textures | tones

So she’s home! And I’m late in posting this because we’ve been really busy since she’s been back getting everything ready and sorted for school which technically started today, though it was just simple registration today. Proper stuff begins tomorrow with a 3 day orientation, classes not until mid September or so. The point though is that I’ve not had a terrible lot of time to blog. She’s also very jet lagged, so sleeping oddly, keeping me awake oddly, but we’ve managed to have a great time since she’s been back.

She got home real late Sunday night, close to midnight. She found the apartment pleasantly clean. I had bought her food earlier in the evening since I figured airplane food’s never that good or filling, and this time around it was no different. She managed to get the vegetarian meal, but it was also apparently the diet meal as well so there was basically nothing in it but some starch I think, no protein, few vegetables, few carbs or sweets, etc., so she was very hungry. She had requested that I have cold prickly ash noodles waiting anyway, and I also bought some chuanr, all waiting for her to get back and reheat. We unpacked a bit, relaxed a bit, ate a bit, and managed to sleep around 4 in the morning.

She still got up so early in the morning though! Early enough for us to head on out and get breakfast in the street, spicy tofu, porridge, oil stick. We then went for a nice long walk around the lakes, something that neither she nor I had done since she left. It turns out I actually did very little as far as socializing or going out’s involved since she’s been gone. We stocked up on beverages, and by mid afternoon she was asleep again. (Disclaimer: I’m not entirely sure of what happened these past couple of days actually due to the odd sleeping schedule.) At some point, we got up real early in the morning again, got breakfast again, then headed out to my father’s place to get registered at the police station. She gets 30 days to process her proper Residency Permit through Tsinghua, then she’ll need to go back to the police station and re-register using the new Residency Permit for the rest of the year presumably.

Ah, my grandfather had a stroke apparently. He’s alright, but in the ICU resting still. The doctors say he’s doing fine and that there are no further developments and he should be out of the ICU soon, but then moved to long term observation so that he can be properly taken care of in his old age (97). My grandmother’s in good spirits, but worried obviously, though oddly mostly on the logistics of the matter. Apparently my grandfather had this white, round permit that would have allowed him free access to any and all hospital services, but misplaced it. So instead they had to use the purple, rectangular permit that’s almost as good, but requires us to pay some money up front. We can get the money back, or most of it, when we get our new white, round permit from the appropriate bureau. She’s also very interested in contacting the relevant heads of the Academy of Sciences so that the relevant strings can be pulled to get him into hospital #306, the best one, where all the heads of state go. He is there, incidentally. But this whole process has made me acutely aware of just how many layers of bureaucracy there are in this country, and my father joked that Maria should join the communist party. Maybe I should to heh.

They think the stroke was brought on by over exertion which caused him to fall and break some ribs recently. Though quite old, my grandfather still insists on doing many active things, mostly for the good of the country, like participate in interviews. Most recently, a bunch of TV people had come over to their place, brought in massive daylight lights, closed up all the inside windows, and fired away with questions about their lives and past. My grandmother thinks he’s trying to do too much. Nothing would make her happier than for the 2 of them to live out the rest of their lives in relative peace and quiet, watching TV shows, chatting the afternoons away, writing the respective books, but my grandfather I guess still wants to do more.

This entire episode has nonetheless inspire the 2 of them to further their writing efforts, which would greatly benefit me actually. They both have fascinating and interesting life stories, and being much older than I, and being that I spent the majority of my life in the States, I actually know very little about the 2 of them, and would like to know more. So I told my grandmother to please, write, so that I may know her better. She’s worried that in her old age she’s lost the eloquence she once commanded in her writing, but I told her it’s not a concern. I just want to know more about her. Of course, I also think these will make great books, even in the Staes, and I want the raw material with which to craft a US published book.

I also had my first rehearsal with the IFC Youth Choir, which is a great though small organization at the moment, having only 5 girl members, 4 of whom are altos. We hope to expand, and expand fast. We’re also performing with the IFC Children’s Choir at the IFC Gala coming up soon.

IFC Gala 2010, September 11 at Capital M Restaurant

The IFC itself also has a concert coming up on October 16th, performing a Chinese composed piece I’d never heard of before called the Yellow River Cantata. I expect it’ll be good. Our first rehearsal for that starts this weekend.

