mychai's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yet another JP Public Service Announcement Walllll. Not, not war. Wahhhhhlllll. No. Not were. Wuh Ahhhhh Elllll. Wall. No. Not wuth. Waaaaaahhhhhhhlllll. This is what I did from about 9:45 this evening up to about thirty minutes ago. I never told you, I don't think, but I am in cahoots with my school's Asian population. It's kind of like a linguistic love triangle. I am in the process of teaching myself Japanese (very slowly but progressing. Thanks for asking) and am using some Japanese people I met as my pronounciation guides. While talking with them, they introduced me to a Korean girl who wants to practice her The problem with Asian-speaking people is they get their R sounds and their L sounds mixed up. And I found out tonight that, when you should say "Wahhhh," Korean girls say, "Wherrrrrrr." So the word "wall" comes out as "war." And when you try to get them to say "war" they sall "wall." But for the life of me, I can't get her to reverse the pronounciation. There were several times where I wanted to put her fingers in my mouth so she could feel where my toungue hit to make the L sound. If you have any good ways to tell someone how to make that sound, email me. Thank goodness I have patience out the wazoo. I inherited that from my mom, who has been a 1st grade teacher for the past 18 years. I must pat myself on the back and remind myself that very few guys could sit and listen to a Korean girl sound like Astro from the Jetsons for 2-1/2 hours. Here's the part of my diary where I remind all of you to be very, very careful on the roads. I have had a lot of experience with car wrecks over the past four days. I personally didn't have a wreck, but I have seen or have personally been connected to four wrecks since Saturday. The first one I saw when I was on my way to work on Saturday morning. It must have just happened because the cops hadn't yet arrived but there were plenty of good semaritans already parked by the wreck. I didn't want to add to any confusion, so I kept driving. It looked like the driver of a red minivan fell asleep, went off the side of the road, and flipped a good number of times. Then, when I got to work, one of my coworkers said she about got hit head-on. Someone was driving down the wrong side of the interstate. When my coworker pulled to the side to avoid getting hit, the obviously drunk other driver made the same corrective action. One of them swerved, and she said they missed each other by mere feet. Then the Roommate Who Is No Longer Supposed To Be My Roommate (long story) got her car squished in. It looks like she pulled out in front of someone. I don't know for sure, and I could really care less. What is it with my roommates getting squashed? Now we shall wait and see if she becomes a lesbian... (go read the Mandy Story if you are a bit confused) Then -- and this is the icing on the cake -- my dad wrote me this harrowing story: Supposedly, some black guy was in Mississippi from Texas, visiting his girlfriend. For some reason, he was driving pretty quickly along my dad's new road (my dad just moved to a new farm about a week ago). He somehow lost control of his car and he went off the road at a pretty bad angle into my dad's wooden fence. From what I understand, going at a high rate of speed into a wooden fence at an angle enough to take out 100 feet of fence does incredible damage to your car. It doesn't do much for your head, either, when the boards start coming through your windshield. Whe the cops arrived, they had to pick the guy's kabobbed head off of his trunk and put it in its own body bag. My dad, in the meantime, was out eating or something. When he arrived, he saw tons of cop cars, firetrucks, and ambulances, and he thought his new farm home had burnt down. But he saw it was still standing and then thought about his new neighbors: "They have been doing some construction lately, and they dug through a water main last week. I thought they might have hit a gas line and blew themselves up." A poet my dad is not. But nope. It was just some poor shmoe who was killed by a fence. I know he was a poor shmoe because he didn't have insurance. My dad feels bad about the guy's family, but now he has to repair 100 feet of fence. That can get pretty costly. So, the moral of the whole story is this: Get car insurance just in case you take out some guy's wooden fence. He'll thank you later. MUCH later. So... 9/11 one year later. What do you plan on doing? I know what I won't be doing. I won't be sitting on my ass all day watching reruns of the planes hitting the towers. I saw all I needed to see a year ago. My philosophy is that I will do tomorrow what all of those poor people can't do: I'm going to live my life. I'm going to go for bagels and coffee for breakfast and do some journal writing. I am going to go get my hair cut. I will splurge and get the girl to wash it for me because it feels so, so good. I am going to the sushi restaurant. I will go hiking. I will call my mom and sister and tell them I love them. I will call my dad and do the same. And I will go look at the stars and the moon tomorrow night. I still remember how I felt one year ago. I still support my President 100%. I am not one of these liberal idiots who think we should give American rights to the whacko Al Qaeda scum prisoners. And, as fate has it, I am going back to MEPS early Thursday morning (2:30am, to be exact) so I can get one step closer to serving my country. One year ago, at this moment, I would have bet you $100 that I would never consider joining the military. It's amazing how only a few hours' worth of activity over 1,000 miles away can alter my future. I am proud to live in a country that gives me the right to choose whether or not I can fight for it. Most countries don't offer that right: You will fight. Now here's a gun. Try to dodge the bullets. And I am willing to fight -- and die, if it comes to that -- so that others can continue to have that right. I will finish tonight's entry with a quote from Voltair. I'm sure he meant it toward normal-thinking, sane people. Have a good 9/11. Live your life like you may die any minute. "I may not agree with what you say, but I shall defend to the death your right to say it." 12:14 a.m. - Wed., Sept. 11, 2002 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
||||||
|
||||||