Sunday, October 5, 2008

A rainy, stay-inside-and-study day

I woke up to pouring rain, followed shortly by thunder and lightning. The day remained mucky, which further encouraged me to remain indoors and compare the S&L crisis to the current situation, learn more about Australian commercial policies, and practice my characters. Actually, I spent far more time practicing characters than I realized, or probably even needed to. With the consequence that I never got around to decoding those environmental economics diagrams.

Or cleaning my desk, currently covered in:
  • Investments: 6th Edition
  • a crumpled, out-dated newspaper
  • New Practical Chinese Reader (textbook and workbook)
  • a camera in an unzippered case
  • an empty water bottle
  • an unwashed bowl
  • Water for Elephants, lying open to pages 256 and 257
  • a red mechanical pencil
  • a notebook open to notes on Australian free trade agreements
  • five other notebooks, closed and covered by folders, an empty envelope, the newspaper, a purse, a page covered in Chinese characters, a plastic knife, and a brochure for Philips irons with an amusing photograph on the front
  • three wrapped toothpicks
  • a pig pig family schedule book
  • sheets of graph paper in a plastic wrapper
  • a map of Sik Sik Yuen Wong Tai Sin Temple
  • an ethernet cable
  • two plastic bags
  • another newspaper
  • a fencing training schedule
  • Official Absentee Balloting Material - First Class Mail
  • a piece of red string
  • a calendar with a pelican
O.K., wow, and that's not even the whole mess. How embarassing. I'm going to stop writing now and remedy this disaster.

Except I need to add a food update--I did leave my room for dinner; we chose the first place we found at the Town Centre that didn't have an unreasonable wait. A Taiwanese restaurant with outdoor seating (by which I mean, outside of the restaurant, but inside the mall, with a view looking down to the lower levels). I had a noodle soup with vegetable and pork dumplings. It went absolutely perfectly with my soggy hair and damp clothes. And yay for Hong Kong waiters bring hot water!

Other random notes from the dinner expedition that were difficult to transition to:

I didn't bring a camera and missed out on not one, but two, adorable "no dogs" signs. Although one might have been next to a "no photo" sign.

One of the chopsticks in my original set was broken, but before I saw my friends' I thought maybe people use uneven chopsticks in Taiwan.

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