadena, CA Registration at 1:00pm
R.S.V.P by March 3rd to Zoe Wu xzwu@pasadena.edu or Cathy Wei cjwei@pasadena.edu

And be sure to attend:
Maximizing Integrated Chinese (中文聽說讀寫) in Your Classroom 2:50-4:30pm Presented by authors, Professor Nyan-Ping Bi (毕念平教授) and Professor Yuehua Liu (刘月华教授)

Join the authors for a special introduction to the 3rd Edition, Level 1/Part 1 available August 2008, and tips on how to use Integrated Chinese effectively in any classroom environment.
And stop by Cheng & Tsui’s book exhibit from 2:30–2:50pm to receive special event discounts, peruse some of our newest products, join our mailing list, and talk to our knowledgeable staff about your Chinese language program.
******************************************************

I got the expanded 2nd edition few weeks ago, now they're gonna have 3rd edition this August... sigh... Hopefully they can provide pretty good discount for books there.

Chicken Soup 鸡汤

Speaking of chicken soup, I totally admire how ancient Chinese developed a whole theory of delicious soup that is not only good for you soul, but your body as well.

M, my fellow teachers, was suffering from cold last week, which reminds me my earlier teaching years in the kindergarten and elementary schools. Being sick is like "piece of cake" in those extremely, dangerously infectious environments. For 2 years, I usually caught any viruses or flu once or twice a month until I found an effective way to prevent it. If you've been to a kindergarten during the flu season, one thing interesting (but definitely not fun) is to see the teacher send the powder cold medicine or cough syrup down to each kid's mouth lining up in front of the lockers... The picture look like the mother bird feeds the baby birds food, but, instead, medicine...

The Year of RAT!! 鼠年到

Sure. I'm Chinese. And I know I've mentioned fortune teller too much here. But, I do feel the difference for this new year even though it's just started for 20 days! (Yep! It's only January 20th in Chinese lunar calendar today!)

Last year was a bit disaster-after-another for me (It was my own year-- The Year of Boar-- aka the conflicting year for me, since I was born in The Year of Boar as well). I moved from Nor Cal to So cal, travelled a lot, felt not settling at all, been sick a lot, experienced a lot of dramas (mostly from family and a nasty new neighbor...). Anyway, they were ALL in the past.... With the new year's coming, it does bring some new positive aspects into my life. And I finally feel a bit more like home here in this Lala Land.

I officially quit my "chicken wishbone" job as an over-the-phone interpreter at home. When I said "wishbone" here, it doesn't mean a good or lucky job in Chinese. In Chinese, we say a job that is more a torture than fun -- a "ji(1) le(4)" 鸡肋-- which means, it's tasteless, but kinda a pity to throw it away also... 食之无味，弃之可惜

Anyway, after pondering for a few days, I decided right after my mom's visit that I'm willing to give up those pathetic-yet-bit-help-for-grocery-shopping $500~ 600 monthly income in exchange of more focus on getting a Chinese teaching position I'd prefer in any independent schools in L.A. area.

"Neng(2) she(3) cai(2) neng(2) de(2)" 能捨才能得--No pain, no gain.

I reposted some old blog entries on the same day, so I got a examine myself, and rediscovered my belief and passion in education. When I read the old entry dated March 9th, 2005, I guess that's how I get here today-- tyr to becoming a fantastic Chinese Teacher.

Hence my new blog -- CT in Lala Land.

Lunch time. Chinese hot pot w/Japanese potato noodles again. BTW, those Tokyo green onions from Nijiya supermarket on Sawtell St. was AWESOME this season!!

Mandarin/English Interpreting

December 21, 2007 (old blog entry)

I’ve been doing this over-the-phone Mandarin/English interpreting job for about 6 weeks now. The satisfatory points for me is only about 70%.

Sure all the clients I’ve been helped complimented on my customer service and linguistic skills, and always very much appreciated what I have done for them. Whether it’s to help them activating new credit cards, starting new electricity service, seeing doctors, reporting to the insurance company for car accidents, getting the police officer over to deal with an emergency… All and all, I did contribute a bit of myself to make their lives easier.
But, I just don’t feel like I can keep doing this job for any longer…

The super low hour pay is the majoy thing. $7.50 an hour is the most dreadful hour pay I’ve ever had in the U.S. (FYI, the lowest legal wage in San Franciso is $8.25 per hour). Oftentimes, I made fun of myself that I should find a cashier job at “Trader Joe’s” or “Whole Food”, at least I can get the 20% off employee discount buying groceries.

