What day is it today?

This week went by mad quick. (in words of my NY roomie)

Besides biking around the 'hood and getting to know my new housemate better, I've hardly blinked and the week is gone. My campers have graduated from High school(!) and my friend are continually moving and dispersing themselves.

I find the biggest prob with miscommunication is lack of listening. Everyone wants to put their two cents in, but nobody wants to take two cents out. Nearly everyday in the office is the same argument, where two folks are talking about two different things AT each other. I just want to grab them both and say, "Stop talking!!! Listen to each other!" In a leadership training class, we had to practice 'active listening' aka, the ability to pay full attention to the opposing party rather than try to create your side of the argument while they are speaking. The topic was Ninja turtles, and you had to debate with a partner on who was the best ninja turtle and why. Of course I picked michaelangelo. My partner picked Donatello or someone and we ended up talking over each other more than anything. So listening is not one of my strong points, but at least I kno I need work on it.

I met with my mandarin 'tutor' yesterday for a few hours. She owns a jook resturant, and is soon to open a new one. Mostly we work on pronunciation, I've been reading on sentence structure on my own. She had a middle school level text book on reading comprehension that was pretty good, and hilarious! I started reading one of the chapters which was about eating in the states. "People who work normally don't have time to cook. So oftentimes, they will dine out at a resturant, or buy frozen food. Frozen food can be heated quickly and easily in a microwave oven. It was very popular." and then a few pages later I happened to read, "Some Canadians have pets as friends." (note: I didn't read the context of this statement, but found it funny anyhow) I need to make simpler flashcards, even tho the phrases help when I'm out at the market. Now its just practice, practice, practice!

Words of wisdom from my recently rootcanalled mother:
"be true to your teeth and they will not be false to you!"

I was also totally intrigued by this article on electronic eating ants