Callistonian.net

Holla’ I’ve been MIA, because I’ve been busy. To make it up—ok, not really—but here’s a Christmas comic for you. One of my students drew it. It’s awesome. Don’t you agree?

Note: English isn’t her first language, so the English is a little odd in places—it’s still great.
Click for a bigger version.

I’m just getting started, but let me warn you early. This entry is missing something. Direction? A point? Perhaps. :) Anyway, lately, I’ve been having gobs of fun, getting over a cold, fretting about grad. school, and adventuring about.

Girly~! I adore cafés with fresh and delicate atomospheres, so I dragged my willing friend to this fancy one a few days ago.  The cafe’s color scheme consisted of muted reds, browns, greens, and yellows. Its theme seemed to be dolls and flowers;  there were several dolls in lighted glass display cases, and the place was decorated with red and yellow flowers. Small couches paired with large pillows replaced the stiff wooden chairs of typical café chains. AND 99.9 percent of the drinks were served in dainty cups. The barrista drew a bear in my tea! 

Logophilic Today, during a break at work, I performed figurative CPR on my vocabulary at freerice.com. I incessantly badgered my colleagues too. It always went something like this.

me: What’s a rhyton?
them: What?
me: r-h-y-t-o-n
them: o_O

word: hippophagy
me (thinking): eating hippopotamus?!?! what?! kind of word is this?
them: hmm… crazy.
me (looking at the options): it’s eating horses
them: i don’t think so

So, in the end, everyone ended up on freerice.com… I wonder how long it will take me to get to level 60. Forever?

Other News I have been taking pictures. Wordpress has been deleting some of my comments. I learned how to make decent paper stars. I need to write letters (I’m so sorry, guys!) I’m being promoted?! My dictionary’s Internet browser displays sites as is (see snark and callistonian.net).

I know the title sounds crazy, but it’s true. My pint-sized electronic dictionary is mind-boggling; it overwhelms people. It redefines the term dictionary by doing things that no dictionary needs to do. But, hey, I’m not complaining.

Perhaps, you’re thinking, “Come on, you’ve got to be kidding. It’s a dictionary. It’s just an electronic version of one of those brick-sized books that dorks use. What can it do besides look up words? It’s not like you can watch movies or use the Internet with it…”

Actually, I can watch movies with it (mpeg, divX, Xvid, wmv…). It also has a non-jacked up Internet browser. I can get live-streaming TV-quality TV on it too. :P I’m not lying.

First and foremost, though, this thing of mine is a dictionary. So, it has what every dictionary must have, a swiveling touch screen!? The screen can rotate 180 degrees, folding flat on itself. Screen rotation sometimes leads to scribbling which sometimes leads to random image creation …

I drew the image to the right, on my dictionary, without installing any applications or modifying its hard/software in anyway.

Moving right along— my dic. has an MP3 player, a calendar, a photo viewer, a radio, a voice recorder, a notepad, a memo pad, a scientific calculator, and converters. It can view PDF files, office documents, text files, and spreadsheets. It can read e-books out loud. It has games, plays flash files, blah blah blah…

All of that stuff is interesting, but by now the cynics must be thinking, “The actual dictionary on this thing must suck” because, well, nothing I’ve mentioned so far has anything to with a dictionary, in the traditional sense of the word. So, let’s go there.

There are lots of dictionaries on my dictionary. I’ve Chinese dictionaries—I don’t even speak Chinese—English dictionaries, Japanese dictionaries, and Korean dictionaries. There are also grammar books, vocabulary builders (i.e. Power Vocab 100,000), other helpful things, and other weird things. Anyway, the dictionaries themselves have all sorts of words in them, as one would expect. But, look at some of the words I found!

:-) is in the dictionary. Do you believe it?

At any rate, my dictionary is real. This is not a joke. It’s i-station’s udic. It costs about $50 more than an iPod touch. Some people give their phones, iPods, computers, and other electronic things names. My dictionary needs a name. Any suggestions?

On a final and truly facetious note, my dictionary can be used as a mask. The girl in the photograph below is clearly using it as a mask. Have you ever seen anyone use an iPod as a mask before? I don’t think so…

I push the button. No you push the button. I push the button.*
When in elevators in the States, I never pressed the close door button. But, now that I’m in Korea, I press it all the time. First, I press the button for the floor I want. Then, without hesitation and without bothering to see if other people are lingering about, I press the close door button. Most here seem to be impatient - if you’re in an elevator, standing by the buttons, and if you fail to press the close door button… it’s annoying. It’s as if no one can bear the 10 second long wait required for the doors to close by themselves. Strange? Interesting? Normal? I can’t decide. Are people close door button fanatics where you live? Or are they more laid back?

Look, Ma! No hands~
Before when standing and riding on subways and such, I liked to hang on to something. Now, I’m better than that. :P I don’t bother with holding handles - I just stand there. I can even hold liquid without spilling it. However, I’ve yet to master standing on buses. If I were to try standing on one of those dangerous things without attaching myself to a pole, I’d be tossed around like salt in a salt shaker.

Green Tea! Green Tea! Green Tea!
In the States, I drank green tea. I would also treat myself to Starbuck’s green tea frappuccino, but that was the extent of my green tea intake. Now, I eat green tea cake; I eat green tea ice cream; I drink green tea lattes … Green tea is my new vanilla?

As for the photo—it’s a photograph I took inside a green tea cafe. Everything they sell there has green tea in it, but… I took the photo in 2006. XD I am taking more photos, though! woo!

* This subtitle is nonsensical because I’m quoting a Tiny Toons cartoon. When I was a child, I thought the episode in which baby Plucky plays the role of elevator dictator was one of the most hilarious things, ever.

In the past, I took heaps and hordes of pictures. Recently, I haven’t taken many. It’s pitiful—maybe I’ve snapped 20 photos in the last three months. wth? I need inspiration; I also need encouragement. 

My camera is heavy, quite intimidating. I’m shy … The situation is not good.  I feel like there’s nothing interesting to photograph, but that’s not true.  There’s always something interesting, right?

Well, hmm—here are some of the precious few I’ve snapped recently.

First, Myeongdong. Myeongdong is always crowded, but the crowds add to the atmosphere, and to the fun! It’s clothes paradise, heaven… A gigantic (3 floors? 4 floors?) Forever21 just opened in the area. Forever21 in the States is a shop in a mall. It’s not a multi-story complex.

Second, the instrument I was playing. It’s lovely, beautiful, and it makes awesome sounds. But, my goodness, the thing hurts my fingers.

Third—oh wait. I haven’t been taking pictures. :(