After getting over the language barrier in Kindergarten
(read that story here), I spoke English fluently...but vit un accent and a stah-studd-stutter. I had to attend an English as a Second Language (ESL) class until middle school in order to get over my linguistic problems.
I always hated going to ESL because they would make me color. Even at that young age, I couldn’t understand how coloring would help me learn English and I had no patience for the arduous activity. To make matters worse, they forced me to recite tongue twisters in front of five other kids, and I was the worst one in the group.
One day, my kindergarten teacher was reading everyone a story about owls on the magic circular carpet, and my ESL teachers came to collect me.
"Stephie, time for your speech lessons,” my teacher said, getting ready to flip to the next page of the storybook.
“No! I na…na…na…need to know vhat's gonna happen to dah ovl!”
"No, it's time for you to learn to speak English properly!"
Everyone was looking at me. I didn't like that. "Pa-pa-pa-pleaase, I just vant to know..."
This escalated in volume (and...
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A little while back, I was selected as a featured artist at the
First Person Arts Salon. First Person Arts has a mission of transforming the drama of real life into memoir and documentary art to foster appreciation for our unique and shared experience.
The kind folks at First Person Arts wanted to know why I decided to choose animation as my original medium, move onto writing, and then juggle live performances for my series "American Goulash". After all, the medium is the message!
I was honored to answer their call, and threw in some funny stories and cartoons in with the mix. Enjoy!
On the tenth day of
Sexmas, I delivered to mommy….
Sean Connery A-Sleepin'.
Originally, I would going to make Sean "Mr. September", but I decided it might offend him because “
it began with a bloody ‘S’!”
--
I like Sean Connery, too, but I haven't seen much of his early work. My first "Classic Connery" moment happened when I walked in on my male roommate watching some hairy chested guy with a gun flailing around in his underwear.
“Eww, did I interrupt you watching old-timey porn?” I asked.
He shot me a dirty look from across the couch. “What are you talking about? This is James Bond!”
“Oh. Never saw it.”
“It’s .007! What’s wrong with you?!”
“I missed many popular films of the 70’s and the 80’s due to the lack of movie-watching technology in my childhood.”
“You want me to rewind it?”
“Nah, I don’t have time. When I have a chance to sit down for a few hours, I need to see ‘Star Wars’, the ‘Indiana Jones’ series, and the ‘Aliens’ series. And besides, this James Bond dude is kinda grossing me around with all his floofy chest hair and tiny bathing suit-ing.”
“That’s SEAN CONNERY, Stephanie!”
“No way…but...
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On the ninth day of
Sexmas, I delivered to mommy….
Tom Selleck calling.
I really do have a hard time telling the difference between Tom Selleck and Burt Reynolds. I guess Tom is hairier... How could we gauge this? Quick - someone invent a Hairometer so you can guess your HMI (Hair Mass Index).
I love everything about this picture. The stupid white sun visor. The hideous diagonally stripped bikini. The humongous "cell phone". The full body hair that doubles as a Magic Eye Picture/Rorschach Test (does anyone else see The Devil in Tom Selleck's tummy hair in the left photo?)
Oh, baby. I think I'm gonna need a cold shower after this one.
Calendar Update: Looks like VistaPrint failed me. They never mailed the calendar to me because one of the other items I put in my order was back-ordered - it's their policy to hold onto the whole order until all items return to stock. It's going to be another week, maybe even two weeks, until I receive the order. This is very disappointing - I was hoping to film Anyu's reaction to it. I suppose my mother is going to have a Sex-less holiday....
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Awesome! Philly2Philly did a feature about "American Goulash" on their site! Thanks guys!Also, WOO HOO! This is my 100th post! Time for cake!
Get Your Goulash
By
Autumn Konopka at 1:40 pm on Wednesday May 27, 2009
Original Source
We’ve all got a crazy family story, the ones we pull out when a party gets dull to stir up a round of belly laughs. People might not even believe that Uncle John burned down the garage or wrenched an old lady from her burning station wagon, but they beg you to tell it over and over again.
Stephanie Yuhas has a blog’s worth of these stories. Since 2007, she’s been posting several stories a month on American Goulash (shinygrape.com/americangoulash), mostly about her Romanian mom (Anyu) and grandmom (Nagymama), their views of the world, and their unique style of child-rearing.
In a recent post called “Bath Time,” Yuhas explains that she had to sneak showers as an adolescent because Nagymama believed that excessive bathing led to: “Red Hair (which makes you look like a whore), All your hair falling out (well, at least it won’t be red anymore), and Kidney infections (resulting in death).” ...
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June 4th,2009
Live Performances,
News | tags:
american,
family,
Funny,
hungarian,
immigrant,
romanian,
stephanie yuhas,
stories,
transylvania |
1 Comment
After getting over the language barrier in Kindergarten (read that story here), I spoke English fluently...but vit un accent and a stah-studd-stutter. I had to attend an English as a Second Language (ESL) class until middle school in order to get over my linguistic problems.
