One of the things that I find most entertaining is Chinese-English translation fails. Zero judgment on the people who created these interesting translations– regardless of how grammatically incorrect the translations may be, the translators still speak a foreign language way better then I do! I have huge respect for any Mandarin-speaking person who can learn English and vice-versa. Still, these phrases are pretty funny. The Chinese market next door to our apartment complex carries plenty of plastic imports that make shopping a little more fun. Here are a few:
The Wonderful Life plastic food container. I’m not sure if it’s trying to remind me that my life is wonderful, so I should be happy, or if being happy every day makes life wonderful.
“Happy diary. If you often have smiles on your face good lucks will naturally come to you.”
Matching the positive thinking of Wonderful Life food container is the happy diary. Maybe you can only write positive things in this book. On one page record what makes you happy, and on the opposite write all the naturally occurring “good lucks” in your life. If you think about it, this actually makes sense. I’ll bet that if I wrote down all the happy things in my life and smiled more often, I’d quickly recognize how blessed I am.
The Huahu pitcher!
“Huahu daily-used will become us living of a part, let’s enjoy living for every day.”
I don’t know what “huahu” is, and the rest of the poem doesn’t make much sense, either.
Cookie bear tub
“Cookie bear, Baby happy baby, I want.”
Does the bear want a cookie? Or does it want a baby? Or does the baby want a bear or a cookie? Or is it a baby bear wanting a cookie?
Mini desktop drawers. There are three drawers in this set, and every one of them has the exact same poem:
“Flowers of Happiness. Flowers, dreams can’t answer. Where has, The only way to obtain happiness, boy and girl, wandering in the world, no matter is the numerous hills and streams.”
Toilet soap. Not really for toilets.
Notebook- “There is something better in writing.”
Is it trying to remind me that there are a whole lot of writers out there who are better than I am? Or just that writing is better than not writing? I don’t know whether to feel insecure or encouraged.
That’s all for now, folks! “There is something better in writing” coming in future posts. Stay tuned and please subscribe!
I love St. Maarten for many reasons– one of them is that “France” is right next door! We get the language, the culture, and the food– oh, and is the food delicious! Of course, you can’t have French food without French onion soup, so I decided to make some at home. This is my budget version of French onion soup.
Step One: Gather ingredients.
-Two medium onions
-1/4 cup margarine or butter
-Salt, pepper, and parsley (Thyme would be better, though)
-1 1/2 cups of water
-Chicken or beef bouillon to make 4 cups broth
– 3/4 cup white wine
-2 teaspoons of flour
-Cheese
-Bread Bowls
Step one: Slice onions thinly, top to bottom. If you need to have a good cry, this is a great time to do it. You’ll be weeping buckets by the end of this step anyway.
Step 2: Melt butter in a pan, add herbs, and stir in onions.
Step 3: Stir onions frequently until they are a deep golden brown.
Optional Step: Become distracted and forget to stir the onions. Burn the bottom layer, scoop the rest into a new pan, and do your best to remove the smell of burned onions from your home.
Step 4: Add flour and stir.
Step 5: Add wine and stir.
I have no idea what kind of wine is best for this, but I chose Lazo Chardonnay because it was cheap and I liked the shape of the bottle.
Step 6: Add 4 cups of broth, the water, and half a teaspoon of pepper. Turn down to simmer for half an hour and stir occasionally.
Preheat the oven to about 100* C. All you need the oven to do is melt the cheese on top of the soup.
Step seven: Pour soup into bread bowls.
I baked my own bread bowls from scratch. Because I have that kind of time in my life right now. If you have kids, a regular job, school, whatever, by all means save yourself some sanity and buy them from the store.
Step 8: Generously sprinkle cheese on the soup. I bought a mozzarella and provolone mix, but to be authentic and fancy, you should use Gruyere and Parmigiano-Reggiano.
Step 9: Put the soup in the oven until the cheese melts. Or don’t.
I put the soup and bowls in the oven to get that melty-cheese deliciousness, but it might be better to do this when the soup is served in actual bowls. Leaving the soup in the bread bowls so long before serving made them a little soggy. But if you like that, go for it!
When we first moved to Sint Maarten, I was expecting to be forced to go without some of the things that I’ve always been used to having. Not the case. In fact, not only do the stores here carry virtually everything you could possibly need, they also carry some things you could never, ever possibly need in a million years. For your entertainment, I have compiled a stack of photos from the Ace Home Store.
