21 June 2002

At 2:30 I headed out to the fountain to conduct the contest giveaway. Almost all of my books, CDs, and DVDs were prizes. It started raining, so we hustled into the nearest lobby, and then once the giveaway started had to shoo away a few people who thought, hey, free stuff. About fortystudents had some contest points, but only about ten or twelve showed so each student ended up with seven items. I forgot to bring the frisbees I got in Shanghai, but I'll give them away at the exam, probably to whomever finishes first.

Then I got back in time to catch most of England vs. Brazil. I missed England's first goal, but saw the English goalkeeper (the feudal-looking guy) catch a ball in midair only to be rotated by a Brazilian and land in the order: elbows, ball, face, everything else. He stayed on the ground for a long time.

Deep into injury time, Rivaldo scored an equalizer and then ripped off his shirt to reveal a yellow wife-beater tee and skinny arms. Very unimpressive. With four goals, Rivaldo leads the World Cup ugly-to-goal ratio.

Early in the second half, Ronaldinho ("little Ronald," I believe, not to be confused with Ronaldo, a former Best Player in the World who also plays for Brazil) made a perfect shot an a medium-depth free kick; it looked like a curveball, or maybe a slider, high over the wall, the (still dazed, perhaps?) goaltender Seaman backpeddling so slowly that his feet seemed glued to the ground, then jumping up an inch or two as the ball curled inches under the goal post.

Later Ronaldinho got a red card for putting the sharpened part of his shoe in the trajectory of an English player's food, but England never recovered and the final score was Brazil 2, England 1.

I went to the American bar again to see the US-Germany match. For the first twenty or thirty minutes, it looked like an even game. For someone who's watched the US international team over the last 12 years, this was shocking. We no longer suck 100%. Unfortunately, the US side was unable to execute its strategy of getting lucky goals early, despite many valid chances. One near-goal was actually blocked by a player's hand, but the ref didn't see it. Eventually the Germans reasserted control.

From here on out I cheer for Korea and Senegal.

20 June 2002

Yesterday Chloe departed, and today the Fishers enlisted about ten people to help them carry their luggage downstairs to the car. It's starting to feel empty around here.

There was a giant spider on the wall in my bathroom last night. I didn't want to be forced to exaggerate, so I after I stopped screaming I got a ruler and held it in the general direction of the spider, from a safe distance of course, and came up "at least 10 cm across, including the feet." The body was the size of the first knuckle of my thumb, not including the fangs at one end (the front?). I brushed my teeth very nervously, and then told it to get out before sunrise. In the morning it was gone, which just meant that I had to visually inspect the walls, floor, ceiling, and under the furniture of each room of my apartment. If I see it again I'm just going to give it my wallet.

18 June 2002

I solved the phone mystery. The mystery was that, after a semester with a very quiet phone resulting in a lot of missed calls, I finally stopped getting any calls at all. And not (just) because I was unpopular; I tested the phone and incoming calls simply disappeared. Zhang Ming brought a new phone, and then finally the phone guy came out. And then when I saw him checking the jack in the bedroom, I realized out what I had done.

The phone used to be in my bedroom. Because it was quiet, I moved it to the study so I could hear it. After a few weeks, I got tired of stepping over the cord so I rewired it to use the bare wires (ie, Chinese phone jack) in the study instead of the bare wires in the bedroom. Of course, the apartment is actually designed for three occupants, one per room, each with their own phone line. So I moved it to another phone line ... oops.