Tag Archives: pat

18 Jan

poser

Who taught : Pat, Rachel, Phil, Kelly, Lauren and Sean

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (Source: Wikipedia)

Yesterday was Martin Luther King Jr birthday. It is one of the national holidays. 48 years ago, he made “I have a dream” speech. Here is the part of it.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed. “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day out on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state sweltering with the heat and injustice of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor’s lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plains and the crooked places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.

48 years later, I see a lot of things he mentioned in his speech actually happening even though there are still many steps to go. Isn’t amazing? One man can make a difference. One man who has a dream can make a big difference. I am sure all of us can be the man. Let’s have a dream, a big dream! It will come true.

A few weeks ago, I was with my friends. And we were talking about some people. During the conversation, Lauren used a word, “poser.” Hearing it, I sort of figured out that it has negative connotation. If you look up a dictionary, I am sure you will find the following definition.

A person who poses.

Huh! What the heck? It does not help at all. Anybody can pose, right? So, this is not usually the meaning of the expression when you hear this expression from your American friends. Here is the meaning my friends told me.

A person who likes to be seen in trendsetting clothesin fashionable bars, discos, etc.

A person who attempts to blend into a specific social group.

My friends tried to give me good examples and they said a skateboarder or a snowboarder can be a poser. (FYI, I am a snowboarder. 🙂 ) I think this expression is kind of hard to fully grasp and use it. Hey, my American friends! Do you have any other thoughts or examples to give in relation to Poser?

13 Dec

whale tale

Who taught: Jake, Andrew, Pat

Last Saturday, there was a christmas party Phil and Kelly threw. It is one of the parties Jessy and I are always looking forward to. It is always amazing. Thanks, Kelly and Phil! There were around 30+ people at the party. Jessy and I knew that we would be the only Koreans. So, we decided to wear traditional Korean dress, Hanbok, this year. We brought them when we come to the U.S. but have never worn at all for about 5 years. We felt kind of sorry not wearing them because my parents packed them very carefully saying, “You should bring and wear these as much as you can.” Well, honestly, we did not like wearing them just because it requires long time to wear and feel kind of weird. But, I really wanted to show Hanbok to my American friends. I think it went well and my friends were very curious about them and asked us a lot of questions not only about Hanbok but also about Korea.

There are certain things you would like you to know about party in America.

1. Most of the time, you do not sit at all. You can sit if you want but not many people really sit down at all. In Korea, all of the people sit down throughout a party.

2. Since you do not sit, you actually walk around and get to have a lot of chances to talk to many different people. Some are the people you never met before. This used to be the part Jessy did not like a lot because of her English. She had a hard time to understand English. It is not just because of the issue of hearing English but the noises of other people’s conversations. To be able to go to a party in America, you should really be prepared to mingle with so many different people. That means you need to listen and speak English a lot. It is not that easy. But, you know what! If things are easy, there are not that much fun at all.

Whale tale cookie (source: http://www.thefunctionkey.com/)

So, shall we talk about today’s expression? I have no idea how I get to hear this expression. I totally forget. My friends and I must have talked about women for sure. Anyways, in the middle of the conversation, there was a new expression i had never heard. WHALE TALE. Well, the word itself is so simple and it does not sound like a very interesting one at all. Without the context, I would not be able to catch that it is not just the tale of a whale. Now, what it would be? Can you feel it? I bet you cannot. Let me give you a hint! It has something to do with a woman’s back. (Well, who knows it could be a man’s back. But, I hope not.) Can you imagine the tale of a whale from a woman’s back? Where it would be? That’s right. It is butt. Now, the butt itself cannot be the whale tale, right? There is a specific condition for a woman’s butt to look similar to the whale tale. She should wear low-rise jeans and a thong. If this condition meets, then it is almost 100% possible that the thong will be shown out of her jeans. Now, can you picture it? 🙂 That is the whale tale the girl is showing. Now, as always, I have a question. Do women wear low-rise jeans and a thong to intentionally show the whale tale? I think it is just an accident, right? Tell me I am right.

08 Dec

as happy as a clam

Who taught: Sunjoo

Happy as a clam (source: http://www.civin.org/)

Do you remember the post I wrote about super salad? Let me take a moment to remind you of how important for you to be prepared for a few questions you should answer whenever you order food. A lot of those questions are very short and sometimes hard to understand if you do not know the context. One of them, of course, is “Soup or Salad.” We get this question almost always when my friends and I go to a restaurant to have dinner.

Whenever there is a time to choose soup or salad, my friend, Pat, always goes for a clam chowder soup. For those of you who may not know what chowder is. Chowder itself is a type of soup containing pieces of fish. For clam chowder, the fish is clam. In Pittsburgh, most of restaurants have only one kind of clam chowder soup. But, if you go to some other cities such as New York or Boston, they have two different types of clam chowder soups. One is Manhattan clam chowder and the other is New England clam chowder. I am not sure which clam chowder I get in Pittsburgh. I think it is Manhattan. Am I right?

