Month: July 2017

30-Day Minimalist Challenge, Part 1

Originally, I planned on writing another tea post for today, but my general lack of inspiration forced me to change my plans. I came across a 30-day minimalist challenge a couple months ago, and I’ve been working on the mini-challenges throughout July. I’ll share the first 10 challenges today, and post the remaining two-thirds in a couple of weeks. I invite you to try this challenge for yourself, I’ve found it quite relaxing. I took pretty pictures for the post, but since I didn’t plan to post this while traveling, I left the photos at home. Please forgive my plain text post~

 

Stay off social media all day

At the time I started this challenge, I was using my phone more heavily than usual. Without school or work to keep be busy, I spent hours texting friends or aimlessly scrolling through Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. It happened to be a Saturday when I started the challenge, and ever since I’ve been trying to create media-free Saturdays. I had so much more free time on my hands when I wasn’t using my phone of scrolling through feeds. I started learning a new skill. In the future, I’ll be more strict about my media-free Saturdays.

 

Meditate for 15 minutes

To be honest, I kind of failed at this one. The first time I attempted the challenge I forgot to meditate; the second time my mind as racing. I eventually just started counting my prayers as meditation. Considering there are at least 5 in a day, and each one is at least 5-10 minutes, I get about 40 minutes of “meditation” in each day. I find that the regular prayer/meditation punctuates my day and helps me mark the time.

 

Declutter your digital life

My phone and desktop are already organized. I don’t like to see too many icons on my screen. I make extensive use of folders and only keep the most frequently accessed folders and apps on my screen. To further declutter my devices, I went through every folder on my phone and got rid of apps I don’t use anymore, then I went through each folder on my bookmarks bar and deleted the bookmarks I no longer needed. I had bookmarks dating back to high school. Some of them were of recipes and clothing. I used Pinterest to save the items I wanted to keep. Now all of my bookmarks fit neatly under my browser’s search bar. I never have to hunt for a link anymore.

 

Don’t complain all day

This challenge reminded me of one of my friends. She’s constantly complaining about something, be it work, school, or social life. I listen to them like the dutiful sounding board I am, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t sometimes get annoyed at the constant complaints. Seeing as I spend most of my time around the house these days, I don’t have much to complain about. To make Day 4 more challenging, I decided that I would not even express dissatisfaction. If I thought mom kept the house too cold,  I would simply put on a jacket. If I thought my meal needed more salt, I would just add it. After doing this I realized how many unnecessary complaints there are in a day. Most situations are simple fixes. If we spend less time vocalizing the minor complaints, people will take our major complaints more seriously, and will be more willing to help us solve the problem.

 

Identify 3-6 top priorities

I decided to name broad categories of commitments for this challenge. In relative order, they are: religion, health, finances and dreams. By narrowing my focus, I can funnel any other additional commitment through this lens, and determine whether it will advance me in one of the categories. Under each priority, I listed a few ways I could improve myself or other in those categories.

 

Follow a new morning ritual

I tried and failed this one so many times that I gave up. I don’t really like following a ritual first thing in the morning. There are things that I do pretty much every morning though. I’ll check for any important messages and make a note to respond to them first when I’m ready to start my day. Afterwards I usually get up, drink water, brush my teeth, and have breakfast (sometimes I have breakfast before I brush my teeth). I consider my day officially started when I have made my bed, and I always make by bed after I’ve eaten. Folding the covers makes me less likely to go back to sleep (it doesn’t stop me from sleeping on the couch or the floor, but at least I think twice about sleeping once my bed is made).

 

Streamline your reading list

…Pahahahaha telling a bookworm to streamline their reading list is like telling an child to stop using their imagination. I didn’t streamline my reading list. Rather, I selected a few that I absolutely wanted to get read by the end of the summer and made a list in order of importance. I’ve been chipping away at the list ever since, and posting the reviews here (hence the seemingly random selection these days). Having a shortlist has kept me focused and relatively on track. If I didn’t have to handle business in other cities this past week, I’d probably have knocked two more off the list.

