無 money, 無 problems 17 October, 2007

I’m sorry for the pun, especially since it probably makes sense to basically nobody. (無 is said like “mou” in Cantonese, and it means “nothing” or “there lacks”, and, um, the Notorious B.I.G. wrote this song, uh, anyway… it was funny when it occurred to me walking around this afternoon)
Other tangent: Stephanie, Viv, I had [...]

another lesson I’ve learned 13 October, 2007

So I’m sitting in my Hong Kong Studies module (the word they use for ‘course’ here) the other day. This is, first of all, notable, because although we’re all signed up for the course, we’re not actually being assessed at all, so absenteeism runs rampant. The other students in the class are all on semester- [...]

some excerpts from other people’s writing 7 October, 2007

From Saul Bellow, Herzog (1964), I’d been meaning to write this down someplace, and I know I read it as the epigraph to another book, somewhere else (maybe one of the ones Sophia recommended?):
“In substance, however, he understood that she was trying to teach him something and he was trying (the habit of obedience to [...]

the mystery deepends 2 October, 2007

Remember when I said my email at work was “samuel@ied.edu.hk” because they must only have one samuel who has ever worked here?
Well, I just tried to email something to myself in outlook. I typed “samuel” into the “to:” field, pressed the “verify name/email address” button, and came up with six matches, six people in the [...]

humility is 1 October, 2007

… putting in my retainers I-don’t-know-how-long since last time
… trying to fix my hair in the mirrored glass in the back of the elevator (it needs a trim), then remembering all the elevators have security cameras
… getting laughed at by a KFC employee. My request for a side substitution in my family bucket meal was [...]