Tag Archives: Jessy

19 Oct

Have you ever eaten humble pie?

Who taught: Jessy and Carl

source (listsoplenty.com)

Humble pie! Sounds yummy? As a matter of fact, it is a pie. I mean there is a recipe and you can make and eat it. But, have I eaten it? No. I have never seen it. The original recipe says it should be filled with liver, heart and other offal, mostly of cow but often deer. Now, it does not sound like yummy any more, does it?

In medieval times, people called this “umble pie.” The word, umble, originated from the French nomble which means “deer innards.” Since it has all of the inner parts of beef or deer, not the meat, you can figure out that it is not a food that higher-class people would eat. That is true. Humble pie was considered as inferior food. (source: wikipedia)

Writing this, I started to doubt that this food would still exist with the original recipe. People here in the U.S. would not eat it. Does anyone know that this pie is still out there?

The point is this is not just a food anymore. It is an expression! Let’s close eyes and think about we are all back to the past, medieval times. You are in front of me and looking at my eating humble pie. What would you think? You would be like, “This poor Terry! How could you eat that dirty humble pie.” And, I would be like, “What the…. I am eating this stupid pie in front of him. It is so humiliating.”

That is exactly the feeling you would have if you use this expression. The meaning of the expression is;

To eat humble pie is to apologize and face humiliation for a serious error.

In conclusion, you do not want to eat humble pie as little as possible in your life. So, if someone ask the question, “have you ever eaten humble pie?,” your answer should be, “No!” or “Maybe once!” But there is a time you have no choice but to eat humble pie. For that case, I found one article for you, “how to eat humble pie!”

14 Oct

Show me

Who taught: Jessy

Show me state (source : www.plateshack.com)

Have you ever driven in the U.S.? If you have a chance later, try to pay a little more attention to license plates. Each state has its own design. As you may know, I live in Pennsylvania state. Honestly, Pennsylvanian license plate is very boring and nothing much special about it. But, if you go to other states, you would notice something different. They put their nickname on the plates. For example, Florida’s license plate has “sunshine state” and New Jersey’s has “garden state.” They kind of make sense, aren’t they? Maybe someone out there would not agree with NJ’s one??? 🙂

A few weeks ago, Jessy asked me one question, “Do you know what is the nickname of Missouri state?” Well, I did not know that. Can you guess it? Haha, I know! You got a hint from the title. It is “Show me” state. Now, why? Based on my research, it looks like it was coined/popularized by a Congressman Willard Vandiver. He said the following in his speech in 1899.

I come from a country that raises corn and cotton, cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I’m from Missouri, and you have got to show me.

Shorter version you can use is “I am from Missouri. Show me!” This is actually an expression that American people say. It means, “I do not quite believe you. Show me proof.” Interesting, isn’t it? I think I say this “interesting” word so many times. But, it really is to me! The question is then do people in Missouri say like, “Dude, I am in Missouri. You gotta show me.”? Or, what if I go there and say, “Hey I am in Missouri now. You gotta show me!” They would laugh, right?

Shall we try a quick poll here? What is the most interesting state nickname in the U.S.? My choice is Indiana. It is “Hoosier state.” What is yours?

26 Aug

party animal

Who taught : Andrew

One of the interesting scenes I have seen in America during the last 4 years is that women ride a bike wearing skirt. I had never seen that in Korea.

There is a street called, S. Negley Ave, in Pittsburgh. One part of the street is pretty steep so that it is even hard to walk up. Every time it snows, the road is closed. The other day, I was driving up the street to go to my house and saw a very bizarre thing. One woman was lying on the street besides her bike. Of course her bike was fell on the street too. As I was getting closer, I realized that the woman was wearing skirt. So, what happened was she was trying to bike up the street and fell down. What is really amazing was that she made almost half way up the street and she looked like she is in her 40s or 50s.

Here is my thoughts about riding a bike wearing skirt. First, it looks kind of dangerous, especially with a tight skirt. Second, I would be worrying about showing my underwear to other people, especially to guys. So, I am not sure why would you want to even try to ride a bike with skirt in the first place.

Other ladies in other countries also do the same thing except Korea. (I know Korean women would not even think about it.)

A few weeks ago, I was at a bar with Andrew to have dinner. Of course, I was supposed to let Jessy know so that she would not prepare my dinner. (She is pretty strict about that. I have to let her know. 🙂 ) So, I sent a text message to her, “I am at a bar with Andrew.” A few minutes later, I got the reply from her, “You are a bar animal.” It was pretty interesting one. I mean I could easily understand what she meant because I knew that she made that one up from the expression, “party animal”,  but wanted to get Andrew’s opinion. Before I get into his opinion, do you know the expression, party animal? Simply, it is you. (I am kidding.) So, a party in America means any kind of social gathering happening at someone’s house or some specific venue hosted by someone. For example, if I invite my friends to my house and have dinner together, that is a party. Or, if my company hosts a Christmas event, that is a party. Then, if you go to those events almost all the time, then you are a party animal. I am not sure why people started to use the word, “animal”, here. But, it gives, I think, a very strong feeling of being instinctive. What do you think?

