Ugh.

From an online Christian Science Monitor article:

"Twitter – the social website that asks users to constantly post what they're doing right now in 140 characters or less – became a key source for decimating emergency information during the southern California wildfires last month."

Remember, Remember the Fifth of November

I hear stories of bonfires on every corner for Guy Fawkes Night, but I've yet to see even one. I'm told they're more common in places other than London. One of my officemates was in his hometown (somewhere farther north) this past weekend, and said he went to an attempted bonfire at his neighbor's house. Apparently they couldn't get their massive heap of (wet) wood lit, even with the aid of loads of paint thinner some other guy happened to have with him in his car.

We did have lots of fireworks last night. Though large and loud, they didn't seem to be part of any official display, which meant that, on my walk home, I was jumping out of my skin every few blocks as deafening cracks and pops would sound from just around the corner in any given direction. Since I never knew where the next one would go off, I didn't actually see very many of them.

五, 六 岁

昨天晚上我去中文上课. Séverine 不去, 因为她哥哥来伦敦. 我的老师给我一本成语孩子的书! 这本书很好. 这本书有一张光盘.

(Last night I went to Chinese class. Séverine didn't go, because her brother came to London. My teacher gave me a Cheng Yu (Chinese proverb) kids' book! This book is great. It has a CD.)

She said it's probably for seven or eight year olds. I can read bits, but definitely not all of it. So maybe I'm about five or six in Chinese. Not too bad, right?


It has a little cartoon with each proverb, and I opened the book to one and was excited to understand it, even though I couldn't quite read all the characters. It has a couple of little green cabbages sitting around, talking about how no one is buying white cabbages this winter. In the next panel, someone comes along and buys one of the little green cabbages. Then you see the other green cabbage rolling along and in the final panel, he's hiding among the big white cabbages, saying, "We're all white cabbages here! I'm just shorter than you."


Well, there's a lot that I don't understand. Maybe I'm only four or five years old. This one is easy though. In both of the left hand panels, it says, "Teacher is coming!"

她懂我!

我今天下午去中文书店.
她说<< Hello! >>.
我说<<你好!>>.
她说<<你好!>>.
我说<<我问你们买一本围棋死活的书>>.
她懂我! 可是, 因为她认识我, 所以可能她不懂我.