Check out the post for Feb. 24 for info about accessing some photos I've put up on www.ofoto.com.
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It's funny how people expect me to know everything about the U.S.

At work today I was asked which five states had the greatest concentration of liberal arts colleges. I could only come up with three -- New York, Massachusetts and California. So then I was asked to list 10 liberal arts colleges, and I did so after looking up some on the Internet. Then I was asked, "Are these in order of highest ranking?" Uhhh, NO. I don't freakin' memorize the US News and World Report rankings, people! There are hundreds if not thousands of colleges in the U.S.! I don't even believe in those stupid rankings anyway!

I did find, though, that among the self-styled "leading liberal arts colleges" in the U.S., the greatest concentrations ARE in New York, Massachusetts, California and ... Pennsylvania. I was surprised about PA. I think Ohio actually made a good show too.

Last week a friend at work who's hoping to go to grad school in the States asked me how the University of Hawaii at Manoa is viewed. Dude, I so do not know. I hopped on the Internet and found that it was ranked pretty low, but I sent that info to my friend with the caveat that its Linguistics Department could be number 1 in the country for all I knew. He then revealed that he'd done some research and that most linguistics professors in Korea who had gotten their degrees overseas had gone to the UH at Manoa. Dude. If the freakin' profs are all going there, do you think that they might POSSIBLY be a MITE more reliable than moi?

Am I being too prickly about this? I promise, I wasn't at all so when I answered these questions, but dear me, I must express myself somewhere.

As I've mentioned to a few friends, I think I'm going through that second phase of expatriotism where I hate the country I'm living in. Not all the time, of course, and I still feel very lucky to be here and to be having this experience, but nevertheless, I get the on the subway and I look around and I think: "I hate your dyed hair, and I hate your stupid cell phone toys, and I hate the stuffed dog cell phone cover you have, and I hate your kimchee breath, and I hate the way you shove past me in order to get a seat, and I hate the bows on your shoes, and I hate the way you wear flats with jeans, and I hate the obviously penciled-in eyebrows, and I hate the god-awful perms, and I hate the way you pair black tights and shoes with jean skirts, and I hate the permed hair on men, and I hate the way you all dress exactly the same, and I hate your dog too."

Well, no, I don't actually hate your dog. But I think it's horrid that you've dyed your dog's ears fluorescent green (no joke).

Like I said, it's not really so bad most of the time. It's just that the first flush of love, as it were, is gone. Before, I used to go into the subway and laugh with delight at the strange and new styles and objects. Now it's just, well, there.

I think the fact that I've gone and eaten at Burger King twice in the past seven days is definitely a sign that the honeymoon's over.