Bar Rat (Source: movieforums.com)

Going back to Andrew’s opinion! So, I showed the text came from Jessy to Andrew. He also understood what it meant but he said, “It should be bar rat not bar animal.”

Interestingly, when it comes to bar, it becomes a lot more specific animal, rat. Why? My guess is that people think there are a lot of rats in bars and if anyone is going to bar all the time, he/she becomes the part of the rat family over there. (Are there really a lot of rats in bars?) Speaking of it, I think it is probably not a good idea to go to bars too many times. Rats are there… Not just RAT rats but RAT people!

18 Aug

beat around the bush

Who taught: Pat

Beat around the bush (source: amazon.com)

As Jessy and I live longer in America, we become not craving for Korean foods anymore. But, for some reason, we wanted to have Korean food for dinner today. So, she cooked one of the traditional Korean foods, Chung-Guk-Jang JjiGae. One of its ingredients is fermented bean paste. After having this as dinner, we took a walk for about 40 minutes around our neighborhood. It was very pleasant weather to walk today. After the walk, I opened the door and we came into our house. Wow….. it smelled horrible. (Alex, sorry for the bad smell if you did smell it. 🙂 )I cannot believe what is happening for Jessy and me. In Korea, we used to love the smell but not anymore. So, the first thing we did was lighting a few candles in the house. I think many of the American houses have a few candles not just for the source of light but for the source of fragrance. I might be wrong but we do use candles for fragrance.

A few days ago, Jessy and I went out to dinner with Rachel and Pat. During our conversation, Pat said, “Right! Jessica does not beat around the bush.” I remember I studied the expression when I was in Korea but that was actually the first time I had ever heard someone using it in a sentence. It simply means, “Jessica does not talk about something indirectly.” I think the reason why Pat thought that Jessica is not the person who beats around the bush is because of her English. I mean if you cannot speak good English, then it is not easy to say something or make sentences which are a little indirect or implied.  Am I right, Jessy? ……

I am just pulling your leg, honey, here! Jessy is actually not the person who likes to beat around the bush. She speaks very directly to other people. Especially in case she does not like someone, she does not hesitate to talk about it even in front of him/her. But, I think that is really good. Good for her health! I like it. Good thing is she does like me and she said, “I love you,” to me. And… I can trust what she is saying. 🙂

05 Jul

eye-candy

Who taught : Ari

When there was a team programming competition in my company, my team name was “IO Candy.” Well, IO stands for information optimization that my company’s technology is focusing on. When I heard of it, I did not really feel anything special about the name, I just thought…. you know… something sweet for information optimization.

Eye-candy

Then, a few days ago, Jessy, Alex, Ari, Juan and I went to a frozen yogurt place where we got into a discussion about different cultural aspects of different countries. When Jessy and I first got here, I was mainly in school whereas Jessy had some free time to walk around. One day, she found out that there is a park near to University of Pittsburgh and a lot of students enjoy sunshine whenever the weather is great. By enjoying, I mean some of the female students wear bikini, lying on the grass. Interestingly, Jessy did the same thing and I did not know that. Honestly, I do not like her doing it. When I talked about that story, Ari told me that I should understand it and in Germany, people even got bolder so that some of the ladies are topless in some parks when the weather is really good. I was actually shocked when I heard it. In Korea, no people would wear bikini or be topless in any park. If you would, I am pretty sure you would get arrested. Discussing about this, Ari told me there is a good expression American people use. Eye-candy!! Definition of it is “someone who is pleasing to look at!” Who would be a good example? Oh…. I know who is really pleasing to look at. I can see him all day long. It is me! Don’t you agree?

While she was telling me this expression, she said, “You know, everyone should have the right to enjoy eye-candy. Don’t you think?” Well, I guess I agree with her. But I still feel like wearing bikini in park is almost like me wearing speedo, lying on the grass. Am I being too sensitive here? After hearing this expression, I actually thought about the name of my team for the competition. It has very similar sound, isn’t it? IO-candy vs Eye-candy. So, I wonder whether my friends in my company thought about eye-candy when they heard my team name. Even more, when we, as team members, talked about our team name, did we intend to make it to be similar to eye-candy? Is it, Julie, Kara and James? Very curious!