gratuitous amounts of photos + thursday

"A mind is a terrible thing to waste." -United Negro College Fund

I've got a few pictures to show you all from the past couple days. I hope this sates (not whets) the appetite of those who have clamor'd.

But first, let me introduce my friend Kenta. Kenta is from Japan. Furthermore, he is crazy skilled and awesome--by the Foo definition. He's good at everything: kip-ups, bar gymnastics, arm-wrestling, chinese dance, spinning things on your fingers, japanese traditional instruments. He can even play the Mononoke-hime theme on Japanese flute. Here he is, on Wednesday, beating Scott at arm-wrestle so fast it blurs:

Did I mention he won with the other arm too? Anyway, Wednesday was the last day of Taiwanese Folk Dance, so next culture class we do Gong Fu. That also means we have to perform for hundreds of old people, including 5 cenetarians, on October 22nd. Hopefully it won't be too bad. As for language, it was again excellent with our new teacher. I still managed to find time to draw a little 'tattoo' on Anna's arm:

Don't get any ideas though:p Actually I'm getting ahead of myself speaking of tattoos. I don't think anyone's got any yet--though some have new piercings--but I got some free temporary ones from a store with my purchase of a 2L pepsi. So, on the bus to the MRT, I watched in awe as Anna used pop and a tissue to apply the tattoo to her face, on the moving bus.

Brad may be glad to know this is yet another person who likes Nirvana. On the subway, she unilaterally declared (possibly in realization of his sheer excellence) her marraige to Kenta. We explained it to him in Chinese, though I'm not sure he quite understood what was happening even though he knew what we were saying. I think they make a cute couple though...

We also learned at Language Class that next week the classes will be redistributed so that those who suck severely are separated from those who only consistently suck. Luckily, my favourite people will still be staying in my class, with the addition of hardcore American Alex & the Korean girl who, it seems, is never to be seen wearing anything but a skirt--that's become something I rely on as much as the pregnant women. It's a constant in my life. Speaking of constants & weaknesses, Kenta does have one weakness (seemingly shared by other Japanese nationals): being suddenly and quickly dragged across the floor by one leg. The perpetrator? Aforementioned hardcore American Alex. Witness the carnage below:

Also, in the evening was choir. There was another foreigner there, a chick from America. She knew a lot of Chinese, but when I asked her if she was a soprano she said she didn't know, so at the start I thought she was a n00b. But she's more starting out singing than speaking Chinese. We sang through the whole Gospel Mass & for the most part it was really awesome. Choir people be forewarned--I might foist it upon you in 2005!

Thursday

Today I had no school in the morning, so I just read stuff on the internet for a while. I was meeting a Rotarian at the MRT station to go to a Rotary meeting... but I was almost late -- I had to shower & dress in like 15 minutes because I slacked too long. The meeting was o.k.; I enjoyed the food and the guest speaker was talking about spinal disorders or something. They made me talk about my life, but someone advised me earlier not to prepare a speech, so I just wung it. That's right, I made up natural-sounding sentences explaining my current activities in Chinese on the spot (within the limits of my vocabulary of course). So that went pretty well. Came home and played the piano a bit & did laundry.

Dinner was good, I had like 7 sausages because they're somehow better here. Then I spent like an hour at the stationary store looking for postcards. But it turns out they don't have any & that I should have gone to the bookstore... I already have the good ones from the bookstore though. This might turn into an epic quest.

Hopefully the w00t is gone now, I too was tired of it. In response to comments: I've listened to some Muse, it doesn't do much for me; I practise conversation & drums with a drummer, but it's not my primary instrument now; the concept of buying a new CD (except BG) is pretty foreign to me. They're out of my price range. 5 to 10 CDs = cymbal too, drummer's math.