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sabellachan
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Name: Jackie
Country: United States
State: California
Birthday: 1/10/1982
Gender: Female
Interests: Anime, manga, karaoke, taiko, arts and crafts, sewing, martial arts, Alpha Phi Omega, shopping, laughing, daydreaming, daring to dream, photography, reminicing, overworking, chatting, Apple, electronic toys, being sentimental, being proud of those I love, dancing in my chair to a catchy tune, HTML (but just a little) and webpage design, Food Network, Style Network, History Channel, Discovery Channel, my PowerBook, finding success, finding love, markers and paint, beautiful things.
Expertise: Making too much work for myself.
Occupation: Customer service/support
Industry: Computers (Hardware)
Message: message me
Website: visit my website
Member Since:
3/16/2004
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| Currently: Dusting off the ol' Xanga.
It's been a while.
My LB Katrina has been bugging me to update my LJ, so I figure I'll update my Xanga too. Nothing like a double-posting. It's been months since I've written in this thing, and for my first entry since January, I would like to share a story and my interpretations of the events that transpired.
At work, we have two custodians. Neither speak much English, and of the English they do know, it's mostly simple things like "hello," "good morning," and "thank you." Most of us try to communicate with them in any way we can, but most of us don't speak Spanish, so sometimes it makes it hard. I don't particularly like either custodian, though (especially the male custodian, who leers at me like a rapist), so I've basically pretended I speak no Spanish at all, so they don't try to talk to me, even if I took Spanish in school and understand it to a certain degree.
I have a new coworker, who comes to us from the store down the street. The other day, he attempted to engage the male custodian in conversation. Turns out he took Spanish in high school and used to be fairly confident in it, but this day, his Spanish failed him. He mostly was trying to talk to the custodian, a fluent speaker, in the basic, textbook Spanish that public school would have you study. When the custodian would say something back, a lot of times, my coworker would just stare at him blankly and apologize for not understanding. Then he said something that I thought was interesting...
"Me gusta hablar español."
A simple statement. "I like to speak Spanish." But in response, the custodian pretty much reamed him (in a tone that if you didn't know what he was saying, just sounded like normal conversation) about how you can't like speaking Spanish, it's just something you do. As much as I don't like the guy, I think he has a point. My coworker, I assume, didn't grow up bilingual. He took a foreign language in school. To like something implies that you have a choice to do or not do it, and for many people who grow up bilingual, it's not your choice to know this other language. It was the language your parents and grandparents spoke in. It was the language that keeps you rooted in a culture other than your adopted American one. It was a way to communicate, and you just did it because you had to. Sure, you can choose not to speak your native tongue later on in life, but you still know it.
I suppose if you're interested in a culture, you might want to learn that language. However, I don't think this is really an affinity towards the language itself, but rather what the language represents... The culture from which it originates. You may also want to learn a language as a job skill, but that's more for what the language can get you rather than learning it just to know it. I have yet to meet or hear of a person who learned a language "just for the hell of it" or just because they like learning languages, because learning any language is a huge commitment.
The majority of the audience I have here on Xanga/LJ is bilingual. Some of you are lucky enough to be trilingual even. What are your thoughts?
And, to end on a light note, I will introduce you to a blog that is both funny and controversial... But mostly funny. Remember those emails that used to go out about "how to know if you're Asian?" Well, this is Stuff White People Like! And, to keep with the theme of this entry, I will point out two posts from this blog:
#20: Being an expert on YOUR culture
#78: Multilingual children
Enjoy! | | |
| Currently: Still sitting in bed.
Another birthday passed, and I have another year to look forward to. To document it, me and my friend Lizzy (whose birthday is the day before mine) decided to attempt to do Project 365 this year, the photo-a-day project... But since it's a leap year, I'll be doing Project 366! Please take a look and comment and encourage me to keep taking photos! Or else I'll get lazy and stop! Hehe.
Here's the pictures!
Here's to another year! | | |
| Currently: Annoyed.
So I signed into Flickr a few days ago, and notice I have new comments. I go to check out the comments and notice that one user had faved a few of my photos (including this one) and left a comment on one of them. "Oh cool," I thought. I like to see what other users do, so when someone faves my stuff, I like to check out their stuff too. So I click on her page, and what do I see? This! She uploaded my photo without permission or credit! I was livid. As a photographer, I don't mind if you admire and share my material, but please ask first and give credit where it's due! I left her a polite comment on her page with my photo to ask to be given credit. Simple request, right? She replies back to my comment here (third comment). We then carry on our "conversation" on this page, with me double-posting my comments on the offending page... She deleted two of my comments from the offending page! How rude! She doesn't seem to be a native English speaker (even though she claims to speak English on her website), so she probably doesn't understand the nature of Flickr, nor does she understand what she's doing is wrong.
I have since noticed that most of the images on her Flickr page are actually other people's photos. I have notified the ones I could track (since she faved them AND posted it on Flickr, I was able to find them through a link on her page), and two of them have replied thanking me for letting them know. Both have also sent her polite emails asking her to give credit or take down the photos from her site, and one suggested that I file a Notice of Infringement with Yahoo (who owns Flickr) along with him. I have since done so.
I understand that she may not understand what she's doing, but it still makes me mad. I'm glad that the other photographers agreed with me, or else I'd feel like quite the jerk. Sheesh. People these days!
.:Update:.
She has removed the offending material! Woo!! Looks like all it took was a few legitimate artists to ban together.  | | |
| Currently: Waiting for my hair to dry.
So at a BBQ for my coworker's birthday today, the topic of "kid logic" came up. Do you remember something that made so much sense when you were little, but now that you're grown up, you realize it doesn't make any sense at all? Here's one that I remember from when I was a kid...
Somehow, I knew that when your foot falls asleep, it doesn't get enough blood into it. I also somehow knew that when it's cold, you shiver, which is supposed to get your blood going and warm you up. Well, because of these bits of knowledge, it totally made sense to me that when my foot fell asleep, I'd put it in the freezer... You know, to get the blood going. Somewhere along the path of growing up, though, I realized, "Hey, this is stupid." I'm just glad my parents had the fridge-freezer combo that had the doors open side-by-side, and NOT the kind with the freezer on top of the fridge...
So there you have it, "kid logic." Do you remember any of yours? | | |
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