Exchange Rate

Are you intrigued by far off lands and cultures? Do you feel your life is getting a little dull? Let me guess, you don't have the time or money to travel the world. The answer might be to have a foreign exchange student.

My family and I hadn't considered an exchange student until an acquaintance of ours revealed that she was a teacher at the university and taught Japanese students English. Every year their program would receive several Japanese students who were interested in America and English. In order to keep the students from hiding out in the dorms and not experiencing America, they farm them out to local families for two week stays. Our friend needed another family for one of her students and we volunteered to house her.

Ryoko , as we found out later, was a typical Tokyo girl. She wore expensive clothes and went places with groups of friends. She also new very little English. However, she adored our 3 year old daughter and they played together and watched TV. The fact that she hardly new English was not a very big deal. We could communicate about where things were in the house and that it was dinner time. We could also talk about family members and a little about Japan. When she left we all cried.

We enjoyed having a teenager in the house. When you have been married for a little while and have gotten used to life with a toddler it is very refreshing to have a kid who is a little older around. You get to relive that period of your life a little and you also get a taste of whats in store for you and your kids. People may come from other countries and live in different cultures, but there are things that are the same for all teenagers.

We enjoyed the experience and decided to take it up a notch and apply to get a long term student. Soon the Community College called us. One of their Danish students had been placed in a home with a couple that were not getting along. Being a half a world away from home and staying in a broken home was very hard and she requested a new family. That is when we met Mia. Mia is amazing. She was a professional Ballerina from the age of about six and had performed for the queen in Denmark and in other countries. She spent her middle and high school years at a private school in Germany. We have never met a girl her age that was so mature. In fact, we have met many adults who were not half so together. Our time with Mia was fantastic. Like many Europeans, her English was flawless and she had complex opinions on society and politics.

I think the best thing about her stay was that my wife and I had so much love in our little family, which now included a baby boy, which we got to share with Mia. It brought a lot of joy to us to have her in our home. She was very beautiful and had lots of friends she would go spend time with, but when she was homesick she came to us. She is traveling the world again, but she is always welcome in our home.

Our most recent exchange was another Japanese student. Saki was lots of fun. She had spent a few years in America as a child and spoke great English, better than some Americans. She studied hard so there were weeks when she had exams and all we saw of her was the light under her door, but she also loved hanging out with our kids and watching cartoons. She came to parties at friends and relatives houses and we had fun going on short trips to Seattle and even had a chance to go to Disneyland. You have not been to Disneyland unless you have seen it with a Japanese teenage girl, trust us. We love Saki and she is a great big sister to our daughter who is now five and our son who is almost two.

I think the best advice I could give someone is; do not carry preconceived ideas in your head, you will be disappointed. You are not going to sit around in kimonos and eat sushi all day. Your student probably wont have funny catch phrases like, "No more yanky my wanky!" I guarantee that your Czech exchange student wont be a naughty girl who strips for the webcam like American Pie, and they may not always be as polite as Fez from that 70's show.

Exchange students are real people with likes and dislikes, but they see the world a little differently because of where they are from. If your mind is open a lot of things can find their way in and you and your family will be enriched by the experience. Our daughter can look at our world map and see the little heads of our foreign friends pasted on there home towns and we remember our family that is away for awhile. We love these kids and can not wait to see them again. And you never know, someday you might need a place to stay for a week in a far away land, wont it be nice to already have an English speaking friend to stay with?

To find out more about hosting your own student try your local community college or university. You can also try Youth for Understanding which coordinates thousands of exchanges. All you need is a room for the student, the program provides a little money to cover the cost of food, but don't expect to make a living on it. Our short term student ended up costing us money because of the cost of event tickets and gifts, but I would have paid double for the experience.

Persuasive Essay

I wrote this a few years ago in college.

Clayton Ray Randell
English 102A
Brenda Wilbee
Persuasive Essay; 1808 words
March 3, 2004

Yin Yang

I am standing on a sidewalk in a place I have never been before. Bizarre people of different colors and shapes are all around me, a bewildered four year old. The building across the street is as big as the whole block. Gazing upwards I see that it is taller than any building I have seen before. Windows upon windows, up and up, I am searching for the top. Clear into the blue sky with white clouds streaming by is the distant summit. Craning my neck up to see I am transfixed by the clouds. The weightlessness of the clouds takes my body and I feel my self floating. Suddenly a strong hand cradles me and the clouds are replaced by my fathers face. He is laughing sweetly and tells me that I was about to fall backwards onto the ground. The magic of that moment has stayed with me for all these years. Now that I am a father that moment is even more special. To see that look in a child’s eye, when their imagination takes them away with the clouds. Stories will do that, especially the one that found me on that day. On a street in Seattle waiting to go into the theatre with my dad, I was embarking on a journey of discovery. A journey to “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far, away…” (Star Wars-Episode 4).

