The coolness of Bilinguiailsm (Or "Tri-" "Quad-"...)

I was dining out with my family and a friend at a familiar Chinese restaurant this past weekend, and as my parents asked me what I wanted, I simply responded with memory. However, my friend ordered from the menu. This astonished me, and I couldn't help it, but feel impressed. Later that night, I wondered to myself, "Why am I impressed? Shouldn't I be equipped with such an ability. I mean I am Chinese right?" Confounded, I went to my mom and asked her why my Chinese competence wasn't up to par. She replied, "You speak it fluently and that's good enough. English was more important for your education here." Really? My sudden realization of an identity-crisis greatly exposed the haphazard environment that obstructs us from cultivating a second language.

People might argue that "on the bright side", students are able to access foreign language classes as early as middle school, but is that really the correct perspective? For more than a decade, neurologists and psychologists have compiled data that points to a critical learning period for bilingual languages (before age 10) due to the Broca/Wernicke area complexes that I won't delve into. Why not start teaching kids at an earlier age? Is it that abominable that we take maybe, an hour from Cartoon Network or the Disney channel? Or even so, parents even understand this essential concept. That is the duty of our education system. On the other end, is the practicality problem. Despite the tools offered, there remains a question that repeatedly pops up in these student's heads: Why are we learning this? The answer is a simple "fulfillment of a college requirement". There is just no driving force behind learning a second language. As a result, we don't really learn a second language in high school, - we are just there to earn a mere A. Interestingly enough, we are stuck on learning English. So are we as diverse as we thought ourselves to be? Or are we just compromising our identities to work for a decent university? Unforunately, the problem not only to the future, but also the past. Retrospect to my thoughts beforehand, my consciousness was raised through the realization that I neglected to truly learn my native language. If I could go back in time, I would surely have placed more heart and effort into my bilinguialism. Cuz' I gotta admit, it is pretty cool.

Blogs: Just a fad or much more than that?

I remember when online blogging was most popular.  It was around middle school for me when everyone had a blogger, livejournal or xanga.  It was like the myspace or facebook or today.  People were constantly writing posts with picture and videos and waiting for people to comment back and forth on their posts.  I never realized at the time that this was a literacy and language experience.  I just figured I'd get one and start writing posts because everyone else had one.  

I remember I had this one blog that was purely dedicated to writing back and forth to one of my friends that lived in Taiwan.  This wasn't the most ideal way to send letters back and forth but it was the most convenient.  However, when writing on these public spaces, I couldn't help but still feel distance between us, even though we were in constant communication with one another.  What is it that makes these virtual writing spaces so much more impersonal than actually taking a sheet of paper and jotting down your thoughts?  To me, although I have become accustomed to doing a majority of my writing on the computer, it still feels unnatural for me to consider it an actually "writing" experience.  Is online blogging just a fad that disconnects people from the reality of language and writing?  

I know people who purposely rid themselves of public blogging spaces like myspace or facebook, because they feel they are being consumed by these so called "fads".  Would having too many of these online blogging tools actually distance us from the reality of literacy and turn us off to the idea of writing?  This is definitely something to think about...