 

Take more time for solitude

I’m alone pretty often, but for this challenge I decided to block out time where I wouldn’t answer my phone. My friends are already used to the time lapses between my responses, so they weren’t too bothered by the strange new gaps. This particular brand of solitude felt forced, though. I think I should try to have more regular, focused solitary time.

 

Downsize your beauty collection

I don’t wear much makeup as it, but I threw out makeup that I don’t wear or that was too old.

 

No email/media until lunch

The email part was pretty easy, because I don’t like to check my email until I’m on my computer, but resisting the urge to look at Twitter first thing in the morning was a struggle. I managed but I definitely felt the pull. I tend to scroll in the morning to see if I missed any important updates during the night, and I scroll throughout the day when I’m bored. I realized that I’ve become hopelessly addicted to social media this summer. I’m better about it when I’m busy, but when I don’t have a schedule to follow, I tend to waste a lot of time. I’ve made a note to change this habit.

 

Evaluate your commitments

I grouped my commitments into two main categories: self and others. Under myself I listed my priorities and chose one action item to focus on for each priority. I’ve been working on these solidifying these new habits and completing the action items throughout the month. The “others” category has three subgroups: friends, family, strangers. I essentially wrote these out to remind myself to be kind and patient with everyone, no matter who they are or what their relationship is with me. In both the friends and family categories I listed one action I can do that will improve my relationships. For the sake of privacy, I won’t list the items here, but I think I’m making pretty decent progress.

Move Along, Folks. Nothin’ to See Here

college unbound cover
New Harvest, 2013. 256 pgs.

College (Un)bound: The Future of Higher Education and What it Means for Students

By: Jeffrey J. Selingo

 

Oh dear Lord, where do I even begin with this book? I considered not even giving it a review. After all, I didn’t receive it as an ARC copy; I bought it with my own money. Then I figured I can’t only review books I actually like. I need to review the good, the bad and the ugly, especially when it comes to books about my favorite topics: the U.S. education system, science and technology, religion and health. I actually bought College (Un)bound several years ago, right after it hit the stores, but it stayed on my shelf until I found the time and energy to read it.

 

As the title promises, College (Un)bound is an investigation of the problems with U.S. higher education and some of the approaches various firms are taking to solve them. While the information in the book was decent, none of it was new or surprising. I tried to pretend I was back in 2013 and the advances that have happened since then didn’t yet exist, but it was fruitless. The fact of the matter is, not very much has changed in U.S. higher education in the last 4 years. This book added nothing to my life, because I knew all of the issues it discussed. I will give Selingo credit for discussing some of the solutions. Although they mostly fell along the same vein of thought (separating the college degree from the “college experience” and moving at least part of the education system online), I hadn’t heard of some of the companies, and I plan on checking them out.

 

For some people, the information in the book may be a revelation; people who do not have family members who have been to college may benefit from the book. It’s possible that people whose family members have attended uni for hundreds of years without taking a critical look at the system may also benefit from reading College (Un)bound. I, however, fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. A couple of my aunts, uncles and cousins have graduated from college, and my parents have pursued at least some form of education after high school. The expectation, though, is that my younger sister and I would attend uni, no matter what. By the time I graduated high school, I already knew I didn’t want to go to uni, but I didn’t seem to have much of a choice.

 

In the spring of 2009, I became extremely ill. Actually, I felt fine before I went to the hospital and the doctors started injecting poisons into my system, but that’s neither here nor there. My parents and I decided that I was not strong enough to attend high school full time (I would have been a freshman). Instead, I attended classes when  I could, but I spent the majority of my freshmen and sophomore years either at home or in the hospital. My high school sent a special education teacher to my house to administer my tests, tutor me, and take my homework. Despite being so ill at times I couldn’t even stand, those two years were the best years of my life in terms of education. I’ve always been a reader, and I understood more of the lessons when I read them and worked out the problems on my own. I got ahead of the curriculum and actually enjoyed my educational experience. I was dangerously underweight, but I felt like I was learning much more than I ever had before. In those two years, I realized classroom-bound teachers don’t really do much for me. I carried that attitude with me all the way through uni. The final two years of high school were bad, but the following four years of uni were worse. To this day, I’ll always consider uni the “straw that broke the camel’s back.” By the time my last year or uni rolled around, I was broken. I’m still putting the pieces back together. Reading College (Un)bound actually helped me heal a little. I had to read it slowly because I’m battling serious uni-related PTSD but each time I survived a uni-related panic attack brought on by the book, I grew a little stronger. I realized that if I survived the first 21 unpleasant years of my life, I can deal with whatever else life throws my way.

