all of my suitemates have moved in by this morning. i met the first one on saturday, jeannie (or perhaps it's ginny?) who’s a second year transfer. I was tinkering on the computer when I heard sounds outside and thought that jenny sackett must be moving in. jenny is the girl who lived next to me last year and said she was staying on, so i threw open my door about to issue a hearty welcome and found myself face to face with a stranger. very embarrassing, since i looked a right mess, having fallen asleep in all my clothes and my hair the height of medusa fashion. jeannie is tall(er than me), blondish hair in a pony tail, and she arrived with brother (bud), dad (tom) and mom (hi I’m jeannie’s mom) in tow. her father is in the us navy and they’ve lived in japan, on tokyo bay, for two years. he’s been to singapore to work with MINDEF. he thinks singapore is swell, and he’s had hawker food, and the second part of the sentence probably explains the first. having lived in japan jeannie is interested in taking japanese 101. she espies my teacups through the door and exclaimed that she loved tea. she comes in to look at my teapot and teacups and i open up some of my canisters of tea for her to smell. [i have got very good tea from beijing. jasmine rings. which are better than the jasmine beads because these only use leaf tips. and they’re cooked well, still very pale and white, not like the lesser grades of tea that are darker and duller. i came back to school with 250g of leaves. which will hopefully last till next summer when i go to beijing again. right now however i am drinking the dongding wulong that my mother sparingly apportioned to me (about 3 tablespoon full) from her small store of very very good dongding that some friend brought her. jasmine is for young people, older people should drink more dignified teas like wulong!] she showed me her posters. do you remember anne of green gables, she asks, and unrolls a waterhouse lady of shalott. i remember that bit! she was floating down the river and the boat went out of control and she saved herself by clinging onto the bottom of the bridge and gilbert blithe came to rescue her but she refused to forgive him! my room is very bare compared to hers but that’s only because I haven’t got any blutac to put things up with. i also have this feeling i left rupert brooke at home. hope not. I used reinforcement rings to put up papery things like poems but the heavier pictures need blutac. i want to use book covers on my walls though. i could get them scanned and then blown up. i would like to do that with my nootebooms.

i feel like some ancient  creature just cos i’m a fourth year and i’ve lived in our suite for a while. jeannie comes over frequently to ask questions: how do I dial out on this phone, which one is the cable outlet, and i can hear them saying things like "minz recommends that i get a floorlamp" "minz says that you can fit more if you arranged your bed this way"  which is very unnerving. i dispense advice on how to change the code on your phone, which socket to avoid plugging your computer or fridge into because it's connected to the main switch, where the mailroom, laundry room and kitchen are, what code to press to get in any of them, which keys to use to get into the lounge, and warnings about the unreliable lock on the bathroom door and the fact that there’s no overhead lamp. and the centrally controlled aircon that if ever you, freezing to death, call systems control to beg to turn down you’d be laughed at. later i went over to the first year dorms to meet my hostee, esther, and took her to lunch on the corner. she’s very unlike me. very forthright and quick to speak and not at all reserved. also, sporty and not someone i can imagine in a skirt. but very likeable.  took her to the bookstore to buy books afterwards. this is the first year I’ve spent so little on textbooks! In part because i’m taking only four classes, and we’re keeping the same text for one of those four. i didn’t see any anglo-saxon texts so i assume we will buy a course packet later. that leaves my greek and latin texts (2  for each class) which came to just $40!  which means i’ll nowspend all my money on frivolous books instead, like pratchett. aha. walked back to garrett hall and minor hall so she can settle some administrative stuff, only they were closed, but bryan hall was open, and she’s an english major, so we went in and took a look. i wanted my epics paper back, but there was nothing to be found in dan kinney’s box, and I pounded on charles vandersee’s door (he likes me to bring new students to see what a genuine english professor looks like) but he was out . hm.

incidentally I’m rather blind right now i can’t think where i could have laid down my glasses. i found my old ones but they make the ground seem very far away and I figured that going without is better. i really hope my new ones resurface very quickly and hopefully intact too. i remember reading last night before i fell asleep so i could have rolled over them at some point. i just put out a dish of rose-powder covered guazi in our living room i hope people will eat them. in the mean time the living room looks v dirty and messy but at least most of the cardboard boxes are gone. i really need to get some flowers i will go to the farmers’ market next weekend.