Loquacious in My Native Tongue

I'm in So Hour--in fact this is my third day here, if you count the day I arrived as one day unto itself; and I shall be here for a total of five days, if you count the day I arrived and the day I shall leave as days unto themselves: if you count each of those as half-days then I shall be here a total of four days. So far things haven't changed much: the cousins are engrossed in the latest of a long series of online games, which turns the wireless Internet speed to mush; the aunts and uncle are kept busy in maintaining domestic life with the occasional help from the cousins; the grandparents oversee everything and do their share of stuff. In fact the only completely non-contributing person in the household is myself, but that's because I'm a guest and so everybody dotes on me, including the cousins younger than myself (which is all of them, because I am the oldest grandchild on this side of the family).

I'm almost perfectly content. It doesn't take very much to keep me content, I must say; all I seem to need is a steady supply of good food, a moderately cool, dry place with airflow to keep my laptop, a steady power supply, and Internet access, apart from (of course) basic amenities like toilets and bathrooms and suchlike. In fact I think if I ever get a house, I won't get any chairs; I'll have lots of low-sitting tables, but no chairs, and sleep on one of those little foldable mattresses and keep on waking up to find I've rolled myself onto the floor and am attempting to hug the wall.

I don't talk very much. For one thing I'm not exactly fluent in my Chinese, so I keep on having to ask them to repeat what they say, by which time they've resorted to gestures. In fact my most-often used word is "Oh", followed by "Ah" and "好吃"--as I've mentioned before, I like eating and they know it and so they keep feeding me. (Occasionally literally. They're frying little prawn-cakes at the moment and half an hour ago I had one shoved in my mouth by my grandmother.) It struck me last night that I don't really need to talk to people to feel non-alone; all I really seem to need is people that I know being around and going on with their lives and occasionally talking. This is probably why I only really felt alone when the roomie left, though we never did talk much to each other while he was around.

I suppose that makes me an introvert, but that's nothing new. I'm much more an observer than a participant, I think.

The most recent exam grades came out recently; I did... oddly. The last few semesters have been marked by a sort of bell-curve: some D's, some A's, most of the others being B's and C's; this time there aren't any more extremes. No more D's, which is a good thing, but no more A's either which is decidedly disappointing. All of my grades are B's and C's: of the seven examinable modules this semester, I have one B, three B-'s, one C+, and two C's. While it's heartening that my worst grades are only C, it's disheartening that another of my coursemates with whom I've been studying regularly obtained three A's and consequently has moved solidly up the CGPA scale whereas I decidedly haven't. I don't know what this holds for me, because if my CGPA drops any further I'll be out of the Third Class entirely and be definitely stuck in Pass... I suppose a miracle's entirely possible and that I might still get a nice job (especially since I don't think I want to go into research anymore), but I'd rather prefer that it be... more definite. The parents will definitely give me another speech about me having more potential than this and how I should work harder to get the results they think I can get, but--arrrrgh. When classes start again, I will get a decent sleep schedule and I will study more and play less games. (If I remember to.)

I sleep wonderfully here; in fact I only wake up when my need to pee is unignorably strong. I used to wake up when the alarm rang, and then go back to sleep for another half-hour if circumstances permitted (which was usually weekends on which I'd forget to switch the alarm off). This means I tend to sleep for 10 hours or more, and in fact I don't know where all the pee is coming from since I almost never actually drink; it may of course be that I'm getting a great deal of water from the food I eat--lots of soups and porridge and gravy and so on. It's also been raining, which almost certainly contributes to the sleeping-a-lot phenomenon.

I should probably get a haircut sometime soon; I've already been referred to as "lion's-head" more than once and I've been taken to the barber's once already (but at the time it was full of students who needed haircuts because today is the beginning of school) and besides, it's irritating having hair that keeps flicking across your eyes and nose and glasses and making the skin itch.