Fire chicken!

When I stepped out of the lift this morning, a crowd of people greeted me and handed me crackers. Probably in relation to Consultation Day, which also explains the handmade banners hanging across the common area and the gold stars (with people's faces inside) taped to the window. On Consultation Day the new committee members replace the old ones. I thought committees were like clubs, but no, my roommate explained. Each academic department has its own student-run committee that plans events and stuff. Potential new members go through a rigorous application process, but I never actually learned who makes the final decision. It's not by a vote; however, people can submit a request that the new committee member not be a committee member, and the mysterious decision-makers reconsider. What I found most strange is that if the person is denied a position as committee member, no one else is selected to fill that opening.

In Mandarin we learned new vocabulary, including the ever-useful "like." If I wanted to, I could now say: "I don't like coffee," "I like learning Chinese," "I don't like doctors," and "I like your sister's boyfriend's maternal grandmother." In the last five minutes of class we talked about the election and Thanksgiving. The Chinese word for "turkey" translates literally as "fire chicken." I think from no one that's how I'll refer to them. "Excuse me, would you mind pouring more gravy on my slice of fire chicken?"

When I visited the stationary shop at Fu Tai today, I saw they'd replaced Halloween with sparkly garlands, jingle bells, and cheap Santa Clauses. Noooo...too soon...I'm still recovering from flipping the calendar to November!

In the afternoon, a committee member (I'm assuming) handed me a bookmark when I entered the lift. I don't even want to imagine the time it took to make the whole stack.


And just now (actually, a few sentences ago, while writing "today, I saw") people came by to deliver the name of my master for Secret Angel. She likes chocolate, sweets, some kind of soft drink, and some kind of comic whose English translation they couldn't tell me. Yay! This game's so fun!