Sat | October 14, 2006
Petite Abeille
Je vais ici demain pour dîner. Should be fun, albeit expensive. I figure I can try it once, as long as it doesn't become a habit. I definitely draw the line at around $15 for entrees...
More French places:
Le Gamin
Mon professeur de français dit qu'il va ici.
A.O.C.
This is around the corner from the village apartment where I dog-sit/ house sit.
Chez Brigitte, 77 Greenwich Av. by 7th Ave, btw W. 11th St. and Bank St. Bizarrely they don't have a website. But this is close enough in the village that I could stop by/ find it without too much effort.
Forbidden City This isn't French, but it's a restaurant I found tonight and it has a cool website. That's about where the coolness stops, I think.
Posted by Lily at 12:23 AM | comment
Lily said on Feb 6, 07 03:16 PM:
Petite Abeille near Union Square clocked in at $45 a person, but it was fun, to go to, once, and perhaps I could return, and just get dessert. Joy and I split a calamari appetizer (ehh) and I had raspberry beer (tasted like fruit juice + beer, expensive) and mussels, while she had a salade nicoise and peach beer, and then we split a crème brulée for dessert. The waiters were two lanky guys, un brun, un blond, et ils étaient assez gentils. Charles m'a dit que les Belges étaient tocards, et moi je pense que c'est vrai. Mais tocards mignons et sympas. Il n'y avait personne d'autre intéressant là. Le décor était mignon mais un peu cliché. It catered to Americans, with its posters of Tin-Tin being held up by cowboys. A bit obsequious perhaps.
Lily said on Feb 6, 07 03:16 PM:
Resto Leon
351 East 12th Street btw 1st and 2nd
Je suis allé ici avec Eric depuis un an.
Mon | October 09, 2006
College Board AP World Languages Program
AP Central - AP Chinese Language and Culture Course Home Page
AP Chinese will be offered for the first time this fall. Their current offerings (French, Spanish, German and Latin) are euro-centric, and AP Chinese is part of the World Languages initiative to offer a greater diversity of languages (namely Italian, Japanese, Chinese, and Russian).
It seems like a step in the right direction, but from my second-degree impressions of the program, I'm not sure how much is really getting done. The College Board got a lot of money from the Chinese government in support of the program (in fact I think it's entirely funded by them) and yet I don't really see it happening. My mom is one of the most qualified people who went to their workshops and she's closer than anyone to actually being a high school Chinese teacher, and yet she isn't starting a new job anytime soon.
Also, it's kind of annoying how far Hanban, the Office of Chinese Language Council International of the Ministry of Education in China, is willing to bend over backwards for the College Board. Their latest offering is Chinese teachers who will work for free. That's right, free. So it costs the American school nothing, Hanban gives this teacher from China a stipend (i.e., next to nothing), and a Chinese person drops everything to go teach Chinese to ungrateful American children (yet another infuriating immigrant story).
The problem is that Americans don't get enough grief for being the monolingual assholes they are. If they were treated like idiots for only knowing English, then they'd feel more obligated to change. At a certain point, languages did become cool (or maybe they always were) but they're still treated as a novelty, as something rare and cool, instead of requisite.
Posted by Lily at 11:19 AM
Sun | September 17, 2006
mon commentaire de Portes Rouges
That was weird. Usually they put up a big fight about what I write, and this time they just posted it. Which is kind of bad because I wasn't really "done" with it, I kind of just wrote some stuff and emailed it, figuring I'd have to rewrite it anyway.
Posted by Lily at 11:19 PM
Thu | September 14, 2006
Fung Wah Chinatown Bus
Every time I hear of a vehicle turning over, I think of how Jeanine Rohn, the penny-pinching, work-me-to-the bones line producer on Torn, had Aaron the PA drive the grip truck to the garage in the last week of the shoot, and he took the ramp too quickly, getting off the BQE, turned the truck over, and broke two of his ribs.
I took the Chinatown bus once. It was a van, not the big bus this must have been. The guy got lost. Everyone yelled at him. I felt bad. At least I was safe and not in a dangerous bus. The drivers need to be given better directions, or have a better a sense of direction, and be informed about the physics of larger vehicles.
Only $15 for New York to Boston? Just another example of idiotic rate-cutting in Chinatown. "It's competition," my parents say, which is infuriating. It's the people in Chinatown having no idea how to stay in business. I kind of wish I could talk to them, that I knew more Chinese words, or if I weren't illiterate in Chinese, I could write, a paper, explaining it to them.
Posted by Lily at 03:13 PM
Fri | September 08, 2006
spelling bee
This is more fun than checking email.
Posted by Lily at 03:24 PM
Thu | September 07, 2006
test anxiety is contagious
It's a trickle up effect of the No Child Left Behind Act. I think the new law mostly targets kids who can't read at all, but now everyone wants their kids to do better. Meanwhile, state tests have become more difficult. At least in NJ... the Grade Eight Proficiency Exam (GEPA) is taken over four days, for two hours a day.
