A couple of notes regarding the furniture:

• The Expedit bookshelves rock, like they’ve always rocked, though apparently the larger 5 by 5 cube ones are being discontinued.
• The Efektiv filing cabinets are great too, though they don’t come with pre-drilled holes for the handles since there are so many different kinds you can get, so that sucks
• We bought a power drill! W00t it came in sooooo handy!
• The Pax wardrobes are MASSIVE, exceptionally heavy, and exceedingly difficult to build. The instructions also suck, don’t follow them. I built the 2nd one much better than the first, in what Ikea would consider the “wrong” order of operations. What’s also stupid is that our apartment is essentially collapsing on itself. We had this piece of pre-existing dresser that came furnished with the apartment, and no matter which wall we put it against, the top drawer would slide out of its own accord. This meant that I had to intentionally build the wardrobe “wrong” to account for the extra lean due to the floors. What this means is that if you look closely, the wardrobe is leaning back to overcompensate.
• The Utby bar table is excellent as well, sturdy, solid, very utilitarian in look with all metal legs and frame. We got a nice speckled stone effect counter top for it, and 4 Stig barstools which, though plastic and very inexpensive, seem more than satisfactory.
• We didn’t go with the expensive Ikea couch, but instead bought something sight unseen from NYFurnitureMan.com, a dealer we found on Craigslist. A third the price, and it folds down into a bed. Now that I’ve built it though, the quality is obviously not great, it’s obviously very cheap, but well, whatchagonnadoeh?

Well, it’s almost 4AM heh, I should go to sleep. But I feel so productive! The only thing left is to move out the rest of the existing furniture from before (the dresser, a chair, a desk and mirror), and get 2 rugs (it’ll really tie the room together). What’s unfortunate though is that we currently have no room for a coffee table. We were originally planning to loft the bed, but given the way the apartment leans, I’m a little hesitant to do so. Nevertheless, it’s still an option, and definitely one to seriously consider since well, we have very little room right now heh.

It really makes a difference though, the new layout and everything. And it looks like we’ll be able to do the renovations we want to the kitchen as well, after which the apartment will feel even more open than it already does thanks to the new layout. There’s still a couple items to get, I think another 2 by 2 and 1 by 5 Expedit bookshelves, and a shoe rack. We’re gonna build in some more shelves for storage, and it’ll be great! What a difference a little work makes. I feel quick handy actually!

First, we’re moving back to the States! NYC to be specific. That’s what the countdown is for. We leave early morning Christmas Eve for our new but temporary home in the Upper East Side at 75th and 3rd. We have many exciting and grand plans regarding getting jobs that actually pay when and what they say they will yet aren’t that overbearing on the rest of our lives so that we’d have time to maintain an active non-work life in the evenings and on weekends and take vacations throughout the year. I have grand plans for a balcony where we can grow fancy vegetables and set up a fire pit on which I intend to cook hearty soups with my cast iron pot, skewer vegetables and meats, grill different kinds of fish in one of those neat looking fish-grilling-baskets, and roast marshmallows, all under the glow of any and all seasonally appropriate skies. I’m going to be more revealing here than anywhere else public on the inter-webs, but you know, I’m feeling excited about these new prospects so any unforeseen consequences of my openness be damned. We’re also going to be stopping off first at Maria’s parents place in Ohio, and though it’s seeing her side of the family again in a relatively short amount of time, we feel its appropriate as it’s quite close to NYC and we intend to take possession of her parents old minivan. Yes, I will be driving a minivan, feel free to start the ribbing on that one. But I’d just like to point out the obvious benefits of one:

1. we can carry STUFF! (Costco, free stuff from Craigslist, people, moving)
2. we can go on ROAD TRIPS (which I love, and if necessary even sleep in the van)
3. it’s obviously free (they have more cars than drivers right now)
4. it’ll be reminiscent and nostalgic of those days when I owned a pickup truck, but minus the tiny little seats in the cab that faced each other whenever I tried to haul more than 2 people

