It's hot and muggy. I was designed for cold arctic environments. Actually I don't mean to be gross, but I love to sweat, it's like a free sauna. OK I did mean to be gross. Because I'm gross, sweaty and gross. And they say it gets much hotter here.

But before it was hot today, I almost got hit by a scooter. The scooter was going about as fast as I can walk, not quite even, it would have fallen over if it was going any slower. I was on my way to school, crossing a cross walk, and a woman on a scooter turned left to cross my cross walk. She had plenty of room to see me. I saw her so I stopped, since the pedestrian right-of-way is not as powerful here. But she thought I was going to keep walking so she turned towards where I would soon not be, then noticed I had stopped... So we "played chicken" basically, back and forth, it would be reverse "chicken" I guess, both of us not wanting to hit me. I don't really remember who moved out of the way first without the other compensating the wrong way, but I do remember my arm brushing along the back of her jacket. I actually remember wanting to pat her on the back to give her the "that's OK you almost ran me over it was half my fault anyway, boy wasn't that silly of us?" pat on the back. I'm not sure she would have understood that particular pat, it would lose something in translation I think. I'm glad she didn't hit me. It would be pretty hard to live with injuries caused by a scooter coming at me going 2 mph that I watched run me over. And I'm sure even my near encounter will be a story unique to me with my "special" reflexes, and my self preserving instincts.

Also today another Japanese girl was added to our class, making our class 6 students. So my first teacher asked me how many people were in the room (part of our Chinese Dialog) and I answered in a complete sentence that there were 6 people in the room, in my best flowing Chinese of the day, but he looked disappointed in me. Then he asked me if he was a person too. I'm not really sure but I don't think it's a graded class. (edit 294) Permalink