Trichome Scenery

Two Tree Hill

Co-credit with Wannamolla

Coincidences 2

I would give anything to read a list of all the strange coincidences I have experienced during the course of my life. Sadly, I’ve forgotten most of them to the depths of time. Which is why I have finally started to write them down when they happen. Though I must recall the sad truth that I have forgotten so many mind-blowingly unlikely coincidences, at least I can take some comfort in knowing that recording a few is better than not recording any. Today comes the second installment in the series.

By day I am a teacher, as you can see from the Education section, and these days I’m doing a lot of tutoring. My oldest student is a Vietnamese man in his 40s. Teaching him is easy because he prepares everything that he wants to be taught and I just have to go in and help him with pronunciation. For the first few lessons, he had me teaching him how to sing English language songs from the 70s and 80s, like disco group Boney M and pop single “You’re My Heart, You’re My Soul“. Lately, he has really been trying to get all the phonemes of English down, focusing on mastering the sounds that aren’t found in Vietnamese, like j, p, th, and z. It was the lesson he had prepared for today that was the coincidence.

After studying animals for a while, he took out another vocabulary list, one with the names of fruit. It was a list of all the fruits in Vietnamese translated into English. In the margin of the paper I read where he had printed out the list from. Interopia.com. I realized I had never told this particular student about my site. He had just randomly found my Encyclopedia of Vietnamese Fruit, printed it out and brought it to class without ever realizing he was showing it to the very creator of that list and owner of that site.

I’d call that a coincidence.

Futurcity

32

Today is my 32nd birthday. Therefore, I present you with 32-inspired artwork. Each of the squares below represents a year of my life, a separate story all of its own. I look forward to the symmetry this new age brings with it.

The Place I Sometimes Go

Relic 2

Saintan

Tsugu 2

Sequel to Tsugu

Violet Hill

Red and Yellow Then Came To Me 2

The sequel to this previous work.

Jet White

Draw Something Contest!

You may remember a few months back Interopia sent an invitation to you to join us on the Draw Something app (user name Interopia). Using a touchscreen device you have to draw the given word and your partner has to guess that word, much in the vein of the classic game Pictionary. While certainly a flawed game (some people take all of the fun out of it by just lazily spelling the given word instead of drawing it), it is good drawing practice. Below are six of the many pictures I have drawn in the past few months. Leave a comment below and guess the words! Interopia will mail a prize to whoever can get the most correct!

Obsidioforms

Orbitals

Nitelizard Escaping Fire

I Am Light

Degeneration

Firis

I Wasn’t Scared Until Now

Spiral of Spirals

 

Work in progress. 

Bird of Paradise 2

This is a new version of an older picture I made.

Saudi Sandals

When I was a youngin, I grew up in Saudi Arabia with my family. My father worked as an engineer for the oil company there. All in all, I lived there for ten years, but had to leave in 1999 when my father retired. One of my favorite mementos I took with me was my pair of locally-made leather sandals. I wore them everywhere, so much that after a decade they finally disintegrated. They were well-made and lasted a long time, but couldn’t last forever. Thankfully, my friend Cody moved back to Saudi as an adult and now lives and works there (Cody collaborates on a lot of the music on this site). Just today, my longtime wish finally came true. I received these in the mail from him.

Leather sandals from Saudi Arabia

Thank you, Cody! I haven’t even worn them yet. I had to post this blog because I was so excited. They remind me of something that happened back when I was at boarding school in America, and my parents were still in Saudi. I used to get a lot of strange looks from people who had never seen such footwear before. One of the people that commented on them was Gladys, the lunch lady in the cafeteria. Gladys was a rather large African American woman with a stern face, and a lot of people didn’t like her because of how strict she was. I guess you could compare her to the “Soup Nazi” in Seinfeld. Well, she commented on my sandals a few times while I was in line for food, and this gave me an idea. The next time I went back to Saudi to visit my parents, I bought her a pair. As soon as I returned to school, I presented them to her. I will never forget the smile that lit up her face. I think it was the first time I ever saw her smile. Assuming she didn’t wear them every single day like I did, maybe she still has them, and they are in one piece. Hope you’re doing well these days, Gladys!

Edit: Just tried them on. Soooooo comfortable. And they will only get more comfortable. That’s the best part about them. They conform to the shape of your feet over time.