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934 12-19-2010

This is a long time coming.  My father mentioned to me that my family missed my blog while we were chowing down on some bagels this morning and I realized I should probably wrap this sucker up.  I know you’re wondering, raisin and cinnamon bagel with peanut butter and grape jelly, delicious.

I guess it’s only logical to wrap up my time in China before I continue into my semester at Hendrix (in some ways my “China” experience followed me there).

After Tiananmen Square my dad and I went to the Great Wall where little to our surprise it was crowded and smoggy.  Luckily we were smart-ish and decided to hike away from the crowds and actually found ourselves in a slightly less popular part of the wall.  By the way, I don’t use that term “hike” likely, there was a nice 40-55 degree incline on that sucker.  I kept having images of Chinese soldiers in full armor seeing someone climb on top of the wall at one of the higher portions and just thinking to themselves, “fuck it, I’m not running up there.”  Jog up this sucker and your thunder thighs are going to be sputtering sparks by the time you’re done.  Kudos to my dad by the way, with his ankle I’m surprised he got past the stairs, not to mention hike up a portion of it.

That pretty much wrapped up my experience in Beijing.  Honestly I think it was the city I liked the least.  But some of the people were pretty cool I will admit.  Anya for example is supposed to have sent me a Christmas card a few days ago.  And Hongmin (the girl from the hostel) and I still keep in touch.

…BACK TO SHANGHAI.

Despite his ailing health, the time I spent with my father in Shanghai was probably one of my more enjoyable experiences in China.  We did some basic shopping like getting him some shirts made, I got my coat repaired, etc.  But we also spent a lot of time just wondering around, but because of his ankle we were never really in a rush to go anywhere and spent a lot of time just sitting and looking at things.  In fact one of the best things we did was we found a cigar bar in the middle of Shanghai, we sat outside and enjoyed the weather which was a nice 70 degrees, and they served and excellent mojito (MS Word does not recognize this as an actual word, strange) which combined with a Cuban cigar is quite an enjoyable experience.

I think he was quite impressed with the architecture of the city and really enjoyed the Bund and Nanjing Lu at night.  While we were on the Bund we ran into a French family that was enjoying the sights and I told them that actually a lot of my friends here are French and they were very nice.  Their response, “…nice?  Are you sure they’re French?”  I laughed.

Oh, oh, before I forget.  So I had to go get some cash at the station and so my dad hung out in the room while I made the trek to the station.  So I’m just looking down while I’m walking listening to music and suddenly I look up and I am SURROUNDED by police officers.  Not 3 or 4 of these suckers, at least 30.  It wasn’t till I looked around I realized it was because they were in the process of shutting down this restraint/cafeteria place that had literally been rented, put together, and opened while I stayed here.  Sadly I never was able to find out why they were shutting it down, but it was a sight.

So… that’s pretty much it for China.  Made my way back to America, which was much more pleasant then the first time.  Sat next to a Korean family heading to LA on the way back, they were very sweet, and I switched places with their 8 year-old girl so she could see out the window.  You could see the visible relief wash over the dad’s face now that his little girl had something to occupy her time.

Being home though was weird.  I felt… like I was an insider, which after months of being a clear foreigner, was underwhelming.  Getting back into the swing of things at school was even harder, more on a social level then an academic one.   With the absence of a girlfriend my social group was no longer very clearly defined and so a lot of the friends I had before were now in this weird gray zone.  But it actually has worked out fine.  In fact I’m actually closer to some of the people I hung out with before China then I ever was before then, especially Brett, Jack and Grace (Jack’s girlfriend).  I even met some new friends like Rachel, who was my auditing buddy for the semester and introduced me to a number of her slacker friends who I hang out with on occasion.  One guy is called BJ but his intro line is “Hi my name is BJ, but my friends call me Fallacio,” we get along great.

And there is, well was, a girl.  Her name is Fei, from Harbin, China, and we were a cute little item (ok maybe she was just cute, I just kind of stand there being goofy) for awhile.  Sadly she just had to go back home a couple of days ago.  I miss her.  :-/

Fei is on the right

Hendrix Culinary Club is going strong, we’ve gotten a lot of work this semester and are back to being financially stable.  Annie did an awesome job, and Olivia (our new president) will kick just as much butt I’m sure.

Oh I also got cut up pretty badly.  Somewhere along the lines my appendix decided to become a ticking time bomb and nearly exploded so they performed an appendectomy to get that sucker out of there.  Still a little bit on the mend, but I’m almost at a 100%.  Problem is that it messed up my finals schedule, so I have one final I’m working on at home and I get to study for the other two and take’m when I get back to Hendrix.  I’m thrilled.

