Day 9 (14/5) - OICW
Today we left Berkeley and returned to Palo Alto.
The stupid vending machine at the YMCA swallowed my $1.50. I complained to the receptionist, but he said he had no access, and did the next best thing - he helped me to tilt the vending machine (my first time - woo!), so I got a $1 bottle of mineral water (not the $1.50 grape juice I wanted).
Another facet of my marginalisation: sometimes when I laugh I clap. This was seized upon and replicated. The most claps recorded so far are 6 - 4 from one girl and 2 from another - on seeing a picture of Huishan and I reading the book I bought for USP.
Caltrain - "There is Help. 1 800 SUICIDE". We need such signs at MRT stations.
Someone made the mistake of asking me why I grew my hair out. I used to tell people why, but they never believed me so nowadays I just demonstrate the reason why. So I tied my hair up and flipped it in her face. This got me hit many times, with me yelping on each hit.
'This is not a seat'
Housing discrimination bus ad
After returning to the Comfort Inn, we were to go down to the OICW (Opportunities Industrialization Center West) to have a look. To get there we needed to use buses from two companies - the daypass we bought from VTA was supposedly valid only on Samtrans buses in the direction leaving the Palo Alto transit center but not on the way back. Really strange system (later the Samtrans bus driver let us use our daypass to go back to the transit center, hurr hurr).
Darren said I was provoking others into marginalising me. This was a horrible and insensitive observation to make - it is really awful to blame the victim, like claiming that rape victims ask for it when they walk down the street in a bad neighbourhood at 3am, dressed in skimpy clothing, or claiming that someone who got his car stolen should have locked it (even if he didn't use a steering wheel lock).
There are no traffic signals or signs in Phnom Penh even though they have a million people.
Kalamu Chache's poem
I commented that one of the people who spoke to us had a very anecdotal way of answering our questions which didn't answer them and the answers bordered on the irrelevant. I was told that the anecdotes were relevant because she lived through the events. This is like explaining how a Boeing 777 flies by explaining the Navier-Stokes equations - it is related to the question but doesn't answer it at all.
I'd forgotten to bring my belt, but Darren lent me his, making me feel immediately more secure. Yay.
Huishan went to MSN and typed "Google" in the search box. Hehe.
For dinner some of us went to a Mexican restaurant. They had a bottomless glass of watermelon juice for $2.50, so I jumped at it and had 4 glasses. They also served freshly fried nachos with salsa, and I noticed that when we asked for a refill of salsa, the next batch was hotter than the first; my theory was that each refill would be hotter than the last until customers had had enough chips.
2 pork and 1 chicken enchilada, beans and rice
I'd forgotten that we were in America. Shit. After all the nachos and juice, I hardly touched the beans and almost didn't touch the rice, and left just under 1/2 an enchilada behind.
The Americans don't seem to be very fond of the 24 hour clock. Then again I didn't notice this in 2005, so it must be a Californian thing.
Quotes:
People carry guns at church in Texas, like a Western movie.
I think all of my children are beautiful. They're probably not, but I think they are.