The 2nd thing is, I can’t really “interact” with people. One fun thing about teaching is you get to get direct feedback from students every day.That’s a big reward from teaching jobs, considering the low-paid, time-consuming and mind-exhuasting nature of teaching. The students acoomplishment is the biggest reward for teachers.

Anyway… I’m still searching for a better job. Meanwhile, I’ll keep serving limited-English-speaking Mandarin speakers, and keep learning from them.

On-Line Interpreting Test

October 16, 2007 (old blog entry)

After nearly 5 hours of practice within 1 week, I passed the test on the phone this afternoon. It was a great relief considering I was not with my best physical condition, and my mind went blank a few times during the test.

My testing supervisor was very nice to me. She said she saw my potential being a great on-line interpreter even though I didn’t do a good job today. And she gave me some great feedback and professional advice. Truly appreciate it.

New Tutoring Student

October 9, 2007 (old blog entry)

I’ll start teaching D Mandarin on a weekly basis starting this afternoon.

D is originally from San Francisco, eldest daughter in the family, whose younger sister is currently going to school in Taiwan. Hm... Somthing in common. D is going to a traditional Chinese medical school in downtown L.A. and working on becoming a licensed acupuncturist in the future.

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On-Line Interpreter Training

October 9, 2007 (old blog entry)

Spent 2 and half hours on the phone for the training course today.

It's a good learning process... dreadful though.

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Beverly Hills language school

October 6, 2007 (old blog entry)

Had an interview with the director of a language school in Beverly Hill this afternoon.
I have a great feeling that I will work very pleasantly there.

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p.s.: I didn't hear back from the director at all by the end of December as she promised. I guess 2 reasons I didn't get the job.

1. When she asked me this question during the interview:

"How would a teacher from Taiwan like you can really present Chinese' culture? "

I was kinda stunned at that time. I didn't expect a seemly sophisticated language school director like her would ask, and had prejudice against "Taiwanese" Chinese.

And I know I should have had answered something like:

• "Not only people from Taiwan can present 'Chinese' culture, but they actually preserve more 'Chinese' culture since they are NOT Communists and had not suffered from the disastrous 10-year Cultural Revolution in 60's..."

Instead, I had only responded to her question saying something like:
"If you''re worried about the accent issue, I can tell you that both my Chinese teachers in elementary school were from Northen China. I have pretty 'standard' accent. At schools, we had learned everything related to China, the mainland, not the tiny island, Taiwan, we live....You name it, history, geography, social science, Mandarin... blah blah blah..."

I knew my answer wasn't good enough to clarify her doubt.

2. After the interview, she kinda chat with me about my personal life... I should not tell her that my husband and I are thinking about having a baby... And then the female director rumbled "Hmm... want a baby...." and put a note on my resume... D&**! So what? I was surprised that a female directer would have such prejudice on another female teacher candidate...

UCLA Confucius Institue

October 4, 2007 (old blog entry)

Today is my momentum.

After completing 2 phone interviews this morning, I got a physcial interview at a language school in Beverly Hills tomorow. And later when I was preparing for lunch, I got a very late reply from San Francisco State University regarding my request about 3 months ago.

The good news is, Confucius Institute is recently open at UCLA, which is only about a 20-minute bus ride from my place. If I ever consider pursing a Chinese teaching credential, that will be a good place to go. The 1st Confucius institute was open in Soul, Korea in 2004. Within 3 years, the Chinese Language office has promoted up to 120 institute around the world. Even though I’m from Taiwan, and always a strong advocate of traditional characters, I’m afraid that Taiwanese government has lost the battle of promoting Traditional character in this movement.

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CarneySandoe & Language Line

October 4, 2007 (old blog entry)

Done 2 phone interviews this morning.

The 1st

(unfinished....lazy...)

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Lindamood-Bell Learning Process

October 4, 2007 (old blog entry)

Went for an interview at Lindamood-Bell Laerning center this afternoon.
The rate is horrible, begin in $20 an hour, which is pretty low for a job like this. You need a lot of patient, personal, psychologial and linguistic skills for helping those children who suffer from language problems...

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CarneySandoe.com

September 26, 2007 (old blog entry)

My mom-in-law hooked me up with my brother-in-law’s ex-step-sister J (yeah… a bit too many hyphens here) for my job inquiry. It turned out J doesn’t work on the recruitment side for the private schools in L.A. area; she places the students to their suitable schools. So, it’s on the other side of the system.

Anyway, she told me this website– carneysandoe.com–that most private schools in L.A. will list their openings there, so I tried to apply myself on their website. Gosh… It took me just a little shoter than posting on Monster.com.

