Other Side of the Planet dot com

Blog: Hulatrooper

Posted on June 18th, 2009 by Anna Zhan.
Categories: Blog.

All I can say is that my life has a lot of stress in it, and that the simple things provide an immense amount of amusement for me.  The recipe for humor last night was a hula hoop (found standing near a garbage can in Union Square) and a stormtrooper helmet (unfinished, which Ray had just bought off Skutch).

I’d only ever tried a hula hoop once, a few weeks earlire at the First Grade Field Day (I guess I missed out on such things when I wsa in 1st grade).  Needless to say, I was mostly a dismal failure, and hesitant to try again.  Yet, for the sake of a good story, I would try it again.

The great thing about being a stormtrooper is the smiles you bring to the faces of complete strangers.  And, really, it’s the most fun I can remember having in the City in months.  Yay for burger  night!

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Toys: Walking LEGO AT-AT

Posted on May 27th, 2009 by Anna Zhan.
Categories: Blog.

My apologies for my recent lack of blogging - life has been insane.  Gimme another month.

[Myself with the LEGO AT-AT box, for all my world domination needs]

“Other women want jewelry, but all you want is an instrument of war.”

So it was that, after two years of drooling over the motorized LEGO AT-AT online, I finally got my miniturized machine of destruction as a birthday gift.  (Just wait ’till it snows again this year - oh the pictures we will have!)

 
[Tarzan with the AT-AT’s feet and inner body structure]

Nothing if not a devoted companion, Tarzan insisted in taking part in the building process.  Already pals with the Roomba, he showed no fear when faced with this walking skeleton (which is nearly as large as Tarzan himself.)

[Tarzan, trying to figure out our newest robot]

I was so busy that it took me a couple weeks to finish it.  The inside was a cluster of tiny, interlocking bits that took much longer than expected.  The legs, body, and head came along much more quickly.

At long last, I attached the armor plating.  My newest robotic minion was finally ready to bring forth a new reign of terror!  (Or a new stewardship of terror, at the very least.)

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Easter: Look What the Bunny Gave Me!

Posted on April 17th, 2009 by Anna Zhan.
Categories: Blog.

 
[Gertrude Hawk’s Dinosaur Egg: filled with Baby Dinosaurs!]

This is the mark of a man who understands me well: for Easter, I got a chocolate dinosaur egg filled with chocolate baby dinosaurs (it was that or the chocolate flying saucer with the four chocolate aliens riding on top…but there’s always next year…I guess dinosaur egg just fit the Easter theme better.)

 
[A parade of chocolate baby dinosaurs, marching out of their egg.  Three species, one egg - don’t ask.]

And no, there are no pictures from Easter dinner…we forgot to take any.  We fail.  Or I fail, at least.  I think mostly I was just grateful that we were all healthy enough to enjoy the meal.  Even I have spent most of the semester ill - the weight loss evident in the picture below speaks volumes.

[Myself, early morning, clutching a chocolate dinosaur egg.]

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Blog: Does Your Pet Fear the Roomba?

Posted on April 16th, 2009 by Anna Zhan.
Categories: Blog.

I hear reports of people with dogs that absolutely fear the roomba, but I had never known a cat owner who had a roomba.  It was a risk, but one that, with my laziness, I was willing to take.

Tarzan is pretty mellow and easy-going, but I know that he DOES fear the hair dryer.

The roomba, however, he’s OK with.  I observed Tarzan to be slightly apprehensive, perhaps, but he also regards the roomba with a healthy dose of curiosity.  Never before, however, did I ever see him bonding so affectionately with our floor-cleaning robotic minion.  If he ever starts giving it a bath, I’ll have to rename the roomba Jane.

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Blog: My Day Without the Interwebs

Posted on April 16th, 2009 by Anna Zhan.
Categories: Blog.

I was on vacation: Spring Break.  I woke up.  I showered.  I filled a bowl with milk and grabbed a box of cereal, and armed with these two items, I sat down in front of the computer: no interwebs.

I turned the wireless modem off and then on: no interwebs.

I turned the computer off and then on: no interwebs.

I troubleshooted the problem, which led me to turn both the modem and the wireless router off and then on: still no interwebs.

I even plugged the computer into the modem directly via a cable – a low point of the day – but I was still left stranded, unconnected, in my Brooklyn apartment.

The interwebs had died.

Oh, I had my suspicions about my 3.5-year-old laptop.  The battery last 15 minutes, the DVD-RW drive reads but does not write, and the P key is missing.  More alarming are the computer’s tendencies to occasionally give me an electric shock, or randomly freeze and reboot.  (And though I promised myself I’d replace the machine upon graduation in May, the truth is that the 2008 tax season dealt me a heavy blow, and my aspirations may have to be put on hold temporarily.)

Still, I had my doubts that I could fault my not-so-trusty laptop with my troubles, for throughout it all, my computer maintained that it was connected to the Internet via my wireless network, the Ninja News Network (NNN).