Speaking of clam, I learned another expression from my friend, Sunjoo. The other day, she posted her status on Facebook, saying “breakfast in bed. happy as a clam.” As soon as I see this one, I instantly knew what it means even though I have never heard of this one before. I love this expression. Even hearing the expression makes me happy because I think of a clam having a big smile on its face. I now try to remember some other expressions that can be used to describe a big smile on someone’s face. There is one with ears in it. Can you help me out, my friends? By the way, I hope you are as happy as a clam today!

19 Nov

over my head

Who taught: Pat

Yesterday, I had this year’s first Thanksgiving dinner with my students and colleagues. Also, there was a small lecture about the history of Thanksgiving given by my boss. During the lecture, I learned about one lady whose name is Sarah Josepha Hale.

She is very famous among Americans not because of Thanksgiving but because of her nursery rhyme, “Mary had a Little Lamb.” But, very few would think of her on Thanksgiving day. I think she deserves to be remembered. Why? Because she was the one who spent 40 years writing to congressmen and five presidents to persuade them to declare Thanksgiving a national holiday. And, finally, in 1863, President Lincoln did declare Thanksgiving a national holiday because of her letter.

Can you believe it? For 40 years! To five presidents! She was pretty persistent, wasn’t she? But, the point is she achieved her goal eventually.

So, this Thanksgiving day, you should talk about her to your family or friends and remember her.

A few months ago, I was having some chats about work with Pat using IM. I cannot remember exactly what we talked about but I mentioned about something I did for a customer which was kind of crazy stuff to make things work. As I said this story, he said, “Man, that is over my head.” I did not quite get it. So, I had to ask him. He said, “It is like something hard to understand or beyond my ability.”

To remember this expression, I decided to draw a picture in my imagination. If something is located directly over my head, then I cannot see it at all or cannot see what is happening there. That is what I think of whenever I hear the expression. Or the other way would be trying to find something, you think, very hard to understand like physics, then connect this expression with it. Then you would not forget it at all. Do you know how hard to remember and eventually use a single expression? It is pretty hard. Personally, I would like to make up my own expression, “over my brain.” But I am sure that expression does not exist yet. But, I can try to use more and more until most people use it for 40 years just like Sarah Joseph Hale did. 🙂

30 Sep

Let’s boogie

Who taught : Pat and Alex

Korean ladder game (source: Daniel's facebook)

How many times have you had to decide who is going to do what in your life? So many times, right? For example, who will be making a presentation for your team project? There is a great solution for this!

Let me introduce one of the greatest games you can enjoy to decide who will be “it.” It is called the ladder game. In Korea, people play this game to decide who is going to pay how much for food or snack. Especially, when it is summer, people in offices play this game to decide who will pay for ice creams and who will go and get the ice creams.

Here is the rule.

Preconditions : There has to be multiple people. The more, the better. And, people should agree to pay money or do anything came out of the game. There is no way back.

1. Grab a paper. It should be big enough to draw bunch of lines.

2. Draw vertical lines as many as players. (The lines should be quite long enough to be able to enjoy the game.)

3. At the top of the lines, put numbers, starting from 1, of course.

4. At the bottom of the lines, put different amount of money that the players should pay. (Here, you can also select one line as an indicator for a delivery guy.)

5. Now, you draw bunch of horizontal lines randomly here and there, connecting the vertical lines. (The most important thing here is you should draw a lot to make the game really interesting and make it hard to find out what number will end up landing in what amount.)

6. Cover the whole drawings and players randomly choose numbers corresponding to the numbers written at the top.

7. Now, number by number, we follow the lines from the top to the bottom to find out who is paying how much and who is doing the delivery.

It is really really popular in Korea and I can guarantee that it is really fun to play. People are so excited about it. I think this is the game that exists only in Korea but not sure. Can anyone from other countries tell me if you have this or a similar game?

Today, I went to Denny and Patrick’s farewell party. It was their last day at the company that I used to work. It was great seeing all of my friends again. After the party, I went into the office to help Pat out to move his box over to his car. As we started to walk out of the office, holding the box, he suddenly said, “All right! The last day! Let’s boogie!” I did not get it. So, I said, “Hey! What did you say? Boogie?” Alex said, “Terry! You do not know what that is?”

From the context, it sounded like, “Let’s get out of here!” Well, I was right. Boogie is originally a type of music and it became to the word people use when they dance to Boogie music. Then, for some reason, people decided to use this word to mean walking. Not sure how it became to mean this. Does anyone know?

But, it sounds very interesting and kind of pleasant. So, next time, try to say “Let’s boogie!” instead of saying “Let’s go!”