There is a tale I once knew about a boy who goes on an adventure. He meets a wizard. He saves a princess, and he fights the dark knight. This tale illustrates the good and evil within us all. Any good story does. It is a necessary task of stories to delve into the hearts of the listeners. Beneath the light, deep in the roots of all people, dwells the dark.

If any story from my lifetime captures the duality of our universe or the gentle and brutal side of man it is Star Wars. The tale begins with a beautiful young princess trying to escape the clutches of a fierce army of soldiers. The princess and her entourage are surrounded, but not before she gives one of her servants a message to deliver. The servant escapes just as the dark knight appears. The armor of the knight is as black as death and his anger brings death itself to those in his way. The princess is brought before him. Clad in white her delicate frame is counter to the towering shadowy figure. She defiantly says, “Lord Vader, I should have known. Only you could be so bold.” Unperturbed by the young girls outburst he demands to know where the plans for the Emperors new weapon are. The girl denies any knowledge and is taken away.

The servant who escaped is accompanied by another servant. The do not get along and when they cannot agree about where to go they split up. Both are captured by slave traders known as Jawas and are reunited after being purchased by a local farmer. The farmer’s orphan nephew is brash and impatient. After growing up out in the country he yearns to go and fight with the rebels who oppose the Emperor. As he prepares these new servants for duty he tells them about his dreams of adventure. Soon he discovers part of the message from the beautiful girl. The servants tell him that they are looking for a man named Obi-Wan Kenobi. The boy knows a wizard he calls old Ben Kenobi and tells the servants that he lives past the dunes.
In the morning the boy finds the servant missing and attempts to find him, with the other servants help, before his uncle finds out that he removed their bindings the night before. While the boy and his companion are searching in the wastelands bandits ambush them. A figure looms over the horizon as these bandits are scavenging the unconscious boys belongings and frightens them away. As the figure approaches we see that he is an old man in a cloak. He takes the servants and the boy back to his home.

When the boy comes around the old man tells him who he is. He was a knight of the Republic before the time of the Emperor. The boy is startled to find out that Obi-Wan new his father. Obi-Wan gives Luke his father’s saber and explains that the dark knight, who was once his pupil, betrayed and murdered his father. The wizard also explains the source of his magic. He calls it the Force. It is an energy that flows through all things and binds them together. This Force has two sides, light and dark. Obi-Wan explains, “Vader was seduced by the dark side of the Force” (Star Wars-Episode 4).

So begins this epic tale. We are introduced in the first ten minutes to the theme. All people contain good and evil. A man who has been consumed by the dark side of his own nature embodies evil. We find out in time that he was tormented by jealousy, hate, and anger. The princess is the embodiment of good. Draped in pure white she is noble and courageous. The boy, Luke, represents the listener. He is who we are to relate to as we are told to be wary of the path we choose. It is our decision whether we choose selfishness. It is our decision whether we choose revenge. It is our decision to follow the light or fall into darkness.

The boy and the Wizard meet a smuggler named Han Solo in a seedy bar. The boy has never seen criminals and murderers before. His naiveté nearly gets him killed but Obi-Wan draws his sword and slays the attacker. This scene exposes Luke to the real world. Much of the story revolves around the external influences on the characters and how they deal with the emotions generated. Han Solo represents greed and self interest. Han explains that he is in it for the money and for himself. We begin to see that he does have other interests when he meets the princess. He angrily tells her that he does not take orders from anyone but himself. Princess Leia then insults him saying she is surprised that he is still alive. As she walks away Han tells his first mate “No reward is worth this!” Showing that his dignity means more to him than money. (Star Wars-Episode 4).

