A Short Background Intro

My life journey has led me to learn a lot of different things from different locations and different people.  In my 31 years of life thus far, I have definitely had my eyes opened to life on many occasions.  Growing up, I spent a lot of time moving around, and never stayed at the same school for more than a year or two.  I learned to get along with a plethora of personalities and how not to judge others for being themselves.  I also found my love of books.  Being able to immerse myself into a book was a freedom that could go with me regardless of the location.  I am happy that even now, I can still possess that ability.

I enlisted into the Air National Guard 3 days after my 18^th birthday.  After 11 and a half years of service (8 of those active duty), I found myself immersed in military intelligence and was even paid to learn Chinese.  Four and a half years ago I was blessed with my own miracle in the form of my son.  As a single mother, I feel like I learn new things each and every day, and so much life is lived between the tiny spaces as I watch another being grow before my very eyes. 

Maintaining my gypsy lifestyle of youth while serving in the military I was unable to finish my college degree.  I finally found a way to be a full-time student and commit to it a year and a half ago when I started attending the University of Advancing Technology.  Currently I am studying for a B.S. in Advancing Computer Science.  Prior to attending college, I put the wheels into motion for getting a cookbook published and am working on it in between the rare moments of "free" time.  Somewhere amidst my crazy life I also decided that becoming a health coach was a good thing, becuase I must not have had too much to do already.  I have loved it though!  I feel healthier, more energentic and more confident than ever now that I am a Beachbody Coach!  ( My Coaching Site)

Life has definitely had many ups and downs for me, but if you are new to my blog, I just want you to know that taking the time out of your crazy and busy life means the world to me.  I would love to hear from you.  

The Last Lover

The Last Lover is written by Can Xue (pen name for Deng Xiaohua), and translated from Chinese into English by Annelise Finegan Wasmoen.

If Quentin Tarentino was living in a Vanilla Sky-esque world in the middle of a Twilight Zone episode and writing in traditional Chinese metaphors, this book would be the result. This has to be the strangest book I have ever read. Having a little bit of background in Chinese culture, I was able to understand some of the writing stance of the author. Many Chinese stories are told through metaphors (much like reading Aesop’s fables).

In the Last Lover, we follow along the journeys of the characters Joe: a worker at a clothing factory and separately his wife Maria. Vincent: the owner of the clothing factor and separately his wife Lisa from the gambling city. Reagan: the owner of a Rubber Tree plantation who buys his uniforms from the clothing factory and briefly his sometimes mistress, Ida.

Each of these characters is on their own journey through their thoughts and every single one of them has trouble telling reality from the created worlds within their minds. There is a blending of realities between characters as they each feature at some point or another within the “reality” of the other characters. Can Xue has also created many other interesting characters along the way.

I can’t really say that this is a “good” book, but I can’t very well rate it below 3 stars. If nothing else, the creativity and originality of the Last Lover is beyond comparison. Can Xue paints beautiful descriptions of the people (when relevant) and their locations. She does an amazing job of making you constantly question reality, just as each character does themselves.

The beginning is a little hard to get into the flow with her unique style of writing. However, once you grasp the way that Can Xue has chosen to tell her story, you are more easily to follow along with the journeys. The characters themselves are definitely interesting to get to know, and I think that Maria and Joyner were definitely my favorite characters. Can Xue depicts the fears and desires from the depths of each character’s psyche.

Overall I still stand by my 3/5 star review due to the actual story as a whole. I had many grand illusions of what the point of the book itself would be. I should have known, given the Chinese desire to leave a story with a messed up ending, but I even anticipated this and still felt extreme disappointment in the final closing scene. I wanted there to be a better wrap up of all that had transpired. In its way there is a closure, but I wanted something more from the intense journeys that were traveled with the characters than the ending that fell flat from such expectations. If you are interested in taking a journey unlike any other, this book is still worth the read, and it is definitely a unique story of its own. I could easily see it being made into a Vanilla Sky type of movie and again, I must commend Can Xue on her beautiful originality, even if the journey was a bit messed up along the way.

*I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Random Essay About Learning Chinese

*I was going through some things this evening on my computer and came across this short essay.  I honestly have no idea what it was for and was written in 2005, but thought it was kind of funny and wanted to share it.  Enjoy!

It is always intriguing to see the varied reactions I get from people when I tell them that I know Chinese.  Many people discount my Chinese ability based upon my appearance as a blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman.  Of all the times in my life that I have had to use perseverance and determination to accomplish my goals, I would have to say that learning Mandarin Chinese was in the top. 

