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Jul. 30th, 2009 01:08 pmYesterday I think I met my long-lost sister, outside of the Walgreen's. It's one of those things I said to myself first as a joke (after we'd talked for something like an hour and a half) but the more I thought of it, the more I like the idea that everyone is potentially my long lost sister (or brother, but really, what does gender have to do with it?) This certainly doesn't mean I want to deal with everyone at any particular time, or that I'm not going to be cautious (um, hello, look at my actual relatives) but it's still a pleasing thought.
Anyhow, she started asking about the bike, and then we made it through martial arts and yoga and recent life history and, well, good times. She'll probably be joining the monday class when I get back. About the time she mentioned that what she'd really wanted to do is study shaolin gongfu, but in, y'know, a spiritual context, it was hard not to dissolve into giggles. (And then I had some surprisingly decent sushi.)
I'm thinking that in Chinese I'm about seven. Yesterday I was very pleased to be able to say "There are a lot of insects today. Some of them tried to fly up my nose!" and I told him about the "rain, rain, go away" song. Today we mostly talked about worms (I think - maybe larvae...) and I introduced him to the saying "The early bird gets the worm." Which I think was the first sentence he pretty much got in English right off. We've had a family of robins joining us the last few mornings - the recently out of the nest offspring follows the parents around and trills at them to be fed. the parents - rather skinnier and much more harried than the offspring - generally oblige.
I'm also getting bolder, kind of. Last night while eating sushi, it became clear that all of the staff were speaking Chinese. So I said (in Chinese) "It's a Japanese restaurant, but everyone speaks Chinese?" to the sushi chef. He said "Excuse me?" and I kind of inwardly groaned - darn it, speak slowly, enunciate clearly - and started repeating it in English, but then he came in with "You speak Chinese too?" so I guess it was just the cognitive dissonance. I get a lot of that.
I'm also going through a patch of having people tell me that they think I'm in my mid twenties. Of course, I just trimmed my hair yesterday to velveteen length, so my standard "check out the grey in my hair" isn't really working.
Anyhow, she started asking about the bike, and then we made it through martial arts and yoga and recent life history and, well, good times. She'll probably be joining the monday class when I get back. About the time she mentioned that what she'd really wanted to do is study shaolin gongfu, but in, y'know, a spiritual context, it was hard not to dissolve into giggles. (And then I had some surprisingly decent sushi.)
I'm thinking that in Chinese I'm about seven. Yesterday I was very pleased to be able to say "There are a lot of insects today. Some of them tried to fly up my nose!" and I told him about the "rain, rain, go away" song. Today we mostly talked about worms (I think - maybe larvae...) and I introduced him to the saying "The early bird gets the worm." Which I think was the first sentence he pretty much got in English right off. We've had a family of robins joining us the last few mornings - the recently out of the nest offspring follows the parents around and trills at them to be fed. the parents - rather skinnier and much more harried than the offspring - generally oblige.
I'm also getting bolder, kind of. Last night while eating sushi, it became clear that all of the staff were speaking Chinese. So I said (in Chinese) "It's a Japanese restaurant, but everyone speaks Chinese?" to the sushi chef. He said "Excuse me?" and I kind of inwardly groaned - darn it, speak slowly, enunciate clearly - and started repeating it in English, but then he came in with "You speak Chinese too?" so I guess it was just the cognitive dissonance. I get a lot of that.
I'm also going through a patch of having people tell me that they think I'm in my mid twenties. Of course, I just trimmed my hair yesterday to velveteen length, so my standard "check out the grey in my hair" isn't really working.
