Tech Troubles

I haven’t been posting recently because of
a) broken camera
b) broken laptop
c) general busy-ness
d) all of the above

The correct answer would be D…sort of.

In the case of A, I was wandering around a couple weekends ago when I noticed that every photo I took that afternoon was extremely overexposed. I rechecked my morning photos, which looked fine, the ISO settings, which were normal, and every other setting I could think of, but I hadn’t changed anything that could explain the problem. After a little web research, I diagnosed the problem as a broken shutter, but now the question was how to fix it, if possible.

I asked around some of the ELC teachers, and fortunately Manuel had a recommendation for a good camera shop that would do the repair in Macau (instead of sending it to HK) and would charge me a fair price. It’s a bit out of the way, behind a school next to the Cinema Alegria, but the owner was very professional, calling me the next day with a repair price and an estimated date of completion. I thought about just giving up and buying a new camera, but I figure it’s worth paying the 530 MOP (about $67 USD) because it’ll extend the life of my camera another 2-3 years (this is the only problem I’ve had in its 4.5-year lifetime), and I’ll have a working camera faster than if I bought one online and had my family bring it over.

In the case of B, it’s not my laptop that’s the problem, it’s the charger. It’s been having connection issues for a while, but it was still working well enough when plugged in just the right way. However, just a couple nights ago, I was grading papers, when I suddenly noticed something flashing and sputtering under my desk. Yup, the charger was sparking. I quickly unplugged the surge protector it was in, then unplugged the charger after the sparks stopped, put it away, and haven’t touched it since. I borrowed Susan’s charger to backup my files one last time on to an external hard drive, but now my Dell is officially retired from service and I’m relying solely on my netbook. It’s a little annoying because the screen is smaller, and I no longer have programs like Photoshop readily available, but I can deal with it until I get home, since I need to get a new computer for med school anyway.

As for C, English Festival was last week (got photos off the ELC’s camera), and now we have prom on May 14, so it’s not letting up anytime soon. The EELC102 exam is just the day after, May 15, so we also have to hurriedly finish preparing our students for that…the reading material has been interesting (subcultures, cults, and potential issues in the future), but the advanced vocabulary and sentence structure has most of them struggling with comprehension. Don’t even get me started on the listening – when I asked my students if they wanted more practice listening exercises, it was actually a unanimous YES! Who ever heard of students asking for more work?!

English Festival redux!

This past week, all of us ETAs were running around for 72 hours straight (more or less) for the ELC’s Spring 2010 English Festival. For an idea of the jam-packed schedule, click the link above.

As in the fall, the festival’s purpose is to promote English learning as meaningful for students’ futures, and possibly even fun at times. The meaningful part was provided by a series of presentations ranging from “Traveling in English” and “Using English in the Workplace” (bringing in speakers from international corporations such as Disney and Boeing), while we ETAs provided most of the fun through activities such as Jeopardy!, a UM Amazing Race, Games Corner, and UM Idol Talent Show.

Opening ceremony ribbon-cutting

Traveling in English panel (thanks to GAs Tom/Karen and Tom's roommate Willem!)

Mock debate on "Women need men like fish need bicycles."

Joseph presenting on his experience as an exchange student at SIU Carbondale

Austin and Rex (one of the other ELC teachers) with students at Games Corner

Teams fighting to ring the bell first in Jeopardy!

UM Amazing Race was one of the new things we tried, partially inspired by our own Amazing Race during orientation week. We were mostly nice: the students didn’t have to go around Taipa and Macau, just around campus, but they had to complete various tasks at each stop, and some of these were harder than others. For example, unscrambling some words isn’t so difficult, but carrying a team member piggy-back…uphill…

Task: Identify flags of 7 countries at the World Expo and take a photo with Haibao =P

Task: Carry a team member up the hill from the sports center

Aiyaaa...falling down!

Secret task at the end: Say the English alphabet backwards!

UM Idol was also expanded slightly to encourage more participation – students could do things other than singing English karaoke songs (although many of them chose that anyway). However, some groups got more creative, e.g. a dramatic reading of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” and an English dub of a Chinese drama (with soundtrack!)

The Boy Who Cried Wolf (with super-cute folders!)

