Behold the Man, 2.

As we crossed the green bridge from Kuramae exit A7 back to Asakusa,
he broke the comfortable winter silence:

You know, if you ever got too sad &

decided to jump off this bridge

I'd go in after you and try

and swim you to safety.

You can't see it from here,

but there's a ladder there out of the water.

I saw it the other day as I was thinking about this,

crossing the bridge with you.

Wow, jeez.
-- what morbid chivalry --
-- do i look like a dying, distressed damsel? --
You sure think about this kind of thing a lot.

Yeah.

I have to.  

It's the gospel.

That the man should die for the woman if--

Well, it's not even a matter of if.

When. When it came to--

-- well aren't you sexist --
I'm not sure that's a gospel I've ever received.

I know.

That's why I need to tell you.

It's good for you to hear.

That's why I sit facing the door,

so if anyone came through it...

That's why I try to make sure that

and ask in every way if

you're okay.

If your ears are warm,

how's your cough,

your toenail,

you hungry?

Well then... aren't we all called?

To lay down our lives, one for the other?

Yes, in different ways.

Women through... childbirth?

--Seriously. Who do you think you are.--

He laughed.

Sure, I guess that's one way.

Behold the Man, 1.

As we waited for the JR from Akihabara to Ryogoku,

he broke the comfortable winter silence:

You know,

if you were to fall between the tracks,

I would try to save you.

And if I couldn't get you out of the way in time before the train came

I would try to stick you in that space between the tracks and hope

that the space above you would be enough clearance.

And if not, I would fling myself over your body,

so that when the train came, it would slice through me

and hopefully spare you.

Really? Hmm... umm...

That's very... sacrificial.

Yeah.

i was taken aback. confused.

a bit annoyed, actually. offended.

how condescending. how paternalistic.
how marvelous! how wonderful!

what was he trying to prove?

his manhood?

my guilt?

//

behold the Man upon a cross

my sin upon his shoulders

ashamed i hear my mocking voice

call out among the scoffers

Love of a jealous kind, 8.

7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The Spirit follows us unwaveringly through all.

He is not driven away because we are sinners. He comes to us because, being sinners, we need Him.

He is not cast off because we reject His loving offices. He abides with us because our rejection of Him would leave us helpless...

When He sees us immersed in sin and rushing headlong to destruction, He does not turn from us, He yearns for us with jealous envy.

It is in the hands of such love that we have fallen.

And it is because we have fallen into the hands of such love that we have before us a future of eternal hope.

When we lose hope in ourselves, when the present becomes dark and the future black before us, when effort after effort has issued only in disheartening failure, and our sin looms big before our despairing eyes; when our hearts hate and despise themselves, and we remember that God is greater than our hearts and cannot abide the least iniquity; the Spirit whom He has sent to bring us to Him still labors with us, not in indifference or hatred, but in pitying love.

Yea, His love burns all the stronger because we so deeply need His help: He is yearning after us with jealous envy.

From B.B. Warfield as quoted by Justin Taylor.

Bonsai Grandma

This morning as Grandma was walking away, Grandpa whispered to me:

阿媽 si m si 每年越來越 kawaii? lu lai lu sei han!

[translation: Doesn't Grandma get cuter every year? She gets smaller and smaller...]

Yes but so does he. :D

I often receive emails meant for another Esther Liu.

i survived my 8-12 pages due yesterday, 10-15 due today.
2 exams and 2 papers for tomorrow, then everything is more reasonably spaced out.

it's been so cold i can separate my hair-icicles when i go out with damp hair.
i finally duct-taped the perimeter of my window.
i am sad that i can no longer fly a kite indoors.
maybe i will get a vornado.

the heat hasn't been on in our building.
i think it's why our beta fish died.
instead of floating to the top, he sunk to the bottom.
we're gonna leave it for a couple hours to see if he wakes up.

i often receive emails meant for another Esther Liu.
this one was too good not to pass on.

Jimmy Jih	Wed, Dec 8, 2010 at 2:22 PM
hehe, how did you respond and do you ever? On Wed, Dec 8, 2010 at 12:58 PM, Mike Hwang wrote: I enjoyed this email so much I laughed out loud and may have peed a couple drops. On Wed, Dec 8, 2010 at 12:32 PM, Joshua Liu wrote: can i borrow it? On Tue, Dec 7, 2010 at 7:36 PM, Jessica Lin wrote: so when's the baby due? On Tue, Dec 7, 2010 at 6:23 PM, Esther Liu wrote: i always get emails meant for another esther liu... hm. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: kim natsuko   Date: 2010/12/7 Subject: baby shower Hi! Esther! how are you doing? sorry for late respond... I would like to attend your baby shower! are you going to have boy or girl? what do you need for baby? can you tell me? oh,and... my kids are coming with me, is that okay? thanks! Natsuko

Do you speak Asian?

Why yes, I probably do!

A CUNY paper presented last week (by a white guy) at Experimental Approaches to Perception and Production of Language Variation (how this conference name collapses neatly into ExAPP2010 is unknown to me) suggests that native English speaking Pacific Asian Americans are racially identifiable by voice, even if the linguistic "differentiation may not rise to the level of a systematic dialect" (Newman).

While other speech communities may have more salient dialectal differences, Asian Americans are not without distinguishing linguistic behaviors. Cues (non-determinative) may include vowel quality, breathiness, syllable cadence, and voice quality. None of these provide strong evidence for AA-ness on its own.

A set of eight (2 Chinese Americans, 2 Korean Americans, 2 white Americans, 1 Latino, and 1 African American) women, and the same distribution in another set of men, were asked to read the same super exciting passage:

A wily coyote led sharpshooters armed with tranquilizer guns on a merry chase through Central Park before being captured on Wednesday. At one point, authorities tried to corner the animal in the southeast corner of the park, by Wollman Rink. The clever creature jumped into the water, ducked under a bridge, then scampered through the rink ground and ran off.

 Men were more successfully identified than women were, and Asians were the least accurately identified.

More from Michael Newman:

• "Native Asian American English: the recognition and acoustic correlates of Asian American speech"
• "Can New Yorkers identify Asian-American speech? A case of perceptual dialectology"

This kinda thing boils my nerd blood. I would love to have been a part of this study. I've long wondered about and suspected the findings. After all, it's usually pretty easy to tell when a singer is Asian.

Sorry Dad, I missed the boat.

While it is true that he can never be the father that he should have been to me, I get to choose now whether I want the father I've got. I decide if his indifference before precludes the sincerity of his gestures as of late. I determine whether he will never make up for his past injuries.

Jonah 4:2 I made haste to flee...

for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful,

slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love,

and relenting from disaster. 

Hamlet waits to exact revenge on Claudius in order to minimize impunity... I too, fear success. How upsetting the confidence that mercy will win the day!

Is it not sweeter, I ask, to refuse the efforts of a father who was absent, to unsmilingly apologize:

Sorry dad, ya missed the boat.

A perfect Father asks back:

Jonah 4:4 Daughter, do you do well to be angry?

In grace he places my eyes in sockets, that they might turn even while the smarting othercheek is yet dead-set.

I see now, Dad, I am the one who's missed the mercy boat.

A week from now I'll be in Naperville, through the following Monday.

Lord make in me a Thankful heart, for all you've done. Share with me the glory of your fair and merciful heart of love toward my family. Turn my eyes, my cheek, always. And quicken my heart, my step, all this way home.