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.