Annie and Adam dubbing "The Flirtatious Scholar"

PSP (Peer Support Program) - these guys can always be counted on to give a good show

Overall, it was fun but exhausting, so I’m glad it’s done. One event left…UM Prom in two weeks!

Viva Macau update

We were hoping to get our refunds by now, but instead, yesterday I received this letter from the Macau Consumer Council. The important excerpts are below, with semi-snarky comments interspersed:

“Dear Sir/Madam,

The Consumer Council has received a few hundred complaints against Viva Macau Airlines for the refund of flight ticket and claims for damages as a result of various flight cancellation by Viva…(Only a few hundred, really? That wouldn’t even be one plane, and at least 20 flights were cancelled so I’m sure they have many, many more unhappy people.)

However, Viva’s announcement of its office closure and subsequent cessation of business on 7th April 2010…rendered the liaison between Viva and our office and the follow-up actions for subsequent complaints unavailable. (Uh oh…)

Meanwhile, the arrangement of the refund of flight ticket and the related follow-up actions still remain uncertain, it casts doubt as to whether Viva would honour its promise to reimburse to the complainants within 1-2 weeks after flight cancellation (which was the verbal commitment made by Viva’s staff at the time of handling complainants’ refund procedures. As Viva has made no reply to the complainants’ complaints so far and its business being ceased, most complainants suspect fraud as a result of the non-compliance of the refund pledged by Viva. (Oh drat. I should have known that special fare was too good to be true!)

In view of this, pursuant to the regime of [insert law and section yadda-yadda], our office will refer the related complaint cases to the Judiciary Institutions for investigation. Should the Public Prosecution Office regard that there is sufficient evidence amounting to prosecution against Viva, you may pursue your claims for the refund and compensation under the civil litigation procedures.” (Wtf?! I have two months left in Macau – no way they’re going to move this fast enough for me to get a refund that way.)

In other words, it’s highly unlikely I’ll ever get my money back from Viva, not to mention the related costs of cancelling the hostel reservation/overnight bus tickets. My only other option (which I am currently pursuing) is filing a claim with the trip cancellation insurance that (thankfully) came automatically with my Mastercard, but that’s also going to take a while because they have to mail a claims form to my US address and then my family will probably have to fill it out for me and mail it back. The slightly tricky issue is proving the flights were canceled because of the carrier’s “financial inviability,” aka the carrier must have gone bankrupt, but considering Viva has pretty much disappeared off the face of the earth, that should count, right?

In the meantime, I was able to see sakura semi-vicariously through the photos of my two friends in Japan: Garrett and Kunmi. *sigh* Oh well, maybe next year I'll just take a short jaunt to Washington DC instead...

Sequins and ruffles and lace, oh my!

Seriously, every dress store seems to be sporting even more layers of tulle and chiffon than usual, not to mention sequins, embroidery, and ruffles galore. It’s something out of a prom dress-shopping nightmare…and people actually rent these for engagement/wedding photo sessions! (The first three photos are actually all from the same store.)

This could have been a nice top-and-skirt set...maybe.

Empire waist + tiered skirt = bad

Don't even get me started on this one...

The purple one isn't so bad, but it's half the skirt volume of the other two

The mannequin below is in the window of a relatively new shop named “Aegean,” right by Tap Seac Square. It has the most costume changes of any of the mannequins I know – something new almost every time I pass it. This particular one isn’t too bad (at least compared to the others above) but this shop seems to be hit-or-miss. Last week was an awful one-shoulder salmon pink number.

I guess what bothers me most about the formal-dress fashion culture here is that there is so much potential for it to be good, perhaps even haute couture (which can look equally ridiculous, but at least has some sense of artistry or a theme to each collection). Also, considering the plethora of high-end designer stores in every casino, you would think that Macanese designers would at least try to achieve some sense of elegance rather than sheer flamboyance. Here, the fabrics are gorgeous and the tailoring is precise, but the design concepts are simply…

…well, you fill in the blank. I’m frankly at a loss for words =P

Macao Science Center field trip

This morning, we took a group of UM students to the Macao Science Center, a sleek semi-cone designed by I.M. Pei, jutting out into the Macau-Taipa strait near Fisherman’s Wharf.
The planetarium dome

The main building (still under semi-construction)

Susan and I got there a little early, so while we were waiting, we saw several busloads of younger students coming for their own field trips. We couldn’t help but smile at the youngest ones: girls had plaid jumpers (with pockets) and the boys had little bow ties!
So cute!

