No Sense of Direction, No Sense of Time

The hapless way I wander through the world, it's amazing I've managed as much as I have. Yesterday morning I got up early to go to school orientation (at 9:10), but somehow got distracted and didn't leave until after 8:45. That ought to be enough time, but I was not at all confident in which way to talk to get to my school. So I decided to take the MRT. Once I got off the MRT, I managed to get lost on the campus even though I had thoughtfully grabbed the campus map! I arrived flustered and bathed in sweat ten minutes late... or rather, 23 hours and 50 minutes early, since the orientation turned out to be the next day.

I did the only reasonable thing, which was attempt to discover the most efficient walking route back to my room. Not easy without a proper map, but I had the campus map, a tourist map, and a vague recollection of what I had seen on googlemaps. I am sorely hopeless without my iphone map function. Anyway, I did a considerable amount of rambling around, but did finally get home.

Peacock Pansy Butterfly

There is not much to tell about the day. I was weary and sore from all the strenuous hiking, and it was extremely hot out, so I mostly just stayed in. I had to go out for food of course. When I did, I saw this butterfly. It is a pretty butterfly in itself, but here's the really cool thing: I immediately recognized it as Junonia almana, the peacock pansy butterfly. Not because I'd ever seen one before, but because I had picked it out from internet photos and painted one! Painting something certainly makes you know its details in a thorough and persistent way. I was really tickled to see this creature in person and recognize it so instantly and strongly. I had to make myself stop painting butterflies because it was not a good use of my time. But I guess something good (or at least, interesting) came out of it.

For lunch I had some sort of donburi. I had been seeing this character in various places (including my comic book): 丼. So when I saw it on the menu of the little restaurant I went into, I decided to order it. It's egg, onion, and meat over rice. I had 豬丼, which is pork. When I got home I looked up how to pronounce the character (I think in this context it is dan). Learn something new every day,

Upstairs Cafe

I worked on my manuscript for some part of the afternoon. In the evening, I made another attempt to find a pleasant cafe. You have to admit that this one looks at least sort of promising? But it had uncomfortable chairs, and offered dreadfully expensive lackluster Western food. I had small portion of spicy fried chicken and a cold imported beer for almost $13, which by local standards is absurd.

Well, cross that one off the list of places to try, I guess.

All afternoon, the weather had been unsettled. Still hot, but with sudden strong gusts of wind. In the evening, the storm finally broke and went on all night: huge claps of thunder, heavy rains. I was pretty happy about it and tried to turn off the AC and open my windows. However, it did not actually cool off very much and given the slight gap between the screen and the glass I was worried about mosquitoes getting in.

Today was the actual school orientation. I woke up reasonably early... but somehow got distracted and didn't leave until 8:30. This should have been plenty of time, but again I failed to quite find the most efficient route. Gotta work on that! Tomorrow for sure! I did get there exactly on time, and many other people were later than me.

The orientation made me feel old. Like I had been around this block so many times, maybe even like this is one too many. But it's really the last time I'll ever do something like this I'm sure. And it is an impressive setup. Three hours of class per day, two of the hours with a maximum of four students per class, one hour of one-on-one. A language pledge when on school grounds, and draconian rules about missing class or being late. (Must must must work on my route to school...!) I am interested to learn who my classmates will be. One is assigned to classes rather than choosing them, which is novel and kind of fun!

Due to the severity of the storm, the campus tour was cancelled; the university was shut down, as well as all government offices.

I went to lunch with a girl I had met on placement testing day. She is a recent PhD graduate, doing a post-doc, and is at roughly the same stage of manuscript revision as I am. We had jiaozi 餃子, which she says is her favorite food. Why do I always forget about jiaozi? They are delicious! We each ate ten (compare: the total bill came to about $4, including a small appetizer that we split), and chattered away. I am not so good at making friends, but I really made efforts in this case. She works on something completely different from what I work on, but still we had fun talking about stuff. She had lived for a year in Singapore and had interesting thoughts about it. She had also spent time in Australia. We are definitely going to be writing buddies and try to meet and force each other to work a few times a week.

I showed her the campus branch of Eslite, where I also bought volume 2 of my comic book. Yep, I actually finished volume 1. It may be the first Chinese book I have read cover-to-cover purely for pleasure. Though of course a comic book may not really count as a book... Now I am home resting, having bought some fruit, chocolate, and black tea along the way.

Last, I am pleased to report that I acquired a battery for the hideous clock. As I suspected, the scallop shell pendulum swings back and forth frenetically, making a dull thud of a ticking sound. So far it does seem to keep time. The eerie light also adds to the overall effect.

Davy Jones' Clock