Cranium

This is gotta be the best board game EVER!!! We played Cranium at Alicia's place last night, it was fun! It was a battle of the sexes! 3 girls (Janet, me, and Alicia) VS. 2 guys (Jack and Allen)
I suck at this game because I suck at pop culture, I can't do the word games at all, or the "acting like a star" or "sing a song" etc. I even make the team give the wrong answers on some of the multiple choices!! UGH! Well so we lost, it was close though. Pretty much the only one I got right was "Steve Irwin" during an acting, but that's after hearing Allen shout "Croc Hunter!" and it was funny how Allen didn't know his name.

And again, this game make me realize how much I appreciate being with Allen, the one who knows it all LOL. He actually know a lot of the stuff I don't, like, er, puff the magical dragon?? what in the world is that? Sigh, I had a deprived childhood.
Anyway, so I'll end this post with a picture of Allen


PS. His nickname at A&M is HOMER!

I just found out.....

I just found out that one of our high school friend, JV Huang, had died from bacterial meningitis about a year ago. This was a guy who had moved to College Station from Port Lavaca when we were in high school, same grade as me. I remembered that on his first or second day of school at Consol, I went up to him and invited him to join the Asians and introduced him to our clique, of course he thought I was weird. He became part of our Asian gang in high school and we'd hang out at lunch, I remember distinctly. We had the same lunch period, and we'd sit together. There was some sort of bond between us Asians back then. He was pretty good friends with everybody, Sarah, Mary, and some of the guys, and we'd go to church together.
Anyway, he moved back to Port Lavaca after a year in College Station and never heard anything from him since. Dustin met someone at UT who was from Port Lavaca who knew JV and found out from him that JV died. It's really weird.........

michelle 102

michelle 102
Originally uploaded by na1paj.

my pretty cake.. missing 2 candles though

michelle 115

michelle 115
Originally uploaded by na1paj.

my family

michelle%20096

michelle%20096
Originally uploaded by na1paj.

Me and my retarded smile.. hahahaha

So... Finally... Wedding PICS...

Just a few hehe

What should I do??

Ok, so I haven't gotten allen anything recently.. I didn't get him any bday present, christmas present, or valentines present :(
I'm just completely out of ideas... I mean he doesn't want me to buy him anything.. and I would like to cook for him (but with this job, i don't have time to make him something special)
he made me a great dinner for valentines (i was working)

SO guys and gals, any suggestions??? gotta be something REAL special........ to make up for the last 3 occasions

World of Warcraft ROCKS!!!

So, I was training somebody at her house to replace me for my part time job (since i have a full time job now) and I was surprise to find out that she, her bf, and his kids all play WOW. They used to play EQ and they switched, but i can easily see why.

They showed me WOW (world of warcraft) and it's just absolutely amazing (aren't I just a nerd?). The graphics were beautiful and the overall game interface, story, and playing strategy are all better than EQ. I am going to betray EQ and join the millions on WOW.. but unfortunatly, WOW costs twice as much as EQ ($20 per month..). I'll just wait til it gets cheaper later on.

Here are some snapshots from WOW:

class_10

class_10
Originally uploaded by na1paj.

ss03

ss03
Originally uploaded by na1paj.

gilden_haus

gilden_haus
Originally uploaded by na1paj.

arcane_intellect

arcane_intellect
Originally uploaded by na1paj.

world-of-warcraft-20040803113732359

world-of-warcraft-20040803113732359
Originally uploaded by na1paj.

Funny

These are from a book called Disorder in the American Courts, and are things people actually said in court, word for word, taken down and now published by court reporters who had the torment of staying calm while these exchanges were actually taking place.
_______________________________

Q: What is your date of birth?
A: July 18th.
Q: What year?
A: Every year.
______________________________________

Q: What gear were you in at the moment of the impact?
A: Gucci sweats and Reeboks.
______________________________________

Q: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?
A: Yes.
Q: And in what ways does it affect your memory?
A: I forget.
Q: You forget? Can you give us an example of something that you've forgotten?
_____________________________________
Q: How old is your son, the one living with you?
A: Thirty-eight or thirty-five, I can't remember which.
Q: How long has he lived with you?
A: Forty-five years.
_____________________________________
Q: What was the first thing your husband said to you when he woke up that morning?
A: He said, "Where am I, Cathy?"
Q: And why did that upset you?
A: My name is Susan.
______________________________________
Q: Do you know if your daughter has ever been involved in voodoo or the occult?
A: We both do.
Q: Voodoo?
A: We do.
Q: You do?
A: Yes, voodoo.
______________________________________

Q: Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning?
A: Did you actually pass the bar exam?
___________________________________
Q: The youngest son, the twenty-year-old, how old is he?
_____________________________________
Q: Were you present when your picture was taken?
______________________________________
Q: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?
A: Yes.
Q: And what were you doing at that time?
______________________________________
Q: She had three children, right?
A: Yes.
Q: How many were boys?
A: None.
Q: Were there any girls?
______________________________________
Q: How was your first marriage terminated?
A: By death.
Q: And by whose death was it terminated?
______________________________________
Q: Can you describe the individual?
A: He was about medium height and had a beard.
Q: Was this a male, or a female?
______________________________________
Q: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your attorney?
A: No, this is how I dress when I go to work.
______________________________________
Q: Doctor, how many autopsies have you performed on dead people?
A: All my autopsies are performed on dead people.
______________________________________

Q: ALL your responses MUST be oral, OK? What school did you go to?
A: Oral.
______________________________________
Q: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
A: The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m.
Q: And Mr. Dennington was dead at the time?
A: No, he was sitting on the table wondering why I was doing an autopsy.
______________________________________
Q: Are you qualified to give a urine sample?
______________________________________
Q: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
A: No.
Q: Did you check for blood pressure?
A: No.
Q: Did you check for breathing?
A: No.
Q: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
A: No.
Q: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
A: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
Q: But could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
A: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law somewhere.