 

My background means I’m probably not the target audience for College (Un)bound. My experience taught me the exact same thing the book would have, though the book would have been decidedly easier to digest than the events of my past. If you’re someone who absolutely loved uni, good for you, but perhaps you could take some time to see what other people are experiencing. The U.S. education system is geared towards a certain type of student, and doesn’t care about those of us who do not fit in its box. If you’re a student who already knows they don’t fit in the box, reading this book may help you expand your options. My biggest piece of advice is this: if you don’t feel you’re ready to go to university, don’t do it. Start working or take a constructive gap year, but don’t force yourself into uni. If you force yourself to go to uni when you know it isn’t right for you, you’re setting yourself up for heartache. You can always go to uni later; there’s no hurry.

 

I’ll admit that the information in College (Un)bound is pretty solid. I didn’t fact check every little detail I came across, but the overall themes seemed to check out. I will point out one major flaw in the book, though. There’s an entire chapter dedicated to us “lazy college-going millenials.” While I don’t doubt that there are some millenials who don’t want to do the work to learn what they need to, there are some of us who are driven and knowledge-hungry. I belong in the latter category, but when placed in the classroom setting, I look like I belong in the former category. Lazy/bored/annoyed college kids are a symptom of a broken system, not the cause of it. Besides, why would we bother going to a class in which the professor just reads the book aloud? We can do that on our own time, and Google concepts we’re unfamiliar with. College (Un)bound doesn’t seem to take into account just how tech savvy my generation is. We can use almost any device placed in front of us without so much as a glance at the user’s manual, and we know how to find reliable information at breakneck speeds. Because our professors are usually so much older than us, I don’t think they’ve fully grasped the power of the internet.

 

I’m giving College (Un)bound a two-star rating, because the information is solid but it’s outdated. The book is also incredibly boring. If you want something to read before bed, this is your book.  Here’s a link to College (Un)bound on Goodreads and Amazon, should you decide to check it out.

 

北斗(Bei Dou, Lost Robe), My New Tea Bae

Some time ago, I was fortunate enough (read: persistent enough) to win a voucher for some tea at Mei Leaf (pronounced “may leaf”). Up until that point, I’d been following Mei Leaf on YouTube for almost a year. If you read my review on The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane,  you know I’m nothing short of a tea fanatic. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to return to China to work after I finished uni, and I needed to find other places to get reasonably priced Chinese tea. Don and his team at Mei Leaf do a wonderful job of not only marketing Mei Leaf, but also of educating the tea-drinking community about the tea itself, along with dropping tidbits of Chinese tea culture. If you’re interested in that sort of thing, check out their YouTube channel, or follow them on basically any social media outlet available to you (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook). You’ll be a connoisseur in no time.

 

Bei Dou tea arrangement

With my voucher, I decided to buy Bei Dou (pronounced “bay dough”), which I’ll discuss below,  and Hu Xiao Qi Lan (“who see-ow chee lan”) which is also known as “Summer Haze.” I generally refer to teas by their Chinese names, because that’s the way I know them best, but where applicable I will also include the English names and the Chinese characters somewhere in the post (I plan on doing a series of tea reviews). Mei Leaf calls Bei Dou Yi Hao (北斗一号) “Lost Robe,” though I also found sources referring to Bei Dou as “North Star.” I’m not that familiar with this particular cultivar of tea, so I welcome clarification on the subject. [Edit: I checked the Mei Leaf website and it seems they also have Bei Dou listed as “North Star,” I suppose they also decided to give it a store name.]

