her morning elegance

i'm unabashedly in love with j. crew, but their full price prices are ridiculous. who pays $40 or 50 something dollars for a cotton t shirt (no matter how cute it is?) i keep my eye on their new stuff and then wait for it to go on super sale at the middle of the season and then it's usually reasonable.i've bought a bazillion $30-40 dresses on sale there and i loooove them. and the outlet is wonderful year-round. j. crew is probably what i miss most about not being home (after my fam, ballet, yoga yoga and their chai tea, and mexican food). ..although i did just order and ship this dress and some flip flops to my parents house. it'll be waiting for me in july.

i only have two stories today and they both relate to chinese usage.
1. chris went to my favorite tea place in guei shan the other day and ordered tea with fruit.. and i had previously only ordered green tea from them, so today i decided to try it out. conveniently, i know all of my fruits now so i could order a grapefruit green tea all by myself! the woman was happy for me and i told her i learned all of the fruits this week.
so then a woman comes up beside me to order tea and the woman who works there was telling her how i'm an english teacher but i can speak a little chinese.. for example, i'm learning fruits this week and i could say 'grapefruit'. it's interesting to have people talking about you right in front of you. like being a fly on the wall when you're standing right there.

2. i had a new stamp made for myself because i'm a little tired of hello kitty, and i had them make tess one too while i was there. i went to pick them up today and it's an elderly couple who work there with their daughter and the woman had what i thought was a bag of cherries so i asked if she bought cherries. then we got into this big conversation about how no, they were grapes.. but you can buy cherries down the street but they're expensive. about $200 for a jin (which i learned about in chinese class in Austin. it's like half a pound i think?). we decided they're cheaper in america maybe because we grow some there or we just like them more?they charged me 1/3 less than they had been charging for the stamps and they had never been overly friendly before, but today the woman was following me out the door to keep chatting. so that was exciting as someone who's trying to get a grasp on a language. it's opened up a lot of doors. and it makes being here a lot more fun and special.