J also suggests me that I might consider persuing a teaching credential for my future career, since most schools (even private ones) in L.A. request their teachers have one.

The Heavy Woman Upstairs...

September 25, 2007 (old blog entry)

The follow-up letters did work a bit. I got a reply right away from the language school in Beverly Hills. Nothing promising yet. But, it’s a start.

Anyway, the woman lives upstairs of us gets up around 6:30 every morning (and she didn’t take a shower this morning… I started to sound like a stalker or pervert listening to the noise she makes every day… sigh). There’s nothing you can really do for this kinda condo co-living situation, so I decided to sync our schedule. If I get a regular full-time job, that will be the same time I have to get up as well. Besides, being a morning person is good to your health also.

What I’m gonna do today job-wise are:

• Send out more job-inquiry e-mails to at least 5 language schools within my zip code found on CitySearch website.
• Contact a tutor agency Mom told me.
• Re-organize my previous ESL teaching folders.

Of course life is not just about job searching, I’m also gonna do:

• Continue cooking 3 healthy meals a day for my husband and I
• Taking a walk in the neighborhood
• Watch a Netflix moive or a show in my DVR

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Follow-Up Letters

September 24, 2007 (old blog entry)

Both my husband and mom-in-law suggested me to do as much as possible follow-ups after I send out my 1st job inquiry to the potential future employer. It is kinda hard for me to do that. Maybe it’s the buddhist thing in me, I’d rather have some dignity to NOT beg people giving me a job than constantly bombarding them with e-mails…

Some family members even advise me to “drop in”, and introduce myself to the right contact… Gee… I’m not sure about this either… It feels like a Avon Lady, or a door-to-door vacumm sales. Sigh… I can’t belive finding a job this time will be difficult. And the magic Craig’s List has not do any wonder on me yet.

Yom Kippur

September 21, 2007 (old blog entry)

Tomorrow is Yom Kippur. Got to drive down to O.C. to meet my hubby’s family for the dinner tonight. Stay there for one night, and back to the city tomorrow. Hence, maybe 24 hours without keeping job searching going…

However, I updated my tutoring service ad and resume on Craigslist this morning. It’s always more effective and usually get more responses if you post or update it on Friday.

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My Lovely Students

September 15, 2006 (old blog entry)

I have to continue our target lesson for this week: Asking and giving directions. So, I let my students listen to the following conversation on the tape:

• A woman: Hi, I need some directions. Do you happen to know where the hospital is?
• A guy on street: You bet! It’s on …..

OK, I let them listen to it a couple of times without any written handout at hand, and had the lights off. In the dark, they can have better sense to “hear” things. Then, we had a great discussion about what they heard.

• S popped out first: “I sink the man say: ‘You back’, be-causi the woman want to hospital, her back is pain, so, it ‘you back’.”
• L disagreed: “No, no, I think the guy is not good. He is kinda ‘bu` hao`’ (not good in Chinese), so, it is “You bad”…”
• X continued: “I think it’s “bed”, she want to go hospital a bed, tired, you know, sleep on bed…”

!@#$%^&*.....

Anyway, I put all the possible answers on the whiteboard, along with the correct “You bet” to help them make a decision. It turned out, everyone thought “You back” make more sense in this dialogue. When I announced the accurate answer and explained this colloquial expression to them, they all said “English is difficult!! Strange!!”.

BTW, B gave me a fresh fig grew in his backyard 2 days ago. A gave me some home-made dim-sum yesterday. J brings me vegetarian food almost every day. Mostly fresh fruit salad. And she’s gonna bring me some vegetarian moon cake tomorrow. Don’t you just love them?

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Too Fast?

September 23, 2006 (old blog entry reposted)

Done a personal survey among my students today. The most common feedback from them are– friendly, cheerful and nice personality, dynamic teaching skills, never a dull moment (one student said that, yeah, I’m an entertaining hostess…), patient, bilingually beneficial to them.

However, almost all of them put this answer on Q2:

Q:What do you dislike the most about this class?
A: You talk too fast!

Maybe I’ve been far away from the lower level of English proficiency for a while, so I can’t remember the pain the 2nd language learners have to suffer from the fast speech of the instructor. Oh, yeah, I clearly remember one of my previous grammar professors back in college, Professor Hilbert, she is absolutely the champion of speaking fast on campus. Not only in class, in real life, she speaks even faster. I guess she’s been holding herself back really hard in class already.

That’s the reason why I want to get some feedback from my lovely students–to make myself a better teacher for the next cycle.