Working as an intelligence analyst initially piqued my interest in China, and with it the determination to learn the language, although getting to a place to learn was a rocky road for me.   I initially began looking into becoming a linguist while remaining in the Air National Guard.  For over two years I was told that it was impossible, and that I would have to go active in order to learn a language with the military.  However this desire to learn it tormented me.  I even considered going becoming Active Duty in order to accomplish this goal.  I had a break with a phone call from my father while he was deployed in Afghanistan telling me of a guard unit that he was working with that had guard linguists that were assisting him.  I immediately called the unit recruiter that he referred me to.  It took almost a month before anyone would return my phone calls, but my perseverance finally won them over and I got to talk with the head of recruiting about my ambition to learn Chinese.  Initially they tried to sway my interest into other areas; however I eventually made it clear to them that it was Chinese or nothing.  Before I knew it I was swearing into a predominantly linguist detachment.   I was overjoyed that I could finally start learning Chinese, until I got the bad news that my school date had been given to another member that had sworn in after me.  I ended up stuck in Salt Lake, eight hours from home, no longer having a full-time job and feeling as far away as ever from Chinese language school.  A stroke of luck landed me a full time job at the unit while I awaited a new school date that was promised to be only a month away.  One month ended up turning into seven months before I was finally holding orders in my hand to go to Chinese school.  I thought that after all of this work I would finally be able to push through and learn Chinese, but little did I know that was much easier said than done.

Arriving at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey was filled with beauty and wonder, and checking into housing was just the beginning of many difficulties I was to face.  I had checked into a hotel and was getting ready to check out the housing.  Unfortunately I found myself in a house surrounded by condemned houses and a shower I was afraid would never get me clean, not to mention the holes in the roof and the forest of weeds that was to be my backyard.  My heart was feeling heavy with the prospect of having to spend my time in a house that I didn’t feel safe to be living alone in, when I was given the opportunity to refuse my housing and find something on my own.  Within two days I thought things were looking up as I found a beautiful apartment overlooking a lake within a five minute drive to school.  Focus was finally shifted to the actual learning of Chinese where I was pulled away from yet again by kinks when I was to go without pay for the next two months.  This resulted in me crashing on a classmate’s couch the next month until I moved into a cheaper and somehow bigger apartment only a block from the ocean.  Finally I felt that I could just focus on Chinese and the colossal task that was a language lacking alphabets, grammar changes and instructors from China with little grasp of the English language.  Chinese class was very hard but incredibly rewarding and before I knew it, luck threw a car accident at me, totally my car and sparing my life.  I spent the next month walking to class up a crazy hill in my blues but I never gave up.

My perseverance and determination eventually rewarded me a year and a half later with the skills of an Airborne Mandarin Chinese Cryptologic Linguist.  I am so thankful for this accomplishment and know that I earned it just in the learning of the language itself.  Looking back on it, I know that not giving up and keeping my head up when times got tough helped me accomplish this long awaited goal.

Pork Stir Fry

This turned out deliciously :)  I had pork that needed to be cooked and a copious amount of veggies that I still don't know what to do with all of them :)  Enjoy!

Ingredients:

3 Pork Loin Chops

3 Tbsp Olive Oil

Seasoning (Mango Lime, Cumin, Crushed Red Pepper)

1 Cup Basmati Rice

2 Celery Stalks (chopped)

1 Banana Squash (peeled & chopped)

2 Carrots (peeled & chopped)

4 Radishes (chopped)

4 Green Onions (Sliced)

2 Cloves Garlic (Finely chopped)

2/3 Cup Soy Sauce

2-3 Tbsp Apple Maple BBQ Sauce

Directions:

Add 2 Tbsp Oil to a Large Skillet, add the Pork and Seasoning.  Brown thoroughly about 10 minutes on med-high heat.  Start cooking the rice at this time, 1 Cup Rice and 1 Cup Water, I used a rice Cooker.  Add the remaining oil and all veggies and garlic to the pork and cook until the veggies are softened about 5-10 minutes on Low-Med heat.  Sprinkle with additional seasoning as used previously.  Add the soy sauce and BBQ.  Simmer until mixed and serve over rice.  Enjoy :)

 

Brown the pork in the skillet

Start cooking the rice

Add the veggies to the pork

Sprinkle with additional seasoning

Add the soy sauce and BBQ sauce

Serve over rice and enjoy

Old Music Reviews: Bic Runga

I have decided to review old music CDs.  I think that most of the new music is crap, mostly beats with nothing more to offer.  I own a ton of old CDs and have even more older songs on my IPOD.  With this being said there are some CDs and artists that may have been lost in the fray.  I would love to review them now and hopefully I can interest even one person.  I was going through CDs trying to look for something that was low key that I could jam to whilst working on stuff on the computer and not waking my son up.   Bic Runga jumped out at me, and made me remember the never-ending repeat of the amazing song "Sway."  If you have never listened to Bic Runga and if you have never heard the song "Sway" you missed out on something amazing!  Let me be the one to share it with you for the first time, or to remind you of it's musical awesomeness. 