We first went to see a 3-D planetarium show entitled “Dawn of the Space Age,” which was quite technically impressive: the theater is dome-shaped so the 3-D images really popped out, plus the seats vibrated during every rocket launch, so I guess it’s what some places might consider a “4-D” experience. The narration was mainly broadcast in Cantonese, but we tried to get the students to use the headsets that provide the (original) English narration…not sure how successful we were, because it was too dark inside to see if they were using them!

After a group photo in the atrium, we all split up to go wandering around the main exhibition space. The main building is kind of like the Guggenheim Museum in New York: a huge spiral with halls around the outside, so it was easy to just walk up the ramp and poke our heads into whatever looked interesting. I should note here that the exhibits are primarily aimed toward the 10-and-under set, but we still found many things of interest/amusement. Central display in the atrium

This young man got very good at tossing the balls into the whirlpool

Chibi-Newton!

Susan and Austin playing a jumping game (they tied)

A robot that would scurry away from antennae touches (but move forward if the back one touched the wall)

One of the halls I found most interesting was tucked away on the ground floor behind the rocket in the middle of the atrium: an exhibit on ancient Chinese technology. It included classics like a dragon/frog seismograph and printing blocks, but also some things I hadn’t seen before like an odometer, bamboo paper-making, and a multi-jar clepsydra (aka water clock).
Dragon rocket (inspiration for Mulan?)

A rather clunky odometer (used only for keeping track of how far the emperor traveled on his tours around the country)

The multi-level water clock (design circa 1316)

We finished the trip with lunch at the “Café I Kuong Chiu Fok II,” a little noodle shop on the corner of the NAPE area. Clearest sign of a good restaurant: you see lots of locals eating there. The fare here was simple: rice or regular noodles with a variety of toppings such as beef tendon, meatballs, curry chicken, or even intestine. Medium-bowls are 16 MOP, large ones are 21 MOP, and you can add pepper/chili flakes to suit your own level of spiciness. Simple, but filling =)

The Never-ending Curry

Sounds like something miraculous, no?

The reality is somewhat more mundane: I really like Thai curry, so when I saw some paste in the grocery store, I decided to give it a try. It didn’t sound too difficult: cook paste with coconut milk, then add whatever you want (vegetables, meat, etc.) and eat over noodles or rice. For the first round, I decided to use beef, onions, carrot, potatoes, and eggplant. Because I don’t go for super-spicy, I decided to add extra coconut milk to dilute the curry a bit more…

Eggplant chunks cooking nicely

Hence, the problem was not that the curry was bad (although the beef was awfully tough), but that there was too much of it! It took me 3 meals to finish the first round of meat/veggies, with enough sauce leftover for another round (I just kept it simple with carrots and cauliflower) that took me another two meals to finish. Despite the unappetizing color, it was quite tasty over udon noodles or with a piece of bread to wipe up the last of the sauce in the bowl.

Round 2: curry cauliflower and carrots

By the end of the sauce, I had been eating curry at either lunch or dinner for about a week heh. In general, my main problem cooking this year isn’t flavoring (although I could use a more varied spice rack), but correctly determining portion size =P This is also apparent from the corn soup experiment (3 bowls’ worth that took me 2 meals to finish) and the homemade chicken soup that also lasted about a week (with 2 rounds of vegetables)

Round 2 of chicken soup – the first had radish chunks instead of watercress

This week, I experimented with a vegetarian stir-fry (bamboo shoots, celery, mushrooms, and aged tofu) that stretched to 2.5 meals, eaten over egg noodles. (Another cooking note: if using canned bamboo shoots, maybe soak them in water for a day to dilute the pungent smell/taste.) Then again, it’s not really worth the effort of cooking just one portion at a time (except for easy things like pasta) so cooking double-batches makes my life easier…as long as I don’t run out of room in the fridge!

Aforementioned veggie/tofu stir fry