We’re in the gigantically messy process of packing up our entire lives, once again, like we did a year and a half ago for our move to China. Feels kind of full circle in a way. We were lucky, having never settled that well, which was actually a problem in and of itself but at least it’s come to benefit us now in that though we’ve acquired some more things than before, we still don’t have that much stuff. We used to fit in 8 suit cases, we now fit in 10, and we still don’t have furniture. That means our temporary apartment in NYC is actually furnished (thanks to you know who!), and we’ve tentatively given ourselves 2 months to figure it all out, permanent jobs, permanent apartments, permanent routines, etc. This does also mean that we may have to remove our blog from the expat blog listings, but I’ll comfort myself by creating new NYC centric categories and tags. I will most likely still be working within the web programming field, and Maria’s thinking of re-entering law or perhaps finance. We will both of course still work with our fancy little Enterprise Consulting company in whatever fashion that “work with” may mean.

The explanation for the lateness of this entry is that we’ve been kind of sub-consciously messing up our sleeping schedules, I think so that we’ll have an easier time when we get to the States adjusting to US time again (civilized time?), but it’s not been easy these past 3 weeks actually, ever since we got back the last time to China after Thanksgiving. Immediately after landing we found ourselves smack in the middle of final negotiations to close our JV VC deal, a process that involved many Chinese lawyers and lots of legalese and staying up to the middle of the night every night hammering through all the details involved and trying to explain it all to our partners who aren’t native English speakers and were giving themselves headaches just trying to parse the individual sentences. I discovered I have quite a knack for this stuff actually, an innate ability to understand those massively long and complex legal sentences, and if nothing else I provided good translation services because wouldn’t you know it, though the JV is international and the governing documents are in English (and even governed by NY law), Maria and I were the only people with any thorough command of the English language and the negotiations even happened in Chinese, something brand new I’ve never experienced before in my life. Lots of fun, though insanely tiring, and happening all at the same time as my IFC concert. When it rains and all that. We did close, on time even, or basically, terms and conditions met and documents signed and all, and I had my concert, which I mentioned in an earlier post was a success, then I had another concert in Shanghai of all places which I also mentioned, and we go to see our new Enterprise Consulting company’s facilities at that incubator (which I also mentioned?), and well, the sum of it all was that in the span of 3 weeks, we’ve managed to:

1. negotiate and close a JV VC deal
2. sing Handel’s Messiah twice in Beijing with the IFC
3. sing Handel’s Messiah twice in Shanghai with the IFC
4. inspect our company’s holdings in Shanghai (at least some)
5. end Maria’s MBA program (I won’t say more than just this stated fact, though there’s obviously SO much more details that can be had here, but suffice it to say we’re obviously not continuing with the program if we’re leaving the country)
6. pack and finalize moving details
7. sing at the British Ambassador’s residence (did I mention that? We sang carols. It was good)
8. move all the furniture in the apartment back the way it was (we had optimized it, but now we need to un-optimize it since we’ve not going to be using it)
9. have a tiny little family oriented engagement party (yes, that’s the other thing, we got engaged! I don’t want to dwell too much on this point either as I’m kind of running out of blogging steam, but it’s self explanatory isn’t it? We’ve been together for almost 3 years now! This upcoming February! And we look forward to the infinitely better water pressure and hot water temperature that the States has to offer)
10. have a massive Beijing friends oriented engagement/going away party in which we either drank through or gave away all of our remaining booze, of which there were, and somehow still are, lots
11. actually get my work visa and residence permit (yes, I realize the irony involved in 3 days before leaving a country finally getting the necessary paperwork and documents in place to stay in said country easily and indefinitely really. Let’s chalk it up to “well now I can come and go as I please”)

