Inside Ebaby!

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July 11, 2008
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In all my life, I never thought I'd make it to the Olympics. I quit playing basketball in high school and never grew all that tall despite my initial promise. I stopped skiing in college and playing in a metal band isn't an Olympic sport (yet).

But then came the chance of a lifetime.

The chance to compete.

Though English, baby! isn't a nation exactly (though some might argue it's the greatest nation on Earth) and our team missed all possible deadlines for registration, we have heart. We have heart in spades. So bring it on Beijing! We're going to the Olympics, whether or not the Olympics are ready for us.

We have plane tickets, a sponsor (thanks ETS! Take practice TOEFL now!!! a hostel reservation, uniforms, a little press coverage...and that's pretty much it. We're not really sure if I'm going to be able to enter the discus throw, so I'm not practicing. We hope this is the international gathering of a lifetime, but we could, in fact, be the only non-Chinese and non-competitors there (I guess it's really hard to get in to China). If we want to see any events, we will buy tickets on the street or charm security or athletes.

But one thing's for certain. I will return with gold. Whether it is won, earned, stolen, or on my teeth, I've come this far, and that's too far to stop. Victory will be mine...

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March 13, 2008
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So last week on the soap opera, Mason and Amanda finally got together. We spent three months dragging out the idea that she liked him and he wouldn't notice her. But apparently that just wasn't long enough for one incredibly patient Chinese member.

 

Of course there were many comments saying "Oh! How romantic!" and stuff like that. But you know what? I have to agree with this wise opinion instead.

May I only pray that all the real life Amanda's of my life and men like me find this blog. But if they don't, a couple of comments on a lesson about spooning reminds us that we always have one special lady in our lives...

Well, I'm not quite there yet. Apparently I have a couple of other options from fans I won with the wedding video.

That last one is particularly encouraging since I just found out that I am, in fact, going to China. More details about that later. But I'm already planning how I'll impress the ladies there. I'll amaze them with my powers to make the mundane interesting. A couple of minds seem completely blown by my lesson on losing your phone.

 

Well, that about wraps it up for this edition of best comments, so I leave you with the will-you-be-my-friend comment of the week. This one is sort of an Ebaby! inside joke which will be especially funny to regular users.

If you don't fill out your profile, your name is a black non-link on the site. A lot of these non-links don't realize they are non-links who can't be messaged and go around asking for people add them. This one apparently missed an opportunity by just a few minutes...

Like two trains passing in the night... 

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March 10, 2008
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Now, I have seen some funny translations in my travels. "Homos" for "hummus" and the like, but this takes the cake. This is just one of many groups of incredibly bizarre "vocabulary" words from a set of Chinese English learning blocks featured in this hilarious blog post. 

It's worth checking out just for the laughs, but it also raises a good point. As English becomes the global language, how will it change? The author of the post cleverly notes that as China's 1.3 billion people learn English, it may become the case at some point that what they say goes since they're the majority of the speakers. Chainsaw? Sorry, Yank, that's a reactance.

According to this recent story from Indian news outlet NDTV, there are already more English speakers in India than in the US. Soon the tables will be turned and English slang will come from Asia instead of the US and I'll be the one trying to keep up by reading ESL websites!

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