belu ma bung lek

belu ma bung lek
Originally uploaded by jlovegren.

i feel lost all the time because this place is so ethnic. so let's say you want to take your macaroni and cheese and forty for the evening meal, but you can't, because it's like some kind of cultural thing that people don't use the yellow cheese packets. i have to understand their way of life, but it's like their tradition that they don't drink forties, they only drink something called 33, which i find just a little bit hard to accept. i think this sort of discovery you like don't even see if you stay in your own environment. like you gotta consider the cultures.

the colourful chinese

oh, I will complain about how it is a fucked up idea to have single kids for an entire generation, so the book will be banned. it's quite sad to be banned in China when there is a huge market. just from the financial point of view

tempus loquendi, tempus tacendi

i have a private joke: whenever someone is trying to remember a person's name i suggest to them that it's "your only son, michael" or i imagine myself suggesting it, which is even funnier still because of the prospect of being asked why i'm laughing and i have to explain that i was hoping for you to say "my only son, michael" but you didn't. then i have to go on to explain that one time i saw a woman holding a gossip magazine that said ...après le pert de son unique fils, Michel...
an explanation that leads to further explanation is not the kind of explanation people like to hear. you should rest your explanation on things that no one cares to investigate.

jusqu'a nos jours

i found some colonial era publications on google books, but many are written in german, which does not decipher itself easily
Urwald-dokumente: Vier Jahre unter den Crossflussnegern Kameruns
then another:
Methodo practico para fallar a lingua da Lunda which makes reference to Collecção de observações grammaticaes sobre a lingua bunda this dating back to 1805.

i went to the US embassy. it was a room of people from villages that were getting money to build a classroom or a well or something of the sort. they gave us money and spent about three hours warning us about the different ways that the money would be considered embezzled and our villages go on the red list. i thought there would be refreshments but there were only groundnuts and i can have all the groundnuts i want outside of the embassy. then again they gave me some money but the money is only to be used for cement and sheet metal. after the walls are plastered i can hang up the poster showing how a municipal water system works that a kind department of something employee sent to me.

i found out additionally that sheep are generally not raised in lewoh (although they are raised in lebang and ndungated) because they cause infertility in the man who raises them. the guinea pig cage i made had floor in the hole secured by some rubber cord, but a child stole the rubber to make a slingshot for himself and a bush dog or domestic cat or wayward child took the animals one by one so they are gone. i would have prevented the whole thing if i had bought more chicken wire. i bought some more last weekend but now i need to get new animals. this time they will be rabbits. on the way back we reached a spot in the road where a truck that must have been carrying about 50 tons or more of some cargo created a hole about a metre deep and three metres wide and it rained all night to fill the hole with muddy water. in the middle of the road next to this hole another truck carrying about 50 tons of cocoa beans was stuck. the driver was sleeping between rows of cassava and one of his mechanics, wearing one of those minstrel hats that gangsters wear and mud up to his knees was very patiently working with a pick axe to level out the road under the truck. on the far side of the road a four door corrola full of bootleg nigerian gasoline was stuck in the mud profoundly. two women's groups pulled up. one group were ewondo people saying chez les anglos c'est toujours comme ça. ils essaient avant qu'ils ne sachent.... et la route ... c'est quoi?. the other group was church singers. the way we made it through was first about five guys stood in the hole full of mud and cars would pass (three did so) on the slope leading up from the hole to the side of the cocoa truck stuck in the middle. the men held the side of the car to prevent it from falling into the hole and flipping over. once they got past the hole they would almost hit one of the cars that was waiting behind the petrol smugglers. after two hours the petrol smugglers had been dug out and we managed to pass through place where they were stuck. so i think i'll replace them with rabbits.

ain't a day goes by i don't burn a little bit of my soul

Q. How should you discuss this issue with your colleague?

A. If you have a good relationship, talk face-to-face, privately. Offer suggestions instead of criticisms and be sincere.

No, pero pensándolo francamente, lo más absurdo de estas vidas que pretendemos vivir es su falso contacto. Órbitas aisladas, de cuando en cuando dos manos que se estrechan, una charla de cinco minutos, un día en las carreras, una noche en la ópera, un velorio donde todos se sienten un poco más unidos (y es cierto, pero se acaba a la hora de la soldadura). Y al mismo tiempo uno vive convencido de que los amigos están ahí, de que el contacto existe, de que los acuerdos o los desacuerdos son profundos y duraderos. (Cortázar, Rayuela)

Ondi Fuo Saa

Ondi Fuo Saa
Originally uploaded by jlovegren.

I was in this presentation that the University had organised so there was free pizza. This must have been why I went because I don't know what happened in that presentation. The only incident I do recall is that one guy below me and to the right (the room sat about 100 people with each row of seats higher than the next) asked a professor, a short guy in a suit who was British (and I only think so because his name was probably Ian or Nigel) what he thought of working because they give you money and you can go out in the evenings to spend the money since you have no tests to study for. When he said that I thought about how it would be nice to have that kind of life: going out in the evenings. I imagined having coworkers and we would do things like karaoke and eating suishi and one of those bars where you play darts and mark your score with a piece of chalk after taking the darts out of the cork.

fuotenatu gallus

fuotenatu gallus
Originally uploaded by jlovegren.

