Weather Widget

When my alarm went off this morning, I was afraid I had overslept because my room was so bright. I checked my clock: it was indeed only 7 a.m. What's going on? ... Oh! It's not cloudy!

I turned on my computer and opened my Mac dashboard to see what the weather widget had to say about today's temperature. The weather icon for today was a dripping sun. The sun is sweating? The sun is melting? It's too early for such puzzles.

By the time I got out of the shower, things were back to normal. The sky was a dark grey-purple color and the large drops slamming against my window competed with my still dripping shower taps to drown out my online NPR headlines. Maybe I dreamt that blue sky.

I got a better idea of what that weather icon meant as I walked to work. Most of the way, I walked along the border between sunny blue skies and dark, heavy rain clouds. By the time I got to the office, the left side of me was soaked from the rain blowing sideways while my right side remained perfectly dry.

为什么我学中文？

我很喜欢下围棋。 我学中文因为我的围棋老师是中国人。 她叫郭鹃。 她很有名。 闫老师也是我的围棋老师。 他也是中国人。他也很有名。 闫老师说"不好！不好!"

BREAKING NEWS: Locked In!

This just in... Brenda just tried to leave our office building and wasn't allowed. She came back upstairs and informed us that a policeman outside the door yelled at her to get back in the building and wouldn't let her leave. Huh? James went down to confirm her (rather ludicrous sounding) story and returned with a garbled tale of a cop guarding our door, conceding that he might be allowed to go if he departs in the other direction. Apparently some suspicious package was found nearby. Presumably Time-Warner has hit London or some unfortunate soul is wondering where he left his briefcase this afternoon.

Chinese New Year

My internet connection at home has been unreliable lately, so this post is late. These photos are from the Chinese New Year festivities in London on Sunday. This is in Trafalgar Square, where there were lots of people but there was not much going on. We milled around with the crowd for a while. I bought a paper dragon (see below) and we waited for things to start on the stage you see here. At noon, various nameless dignitaries took turns at the microphone, thanking sponsors and organizers to a crowd that wasn't much interested and couldn't really see or hear them anyway. Eventually a dragon made it out onto the stage, but we were so cold and hungry by then that we just left and headed up to Chinatown.


Severine (on the right) is in my Chinese class and is pictured here with a couple of her friends and my dragon. We met up with her friends (with the aid of mobile phones) in Trafalgar Square.


Here's the back side of Lord Nelson and a lost balloon from the festival.


We fought and squished and squeezed our way through Chinatown, miraculously staying together. My teacher told us tonight that there were 300,000 people there--the largest Chinese New Year celebration outside of China. We gave up any hopes of obtaining food in Chinatown. On the far side, though, we found this dragon (lion? I can never tell the difference). I don't know the significance, but it would dance its way down the street, stopping at all the Chinese restaurants. The owners would hang some Chinese cabbage over the door, which the dragon would then eat before moving on. Here, the dragon is struggling to get the cabbage above the door of this restaurant.

We tried a couple of Korean restaurants near Oxford Street, but they were all closed (many places close on Sundays here). We eventually went to a Chinese restaurant on Oxford Street, where I ordered (at least partially) in Chinese!