Time Warner had failed before.  It’d be back up within the hour, I told myself.  (At the time of writing I did not realize that, in my current apartment, I actually have Cable Vision.)

But it wasn’t back up in an hour.

In desperation, I issue the following text message: “My interwebs is broken. I am doomed.” 

Response?  “can you ping out?”  I know not what this is, nor how it is related to the end of my world, and it is never explained to me.

I go to get my hair cut at a salon school.  I doze off during the three hours it taken the aspiring stylist to cut my hair.  When I return home at 5pm, the interwebs are still broken.  Somewhere, there is an ethereal spider that has fallen asleep.  It needs to wake up and patch the interwebs.

What to do?

Use an hour’s worth of daytime minutes to express how my world is collapsing.

Play a round of Scrabble against – with? – myself.

Play four rounds of single-player Ingenious.

Play three rounds of Risk against the computer.

I could clean.

I could work on a paper for grad school.

I could do my lesson planning.

But I don’t.

I can’t concentrate, because the interwebs is broken, and I am doomed.

I know I am doomed because at Death + 12 hours, my computer loses connectivity to the interwebs.  After more than twelve hours of internet deprivation, even my laptop is giving up on life.  In this, our fourth year together, it knows its purpose.  If it can’t get me online, it might as well take a nose-dive off the fire escape.  I’ll write my paper s by hand, like I did before the fifth grade, or perhaps I can bring the typewriter back into fashion.

Without the internet, I have no television service.  For while my friends gave me a set of rabbit ears last fall, which they made me hook up in January, I think we all know that, barring a second 9/11, I’ll likely never attempt to view the contents of any one of the four fuzzy channels it provides me with.

Without the Internet, I have no way to communicate with friends or family.  Most of my communication is done through chat clients and Facebook, which I affectionately refer to as Facecrack.  Half my friends I wouldn’t even know how to reach if not for Facebook (or gmail’s amazing memory for e-mail addresses and their associated names.)

Without the internet, I have no radio.  I don’t have one in my house.  Between my iPod and Pandora, who needs a conventional radio?

Without the internet, I can’t pay my bills or do my banking.

Without the internet, I can’t bake, because all my recipies are online or stored in my e-mail account.

Without the internet, I have no Chinese dictionary.

Without the internet, I am doomed.

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Blog: Dear Forests, I’m sorry. Again.

Posted on March 25th, 2009 by Anna Zhan.
Categories: Blog.

Dear Forests:
I am very sorry for this monstrosity that I was forced to compile against my will.  Next year’s resolution is to be more “green”.
Love,
Anna

[Myself, ironically in my “GREEN IS SEXY” T-shirt..]

I didn’t realize, until taking the picture, how ironic the whole thing was.

This is the second time this academic year that I have compiled such a hideous monstrosity.  Thinking this one wouldn’t be too bad, I had considered buying a 2″ ring binder, but out of paranoia, I went with the 3″ (thank goodness).  I also, mercifully, bought two black ink cartridges and a fresh ream of paper, all of which were necessary…so depressing.

But it’s over now.  I just wish I had someone other than Tarzan to celebrate it with…it all feels strangely anti-climatic.

1 comment.

Blog: Random Moments in Teaching

Posted on March 12th, 2009 by Anna Zhan.
Categories: Blog.

[Translation: Today is February 27th, 2009. Teacher Mermaid]

I never fully understood it, but two weeks ago some students in my class decided I looked like a mermaid (the red hair, maybe?).  Little did they realize they already knew all the characters necessary to write “mermaid” in Chinese…authentic learning for the win.

[Me, climbing from a chair onto an unstable desk onto a board laid across the heat register.]

Not included in the job description, but obligatory is this: climbing on furniture.  (Well, technically, we’re NOT supposed to climb on our furniture, less we get hurt at work, however, we’re also required to hang things up high on the walls (or shades, if half of your walls are covered by windows, like mine.)  Surprisingly, the once I got hurt at work was neither for falling off furniture nor for getting wounded by a violent student - I once slipped on a wet floor and scored a week off work.  Wish that could happen again.

[Children reading of their own volition.]

One day when I was exhausted and had too many things going on, three students declared that they were done and asked what to do next.  Normally, I would have a task in mind for them, but in my exhaustion, I merely said “Go find a way to occupy yourselves.”  Inexplicably, instead of running around, screaming and hitting other classmates, the three children slide chairs over to the Chinese reading center, got out books, and sat down to read quietly.  There’s yet hope, I dare say.

1 comment.

Blog: Christmas 2008

Posted on March 8th, 2009 by Anna Zhan.
Categories: Blog.

Please hold my mother, and not me, responsible for the tardiness of this post.  She just sent me the photos this past week.