IFC Yellow River Cantata 2010, October 16th at the Forbidden City Concert Hall

After my rehearsal, we were going to go and try to catch a movie, but she was still asleep and obviously very tired. She was going to just take a nap while I was at rehearsal, but I sort of figured she might not be able to wake up afterwards so I instead went and bought her some sushi to go and a boba milk tea, both of which she ate in the middle of the night when she finally did wake up. Today we managed to watch the movie though, after registering on campus. We say “The Expendables,” which was great fun, but not nearly as great as I thought and hoped it would be. Incidentally, I really think Chinese movie theaters don’t have their sound systems calibrated correctly. The bass was too high so the ambient sounds usually overpowered the dialogue, especially if they’re mumbling something oh so clever in that tough man sort of way. We had a long walk, from Tsinghua to my cousin’s work place to look at some apartments, then got ramen for lunch, which was great also. I had been craving ramen, and actually still am as the ramen I ordered was too spicy and had too much prickly ash and white pepper so the natural deliciousness of the ramen was overpowered. It shall be had again, and soon. We also got peanut slush, which was wonderful as always from the iTea kiosk in the mall where the theater is, oh and actual fresh, raw, walnuts! I had no idea walnuts had a fruit around it! Or that nuts in general have fruits around them! It was this kind of ugly looking round thing with a dark purple colored skin and on the inside, lo and behold, a walnut. These hadn’t been dried or roasted or anything, so they had a very vegetable like crunch to them which was again, highly unexpected. It tasted kind of like soybeans (edamame).

Um, I’m sort of meandering in this post because I’m actually very tired. Maria’s already sleeping, and has a long day tomorrow. I’m in charge of getting the requisite moneys together. The point though is that I should be sleeping also, and intend to, soon, but I wanted to write one more post under this heading so that there’s some sense of closure, because who knows how long it’ll be before I can post again being so busy now, and I thought I’d leave the blog in a good place for the time being so that no one is left hanging about what happened, whether Maria made it home safely, etc. I’m going to end it now with 2 songs I recorded, just for her, and her return.

Erasure – A Little Respect (re-recorded)

By me, for her – Come Home

I’m late in posting today, or rather yesterday, so I’m posting both songs together because I don’t want to miss anymore days as Maria will be on her way back real soon. She’ll leave Saturday afternoon her time, which is middle of the night Saturday night my time, and I want to make sure she can hear, and read about, all the songs up until the last moment she’s there. There will be one more song posted while she’s in flight, being the ultimate song, but we’ll sort that out on the 22nd.

I’m late in posting because I fell asleep. I’ve not been sleeping well, when I’ve been sleeping, and this time is no different I fear, with the result being that I’m tired in general. I wonder why.

Today was a very non-exciting day. I got a phone call from the ISB, offering me the contract position job! Which is great and everything! I mean, it’s contract, so it only lasts 3 weeks or so, and it doesn’t pay that great, but surprisingly good by Chinese standards, and definitely good enough for what we’re talking about, especially since it’s short term, and it starts next Tuesday.

Then I lost the job, a couple of hours later. I had anticipated that there might be some issues with them employing me and the unstable nature of my current Chinese visa, I had even brought this up in the interview yesterday, so when HR called me to offer me the job I wanted to clarify with them whether it would be an issue or not, explaining that I was currently still on a tourist visa, that I’m in the process of modifying my visa to a working one but it’ll take a couple of weeks still at least, and whether that would be a problem or not. I knew that if I were being hired for a normal, full time position, they’d be able to sponsor me for my working visa, but I was worried that the contract and immediate nature of this current job that they offered me would play by different rules, and lo and behold, a few hours later after they all talked amongst themselves and asked the right questions of the right people, I had lost the job because due to my visa. Bah!

However, one sliver of good came of this. The head of the department had said he was very interested in me for a full time position as well! I had originally applied for the full time position actually, and this emergency, contract, short term one only came up very recently. He even said I was a “strong candidate.” :) And obviously, they’ll be able to sponsor me for my work visa with that position no problem. So I’m excited about that, though it’s not set in stone by any means. It’s the start of the school year, and if anyone knows how busy those first couple of weeks are for schools, it’s me. So he said he’ll get back to me as soon as things quiet down a bit and they start formally looking for that next position. I asked him to keep me in mind, and he said “definitely,” so I’m optimistic about my prospects, though they’ll be a couple of weeks away.

