Rain Drops Are Falling On My...Dress

A little over a year ago I was struggling to write a personal statement for my Fulbright application. I rewrote the 2 one page statements about me and my plans for this year over 6 times from scratch. Who would ever think that it would take so long to narrow down your life into a page? ...you all know I'm long winded. Now, I'm preparing to write a one page personal statement for the business schools I will be applying to, and I can't help but think the practice and assistance I've already had in doing this. Perhaps God has prepared me yet again? It wouldn't surprise me.
Today was a short day at work because one of my two workshops in the business school was cancelled. The professor came to me around lunch time and informed me that most of the students in the first class would also be in the second class, so I didn't need to come. My question was why he invited me to speak at both sessions in the first place then? The good news is that since I have a day off in lieu Friday, I was able to cut my day short today. 1.5 hour nap, snacking on bell peppers and salsa, and studying for the GMAT were all welcomed snug at home instead of working in my cubicle.

Cats and dogs fell from the sky today. Okay, not really, but it did rain ALL day. I've convinced myself that the dress I wore today must be a rain dress because every time I wear it, it rains. It is quite comical and annoying trying to catch the bus on a rainy day. For some reason there seems to be a shortage of the bus we take during rush hour, and the ones that do pass are chock full of people. The annoying part is that you wait a half hour, see only 2 buses, and can't fit on either of them.  The comical part is that the Macanese people will shove themselves onto the bus so tightly that the door literally pinches them and pushes them in when it closes. It kind of reminds me of packing tuna. I get their point though--they don't want to walk to work in the rain...I didn't either, yet I did instead of fighting a local for a spot. I've had my share of snug bus rides.

In Cantonese class tonight, we learned some interesting words that once again point to the important ties between language and culture. Here they are (this will replace the picture of the day today--picture the food!)
1. The Cantonese (Chinese people from the Canton region of China) do not say "rare," "well done," etc. about their meat. Instead, they express how well done the food is in percentages...like what percentage you want cooked. Specifically they use 10% increments. 10% for example, is really rare, while ng sihng (50%) means medium, and sahp sihng (100%) means really well done.
2. Apparently there is a soup here called bird's nest soup (pronounced Yin Wo). They collect these bird nests and then make soup out of them. What's more interesting is that this is a unique type of bird's nest that the bird makes completely of its spit. ...hungry yet? This soup is considered to be very nourishing.
3.Some of the things that we translate as orange or brown are translated as red in Cantonese. 'Huhng' is the pronunciation for red, and you find it both in brown rice "huhng maih" and carrot "huhng loh baahk." This isn't a mistranslation, it's just that they consider these things to be red. They do have words for 'brown' and 'orange' though.
4. There are 2 Cantonese words for the English word "snack." One means literally 'little food' (siu sihk). The other literally means "zero food"--this version of snack would be better known as junk food because there is 0 nutrition.
5. Last that I'll share for today: the characters that form the word for 'chewing gum' are literally translated as  ''good smell," "mouth," and "plastic." Do you have any good smell mouth plastic I can have? Makes you want to chew a big piece, doesn't it?

As Porky Pig would say---th-th-th-that's alllll folks!