drew talks to me

well, we've reached that part of summer where you can't sit in the living room without there being a pool of sweat under you when you get out of the silly black pleather chairs we have. being at a stoplight on the scooter is like sitting in hell. you're breathing in exhaust. it is so hot. the only solution is frequent lemon ice drinks and cups and cups of green tea.

today phil had a sip of my green tea from coco and he said 'that doesn't taste like any green tea i've had' and i said exactly. tea at tea stands is the beeeeest. it tastes fresh and full of oxygen and flowery. the bottle of 'pomelo green tea' i found at subber today (that was labeled like it's sold in the US) was disgusting. it makes me seriously consider opening a tea shop in austin so i can guarantee fresh tea in my american life.
wunderground has a satellite view and i wondered if i could find my house. i found the palmer events center down by town lake and had to cheat and use the street map view because i was lost somewhere in harris ridge.

it's funny how you can tell maj is a landscaper when you look at the street from a bird's eye view.
one story today. this sweet boy neil, who was added to my 10-yr-olds class about 2 months ago, has been really shy the whole time. his mom told my coteacher that she didn't really even want a kid and that he would be spending a lot of time at school. she has a permafrown.

in the last 2 weeks he's kind of found his place in our class and he's actually been talking to me without me initiating conversation. today we high-fived when he finished reading this section and he backed away and said 'ouchhh' but he was kind of smiling so i assumed he was just playing a game, pretending like i hurt him, so i whacked his hand with my book and he yelped. turns out that his pinkie finger really was hurt! whoops! i offered to kiss it, but we just don't do that here.

after class, i asked him if he had really hurt his finger (in chinese because he doesn't know some of those english words). he said yes, playing dodgeball (duo bi qui - which i understood because i learned all the sports last week!)

and today at bobo's after chinese, i met one of jaime's friends, also named megan, who's half taiwanese, half american. she lives in houson during the school year and her family spends the summer in taiwan. she's probably 11 years old and she speaks english like any normal american kid and speaks chinese like any normal taiwanese kid. so jealous!

it was interesting because she was wearing crocs and so was jaime. it got me thinking how we've become so global with the internet that kids everywhere are playing with the same toys, wearing the same things, collecting webkins. though megan has 26 and jaime has 2. that seems to be a major difference. taiwan hasn't been swooped up in the ridiculous excessiveness.. it's nice.