I also cooked myself lunch today, actually cooked. I haven’t done that in a while. My mother had left some spaghetti and spaghetti sauce, and it looked and smelled good enough to appeal to my taste buds so I made pasta! It wasn’t nearly as good as I imagined it, but good enough still.

Otherwise, as I said, I fell asleep, and woke now due to this nagging in my head saying I need to blog, and put up Maria’s songs, and send her her songs. It’s her last day at work! I hope she’s having a good last day. I wonder if they had cake for her!

“Today’s” song is “In My Life” by the Beatles. Though I’ve always liked this song, I’ve never played it before I don’t think, or at least don’t remember. I used to have this record player and this song on LP and I’d play it for myself on it. I even remembered back then where on the record this song began, so that I could cue it up manually. You know, I like records still. I like the hiss it makes. I won’t debate whether something “sounds better” on records versus CD. I just like the hiss. It feels more, real. This song also held special sentimental meaning for me way back when, this would be high school days. It’s interesting how sentimental songs from one part of your life can still be sentimental later, but for rather different reasons. I still feel strongly about this song, in a Maria context that is, nowadays.

And today’s song is “Something,” by the Beatles as well. I think this might technically be the last song that Maria can hear while she’s still in NYC, she leaves Saturday afternoon on the 21st, but I’ll still have a song waiting for her for the 22nd as well. The project won’t be complete until she’s home, though the “in NYC” part might be fudged a bit. I suppose the actual last song will have to wait until she’s back for her to hear it. I wonder if I can make it special in someway, this final song. Not “this” this, the one for the 22nd I mean.

So I had a job interview today with the ISB, International School of Beijing. It’s a real fancy place, and is where some fellow IFC people also work, specifically the lady with whom I’m working with the Youth Choir is. She’s head of the Performing Arts department apparently. But that means that since she’s there and I was there for my interview I found her office and we had a nice chat in the cafeteria. She bought me an orange juice. The school itself is quite fancy. It’s all the way up to high school, teaching that European way with the IB and all, and was apparently designed by some European architects who specialize in designing prisons, hence its imposing facade. On the inside though it’s just fancy, modern, and clean. But it really does look like a prison on the outside, or as the lady I chatted with described it, like an airport. What I wouldn’t give to work full time in an educational institution again though. Just being there felt nice, I really like the vibe of it. Though maybe not necessarily this particular institution as it’s way the heck out in the middle of no where, an 80RMB and hour long cab ride away, though they have staff buses from inside town, but that’ll be a subway ride away at least, then the bus. I’m getting ahead of myself though, counting chickens and all. The job I interviewed for is actually a contract position, lasting as long as 3 weeks at most. It’s full time those 3 weeks though, and they’ll pay me 10$ (actual USD) an hour, which is pathetically low by US standards but quite nice by China standards actually, and better than most other offers I’ve seen. It’s very kind of, entry level almost. They’ve put in place this fancy system for parents to view information about their child online with a login and password, and the job, if I get it, would be helping these parents out over the phone or through email with logging in, which apparently they have trouble doing. Very basic help desk stuff actually, nothing I haven’t done before or can’t. I actually also applied for an ICT Secretary position there, which I think is the equivalent of a Help Desk Technician back in the States, but this contract thing is wholly separate from that. That should pay more though, but again, chickens and all. So we shall see what happens. The issues at the moment are that this place really is quite far away, the pay’s not that great, it needs to start immediately (which I might not be comfortable with because Maria gets back this weekend and next week is when school starts for her and I’d really like to be there for her), and my visa status is quite weird and I don’t know how it’ll mesh with the contract nature of the position. All questions that can be resolved, but we shall see is the short of it.

Aside from this, I did some administrative work for the IFC again, related to squaring away the celebrity they’d like to attend their Gala. I feel like we’re on the final push of getting this deal signed and sealed. There’s also supposedly that meeting tonight that I wasn’t invited to and know nothing about but still should attend heh.

