Pairings

I don't know why, but I do love it when I come across a pairing of two that seems to suit in some way or another. Maybe it's a subconscious human instinct, to join two things to make a single one complete. In any case, I've been noticing plenty of pairings lately, and thought I'd go ahead and share them with you.

Kids' Names:

The best part here is that I have a pair of pairings, or actually a trio of pairings, taken from both of my schools. I notice paired names most often when kids sitting next to each other have appropriate names, or their names are next to each other on the roll call.

Take, for instance, two of my 5th graders at Hanmin who sit in the same row: Amos and Andy.

And then there's the two 6th grade girls at Qingshan whose names directly follow each other: Penny and Candy.

The best one, though, is a tidbit Maggie passed along to me today on the walk to one of our classrooms. She said that one of the teachers at the school has twins, a boy and a girl. Their family name is Li, and the twins are named Li Ke and Li Le. (李可 and 李樂.) Yes, Chinese speakers, that's right--the kids' names are made of the halves of the word 可樂--cola. According to Maggie, people ask the dad how his drink is, and things of that nature, all the time. And I have to say, he deserves it!


Smaller Pairings:


My most pervasive frustration with traffic here comes out when I am most fully taking advantage of traffic here. It's a perverse pairing. Essentially, when I'm running late and I hit traffic, I get quite annoyed at the cars, scooters, pedestrians, bicyclists and pushcarts--yes, pushcarts--in my way. Stupid Taiwanese traffic, I say, why is this person pushing a cart by hand down the middle of the street? This would never happen in America... 

I then rev my engine and find the best way around the problem, weaving and making marginally legal turns as necessary. That is, I drive in such a way that, if I were in America, would get me in massive trouble. It's a catch-22: the very order I'm longing for is the order I am more than happy to thrown to the wayside to get me to my destination quicker.


Another pairing: The Hunger Games and Sour Patch Kids. I like to eat sour candy when I go to the movies. Taiwan has a serious shortage of sour candy. However, Kaitlin brought me some like the gem she is, and so today I got to relive one of my favorite essential pairings from America: candy and a great movie. Nothing not to love!


So those are my pairings from the day. What are yours?

Read This, Not That

I do a lot of reading these days. It's one of the great joys of my life now that I have the time to read for pleasure, and I have been taking full advantage of it, plowing through my subscription to The New Yorker in addition to such diverse titles as Atonement, A Tale of Two Cities, Barrel Fever (David Sedaris' short stories and essays), The Anglo Files (exactly what it sounds like), Absalom, Absalom! (Faukner....forever.....and ever....) and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, amongst others.

Intermixed with all this print (and Kindle) media has been a lively assortment of online offerings, notably from Cracked.com, the Washington Post (shout-out to Melissa, who's been interning there and wrote some FANTASTIC pieces for them!), the New York Times, various friends' blogs, and MSNBC. So, a bit of diversity there, too.

Then there is my other reading. The stuff I'm slightly, but not terribly, ashamed of: I'm currently reading The Hunger Games.

Yes, it's young adult fiction. Yes, it has a fairly predictable plot revolving around some very teenage characters and ideas. Yes, it has a massive endorsement by Stephenie Meyer on the front.

But. It is entirely unlike Meyer's infamous Twilight saga.

The Hunger Games is currently being made into a movie; seeing the trailer inspired me at last to take up this series which has spread like wildfire amongst not just YA readers but those of my generation, too.

And with good reason. Author Suzanne Collins effectively side-steps every pitfall into which Meyers falls, providing compelling, multidimensional characters (unlike Meyers' cardboard ones); a strong female character with actual goals (other than, you know, get a boyfriend and avoid dying); and an actually coherent usage of both the English language and basic storytelling principals (as opposed to pages full of gratuitous adverbs and useless description).

In short, I would recommend it to anyone with a day to spare--because you will read it in one day. Even with work, sleep, and trying everything I could to slow myself down (reading other stuff, watching TV, etc), it took me less than 24 hours from the time I borrowed the first book from Emily until the time I put it down and went in search of the second book.

It has rekindled, to some extent, my faith in the genre, able to provide an easy break from reality into a fascinating world populated by teenagers--and that faith definitely needed the boost. Now, I compare notes with Emily for other well-written YA novels, and find myself remembering the amazingness of those I read in breaks before rehearsals in high school. I expect to revisit them soon.

Because that's the point of reading for pleasure: it's supposed to be pleasurable. And if that means that, on occasion, you reach for The Hunger Games over the newest Booker Prize winner, I don't see a problem with that--as long as you leave Twilight to gather dust.