Forgive me bloggers, for I have sinned. It has been 9 weeks since my last entry.
There has been much going on it's hard to know where to start.
I began my TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) class at Hamline and in my best effort to keep up with my school work it has been hard to find time to pee let alone blog (an unlikely excuse). But, I have been kept very busy but I like it that way. I'm my most happy when I'm busy, it gives me a sense of purpose in a life that I'm still trying to figure out. Last week we had a discussion on intonation and tone when it comes to meaning in communicating. Although English is not an entirely tonal language like Mandarin, we still use rising and falling intonation to get across a point. I found the whole lesson fascinating because we discussed the differences in how a message is conveyed by the simple upward or downward slope either inside a sentence or inside a word. For instance:
I was having a discussion with my friend Drew and I asked him the question:
"Where does your sister live in Minneapolis?"
His response was "Yes". Now of course yes or no would not be an answer one would be looking for. Naturally I was confused so I asked him if he understood what I asked.
I repeated myself:
"Where does your sister live? In Minneapolis?" (A tag question, if you will)
Even though he heard the same words, he inferred a different meaning through the tone and pausing of how I said it.
Truly mind blowing stuff.
I just finished staining/varnishing my parents windows this weekend. It was a very long process but it was kind of theraputic. Once I got into the groove of the strokes, it was easy to zone out. A couple weeks ago I was finishing up the first coat of stain in my parents room and through the window I could see our neighbor Chu practicing T'ai Chi Chih. She is the nicest most sincere woman who is battling cancer at the moment. I paused to watch her glide through the air pushing out all the toxic energy and bringing in healing energy. I shed a tear not because I was sad for her but because the beauty in which she was using positive energy to heal her body.