Not much else going on, really looking forward to Maria getting back, really not liking talking online lately. I never liked it in the past, and I’m liking it even less now. That’s not true, I used to be VERY good at it, but those days seem to have come and gone, and it’s altogether tragic that there are circumstances where those are the only means I have of talking to someone. I much prefer over the phone, and even that I’m not too good at anymore either. I’ve become such a face to face person. It has to do with timing, which I can’t quite get right when talking over the computer, and subtle verbal nuances that just get lost like tone and sarcasm and inflection. It makes communicating very difficult for me. Couple that with the fact that I’ve not actually communicated with real human beings all that much these past 2 months and it just spells disaster for me and trying to talk to anyone online. Sigh, hopefully it’ll get better once Maria’s back in town and I have someone to talk to again.

The first 2 weeks of her school revolved around orientation and pre-course, and though she has events and things she needs to attend every day, there are large chunks of time between any 2. The plan is for me to go in with her every day, hang out during the actual event, then we’ll meet up again for the time in between, get to know the area, the people, the campus, etc. This is partly why I’m hesitant to accept any job that requires me to start now. A) I’m really looking forward to this time spent with her and her soon to be classmates, and B) as mentioned before I want to be there for her during this time. I can start a job after she’s firmly entrenched in her day to day.

My in country extension is also being pushed through, thankfully. Apparently they might be able to switch me over to a 6 month “visiting relatives” visa, which would be great. The in country extension for a tourist visa apparently will only last 1 month, which is enough time, but more would be welcomed. The 6 months would be great. That’ll take a whole lot of pressure off multiple fronts.

Today’s song is “Welcome to Paradise” by Greenday. Incidentally, it’s “Green Day” isn’t it, with the space and the capital “D” and all? Hmmm…

I’m also blogging much earlier than I normally would because I think Maria likes seeing it first thing in the morning. So here it is baby! But if there are updates, I’ll post them along as well. There’s still at least 7 good hours in which things can happen during my day that might be worthy of being included.

So today was an interesting and mostly tiring day. My sleeping schedule has been quite on the fritz, so I was up all night anyways, and this morning, as I was deciding to go to sleep and curled up snuggled tight under the blankets, I was pummeled by emails and cell phone calls. Granted, one of the calls was from a wrong number, and there wasn’t too much to be done about the emails (they were administrative stuff for the IFC regarding the celebrity they want to attend their Gala), it roused me, enough to decide fine, I’ll be productive still. So I pushed off the comforts of sleep and instead embraced the semi-crankiness of half wakefulness.

First thing I did was sort out the administrative stuff for the IFC. We finally have all the necessary documents that she had requested, in Chinese, and I was to send them off to her and make sure she got them. There’s a document introducing the IFC, what we’ve done, what we stand for, etc., another that introduces our Gala event, the Gala flyer, another one that I have no idea what it is because it was all in Chinese in the first place, and the actual outline of the Gala evening and what we’d like our celebrity to do. I had drafted the email, in Chinese no less, to send, earlier this weekend, and off it finally went. I do hope my Chinese was alright. I spent a good deal of time with it, back and forth between it and the dictionary. I think I managed to craft a masterful email in a language I have no command over whatsoever, at least in a literate sense. Interesting enough, after I sent the email out, I called her cell phone just to let her know what she wanted was in her email, and instead of getting her I got pushed over to this massively long recorded message in very fast Chinese and very poor English stating that the person I called had switched to using a “personal secretary” service. So voicemail’s not very common in China, this must be the solution. I got transferred over to a very fast talking Chinese lady again who asked me who I was, what business I had, what message I wanted to leave, and etc. Quite a surreal experience. They talk so fast. I got a rather cryptic text from our celebrity a little while later, just saying “ok.” I wonder what that means. “Ok” she got everything, or “Ok” she’s coming and attending, or “Ok” for some other reason? I’ll follow up again tomorrow during the day on the phone, and hopefully get more than the odd “personal secretary” service. We’re running out of time on this, and we need a marketing push once she’s on board, and there are innumerable other details to mesh out including face to face meetings between all parties involved obviously, and if nothing else phone conversations between she and Nick and other IFC members. Ah so much to do.