First is the Palmpeeler. Basically, it’s a ring with a carrot peeler on the inside. This in the answer to one of the great questions of life: What would Larry the Cucumber buy his girlfriend for an engagement ring?
The Garlic Keeper! For only $5.95 (plus tax!), you can keep garlic clove halves fresh. It will only take a few years for this thing to pay for itself.
The Easy Twist! Works on pretty much every jar anywhere, and you’ll never have to ask your husband to open a jar of pickles again. Of course, you could just get one of those circular grippy things (or a kitchen towel), but why save kitchen drawer space when you could have a cool new toy?
A lime squeezer, a lemon squeezer, and an orange squeezer. I get the need for an orange squeezer, I get the need for a lemon squeezer, but I don’t get why you’d need both a lemon squeezer and a lime squeezer. Just to have all three colors? And how often do you really use lime juice in cooking, anyway?
Because we wouldn’t want to lose our silverware, now would we?
Here’s what every kid wants at her birthday party: two creepy centipede balloons with bunny ears.
The jar safe! It’s an empty jar with the inside painted to look like it contains fresh strawberry preserves. This is a great idea, but it should probably be a Pinterest pin, not a twenty-dollar retail product.
Bagel slicer. Because knives are super hard to handle.
After my last post, A Typical Day at American University of the Caribbean, I was encouraged to tell about my own typical day. This is a little harder than sharing a typical day for Ben, mostly because my days are never the same!
Here’s what my day looked like yesterday:
We woke up at 6:30, a little later than usual, because we had a late-night Skype call the night before. I made stove-top toast for breakfast, and Ben left for class at 7:20.
Making food has extra challenges here! I don’t read Dutch…
I organized my laundry and took it to AUC’s dormitory laundry room. Our apartment’s washer and dryer don’t work well, so I always do laundry at school. One of the washers had leaked, so an AUC employee was mopping the floor. I stopped to chat with her for a while. While waiting for my laundry, I studied Swahili from a textbook I got a couple years ago in Kenya.
At 8:15, I met a couple friends– other spouses– near AUC and went on a 3-mile run with them. The air is humid and warm, so two of us decided to walk to the beach after our run to cool off. My friend brought her dog with us, and it was hilarious to watch her play in the surf!
Sasha plays on the beach
Around eleven, I went home and made lunch. I try to have it ready for Ben when he walks in the door. Today we had leftovers from a school-catered lunch we had on Monday.
After eating, the two of us spent a little time together. Then Ben studied his vital signs checklist while I cleaned up after lunch, blogged, and read my Bible.
At two, a friend picked me up and we drove halfway across the island to the little league field. We parked behind the field next to three containers. These containers look rather unassuming from the outside, but inside, they are filled with all the wonderful things we loved in our childhoods– a labeled shell collection, a train track running along the ceiling, a remote-control robot, science projects, books, a rock tumbler, and so much more! The little league coach has set up a player development and tutoring program for some of the island kids. Some of the AUC spouses come to tutor the kids and play ball with them. While we were there yesterday, I got to work on reading with a three or four kids, play catch with two little girls, and do warm-up exercises with the boys.
We left around 4:30 and headed back to our homes in Cupecoy. I went shopping at the Asian market next to our complex and started a dinner of beans and rice. While everything cooked, I answered emails for my freelance art job. Want to see what I do for work? Check this out!
One of the T-shirts I designed for a client (copyright 2015)
At 6:30, Ben and his friend Matt arrived for dinner.
Dinner at the Johnsons’
At 7:05, I ran out the door, a little late for my Zumba class. I go to a free Zumba session twice at week at AUC’s gym. The class ended at 8:00, and I had a little time to talk with friends before going to band practice.
At 9:00, I arrived at worship band practice. I’m singing and playing in our church’s worship band on Sundays– next week, I’ll be singing back-up and playing the drum. Some weeks, I’ll be helping out by playing guitar or piano as needed.
Practice went late, so it was almost 10:30 before I got home. Ben and I were both exhausted! We talked for a bit, set the alarm, and fell fast asleep.
As many of you know, I am currently living in a Dutch island in the Caribbean called Sint Maarten. Some of you may be geographically befuddled about what exactly “Dutch” means and what country my island belongs to. Never fear, you’re not alone. Actually, until I watched this video about a year ago, I had no idea that Holland is not actually a country. If you don’t know the relationship between Sint Maarten, Saint Marten, Saint-Marten, the Netherlands, and Holland, this entertaining video will clear things up! Have fun.
