Cue that Slice-of-Life Background Music

Well, I’ve gone through most of the perishables that I received the week before, and only five out of 45 of the eggs went bad (it’s convenient that they turn hard and uncrackable instead of sparing rotten egg junk everywhere). The fruits that I originally thought were kumquats were actually extremely small mangoes, quite surprising and hard to eat. I still have a few left which are in good condition, due to my fridge’s odd temperature settings. I’m partly convinced that half the time it works as a freezer, as the spinach I tried to store froze and then turned into slop not even half a week in. Ah well.

I forgot how convenient chicken is to cook, and I’ve basically been cooking the same meal that I had all the time in Los Angeles: rice, chicken, some vegetable side dish. Quite convenient.

As a side note, I think that if I ever had to go back to a dorm scenario, I wouldn’t nearly be as picky about food as I was at Princeton.

Lots of my friends have picked up Diablo 3, and I actually did buy it for a moment. However, something went wrong with the transaction and they took away my account 24 hours after purchasing it (I checked my bill and a $0.00 payment to blizzard is on it… hah). Perhaps it’s because Blizzard saw my IP was from Shanghai? Who knows. Regardless, I did spend a couple hours playing it (witch doctor), and I don’t think I’m particularly into dungeon crawlers; they seem kind of repetitive. I guess I’ll wait a little while longer before trying to pick it up a second time; it’s a popular game, and perhaps my opinion will change?

The weather in Shanghai is quite nice at the moment, although I think it’s rapidly heating up. Although I could do without the humidity, it does provide a different atmosphere from California that’s not entirely unpleasant… at the moment. I may have to look into lighter polos and pants if it gets too warm though. On an aside, it seems as if the average 20-30 year old woman’s attire is more feminine than in America, even in an office setting. I can’t say I dislike it. All this definitely makes it feel like summer in an… asian tv drama/comedy esque way.

As my first real trip since I got to Shanghai, I’m going to Hainan with my department here at the company. It should be fun, if not unbearably humid. Apparently Hainan is like the Hawaii of China, so we’ll see how that turns out. Too bad the company won’t help pay for interns to go; all the same, it’s definitely cheaper than if I went alone. It should be fun.

Reunions are this weekend. It’s really a pity I can’t attend. Also, I recently updated my OS, which made my four year old scanner's driver incompatible. How unfortunate.

I'm Really Bad at Remembering Birthdays

   Last Saturday, I went to the European Chamber of Commerce Ball. Exquisite setting, but one of the first things that I noticed was how these types of functions don't change from after college. Still waiting in line to enter, still the pre-dinner where people just take pictures, still the dancing afterwards, and the awkward table chitchat, ect. (even a chocolate fountain!) It was quite enjoyable though. I haven't seen people in formal clothing in quite a while; everyone looked pretty nice. There was this one Pakistani lady who was wearing a really nice traditional dress; too bad when she had me guess her ethnicity, I went with Indian. Whoops. The entertainment was alright, with opera singers and aerial silk-ists. Fairly interesting, although some of the older people remarked that it was one of the more boring balls that they've been to.
   Regardless, I was sitting next to a fellow German intern, who ended up winning the Grand Prize of the evening for the raffle (the head of our company bought tickets for everyone; I was off by the last digit T_T) which was an all-expense paid seven day trip to the best hotel and spa in Slovenia. Pretty lucky! Although sadly one of my first thoughts was that it would have been quite a hassle if I won it myself. We talked throughout the dinner, and during the downtime of all the older people talking with each other (everyone was about ten years older than us), someone hired by the party drew a sketch of people at the table, which prompted me to try it myself using a pilfered pen. At least I can still draw portraits better than that person! (unreasonable pride).
   After that, the whole company went to dance, and I tried to remember my slow dancing, but totally forgot. I really need to remember how to do the basic steps/twirls for everything again... at some point. It ended up being like a normal dance without grinding. Pretty tame. It was especially funny to see my boss dance; he was so enthusiastic, and his wife was so timid and looked so... bashful while she watched him slide and shimmy and whatnot. Pretty funny. The music was quite eclectic, from Mamma mia! soundtracks to funk to electronica to Sinatra. I guess when you have such a wide range of ages you really do have to play a little bit of everything.
   Other than that, I've had my first sickness in China, and my first day sick from work. I was the last person in my little cubicle square to fall sick, although they most definitely passed it to me. Too bad, I was gonna go with coworkers to Italian on wednesday. Non-chinese food...
   I also have been going through 45 eggs and about 6 different types of fruit (each with 4+ items) that I received last Saturday. My meals have been pretty much noodles with eggs, rice with eggs, scrambled eggs and sausages, boiled eggs... and a fruit or three. Although I still haven't touched the kumquats. Bananas go fast, though. Such a weird diet; nothing is synergistic flavor wise at all (although nutrition wise pretty much everything's covered, which is what matters I guess).
   League of Legends works again. I'm still okay at Orianna, and I want to learn Graves. Lulu was kind of a disappointment, but I guess I have a support now. Still only have Orianna runes, so I guess I'll work on that. The entire mac client is pretty buggy though, and I had to look up how to button-force quit on a mac so I don't ruin my comp doing hard shutdowns. I'm surprised I haven't been banned given how many times I disconnect.

I Try not to Think Too Hard about Intangibles.