 

Regardless of their English names, both Bei Dou and Hu Xiao Qi Lan are both types of rock/cliff oolong. This means that they come from Wuyi (“oo-yee,” 武夷山 )Mountain in China’s Fujian (“foo-jee-in”) Province. There are many different kinds of cliff tea, the most prized of which is probably Da Hong Pao, or Lost Red Robe. Cliff teas are characteristic for their aroma and warm flavors. The smoke used in the processing of cliff teas often imparts a deep, earthy flavor and depending on the particular cultivar you might detect notes of fruit, fudge, or honey. I’ll discuss Hu Xiao Qi Lan more in another post. For now, I’ll focus on Mei Leaf’s Bei Dou. I drank a spring 2016 variety of Bei Dou, which means the tea is fairly young. It’s not uncommon to get cliff teas that are about a year old, but if stored properly, cliff teas get better with age. One of these days I may try aging teas myself, but I’m hopelessly in love with cliff teas, which means I can never manage to keep them in the house. I brew at least 5 grams of tea per day, and if I’m taste testing, I might drink upwards of 15 or 20 grams. I try not to drink that much tea though, because after about 10 grams (which makes about 5 or 6 hefty cups of tea) I start to feel lightheaded (lightheadedness a symptom of drinking large amounts of high-quality tea).

 

For reference, I used clean tap water because it tastes better in tea than the filtered water that comes from the refrigerator. Filtered water in the U.S. has a bit of a chlorinated flavor, and in my area the tap water is clean enough to drink anyway, especially after I’ve boiled it. I’m not quite sure why the water from the tap tastes different, but the reason most likely has something to do with the minerals in tap water.  I used 8 grams of tea in a standard 100 ml gaiwan. I played around with the brewing temperature but found Mei Leaf’s recommended 99C (just below boiling) temperature to be perfect. Hotter water produced a sour burnt coffee flavor while cooler water produced flat-bodied tea. To boil the water, I just put it in a kettle on the stove. Before brewing the tea, I inspected the leaves. They were long, dark, and somewhat twisted, which is what you would expect of high-quality cliff oolongs. Though the tea came packaged in what was essentially cardstock and plastic, Mei Leaf included an oxygen absorber to prevent the tea from oxidizing. This is extremely important, as over oxidized tea has sub-par flavor.

 

Dry Bei Dou Leaves
Dry Bei Dou Leaves

To smell the aroma of the leaves, I wet the gaiwan with the near-boiling water, then poured that water into a fairness pitcher (gong dao bei, 公道杯). After pouring the water out, I put the leaves in the gaiwan, closed it, and gave it a shake. I lifted the lid and took a big whiff. The leaves smelled like chocolate cake and tiramisu. They were earthy but did not smell like soil. The leaves smelled more like clean, dry Earth, or perhaps like the embers of a fire. Once I’d noted the smell of the dry leaves, I poured water into the gaiwan and brewed the tea. I’ll make a post later about brewing tea with a gaiwan using the gongfu method. I wouldn’t recommend it for all teas, but it certainly helps bring out the flavor of Chinese teas. After pouring the brew into the fairness pitcher, I once again smelled the leaves. The moisture transformed the aroma. This time the leaves smelled more life firewood and less like chocolate. There were hints of fruit, though I could not figure out which fruit I detected.

bei dou tea liquor
Bei Dou tea liquor

 

The first brew of the tea tasted like coffee, chocolate, and red fruit all mixed together. I chose the color red arbitrarily, but that was the feeling I got, and I associate “red fruit” with a particular flavor. Something like candied hawthorn. There was absolutely no bitterness in the tea, and the overall flavor was very dark. Bei Dou’s flavor matured with each subsequent brew. The warm fruit notes evolved into a more fully bloomed warm candy flavor. The “mouth feel,” while not very thick, was quite satisfying.  I experimented with different infusion times for this tea and found that for Bei Dou it’s best not to rush the brewing. While sometimes I do a lot of quick, successive brews, I found that with Bei Dou it’s best to let the water rest a little bit between filling the gaiwan and pouring it out. The color of the tea liquor was exactly as I’d expected; It was a somewhat clear brownish-red. I would have like the color to be a bit more vibrant, but what the tea lacks in color it makes up for in flavor.

