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my sister wrote me this morning to let me know our father had killed my pet fish. it happened because he accidentally overfed it and the fish ate itself to death. that glowlight tetra lived a long time too, about 7 years old. but it was a mean fish, outliving all the other fish because it always got to the food first. i had an eerie feeling of deja vu though; it seems like every time i go to china, a family pet dies.

zengfei sat next to me on the bus this morning. unlike on the rare occasions when i sit next to xianglian, zengfei and i chatted the entire road, everything from running at the gym to the weird sticker patch chinese ladies put on their hair to kept their bangs from getting into their eyes.

i brought my leftover sweet babao rice porridge for breakfast, along with a banana. i wanted to bring my korean kimchi as well but i was already carrying too many things. also as a side note, all this week i've stopped wearing my jacket to work, it's gotten warm enough that jackets are no longer necessary.

i instant messaged xianglian briefly in the morning, before she left for home at 11:10. she was laundering all her linens and getting ready for breakfast.

i wore my new shirt today, the one i bought online in a size medium after receiving size small and realizing it was too small. but the thing is size medium felt a bit too small as well! there is no consistency when it comes to shirt sizes, and it's hard to buy online because i can't try them on for size like i can in the store. the fabric on this shirt is good but it's missing a breast pocket which is important for holding things like straws or pens. i think i'm going to order a size large in black from tmall (where it's super cheap) and seeing how it fits.

after lunch yangfan came to WWY's desk to hang out. they were researching facial cleansers online, with WWY raving about a small tube of boot's cucumber-scented whitening facial cleanser that she recently got in thailand. i got a chance to chat with yangfan a little bit. she and WWY graduated university together, just last june. that means she's just 22 years old. she's a genuine changshou native, unlike WWY who comes from honghu on the outskirts of changshou.

in the afternoon i saw LXL rummaging in the pantry fridge. i thought maybe she was trying to cool off, but she was actually hungry and just looking for food. i told her i had some snacks and asked her to wait at her desk and i'd bring them over: a pineapple cake and some sweet pork jerky. later she returned the favor when she finally found what she was looking for in the fridge: some spicy wuhan beancurds that mahui gave her from a while back. these were very tasty and i finished the last square.

i told mr.lee i'd bring my homemade kimchi for him to try tomorrow. koreans do not joke about their kimchi. "there are hundreds of different kinds of kimchi," he told me. the best kind? aged kimchi, at least 5 years old, typically 10 years. he brought some back from korea and he said he can just eat it with rice, it's so flavorful. i'm curious to try some aged kimchi! must have the consistency of fermented tofu or something.

when i got back home, i went to the small supermarket to pick up a few things (more babao rice mix, some pineapple cakes) before going to the duck dispensary on the other side of chongbai mall to buy some spicy tofu and duck clavicles.

i made rice porridge for dinner, as well as pan-frying some leftover chinese raviolis. i also did a load of laundry. since it's getting warmer, i haven't used the warm setting on my AC for days now. the result is it's actually a bit soggy in my room now so clothes take a few days to dry. i'll leave the window open when i go to work, maybe that'll help. it was weird not having XL text me in the evening. i wonder if she's jonesing to see what i'm up to or maybe she could care less.