The princess herself is confronted with conflicting emotions. She could have been consumed with anger and hatred after her homeland is destroyed by the Emperor’s new weapon. Instead she follows the path of righteousness and puts these feelings behind her so that she can continue to help others by completing her mission. Luke has one of his most difficult tests when he meets the oldest Jedi knight, Yoda. During his training they come to a hollow in a tree. Luke is uneasy. “There is something not right here. I feel cold, death.” Yoda points to the opening “That place...is strong with the dark side of the Force. A domain of evil it is. In you must go.” “What is in there?” Luke asks. “Only what you take with you.” Luke straps on his weapon, despite Yoda’s insistence that he will not need it. Inside he is confronted by the dark knight. Luke draws his saber and decapitates the black figure. When the helmet falls to the ground it is revealed that Luke is the dark knight. This vision is a warning to him that he must fight the evil within himself before he can meet it in life. (Star Wars-Episode 5)

The climactic fight between Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi epitomizes the struggle between good and evil. Obi-Wan has arranged for he and Vader to meet. The dark knight taunts the old man as he approaches. Swords are drawn and the combat begins. The sound of their battle echoes through the hallways of the fortress. “Your powers are weak old man.” says Vader. Obi-Wan replies, “If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.” While trying to make a get away Luke and the princess see Obi-Wan and Vader from a distance. Luke calls to the old man. This is when Obi-Wan’s plan is made clear. Closing his eyes he holds up his sword and allows Vader to strike him. His clothes fall to the floor like a cast off skin. Obi-Wan relinquishes his body so that the others may escape. This runs contrary to Darth Vader’s quest to retain his body, most of which has been replaced by robot pieces as he has been injured over time. Hence the rhythmic sound of his breath for which he is easily identified. The fight symbolizes the struggle between forces. Sacrifice and conquest. Humility and pride. Submission and aggression. Man and machine. Life and Death.

Yin Yang depicts the repulsion and attraction of opposites, the duality of nature itself. Though the concept is originally of Eastern descent it has been adapted to many theories from the Western world. Carl Jung forwarded the idea that the mind of man was of opposing components (Jung). “The Forbidden Planet” starring Leslie Nielson warned us to recognize our Id and Ego (The Forbidden Planet). These symbols and theories are not coincidence. They exist because of the universal nature life. In each of us exists the capacity to do good or evil. Love and hate springs from the same heart. Myths and fantasies allow us to safely trespass the dark alleys of our soul. Stirring the dragon, we dance to the light of the flames, and come away unscathed. We are able to satisfy our dark passions and can return to our normal life warned of what evil lays in our hands. Children must cope with these emotions just as we do. Without the experience that an adult has acquired they have no other frame of reference. In a story like Star Wars a child can be saved from the dark knight. They can also terrify like the dark knight. Who hasn’t tried to breathe like Darth Vader? Stories, paintings, movies and music all reflect mans nature of light and dark Force.



Works Cited
Forbidden Planet, The. Dir. Fred M. Wilcox. Perf. Leslie Nielson, Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis.
Warner Studios, 1956.
Jung, Carl G. Man and His Symbols. Garden City, NY: DoubleDay, 1964.
Star Wars - Episode IV, A New Hope (Special Edition). Dir. George Lucas. Perf. Mark
Hamill, Harrison Ford, Alec Guiness, Carrie Fisher, and James Earl Jones. Twentieth
Century Fox, 1977.
Star Wars - Episode V, The Empire Strikes Back. (Special Edition). Dir. George Lucas.
Perf. Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, and James Earl Jones.
Twentieth Century Fox, 1980.

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iPhone. Heard of it?

     The build up of hype for the upcoming iPhone is staggering. People are already lining up in New York to get one. Apple of course, is well versed on how to arouse the market. Especially fervent fanboys.

    The vitriol that gets spewed by some of the supposed journalists out in the ether-nets, against Apple and its products is astounding. These people have not held the product or even seen one, yet they rain all over the parade of anyone who admits an interest.

    It all started anew with the release of Safari 3 for Windows. Bloggers began shouting to the rooftops that Safari had bugs and was not secure. OMG, really!? A beta has bugs? and software that runs on Windows has security issues. Many people claimed that it did not display "tons" of websites correctly, although only one person posted one website that did not work. http://www.orr.be, by the way.

    Then when Apple releases an update they complain that Apple did not fix all the issues at once. Like waiting another week to do them all, was a better idea.

    With equal bias of course are the rabid Apple fans, who ignore all debate and pump the hype up so big that the only outcome will be disappointment.

