So lately I’ve been hearing about this SOPA bill that’s going to be voted on soon. But nothing has put it quite so clearly as this video:

After watching, what are your thoughts?

Clearly, I was convinced (if you haven’t noticed the black protest banner at the top of our site

Living in a place where internet censorship is a daily reality makes me definitely NOT want anything that remotely resembles that in my own country. Enterprise is DEFINITELY hindered by the official censorship here, and it would be a shame for the US to follow suit.

I can’t put a lot of details publicly (so that the methods we use aren’t shut down), but basically 99% of our communication with all of you back home (including these blog posts) wouldn’t be able to happen if we were living in China using internet like the normal population here. WordPress is blocked, FB is blocked, Youtube is blocked, sometimes even Wikipedia and Google are completely blocked.

It really scares me that the US government wants to be handed over permission to censor internet as they see fit. Not only enterprise, but daily relationships have become so intertwined with these websites. If Congress showed up at our dinner table and said we weren’t allowed to talk about x, y, and z, I think we’d all be screaming “1984″ right?

Whether you agree or disagree with the ethics of FB having become a replacement/supplement to conversation over the dinner table, the fact is it probably has taken that role in your life.

I find FB invaluable for maintaining daily contact with friends and family with whom I can’t enjoy that daily connection in real life right now, so using FB and WordPress definitely takes an intimate role in my life.

Sorry, Congress, but I don’t want you messing with that.

If you also find this disturbing enough to do something about, visit americancensorship.org.

Recently, Angel and I discovered the Chinese version of K-Mart. On our trip to this store, Angel and I found some “creative” translations of the store sections. I saved the best for last, so check out all of them!

West Point’s not just a military academy…it’s a food section. Full of “Western” snacks, which mostly hail from Korea and Japan.

Got your instant noodles on the left, and “business” on the right.

What’s in the “business” section?

A “Hot and Sour Family” soup or “Refined Soup Chop Flavor”.

“Puffing food” is exactly what it sounds like: foods that make you puff up.

Last but not least, come to China if you need to buy “stereotypes”. They have a whooooole aisle of “stereotypes”. Just gettin’ some milk, bread, and stereotypes.

As a perfectionist who hates conflict, today was not my best day.

Every now and then those days come along, perfectly orchestrated to have everything that can go wrong and irritate/frustrate/sadden you happen one after another.

When I first started planning my lesson content before we arrived, I had the mindset that I would teach things that only a foreigner could teach. So for example, in writing classes Chinese English teachers can easily teach students about grammar and paragraph structures. But they probably don’t know as much about the types of assignments that are typical in an American university setting, so I wanted to teach things like writing a resume, writing a research paper, and writing an analytical book report.

I figured if any of my students wanted to study abroad for their master’s degree, it would be useful for them to have at least an introduction to the types of writing an American undergrad student would know about.

I had all these great plans, but within two weeks, I realized that teaching those kinds of advanced assignments was going to be a challenge. The students’ grammar level is high, but definitely still needs work. I hate teaching them things that they could learn from a Chinese teacher (it makes me feel like my “native” English quality is not being put to use at all), but it’s really kind of a joke to work on advanced things when some of them don’t even know how to correct a run-on sentence or use consistent tense in their writing.

So as frustrating as it is, I decided to cancel most of the assignments I had planned, at least for my freshmen students, and go back to the basics. The whole semester, we’re spending about 70% of the time focusing on basic grammar rules. To make that slightly less boring, I put the classes into groups of 3 to 4 students. The groups are each assigned two units of grammar from a grammar book I borrowed from a former teacher, and the group has to spend 20 – 45 minutes presenting the units to the rest of the class on an assigned date. They have to teach/present the units and write and perform a drama that incorporates the grammar in their units.

Last week was the first week they presented, and I was terrified that it would go horribly – that the group wouldn’t do a good job presenting, the rest of the class would be bored and confused, etc. But to my pleasant surprise, both of the groups did an amazing job. (I even gave one of the groups a perfect score because they really earned it. I think they taught better than I do, haha)

So I feel like things are starting to go well with my two freshmen classes. And my two graduate level speaking classes are going well. The students are more mature and have a higher English level that my undergraduate classes, and it is SO much easier preparing, teaching, and grading speaking assignments! But really, the age and the improved level of English makes the biggest difference. I think that if I had to teach writing to the graduate students, I would enjoy it a lot more, and I could easily focus on teaching them the more advanced things I’m trying to muddle my way through with the undergraduate students.

So that leaves four sophomore writing classes that I’m trying to figure out. I had two of them today, and things went pretty terribly. I started working on the entire semester’s schedule earlier on with my sophomores, and so I already gave them a printed copy of the semester’s schedule of assignments shortly before I realized how difficult it would be to do those complicated assignments with them. I was a little behind on planning for my freshman classes, but that turned out to be great because now they still don’t have a semester-long schedule, and it’s so easy for me to change and cancel assignments from week to week without any hesitation because the students don’t know what to expect anyway! Unfortunately, the sophomores already have expectations, and I feel kind of stupid canceling and moving things around too much. Plus, how do you explain to the class that you’re canceling an assignment because it’s too complicated for them without making them feel stupid? I’m sure some of them would welcome less work, but the students who are overachievers (which comprises more than half of each class, I’d say) would think either that they’re so terrible they can’t handle the assignments or that I’m a bad teacher who doesn’t know what she’s doing and can’t manage the time of the class effectively. (Partially true, but I’m trying hard not to let them in on that!) It’s definitely a tricky dynamic, attempting to maintain this image of a competent, in-control teacher who deserves their respect when I feel like I’m hanging on by the seat of my pants trying to figure out how to/if I can actually teach them something useful.

