Archive for the ‘Fun’ Category


Year 1: babies illustrating humanity and, of course, themselves

Bayar, from Mongolia, was my personal favorite, with his enormous smile and penchant for hanging out with goats. The Babies didn’t need many words; but I do. Anyone who knows me could diagnose the documentary film Babies (Bébés, Focus Features, 2010) as a Jessie-must-see: four babies from four different countries and cultures spend their first [...]

May 31st, 2010

Food and, after all, friends

Four days before I wave goodbye to the last semester of my undergraduate degree, I ate dinner at the house of one of my professors. It is a rather strange idea, and perhaps a little bit awkward–unless the class is South Asian politics and she’s having everyone over for some of her homemade Indian food. [...]

May 1st, 2010

A snowman comes to Georgia

On Friday, February 12, 2010, Metro Atlanta got a little bit of the weather that the northeast has been experiencing; a couple of inches of snow was just enough to cover the entire landscape, painting the world a beautiful black and white. I got off work early because campus was closing, and I took the [...]

February 14th, 2010

哈利 波特 or, a way to improve my Mandarin

“Harry Potter” in Chinese is one of those transliterations that is necessary when translating names across languages; and the sounds are nearly perfect– jokes aside regarding Chinese natives’ English pronunciation. 哈利 波特 literally sounds like “ha li po te,” with the “r” sound coming out like an “l.” In fact, when I say those syllables [...]

July 30th, 2009

Jessie’s pensieve: @ start of summer

In an effort to compile several small things that are on my mind, this will serve as small list of blog-worthy things happening now, that maybe work better when merely mentioned, and not stretched out for content’s sake (and therefore, in the danger zone “boring.” This is more of a personal blog than I usually [...]

May 30th, 2009

Wile E. Coyote and Apollo in space: eras past and future

I’ve just read the perfect illustration of what has happened to the United States; it came from the April 6, 2009 issue of Time magazine, and it was written by novelist and radio personality Kurt Anderson. “During the ‘80s and ‘90s,” he says, “we were Wile E. Coyote racing heedlessly across the American landscape at [...]

April 3rd, 2009

My bread-and-butter

Having finished the first half of the semester, I have finished writing one of the two main research papers that have been assigned to me this spring. The first was the easier one, and also the less interesting of the two. The second is the one I turn to now, to focus my attention and [...]

March 8th, 2009

Comprehension

Mandarin Chinese is both a thrill and a challenge to learn. Approaching it from the beginner’s end, it seemed daunting and exhausting and impossible. After all, there are thousands of characters to learn and comprehend by themselves; then characters can take on completely random meanings depending on the other words with which they are combined. [...]

March 4th, 2009

Computer play

This is what it looks like when Ben is making my site, and I am watching him, confused (and also silly). His computer captured the moment. Sweet! photo-22

July 5th, 2008