Next I sorted some things out with my diploma. Obviously, despite looking in 3 different apartments, no one knows where my in country diploma is, so I drew up the document I’d need to sign requesting a 2nd copy from SLC, wrote out a check for twice the actual cost because of shipping, and called DHL to come and pick it up from me here in China for shipping. As I said before, DHL in China is great .They’re fast, speak English, and will pick up the package from you. It’s saved in my phone now, now that I’ve done the entire process through once on my own, so I should be able to in the future navigate whatever mailing needs we may have. Fancy me even opted to not speak English, though I think they would have understood. Their English isn’t that great anyways. You know what’s great though? There’s a Chinese name for “Bronxville”!!!!! 布朗克斯 (Bùlǎng kè sī), it’s phonetic. And “Yonkers”!!!! 扬克斯 (Yáng kè sī), again phonetic. The DHL people were clarifying which city to send it to as SLC’s zip code can be either, but they prefer Bronxville. As I mentioned earlier, the cost of this process is almost prohibitive. I spent 250RMB (35USD or so) to mail my request and check of 105USD to SLC to cover the 50USD diploma and 55USD Fedex shipping cost to get it back to me. Man I wish we could’ve just found the one that’s in this country already, but no losing hope, we still might, in which case it’s just I guess convenient to have a backup just in case.

Also related to my diploma is my visa, the in country extension. People came over and grabbed my passport, residency permit, and bunch of photos to take to the visa processing place down the road not too far from here. I also signed maybe half a dozen documents, all in Chinese, whose contents I do not fully know. 4 were duplicates, just the same form over and over, 2 were an offer letter I think for the company I’m “working” for, the rest, who knows. Since this was taken from me to where it will be processed, and incidentally we might be processing them under the pretense that my grandfather is ill (whatchagonna do eh?), and since I’ve not heard about there being any issues, I’m going to assume there haven’t been any and that I am now the proud recipient of a if I’m lucky 90 day tourist visa, and if I’m horribly unlucky, 30 day tourist visa. Either way, luck be it or not, it should be enough time for my diploma to get back into this country, me to get my health certificate, and to process and push through my actual work visa.

I discovered that part of the delay in getting my work visa was due to probably too many cooks in the kitchen. My father had wanted to do it one way, that failed, and he was going to continue another way when my former bosses at the restaurant decided they wanted to do it yet another way, and that obviously fell through, and everything just stalled. I guess it’s once instance where too many irons in the fire really may have caused more trouble then they’re worth. Now though, apparently we’re on track again. I just need my diploma and health certificate.

I also have a job interview tomorrow, way the heck out of town in the middle of the Western neighborhood of Shunyi at the International School of Beijing. It’s for an ICT position (which is the same as IT but in UK-Speak), and unfortunately may only be a temporary position, lasting 2 to 3 weeks. I’m a little short on the details, and the original posting I replied to was for a full time position, so I guess I’ll find out more tomorrow. Granted it’s a long way to trek for only a possible something, but I’m gonna do it anyways just to see, just in case. I’m also supposedly going to a meeting tomorrow evening regarding the IFC Children’s and Youth Choirs, but this was a meeting I wasn’t formally invited to, just casually when someone said “so I’ll see you Thursday evening right?” and I responded, um…k…?

I spoke to my father a bit on other issues, mostly on the difficulties of getting things process. He also said he’ll be able to pay me soon, whatever soon means. I also tried to get in touch with one of my freelance clients for further work because we had discussed additional work but no details were passed along. No real luck there either. Oh, and my site was down for a good couple of hours! Generic 500 error, spent an hour on the phone on hold just to get brushed off to their electronic ticketing system. Pain in the ass, but it was resolved, though I don’t know what the problem was or the resolution.

And 4 short hours ago, I finally managed to get to sleep, and slept very fitfully being at times cold and at times hot, and woke to my alarm of all things because I had songs to record, emails to send, and blog entries to write for my Maria, who is coming back VERY soon.

Today’s song is “Hey Jude” by the Beatles.

Boy I’m not feeling too well at the moment. I got up early this morning, fully intending to go get my health inspection done for my work visa. But as I stood on the side of the street under the surprisingly hot morning sun, waiting the 20 long minutes before I gave up on trying to hail a cab, I kept thinking about just how entirely ludicrous the current situation is. No one knows where my in country diploma is. I can get a new one from SLC but I need to mail them a signed request plus check for 50$, and shipping will cost 55$, more than the actual thing, on top of which to mail my request to them with any expeditiousness will cost another 50$. So 150 plus dollars and at least 10 business days later, I can get another degree, but it will be too late to file for my work visa anyways as my tourist visa would have expired by then. So I still need to get my in country extension. Oh, and the health inspection itself will cost 1000RMB.

