The Ignorant Immigrant

This blog is no more.

noreply@blogger.com (Stan Yann) — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 16:33:00 +0000

After using Blogger for about 3 years, I have decided that I will stop posting here and instead will post on the new version of The Ignorant Immigrant which is located on Tumblr. The new URL is: http://stanyann.tumblr.com. This site will remain open.

New Year's Eve!

noreply@blogger.com (Stan Yann) — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 03:19:00 +0000

As 2009 is winding down I started thinking about what my New Year's resolution should be. I haven't made a New Year's resolution in a long time because I never keep them so I figured what is the point. I know the things I need to work on in 2010 and whether I make a resolution to work on them or not does not matter, what matters is actually working on them. So I hope that 2010 is much better than 2009 and I will try to make it so. There, I've made my New Year's resolution.

Boxing Day.

noreply@blogger.com (Stan Yann) — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 04:30:00 +0000

Today is Boxing Day. So if you didn't put on your boxing gloves and start a fight with a complete stranger, it's not too late since it is 11:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. This means that if you hurry you can still get in good ten rounds before midnight.

Happy Holidays!

noreply@blogger.com (Stan Yann) — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 00:03:00 +0000

It's been two months since I posted anything on my blog. I have a very good reason for my absence. At the time of my last post I was preparing a presentation which was going to serve as my audition for a job with a consulting firm. To make a long story short, I got the job and then we started looking for a new place to live.

We found a new apartment right before Thanksgiving and I started my new job shortly after that. For a while now I have been commuting to Camp Hill from Bloomsburg three days a week. This isn't a bad commute since it only takes anywhere from an hour and a half to two hours depending on traffic and weather conditions.

We also have been moving our present residence to our new residence a bit at a time. And this is the part that is taking the longest time. But it's Christmas Eve so enough about the last two months. I wish everybody a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

And Happy Birthday to my daughter Lili who will be three tomorrow.

Blue Puppy.

noreply@blogger.com (Stan Yann) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 01:06:00 +0000

This is a Soviet cartoon that came out when I was my daughter's age. It is in two parts and entirely in Russian. So watch if you speak it.

Stop!

noreply@blogger.com (Stan Yann) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 22:25:00 +0000

Stop! and think once in a while

you have no reason to run away

you have nothing to fear but

you fear anyway and they say

that fear for fear's sake is in style

these days again so you're in a rut

and you think that being afraid

like every one else will make you

different somehow and lift you up

above your status but it's hard to do

because, I am sorry to say, I'm afraid

nothing's more common than fear so Stop!

In vino veritas.

noreply@blogger.com (Stan Yann) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 16:30:00 +0000

They say there is truth in wine

While I don't know if that is true

It would be rude if I'd decline

To share a bottle of red with you

I reach for the past.

noreply@blogger.com (Stan Yann) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:44:00 +0000

I reach for the past

but it does not reach for me

in return because the memory

has faded and is gone at last

It wants nothing to

do with me its buildings lie

in ruins covered by sand and I

have been long gone too

Et si tu n'existais pas.

noreply@blogger.com (Stan Yann) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 13:55:00 +0000

This is a French song that I really liked when I was a kid. The singer's name, Joe Dassin, seemed strange to me at the time. Recently I learned that he was an American. This is a performance from 1973. Enjoy.

Felicita.

noreply@blogger.com (Stan Yann) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 13:28:00 +0000

This is a video of Al Bano and Romina Power singing their song Felicita. Italian music was very popular in the Soviet Union when I was growing up. Now I can relive my childhood via YouTube. Enjoy.

I sing the body.

noreply@blogger.com (Stan Yann) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 20:36:00 +0000

I sing the body eclectic

with all the bits and pieces

that comprise it.

I sing the little metal

gears that move back and

forth keeping time.

I sing the graceful hands

that display the obvious and

the not so obvious.

I sing the golden case

which houses the whole and

the sum of its parts.

