Last month I listened to Reverend Kakihara from the Tacoma Buddhist Temple speak at a Lenten series in my church. The minister, born in Japan, described his faith beautifully and I learned many things about Buddhism, especially about Jodo Shinshu Nishi Hongwanji Buddhism which he practices. At the same time, watching his mannerisms and listening to his speech patterns felt like… Read more
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_DaizJnnJQ I showed my son this video with Elsa from Frozen singing “Let it Go” as she gets interrupted by screaming goats and he said, “Yeah. Goats have been out for a while now. They’ve been sticking them in YouTube videos all over the place. It’s kind of old.” So once again I’m behind the teenage… Read more
The young woman stood before me speaking English clearly with an accent that rounded out sounds. Her eyes lit with joy as her tight curls framed her face. She struggled with her writing, she said, and wondered if she could join our ESL classes. When she told me she spoke Arabic, I understood the trouble. Most of… Read more
I once thought I could grow monkey people. The comic book ad promised underwater critters with a bald father, mother and two kid monkeys with gills on their chests and smiles on their faces. The mother monkey wore lipstick and a matching red bow in her hair. “So eager to please,” the ad read. “They… Read more
Before my students educated me, I had pictured the Soviet Union as one solid mass of land with only Russian speakers across the expanse. I also never heard of the tiny landlocked sliver of Moldova tucked between Romania and Ukraine until many of my students said they came from there. When I began to listen, I… Read more
When my husband went to his 20th high school reunion, he told his classmates I had stayed home with our newborn infant. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” said someone, sniggering. “I’m so glad we are done with that.” We often hear this since we were not able to have our second child until we were almost 40… Read more
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ianCxd71xIo Have you ever had someone interpret your words into American Sign Language (ASL)? I’ve seen it done many times but before I taught my ‘regular’ English class this quarter, I had never experienced someone standing next to me, interpreting every small comment I made to the rest of the class. At first I thought… Read more
The Sick Canary Theory and The Volkswagen Theory At one point in my life I heard these phrases everyday and thought everyone knew them. When my mother was young, her parents told her she could get a bird. In the store, she picked out the sickest of the lot because she felt sorry for it and wanted… Read more