This month:

• I learned to be kind and engaging. I invited an employee from a Vegetarian grocery story I visited almost every day to come to my place and study some English. I was not the one teaching English, but at least I was connecting people 🙂
• I concluded my mandarin studies, over 200 words learned with a fancy presentation at the end. I will be forgetting these words without practice, so I should keep up with the studying if I want to retain it.
• I was free of judgement. I did not feel nervous during presentations, I took pictures and acted on good intention impulses. This is normally a bad thing, but for an introverted mind, it was progress.
• Not my progress, but worth mentioning, my sister had a second baby. It makes me feel content, I am glad her 1st girl will have someone to play with. I feel sad for the single children out there, it’s really hard to engage adults in play for that many hours.
• I took a trip to Hong Kong, I do not like the concrete city. Cities are just not for me. I need nature (read October). Also, in a pure vegetarian/organic restaurant they wanted to charge me 500HKD for a doggy bag. You should have seen me stuff that food down my throat. Last time I go without my own doggy bag!
• I was brave. On my trip to the tea hills of Taipei (MaoKong – 貓空) I met a cool lady who was cleaning the shrines, I approached the place a few times because I thought it was a tea place, but it was not, just somewhere for people to come pray. Nevertheless she made me tea and I drank, we also made tea together and offered it to the gods. Pleasant experience indeed.
• I was spontaneous. On my way down from the 貓空 I met 3 guys, I joined to drink tea with them. The guy from Haiti spoke English, but he was with the other 2 gentlemen who did not. After a bit of conversation I realized that they were on a trip around the whole island and I was invited to join them. So I did… We had a blast!