What have I gotten myself into? So I walked back home, because getting a cab was impossible anyways. There are better things to spend that 1000RMB on at the moment, and if nothing’s going to come as far as getting my work visa any quicker, well there’s just not point at the moment.

I talked to Maria a big online. She wasn’t feeling well either, but her time in NYC’s almost up. I hope she had a good night, better night than my day, though we both slept at the same time, which I find romantic. Yes, I fell asleep, and have been sleeping in fits since, and I’m still tired, but probably from over sleeping. As I said, I’m not feeling altogether very well at the moment.

Today’s song is “Greatest View” by Silverchair.

Sometimes the coincidences surrounding my life are such so that I’m convinced people are out there deliberately trying to make things difficult. Of course, I’m obviously being paranoid, probably a symptom of my ever increasing hermit lifestyle, however, everything’s somewhat shifty at the moment.

First, I have no idea where my SLC diploma is. It was given to my father’s Associate a long time ago who was in charge of helping us get our working visas in order. At some point along the way we had to get some of the documents back, as China has the unreasonable expectation that you’d give them originals of everything and Maria needed her original diplomas for other applications like her MBA program, scholarships, student visas, etc. The belief is that in one of these exchange transactions I must have gotten my diploma back as well, but looking high and lo and nigh, I have no idea where it is, and my basket of possible locations is tiny; all of our stuff have been packed into suitcases and it’s a simple matter of tearing through all of them, which I have. Which brings up an interesting problem I see with Chinese people. They have a very CYA outlook on life, and when asking the associate if he could look for my diploma, he immediately says there’s no chance he has it, he’s sure he gave it to me, and I’m left unsure of whether or not he’d even look, when all I want is for him to LOOK just in case he has it and if not, fine, we’ll deal with it, but I NEED him to LOOK.

The urgency of the matter comes from the fact that, again, coincidentally, after nearly a year of stalling and delay, apparently I can get my working visa soon. I can’t help but feel that somebody just didn’t want to do it, or somebody wasn’t driven, wasn’t pushed to do it all this time, because again, the coincidence of the timing is too great. My tourist visa expires in exactly 2 weeks and they just now finally dangle before my eyes the merest of possibilities I can get my working visa, of course hindered by the very great and probably insurmountable barriers of my needing my diploma, which no one knows where it is, and a valid health certificate, which will take 1 week to process. My only hope is that either A) this guy finds my diploma which I’m almost sure he has, or B) I can ask SLC to issue another one in time for Maria to pick it up for me before she comes back to China at the end of the week. I guess it’s luck that she just happens to be there still when it may actually count. I’m going to run in for my health inspection tomorrow, but I anticipate they won’t be able to get it to me in time. From what I remember, it takes them a week to get it to me, and I’m just fast running out of time. I need a week to process my in country extension also…

So the plan is to do both, push both irons. I will get my health inspection tomorrow, see about what I need to do to get it as fast as possible, I will call SLC in a couple of hours to start the process of requesting another diploma because even if I do find it, it’ll be convenient to have a second (God I hope they issue them…Maria’s school’s won’t give her new ones…here’s where the non-traditional aspect of SLC may, hopefully, play to my advantage), I will still go and start the process of getting my in country extension processed, probably tomorrow as well, and hopefully that’ll be done by the time I get my new diploma and health certificate and we can proceed immediately then with the work visa from that point.

Sigh…see? Somebody’s out to get me. It’s like, slow, psychological torture. Wait a year with no word and nothing but delays and stalling, then at the last moment, right when it’s just not possible to get it done anymore, give me hope.

So one rant over, today’s song is “In Your Arms Tonight” by Stephen Trask, from the Hedwig and the Angry Inch soundtrack. I couldn’t find how to play this song online as it’s apparently not available, so I had to write it myself, which didn’t take as long as I thought it would. I must be getting back into the groove of playing on the guitar. Obviously from the musical/movie, which I don’t know if Maria has seen, but which I also don’t know if I liked enough to desperately want to see again. I do like this song a lot though, more than most of the other songs in it and definitely more than the popular ones like “Origin of Love” or “Wicked Little Town.” As far as popular ones go, I prefer “Midnight Radio.” But you know something funny, I had 2 Facebook friends who don’t know each other put up “Origin of Love” lyrics as their status, with their friends chiming in in the comments with the rest of the words. I wonder if it’s a cosmic thing, again with the paranoia here.