I sing the body eclectic

because it is of my body.

I the undersigned.

noreply@blogger.com (Stan Yann) — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 13:04:00 +0000

I, the undersigned, upon running into you at a bookstore

will proceed to bore you with the details of my daily life

to which you are required to listen by the terms of this

rather poetic contract.

Then you, the undersigned, will proceed to regale me with

the details for your latest adventure in some exotic location

which I am required to imagine and envy because of my

inability to take such a trip.

At the conclusion of this transaction, we will depart each

other's company and proceed with our own rituals

carrying a little bit of the other with us.

If W.H. Auden.

noreply@blogger.com (Stan Yann) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 22:06:00 +0000

If w.h. auden were william butler yeats,

his initials would be W. H. Y.

and who knows what torment

he would pour on the unsuspecting

heads of poor english majors.

Or if yeats were keats,

he would be romantic

and less prone to see

patterns where there are none.

Then he would be changed,

changed utterly and a terrible

beauty'd be born.

What about 2012?

noreply@blogger.com (Stan Yann) — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 17:14:00 +0000

This is a sign on the side of a camper advocating Christianity that is parked by the Bloomsburg Fair. It seems these people aren't familiar with the Mayan calendar.

Measure of a man.

noreply@blogger.com (Stan Yann) — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:25:00 +0000

there were dreams

but like college loans

they, too, got deferred

there were hopes

but they had to be adjusted

quarterly for inflation

and the rising price of oil

there were prayers

but they were filed alphabetically

in large cardboard boxes

marked answered and unanswered

then put away in storage

New in romance.

noreply@blogger.com (Stan Yann) — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 22:11:00 +0000

NY sticker.

noreply@blogger.com (Stan Yann) — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 19:50:00 +0000

I-80 rest stop.

noreply@blogger.com (Stan Yann) — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 14:56:00 +0000

Write what you know.

noreply@blogger.com (Stan Yann) — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 04:14:00 +0000

There is an old saying that goes: "write what you know." And since I always wanted to be a writer, which was one of the reasons I started this blog, I try to follow it when I sit down to write something.

This time I want to put in words things that have been bothering me because they have been bothering me for a long while. One such thing is my lack of a career.

As I mentioned before I always wanted to be a writer so I went to college and got an English degree. This wasn't a Teaching English degree, mind you, just a plain old English Lit one.

Since I am a non-native English speaker this was probably an odd choice of a major, not to mention the fact that it stopped being fun after a while. I think that History or Philosophy might have served me better in the long run. Alas, poor Yorick, (see how I worked that Hamlet quote in there) you don't think of these things when you are young.

So after graduation I attempted to get a career going. But since I lived, and still live, in a small town in North Eastern Pennsylvania and had no idea what I actually wanted to do, I ended up working in retail.

Eventually that got old. So I decided I wanted to get somewhere in life and went back to my Alma Matter to check out a Masters program. The subject of this program was Instructional Design and since I have heard about this program previously, not to mention the fact that a slew of people I knew in college went through it, I enrolled.

As you would expect, I eventually graduated. I had a lot of fun earning my degree and even started this blog after fellow classmate did a presentation on blogging. Also my wife and I started a family in December of my first year in the program.

When I graduated I was filled with hope and excitement because I was finally going to do something with my life and succeed. But, like another saying goes, "when man plans, god laughs."

Just as I was getting ready to graduate, the economy was getting read to take a major nose dive. And what a nose dive it was!

Suddenly companies and banks were failing left and right. And those that weren't failing, were shedding employees in a manner that reminded me of a zeppelin trying to stay in the air.

So it became harder for somebody right out of college to find a job, or so I thought. My former classmates didn't seem to have any technical difficulties finding jobs.

Maybe I just need to be patient, I thought. Maybe things will get better soon. For a while I watched GM trying to get away from the edge of the abyss thinking that if a company that size is in trouble, my inability to find a job isn't really all that big of a deal.