That is why I am a graphic artist. I got hired by an advertising company doing photoshop; whitening teeth, removing blemishes, patching bald spots and the like. I was bored and I even smoked cigarettes for six weeks. I quit when I noticed how annoyed I was when I noticed my pack was empty. I'm milk-mannered. I would have stayed with the advertising job but my cousin found a new job for me because my mom told my aunt that I was bored at work and it became a family crisis for lack of any actual crisis. I don't even like my cousin but we are all to obey our Aunties with their crackpot schemes.

muanke simon

muanke simon
Originally uploaded by jlovegren.

Now I am still a graphic artist, but I do still designs and animations for video game companies. I was afraid I wouldn't be fit for the job when I started, but things have turned out well. I was promoted to a position with more responsibility in the San Francisco office. If you wanted you could trace this fear back to when I was nine years old. Franco del Moreno, who was a kickball star--he once kicked the ball so far that it want into the parking lot and set off a car alarm. The outfielder who went to get the ball was in trouble for being late since this play was just as recess was ending. The field was empty by the time he had started to crawl under a car to get the ball--and had curly hair, was drawing a ninja turtle. I told him that I draw best figures of only straight lines. He told me that he once drew a picture of Yogi Bear with only straight lines and as chance would have it it was pretty cool. This mark would have discouraged me since he would have said it casually. That's only if you want a reason. When you remember, you have to support one memory with another or else memories are stranded and you can only think of them by chance.

afouh business centre

afouh business centre
Originally uploaded by jlovegren.

Something strange happened this week. I was working overtime so the office was almost empty. I like to work overtime on occasion because it is a good way to make friends. If there are only two of you in the office it is much easier to start a conversation and this way I have company for dinner every now and then. One of the HR people sent me an instant message saying that the boss had left two guinea pigs in his office and would be unable to attend to them since he was travelling. I asked why this should concern me and she said that the boss had great confidence in me and only spoke highly of me, usually mentioning my dynamic problem-solving. This was out of the blue because I have only spoken to the boss once. It was to ask him about a report that he needed from my department. He just looked at me and smiled, then made some general remark like "how the days pass," not addressed to anyone in particular. I thought he was referring to the deadline so I said that we were ahead of schedule and that I'd see to it that he got an advance copy. I was nervous and I forgot my question. He had turned his attention to something on his desk and I walked back to my cubicle, which we are required to call a workstation.

in a church during a rainstorm

in a church during a rainstorm
Originally uploaded by jlovegren.

I went to the boss' office and found a bag hanging from the hat rack. It looked like the kind of plastic sack that you buy rice in but it was broader and had holes cut in the top to serve as handles. When I entered the bag shook a bit because the animals were startled. I went to the HR department with the bag and asked the girl there--it was xang. People thought I would be her boyfriend because she's also viet but I am scared to talk to her because she is pretty and everyone says she's on drugs and goes to raves--what she thought guinea pigs like to eat. She had on her desk a paper bag that said organic and corn on it. It was folded neatly at the top. She unfolded it and took out a chip and ate it, then closed the bag, neatly folding it like it was before. She said that they eat guinea pig food, but it would be OK to use hamster or gerbil food for a few days, though one couldn't be sure. I told her thanks and went back to my computer. I googled guinea pig and learned that they are indigenous to south american and are fattened on cassava leaves and the peels of unripe plantains. I watched a short video about the evolution of rodents. I found out that they evolved powerful jaws to be able to gnaw through the shells of seeds.

fuo saa ma mangwi fuo saa

fuo saa ma mangwi fuo saa
Originally uploaded by jlovegren.

I ended up putting them in a cardboard box in the basement. I drove to this store called El Guanaco that sells plantains. I bought five of them and put them in the box. I didn't peel them because the internet says they eat the peels. It also said that they get all the water they need from their food so I didn't need to leave water. I emailed a summary of this to the boss and cc'ed xang, then went home.

hoje sou ladrao

i revised the plans then sharpened the chisel. then the lights went off. i chiseled joints into the ends of four pieces with my cell phone in my mouth and quit when my lips hurt being caught between teeth and a phone. i made the frames for the two ends and went to bed. in the morning i finished everything and by noon i had a skeleton of a cage. i nailed chicken wire around the edges and thought about how a floor is necessary. i improvised one of one of those polyethylene sacks that holds 50 kilos of rice or flour. i entered into a corporate supper of goat wherein ten gentlemen pitched in and got a goat. after the woman who prepared it took her levy we all had about 1.5 kilos of meat to eat. i had two pieces each bigger than a turkey leg. i ate one. since i had found 25 000 francs that i had lost i bought a crate of beer for the group. then i transferred them to their cage and worried about them gnawing through the floor. i looked at them and they looked stupid like rabbits. everyone forgets the name and mixes them up with rabbits so i got to thinking how they must be similar to rabbits. yet they're rodents. i looked up in the french dictionary cobaye, (a word of amerindian origin): an animal frequently used in laboratory experiments. the secondary definition is a person chosen to be the first to undergo an experience. also called cochon d'inde. the spanish dictionary defined cobaya as a mammal belonging to the order of rodents, native to brazil. the word roedor means one who gnaws. i got worried then i looked up conejo: a rodent mammal with long ears and a short tail. so rabbits are also rodents and they don't know holes in things. they really loved this urine soaked box but i threw it away this week.