AKICistan goes random

If it is Tuesday, it means you are in Akicistan or AKICistan which today goes random:

 

• The third floor at the Nanchang Book Market reopened.  So I was able to buy three more old movies on DVD for just 10 rmb.  I bought Meet Me in St. Louis with Judy Garland, Naked City, and Paths of Glory directed by John Ford.
• I just finished watching Meet Me in St. Louis.  It is still a revelation to me that old movies are just so freaking great.  The music and the MGM color was something to behold.  They can't make movies like that anymore.  And even if they wanted to, they couldn't.  The wife found it interesting because Judy Garland was not too far removed then from having starred in the Wizard of Oz.  So much about this movie blew my mind but what really surprised  me was the scene where a date cancels on Judy Garland because he can't get his tuxedo from the tailor's.  To wear the suit and tie that he had simply would not have done.  And to think now that wearing a suit and tie is dressing up.
• I am a mass mur-der-did-ler.  I must have killed twenty mosquitoes with the trusty electric racket tonight.  The wife didn't close the screen on a kitchen window for a few minutes.
• This afternoon, I went to a 12 floor high middle school to judge a English Speaking Contest.  A local High School teacher and I watched about 100 students make 90 second speeches about dream and reality.  Most of the students spoke quite well.  The biggest problem was nervousness.  Some of the students lost the plot and couldn't finish their speeches, and walked away.  Three or four students stood out because their confidence.  Each time the other judge and I saw ones we thought exceptional we looked at each other and nodded.  It was not so much the English and the student's poise that earned high marks from me. 
• I was quite taken with the fact that I was in a 12 floor school.  I have passed Big Bridge school many times when I lived in the old apartment on Wu Ai Road.  Anytime I have meet students from this school, I have always asked about what it is like to be in a school that was so tall.  It was the first time, I had been in the school.  I kicked myself for not bring my camera.
• Chinese students come in so many shapes and size.  There were two students whose gender I was unsure.  I felt sorry for the ones who had bad acne problems.  Thank God, I am a teenager no longer.  I rue thinking of what Tony will be like when he gets that age.