“Look how much we won from betting on horses!!” said Konnor and RB elatedly as they ran up to us waving a stack of large bills. It appeared that for them, luck was indeed a lady, and the Happy valley racetrack stayed true to its name.
My day started off with a discussion about love in a fallen city. Considering how I was neither in love nor in a fallen city, I left campus for a long overdue haircut. The Shanghai Kiu Kwun Barbershop has been open since 1980, and the haircut the barber gave me was fully representative of that history. The blow-dryer burned my scalp and the old barber slicked back my hair, but I didn’t have the heart to tell him to stop. He took pride in his work, and the enthralled look in his eyes as he worked was something akin to love. I certainly wasn’t going to be the one to tell him otherwise.
Walking out of the barbershop, I couldn’t stop myself from chuckling at my absurdly different haircut. It wasn’t a bad haircut, but it wasn’t the one I was used to seeing, either. It’s change, big and small, that keep life exciting, and it’s boring to get the same haircut every time, so sometimes it’s better to take a chance. And that’s why I confidently bet on horse #9 with 1 to 99 odds today. There was a 1% chance for me to win any money, but I was tired of playing it safe. Holding out her thumb and pinky, Tongyu smugly bragged for hours after the race about how she knew #6 would win. I didn’t have such clairvoyance, but at least I had fun!
Oh, and about the $1400 that they flailed around in their hands, turns out it was just a meticulously executed practical joke. Today was just that whimsical.
