At my aunt's house the other day, I saw various artifacts of various cultures and countries. The matroshka doll sort of disconcerted me. I'm not used to looking at that nested metaphor while hearing women …
Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash is, or soon will be, an audiobook. The excerpt is worth a listen. Dan on Slashdot, when I complained that "Stopping the 56K Hate" is almost Jon Katzian but not enough:" …
I had a lot of fun. I went to my sister's party with Leonard and Camille and so many of my sister's friends. There was much eating and some mall shopping, and I watched "Black …
My mom and I finally lost patience with each other while I was practicing driving -- during rush hour today. I knew it had to happen sooner or later. Back to Berkeley tomorrow, the sooner …
"Gourmet soap" and "If you open it, you buy it. Don't get caught!" and "We Don't Except Checks": seen at Food King yesterday. Drove with Mom for the first time and second time yesterday. She …
Hindi film, steering, reading, writhing, and arithmetic. Title from the intro to most Russian fairy tales, "Once there was..." (mutatis mutandis for gender and number, of course). Lagaan. Today I finished watching Lagaan, also known …
Er, that is to say, I'm in Stockton for a few more days, and I'm brown. Trilingual hilarity from the Harihareswara household: "What is the Russian for [Kannada for 'are you full?']?""Why would they …
Congratulations, Windows 98, for crashing and erasing my eloquence. Funny, isn't it, that this almost never happened in Russia, and yet as soon as I have to use my father's machine....but never mind. My father …
Reverse culture shock feels a little harder than the culture shock of going to Russia. There were no orientations for the return. All the signs are in English. Everyone speaks English. Well, almost everyone. I …
Hi there, all. I'm experiencing reverse culture shock here in the US. Everyone speaks English! (Well, not really.) The PA system folks at airports speak English as though they were native speakers! (Well, most of …