As far as jobs go I’m still looking, I supposedly have an internship with Zinch.com this coming semester which should turn into a job, but I’m still waiting on the details so we’ll see.  Hopefully it’ll turn out ok.  I might write one more blog post just to let you know where I go, but honestly if you just click on “my website” it’ll show you my LinkedIn.com page which will adequately inform you.

And… that’s it.

Forbidden Palace and Tiananmen Square

1731 7-24-10 (but for the 22^nd)

Well Thursday we woke up at the crack of dawn to see the Tiananmen Square flag rising ceremony only to be told that even waking up at 5 was too late for it actually started at 5:04 (yes it actually is that specific, it is increased by one minute everyday).  But since Dad and I were already up we decided what the hell and headed out there anyways, we also said goodbye to Anna who was talking off for Tibet.  I'm glad we did because we ended up getting into the Forbidden Palace's gardens before anyone else was really there (there might have been only 200 or so people in the entire park that we saw).  So that meant we got to stroll around and just look at various things without having to navigate the crowds.  We spent a lot of this time hanging out by one of the rivers and talking about China, America, and the future.

Once we had our fill of the gardens we headed out to Tiananmen Square.  On the Square it is made very obvious just how smoggy Beijing is.  I though Shanghai was bad but Beijing is so smoggy it's hard to make out the buildings clearly at the end of the square.

By this time the crowds had also started to pick up, for instance the line to see Mao's body was about 150-200 yards long.  My father and I didn't feel any need to go see a dead guy.  But walking around the square let us see a lot of the big government buildings and such, plus it was cool to just be at this extremely historical site.  Getting back required us to go through about 5 underground tunnels in order to actually reach the subway stop, what a pain. 

Once back in our hotel though we relaxed for a little bit before meeting with Booz for lunch.  Lunch was in fact pretty good, consisting of some stuff that at this point I can't remember.  We then went and hung out at his dorm for a little bit, just sitting around listening to music, swapping stories, and watching short videos.  But pretty soon Booz had to go and leave for Xi'an so we said our goodbyes and went back to the hostel again.

For the most part we hung out there for the rest of the day, just talking to all of the international visitors.  By this point a French family and a family from Norway was staying at the hostel.  They were all super nice, and the Norwegian father, Henry and my dad hit it off real well.  That night everyone in the hostel gathered up and made sweet dumplings made with rice flour, water, and red bean paste (which is a natural sweetener for a lot of Asian desserts, in Japanese we call it taro) boiled in brown sugar water.  Tons of fun and they were quite good.

With our stomachs full we were off to bed.

The Summer Palace and Anya

2011 7-24-10 (for 21^st)

Up at the crack of dawn (which I have a feeling will begin to be a common affair with father around), which was mostly spent just relaxing and talking with some of the people in the hostel.  So far we've met an older couple from Belgium, one of them is an art history teacher (and kind of an art "activist") the other runs the most successful sitcoms in Northern Belgium which has ran for about 20 years!  Then there are about three people from Norway, two of whom were on the last leg of their Trans-Siberian adventure.  We of course also have the three or four Chinese who are running the hostel, they're super friendly.

Then in comes this bushy ball of energy overloaded with two backpacks and plenty of gear.  Apparently she had walked past the hostel four or five times before she actually turned down the right alley to our hostel.  Well after unpacking herself in her room we invited her over to talk.  Her name is Anya Rudycheva, from Moscow, majoring in Celtic languages, but is conversational to fluent in Russian, English, Spanish, "Celtic", and a little bit of Italian.  She makes money doing translations for various websites and such which she says pays for her traveling but not much else.

Anyways she was just in Beijing for the day with no real plans so we quickly absorbed her into our group and headed out to meet Booz for lunch.  Lunch was a tasty affair at one of Booz's local restaurants; we had some delicious eggplant, fried rice, and sweet and sour chicken.

Once our more basic needs were taken care of we got into a cab and were whisked off to the Summer Palace.  The place was pretty well packed; apparently this time of year is a major one for Chinese tourism.  But it was rather pretty and there were plenty of cool buildings to see as well as an awesomely big lake.  Booz and I decided that a giant Dragon Boat would be an excellent addition to White Rock Lake.  Sadly the experience was rather… "drowned out" by these stupid whistles people we're selling.  It seems like everywhere I go people are selling things.  But regardless it was fun, Anya, Booz, and I even did a little bit of hiking up to the top of the mountain where a huge Buddhist temple was.  And by hiking I mean we took then small dirt path up to the top, only to find out there was a much nicer and easier one that we had somehow missed.

