For the People That I Would Like to Have Here (I miss you),
Today was the first day of “actual” classes which for this month is Marketing, which lasted from 8:30 – 16:40 with about a 2 hour break in the middle for lunch. In short, I like the class a lot. The teacher, Arthur Gogatz, is an international marketing consultant and teacher, who’s from New York. And instead of getting bogged down in “technical” marketing he’s really focusing on general strategy. Which means he’s taking into accountant that everyone in the class are professionals and don’t have time to do a whole lot of memorizing for their test. The down side to this is he takes our grade from our class participation (well actually this awesome for me) so I’ll need to drop Management Ethics because there’s a class overlap. O well who needs ethics? ^_^
So I’m sitting there in class during a short break and then Chinese guy, Mr. “Frank” Yan, comes up and talks to me. We’re having a lovely talk about American and Chinese relations, and I give him my business card. Super. Well then he pulls out this super swanky business card holder and I was like “Man that’s a great looking business card holder; I really need to get one of those.” 60 seconds later it’s mine…. I’m not sure exactly how it happened. About to head off to class in about an hour where I think I’ll give him my brand new deck of World Poker Tour playing cards. I literally have nothing else of value on me that would be appropriate in this context. What am I going do, go out and buy him something from China? Anyways I’m mainly writing this for Booz, bring some small American gifts, maybe like popular business books or…. Hell I don’t know, just something from America or maybe UT.
O right right the whole point of this post:
So today was Cam’s birthday so we all got dressed up and went out for some great Japanese food. Picture this, all you can eat nice Japanese food, all you can drink (beer, soda, juice, and SAKE!), in the French Concession (one of the nicest areas of Shanghai) for 150 RMB per person, which is like $22.
You. Can’t. Beat. That.
Wait…. I’m in Shanghai, so yes I can, and I will, but that’s for another day.
Well of course the girls took about two hours to get ready (funny how some things never change eh?), but once everyone was assembled we headed out into the night in three taxis. Once we got there we had about 4 hours or so of intensive eating, drinking, and general merriment. People took pictures and once I get internet access in my room and they’re uploaded I’ll come back and post them to the blog, sadly my camera is just too bulky for most situations and is sucking juice like a cheap whore. I’ll just have to go buy a brand new swanky one for… $40 :P
Anyways the party was a lot of fun and afterwards we departed and went clubin. Well more like I walked around with Nina who wasn’t feeling to good because her ankle was recently pulled really badly. It was fine, it gave me a good excuse, to kind of just chill. Never fear I did actually go into the club and partied for about 30 min, which I freely admit was a lot of fun. But ya know there are only two reasons to go to a club (in my opinion), to dance, and to pick up the opposite sex. Well I’m not really into the “club girl” and here I wouldn’t trust them not to be a hooker anyways, so that only leaves me one reason to be there, and helping out a friend seemed like a better choice when faced with shaking my booty in the middle of a trendy Shanghai club. Again, maybe for another day and with this group I’m sure there will be.
I did find something sadly ironic though. One of my friends (female) pulled me aside while we were making the way to the club and said that I was so sweet, but if I wanted to pick up a girl I needed to be a little bit more of a “bad boy.” Super. The one thing I’m not. :P I say this a little bit in jest because this has been said to me multiple times in various situations and for it to follow me to China has just become like a sad joke. If she’s reading this please don’t take it the wrong way, I’m not mad or upset, it’s a true statement. I’ve long known I’m the “guy you marry” not the “guy you date.” I’ve tried being the former, and I just can’t. Which I kind of feel reflects a large amount of my relationships, I take someone who’s been through a relatively rough time, patch them up, and then they realize they no longer need me, and it’s over. Kind of like nurturing the wounded woodland animal, that eventually always has to return to the wild. Obviously this is a gross summation of my relationships and its degree of accuracy could have quite a variance, it’s just an observation though. But you compound this with the fact that because of what I want to do I’ll have at least a “constrained” family life because of work and travel and you’re looking at not a very good husband either. Kind of in a pickle.
I guess the good side to this is that dating anyone of the French girls could only lead to disaster. My thought process is like this: If there was any falling out in the relationship (and we have to leave in a few months so surely there would be) who would the group chose, her or me? Well quite frankly no matter how much they include me I’ll still always be an outsider just for simple reasons like language, experience, etc. They would choose her hands down, which means I would lose one of the most precious things I have here. Maybe in a perfect situation it could work, but I don’t think I’m willing to take that risk. Or in investment terms (which I now almost constantly think in) the risk is greater than the return.
Anywho I didn’t mean to turn that into a sad “woe is me” pity party but I just wanted to put it down on “paper” in order for it to be recorded for later reflection. I live a good life, and I honestly have very few complaints.
Off to class, hopefully I’ll be able to get access to the internet in the class room. Hope everyone is doing well, I miss my friends a lot. For all the things this city has it’s sadly lacking yall.
Peace,
Kevin
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