Ali’s Life

Well, the state tournament did not go well for my team. We ended up with a record of 0-2-1, which tied us for last place with Synergy (the team we tied). It was unfortunate and sad, but there’s always next year. Hopefully I will get to see my teammates for a golf and bbq party in May. Now that the hockey season is over my weekends seem suddenly very free. This weekend I am going to Matt & Kelly’s for a little party, but that’s all I have planned. It’s kind of relaxing. It’s good that I have free time this weekend, because I haven’t started on my Chinese homework for Monday yet. heh.

Last week Ethan and I went to Chicago. Ethan was doing a poster session at the EduCause conference and I was tagging along. I had never really been to Chicago before. I have driven through it, and I went to the out-skirts of Chicago for an orchestra trip in 9th grade, but this was my first time downtown. It is a pretty nice city. We had wonderful weather and a beautiful hotel, so it was overall very nice and relaxing. I got to see Yi, my good friend and roommate from college, and that was great. I hadn’t seen her since my wedding. We had a nice steak dinner then got drinks at this place with an amazing view of the city. That was definitely the highlight of the trip.

Now I’m back at work. Gustavus is approaching midterms, so things are a little busier than normal this week and next. The first week of April is spring break for students, but i still am working every day but Friday, which I am taking off so I can have an extra day at MiniCon (Minneapolis’s longest-running sci-fi convention). Last year Ethan and I took spring break off to travel to Japan, but this year we’re doing our main “vacation” after school is out, to go to the Star Wars Celebration IV in L.A. and then to Boston to visit friends, and New Hampshire for my cousin’s wedding. It should be a fun trip. I’m hoping to get a costume sewn for the Star Wars convention, but we’ll see if I have the time, what with work and class (I am still taking Chinese).

Well, that’s enough for now. Have a good weekend!

A lot has happened since I last posted, almost 2 moths ago. I don’t even know where to begin! The Chinese class I was teaching went very well and I was quite pleased at the progress the students were able to make in such a short time. I am really looking forward to the opportunity to travel to China next year with the Gustavus Orchestra. The details are still sketchy, but I believe we will be spending most of the time in Beijing, with a short trip to Guilin. It will be cold (we’re going in January!), but I love China and it will be so much fun to help introduce a large group of students to China and Chinese culture. (I am specifically excited about explaining squat-toilets. hehe) There are a few students who I have worked with who might be going, and they are both awesome, so that will be nice too. Also, hopefully Ethan will be able to come. Last time I went to China Ethan stayed home and was jealous of all the good food I was eating. So this time he really wants to tag along.

Also, since I last posted the regular hockey season has come to an end. We ended in 4th place (out of 12) with a record of 14-4-4. (good thing I’m not a superstitious Chinese person, or that would look really bad…) The state tournament starts in a week. We will play three games, against Synergy, Mystics and Blast, and our record in those 3 games will determine if we make it to the championship or consolation games. I hope we do well, although I’m nervous that we have forgotten how to play with 10 skaters and will get tripped up by that. We have a practice this weekend, hopefully we’ll get some good practicing done, practices are a bit hot-or-miss with us…

Other things that have happened since January… well, we had a great Lunar New Year celebration at my parent’s house, with lots of fun decorations and good food. I tried making steamed dumplings for the first time from scratch, and although I learned some lessons about not over-rising or over-steaming them, they were tasty. We also had Ethan’s home-made jiaozi (pork dumplings), mapo dofu, Chinese broccoli with garlic and oyster sauce, rice, and egg tomato soup. I will post pictures in the picture section soon!

Also, Ethan and I went to MarsCon last weekend. It was fun. The media guest of honor was Don S. Davis who played General Hammond on Stargate SG-1. It was cool to meet him (I spoke to him while waiting for an elevator) but he was a little weird. The story of how he just sort of fell into acting was pretty funny. Basically he got his first part because he was the only guy strong enough to lift the female lead (she was very tall), and he hadn’t wanted to be in a play at all, he just worked on the set. Anyway, it was interesting to hear him talk. And it was fun to see friends and meet new people at the con parties (we hosted a MiniCon party room, which was a nice laid-back party). I was really tired though, so it wasn’t the most exciting con ever.

The spring term is in full swing, both at Gustavus where I work, and at The U of MN, where I take an evening Chinese course. At work I’ve been helping/co-teaching/guest-lecturing in Mark’s Intro to East Asian history course. It has been fun, even if the class isn’t organized the way I would have chosen. Today we had a fun activity where the students debated the importance of the influence of China, Korean and indigenous culture on Early Japan. I think the Korean group won the debate, but they did have a debater on the team after all. In the class that I am taking at the U, we just had our mid-term on Wednesday, which was half oral (a 2-3 min presentation) and half written (listening, writing, and reading comprehension). It was not too bad, I am hoping for a good solid A. ^_^

Now I should get back to work. Hopefully I will get back into the habit of updating this website. I will be adding New Years pictures soon, and look for a new section coming towards the end of April.

It’s been a while since I last posted. The holidays have come and gone, and while they were generaly very nice, I was a bit stressed and am somewhat relieved that they are over. I got some very nice presents from my family, including a video iPod from Ethan that I loooove. (Although I’m far away from filling up and I keep forgetting to rip the videos I want and re-sync it.)

