It’s Saturday and, of course, beautiful outside. I…
It’s Saturday and, of course, beautiful outside. I’ve wasted enough time surfing around and changing my turtles’ water, watching them scramble about in the gargantuan weekly waterfall issuing from the faucet. Although I’d much rather be at the beach on a gorgeous day like today, I need to stay in and write. I want to get to reach at least 60,000 words this weekend, the equivalent of around 200 pages in a paperback. But mainly I just want to finish getting the main story down, so that I can begin editing and polishing it.
Hopefully, someone will call today and say “Yes, I can fill in for you for a few hours a day through October!” If not, I don’t know what I’m going to do. Probably tell my company to find their own damn replacement. And, of course, they’ll probably tell me not to bother coming back. Go insane from working without vacation for years on end, or be fired. Nice set of choices.
As I walked in the entrance to my building the other night, an Asian guy and a Chinese woman were talking in the lobby. She was speaking English to him and seemed to be very proud of it, while he stared at her uncomprehendingly. I got into the elevator, and the guy followed me in. After we got out of the elevator we both walked up to the same apartment door. It seems that he is a student from Japan, here to study Chinese, which he can already speak better, apparently, than English. Why the woman downstairs was speaking English with him I have no idea. Well, yes I do. Most Chinese people think that English is spoken everywhere, and they will try to show off their English skills, even if those skills are extremely basic, at the drop of a hat. My landlord’s daughter has left, and the guy who’s come here to study Chinese is living in her room now. He seemed excited to find that we have onsen (hot springs) up in Beitou, which used to be a real Japanese enclave.
I’ve added a few new photos to the photo page, updated the links page (thanks to Doyce for mentioning me on his page), and sprinkled a few more graphics throughout the site. Have fun.