 

I’m incredibly impressed by this tea. My experience with buying Chinese teas in the west had not been positive until I came across Mei Leaf. Previously I’d purchased Harley and Sons Lapsang Souchong and found the tea to be so unpalatable I threw it out. I’m glad I’ve found at least one place that sells pretty good tea. Thank you, Mei Leaf.

Click here to navigate to the Bei Dou product page.

A Nerdy Book for Nerdy People

In the Plex Book cover
Simon & Schuster. 2011. 432 pgs.

In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes our Lives

By: Steven Levy

This review comes 6 years after In the Plex hit the market, but when I saw this book in a friend’s room, I knew I had to read it. I’m not that familiar with Steven Levy, though I do have his Hackers on my TBR shelf. I was interested in finding out how the search engine that has essentially corned the market came into existence. I’ve used Google’s competitors, including Yahoo! and Bing, but I haven’t found any of them to be as useful as Google (for a while I used Bing when I needed to find images, but Google’s image search has since improved, and I’m now pretty swift at scrolling through Flickr, Google Images, and Wikimedia Commons for images I need).

 

In the Plex also caught my eye because googolplex is my favorite number. I’ve always had at least a passing interest in science and technology, and one day in fourth grade I read a book about numbers that introduced me to “googolplex.” A googol is a “1” followed by 100 zeros, a googolplex is a “1” followed by a googol of zeros (which turns out to be (10)^(10^100), basically a ton of zeros). To me, it makes sense that a search engine aimed at giving millions (and eventually, billions) of results would name itself after the second largest named number. For reference, googolplexian is the largest named number, followed by googolplex and googol. There are numbers larger than googolplexian but they don’t have names. “Infinity” is a concept that denotes a large number, but it is not technically a number itself. One kind of infinity can be larger than another infinity (here’s an awesome breakdown of number theory as it relates to large numbers, if you’re interested).

 

Levy’s In the Plex is an accessible peek inside the world of the technological megalith. Written in simple English, Levy provides the lay person details regarding how Google operates, and gives a pretty comprehensive history of the company. It even paints a portrait of Google’s inventors and other important actors in the success of the company. By the time I finished reading, I felt like I thoroughly understood Google and its inventors. I will admit that I wasn’t the biggest fan of Levy’s writing style but I do applaud him, considering how well he managed to  explain complicated, abstract concepts in artificial intelligence. People who do not know much about Google or computers should not be afraid to read this book. Actually, I would recommend this book to those sort of people, because it will help them better understand the technology they use everyday.

 

A few days ago, I helped my parents set up their new Windows 10 desktop. I downloaded Google Chrome and a few other software items, all while my mother looked over my shoulder. Every step of the way she asked me questions about RAM (random access memory, which essentially allows certain frequently used files to quick launch), cookies (which help identify your browsing habits and help websites remember you– don’t worry it’s mostly anonymized), and privacy. I assured her that the cookies are pretty harmless, and that she didn’t have to worry about me bogging down the memory with downloads. The computer and its related systems will quickly learn a user’s habits and will store and retrieve files accordingly to create an optimized experience. Some of these concepts are explained in In the Plex.

 

In the Plex, is not without drawbacks. As I mentioned earlier, Levy’s writing style felt a little bit awkward for the type of material he is handling. At times, I felt like the chapter titles were headlines which, to me, is inappropriate in a book that isn’t primarily about media. Since Levy is a media writer, though, I forgave him for this. The last chapter and the epilogue of In the Plex were a little lackluster. I was somewhat disappointed in the way the book ended, but not in the entire book. Since 6 years have passed between In the Plex’s publishing and my reading it, some of the information was a little outdated. Software like Google Drive is already second nature to the avid Google user, as are a few other features mentioned in the book. I think it’s about time Levy wrote and additional chapter or two about the updates Google has made since the book’s first publishing. At the very least, he should write an author’s note in the beginning outlining a few key difference. Still, for someone who hasn’t yet learned how to fully unlock the capabilities of Google, these tidbits of information are invaluable.

