Quick update: ELC fish tank

One thing I forgot to mention earlier: just before the English Festival, someone went out and got more fish for the ELC!

Melody, one of the GAs, with the new feng shui soaker-up-ers

They have since been transferred to the previously empty fish tank (in case you were wondering about the lack of filtration in the glass vase) and seem to be surviving pretty well so far =)

Our apartment's clean!

一 個 很 有 用 的 早 上∶ 買 了 洗 衣 機， 抹 手 紙， 和 漂 白 水， 也 把 地， 桌 子， 椅 子 都 擦 乾 淨 了。

A very productive morning: we bought our washing machine, bleach, and paper towels, plus we wiped the floor, tables, and chairs all clean. I was able to write about 75% of that sentence myself, but had to look up how to write the characters for paper towel (didn’t even know how to say that), table, chair, and clean. “Bleach” I didn’t have to look up because it was on my receipt =P

Now our rooms are (mostly) de-molded (there are some seemingly stubborn spots on the sofa arms), and I feel that we really deserve to go out tonight. The plan is to meet everyone at the New Century bus stop around 6 PM, then the GAs are taking us to a Portuguese restaurant near Taipa Village that they recommended as expensive, but good. After that, back to UM for fireworks-watching – tonight’s competitors are Spain and South Korea, so it should be pretty cool. Watch out for a photo update!

Also, update on the fish tank: The weekend that we went to HK for orientation, Alice (one of the ELC teachers) apparently bought eight new fish to re-stock the tank. The next morning when she came to work, they were all dead. Therefore, the discussion is now about whether the fish tank needs to be replaced before attempting another restock, or if we should just get floating plastic fish =P

The ELC's empty fish tank

While waiting to go out to lunch today, we asked Kim why there was a goldfish tank in the ELC office, but no fish in said tank. It turns out that when they built the ELC, they consulted a 風水 (feng shui) expert. The expert noted that the UM library (which includes the ELC in the basement) had an excellent view of the Taipa municipal graveyard on a nearby hill, a very inauspicious omen. Therefore, he recommended that there be a fish tank in the ELC, which should include nine fish, and one of them should be black. The fish were apparently supposed to soak up all the bad 風水 in the office, and die.

They completed their mission admirably.

Therefore, there are no fish in the tank right now, although they may be purchasing more in the future (which hopefully will not meet the same fate).