A Brief Update
Summer is over.
My downstairs neighbor is moving out. This means that the little boy who lives there won't be randomly ringing my doorbell any more or letting their front door slam. This also means he won't be leaving me any more chalk drawings on my sidewalk or advising me that I shouldn't walk in the street because there might be cars. He was really quite cute and sociable, even if he did apparently dislike bathtime with a vengeance. (Darned good set of lungs on the little bugger.) I hope the incoming neighbors are as quiet and non-bothersome as the outgoing neighbors have been.
I'm learning Mandarin. I've been told my pronunciation is good but that I need to work on my tones. It would seem that I (and most of the rest of the class) speak in a monotone. This can lead to problems since the same syllable can be pronounced four different ways. A classmate who has already had a beginner's Mandarin class learned this when he called a co-worker Amanda Chest Hair instead of Amanda Panda. Fortunately she laughed at him. This is probably also how my former TA Craig unintentionally ordered the chef's wife for dinner.
And finally, a recent sunset. Alas, this isn't the peak of the sunset that night. Silly me didn't have my camera with me and things faded a bit while I ran to get it. Lots of reds, pinks, purples, golds and oranges. I'm hoping to catch more of them during my evening walk.
My downstairs neighbor is moving out. This means that the little boy who lives there won't be randomly ringing my doorbell any more or letting their front door slam. This also means he won't be leaving me any more chalk drawings on my sidewalk or advising me that I shouldn't walk in the street because there might be cars. He was really quite cute and sociable, even if he did apparently dislike bathtime with a vengeance. (Darned good set of lungs on the little bugger.) I hope the incoming neighbors are as quiet and non-bothersome as the outgoing neighbors have been.
I'm learning Mandarin. I've been told my pronunciation is good but that I need to work on my tones. It would seem that I (and most of the rest of the class) speak in a monotone. This can lead to problems since the same syllable can be pronounced four different ways. A classmate who has already had a beginner's Mandarin class learned this when he called a co-worker Amanda Chest Hair instead of Amanda Panda. Fortunately she laughed at him. This is probably also how my former TA Craig unintentionally ordered the chef's wife for dinner.
And finally, a recent sunset. Alas, this isn't the peak of the sunset that night. Silly me didn't have my camera with me and things faded a bit while I ran to get it. Lots of reds, pinks, purples, golds and oranges. I'm hoping to catch more of them during my evening walk.
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