Bikes and Chinese

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"The bathroom's open now."
"Go. Go. Go" he says in a very flat voice without even looking at me or making any motions.

He's been translating for the past twenty minutes and I'm not even really sure why. Granted some of the translation has been helpful as he's translating Cantonese to English but a lot of the times it's completely worthless as he's translating Mandarin to English as well. I have to say people translating to me is sometimes extremely annoying. First of all he's translating what Camillo and Akun are saying. I've been hanging out with Camillo for ... oh .... about eight months now, and I've been hanging out with Akun for ... one month off and on. I know what they're saying if they're speaking Mandarin, and my Mandarin is better than his so even if I don't know something the translation he's giving me isn't helping. Second of a lot of understanding in general comes from actions and when you're paying attention to someone who's translating most of the time they're not giving those actions that are a key to the story.

I sat down next to me and he moved over to give me some space and started to tell a story about the bike he had bought earlier today. Kelvin and I leaned in to listen. "The bike ..." he looked at me, frozen. He was speaking in Cantonese but trying to talk to both of us at once. Kelvin's Mandarin is pretty awful and my Cantonese is even worse and Akun's English is even worse than that. "Hang on, I'm just going to speak in Mandarin for a minute." He told the story and then told the story again.

I called her earlier today to give her the news. "You've got a date tonight" I told her. "Really?" She replied surprised. "Yeah" I started telling her about him. "Oh, I thought you found a girl for me. I was really shocked that you finally found one here." "It's a boy, sorry about that." "No, it's okay. Boys are fine too."

Akun and Cat met for the first time tonight. Camillo and I thought maybe, just maybe, it might work between the two of them. They're both short with great slightly humorous personalities and, hey, we may as well try it. No harm in that. After all it had worked out pretty dang well with Xiao Zhang and Julia. We were turning into the real cupid pair. Matching others pretty well. Unfortunately I realized as soon as the "date" started that it was a little conflicting. Camillo, Akun, Cat and I were there with Kelvin. Now the only problem with that is the Kelvin part of the picture. As I said before Kelvin speaks Cantonese, as do Akun and Camillo, thus leaving Cat and I speaking English and not understanding much of what the others were saying. For a little while it was like that but then Akun and Cat played Foosball on the same team and it started working really well. Kelvin's house is the opposite way as the rest of us so the four of us walked home without him and as Akun had just bought a bike someone had to walk it home. Camillo biked around and I followed playing with him for a little bit before I got on the back of it and we rode around together, leaving Cat and Akun to walk alone. When we finally caught up with them Akun gave me the two okay owl signs with a huge grin on his face. "Yeah" he commented. Hopefully Cat felt the same but who knows.

I think I'm going to get a bike. Akun's right. I walk home pretty late every night and it's pretty easy to get to and from the Salon, Camillo's house (and school for that matter) if I have a bike. So I think we're going to go together and get one on Thursday. We were supposed to meet this morning but it turned out to be a "run around like a chicken with his/her head cut off" morning trying to pay for the Visa Application and get some forms from the bank to fill out.

"Wo dui Michael hen you gan jue." I am definitely attracted to Michael. I think he knows it but he may not. Every time I see him I get a slightly warm feeling in my body. He's the only one who puts his hands in my hair to arrange my hair before putting water on my head. It's such a great feeling to have his hands in my hair like that. He's also one of the only ones, now that Paul is gone, who talks to me and I feel comfortable talking with while he's shampooing my hair. Only I've five years his senior. That might make for a problem at some point.

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