As always coming back from there was a royal pain.  We couldn't find a taxi that wasn't full and we really didn't know where the subway was, so in the end we hired a couple of bicycle guys to take us to the subway.  Well Booz clearly negotiated a price of 20RMB, and that price was communicated to the other driver and so when I got out I paid 20RMB and I was done with it.  BUT Booz and Anya gave the original driver a 100RMB and suddenly the ride was 20RMB PERPERSON.  Needless to say we were pissed and after 10 mins of arguing we finally got it down to 30RMB for the ride and we were too continue.  This was the first time that this had happened to me who made it even worse.  Normally all of the Chinese people I've dealt with honor the deal that was made 100% we've even been ran down by a waiter because we didn't get our 3RMB worth of change.  So I was rather peeved but whatever I guess.

So we made our way back to the hostel and Anya retired to her room (she had been on a plane from Russia before this as well as the hiking to get to our hotel, so I imagine she was royally tired after all of this).  Father, Booz, and I ordered some dinner and just in general hung out for the rest of the night before Booz had to get back to school.

Flying in Beijing

1148 7-20-10

Since I'm waiting for our plane to come in (which has been delayed 40min) I figured I would try to write part of today's post while I had a second.

Dad and I got up around 6:30 or so, which was fine since we went to bed around 10.  I got o take a shower in the morning, which was amazing, I actually should have probably taken the time to take a bath but I just didn't think about it.  Not having to stand next to your toilet while showering is such a nice convenience.

After my shower we headed up to the executive lounge where we got a really nice breakfast… in fact besides the odd dried banana chips it's probably the only breakfast I've had in the last few months.  Sadly it wasn't till we were done that I noticed they had bread and Nutella.  Once breakfast was consumed we hoped on the train and after a bit of confusion with gates got onto our plane.

[cont. 2116 7-21-10]

The flight itself was rather uneventful, but once we got to Beijing our epic quest to find our hostel began.  First we got to take the express train and another subway line to our stop.  From there we walked for about 15 minutes down a main street turned into an apartment neighborhood which was very old and rather typical.  Our walk then brought us strolling by a large Chinese market place and then down this small back alley.  We finally ended up at a rather large red door.  At this point my father was beginning to question my judgment.  But the door actually opened up into a rather quaint courtyard with nice decorations and a fruit bearing tree in the middle!

The girl at the desk in the back (Sammy) was super nice, had decent English skills, and was rather helpful.  It wasn't her fault that the A/C broke, and then they turned out the power to fix it.  My father was so tired though that he even was able to ignore the "hard" (which were actually softer than the one in my dorm) mattress and heat and went straight to sleep.  I stayed outside in the courtyard and talked with some Norway people, who were quite lovely.  They were actually finishing up a trip that they took on the Siberian Train.

Once dad woke up from his nap we went, met Booz and got some dinner at a hotpot restaurant.  Then we headed up to this really big open market like area where we saw life scorpions on impaled on a stick!  They would then fry them for you so that you could eat them without worrying about that nasty stinger.  They were super tasty!!

Just kidding.  I did end up buying some fans though for my father.  They started out at 120RMB and ended up at 25.  Afterwards we wondered around, got some tea, someone wanted to practice their English with us, which of course is a royal scam, and in general just kind of moseyed along.

Getting back was a royal pain though.  First of all we thought we found some cabs but they immediately started trying to negotiate with us on a price, which is the biggest red flag in the book that they are not legit.  I have never before run into this problem in Shanghai, but apparently here it's a big deal.  If that wasn't bad enough it takes us another 20minutes to flag down another taxi (all the others either had people in them, or didn't want to stop for us, I'm not entirely sure why).  Once we got in we explained to him where we wanted to go, but he didn't want to because he would have to make a u-turn… yeah I'm serious.  Finally it took us an additional 20 minutes waiting at a hotel to finally find someone that was able to take us to the hostel.  This was after several taxi drivers said they didn't even know where our train stop was and it's a major one.  I was pretty peeved at this point.  I climb into a taxi at 3am and in my broke Chinese tell them to take me to ECUST and the street next to it and am immediately taken there with no problem, ever.  Here they can't even get us to a train station.  Shanghai 1 : Beijing 0

Needless to say when we got back I crashed pretty easily.

Dad Arrives

11:34 7-20-10 (for 19^th)

Well pappy arrived today.  I decided to check into the hotel early to make sure I could easily find it when dad arrived and also so I didn't have to carry my luggage all the way to Pudong.  The Hilton itself is pretty nice, not to mention the fact that we got a free upgrade up to an Executive Room.  Pretty damn spiffy if you ask me.

