[Tornadoes and Blinkers]

As I not-so-studiously prepare for an upcoming science test, bullets of water suddenly begin to torpedo at my window. I instinctively look to the pane of glass. Within a few seconds, my eyes are assaulted by a blinding flash of lightning, then my ears by a thunderous boom. In my mind, I'm thinking, "Aw, yeah, baby. STORM TIME!" That is, until I realized what could come.

Monday night at 8:10pm, an EF-1 tornado touched down in Moorefield Township, near Springfield, Ohio in Clark County. This tornado was reported to pack up to 90 mph winds. No injuries were reported, the NWS said. However, concrete blocks were lifted onto a roof, power lines were downed and at least one home was damaged. This was not a huge tornado, but it reminded me of what could have happened.

On Sunday, May 21st, the single deadliest tornado on record ripped through Joplin, Missouri. National Weather Service Director Jack Hayes said the tornado in Joplin was given a preliminary label as an EF4. This storm had winds of 190 to 198 mph. At times, it was three-quarters of a mile wide.

Sunday's killer tornado ripped through the heart of Joplin, a blue-collar southwest Missouri city of 50,000 people, slamming straight into St. John's Regional Medical Center. It destroyed possibly thousands of homes, and leveled hundreds of businessed, even massive ones like Home Depot or Walmart.

All of these tornadoes twisting up and down Tornado Alley had me thinking about when I was younger. I had not yet lived in Ohio yet, I was at the ripe, old age of about four and I had lived in the New Jersey/Philadelphia area. At this age, I had not yet learned much English.

Tornado sirens were going off, Mom and Dad had the news on to watch what was happening, and I was just a curious kid looking out the window at the medium drizzle. A news anchor reports the possibility of a tornado touching down. I look to my parents, "What's 'tomato?' " I ask. They only chuckle and say, "TORNADO?" Later that night, they explained to me of these rapidly whirling, funnel-shaped clouds of doom. As I was tucked into bed, I could help but try to figure out the difference between "tomatoes" and "tornadoes." Oh, god. I was a cute kid.

Have you ever mistaken some words for others, or had your kids mistake words for others? Like, water and quarter. Or maybe, as a kid, when you didn't understand something, you just made up something that made sense in your mind just so you had some kind of explanation.

I remember doing that around the age of five or six. Always sitting in the back seat ( Sorry, Rebecca, you can take the front. I ain't drivin' at five. ), I was always very confused whenever the ticking of the blinker went on. It always happened right before or as the car turned left or right, so, it must have something to do with that. I thought for a very long time that the ticking was the sound of the car keys hitting the interior of the car as we turned. Huh, and to think that at age five, I was thinking about Newton's first Law of Motion!

Have you ever made up explanations for things you didn't understand as a kid?

[Being Asian: Answering the Door]

I apologize for not posting in so long. With the end of school nearing bearing large projects and rather impressive final exams, and a computer virus that prevents me from using Microsoft Word, I've found myself with very little time; limited resources; and ultimately, a lack of inspiration to do any decent writing. Today, I am working on writing a bunch of notecards to cover the topics I've looked over all year for my history class. I'm about mid-way through the mess, so I decided to take a break and write. I got a nugget of inspiration just a few moments ago when my doorbell rang.

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There are many advantages to being an Asian, with an Asian-looking face, an Asian-looking stature, and an Asian-sounding accent--maybe even knowing an Asian dialect. I've found that this comes in handy whenever I find particularly pesky strangers at my door. This is how things are usually handled.

The doorbell rings; I come face-to-face with a young teen trying to sell me magazines to raise money for their school fund-raiser. Today, I decide that I will pull out my Cantonese tongue.

"I don't have a phone to buy a refridgerator," I say in a dialect foreign to the young man before me. I was short on quick improvisation, and this was all I could utter. I accompany this remark with a confused face and a slight shrug of the shoulders. The man apologizes profusely, and turns to leave.

Maybe I come across a young man asking me to let Jesus into me heart. Well, I don't want to stand in the doorway for half-an-hour to get lectured by this guy about something I honestly don't really give two flying neon turds about.What do I do?

"Oh, like-ah the Buddha! Yes, rearry good man!" then I continue in a heavy accent rambling a bit about Buddhism, then eventually talking completely in Cantonese gibberish ( some more of that refridgerator stuff ). Soon, the man, himself gets confused, pardons himself, and I slam the door in his face.

Disclaimer: In no way am I trying to offend Asians, or the guys going door-to-door to raise money for schools, or the guys trying to spread religion. I am just trying to make a somewhat humourous post about how I use my ethnicity to my advantage all in good fun.