 

Overall, I was surprised by how interesting In the Plex was, considering the sheer amount of information Levy included in the book. Even as someone who knows what data mining is and how the internet operates, I did not find myself bored by the descriptions. Levy’s light tone and father-like humor (he tells “dad jokes,” the kind of jokes that make young adults groan and smack their foreheads) kept me entertained, and the drama of the years when it was unclear whether Google would sink or swim kept me hooked. I will warn you, dropping random trivia and tidbits related to Google and computers may be a side effect of reading In the Plex. After reading, I felt I could speak on the concepts in book with authority. It also helped me destroy my family in a home game of Jeopardy! when the category came up. I gave the book 4 stars on Goodreads because I found the odd writing style and outdated information to be key  pieces of a 5-star book, but that doesn’t mean I don’t give the book my highest recommendation. This book is good enough to land on my favorites shelf, but not good enough for me to keep a physical copy on hand. Rather, I’m going to do as my friend did and pass the book on.

 

You can read more comments and descriptions of the book on Goodreads, or you can purchase a copy on Amazon. Of course, finding the book in your local library is always an excellent option!

I’m Finally on Bloglovin’

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

The past few days I’ve been seeing Bloglovin links and references on some of the feeds I follow. Previously, I’d been using Feedly to keep up with blog feeds. I highly recommend Feedly, because there’s virtually no learning curve. It’s easy to find and follow blogs and to create categories so you can split your reading up by type of content. There are paid features for Feedly, but I’ve never needed to use them.

Because so many people used Bloglovin, though, I decided to check it out. I figured something with “blog” in the name was probably relevant to what I’m doing here. It turns out that Bloglovin serves a similar purpose to Feedly; it gathers all the feeds you follow in one place. I’ve only been on Bloglovin for a few hours, but I noticed an option to create an account and “claim” a blog. In order to claim a blog, I have to make a post with the link I’ve included at the top of this post, and Bloglovin will register the connection. I couldn’t find my blog on there through a simple search, so I’m guessing I have to claim the blog to make it visible. Regardless of whether this is true, I don’t see any harm on jumping on this bandwagon and making my blog at least a little bit easier to find. If I like Bloglovin, I may even start including other integrations such as the Bloglovin follow button and comment add-ons. For now, I’m just trying to see how this experiment goes.

Intermediate & Advanced Mandarin Resources

大家好！

You’ve taken the plunge into learning Mandarin and have decided to continue. It was no easy task, but you’ve grasped the concepts of pinyin, radicals, and characters.  I salute you.  If you haven’t started yet and you came here looking for suggestions, try my post on resources for Mandarin beginners.

For those who are ready to take their Mandarin to the next level, I have a treat for you. Here are the intermediate and advanced Mandarin resources I’ve come across over the years. I’m including links to amazon in the post simply because I find it easiest to find books there. Amazon is not paying me for the reviews, but the advertisements do help keep this blog running.

Graded Chinese Reader Series by Shi Ji
cover of graded chinese reader 3000 words

The Graded Chinese Reader is excellent for people who may not be the most comfortable reading Chinese, but are willing to give it a shot. There are six books, ranging from 500 words to 3000 words. Each new book feels like leveling up in a video game, and you can jump in at any point because the books are a collection of short stories. The books are written in simplified characters, and there is pinyin on top of the characters so you can still read characters you are unfamiliar with. For those that don’t want to read pinyin, the book comes with a piece of plastic that allows you to hide the it and just read the characters. The Graded Chinese Reader also comes with CDs (I know, CDs are dying but Chinese CDs are worth the buy, in my opinion) so readers can test their listening comprehension. I haven’t collected them all yet, but someday I’ll add them to my permanent library. As far as I know, these books only exist for simplified characters. If anyone knows of reading resources for traditional characters, I’d love to hear about them!

