Fire Drills and Pokemon Cards

Hello all my readers on this delightful Friday night!

Let me tell you the tale of what happened to me in the last 30 minutes.  What I am about to tell you may seem unbelievable, but I swear its true.  Just ask Carly, who was on the phone with me the whole time for reasons I will state later.

At approximately 10:33 pm, I was relaxing in my room about to start watching a movie on my computer.  The opening credits were playing when I heard a muffled whistling sound.  I sighed, "God damn it," and got out of bed just as the fire alarm was blaring on full volume inside my tiny yellow room.  I had to find sweatpants, shoes, a jacket, remember my keys, phone and glasses as I trudged out of my room.  My flatmates were screaming in their native language to each other which only added to my dislike of the situation.  We all safely made it outside.

I was used to this quick emergency action late at night because last Friday we also had a fire drill.  The same no-fun-on-Friday-bunch of us who were there last week were out in full force tonight.  I was rocking my red wool coat, yoga pants and flip flips and I was one of the better dressed in the bunch.  I'm not sure what was more embarrassing: my outfit or the fact that everyone in St. Mary's now knows I also do nothing on Friday nights.

Anyway,

As a preemptive strike against awkward conversations, I immediately called Carly.  This was the opening of our conversation:

Carly: Hey what's up
Me: Nothing, just enjoying the night air.
Carly:...you had a fire drill again didn't you? And you're standing outside right now aren't you?
Me: Yup.

Click Read More to see the rest!

Who Invented a New Alphabet?!

Hey readers!

Before I get started I want to let everyone know that I have a Skype and would love to chat with people from home that I haven’t seen in a while J My Skype name is on my Facebook in my contact info section so check it out and add me! No, seriously, please talk to me it gets really boring around here sometimes  :/

I actually Tweeted about this next thing a few days ago but I feel the need to elaborate about it here.  One of the first things all little kids learn to sing is the ABC’s.  You know, A B C D E F G etc.  Well in England, the do it a little differently.  Their alphabet goes A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Zed.  Yeah.  Zed.  I didn’t spend my formative years learning the alphabet of my language and fighting against evil as the Pink Ranger only to have this guy show up at the end of it, out of nowhere, 19 years later:

If you were a child between 1993 and 1995 and you don’t know who this is, get out.  If you weren’t a child between these years, this is Lord Zedd from the Power Rangers.

Click Read More for...more!

CAUGHT RED HANDED!

BIG NEWS EVERYBODY BIG NEWS!

I decided I wanted some hot chocolate on this chilly fall evening so I grabbed my Cadbury Instant Hot Chocolate Mix and opened my door to head to the kitchen...and lo and behold...

MY NEWEST ROOMMATE WAS TAKING OUT THE GARBAGE! SHE IS THE NOTE WRITER!!

The Situation was shocked too. 

Let me explain how I deduced this:

After I previously posted about the Note Writer.  I kept trying to think of how the Note Writer didn't know about our weekly cleaning service.  The cleaning lady had been coming every week since we first arrived so there would be no reason to not know. And then it hit me.  My newest roommate moved in in the middle of October, a month after we received emails letting us know about the cleaning schedule.  My new roommate was just not aware of the cleaning lady to begin with.  It's now understandable why she would try to organize us to keep the kitchen clean.  

So it looks like my annoyance was misplaced.  I'm still not going to take out the garbage but at least I can now understand where the Note Writer was coming from.  

I have to get back to my readings about amputees during the American Civil War but I will probably post more during the week since this post was relatively short

xoxo

The Sherlock Holmes of Flat J

What Grinds My Gears? Note Writers!