Now that it’s January, my J-term Chinese course has started. It is going really well. I am having a lot of fun teaching it and the students are learning really fast and seem to be having fun. We’re 2 chapters in right now with no problems, so it looks like we will be able to keep to my schedule without any problem. Actually, I almost feel like we could be going faster! I sort of wish I had kept that 6th chapter on the schedule. But 5 chapters in 3 1/2 weeks is still pretty good.

Tomorrow my class has a guest speaker, Zhao-laoshi! He was the prof who lead my seminar trip to China in 2002. The trip was really amazing (see “Tianjin Seminar” on my webpage for more). I really am looking forward to seeing what he does with my class. And I’m excited to havea day where I don’t have to really do any prep. heh.

Hockey-wise, there hasn’t been much going on since the last post. I played in my high school’s alumni game, which was fun. It was neat to see some of the people from high school, although it was too bad that there weren’t more people from the first few years. I was the only one from the first team there, and Trickey and I were the oldest ones there. I would love to see what some of the older alumni are doing now a days… Anyway, I also had an Arrows game this weekend, against ATvantage. We had beat them solidly before, so we were a little over-confident. We won 6-5, which was waaaaay to close for comfort. I played the first 2 periods as a forward (and got 2 assists) and the last period as a D. Tiring game, but I’m really glad we pulled it off. We’re tied for 3rd now with the Blast. MCM and the Mystics are ahead of us (Mystics are still undefeated. grrrr) We really can not aford to loose any more games if we want to be placed in the top 2. I would LOVE to get ahead of MCM this year.

Anyway, I should get back to work. Hopefully I will get back to posting a little more often, so stay tuned. ^_^

This weekend I had two nice dinners with my parents, brother, husband, cousin and cousin’s fiance. The first was yummy Jewish food, for which I made pinapple kugel. The whole thing was wonderful, and I really want to try making latkes now (my mom made them this time, and they were really good). For the other dinner Ethan and I made some simple Chinese food, including garlic Chinese broccoli (芥蓝/芥兰). Yummy. I am really excited about the Chinese broccoli because I had never made it before and it was both easy and yummy. It would be even better with a little oyster sauce though. Mmmmm…

I also had 2 hockey games this weekend. The first was on Friday against Synergy. We tied 1-1, it was a really close game, and although I felt a little all over the place, it was a fun one. I look forward to a re-match! The second game was against the Rebels, and we won 3-2. I got to play center, which was fun, but also a bit strange feeling since I haven’t played center for like 3 years. I got an assist that game on Steph’s second goal, and ended the game +1 overall. That was agreat victory, because the Rebels had been undefeated this season so far. Woo! Go Arrows!

Only one more day of finals for Gustavus students. I am looking forward to the later half of the week, when the campus is quiet and I can spend all day prepping for J-term without interruption. I am also looking forward to getting my Chinese final over with tonight. I think I have the vocab down pretty good, now as long as I don’t trip over grammar I should be ok. Wish me luck!

I came down with a cold at the end of last week, but I can’t let that slow me down! This time of year is just too busy for that! Because I work at a college, finals time is a busy time for me too. There are a bunch of Spanish classes doing projects that use the programs in my lab, so my days can get crazy when a bunch of them all decide they need help at the same time.

I also have my own Chinese finals to worry about. I had the oral final last week, which went well, I think. I have a written final on Monday too. Wish me luck! Right now I’m getting something like a B, but I would really like an A in this class. We’ll see how it goes. I’m definately gonna get an A next semester though, if I keep working as hard as I am now.

This weekend I had 2 hockey games. The first one was tense, but good. We beat MCM 1 - 0, which was a great victory for us, as we have lost to them in past seasons. On sunday we were 2 players short and tired as hell, and subsequently lost to the Mystics 2 - 4. No goals for me this weekend, but I did have a positive plus/minus in both games, which is always a good sign. Next weekend we play Synergy and the Rebels. Synergy is new, and we get to play them at Ridder, so I’m excited about that game. The Rebels *should* be a clean “W” for us, but let’s not count our chickens before they hatch.

Other events on the horizon include my cousin visiting from out of state, the Hopkins Girls alumni hockey game, and, of course, the holidays. I’m tired just thinking about it! ^_^ It should be a good December, and an AMAZING January. Definately no time to let a little head cold get me down!

This past weekend I had two hockey games, one on Saturday against the U of M, and another on Sunday against the Ravens. We won the Saturday game 9-0 and I scored one goal. We lost the Sunday game 2-5. It was a chaotic game and we made some sloppy mistakes, but mostly I think we were ust tired from the day before.

Today I spent a fair amount of time updating both my personal site and my other site, which is a bit more professional. I like knowing that if somebody looks me up online they will find something that I took the time to carefully create and put out there, not just something random.

As we get near the Thanksgiving break I am thinking more and more about my January Term course. I am really looking forward to teaching at the college level. It should be a very different experiance from teaching Chinese at Senlinhu. I am having a blast going over my materials and making lesson plans. I still need have much to do, but I think I have a good pace going.

Have a happy Thanksgiving!!

This sunday my team, the Arrows, had our first normal season game. It was an away game against the Ice Breakers, and we tied 3-3. Last season we beat them both times, so it was pretty disapointing that we tied them this weekend. But we did play really well on offense, it was mostly defenisve break-downs that cost us those 3 goals. Personally I had a fairly good game, I got a goal from a shot from the point, and I ended the game +1 overall. I really hope I can continue to score this season, even though I play defense I feel like I get a lot of opportunities. Hopefully we will fare better next weekend when we play the Ravens. (FYI: I have started posting scores for this season in the hockey section of my site as well)