Today I'm grateful for water pressure. This is one of those non-essentials that we often overlook. Water, yes, is essential, but water pressure is not. When we finally get around to being thankful for the things we often overlook, we rarely think of water pressure...or at least I do. I was washing my hands at work today, and I was holding some papers for work under my arm that kept my right hand for fully reaching the faucet. I had to do one of those mini dance moves where I got water on my left hand and then scrubbed my right in a repetitive fashion. As I was doing this, the first thing that came to mind was how much water I was wasting by not having my hand under the faucet. Then I was thinking about how much longer it took to get all the soap off my hands this way. That led to thinking about staying at our farm house when we were little. There was no water heater at our farm, so when the pipes were likely to freeze, we would warm water on the stove and pour it over our hands. This method takes both assistance of someone pouring the water and more time. This is just one simple example of why I'm grateful for water pressure, but it's something many people go without. It makes rinsing your hair, staying warm in the shower, washing your car, washing dishes, and so many more things in our lives easier. So today, think a little more about that precious moment of even just washing your hands. It's the little things.
At work, I helped conduct the 3.5 hour long Speech and Debate final. There were 3 approximately hour long debates on "This House would make universities more challenging," "This House would require marriage counseling before a divorce," and I forgot the other one currently escapes me.
Tonight was the last Cantonese class, even though we originally thought it was Thursday. I learned some interesting bits of information today, including the words for taxi, ferry terminal, and airport--each of which will soon increase in importance. Also, KFC in Cantonese is romanized as hang-dak-gei (which sounds like 'Kentucky' with a Chinese accent). My language teacher thought it was Colonel Sanders' name. Kentucky is world famous...but not. haha. That sounds about right.
This picture is actually from dinner the other day. This is one of those times that I wish I knew how to completely communicate in Cantonese. I ordered this dish, which I've had before. When the waitress turned around to tell the cook, I heard a bunch of words and then 'she doesn't understand' in Chinese. Shoot...what don't I understand. It ended up they didn't have one of the main ingredients for this dish but they couldn't communicate that to me, so when it came out it was less than par. It was fine, it was safe, but it could have been better. We have a couch surfer staying with us for the 2nd night in a row who's originally from the Czech Republic and teaching English in South Korea. Hanging out with all these Europeans fluent in English as their second language makes me feel so underaccomplished. Learning a language is difficult that's for sure.
Dinner tonight was with my fellow ETAers. We had eggplant and noodles at Lauren's favorite Dong Bei (Northeastern Chinese food) near work. I was thinking today how I get really excited about home, but how I will miss things about Macau when I leave for good. At the top of things I'll miss is how they make eggplant here. Mmm.
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