Item 1 for today: There's a new renewable energy source coming out of California that doesn't involve depleting the world's food supply. According to this article, an energy company in the state will begin using cow manure to harness the energy from the methane gas. As long as I don't have to live near the power plant, I'm all for this green (or brown) energy source. I only say this because I live across from the cow pastures my freshman year in college--it was pretty foul. Now, if they can just come up with a way to harness the energy of the figurative bullshit we'd have an endless supply of renewable fuel coming out of Washington.
Item 2: Brett Favre retired. Packer fans are distraught because they thought he'd just die on the field and win the Superbowl. Well, maybe not quite like that. Anyway, I'm glad he retired this year and didn't drag out his decision. He had a good season and went out in style. He may not have won the big game, but he had a fine final year. I wish more athletes would call it quits while they still have life in them. I wouldn't be surprised if we see Favre as a coach in a few years.
Item 3: Back to school. Three days of teaching are finished so far. I've been trying to get my students to talk about their month-long holidays. It's not easy. It seems like most Chinese don't really talk about their vacations much, but they're always interested in other people's. Asking them questions about their families and friends and Spring Festival activities is like pulling teeth.
I did make one discovery about language in class today. I had suspected it earlier. Many students in China get confused when using adjectives such as bored and boring and any others that are used in a similar manner. The reason being that they use the same word in Chinese to express both. Unfortunately, there isn't an easy way to correct the problem, only to identify it.
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