Hello readers

Today I discovered something terrible about my flat...we have a note-writer.  I've never had the misfortune of living with one before, but my luck has changed ladies and gentlemen!  All you readers who have roommates (parents don't count on this one since they pay for the house you live in) or have had roommates know EXACTLY what I'm talking about.  A note-writer is someone who posts notes about things that need to get accomplished in the apartment/house/flat in hopes that all chores can be divided up evenly with everyone doing their share.  Passive-aggression to the max. Dividing up chores is definitely important and keeping the living spaces clean is paramount, however, considering the living situation I'm in, I really don't think it's necessary.

Let's take a look at the evidence:

Click Read More to see the evidence!

My Flatmates Continue To Be The Best

Hola amigos!

I have ANOTHER flatmate story to tell and it's the best one yet! So a few days ago I heard a knock at my door and it was my flatmate Joanna (shout out to the Joannas who read my blog! :) ). She and another one of my roommates had made a pumpkin dish and wanted to know if I wanted to try it.  I had tried the last successful pumpkin dish they made, which was really good.  This time, Joanna made a sweet mashed pumpkin dish.  Now if you recall the previous pumpkin post (click here to read it) pumpkins as we know them are gross to eat just mashed but, Chinese pumpkins are slightly different and can be eaten in this way.  Joanna told me she realized that the orange pumpkins are gross and the more yellow ones are better and more similar to the ones in China. I agreed that orange pumpkins are gross (because they are have you ever tried to eat one? Nasty.) and that one of the few foods Americans eat from pumpkins is pumpkin pie.
Then my flatmates asked me what pumpkin pie was. This was my reaction as portrayed by Lauren Conrad:

Shock. Pumpkin pie is my favorite fall food, which I won't be able to eat this year because there's no Thanksgiving over here since this is where the Pilgrims were running from. But that's a topic for another post.  I explained what pumpkin pie was and they agreed that it sounded delicious!

My flatmates asked me why people carved "faces into pumpkins." and I said oh you mean jack-o-lanterns?They were excited that I knew exactly what they meant and then I explained how they're related to the Halloween/fall theme in October. Then, they asked me a strange question.  They asked me if I ever interacted with Chinese people who were learning English before.

I actually had to think about it for a moment because I wasn't really sure.  I guess I have encountered people who use English as a second language many times before just because of the area where I live.  There are many people from many nationalities so I suppose I'm just used to it.  I told this to my flatmates and they told me probably the best thing anyone's ever said to me. They said "We like talking to you because you always understand us. You always know what we are trying to say even when we can't express ourselves properly*."  I was really surprised by this statement because I figured that the understanding I extend to them was extended by other people as well but they've said that their British classmates have a much more difficult time understanding them when they participate in class.  It was really cool to know that they like talking to me just as much as I like talking to them! We really learn a lot about each other's cultures which many people don't get to do.  

*My flatmates English is fantastic by the way. They have had excellent teachers in China (who they've told me were all American) and they get daily exposure to the language here so understanding them is very easy.  

Then, they asked me another question. They asked me why I don't wear shoes in the apartment. Now before I go into this conversation, let me say that I DO wear shoes in the shower (I went to La Salle so I'm damaged for life on that one) and I DO usually wear socks. But if I'm going to the kitchen quickly to put a dish away or get some quick food, sometimes I don't because I just don't think of it immediately. Anyway back to the story.  I basically explained those things I just mentioned to them and they were so surprised.  They said that they never go barefoot in China because they are taught that it's bad for a woman's health to be barefoot.  I mean I'm sure being barefoot in many situations is bad for health but I guess I never really put too much thought into it.  So I learned another cultural difference between American and Chinese women. Needless to say, I now wear shoes around all the time because I now know they judge me for it.

As I was leaving the kitchen, they showed me a secret that I didn't know our apartment had.  There's a closet next to our kitchen that says "CLEANER" on it. I've never opened it because I assumed that the cleaning service that comes to clean our common areas in the flat stores their cleaning supplies in there.  Well I was wrong.  Take a guess as to what's behind the door. Here's the door:

Click the link below to see what's behind the door. Guarantee you'll never guess hahaha :)