I apologize for the mostly pointless post about how I’m slowly but surely going insane.

Just 1 week left! Literally :)

I’m feeling quite, lethargic, and drained of energy at the moment. I think some food might help. I might see about getting that. I biked once around 2nd Ring yesterday and managed to do it in less than an hour and a half! That’s actually a new record in time, close to 17kph rather than the usual 15 or so heh…Still surprisingly slow for some reason, barebly 10mph. Something about this city and the crappy bike just makes it hard to get up and maintain any speed! But still, it was good. I went around clockwise rather than my usual counter clockwise because I figured I hadn’t ever biked around that direction before. Not much different, but some of the major interchanges at the corners were actually harder. I’m not sure which direction I’d want to head in next time though.

As I was biking I kept seeing all these construction workers doing random manual labor. What they lack in training, strength, and even desire to do the work is made up I’m sure by sheer numbers. These must be government workers, the equivalent of unemployment in the States, and they just throw people at these public works, which yesterday involved stacking bricks, ripping out large bricks from the side walks, and digging trenches. For some reason I kept thinking I’d like to stop and help them. There’s a part of me that thinks some manual construction labor would be…fun. Good exercise and such you know? I wonder how those very bored looking foreman will react to a random non-fluent-Chinese speaking American citizen offering to do construction work for them? I don’t think I’d be any good at building anything, but I’m pretty sure I can handle the dismantling quite well ;)

I’m going to stop now in deference to the search for food. Today’s song is “Adam’s Song” by Blink 182. I had tried to use HTML5′s audio tags to embed these, but something about that built in HTML5 javascript library and the one I’m using to embed my current Flash mp3 player’s conflicting a bit weirdly. I also expect the HTML5 built in one isn’t as pretty, having seen some samples online. I know people keep touting HTML5 and it’s built in video and audio handling functions, and I’ve even ran across some HTML5 games, a side scroller akin to the multitude of Flash games out there, and I do like the new canvas handling as I’m using it in my sensor web application, and some of the new built in CSS animation effects, client side storage, etc. are really neat, but I still like Flash. I know it’s a resource hog, and it doesn’t free up used RAM that well, but I just don’t see HTML5 replacing Flash for online games, or even anyone who wants greater control over how their MP3 and Video players look. Hmmm…because it was really ugly, the HTML5 player…damned Apple and their feud with Adobe. I like Flash. I even like Air, I have it running on my Mac. Bah.

Yet another day spent mostly running administrative errands.

I got things rolling with my in country visa renewal next week. I’m gonna grab together as much of what I remember I need as possible and head on in with Jian-li around the middle of next week. That should give me plenty of time to get it everything processed before I’m expired on my current visa. Though, a point of clarification. The visa says that I need to “ENTER” before August 25th, 2010, and I can stay for 60 days at a time. Does that mean that I technically have one more entry at the very end of my visa period just before August 25th? If so I wonder if it’s worth trying to get in and out of the country one more time to squeeze in another month of time or so. Of course, I’ll need to figure out if that is the case, and seeing as that’s a “figure it out” bit, it might not be worth it to chance it and I’ll still follow through with my original plan, the middle of next week in country renewal. Still, just something I’m wondering about.

I got things rolling with getting the IFC a first class celebrity for their Gala evening on September 11th. I think we’re going to go with Jiang Wenli instead of Chen Kaige because he’s not going to be in the country on the 11th. He will be attending the Toronto International Film Festival where he’s apparently going to be promoting his newest Chinese movie. Ah well, he was the first choice, but I think Wenli’s calibre is as good as his anyways, especially in China, and that’s what’s important.