I went to see Titanic 3d on Saturday with a coworker, or new friend; it had been out for a while and all her friends had already seen it, so I agreed to accompany her. The last time I saw Titanic, I was about seven or so. One of the few things I remembered about the film was the theme, because it was the song that my mother really wanted me to memorize for the piano (along with fur elise). There were a lot of scenes, such as the shooting scene, which I had no recollection of at all. It was a pretty decent movie, although I still get a rather severe case of secondhand embarrassment during the socially awkward scenes. They cut out the nude scene here in China, which was... unfortunate. heh. heh. Although she certainly is old now.

My friend was convinced that I didn't enjoy the movie because I sometimes looked away or was fiddling with my hands; in reality, its almost an unconscious habit to rip up whatever ticket/receipt I'm holding into intricate shapes. This time it looked like a trilobite.

The mall the theatre was located in was huge, and we spent an inordinate amount of time choosing a restaurant. I should probably just make snap decisions, even though I probably was much less qualified to choose a place to eat than she was. Dinner was not particularly notable, but overall it was a pretty fun experience (and useful! Learned partially how to deal with theatres in china).
I've had the Titanic soundtrack stuck in my head since that day though.

On Sunday, I went to a wedding with my extended family. My uncle from england wed a caucasian, and this was their second, Chinese style wedding (the first one was in the UK, western style). I'm not particularly close with my extended family, so there were quite a few awkward questions and times of boredom. The food was pretty good though, and there seemed to be net enjoyment, and I managed to chat with the british people that did come. The music was choreographed to change by speech and action, which was quite distracting, and I felt sorry for the multiple entrances (complete with spotlight!) that the couple had to make. All in all, I hope I won't be expected to hold something similar. It looks like quite the chore for the bride and groom, as opposed to a good time.Then again, it's quite, quite premature to think about how I would plan my own wedding.

At least the bride and groom look happy when they interact with each other.

I've started soldering at work, which is interesting yet frustrating. I'm learning a lot of new scientific/practical techniques so far, but hopefully I'll angle more toward interacting with people/collecting information soon, in order to accomplish my goal. I'm not getting anything too productive done outside work, particularly. I think I need to go back to drawing still lifes, everything's looking a bit off. I'm starting to quite like KFC (maybe once a week), which is kind of disgusting if i think about it too hard but quite mouth-watering if I haven't had dinner yet.

I wonder if buying two weeks worth of groceries really is as un-fresh as people keep implying it is.

I Feel Sorry for Subway Bag Checkers

Last week, I went with my company to visit one of our manufacturing sites. Its primary product was pigment, used in makeup and packaging. The actual science behind it was pretty cool; mica (a flaky, shiny, clear mineral. So pretty, I kept a piece in my wallet) is crushed into small flakes and then coated to form a thin film effect; the resulting wavelength interference is what actually produces the color, and is what is tuned. The color in production that day was gold; somehow, I was the only person that managed to get some pigment on my clothes.

Migrant laborers have it hard. 12 hour shifts, doing the same thing, in less than ideal environments. The mica, which is enough to fill half a warehouse, tended to dust up in the air, looking like masses of tiny butterfly wings. While it's an almost magical effect, especially in the afternoon sun, its quite bad for your lungs; dust masks are required. One of the jobs is mucking around raking mica in water the entire day, while another example would be throwing chips into massive industrial grade stirrers which made quite the racket. While it definitely was a pretty safe facility, it is not something I'd envy doing for the majority of the day.

The weird thing is that even right around the factory, it was a very traditionally chinese landscape; green grass, small rivers, crop fields, ecetera. It would be a very peaceful place to work if not for the noise.

Part of my time is spent socializing with family friends older than me, or coworkers, and in that period of time, no doubt some drinking occurs. I drunk with my boss, and my bosses boss, and my dad's friends... ect. I'm starting to develop a taste for beer, but huang jiu is still going to take a while longer. It's kind of a culture thing though, so it's a good thing my tolerance is fairly high. So far the most I've done is a bit less than 1.5 bottles of huang jiu by myself (the three other men at the party did two bottles each.) It was korean style (one of the guys only knew korean and japanese), which means that you don't refill your drink (also it's hard to refuse, haha). Thankfully the worst effect is just queasiness.

I keep trying to draw, and nothing ever looks good anymore, really. I'm convinced that I hit my peak in senior year of high school, and it's just been me in denial after that. Although if I just focus on pens, it doesn't matter so much, as it becomes more cathartic than anything else. Once you make a mark, that's that. A nice sense of finality.

It's really a pity that I didn't manage to get train tickets to Wuhan to hang out with friends. I'm not very impulsive, so I tend to unconsciously hem and haw. Because I know this, I tend to overcompensate, so I agree to do things even though it might not be practical. In this case, I wasn't sure I could book tickets, since they went on sale ten days ago. It's a pity, since it would have been a grand time I think.

On the nerd front, the one thing good about being demoted to Platinum is that I now have the highest random portrait in Starcraft 2. Time to choose a race now; I dislike the swarm playstyle of zerg, and I'm always quite inflexible with protoss even though I enjoy playing it, so it seems as if I'm going to be sticking to Terran as my main, which works fine for me. MtG's China scene is much different from the US: all the players pretty much are in college or are working. Cards are localized, which makes for some collector value, and when I do go I feel as if I'm reading/speaking more chinese than I ever do in Shanghai. I think reading everything in chinese causes me to tilt though :/. (excuses excuses). On a random note, I miss playing Settlers and Puerto Rico.

 I've gotten lazier and lazier about making complicated dishes. These days I try and do everything in one pot, with as little preparation outside the pot as possible. Breakfast is mass quantities of one item (probably a grain). Maybe this will make me less picky?