Anyways the train out to Pudong Airport actually took an extra 40 minutes then I had expected which ended up being a total travel time of an hour and half.  On top of that Dad's plane was 30min early.  Luckily I still had about 20min to kill before his plane touched down, and an additional 40min before he actually got out of customs.

Dad said the flight sucked because he couldn't sleep and his butt just couldn't handle the sitting for so long.  Other than that there weren't any complications.

He was tuckered out but that didn't stop us from heading down to the French concession and grabbing some Mexican food.  I figured I would ease him into the whole China thing with a comfy room and familiar food.  Right now I'm waiting to get on the plan for Beijing and once there it'll be a totally different experience.

After dinner, we took a little bit of time to walk around the French concession which was nice, and even popped into G+ which was oddly empty.  I guess at 21:30 on a Monday, the party hasn't really started.  After that we headed back to the Hilton where Dad pretty much immediately crashed, and I followed soon after.  The beds were extremely squishy which after lying on a board for five months meant I had a little trouble getting used to it… but not for long.

The Last Supper (and Class)

0010 7-19-10 (but talking about 17 & 18)

So yesterday we had a full day of classes which meant I really didn't have too much to talk about so… I didn't BUT one ironic thing did happen to me.  So I was sitting there in the class room eating my lunch playing on my laptop (thanks grandparents, I would have been in a real bind without one), when all of a sudden one of the Chinese girls came up to me and wanted to know if I was Christen.  Of course I politely informed her that my name was not Christen, it was indeed Kevin.  Now this seemed a little odd because I talk a lot in class and pretty much everyone knows my name.

But she looked rather puzzled and looked at me again and then back to another Chinese girl sitting behind me and repeated her question to her.  They talked for a moment or two and I happen to catch the other girl saying "Christian," and of course then it snapped.  So I explained to her that no I was not Christian yadda yadda yadda.  She then asked how I could tell if someone was Christian just by looking at them and I explained that you really couldn't, but if they were wearing a cross or a fish symbol there was a good chance that they were.

Then she further puzzled me by asking what denomination I thought she should be.  Well of course this launches me into an explanation about the fact that there are many different denominations and there's no way I could simply tell her that this is the one she should be etc.  Turns out though, after about half hour what she really was looking for was what type of Christianity was the most popular in America, of course there really isn't an answer to that one two but I listed off a few I knew.  Anyways I just thought all of this was oddly ironic, but it made me smile, and no, I didn't take the opportunity to try to convince her to join the Dark Side or anything like that.  I did find out why she's Christian though, apparently her grandmother was Christian but her mother wasn't until one day her mother got a really bad tooth ache and the doctors couldn't fix it, so she went to church and asked Jesus for help and then the pain went away.  Go figure.

By the way, apparently there's a different branch of Christianity here in China then there is in other parts of the world.  If I had more time here I would be really interested in hearing how the story has changed.

During class though I actually gave a presentation on the various risks I think China is facing which I gathered from China's own book of statistics.  The big one was economic disparity between West and East, gender ratios, over population, environmental concerns, use of cars, and lack of funding in education.  Of course there are others that I would like to have mentioned, like the housing bubble, but I had to use stats found in this book.  The reaction from the class was pretty good; one of my classmates even mentioned that he thought I had "a better understanding of China then most Chinese," I guess you can't get a better compliment then that.

Let's move on to today.  Today was my last Risk Management class, compounded with the last dinner with the French.  In class one of things we discussed was starting a non-profit consulting company within ECUST, I actually really like this idea and think it could be applied to universities in America (German universities are already doing this) sadly I'm not sure Hendrix would be a good fit, but maybe we could our Accounting and CompSci students could be the consultants.  Something to think about.  I then got to have the joy of taking my test an hour after the class was done.  I think it went alright though, so I'm not too worried.

Then I relaxed in my room for a bit and soon found myself heading out with the French kids, and Charlie for dinner (Sophie and Nathan would join us afterwards cause they were on a dinner date).  We went back to the Korean place that we went too last time where you got to grill your own food.  Clement touched my meat… it was then that I came to an understanding that Americans and more specifically Texans, do like people touching our food without permission, certainly not our meat.  I think this was compounded by the fact that this was the closest I had gotten to cooking in five months and it was almost like a sacred ritual for me.  Luckily I got over it pretty quickly.

Once we had consumed our food we headed out to the bund was last time.  Once we were there we posed and took photos with about three Chinese families and generally just had a good time.  Nathan and I discussed video games, moding video games, and how in the world can you screw up a game about Star Wars or D&D.  Then on the way back we talked about the stagnation of Japan, what would happen if America was invaded, and aliens.  We are Geek.

Father should now be on his way over here, tomorrow I'll meet him at the airport, but until then I really should get some stuff together.  I intended to do it tonight but then dinner thingy came up.  Night.