 

Pleco    by Pleco Software Incorporated
Pleco App logo

Pleco is the only pocket-sized Chinese dictionary you’ll ever need. Was that a sensationalist sentence? I think it was.  Available for free in both Apple and Android app stores, this app allows users to input English, pinyin, audio, images, handwriting and characters (both simplified and traditional) to search the dictionary for a translation. Parts of speech are color coded, and there is a flashcard function for people who would like to create personalized vocabulary lists. There are a few paid functions on Pleco, but in the three years I’ve been using it I haven’t needed them. In fact, I’m not even sure what the paid functions are. I prefer to view the app in “night mode” because the colors are more distinct against a black background, but the default background is white and the user can toggle night mode themselves. This comprehensive app makes a reliable study buddy, but does not translate full sentences. Rather, it translates each phrase separately. Still, the app can be used offline which makes it very helpful.

Chinese Breeze Series by Peking University Press

Old Painting Chinese Breeze coverI admit that I do not have a ton of experience with Chinese Breeze. I came across the series while updating the catalog information for my school’s library, and made a mental note to share them with my readers. There are three levels (each level is a different color), ranging from 300 words to 750 words. The books are lightweight and come equipped with CDs. Stories in the Chinese Breeze series are often based on ancient and contemporary Chinese classics, though the vocabulary has been modified to fit the level of the reader. Personally, I don’t think it’s worth it for the individual to buy all the books in a level when the Graded Chinese Reader series is an anthology (I prefer the anthology format), but these books are excellent for classrooms because they are thin and portable. Students can borrow them from their teacher, or the teacher can assign a specific book as part of the curriculum. Like the Graded Chinese Reader series, these books are written in simplified characters.

 

The Routledge Advanced Chinese Multimedia Course: Crossing Cultural Boundaries by Lee, Liao, Jiao, and Wheatly

routledge advanced chinese coverThis was actually the textbook I used for my advanced Chinese course. The chapters are hefty and the content helps students understand mainland Chinese culture. My version of the book was written in simplified characters, with traditional characters alongside the relevant definitions in the vocabulary list. I believe a traditional character version of the book exists as well. At a minimum, there are links to bonus content in the book, and if my memory serves me well that content included traditional character “translations” of the text. As with many Chinese books at this level, there is a CD that comes along with the textbook. Each chapter contains a reading, a vocabulary list, a few grammar explanations and a little culture note (in Chinese). An advanced self-learner could use this book on their own, but it doesn’t hurt to have a native speaker or a teacher explain the differences between some of the synonyms. Some of the characters in this book are for use solely in literary Chinese, while others are used only in colloquial Chinese. Sometimes the book denotes the difference, but it’s helpful to have some one around to correct you. So far, there are two editions of this book, but the differences between editions is minor (in class, students using the older edition only needed to copy the handful of added vocabulary into their books, otherwise the content was the same).

Yabla English/Chinese/Pinyin Dictionary

Yabla logoI would consider Yabla to be the online counterpart to Pleco. It functions much in the same way as the app, but it lives in the browser on the internet. While writing essays, I prefer to use Yabla because it will show synonyms in both languages, which allows users to choose between characters with different shades of meaning. I’m the kind of person who chooses words carefully (when writing essays, perhaps not so much while blogging), so this level of detail really helped bring my essays to life. Yabla also has a pinyin chart, which is good for either beginners trying to learn Chinese or experienced students who need a review. There isn’t much I can say about Yabla that isn’t encompassed in Pleco, and Pleco actually has more functionality, but Yabla’s word bank is much larger than Pleco’s. If I can’t find a word or phrase on Pleco, I usually turn to Yabla (I stay away from Google Translate).

I’ll keep my eye out for more Mandarin resources, but because I’ve graduated from uni, I’m no longer enrolled in Chinese courses. Still, I like to read, and have started to branch out into Chinese-language Literature, so perhaps there will be full-fledged reviews of Chinese books on here (in English, for the sake of simplicity and expediency).

A Lukewarm but Informative Narrative

Content Warning: mental illness

On the Edge book cover
Crown, 2017. 320 pgs.