Always try to advance my career. Yeah, like the pyscho test Jesse gave to me yesterday, my imaginary ladder on the movie theater screen is the sturdy, old, solid oak one. The one looks like the monstrous one in the public library, that can be steadily fixed on the floor, with wheels, helps you reaching the top of the bookshelfs and take you to any books you want to get. The underlining meaning of the ladder is– how you see your career. Which seems to be the major comfort and sense of security I can provide myself for the rest of my life.

Being professional; stay professional. It must be easier than stay beautiful. After all, I’m already too sexy and pretty for being a teacher.

Tutored I,aka my new TOFEL preparation student from Taiwan, this afternoon. Still feel good step into the familiar, same old campus. Glad that I help her a lot in grammar. She told me afterwards: “I wish I can know you earlier so I can suffer less from my classes… H should introduce us as soon as I got here!!” And she handed me the tutoring fee in a cute envelope with a thank you note and personal signature stamp on it… That’s a totally Asian way to show respect to the teacher. No matter what kinda of teachers that might be.

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Dynamic

August 31,2006 (old blog entry reposted)

Gosh, I really LOVE teaching here.
Dynamic, energetic, creative… etc. These are the most common compliments I received from my fellow teachers, coworkers and supervisors. Along with pretty, beautiful, “subtle” sexy from my students.

One of my students– B, hugged me yesterday and said “I love you, Miss Y” without a reason. She simply just wanted to do that after each class. Another student, I don’t have much interactions with, so I don’t even remember her name (yet), asked me the other day: “Why can’t you teach us in every class?” That surprised me a little, though I know that’s what she(they) really wants. So, I had to comfort her (and other students) that it must be some reason that my supervisor arranged other teachers to teach them instead of me for other classes… blah blah blah… you can learn from different teachers, cause every teacher has different style… you happened to like mine….

And today, R told me that she fought so hard to stay in my class 2 weeks ago (when this new cycle began), even though she didn’t belong to this class at the first place and had to change all her schedule to accoomdate to mine. “Cause I like you a lot since the day you subsituted us once. I want you to be my teacher, and I’m glad that I’m your student.” Aye… almost all my students are mid-aged women from China, but they”re not afraid to show me their affections.

They are sooooo cute, and reminds me my mom a lot. No matter they’re kids, adults or elders, they can always easily find out if you’re paying attentions to them. If you really care about their learnings, so they reward you whatever they have learned from you. You show them your heart, they return bigger hearts to you.That, my friends, it’s the meaning of life. Also the meaning to be a teacher. A great one.

Another GREAT thing teaching here is — free food.

Every Thursday on the staff meeting, of course, there will be homemade chocolate cookies (or other kinds), hot coffee or tea, and biritos (sliced into bite sizes already). And from time to time, there’re some complimentary pastry produced by the students in baking classes around. And, not mention every afternnon around 1:10~1:30 pm, I can always “observe” my students in their cooking class, then I HAVE TO eat/share/taste/give feedback on their works, aka my free lunch. I had my special lunch today– which was roasted beef serlions, seasoned rice, aside with Cesar salads. Taco Salad last Thursday. Fruit Salad a day before, and Potato Beef soup 2 days ahead of that.

Nice, huh?

Can’t wait to have my long Labor Day weekend, though. Teaching 4 classes, 5 hours in a row from 8am to 1pm DAILY is taking out off a lot of my energy.

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Depressed Turtle 鬰龜

June 09, 2006 (reposted from my old blog)

I hate to admit it, but the fortuneteller was right again. I did meet some intelligent people (aka 有識之士) since this summer.

4 of my students now:

1. G. is an ABC, speaks Cantonese, and provided me many useful comparisons among Mandarin/Cantonese/Taiwanese. And she has a fixed tutoring schedule for me to make things easier. She also inspires me to get in touch with business world.
   A, also an ABC, went to MIT for Bachelor and Master, received his Ph.D. from Stanford. Always teaches me some hi-tech terms and offers me ride home (though I never let him do so…)
2. T. went to Berkeley for bachelor, Stanford for Master, and are going to Wharton for his MBA (Wharton is the top 3 best public university in the U.S.). Always buys me coffee if we met at Starbucks, and is willing to travel to campus to save some troubles for me to get to downtown. And even though we only had one-hour session (when his brain was not working well…), or meet for 20 mins for discussing for materials, he would pay me the full amount of 90-mins hour pay.
3. M, the pianist, knows 4 different languages before he contacted with Mandarin. He really helps me to learn more about languages from his cross-linguistic perspectives.
   Below is what M’s analysis of 2 Chinese characters from his e-mail:
   ***********************************************************************************************************
   鬱: depressed, gloomy
   龜: turtle

When I thought of the turtle character, I was reminded that turtles have four legs, just like the four corners of the earth. Then I realized that in all over those corners there are people who are miserably unhappy because of the USA, which, for example has a military presence in 120 of the 180 countries of the United Nations.

