This morning on the train, Brianna said, "Mom, you know we're not going to do Pinky forever." Pinky is the ongoing story that we tell on the train each day. "After 13 years, we are going to stop and then we'll do a story where you're the princess and I'm the queen." I said, 'Wow, Brianna, in 13 years, you will be 18, and you'll be going away to college, and we'll have to write the story back and forth in letters." She said, "Wow? College? Yeah! But before then, I get to ride on a school bus, right?" I assured her she would. She said, "Hmm. Let me think for a moment. Okay. Let's change the plan. We'll just do Pinky right up until I go to college, okay?" I said, "Okay, we'll do Pinky as long as you want to."
This morning's episode involved a visit to an old friend, Mr. Nicedragon, and his new wife, Mrs. Nicedragon, who is pregnant. Brianna explained, "Mrs. Nicedragon has been getting pregnant for sixty-one and a thousand weeks, but Mr. Nicedragon just found her 5 days ago. Now there is only half a day left until the baby dragon is born."
Sixty-one and a thousand seems to be the number of choice these days. On Sunday, she went to a birthday party and I asked her afterward if she had a good time. She said, "Oh, Mom, I had sixty-one and a thousand fun!"

Today to supplement a taped lecture used for listening practice, I have been telling my students about some of the culturally insensitive mistakes I made while teaching English to the managers at the Bank of Taiwan. Now I am homesick for that lovely and astonishingly expensive table on the 78th floor of the World Trade Center where I had the best view of the Statue of Liberty. I know, many people have much deeper feelings than homesickness when they think of the World Trade Center. But I am even more homesick for my own little English school in the ballet studio. I am remembering my students worrying, "Julie, we have taught you how to say "noun" and "verb" and "adjective" in all our languages to help you teach us, but if you go to Russia or Korea or China or Taiwan, you will only be able to walk around saying, "Noun, verb, adjective." You don't even know how to ask where the bathroom is!"