 
[Myself with Tarzan, who doesn’t mind going to Minnesota, but who does mind being dressed up as Santa Claws.]

Tarzan and I made the yearly trek to Minnesota once again.  He’s still not very mature about the whole airport thing (he’s supposed to walk through the metal detector alone, but to this day the only way he copes is by throwing half his furry mass over my shoulder and desparately trying to dig his claws into my back.)  To his credit though, once he’s on the airplane, he travels like a pro.

 
[Sophie (left) and Smokey (right) in all their fluffy, purebred glory.]

For Tarzan, going to Minnesota means spending quality time with his cousins, Sophie and Smokey.  I always think of Tarzan as a fluffy kitty, except when in the presence of these two furballs, which my brother dubbed Thing 1 and Thing 2.

[Benihana’s Tuna Steak, seared on the outside, raw on the inside…makes me hungry just looking at it now.] 

I actually got to see a few people this year as well - not that I thought to take pictures with half of them (I had to pull photos off Flickr for the food, even!), but such is life.  Karolyn and I went shopping at the Mall of America, and I met Dave and his siblings for dinner at Benihana’s (order the Tuna Steak…delicious!), I met my old high school friend Angela for breakfast (Facebook wins again!), and we went to Carol and Dave’s house for dinner.

[I chose the Original Pancake House for our brunch date, not realizing that Angela was allergic to eggs, but OH! the Dutch Baby German Pancake is to die for!!!]

I even got to see my old college roommate, Lucy, who long since moved back to Taiwan.  She and her husband (who I knew from my most recent stint in Taiwan) were on their honeymoon, which took them through frigid Canada and Minnesota in December (not a honeymoon I would choose, but it makes perfect sense if you ever witnessed Lucy’s fascination with snow.)

[Myself with my old roommate, Lucy, and her husband Leo, who had just visited our old school, the University of Minnesota…I miss that place.]

A quick trip to the Albertville Outlet Malls (for jeans that fit and the like) and then it was time to pack up the kitty and and head back to Brooklyn (the happiest place on Earth, as you all know.)

[Tarzan, enjoying the Christmas festivities.]

1 comment.

Meaningless Rant: Expiration Dates

Posted on March 3rd, 2009 by Anna Zhan.
Categories: Blog.

If I’m not extremely anal about expiration dates, I tend to all but completely disregard them.  When hesitant, I call my mom and pose her with a hypothetical situation, such as “The expiration date says 12/06…but this doesn’t really go bad, does it?” or perhaps “The lunch meat has a slight green irridesence to it, but that’s natural, isn’t it?  Remember in this hypothetical situation that you happen to be very hungry.”  (Unfortunately for Lee, I was talking to him while cleaning out the frig last month…)

One thing that I’m EXTREMELY anal about, however, is the expiration date on milk. Actually, as I understand it, the date stamped on the side of my milk carton is in fact a sell-by date, not an expiration date, but I won’t touch the milk after that day.  (I blame my brother for making me drink spoiled milk as a child.)

New York City, however, brings me a new level of milk expiration paranoia.  Stamped on the side of each carton of milk sold in NYC is not one, but TWO expiration dates, the earlier date for milk sold in NYC.  And how much does the date vary?  One to seven days, generally.

Why does milk go bad faster in the City?  (because it really is turning sour by the in-NYC date.)  Honestly, what circumstance could affect NYC that doesn’t affect other regions, be they removed from the source or large population centers?  If anyone knows, or even has a theory, please do share…  For two years now this has plagued my distracted mind.

 
[Zooming in, you can see the dates on this carton of milk:
 FEB 09 09
 NYC FEB 05 09]

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Blog: Snow Day

Posted on March 2nd, 2009 by Anna Zhan.
Categories: Blog.

[Myself, with Lee’s R2-D2…which has become mine…]

6:15am:
Why is R2 beeping incessantly in an alarm clock fashion?
Oh, is alarm clock.
Oops, rolled over R2.  That’s him beeping now.
Screw Monday.  Hit snooze.

6:16am:
Gah!  Phone alarm!
Eh?  Coworker.  Not alarm.
“No school today!!!”
It’s not possible.  New York City public schools NEVER close. 
“Turn on the TV!”
I don’t get TV.
“Turn on the radio!”
I don’t have a radio.

6:19am:
On the internet.
Too sleepy.  Can’t remember DOE website.  Something about schools and nyc and .gov…I’ll google that.

6:20am
Ahh…schools.nyc.gov…who knew?

[New York City public schools are closed today due to snow and wind conditions.  Department of Education offices are open.]

6:21am:
Anger.  I could have stayed in NEPA another day!!!

6:22am:
Glorious celebration!  I don’t have to work today!!!

6:23am:
Coworker: “Go back to bed!”

6:24am:
I’m not sleepy now.  Hmm…what to do?  Blog it.

[Blog it…and resolve to spend some quality time with a plush R2-D2.]

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