So right now we’re finishing up working on an assignment about writing a cover letter and resume. It went okay, but I wish I would have spent more time on it. About half of the students understood and did decently well on their first drafts. But there are a few that are definitely struggling to figure it out. And also a few that still don’t get the concept of telling about their true experiences in a positive light instead of inventing things that look good but are complete lies.

One girl today was trying to argue with me that it doesn’t matter if the information is truthful or not because this is just an assignment, so what’s the big deal if the whole thing is an invention? They don’t need to practice content, just formatting. This girl is really antagonistic about all of the assignments I give. She tells me every time I give them an assignment that she wants to do it her own way and not be forced to do it any certain way. I have no idea what she thinks she’s going to do some day when she does get a job and her boss tells her to do something in a certain way. In her mind, when I give her a low mark because she does things her own way, I am punishing her. Frustrating and very stressful to my conflict-averse soul. But I guess teachers aren’t always meant to be liked, at least when they have to start giving out grades

So after today, I cried a bit and felt like I was letting down these classes and not teaching them anything valuable. I hope things like this will get better next semester as I figure out more what works with this particular demographic of students. It’s a lot more difficult than I realized it would be to teach students who have an intermediate level of English.

(For the record, I am feeling better today. I got out of the house last night and am working out of the house today. That seems to help, especially since I’m still so used to having our dog at home with me. I think the main trigger to my sad feelings comes when I don’t hear any jingling collar tags or feel eyes burning into me while I’m eating.)

So today, I’ll post a random thought on why I’m not on Google+ (yet).

If you haven’t heard, there’s been some buzz on the internet (mainly Facebook, ironically enough) about a new feature Google is offering called “Google+”

Like many Google initiatives, this one is starting out by invitation only. I suppose this is intended to make techies feel elite and cool when they get in. Or maybe it’s intended to limit the traffic while Google works any bugs in the new feature. At any rate, the coolness factor is part of it, whether intentional by Google or not.

I received one of these coveted Google+ invites five days ago. I opened the email, read the advertising about why Google+ is going to be so cool, and promptly decided NOT to join.

All my techie friends are baffled and angry.

Okay, so here’s my reasoning (flawed though it may be).

Point One: I never join a new techie fad until I’m sure that it’s caught on and it will be worth my time to join. I don’t have the time or patience to be hip on everything that’s currently internet-news-worthy. The nature of the web is that something can be outrageously popular one day and completely forgotten about the next. That’s exciting and fun for a lot of people. For me, it’s tiring and time-consuming. So I wait for the best of the best to push through and change non-internet culture before I really get on board.

Point Two: Google+ is a direct confrontation to Facebook. Facebook does social media amazingly well. In my opinion (and stats seem to support this), Facebook pretty much has the monopoly on social media in most of the world. And now Facebook has successfully taken online marketing/monetizing social media to an unprecedented level, and I think they’re doing a good job and being decently ethical in the process.

Google does an incredible job of searching. I will never not use Google as my search engine (unless China makes me) because it is simply better than the competitors. I would say Google (and its email system, based on amazing abilities of searching) has the monopoly in its sector of the internet.

So it kind of irritates me that Google is trying to take over the entire online world. I know businesses are supposed to expand, expand, expand. But I don’t really like the idea of all of my most important online activities getting sucked into one giant place. Even if that place is really good at what it does. I feel better knowing there is some healthy competition between two really good, potentially really scary companies that have access to basically all of my personal information.

That being said, if everyone in the world (and more importantly everyone I know) drops Facebook and replaces it with Google+, I will most likely follow suit. After all, the point of social media is connecting with people. And if there’s no one left for me to connect with on Facebook, I’ll have to join Google+.

According to ZDNet, Google+ is predicted to surpass 10 million users by the end of today. Facebook currently has 750 million active users. So we’ll see how the numbers play out in the coming months. Of course, this may all become irrelevant if we don’t get to access Facebook and Google much in China I suppose that’s another reason for me to hold out on Google+!

In
1952
President  Truman
established  one  day  a  year  as  a
“National Day of Prayer.”
———————————————————————

In
1988
President Reagan
designated the
First Thursday in May of each year as
the National Day of Prayer.

———————————————————————

In June
2007
(then)
Presidential
Candidate Barack Obama
declared that the USA
“Was no longer  a
Christian nation.”
———————————————————————
This year
President Obama
canceled the
21st annual National Day
of Prayer ceremony
at the White
House under the ruse
Of “not wanting to offend anyone”

———————————————————————

BUT… on September 25, 2009
from 4 AM until 7 PM,
a National Day of Prayer
FOR THE MUSLIM RELIGION
was Held on Capitol Hill,
Beside the White House.
There were over 50,000 Muslims
in  D.C. that day.

HE PRAYS WITH THE MUSLIMS!

I guess it Doesn’t matter
if  ”Christians”
Are  offended  by  this  event -
We  obviously
Don’t  count  as
“anyone”  Anymore.

The direction  this country is headed
should strike fear in the heart of every Christian,
especially knowing that the
Muslim religion believes that if Christians cannot be
converted, they should be annihilated.

———————————————————————
Got this email from a relative today. Related link I found after about 3 seconds of Google searching upon receiving the email: http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/barackobama/ss/obama_praying_at_mosque.htm

Thoughts?