Oh Kids

hope you all had a fantastic thanksgiving. not much to report from here in sauj's cabesa except one entertaining story from mama yi.

during dinner over the weekend, my mom asked me: "have you heard of a soldier boy? i think he dances." i answer her, "why are you asking?"

her reason: "one of my students walked in early to class one day and was doing some dance steps. he said, 'mrs. yi! this is soooo hard.' and proceeded to practice these really easy moves. and you know, saujin, i learn stuff like this quickly, so i just said, 'what's so hard?' and followed his steps. while this was happening, the rest of the class started to file in and they all stopped and started yelling, screaming, and applauding. i tried to settle them down but they kept begging me to do the dance one more time as they got out their camera phones and stuff. of course i refused. one kid who is failing my class promised to study for the next test if i did the dance again, but at that point, i knew it was something stupid."

so i explain to her who soulja boy is. and she exclaims, "i knew it! those [insert korean expletives here] kids! of course they were entertained by a middle-aged asian lady doing a rapper's dance!"

we laugh. then chew through dinner.

about ten minutes later she says, "...though it is my fault. the first boy didn't ask me to dance. it was just frustrating to watch him!"

more dinner.

then another comment, "...kids these days. they don't even know how to dance! how sad!"

so, bottom line: she's no marie osmond, but my mom does the superman. can yours?

The Juice

last week sometime, i had a battle with a pomegranate. seriously. i don't know what possessed me to buy a pomegranate. i think it was joann who once told me that getting information out of me was like juicing a pomegranate...and i think i was just curious when i saw one. oh, and my aunt had made me fresh pom juice once, so i figured, hey it can't be too hard! (and yes, this is what happens when you're in mini-retirement phase -- you stroll through the grocery store thinking thoughts such as this and you make fresh squeezed juices during the weekday to pass the time.)

anyhoo, if i were tina, i probably would have looked up 10 websites that told you how to properly make pomegranate juice. but that's no fun. so i just hacked at the durable fruit, removed and stuck the seeds in a blender, put it through a strainer, and tada, had a nice $3, 30-minute, 1 cup of juice. but for that one weenie cup of juice (which i drank very very slowly), i had to wash down the entire kitchen and take a shower because i had purplish red juice stains all over the place.

so, lesson learned? no, it's not "i need to get a job," sheesh. it's "juicing a pomegranate is a great way to waste time and i should do it way more often!"

except...it's one dang expensive fruit. i may need a job after all to afford this hobby. isn't it ironic, don't you think.

Remove Me From Me

sometime last week, elissa asked me, "can third cousins marry in korea?"

this question, which i have no answer to, sparked a debate. what does the term third cousins mean? i learned a while back that a second cousin is the child of a first cousin...or so i thought. princeton dictionary agrees with my defintion, but it pretty much stop there. according to matt, wikipedia, and rest of the world wide web, there's a whole another word that can clarify the generation gaps in the cousin-ish relationship -- "removed"...

so, first cousins share the same grandparents; second cousins share the same great-grandparents; and third cousins share the same great-great-grandparents. and if your second cousin has a kid, then that kid is your "second cousin once removed" and if your third cousin has a grandkid, then that grandkid is your "third cousin twice removed"....but are you thinking what i'm thinking? WHO THE F CARES.

well, giuliani's 14-year (second) marriage to his second cousin was supposedly annulled due to that relationship. in case you were keeping up with rudy's weird past, i wanted to make sure you knew his marriage was not to his first cousin once removed -- cause that would be really weird.

and with that, who else is oddly obsessed with mike huckabee!