Today I was busy all day. Strangely, I did almost everything twice.
When I woke up, I had less than an hour to catch a cab to the grocery store and back so I'd be ready for my afternoon class picnic.
I rushed into the store and put 6 loaves of bread in my basket. The bread lady helped me get 20 buns. The meat lady helped me get 6 chicken breasts. I grabbed a few other things, paid, and got a cab home.
Then, with only 15 minutes to spare before my Chinese class, I got on my bike and headed to Shandong Foreign Languages School for my 2-hour class.
Back at home, I hurried to make a big batch of chicken salad and get the apartment ready for the 33 students who would soon arrive to make American sandwiches.
Then, like a cloud of locusts, they came. Everyone did a good job following directions and we had sandwiches for everyone in less than 20 minutes.
We found a place to set up our picnic.
Allen, the monitor, came over and asked me if we should play some games after the students finished eating. Chinese students like to have large group activities at parties, so I wasn't surprised that he had planned a few group games.
So after the sandwiches and snacks were gone, he stood up and gathered the class into one big circle. Then he said, "Alison, would you like to explain the rules of the game?"
"Explain the rules? I don't know the rules. I don't even know the game."
"What? You didn't prepare some games?"
Haha! It was such a classic misunderstanding. Allen never imagined that I would have planned a picnic without planning games, and I never imagined that I was supposed to. I quickly thought of a couple games, which we played for a few minutes, and then I unleashed them with a few Frisbees I had brought.
It was really fun.
After the picnic, I went to our English library to chat with students.
Then, I had less than an hour to catch a cab to the grocery store and back so I'd be ready for my class picnic at noon tomorrow.
I rushed into the store and put 7 loaves of bread in my basket. The same bread lady saw me coming and gestured to the buns. "20?" she asked. "Yes!" I said, and she nicely threw in two extra bread snacks for the crazy repeat customer. The same meat lady helped me get 6 chicken breasts. I grabbed a few other things, paid, and got a cab home. I even had a female cabbie, just like I had this morning. The whole shopping trip was on repeat.
Then, running late for my friend's birthday party, I got on my bike and headed to Shandong Foreign Languages School, the same university I went to for my Chinese lesson this morning.
Back at home, I will hurry tomorrow morning to make a big batch of chicken salad and get the apartment ready for the 40 students who will arrive at 10:00 to make American sandwiches.
*I was first introduced to the concept of a Moebius strip in a piece of Improv Everywhere performance art. Apparently in mathematics, a Moebius strip is when you take a rectangle (like a piece of paper), twist it halfway, and then attach the ends to create a loop with a twist.
The same concept applied to time gives you a loop of time which keeps repeating, described like this:
I had a great day, but I'm glad my moebius only repeated once.
When I woke up, I had less than an hour to catch a cab to the grocery store and back so I'd be ready for my afternoon class picnic.
I rushed into the store and put 6 loaves of bread in my basket. The bread lady helped me get 20 buns. The meat lady helped me get 6 chicken breasts. I grabbed a few other things, paid, and got a cab home.
Then, with only 15 minutes to spare before my Chinese class, I got on my bike and headed to Shandong Foreign Languages School for my 2-hour class.
Back at home, I hurried to make a big batch of chicken salad and get the apartment ready for the 33 students who would soon arrive to make American sandwiches.
 |
| Chicken salad sandwich table |
 |
| Peanut butter and jelly table |
Then, like a cloud of locusts, they came. Everyone did a good job following directions and we had sandwiches for everyone in less than 20 minutes.
We found a place to set up our picnic.
Allen, the monitor, came over and asked me if we should play some games after the students finished eating. Chinese students like to have large group activities at parties, so I wasn't surprised that he had planned a few group games.
So after the sandwiches and snacks were gone, he stood up and gathered the class into one big circle. Then he said, "Alison, would you like to explain the rules of the game?"
"Explain the rules? I don't know the rules. I don't even know the game."
"What? You didn't prepare some games?"
Haha! It was such a classic misunderstanding. Allen never imagined that I would have planned a picnic without planning games, and I never imagined that I was supposed to. I quickly thought of a couple games, which we played for a few minutes, and then I unleashed them with a few Frisbees I had brought.
It was really fun.
After the picnic, I went to our English library to chat with students.
Then, I had less than an hour to catch a cab to the grocery store and back so I'd be ready for my class picnic at noon tomorrow.
I rushed into the store and put 7 loaves of bread in my basket. The same bread lady saw me coming and gestured to the buns. "20?" she asked. "Yes!" I said, and she nicely threw in two extra bread snacks for the crazy repeat customer. The same meat lady helped me get 6 chicken breasts. I grabbed a few other things, paid, and got a cab home. I even had a female cabbie, just like I had this morning. The whole shopping trip was on repeat.
Then, running late for my friend's birthday party, I got on my bike and headed to Shandong Foreign Languages School, the same university I went to for my Chinese lesson this morning.
Back at home, I will hurry tomorrow morning to make a big batch of chicken salad and get the apartment ready for the 40 students who will arrive at 10:00 to make American sandwiches.
 |
| Nearly identical shopping trip goods, ready for a nearly identical picnic tomorrow |
*I was first introduced to the concept of a Moebius strip in a piece of Improv Everywhere performance art. Apparently in mathematics, a Moebius strip is when you take a rectangle (like a piece of paper), twist it halfway, and then attach the ends to create a loop with a twist.
The same concept applied to time gives you a loop of time which keeps repeating, described like this:
“There is the theory of the moebius. A twist in the fabric of space where time becomes a loop, from which there is no escape. When we reach that point, whatever happened will happen again.”So in the Improv Everywhere moebius loop, several undercover artists go to a Starbucks repeat the same 5-minute sequence of events twelve times, thus confusing and amazing the other patrons.
-Lieutenant Commander Worf, Star Trek: TNG, “Time Squared”
I had a great day, but I'm glad my moebius only repeated once.
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