Apparently it's been like this for several years. Back in the day, I took the progenitor of the GEPA... its name eludes me at the moment. But I don't remember it being difficult, or anyone stressing about it. In fact I never studied for state tests. They tested us every year starting from third grade, and I never got less than the 99th percentile, so I pretty much thought these tests were a joke. I mean I think sometimes I got lower scores than that, but there was never a question of not passing. And on these tests, all you really need to do is pass.
Now kids are like, barely passing the tests. Asian kids. And their Asian parents are getting worried. And keeping them as tutoring clients is like a confidence game, which I am neither great at playing nor inclined to do so. Mostly because I think being in a state of high stress and pressure is actually not good for performance. Especially on small children who don't really know how to handle the volume of stress that their adult parents are putting on them. I mean the amount of useless, unfocused anxiety I feel emanating from these parents is flabbergasting. I don't know what to do with it. They probably think I'm too relaxed or not serious enough.
Anyhow I've just spent like two hours navigating the disgusting DOE site and trying to download their pdfs on my slow connection, which should be fast but for some reason it's slow, for wi-fi setup reasons I don't understand. There is something about their website and this test that is making me hyperventilate. Like you have to look at diagrams of the water cycle. (Ugh, middle school!) But it's not even a normal diagram, it's some sort of kitchen sink model with a pan of water stacked on top of a pile of books, a tray with sand in it on a smaller, adjacent pile of books, and water flowing off the end, onto a pan on the table, with a lamp over it, distributing heat. And you're supposed to write a free response explanation of what's wrong with the model. Seriously I might have gotten that wrong.* But then again I'm not in eighth grade...
I had better stop before I get all nervous about it. I can feel myself totally getting frustrated about this whole thing, and all this time wasted on someone whose mother is wants to find a public school teacher to do it, because her friend told her that's what she did, and her kid was blah blah and blah.
I'll have to look at it some more some other day.
Also, the person who answers the phone at the Department of Education has got to be the most annoying person on the planet. Where do they find these people? He put me on hold like every two seconds, he had a pretentious, cloying accent, and he was purposely leading me to the wrong links then telling me to start over at the homepage again. After five minutes I hung up while I was on hold, thinking I'd find it faster myself. And I did.
609-633-6292. If you're raving drunk in the middle of the day and want to curse someone out, that is the number to call. Just ask for the guy with the infuriating accent.
-----------
*the answer to the water cycle question is that it's missing "condensation." And if you don't use the word condensation at some point in your explanation of the model you can't get more than 2 out of 3 possible points.
Posted by Lily at 03:22 PM
Thu | August 31, 2006
homme asiatique en colère
If I read Angry Asian Man I would have known about the survivor thing, and a lot of other stuff, way earlier. But I am in my own time, not to worry. Alors, est-il «homme asiatique fâché» ou une forme de «s'énerver»?
Posted by Lily at 12:44 AM
Wed | June 28, 2006
Overheard in New York
Posted by Lily at 01:29 PM
Thu | November 10, 2005
edison election
Posted by Lily at 11:15 PM
Tue | November 08, 2005
email time capsule
I sent a message to myself through an email time capsule.
Posted by Lily at 03:18 PM
Wed | October 26, 2005
atom films
How to Tell When a Relationship is Over in Ninety Seconds
Posted by Lily at 11:02 PM
Mon | October 17, 2005
Jun Choi
his opponent said something like "I think people want to preserve some sense of country" on the news today. I don't even watch the news but I have heard about Jun Choi running for mayor of Edison a few times. There was that incident with the local Edison radio station over the summer.
101.5 radio station controversy
There is a lot of thinly veiled and overt racism surrounding this election. I feel like I've blogged about it before... no... I sent an email to my writing group about it. Anyway, I used to work in Edison and it has a strong Asian community. Then after that I worked in New York, but the owner of the small business lived in Edison. I wonder if I called him up and told him to vote, whether he would do it.
Posted by Lily at 07:59 PM | comment
Fri | August 26, 2005
town website
so I discovered that my town has a website
http://www.chathamborough.org/
and it is way better than the township's website
http://www.chathamtownship.org/
Posted by Lily at 05:48 PM | comment
Tue | July 26, 2005
Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling
Amazon.com: Books: Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling : Career Strategies for Asians
The bn.com listing for the same book
there's an event today at the Astor Place Barnes and Noble, 7 pm.
Posted by Lily at 01:48 PM | comment
Thu | July 21, 2005
noise-blocking headphones
HeadWize - Project: Revisiting Koss "The Plug" Headphones by Chu Moy
I can't believe there are people who do stuff like this. Not just alter the headphones but make a website about it. I mean I think it's cool. I think I might do this. Not the website but this little project. In the meantime my current traveling headphones pretty much suffice, but I'd like to get some big headphones for in the house.
Posted by Lily at 07:42 PM | comment
Sun | July 17, 2005
best place
CNN/Money: Best places to live
Chatham, where I live, made this list of best places to live. Pretty amazing.