I spent a good bit of time talking to my father on the phone, in a conversation that actually spanned I think 4 conversations because he kept getting interrupted doing one thing or another. One time he was trying to find a taxi, then after he though he had found one, he actually didn’t, and had to find another, then he was in the cab and had to stop talking to give instructions to the guy, then, yeah. I think that was productive though, because it clarified a bit what I’m supposed to be doing for the sensor project. Most of my work’s already good and done, but there’s a lot of assumptions that I built in since the engineers haven’t yet created the sensors and the server and databases aren’t up and running yet, so who knows if my assumptions will be valid, though I think they might be, at least hope they will be. It’ll make things easier. Engineers will need to build in to the sensors the appropriate software to collect sensor data then communicate wirelessly with a web service that I’ll build that accepts HTTP POST data to update a database we’re going to implement on a new local server we’re putting together as well on site. Then this data will be read by the already built web application, and we’ll throw in some more features like viewing data over a specific time frame, looking up specific data from a specific time point, etc. Should all be pretty straightforward. My assumptions though is that for each point of data I’ll have an X coordinate, Y coordinate, and whatever “data” there is. This should be a safe assumption though. Some number fiddling will need to happen though as the HTML5 canvas tag uses (0, 0) as the top left rather than the bottom left corner like in a normal coordinate plane. Again, should all be pretty straightforward. Then there’s something else I’m supposed to figure out involving a VIP marked rFID thingie that a person wears and walks around a convention center and if some sensor sees that they’re “VIP” something, happens… [shrugs] Apparently the contract for all of this was supposed to come through last Friday, meaning, apparently, that I was supposed to be paid last Friday but who’s counting the days until I get paid finally right? But if it was supposed to be last week, maybe it’ll be soon then? ;)

I’m also doing some administrative work on my laptop, cleaning things up a bit, putting things in order some more, and making a proper new backup. I also took apart a broken external hard drive and now have some very powerful little magnets to play with and accidentally hurt myself with heh.

Maria’s going to be home so soon!

Today’s song is “Promise” by Eve 6.

Not too much terribly interesting happened today. I sort of slept though most of it, which is unfortunate, but I was up all night waiting for the chance to talk to Maria, which I unfortunately missed because I didn’t hear her messages. Bah. So I’m going to try again, to speak with her this evening, EST time. Seeing as how I slept most of the day, interrupted only by my periodically checking and responding to my emails and answering my phone because people still called me, and yes, I know my dear, you said I should turn all this stuff off, again, not much happened. Mostly administrative stuff to do with the IFC, though I did email my resume over to one of the members at Nick’s request. Maybe I’ll get a job lead? Otherwise, I recorded some songs, found out there’s some more work to be done for Cary’s freelance stuff because the fancy site his brother built doesn’t work in older browsers, ate some leftovers, and I think I’ll go for a bike ride later this evening seeing as how I’m all nocturnal and such.

Today’s song is Waiting by Greenday.

She’s almost home! 9 days and counting, until her flight that is, so uh, 10 days and counting until she’s back :) I will, of course, be picking her up from the airport when she gets back. I had originally though I’d go to NYC and join her, but I’m not sure that’s reasonable anymore considering how relatively few days there are left. We had told each other that we’re going to stop traveling without each other, and we’ve so far not made good on that yet. We really should stop though! It sucks to be without her, and boring to travel alone.

Today’s song is “Crying” by Roy Orbison. I’ve always known this but it’s become much more apparent as I play his songs but he’s got one hell of a range…Today’s mostly been an administrative day. I gave a quote for the sensor web project, so hopefully I can get paid, and I quoted a decently big chunk of money and apparently that’s OK. [shrugs] I thought I quoted high. But this should be enough money to pay for all the new apartment fees and deposits and rent up front and whatnot. I was also paid by one of my other freelance clients so that’s good to have some money again, I was almost quite literally broke. I now have full cPanel access to the IFC sites so that’ll make working on them much easier, specifically right now we’re dealing with email accounts and forwards as we have a slight changing of the guard. I’m also trying to work out how to go to Shanghai with my father this weekend to visit the PDL site and factories. Some minor ticketing and Gala stuff for IFC was touched upon as well, and I’m in the process of developing a new website idea which I’ll leave the details out for now because it’s in the very early stages of development, mostly brainstorming and researching available technologies. I also emailed my mother a bit, I hope she’s alright. She just finished her hip replacement surgery about a week ago and is in the recovery stages. Apparently, and maybe obviously, it’s very painful the process despite the pain medication, but she’s in good spirits, resting most of the time, and quite impatient actually to get back into her normal life.

I think that’s all I’ll post today.