Report 3: Today's Lesson's

Today I learned a few things about my new enviournment. Here they are.

Lesson 1, Prata is the new D.P. Dough

Most of you know about that heavenly place where droplets of wonderful are created. That little shop near the corner in downtown Ithaca that produces delightful treats that fill the stomache and warm the heart. Well there is a new calzone in town. They are called pratas. I was introduced to them a few days ago and loved them. They are like tortilla almost, but thinner. It is an Indian food that you can find at almost any hooku. Those are like food courts only outside, ussually in residential areas, but they are great for eating cause there are a few different stalls with all sorts of good food. Anyway, today I discovers an Indian place on campus that makes Prata. Then I saw a menu, or a piece of paper listing all the different things they serve I guess. Anyway it hadd all the different things you could get with your prata. Today I started out with a cheese prata. It is just the prata, then they put cheese on it and then the cook it on like a cast iron stove thing, like what you would cook pancakes on. Than they fold it over, and serve it to you with curry sauce for dipping. Sounds familar eh? So although I will not be as percise with this, I do plan on trying out all the different types, like egg, mushroom, and other stuff like that, there was like 20 or 30 on the menu thing. I will keep yo posted on my favorite one.

Lesson 2, I will never speak Chinese

So a few days ago while I was filling out which classes I wanted to take, I decided it would be fun to sign up for Elementary Chinese. It was just a fall back course, but I figured it would be fun to learn a little bit of the language that was spoken by many of the people here. However, once none of my other classes got approved I decided I should take it so that I dont owe money to Ithaca College when I return. Today was my first class. For two hours I repeated seemingly random sylabols that all sounded the same. Did you know that xi, ji, ti, and qi are all pronounced like tee. However tee means lucky, where as tee means chicken. You cant tell when I write it but I said those with different inflextions. That is to say that each sounds can be spoken four different ways. For example, lets all say tee, say it in one tone, without going up of down. Now say it while raising the pitch. Than say it by lowering the pitch and raising it half way. Now say it while just lowering it. For two hours I repeated with the rest of the class what the professor said in that manner. Then we would practice with our partner. My partner was Tachi and girl from Vietnam taking chinese as her third language. She uses many of these sounds that we were practicing in her first language so they came very easy to her. She giggled at my silly attempts to make the sounds like chuang and xing, which she commented that I, "have a husky vioce yes?" However I can now say hello quite proficiently and know a phrase that sounds like I am saying OOOOO YEAH, which means "I also am..." that is where you insert something something hao. I dont know what hao means, but it is at the end of like everything. Oh and I can kinda say "my name is jeremy" in chinese. And if I stay in the class long enough i will get to pick my Chinese name. The new game plan is to get another class approved and drop this class like spanish.

and finally...
Lesson 3, Although a little more expensive, Snapple does not come with aloe vera chunks

In every canned fruit drink you buy here, there are chunks of aloe vera in it. They sneak up on you and pop into your mouth or clog up your straw. It is kinda gross to chew your apple juice from a can. It takes a while to get used to. but I guess it is good for your skin, so rock on asian juice canning companies. But today I bought a grapeade snapple, and boy was it delgithful to enjoy the tarty taste of grape without juicy bits of plant floating into my mouth with every gulp. It was good.


well things are still going well, I got to talk to both my parents now I skype, my mom doesnt haave a mic yet so it was just me talking to her, but I will get to talk to her tomorrow some time. If you would like to talk to me on skype feel free to download it and find a microphone. My name is jertag653, or you can search my name, or my email address.

pictures from KL will be posted on Yahoo in a little bit. more details to follow.

If you would like my address here, just email me and I will send it to you.