December 2011
24 posts
An Ear for Mandarin
When you are deep in the middle of studying something, sometimes it’s hard to tell if you are making any progress. Without standardized tests or weekly quizzes, I am left with a very vague general sense of advancement. But I recently realized that aside from lacking scores to benchmark my progress, I’m missing out on the few daily confirmations here in Chongqing to remind me that...
things that made our Chinese Christmas: mugs, skype, eggless rice cooker brownies, and warm fuzzy clothing.
— Sara Marie Watson (@smwat) December 26, 2011
November 2011
23 posts
Reading Infinite Jest
So I finished reading Infinite Jest. It took me just over two months, biting off small chunks of about 1-2% in a sitting, according to my Kindle. What follows is not a review of the book itself, but an exploration of my reading experience.
I had been wanting to read Infinite Jest for a while. I came to David Foster Wallace later than I’d like to admit, reading Brief Interviews with Hideous...