They are talking, of course, more about places to live out your life-- settle down, and raise children, etc, i.e., not about me, where I am now.
But I have, for awhile, felt that living here has its merits. As compared to living in the city, that is. Though mostly I have felt I was just rationalizing it, because it is where I live, and you've got to try to like where you live, if you are going to be happy. I think of it as getting the best of, or at least some of, both worlds-- being able to participate in the life of the city in some ways, and then getting the down time and alone time of getting away from it.
Money magazine says Chatham "feels more like a small New England town than a bustling Big Apple burb." True, more or less. It's a little New Englandy, though I think the name 'chatham' kind of makes you think that, mostly. It's a direct line to the city but it's not like some towns closer to the state line which seem to be more defined by new york, that are just more urban.
It even feels a bit countryish. Just the way the cicadas (or whatever they are) are humming away right now in crescendos and decrescendos. It's mostly quiet, except for the sound of landscapers' machines on certain mornings. And clean, and not polluted like new york, and not a strip mall, or with a Rte 10ish highway cutting through it, like other parts of nj.
I don't see how it's different, however, from any of the other towns along the train line, like Millburn or Short Hills. Speaking of which, I live two minutes away from the Short Hills mall, which, sorry to sound like such a consumer, but it is the best mall, ever. I try not to go too often because it sucks money out of you faster than Manhattan. But it's nice to know it's right there.
I don't participate in some of the benefits of living here. Apparently there are 5825 restaurants and 416 bars within a 15-mile radius, and 86 golf courses within a 30 mile radius. Also, Chatham was noted for its sense of community, according to an article about the ranking in the local paper. Ok, if you say so. I don't get any of that either. I talk to Phil who runs the Okinawan Karate place, but that's about all the community there is for me. I feel very isolated here, actually. But I stopped hoping to be connected with anyone around here years ago. They seem really irrelevant to me now and I would probably even be a little bothered if they talked to me.
Posted by Lily at 12:01 PM | comment
Thu | July 14, 2005
firefox
So I thought of putting a link to firefox the other day after someone asked me about it, but it seemed like everyone must know about firefox. and yet not one, but two people have asked me about it this week.
Firefox is better than explorer because it has these tabs that enable you to surf many webpages at once. The bookmarks toolbar is also really useful, as you can save a whole set of pages in a folder and go back to them later (select 'open in tabs' in the dropdown menu).
Try it, you will like it. You will like it so much you will get annoyed when you have to use explorer.
p.s. another cool feature of firefox: if you push F11 you can fill the whole screen with the website. it's so liberating to look at a site sans title bar and taskbar. it's like the view> full screen feature in word.
oh wait, actually I tried it just now in explorer and it works there too.
Posted by Lily at 01:27 AM | comment
Fri | July 08, 2005
watching baseball
New York Yankees : The Official Site
I am watching sports this here friday night. It's pouring rain. It is the yankees vs. the indians.
I am actually not very sporty, though I have started to like sports more in the past year or so. I think I realized at some point that what people are saying, when they say they are going to watch sports, is that they are going to sit around doing basically nothing. Which I do very well. So I guess I do like sports.
I would like to go see a baseball game. I think I am going to one, in fact, on the 23rd. brooklyn cyclones. I would like to go just to sit in a stadium. There is something fun, and refreshing, about sitting in a stadium.
Posted by Lily at 07:45 PM | comment
Thu | July 07, 2005
london
BBC NEWS | UK | More than 30 die in London blasts
see, because I'm at home all day today I don't find out about this til now. there is nothing more humbling than finding out that while you have been squabbling with phone-answerers...
ok no more posting.
Posted by Lily at 01:08 PM | comment
boots n all
so the reason I keep adding links to this blog is I am using something called quickpost, which creates a link to whatever site you were on. You write a little post in a popup window, instead of leaving what you were doing entirely to post through the movable type interface.
this site (bootsnall.com) has a lot of blogs on it. I learned about it through an avuncular, generous fellow named Larry Habegger, who spoke at a free Gotham Writer's workshop at Coliseum books.
I decidedly don't like Gotham Writer's workshop, though. The people who answer the phone are petty and difficult to deal with. Every phone call I've had with them (there have been three) has left me thirsty for vengeance.
Posted by Lily at 11:46 AM | comment
Wed | July 06, 2005
chess puzzles
I'm not at all good at chess, but I still like it. The trick is to not play people who rank too far above you, on yahoo games. Always losing and never ever winning, or even coming close, is not encouraging. or fun.
Posted by Lily at 01:43 PM | comment
Thu | June 30, 2005
launchcast
my online radio station of the moment. who knows how long before I get bored of this. however, not I'm listening to it at the moment, because I'm at cafe muse and they are playing music in another language. yay. and the apple bread is good. yum. what am I doing here? nothing. just need to be here because I'd feel drained if I went straight home. unfortunately i'm basically having cake and pastries for dinner.