Eventually that got old, too. I got tired of watching everybody else pass me by while I was on the shoulder fixing a flat tire or doing something else equally tedious.

In the almost two years I have been out of school, I have had a couple of contract jobs but the highly desirable full time job keeps alluding me. Maybe it is time to reconsider my career path and go back to grad school for my PhD.

Or maybe it is time to stop looking for a job in my chosen field get a different profession. But what do I do exactly?

This is the one question that I have not been able to answer. But since I am getting older, and do not want to feel like I am failing my family anymore, I am open to suggestions.

NIN.

noreply@blogger.com (Stan Yann) — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 21:24:00 +0000

Ages.

noreply@blogger.com (Stan Yann) — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 20:00:00 +0000

One at a time.

noreply@blogger.com (Stan Yann) — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 17:18:00 +0000

This sign is from Lake Tobias Animal Park. It seems that many people are allowed to boat on the lake, but only one person at a time can fish here.

RIP, Les Paul.

noreply@blogger.com (Stan Yann) — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 03:29:00 +0000

Les Paul, a musical genius and inovator of multitrack recording, died today at age 94. He left a lasting legacy which streches across many musical genres. Rock n' Roll would not be what we know today without his influence and his guitars. So, to remember him here is a video of his performance with Chet Atkins.

I am a blog critic.

noreply@blogger.com (Stan Yann) — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 16:19:00 +0000

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, you read it right, I am a blog critic. Or should I say I have just become a member of Blogcritics and now need to write my first article for them. I have 24 hour in which to come up with this article but I don't see that as much of a problem.

I currently don't have a topic in mind for this piece, but with all the wonderfully exciting things happening in the world, most of which are delivered to my cell phone via Twitter, I should have no shortage of ideas.

Maybe I should write about that. Stay tuned to this space for further developments.

Miley gone wild.

noreply@blogger.com (Stan Yann) — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 02:41:00 +0000

Cheryl Phillips, a mild mannered single mom by day and a super blogger known as The Daily Blonde by night, recently awarded Miley Cyrus a rather coveted AssHat award.

This was due to the fact that Miley, the maven of tweeendom and a Disney darling, shed her secret superstar image and performed on the MTV Teen Choice Awards as Britney Spears Jr clad in less clothes than some people put on a poodle in Winter. Miley even brought along her very own stripper pole.

Those of you who are fans of her show, and if you read this blog I highly doubt it, might find this unbelievable. But you have to remember her most recent brush with infamy: the almost naked pictures shot by famed photographer Annie Leibovitz for Vanity Fair. The above picture is the one I am referring to.

At first you might find it shocking that a teenage girl who is also a public figure would choose to rebel against the norm, or what is the norm for her, in such an exhibitionistic way. But if you think about it, in Hollywood reality is different from the one the rest of us occupy.

So it makes perfect sense that a 16 year-old would choose to go this route. But what horrifies me as a parent of a 2 year-old daughter, though, is the fact that Miley's show is popular with children younger than half her age. I have seen 5 year-olds wearing Hannah Montana clothes and getting excited to go see her in concert the same way that their parents used to get excited about New Kids On The Block and their grandparents used to get excited about The Beatles.

This means that the same 5 year-olds probably have seen the MTV Teen Awards and Miley's presentation on the basics of being a stripper. So now they are going to think that dressing like her and dancing like her is perfectly OK. And don't we frown on child pornography in this country?

Child pornography is exactly what Miley's MTV performance was. A prosecutor recently tried to go after some high school girls for sending naked pictures of themselves to their boyfriends. So why isn't somebody trying to do the same to Miley? I think it would be a great idea and it would be a fun trial to watch.

Miley, as a role model for millions of impressionable young girls, try to keep your clothes on. But if you are going to take them off to show the world that you're not a child star anymore, wait until you have had something other than Hannah Montana on your resume or at least until you're eighteen and can buy your own cigarettes instead of sending your assistant.