Spotted at the library

I spent most of my childhood and adolescence being the shortest kid in class. It wasn't till my late teens that it seemed like everyone (Asian) wasn't that much taller anymore.

So imagine how I felt yesterday at the library, when I got into the lift with a Caucasian man whose waist was as high as my shoulders. Think about that: his waist is at the same height as my shoulders. Fortunately, my brain only processed that after he had stepped out of the lift, or else I'd've been gawping at him all the way.

These few days I've been working in the reference library, which gets busier than you think with people taking advantage of the free air-conditioning and wifi --- including a teenager playing some kind of first-person shooter game on his laptop. Even so, it's not everyday that I find myself sitting at a table across from a man who's close to my parents' age, typing avidly away at his laptop --- beside which sits a mercury thermometer.

As in, an old-school mounted-on-a-narrow-wood-panel mercury thermometer. Placed immediately to the left of his elevated laptop --- to measure the amount of heat it's generating when he's working on it? I don't know ...

Today's random sighting was of a man around my age who was dressed in a batik long-sleeved shirt and a sarong. Both pieces of clothing were modern in style and print, so he kinda had a whole contemporary kampung look going. He was consulting big books (I couldn't see the titles) and had a nifty little netbook for taking notes.

Very, very random.

I wonder what I'll see during tomorrow's library visit.