Today is the day! We’ve been dreaming of this day, planning for it, and praying for it for many months. No, it’s not our wedding. We already did that. Today is Ben’s first day of medical school!
Like the dorky picture-snapping wife I am, I took a “first day of school” photo and posted it on Facebook.
This is technically the first day of classes, but Ben has actually been on campus all week. We first stepped onto campus for our campus tour last weekend. Our first impression of the school was that it is spacious, clean, secure, tastefully decorated, and has a great view. We also thought that the campus is pretty big, but anything looks big compared to our undergrad university. Our campus tour showed us the “welcome center,” or guard shack, as it is commonly known, where security checks in and out every single person who enters campus. The next stop was the rotunda, a large, circular room in the center of the main building. Here, there are stairs that go to a second floor, which contains a few lecture halls, the library, and other rooms. On the same level as the rotunda is a nice recreational building with a ping-pong room, a room with couches for chilling and studying, a yoga room, and the gym. I was most excited about the gym. I’ll be spending a lot of time there. It has several treadmills and ellipticals in addition to other workout machines that looked like they are in great condition.
Pumpin’ iron
There is also a cafeteria near this area, and the prices aren’t bad. Ben got a chicken wrap, an apple, and a bag of chips yesterday as a free new student gift, and he liked it. I think it would usually cost $5, which isn’t bad at all, considering the price of food on this island.
If you walk straight from the front door into the rotunda and then out the back door, you will arrive at note services, more lecture halls, and study rooms for rent. There is also a basketball court and the smoking area. I have no idea why anyone would be going into medicine and also be a smoker, but to each his own.
Basketball Court. Too bad I took this at night– the lagoon is in the background.
Through a patio garden area, down the steps, and across the street is The New Building and the dormitories. The New Building has many lecture rooms, offices, a smaller cafeteria area, a study zone, anatomy lab, the auditorium, etc. Ben will be spending most of his time here. His class is the biggest at the school so far (about 280, I think), so they will be living in the auditorium for most of their classes. During anatomy lab, they will be upstairs working in small groups. Thankfully, each person gets their own anatomy lab locker, so nothing that smells like cadavers and formaldehyde will come into our apartment!
The auditorium
Behind The New Building is a stunning view of Simpson Bay and the mountains that make up this island. Beautiful.
Mural outside Ben’s classroom. It represents giving a bright future to the island’s children.
Besides a tour, the school has hosted many other fun and/or required pre-class events. There were several shuttle runs to the grocery store over the weekend. Saturday was a beach volleyball game and Ben got his ID badge that same morning. Sunday was registration in the morning and a welcome meeting in the evening. Happily for us, the evening event was catered with a delicious meal! Nothing says “happy students” like free food. After the welcome meeting, everyone was invited to compete in a scavenger hunt (this provided the lovely photos for this post) and an ice cream mixer.
Boats in Simpson Bay Lagoon
Monday included seminars on wellness and professionalism. If I had named them, I would have called the sessions How Not to Die and How Not to Lose Your License. Most of it seemed like common sense to me as I flipped through the booklet, but it’s always good to hear good advice, especially during times of transition and stress. Besides, there are a lot of ways to be stupid and get in trouble on this island. Hopefully people will take the warnings seriously, because coming to class with a massive hangover is not a good way to pass one’s Step Ones. There was also an assessment and a reading quiz on Monday over the book Short White Coat.
Island Bus Tour
Yesterday (Tuesday) contained more and longer workshops, as well as an island tour. We stopped in Marigot and visited a French Patisserie. It was actually a pretty good price– four delicious pastries for about six bucks. We also stopped in Orient Bay to see Saint-Martin’s best beach. I have to say that I like Mullet Bay much better. Orient is pretty seaweedy this year, and the beach was pretty busy. It does have a good view of Anguilla and some small islands, though. We didn’t stop anywhere else, but it was nice to drive the perimeter of the island and see the less touristy areas where local people live. I was delighted to finally see some fresh fruit stands! After the island tour, the students went back to school for complementary subs and a meeting with their orientation advisers.
French Pastries
The week is not over yet! After today’s classes, there is a student mixer. Tomorrow is the Spouse Organization’s first get-together. Friday is the white coat ceremony. And from there, it’s all about studying, studying, studying.