    The few, or I should say 3 people that got the iPhone in advance in order to review, were hand-picked by Apple. Walt Mossberg of the Wall$treet Journal, David Pogue of the New York Times and Edward C. Baig from USA today. Apple picked brilliantly. The reviews were not total love fests, they were honest. However, each reviewer gave the phone the time to make a real impression on them. I value their ability to be fair. Walt seemed to be underwhelmed but lauded the advances over traditional devices. David has great delivery and his podcast is very entertaining and informative. Edward's piece was extremely positive, but still doled out criticism where it was due.

    After all this do I still want one? You bet your bippy. On Friday will I cancel my T-Mobile, throw away my Nokia 6600 and put $600 down. Not likely. Someday. When iPhone 2G with 3G comes out.

Opera 9.2

Looking for an easy to use full featured web browser that is intuitive? Want one that can be customized with different styles? Need tabs? Heard of Mouse Gestures?

You need Opera 9.2.

When I first got on the internet in 1995 on my Macintosh Performa 638, I used Netscape. I then graduated to Internet Explorer and suffered with it for years, until Safari came along.

Safari had tabs and could be used with little or no conscious effort. In fact when I am dead tired and just want to veg on some YouTube clips, it is my browser of choice. Then I was saddled with a Dell laptop at work. I ran IE 6 for awhile and quickly dropped it for IE 7 beta. IE 7 is a huge advance over the previous version. Unfortunately that is not saying much. IE 7 leaves a lot to be desired. I hopped on the FireFox bandwagon for a year and was impressed with the themes and plugins. Eventually though, as much as I liked the look of the interface it was the 'user' interface that left me wanting.

Enter Opera 9.2. I had been considering which next generation game console I was going to purchase when I read an article about the web browser available for the Wii. I decided to test the browser before settling on the Wii and I was amazed.

The settings were easy to find. Upgrades happened without putting themes and other options out of service. I could set up email accounts and chat accounts directly in the browser. The big ones for me were the built in RSS feed reader and the customizable search options. The feeds look great and several types are supported. The customizable search allows you to right-click any search field on a website and create a hot key search out of it. If I want to search for Elvis collectibles I type "e elvis" in the address bar to search ebay. If I want to see what movies he was in I type "i elvis" to search the Internet Movie DataBase. "a" for Amazon, "g" for google "w" for wikipedia and so on. You get the idea.

The most recent version also allows you to set up nine 'Speed Dial' websites. When I type "2" in the address bar I get GMail. "4" gets me Apples Quicktime movie trailers and so on. Setting up your Speed Dial pages is easy. click on an open spot and a dialog box with your most used sites and current open tabs appears. You can also just enter most of the address; i.e., apple.com. When you open a new tab your Speed Dial pages load up with current thumbnails of the pages to click on.

Another great feature are the Mouse Gestures. Hold the right button and flick left; you'll be sent back a page right-click a link and flick down and up; you'll get the link loaded in a new tab in the background. Hold the right mouse button and scroll; you'll switch between tabs. It becomes second nature.

Another feature similar to ask.com's binoculars is the ability to hover over a tab and get a pop-up thumbnail of the page without switching to it. This is great for websites that name every window the same thing.

As a geek I understand the urge to hack your browser like you can with FireFox. I also understand the need to have interoperability like you get with IE, however for those of you who don't code and are tired of restarting IE's lame UI. Opera is an elegant and friendly browser.

I am currently testing Safari 3 beta which is easy and beautiful, however I find myself trying to 'flick' back a page and wishing I could search Wikipedia instead of Google in the search bar. When I finally dump this Dell and get back to my PowerBook, I am exporting my Opera links and feeds to the Mac version of Opera. By the way there is a Series 60 version of opera, a MiniOpera for web accesible phones and of course the Wii version with Wii-mote enhanced options, as well as other products. If you haven't seen Opera you should try it because chances are you will end up with a gadget that has it installed.

Blog, blog, blog...

What could I possible contribute to the 350 million blog posts this month. Not much on the first one. I am going to keep typing until I get good or at least better. I am interested in Sci-Fi shows, movies, technology and misc.

I will attempt to focus some of the immense amount of information on the internet into a blog related to my interests, which others may share. Why waste hours of your life reading the internet for those few noteworthy items a day, like I do. Just check in with me for the goods.

Tip: Don't be annoying, people who are annoying do not have freinds.

Most wanted list this week:

iPhone

Wii

R4 card

A new job

If anyone could help me with these I would appreciate it.

Stay tuned more; to come.