And before I was born, the USA had already fought 145 wars, most of them undeclared wars, and then I recall that the USA has been at war ever since I was born, and that the USA, where people know only how to make money and how to kill people, piggishly gobbles resources and shows an environmental policy on of “war on terra” and threatens nuclear destruction of the world and is alreayd polluting the entire world with depleted uranium.

So that the turtle brought to mind the pressing need to dismantle the American empire before the USA destroys all life on earth. Which it probably will– and soon.

Should not the turtle be depressed?
***********************************************************************************************************
Isn’t he something?
I’m lucky to keep being educated by people who are kind & smart and I’m making money out of them….

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I have 3 students now!

May 13, 2005 (reposted from my old blog)

I can’t believe this kind of good thing will happen to me.

After posting my ad for teaching Mandarin on http://www.craigslist.org/ for almost 3 weeks, now I’ve got 3 students. Practically, all my Monday through Friday afternoon schedule are booked in June.

Isn’t that wonderful?

At least, I won’t be BORED after graduation and be able to make some U.S. cash in June (if it goes well, I can make about $1,000 in June, just enough to survive here…). Then I can focus on finding a full-time job b/4 I have to return to Taiwan to finalize my divorce after July 5th.

The fotuneteller was right. Forget about public schools. I’ll be better off serving in private business. My goal right now is to find a full-time job teaching either ESL or Mandarin anywhere in California (IF I can find one). Or as my career counselor advised me before, I should try to find a teaching position in some big companies (such as Google, Microsoft, GM– whatever Co. who has the close business relationship with China now…). They must have the education center which provide some Mandarin classes for the employee working in China.

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Chinese Curriculum & Landlord

March 09,2005 (Reposted old blog entry)

2 things interesting today.

1. I followed my classmate Jen to her CHINESE 101 class to see how horrible this class is presented. The instrutor is an American male teacher today, speaks pretty good Mandarin, very knowledgable in Chinese (I poped out 2 tricky questions to test him… Ha Ha), got his Chinese education done in Taiwan, taught in an OK way in class, sometimes quite entertaining. But, some problems observed:

• Too much new vocabulary and new sentence patterns in 50-mins class time.
• Too less drills/practices/activities among students.
• Students are lack of enthusiasm to learn.

When I heard my fellow classmates complained about how much they have been suffering from the Chinese class they’re currently taking, I had somehow suspicion on what they’ve described. Not until had I had the close obervation today, I was not suprised at all. (They told me another teacher, Miss Wong, is the total bi-o-tch for teaching them on Tue. and Thurs, who is also from Taiwan…)

Why can’t those teachers I met at the university and city college use a more fun,diverse and inspiring way to teach students in class? Why do they have to murder all the fun and joy learning a new foreign language? Especially Chinese, it supposed to be fun learning the culture and interesting sotries behind those "tricky" characters… I wonder how many of my poor classmates will continue taking advanced Chinese class next semester, or just hate it forever~I began to have the idea of revolting the boring way of teaching Chinese outside of China.

Secondly, I know I’ve never liked anyone I knew from Mainland China. After being seperated for 56 years, Mainland Chinese and Taiwanese have lived in totally different political & economical backgrounds, we’d never be the same people anymore ( I think the same analogy applies to English/Americans/Canadians).

My Chinese landlord (immigated from north-eastern China, 山東省 Shan-Dong Province 13 years ago) threw away my housemate’s heater without even thinking about inform him first. He blamed him as the “evil young man” living in the house, who uses the old-fashioned heater to not only try to burn down his house and cause the blackout in the house all the time. He also accused him as the sole reason for the increasing electricity bill for the past 3 months.

Is there any RESPECT in his dictionary or crazy mind?

I’ve tried my best to talk him into not doing so. No use. I could only translate what he meant to my Japanese housemate after he returned from school. Of course, you know how VERY angry he turned to be now …

Anyway, my poor housemate was calling his another Chinese friend over to translate for him so that those 2 people can have a huge fight later and settle part of the problem down. I don’t think I’ll have a peaceful night. The on-line fortuneteller was right. This will be a very chotic year for me. What’s wrong with all those stars in the sky? Couldn’t they just orbit in the right tracks?

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