Monday, September 23, 2013

¿Qué tal?

With my departure from Cameroon fast approaching, its time for me to think about what to do next.  South America?  Sounds very intriguing indeed.  Of course, I would need to brush up on my Spanish, which is very, very rusty.  Mucho.  I have a couple of ways of dealing with this situation.  There's electronic books I can and have bought and downloaded.  Granted, electricity would need to be more consistent than it is now.  There's also tutors.  I met one here at post and he's helping me out.  Finally, there's TV shows or movies that are either subtitled or dubbed in Spanish.  Here's a couple of quotes in Spanish from two funny shows, Scrubs and Curb Your Enthusiasm:

Richard: Estoy un poco enamorado de ella.  (I happen to be a little bit in love with her.)
Larry:  Un poco es la frase que lo define.  (A little bit being the operative word.)

Todd:  Yo soy 25% británico.  (I'm 25% British.)
Janitor: ¿Sí?  Pues me aburres al 100%.  (Really?  I'm 100% not interested.)

Sheryl:  ¿Tú rompiste con ella?  (You broke up with her?
Larry:  Sí, sé que es imposible que un idiota como
yo rompa con alguien.  (Oh, yeah.  Right.  That's impossible for an idiot like me to ever break up with a woman.)



Who knows?  With enough practice and some luck, I may be renaming my blog Mis Pensamientos Aleatorios or Mis Pensamientos al Azar early next year.

Speaking of funny, check out Hasan Minhaj's posts, where he talks about topics such as the Asian-American Miss America, Chris Brown, Ashton Kucher and Jeremy Lin.  His videos aren't subtitled, but I would be curious to know how one would go about translating 'Holy Shish kebab' into Spanish.  Something chorizo?

Monday, September 09, 2013

Cinq Choses Dont Je Pense

Because I couldn't think of 10. 

1)  COS Conference -- we laughed, we cried, we played trivia, we got extensions, we got denied extensions, we drank, we got together one last time, we called people out, we danced.  Our last hurrah together since most of us will be leaving Cameroon in November.  Bittersweet. 

2)  Song About Math -- My new favorite song is Wizboyy's One Plus One, not only because the singer's name sounds funny, but because I also learned that one plus one is apparently one.  Also, the song has the following lyrics:

Is a dream of every man
to get a finest girl like you,
we go be like Rice and Stew

And:

You are the personality,
The sugar in my tea,
My testimony…
See, the probability is equal to unity of our matrimony..
This love is raised to the power of infinity.

You should really hear it:




3)  Star Trek Into Darkness -- just recently saw the latest trek movie and it seemed more like an extended SNL skit than an actual film.  But I've gotta say I'm biased since I prefer the original cast.  You just can't replace the original Khan or Kirk or McCoy, etc. 

4)  Things I Didn't Know Before -- According to Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel, Pinoys originally came from South China thousands of years ago.  The same book also says that the people of Madagascar originated from Asia.

5)  Green Corps -- I think Peace Corps should look into becoming more green.  For instance, how about replacing the current PC vehicles with hybrid vehicles?  Or have the staff take public transportation?  How about "Bike to Work" day?  Hey, I'm just throwing it out there.