On the Edge: A Journey Through Anxiety

By: Andrea Peterson

 

Andrea Peterson’s On the Edge: A Journey Through Anxiety had the potential to be such a great book. As someone who struggles to navigate her own mental minefield, I was really looking forward to an account of how another person manages. Unfortunately, I found myself incredibly bored while reading. Peterson writes for The Wall Street Journal and her writing style screams, “Journal.” Even though the sentences are beautifully structured, the entire novel reads like one long (but not terribly interesting) news story.

The major flaw with On the Edge  is that it is part autobiography, part medical journal. Whenever Peterson summarizes a scientific study relating to a point she has made, she follows it up with more of  her personal experience. It’s as if she’s saying, “and me, me too! That thing happened to me, here look!” which I found completely unnecessary. If the book had been fully one or the other, perhaps it would have been easier to read.

I’m not sure this novel could stand on its own as a memoir though, because the personal information is so repetitive. The repetition might not have been so frustrating if she provided more details of what it felt like for her to have a panic attack. I understand that reliving panic attacks is not ideal, but knowing more than just the physical symptoms is helpful for the audience. I would have loved to hear more about how her surroundings appeared to her during an attack, and I would have been interested in hearing a few perspectives from the people closest to Peterson (rather than her retelling their reactions and how they must have felt). A novel like this one needs to have strong emotional appeal in order to make the audience care about what is happening. It needs to be written in such a way that we understand the urgency, despondency, and pain of panic attacks. Bland descriptions such as, “racing heart,” “dizziness,” “difficulty breathing” are truthful, but not particularly helpful. Instead, she could have written something like, “My beats wildly against my rib cage while my air passage shrinks to the size of a pinhead. I will myself to move forward as the world around me turns itself on its head.” Perhaps that’s a bit too melodramatic.

I enjoyed the medical studies Peterson included in the novel. The style she used to write On the Edge is much better suited to relaying information than to emotional appeal. She includes conversations with various scientists to underline the studies she explains. Those who are not interested in science might struggle through these sections, but I found them much more interesting to read than the information about her personal life.

Peterson’s situation is one of privilege: she has the time and resources to seek adequate treatment, and the people around her are (generally) supportive. Peterson herself points this out, but her privilege makes her unrelatable to me. Not everyone can find supportive friends and family, not everyone can go on yoga retreats, not everyone can even afford healthcare. Growing up, I was told that as a Black woman, I’d have to work twice as hard to get half as much as people of a fairer shade. This essentially translated to me refusing to take sick days (though I desperately needed them) until one day I found myself practically paralyzed in bed, unwilling to shower or feed myself. I’m a little better about giving myself the time I need now, but there are limits. I couldn’t afford to take a semester off of university or to take less credits because I’d lose my scholarship. Sure, my grades suffered, but at least I still got the degree in the end that says I accomplished something, and that’s all I really went to school for in the first place. Hopefully my future employers don’t ask for transcripts, and if I return to school, it’ll be for something I’m passionate about.

In the end– and I hate to say this– I didn’t care about Peterson. Authors are the main characters of their autobiographies, and just like with fiction writing, it’s their job to make the reader care about them. Some authors come with built-in appeal (Fredrick Douglass, Anne Frank, Tina Fey), but others have to do work to get the audience interested. While I care deeply about causes related to mental illness (and that’s the main reason I picked up the book), I will most likely forget about the author in a few weeks. In fact, I’d forgotten I read the book until I saw it on my “read” shelf and decided to type up a review.

I was really hoping to be able to recommend this book, but it was so hard to get through that I cannot in good faith do that. For those interested in the science of anxiety disorders, I would certainly suggest you read this book, but be warned that you might have to slog through other, irrelevant sections of the book.

I’m giving the book 3 stars, purely because the information is useful and because the sentences truly are well-crafted. Otherwise, don’t bother reading On the Edge.

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I received and advance reader copy of this book via NetGalley, which has no bearing on my opinion. Regardless of my opinion, I am greatful to NetGalley, Andrea Peterson, and Crown Publishing for the opportunity. The links included above are affiliate links, clicking on them and purchasing something through the link helps me keep my blog running. 🙂

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