First off let's get to know Bic Runga herself.  Her full name is Briolette Kah Bic Runga.  But she records as Bic Runga.  She is a New Zealand singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist whose first album was entitled "Drive." and debuted at number 1 on New Zealand's Top 40.  She is one of the highest selling New Zealand artists of recent history.  The Bic part of her name is Chinese for jade (pronounced Bec).  Let me just say that personally it is strange that I have always loved her and later in life I ended up learning Chinese....  The crazy coincidences in life.  Bic Runga's mother definitely must have had an influence on her in life as she was a Chinese-Malaysian lounge singer from Malaysia.  She ended up marrying Bic's Vietnamese father who was a soldier on leave.  Bic has been recording music since she was only 4 years old, with her two sisters.  One of which is a member of the music group Stellar and the other is a session singer.  She could play the drums, guitar and keyboard by the time she was in her mid teens.  Bic has released 4 studio albums as well as 2 compilation albums.  Most recently she released a greatest hits compilation in December of 2012, which I will be investing time and money into acquiring as this is exciting news to me. 

Let's get back to her amazing song "Sway."  I first got hooked on Bic Runga and this song thanks to the original American Pie movie and the great soundtrack.  in the late 90s and early 2000s, I bought a LOT of soundtracks, as it was a great way to find new artists and great new music and singles to fall in love with.  "Sway" was so amazing that it led me to buy her second album Beautiful Collision which was released in 2002.  It is a great independent album however and great chill music.  A lot of it flows into itself as far as song change goes and progression throughout the album.  This isn't a bad thing, but as far as an album standing out for itself I think her initial album Drive would be better for that and definitely her latest compilation "Anthology."  Once I invest in this I will do a full review, song by song for those interested. 

"Beautiful Collision" is a definite Cd worth taking the time to listen to however, I love the entire thing.  On par with popular artists such as Sarah McLaughlin, Dido, and Norah Jones (when she doesn't go too bluesy) if you are interested in that kind of sound, this is definitely for you!  "Beautiful Collision" also debuted at number 1 on the New Zealand charts.  The album is currently peaking at five on the Best Of All Time List in New Zealand (*as of October 2012).   She is the only female musician on the list.  The album went 11 times platinum in New Zealand.  Give it a listen. 


I will share with you my all-time favorite Bic Runga song "Sway" as promised and then my favortie song off of this CD "When I See You Smile."

"Sway" -Bic Runga

"When I See You Smile" -Bic Runga

Please check out and support Bic Runga at her official website

Bic Runga Official Site

The awesomeness that is "Bu De Bu Ai"

As I was contemplating what to write about tonight, I decided to peruse my facebook posts for inspiration. I came across my notifications that one of my former Chinese classmates birthday was today.  I knew that she loved to laugh at cheesy Chinese music videos and went youtube searching for a birthday themed ones.  The one I discovered was a Chinese love birthday song.  This made me remember another Chinese love song "Bu De Bu Ai." by the internationally famous Wilber Pan.  We had many great times with this song with my incredible Chinese class.  Never have I met a group of people with a better all around sense of humor.  With that being said I am going to make the assumption that the majority of the people that read my blog do not also speak Mandarin.  Therefore I have included the English translation video for you to enjoy. *The English translation is very literal and therefore not great but you can get the gist.  I am thinking that whoever translated this was a Chinese speaker that did not have very good English skills.  Either way just reading the lyrics itself is quite entertaining haha.  Don't let it distract from the song though (you can do that in a moment)!  It is a very beautiful song in case you have never heard it before. 

Now we come to one of the most amazing lip syncing duos of all time.  The Back Dorm Boys.   In this rendition you will see them lip syncing to Wiber Pan's Bu De Bu Ai.  (The same music video that you just watched with the atrocious English translation.)  If you don't find these guys funny than you must be lacking in sense of humor.  Everything about their lipsync is hilarious.  They go all out and the facial expressions make the video.  These gentlemen have also lip-synced many other great songs including some Backstreet Boys songs.  Feel free to check out more of their awesomeness on YouTube.  Enjoy!