I lost my voice

:(
I lost my voice from teaching. This is an insentive for me to post on blogger since I can't speak.

I was teaching on Saturday for 7.5 hours and that's speaking nonstop!! And I am usually very active and I had to talk very loud to keep the students awake (from 8~3:30, you'd fall a sleep too). So after that class on Saturday, I lost my voice. I guess I coulda drank more water too. Anyway so I had to teach today too, 8~3:30 *_* with my course voice.. it was horrible.
I teach tomorrow at 9.
The other school in Irving called me (requested me) to teach over there during my off schedule (I finally got 1 schedule off this week) but I was too strong headed, I accepted the extra shift. Which means, I don't get any time off this week. That's just crazy. I better rest my voice...
If you wanna talk, IM me, don't call me. :(

Albert Bandura

Albert Bandura is a psychologist who studied aggression in adolescents. I read this in one of the readings we had to do for teaching certification, it's interesting:

One of Bandura's most famous studies was with the bobo doll. A bobo doll is an inflatable plastic balloon that can be used like a punching bag. It has a weight in the bottom to make it stand back up every time it is knocked down. Films were made of a woman punching, sitting on, hitting with a small hammer, and kicking a bobo doll while saying, "sockeroo." The film was then shown to kindergarten age children. After viewing the film, the children were sent to a playroom where there was a bobo doll and a few hammers too. Bandura noted the children imitated what the woman had done in the film. Even when many variables were changed such as the appearance of the bobo doll or even replacing the bobo doll with a live clown, the children still behaved the same. In other words, the children were modeling what they had seen in the film.

erectus 1

erectus 1
Originally uploaded by na1paj.

These are seahorses babies. Their species is call an Erectus. These 2 are the older ones, about 3 weeks old.

erectus 2

erectus 2
Originally uploaded by na1paj.

These are seahorses babies. Their species is call an Erectus. They are 1 day old in this picture

Yay, new blog

Ok, so my mom was evesdropping on my old blog. What kind of invasion of privacy is that? so I decided to start a new blog, one that my mom won't find... (thanks to Roger & Christina's encouragements)

So, lots of stuff to say. Wedding, ok that will be a new post.

Job: Right now I'm working as an ESL teacher for a company called Quick Learning.



It's a private company that targets hispanics who want to learn English. The headquarter is in Mexico, and there are many branches in US. DFW area has 4 schools (dallas, irving, arlington, and fort worth). Allen was just telling me the other day that my uniform looks like one for a flight attendent... I guess so, we've got a bowtie (I forgot what it's called in Spanish)

So with this job, i've been learning lots of spanish too! Pluma Roja = red pen! The company has a very well-established system, I think. It pays the teachers $10/hr, which is not bad. But it has very good bonus, range from $200~$600 extra per month if you meet all the requirements (such as no more than 3 tardies, no absence, attending every meeting, and score of 90 or above when someone comes to grade your teaching, etc.) Majority of the bonus actually comes from student re-enrollment. I know, this factor is not something you can control, but being a good teacher is definitly helpful. Pretty much it would help if you are a very encouraging teacher. We learned that hispanic people are very social, which means they want you to call them up if they miss a class, and it would help to also offer them extra help (like 30 mins~1 hr before class, unpaid of course).

I'm enjoying it so far. It's somewhat a lot of pressure, interacting with students. I've made many mistakes in class (like not repeating the lesson correctly) and the students would correct me. But overall I think, I hope, they like the class. I'm not very good at explaining all the vocabulary in english (we are not allowed to translate), so I'm making it up by offering extra help everyday, so i'm going to work 1 hr early everyday.. I hope the bonus pays off. Which is also why i've been learning Spanish, it all comes down to customer satisfaction really...

I'm also getting along with my coworkers (this is rare). But it's good to be in good terms with them because i'm always asking for their help. Yesterday, I had to explain to my students the word "Anyway" in the sentence "The subway is faster anyway." Now you try to explain that word w/o spanish. the concept of the word does not exist in spanish, and the students only understand minimal english (they don't know past tense yet). Oh boy, it was hard.

I will post the solution in the next post.

So my work schedule is 9am~12pm M~W, and 6pm~9pm M~F, and 8am~3pm Sat & Sun.

oh and another weird thing is, supposedly it's common in a hispanic working environment for everybody to sing together daily...... so we have to sing the company song every morning before class starts. you can hear the song somewhere on the website by clicking on the image above.

Now I've worked there for almost a week, I've noticed (allen too) that I've been speaking very slowly and clearly, and putting a gesture to almost every single word (that's what I do in class) and using very short sentences (in class, we don't say the word "sentences" we say "lines" so i feel weird using it here) and simple vocabulary.

anyway, so that concludes my new job. I gotta to pay the water bill and study now.