User:PZFUN

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"You're too young to be so .... pessimistic," I said, using the English word.

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"Pessi-what?"

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"Pessimistic. It means looking only at the dark side of things."

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"Pessimistic ... pessimistic..." She repeated the English to herself over and over, and then she looked up at me with a fierce glare. "I'm only sixteen," she said, "and I don't know much about the world, but I do know one thing for sure. If I'm pessimsitc, then the adults in this world who are not pessimistic are a bunch of idiots."

"That night, in our darkened bedroom, I lay beside Kumiko, staring at the ceiling and asking myself just how much I really knew about this woman. The clock said 2:00 am. She was sound asleep. In the dark, I thought about blue tissues and patterned toilet paper and beef and green peppers. I had lived with her all this time, unaware how much she hated these things. In themselves they were trivial. Stupid. Something to laugh off, not make a big issue out of. We'd had a little tiff and would have forgotten about it in a couple of days." "But this was different. It was bothering me in a strange new way, digging at me like a little fish bone caught in the throat. Maybe — just maybe — it was more crucial than it had seemed. Maybe this was it: the fatal blow. Or maybe it was just the beginning of what would be the fatal blow. I might be standing in the entrance of something big, and inside lay a world that belonged to Kumiko alone, a vast world that I had never known. I saw it as a big, dark room. I was standing there holding a cigarette lighter, its tiny flame showing me only the smallest part of the room. Would I ever see the rest? Or would I grow old and die without ever really knowing her? If that was all that lay in store for her, then what was the point of this married life I was leading? What was the point of my life at all if I was spending it in bed with an unknown companion?" * * * "This was what I thought about that night and what I went on thinking about long afterward from time to time. Only much later did it occur to me that I had found my way into the core of the problem."' Introduction Missing image DSC03988.JPG Me (on the left) and one of my classes in China Hello, and welcome to my user page! Originally, I was born in Chicago, Illinois. But at the tender age of one, my father got a job working for the Københavns Universitets, or Copenhagen University in English. Who would have thought that an American would wind up with his family in Denmark! There I grew up until it was decided that I should return to the United States for my high school education, but I was not destined to remain there for long. I left after one year to continue my studies in Bunkyo Ward in Tokyo, Japan. Living there for two years, I went on to São Paulo, Brazil. FInally returning to America, I went New York University where I majored in photography. This previous year I was an English teacher in Honghu, Hubei, China. But now I have returned to New York City. I love writing about my home country, Denmark. But I also have some really weird interests too (trying to create Wiki entries for all the cities and constituencies in Namibia comes to mind). And, as of late, there seems to be no end to my obsession for writing about the MTR and the KCRC. I always have my camera with me, no matter what. According to this list from 29 November 2004, I was the 869th most active Wikipedian with 1064 edits. I created the South African Collaboration of the Week on 24 November 2004 with the intent to further develop the quality of South African Wikis. On 12 December, I was made an administrator according to the results of this vote. I also have written five featured articles, namely South Africa, MTR, Johannesburg, History of Cape Colony from 1806 to 1870, and History of Cape Colony from 1870 to 1899. You will now find me mostly poking around South Africa-related articles. I am also a member of the Scandinavian Mediators Club, so if you need mediation or assistance in the Danish language, please feel free to contact me! These are my French, Danish, and Afrikaans user pages. </blockquote>

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