Last Day of Work

0045 7-17-10

Wow so it has been awhile hasn't it?

Sorry I guess I've just been slipping recently, also not much has really gone on.  The weather has kept me pretty much inside.

Well today was the last day of work, which I guess was cool.  The end of something is always the beginning of something else.  HR bought me some milk tea and a slice of cake which was thoughtful… and tasty.  Sadly Niko wasn't there today because he just had a baby the day before so naturally he was out.

Mostly the day was spent wrapping up the last bit of my projects and talking with the guys around me.  Edward suggested I check out a company called Stratfort which is a private intelligence agency with their office in Austin.  While they offer internships to recent grads they're unpaid which kind of puts me in a bind.  But o well, it looks interesting if nothing else.

Also had a closing interview with Trent as well as gave him a report on "areas needing improvement" as requested by HR.  That's always fun, ask the intern that's only been there for a few months to tell you what's wrong with the company.  Super.  But an outsider's perspective can be useful I guess.

Let's see what else is going on… bought dad's Expo ticket today.  Oh did I tell you that I now have VIP Expo passes?  Ya, I'm that good at networking.  :P

Anyways other than that I've just been trying to relax and enjoy my last few days of peace before I head back to America and corporate slavery for the rest of my life… whoopee!!

New Suits and Projects Coming to a Head

2315 7-13-10

So yesterday Nathan and I went out and picked up our suites from the tailors.  They're quite spiffy and I also took that time to drop off my pea coat for repairs.  I'm a little worried though because the buttons are done in a special way and I would rather them not mess it up.  Oh well it cost me a total $37 to redo them and all of the lining.  If I don't like it, it's not like I've sunk a huge amount of money into it, still though… it's my coat.

Panpan (our sales girl) assured me that father's suite could be made in four days.  She's pretty cool, not much formal education, but smart as a whip.  She's had an intro to English class but the rest of her language skills are self taught.  She's also learning French and Japanese.  Panpan is also oddly honest for a sales person, she had no problem telling me that I was a little fat; but that Nathan should act more like me because I'm cuter (that's exactly what she said).  Anyways, she's highly amusing.  I also picked up six ties for $17, two of which are in a box and include cuff links.

Then as we came back from our suite extraction, we ran across Sophie, Luc, and Nina who were heading to this place in Shanghai that sells all sorts of pets.  So Nathan and I ran up to our rooms and decided to tag along.  Have you ever been walking in an area and felt like bacteria is literally washing over you as you walk?  That's kind of how it was, except with cute kittens, and lots of grasshoppers.  Grasshoppers and crickets, just fyi, are considered lucky in ancient Chinese customs and many people would carry special cages with the bug inside.  Once our animal planet journey came to a close, we headed out and got some Korean BBQ which was super tasty.  It was so nice to have meat without any bone in it.

Today, on the other hand, was a mixed bag of fortune.  On one side my boss was not happy with the results that came in for the project because he wanted a much more in depth analysis of the myriad of patents out there, and I'm unsure as to whether or not I will be able to provide him this by the time I'm done.  On the other hand a Chinese friend of mine from class works as a manager within the Expo and is willing to give my father and I VIP passes for the entire expo, which basically means we get to skip all of the lines.  On top of that I just got an e-mail from my school offering up a free mattress and box springs from the North Area Coordinator, so maybe I'll be able to get my hands on that.

Let's see… nope that's pretty much it.  I had a Risk Management class, but we basically talked about being prepared for a variety of "Risk" and how companies create internal insurance pools.

So I need to call some companies about these patents, take care.

Small Intestine vs Stomach - Wrestling Match of the Century

2004 7-11-10

I swear I have a good excuse for missing yesterday as well.  You see I had gotten up in the morning and was super craving some food.  But all I had was a new jar of peanut butter and some bread.  Hey peanut butter sand which will hold me over for a bit.  What I had not noticed was the fact that I had ordered a side dish of Salmonella that just snuck into the meal. 

Man… you talk about good times.  I think my small intestines and my stomach must of gone wrestling for at least 16-18 hours.  I even worshipped the toilet bowl four times and those suckers still wouldn't tap out.  Overnight they must have finally called it a draw but boy are they sore from all the rough housing.  Needless to say it wasn't a pretty sight, and I was pretty much stuck in bed while those two had at it, even got to have my own in room sauna while my temp sky rocketed.  I tried sedating them with some anti-biotics and later some Chinese medicine but those two quickly objected.  They wouldn't even let me eat anything either.  Spoiled brats.

