Lately, I’ve felt traumatized by books. Two of the books I was able to stop reading when they upset me. I didn’t care enough about the characters to make myself read any more about teenagers doing drugs and blowing up their lives or risk running into another scene like the botched horse euthanasia that I… Read more
Україна When I first started teaching immigrants instead of international students like the Japanese young people in my last post , I had a classroom full of Ukrainian men mixed in with a few Russians along with one Armenian. Many had been welders or miners in their first countries. They studied in a welding program… Read more
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
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