October Podcast

Inspired by my favorite podcasters Mano Lopez and the Homemade Show, and by the shortage of music here that I like, I decided I would start doing a podcast. I figured I could do one once a month or every other month, and I put together most of this playlist one week in October. After a short delay, I now present to you my first podcast. You can expect January's podcast in mid-March.

October: 故乡何处是?

The Chinese question in the title means "Where is my hometown?" and it's a quote from Li Qingzhao, a poet who moved from Shangdong province to Zhejiang in the 1100s when the north was engulfed in war.

Playlist:
Solo - Theo Torres
Happy Birthday - ZJNU Student Choir
水云间 (Water Cloud Space (?)) - 童孔 (Tong Kong)
呼吸 (Breathing) - 常静 (Chang Jing)
La Vida es un Carnaval - Issac Delgado
Y Soy Llanero - Grupo Cimarrón
Chicharra - Marta Gomez
Damaquiel - Hector Buitrago et al.
Amortiguador - Andrea Echeverri
Acochado Todo - Almir Rouche
Mindjer Dôce Mel - Eneida Marta
The Easy Way - That Mad Ahab
Stay in New England - Mimi LaValley
Leaves that are Green - Simon and Garfunkel

play

High-Fashion Underwear

You know that cozy feeling of sitting by a campfire with a hot cup of chocolate in your hands, feeling the warmth on your face and the cold mountain air at your back? Well, take away the fire and the hot chocolate, and imagine instead that you're teaching a class.

It's gotten a little colder here recently. And the classrooms, like the student dorms, have no heating. Last weekend in Hangzhou (which I will have to post about later, but I understand now how it could claim to be the prettiest city in China), I bought a new coat, perhaps warmer than anything ever owned before, and I've sometimes been wearing it while teaching.

Tonight I went out and bought some long underwear. The attendant assured me that the ones I got are very fashionable, and a very nice color. They come in a fancy box, with schmancy tags.* The biggest size they had is one size too small (the same situation as for slippers), but they're larger than the set I left in California, which must have been bought for me when I was shorter, and then have shrunk. So hopefully I will feel more comfortable when I go out now, but the local paparazzi had better keep their cameras ready for me sporting my high-fashion underwear.

*This was a test: Is this usage of the schmefix ungrammatical? Did you go "Huh?" when you read this sentence?