Things learned:
It is embarrassing to walk around Central in a backpack.
In a city where girls don't switch to flip-flops at lunch and wear heels no matter if it's raining or typhoon status black rain or whatever - then there's me shuffling through the sidewalk with a backpack like Sam going to Mount Doom.
I carry a backpack that looks kinda like those LL Bean ones, the ones that used to be cool in middle school. (Ok maybe not everywhere, but at least in kentucky, LL Bean backpacks with the initials were the rage... I think).
The backpack stunts my growth (potential growth) and makes me look pretentiously 'studious', when sadly I wear it because I pulled my back a month ago and carrying even a handbag on my shoulder makes me want to flinch.
On the bright side, the backpack is an effective defense tool - anybody who tries shoving past me in a "queue" finds it impossible. Hah.
Hong kong minibus system. (This might not seem very momentous but I feel so native now) =]
Haven't learned:
How to teach. I tutor every weekday, with a new batch of students in IB English. IB English is quite difficult - asking a high school sophomore to figure out the incestuous themes / Greek tragic elements in a play seems a bit overdone.
Most embarrassing moments: explaining that a scene with "kind, loving uncle character" is actually supposed to be about incest.
Defining what impotence is. I still don't think I explained that one quite well.
The law. It's a bit dangerous teaching so much because sometimes I forget that I'm in school as well - and now exams are coming and three months in, I still have no idea what the law is about. Panic panic.
It's like the longer I stay in school, the worse I get at it.
I can already imagine my professor saying "DUHH. As if!" as he reads my exam. Completely possible reality because that's his favorite phrase to say in class. Well not the "as if" but "Duh" is his catch phrase as he looks at us in disgust.
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It's been awhile since I've read anything... but the last book I read was Shantaram the rare kind that stays and colors everything that goes on outside of it while you're reading. At points it gets draining and overwritten, but at the same time it's so generous in what it's saying and trying to give, you have to respect it.
"We should've built a life from the stars and the sea and the sand. And I should've listened to her- she told me almost nothing, but she did give me clues, and I know now that she put signs in her words and expressions that were as clear as the constellations over our heads."