Today was spent mostly working on getting this report for Niko done, and also some homework for my Risk Management class.  Not to mention trying to recover from yesterdays fun.  I did eventually get some fruit and finally a thing of rice down though, and haven't had to many problems except this soreness.

Anyways I'm doing fine, but I'm going to call it an early night.

Last Minute Projects

2246 7-9-10

Hmm so today was actually rather interesting at work.

I've now been asked to help document an employee's former projects who's about to leave the company.  On top of that HR has asked me to review documentation procedures that the company uses for their projects.  This is on top of the report that I'm doing for MagStripe Readers.  My last day is Friday.

Sadly I wish I could go into more details but I would soon be hitting that blurry line at the edge of divulging too much company business (needless to say one of my projects has but me at the cusp of a can of worms).  I did however have a nice long chat with Trent about the company's current operational procedures as well as his leadership style.  His general strategy in China is to state as few opinions as possible.  Trent has found that if he states an opinion, everyone will simply fall in line, but if he holds out and simply lays out various possibilities people will be much more willing to get around to expressing their opinions.  It just happens to be a longer process then Americans tend to be use to.

Oh I also got paid today.  Which makes today pay day, and pay day is always a yay day.

Anyways I've got to go, I need to make some calls to a few companies as part of this report I'm working on.

UPDATE:


I'm sorry I completely forgot to include this.  So a lot of people don't know anything about Hendrix College, much less Conway, AR.  But recently we had a Mr. Honeycutt run for the local school board, and I think he's a pretty good embodiment of what you'll find there.  ...  Enjoy  ;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMRWNNBYAc8

People Have Started Leaving

1027 7-8-10

I promise I fully intended to write an a post yesterday, but I was so tired I took a nap around 5 and was suddenly woken up at 7 to be told that we were throwing one final party before various members of our group left.  So I basically had 30min to get ready and by the time I got back it was around 2:30 and I just didn't feel like staying up any longer.

Luckily not too much has happened in the last few days.  I have weighed myself and found out I've lost about 15 pounds since I've been here.  Sadly I think a lot of that is muscle so I'll need to really step up my work out schedule when I get back to Hendrix.

I did meet someone interesting last night.  We had gone to Elkien's (he's the Swedish guy) new apartment and (this gets complicated) had let a guy from Barcelona sleep on his couch (it's literally called couch surfing and there are huge communities that do this) and now this Barcelona guy was staying elsewhere in Shanghai with a Philippine woman named Stacy (I actually don't remember her name, but I think it started with an S and she needed a name for this blog).

ANYWAYS I talked with Stacy for quite a long time.  She just quite her advertising job and has decided to take a long vacation (like 6 months), to go back home to the Philippians and then will travel over to Hawaii for the rest of her vacation.  If I remember correctly she's worked in the Philippians, Singapore, Shanghai, and Guangzhou.  But now she wants to do a career shift simply because she came to realize she no longer had a life and just needed a change of pace.  She has three siblings, two living in Singapore, and a brother living in Austin.

We talked a lot about her experiences.  I asked her if she was ever lonely with all the traveling she does, short answer is yes.  But she says it just means you have to constantly be out there meeting people.  She says the biggest problem with making friends in places like Shanghai and Singapore is the large expat populations.  Basically this means that you spend effort getting to know someone, only have them to up and move after a year or two.  Sometimes she could stay in contact with them but mostly they would just fade away.  However she did briefly join this yoga group in Shanghai, and even though the group has long dispersed they still meet every 6 months in various cities around the world, and supposedly their next trip is to Egypt.

Other than that the only major piece of news has been the gradual departure of all of the international students.  Clement has left for Mongolia, Sandra and a few others have also gone traveling, and all of them will leave Shanghai shortly after they get back.  Simon has just left tonight to go back to Germany.  Almost everyone will be gone by the end of next week.

Reflecting on American politics I came across this article and it really resonated with me:

http://ross-1.newsvine.com/_news/2010/07/08/4635483-democrats-republicans-i-thought-we-were-all-americans

Buying Some Suits

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2339 7-5-10

So today was pretty much defined by Nathan and I's trip out to the fabric market where we got some suits ordered.  The whole building is actually really similar to all of the other "markets" in Shanghai, with a bunch of sellers all lined up in their stalls trying to get your attention.  Huge amount of foreigners here as well, but either they're doing really well or maybe it's the nature of their business but it didn't have the air of desperation as some of places do.

Actually what was pretty impressive is the level of English here, most people were pretty close to conversationally fluent.  We ended up buying suits from these two girls who were friendly and rather playful, making the whole thing kind of fun.  The suits themselves are double cut in the back, with a more conservative collar, one is a dark blue and the other is a dark brown both are lightly pen striped.  I also got two shirts as well, one is white with blue stripes and the other is light blue with white stripes.  All in all it was 1600RMB (or $235) which isn't a super deal, but it's a lot better than America, and I don't mind them making a little profit.

