Musings and chronicles on life, work, film, culture, politics, etc.
12 Aug 2017 5 Comments
in 19th century, American life, Blogging Challenge, expat life, History, postaday, postaweek, Sepia Saturday Tags: elegant, nostalgia, Women
I’m so happy to have time to participate in Sepia Saturday after months of overwork. Now I can breath and live.
This week’s prompt shows and ordinary person is the prompt. However, I’ve decided to find photos of women in profile. They’re far from ordinary, aren’t they?
11 Aug 2017 Leave a comment
in expat life, postaday, postaweek, travel, YouTube find Tags: air travel, airlines, ecnomics, postaday
I enjoyed this video which explains the economics and history of economy, business and first class seating on airplanes. I now understand a little more about the mysterious pricing of airline fares.
10 Aug 2017 3 Comments
in biopic, drama, expat life, film, Film Review Tags: American business, biography, franchises, hamburgers, McDonald's, Ray Kroc, restaurants
In The Founder, Michael Keaton plays Ray Kroc, who propelled McDonald’s to worldwide expansion. The film shows how a mediocre milk shake machine salesman discovered the McDonald brothers in California and coaxed them into teaming up with him after he saw their unique hamburger shop.
In the days of drive-ins, you’d have to wait and wait to to get your order. But the scientific McDonald brothers figured out how to choreograph flipping burgers so that you could get yours in minutes.
When Ray Kroc received an incredibly big order for his milkshake machines from the McDonald’s, he had to drive out to see what they were doing. Impressed, he cajoles them to let him sell franchises.
As he goes from one his first franchise in Des Plaines, Illinois, to selling billions of burgers, Kroc seems insecure propelled by canned optimism he’s memorized from Dale Carnegie’s books. From the start of the partnership, Kroc follows his own ideas even if it means going behind the McDonald’s backs. His prior failures made him pathetic but his disrespect for the McDonald’s brothers’ views made him unlikeable.
Since McDonald’s is synonymous with America, it’s a film worth seeing.
09 Aug 2017 Leave a comment
in art, art museum, Australia, Blogging Challenge, expat life, exploration, photo, photography, photos, posataweek, postaday, postaweek, Weekly Photo Challenge, welcome to my life Tags: art, rope, stone, texture, travel
Water – Tasmania
Sky, air, Lijiang
Sand – Earth, Melbourne
1. Each week, we’ll provide a theme for creative inspiration. You take photographs based on your interpretation of the theme, and post them on your blog (a new post!) anytime before the following Wednesday when the next photo theme will be announced.
2. To make it easy for others to check out your photos, title your blog post “Weekly Photo Challenge: (theme of the week)” and be sure to use the “postaday″ tag.
3. Follow The Daily Post so that you don’t miss out on weekly challenge announcements, and subscribe to our newsletter – we’ll highlight great posts. Add Media photos from each month’s most popular challenge.
09 Aug 2017 Leave a comment
in education, expat life, postaday, postaweek, YouTube find Tags: High school, school swap, South Korea, Wales
In this documentary three Welsh teens fly to Seoul where they will experience three grueling days in a Korean high school.
I knew Korean students were pushed to excel and studied long hours but this documentary horrified me. I wish I knew more about the exact content on the tests that we were seen how the teachers actually teach. Both of those elements would have made for a stronger film, but we do see how stunned and exhausted the Welsh students were and they tell us what they think about this education system so we do learn a lot about South Korea’s high schools, which are among the top in the world.
The episode here raises the question of whether this intensity is worth it. It mentions the international test scores and gives the ranks, but it doesn’t give us the spread. Are the top 50 schools pretty close to each other or is their a wide spread between them?
Like Wales, Americans can improve and intensity their curriculum, but neither country is going to start having students study till midnight in cram schools so if Westerners study five hours a day in school and a few hours at home, they would never surpass students who are in a formal classroom from 8 am till midnight.
I think it’s better to have a balanced life and be able to work on projects, which emulate post-graduation work, than just to memorize.
