"Do you ever find in the hostels that your internet doesn’t work?"
"Mmm, hmm. One night I tried connecting to the internet at 8 and then when I went to sleep at midnight it still wasn’t working.”
"Yes, one night I waited for one hour."
"I even have the, you know, the Ethernet cable and it still won’t work."
I thought she’d begun this topic completely at random. I must learn to recognize when people are foretelling the future.
Anyway, it’s chilly again. And the air conditioning still hasn’t been turned off in that one auditorium where I have financial economics. And I forgot and wore a T-shirt.
Aside from that, it was a swell day. I woke up feeling less miserable, I bought more blackcurrant juice and definitely didn’t feel miserable, the OMIP invited me to a farewell for the exchange students on December 1, there'll be a joint Hostel E and Hostel F Thanksgiving dinner (maybe with fire-chicken?) next week, and most recently, I laughed uncontrollably in the library.
I went to the library to escape the incredibly happy, incredibly loud, but above all DISTRACTING music playing on my roommate’s computer. It was a short little tune repeating itself on an endless loop. Even if I were the sort of person who would request others to turn down their incredibly happy, incredibly loud, but above all DISTRACTING music I couldn’t have, because shortly before the music became intolerable my roommate left the room with the song still playing. So.
The peace and quiet of the library. For five minutes, until the
UPDATE: Internet's working, so I'll post this now.
music started seeping in through the windows or the walls or anyway, the concert or whatever caused the music must have been either very loud or very close or very probably both because libraries are generally guaranteed quiet zones. I wonder though, what it would be like to go a whole day and not stop hearing music. Like you wake up to the music of your alarm clock, and then you're walking down the hall and so is someone else who's humming, and elevator music is playing in the elevator, and you call the bank or something and get put on hold and listen to that music for awhile until your patience wears out and you hang up, and the ice cream truck comes by, and someone turns on the radio, and you go somewhere else and people are practicing for a musical, and somewhere else someone else is practicing opera, and somewhere else there's another radio, or maybe a grand piano.
It might be fun.
Right, anyway, back to Hong Kong. Actually, I really had nothing else to say. Oh! But that reminds me, "actually" seems to be a lot of people's favorite (I was tempted to add a "u" in there but didn't want to seem like a, whatever that word is for people who pretend they're fluent in British English when they're not. if that word I'm looking for even exists. but the "o" looks so lonely!) words. By which I mean three: my roommate (who says it a lot) and my Mandarin teacher (who says it with a particular emphasis) and that one group mate (who said, "I really like that word" after typing the word "actually"). Actually, "actually"'s kind of fun to say. Kind of like you're sneezing.
And that reminds me: there's no particular phrase to say in Hong Kong when someone sneezes. I don't mind, because I never developed the habit of saying "bless you" or "gesundheit" or anything at all, but I'd always feel awkward when someone would sneeze and everyone else in the room would say something or offer a tissue because I would do nothing except think: "right--I was supposed to respond that." And then if I sneezed I'd have to face the awkwardness of people noticing that I'd just released billions of airborne bacteria and also have to remember to thank them for noticing.
Alright, alright, goodnight.
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