Afterwards we went out and got some sushi (well I got a beef dish, but it was a sushi place).  We talked about some plans once we get back to America (he's thinking of going into real estate with his mom), ex-girlfriends, and various drama that was created by friends dating each other.   Good talk, good talk.

I also spent an hour or so talking with mommy when I got back from our outing.  She's doing well, though one of our AC just went out which sucks.  Luckily it's not summ… o… never mind.

Anyways we had a good talk, swapping stories and such.  And it cost me less than $2!!  Whooo Skype!

Lucky I'm in Love with Kevin(s)

2121 7-4-10

So today was our 2^nd ERM class.  It's not too bad though it's really basic at this point.  Hopefully he's going to go into some more details at some point.  Till then there's nothing really to talk about.

On the other hand John and Sarah and dedicated a song to Booz and I.  It's actually really sweet, and it's made me oddly emotional (I know, go figure right, sometimes it's the smallest things).  Sadly there really isn't a direct link I can give except the Facebook one, and I'm not sure everyone will be able to view but I'll post it anyways.  http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1206267846462&ref=mf

Apparently they practiced it for like two hours and finally posted it at like 2:30 in the morning.  And Booz and I get to fight over who it's actually dedicated too, though I really don't care, it's nice either way.

On a side not I watched Cop Out today (it's a movie).  Nothing to write home about… as ironic as that I realize that phrase is at the moment.

It also suddenly started pouring down rain today, which kind of made me second guess going out and getting dinner.  But instead I just put on some gym shorts and flip-flops and hiked out into the storm without an umbrella.  It's been a long time since I enjoyed just walking in the rain, and it felt really good in this heat.  Also I thought Hendrix flooded badly but here, the water in the street easily reached my ankles.

Night

ERM Class 1

1808 7-3-10

Gotta right this one a little early because we're going out to dinner and karaoke (ya.. I know) to celebrate Clement's birthday.

I got up early today to talk with IDTECH about their products and fish out some details and prices from them.  It was fairly easy, though I had to dodge a few questions.  The woman on the phone was super sweet and an excellent pick as sales person.  She had the whole flirt thing really going for her.  I said something and she responded "Totally." (she's in Cali)  I have been in China for around 4 months now, and suddenly hearing a simple American slang got me really homesick.  :-/

Today was our first class on Enterprise Risk Management.  It went fairly well, like our other German professor he's much more of a lecturer.  Spent a good half day talking about the financial crisis and how it came about.  Pretty consistent with what I've learned from a variety of other professors.  He was fairly pessimistic about the outlook though.  Basically he thinks we're screwed and eventually China will need to saddle up and lead the world economy.  It's a valid theory really, though I'm hoping America can't get our shit together and pull out an epic come back.  We'll see.

After that we began talking about the importance of risk management and yadda yadda yadda.  I would go into details but it's pretty self explanatory.  Risk is a necessary part of business and it's fine to have, as long as you understand what it is you're getting into.

Assistant Director of Operations

2207 7-2-10

You are now reading the blog of the temporary Assistant Director of Operations.  ^_^

So I need to call up some companies to night to snoop out the differences two company's patents, and so Niko has allowed me to take on the title of Assistant Director of Operations to aid me in my search.  I make less than $300 a month, but I have a great title, and that my dear friends is priceless.

Most of the day was actually spent editing my friend's med school application essays.  Which was kind of fun actually I kind of like butchering other people's writing.  It's like writing yourself, without any actual liability.  I did get stuck on being a word smith trying to get a word that encompassed "a desire to learn medicine," the best word I could come up with is Hippocratic cogitation.  Though I think it's probably too much.  I also ran across lucubration, which is just a fun word all around, especially when you mix it with the academic area of anatomy.

Also got into a tiff with Booz's girlfriend, but I'm not going to go into here.  I'm just really not a fan of being dicked with.

Tomorrow starts my Risk Assessment class, not really sure about this one, I wasn't exactly thrilled with the last German teacher we had.  We'll just see how it goes.  O well, it's the last class after all.

Night

Delinquent

2150 7-1-10

Look at me, I miss one weekend and I just start falling down on the job like some delinquent.  I'm doing fine, no worries.  Ended up going out to eat last night with Clement, Sandra, and Charlie (the same people I went touring South China with) and afterwards we headed out to a club (G+, it was alright, though if I was dictator of my own country I would instate a law that forbids DJ from ever talking) with some of the other Frenchies.  And when I got back at 3 I just didn't feel like writing a blog post.