08 Aug 2017 Leave a comment
in expat life, postaday, postaweek, Teaching EFL Tags: English as a foreign or second language, English language, Indonesia
SIEC stands for Summer Intensive English Course and it’s the second time I’ve led one of the sessions in Indonesia. This year I went with my friend and former colleague, Helene. Helene taught writing for publication while I taught presentation skills. I dread giving presentations so this was a challenge, but I found some great materials and my students, all working instructors, worked hard and in our final day presented their research in a mini-conference.
I was honored to work with these kind, hospitable people. They quickly formed a supportive learning community and were so kind and helpful in the feedback they gave each other.
On the weekends they took us sightseeing and at the end they showered us with gifts and kind words.
I so admire the dedication and effort they’re putting into making Indonesia more of a part of the academic world.
08 Aug 2017 Leave a comment
in Chicago, expat life, food, postaday, postaweek Tags: Eataly, food, market, photo
08 Aug 2017 Leave a comment
in classic film, expat life, film, Film Review, international film, New Year's Resolution Old Movie Challenge, postaday, postaweek Tags: 1960s, adultry, black and white, drama, French, French film, New Wave, realistis, Romance, sex, The Soft Skin, Truffaut
Truffaut offers a realistic look at infidelity in The Soft Skin (1964) where Pierre Lachenay, a publisher and scholar known from his TV appearances, gets obsessed with Nicole, a flight attendant, and starts an affair with her. Pierre has a sort of budding butterball look. He could be the Pillsbury Doughboy’s French father. He is smart, yet bland. He’s married to an attractive woman and they have a young daughter whom he dotes on. He doesn’t hate his life, but when he sees Nicole on a flight, he becomes smitten.
He later sees her at a hotel and follows her to find out her room. It’s a bit stalker-ish, but not quite. Nicole who’s probably half Pierre’s age is interested. She hasn’t experience romantic love and is in awe of Pierre’s success.
Throughout the film Pierre and Nicole have difficulty meeting up. Their rendezvous always go awry. Perhaps an old friend meets Pierre and asks to go for a drink. He’ll respond that he must drive back to Paris and the friend will say that’s where he wants to go and figures they can drive together. All the while Nicole’s twiddling her fingers back at the hotel where they’re staying. Such obstacles crop up again and again. Ever nervous, Pierre bungles along with his poor plans and lies. Yes, Nicole is young, beautiful and energetic, but having the affair is offset by the stress of lies and running around only to be thwarted.
Eventually Franca Pierre’s wife realizes something’s off. After awhile Franca gives up on the marriage and asks for a divorce. Freed, Pierre agrees, but he soon finds that breaking with Franca does not lead to bliss in a new posh apartment with Nicole.
The film is beautiful and Truffaut’s direction is sophisticated and engaging. He films intimacy in such a classy, real way. He shows affairs as they really are, not all romance, not all due to a horrible spouse. Infidelity certainly doesn’t lead to a blissful new romance and a break with past problems.
05 Aug 2017 Leave a comment
in art, art museum, Australia, Blogging Challenge, expat life, exploration, photo, photography, photos, posataweek, postaday, postaweek, Weekly Photo Challenge, welcome to my life Tags: art, rope, stone, texture, travel
1. Each week, we’ll provide a theme for creative inspiration. You take photographs based on your interpretation of the theme, and post them on your blog (a new post!) anytime before the following Wednesday when the next photo theme will be announced.
2. To make it easy for others to check out your photos, title your blog post “Weekly Photo Challenge: (theme of the week)” and be sure to use the “postaday″ tag.
3. Follow The Daily Post so that you don’t miss out on weekly challenge announcements, and subscribe to our newsletter – we’ll highlight great posts. Add Media photos from each month’s most popular challenge.
04 Aug 2017 Leave a comment
in expat life, technology, YouTube find Tags: computer, security, YouTube
I recently discovered ThioJoeTech, a YouTube channel, with short, useful videos on personal technology. Above he talks about his experience getting hacked by someone in China. Fortunately, he got everything cleared up.
He also suggests creating super strong passwords. What’s good about the video below is he explains with reasons I’d never heard before. All his reasons make a lot of sense.
smkelly8
