L: Another teacher, L (M. and S's mom) took me to the fabric market. I considered having some maternity clothes made here since they would be much cheaper. She also wanted to make a few outfits here for her summer in the States.
The fabric "market" is actually a few buildings, several stories high, clustered in the space of a few blocks. One day is not close to sufficient to see everything available. Since I wasn't sure how "big" i was going to get, we decided against buying fabric for me, instead i wanted to make a couple baby slings with a model given by a Russian lady at the university. This place is huge...stories of little stalled packed right next to each other, stuffed with bolts and bolts of fabric...anything and everything you could ever imagine. We barely made it up to the second floor. This would be every designer and decorator (and women who like to sew)'s dream. We looked through several little stalls and then i saw it...the cutest fabric...not too froo-froo, in case we have a boy. I liked it so much, i bought whatever was left on the bolt...6.5 meters. This was the first time i'd really been excited about the pregnancy. Uptil now, the nausea and discomfort have kept any enthusiasm and excitement at bay. S. of course, patiently put up with my rantings about the fabric market, although i'm pretty sure he was glad he wasn't there. I did find another great bargain of some really fun material and made an order for two baby slings...can't wait to see how they'll turn out.
S: On the way to grab dinner at the cafeteria, I watched a boy's basketball game. It appeared to be a championship game of a intramural tournament. They had student refs and scorekeepers. The game was played on concrete and outdoors. The hoop rims had no nets. A large crowd of students watched and rooted. The game was close, 58-57. Basketball is a pretty popular campus activity, along with badminton. People play basketball on the concrete top, even in the rain or if it's puddle-strewn. We seen young men wearing NBA jerseys, many of them unofficial, almost homemade-looking. Yao Ming and televised NBA games have had a tremendous impact.