Anyways nothing much has really happened around here lately.  I have launched a fully fledged anti-gnat campaign over the last few days.  I would kill one, and then no more than a few minutes later two would somehow pop up.  It's extremely annoying at night when they are drawn to your computer screen.

It's also gotten quite hot here, though luckily the last couple of days have been rain free.  I had half a semi-cold watermelon for dinner in celebration of the coming of summer; though I'll be even more excited when autumn comes (it's my favorite season).

I've also been looking at job opportunities and such.  I've been introduced to a recruiter within HP, etc.  It should also be noted that I've begun heavily researching what it would take to work in Singapore.  I really like what I've found out about the country and I think it would be a pretty nifty place to spend a few years of my life.  Singapore is a English speaking country, they have extremely high standards of living, technologically progressive, an island, one of the least corrupt countries on Earth, the most globalized country in the world, the fourth largest financial center, yet still in Asia.  Not to mention it would be a great place to visit me!  But don't get too ruffled up about this, just merely mulling it over.  I'm sure some of you will have comments or questions about it, I welcome your opinions.

That's really all that's been going on.

Weekend with Boos

1937 6-29-10 (but will cover all dates since 6-25-10)

So… this is kind of awkward.  I feel like I'm 40 and out shopping with my new 24 year-old girlfriend, when I accidently run my cart into the back of my 2^nd ex-wife's basket and there's that moment of silence while she judges and condemns me for my debauchery and general asshole-ishness.  In short, I'm sorry I got lazy and skipped a few days.

Anyways so Boos came in Friday night.  We went out to club SOHO and partied with some of the French kids.  Soccer matches were on so the club was a little different than usual, but o well.  After that we came home and made a bed for Boos out of three large blankets and his mattress cover that he brought.  Overall it was probably more comfortable then my bed.

Next day we headed out to various parts of West Shanghai, including Xujiahui, and Cloud 9 at Zhongston Park.  Cloud 9 was actually quite a bit of fun, we did a lot of people watching and Boos got his head bitten off by this old woman who apparently did not like the fact that he glanced in her direction (she was some foreigner, a Chinese woman would never explode over something like that).  We also saw parts of a talent show as we were walking around the mall.  Some of it was pretty bad, but there was this one guy that was able to do some pretty intense dancing in high heels, entertaining to say the least.

After that we headed down to Nanjing Road so that he could see all the lights and stuff.  It was pretty cool, extremely crowded though, especially when we got to the Bund.  Having Boos around was cool because he could sometimes translate all the little things that I was oblivious too.  Such as the fact that when I decided not to buy a pair of chopsticks it apparently marked me as someone who did not know anything about Chinese culture.  *shrugs* There are nationalist in every country, I try not to hold it against them.

Let's see the next day we got up and headed over to Pudong where we got some sightseeing in, and we also went to the aquarium which was pretty spiffy.  Apparently it boasts one of the longest underwater walkways in the world at 150m.  Sadly it was so cloudy I didn't bother taking him to the top of any cool buildings because we wouldn't really be able to see anything anyways.  We did however explore the Shangri-la Hotel which was cool as usual.  Later the night we went out with the Frenchies again to score some grub.  As usual the restaurant was out of about three or four of the things we ordered.  This has become almost comically common.  Afterwards we call it an early night for we wanted to wake up early for the Expo on Monday.

Did I mention that it was pretty humid for the last three days?  Well it all came together in the form of a wonderful rain on Monday, which also was the same day we went to the Expo.  But deterred we were not!  Nor were 450,000 other people.

All and all it was pretty cool.  We looked around at all the countries pavilions and even got in to see Vietnam's and Israel's.  The only reason why we got into Israel's was because  when we went and asked two white guys they happened to be Israelis and let us cut in line, essentially cutting our 3 hour wait into 30 mins.  FYI 3 hours is the average waiting time, with South Korea's being about 6.  Next time I go I'm definitely waiting to get into the Singapore one (sorry Dad).  After the Expo we rushed home, Boos backed his bags, and I saw him off to the airport. Yes I know you may be disappointed by my recount of the Expo, but I'll have another chance to talk about it when Dad comes.

All in all we walked about 35 to 40 hours (maybe more) in 4 days.  I'm still recovering.

Today was pretty relaxed luckily, though I was rather peeved that I got to walk 30 mins in the rain and my socks didn't dry in time so I got to walk home in wet socks/shoes.  I also got a new project.  I'll be researching competitor's technology and reading up on their patents, whoo!!  You should take a moment to find a patent and try and read it… its fun.

Oh so on Friday I created another painting, not really sure how I feel about it, though it's the first one where I messed with depth: