Uh, hopping between books as usual, but...
_The Years of Rice and Salt_ by Kim Stanley Robinson
_The Wilding_ by C.S. Friedman
_The Koreans: Contemporary Politics and Society_, 3rd ed., by Donald Stone Macdonald
_Differential Equations_ by J.E. Powell and C.P. Wells
_Swan's Wing_ by Ursula Synge
Booksbooksbooksbooksbooks...and I have military geography, linguistics, sf/f, engineering history, and God knows what else on hold...*bliss*
Chris Quinones: Yeah--Brooklyn is a bit far from WA. Alas. I think those phrases are ones I should learn, though. I figure knowing how to say "I'm sorry, I don't speak [insert language here]" or variant thereof is useful. :-)
Not that I imagine South Korea is nearly as cool as China *grin*, but I've seen some informative stop lights (#2) in Seoul, the transit debit cards (#3) seemed fairly well phased-in when I was last there (the token system used by the Boston T makes me cringe--I'm sorry, but it does), and the adult/other playgrounds (#4) were here-and-there in Korea, especially along mini-hiking-trails, when I was a child there.
I can't speak to the cellphones because I hate the things and have yet to use one more than passingly (usually because an in-law insists on loaning one to me for something-or-other). On the other hand, the umbrella-bags are quite nice, although my über-prepared mom simply carried extra plastic bags (and umbrellas) everywhere.
I have been working on learning Mandarin on-and-off using Dover's Modern Chinese: A Basic Course by the Faculty of Peking University, with cassettes. It also comes with CDs, if one prefers. What I'd really love to do is take a course, since I don't expect to retain anything but a basic orientation with self-study, especially with no conversation partners. Still, better'n nothing. And tones are so cool!
Okay, shutting up now...
Still here, in the U.S., after voting.
Still have diapers to change and bottles to wash.
Even diapers are a start--my kid is so going to be a voter in 17 years and change if I have anything to say about it.
Still fightin'. Admittedly for rather domestic and housetrapped values of fightin'.
I am increasingly ashamed of having been born in Houston, TX. Even if I wasn't old enough to vote against G.W. Bush when he was running for guvnor, and was by that time out of the U.S. anyway.
Kathryn Cramer: In particular, I find it had to read about it or write about it and then interact with my kids. It's very hard to read about this kind of abuse without your feelings coloring your personal power relations. Scary.
Seconded. I grant you my child is too young for language (either that, or I'm just not picking up lizardese at all), but I have only glanced glancingly at a few photos, because to be looking at such horror while feeding the baby does crazy things to my frame of mind. (She faces away from the computer screen, as the geometry requires.) I am so selfishly happy that I don't have to be explaining this to her right now, as it happens. Of course, by the time she's old enough for that, something else will be going on in the world.
--sorry for jumping in like that. If I have offended, I apologize, and beg instruction as to how to avoid doing so in the future.
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| 2004 | 6 |
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