What else happened? I think that about sums it all up. The plan for these remaining days is to finish our packing, close some necessary accounts (telephone, internet, cell phone), actually ship everything we want, then do some last minute tourist stuff like see the Great Wall and the 798 Arts District. It takes something like moving out of the country to really motivate you to do those little touristy stuff that you never had a chance or the motivation to, though that’s mostly me. Maria’s been wanting to do these things for ages, but I guess we had planned to be here for a lot longer so there was almost always more time. Ah well, we’ll take care of it. I also plan to, once we’ve finished getting everything shipped, have a proper blog entry on the details regarding said process as at the moment the inter-web’s information regarding how best to cheaply but slowly ship your material from this country to the States is limited. I will rectify this missing bit of much needed information. Oh, and in the process of packing, I managed to kill one of my computer’s hard drives, but it’s ok, it was the system drive which for some stupid (but in the end alright) reason also housed the backup of the system drive. Chalk it up to me forgetting which partition sat on which physical disk, but it means I actually didn’t lose any DATA, of which I had a lot, and would have been very sad were I to have lost it. My RAID drives are fine, my one off data drive is fine, I only lost my system and the backup of said system. I couldn’t have actually planned it any better if I were trying, otherwise I could have lost my one off data partition…I hate data loss, and considering I was very careful with the drive even and can’t imagine why or how I managed to mess it up so much, it really just points out and highlights once again the necessity to own a massively large NAS. I’m shooting for the 8-bay QNAP NAS with 2TB drives. Haven’t decided what RAID level I want though, maybe just Mirroring, maybe 5 + hot spare, maybe 6 + hot spare. At minimum, with Mirroring, I’ll still have 8TB of storage versus my piddling little 1.5TB now, and it will be wonderful. Today was the first time I realized but Maria pointed out how there’s a sort of religious aspect to technology. It’s “thank God” I didn’t lose my data, and the appropriate feeling of “relief” and “fulfillment” from having a really good plan and system to handle it all. It’s like “fate” or “destiny” that I messed up where my system backups were stored, otherwise I would have lost data. So once again I thank whatever technology God(s) there may be.

Oh, and I fully intend to keep up my QQ accounts. Gotta grow and steal those vegetables, those “farm” animals, and now maintain my little vegetarian restaurant.

1) Smartphones in China:

So…you have available all major brands and operating systems, and the good thing is you can get them all unlocked, though that’s less of a positive nowadays since the States are making providers do so themselves. Symbian S60 is out of date, and they’re not going to update it anytime soon, and I’d rather not dump a wad of cash on dying technology. Windows Mobile 6.5 is out of date, and Windows Phone 7 is slated for the end of the year. Again, no reason to dump a wad of cash on something out of date that won’t get updated. That leaves Android and Apple. Both very good platforms, just a question of what we need right? Right, the point is, we bought a smartphone for Maria so that she can keep track of her email and calendar while at school because they don’t have free internet on campus, which is another point of griping to come to later…First, China SUCKS! Ok, now that that’s out of the way, it’s because there’s no such thing as a non-grey market phone. It’s because in China technically WiFi is illegal…China has their own proprietary “secured” wireless technology called WAPI, and they had petitioned the IEEE to adopt it as a full on wireless platform, but since China refused to let the IEEE people examine the WAPI protocol under the pretense that it’ll compromise its security, they adopted 802.11i, I think? Whatever. So all those fancy phone that have wireless on them, don’t, in China, and if they do, they need to run unofficial software and firmware. I bought a Motorola Milestone (Droid in the States), and found out they had some “itfunzterminatorIIeclairmod” firmware installed that just sucked. It was laggy, nothing worked, and it ran the battery quick as hell. When I went back to the store to ask what this was, it turns out that all Android phones in China have this installed. So I asked if Apple phones ran proper software, and apparently it doesn’t either! Now this is all changing, so it’s not that big of a deal per se, it’s just inconvenient at this moment, seeing as how I’m not running a custom built ROM on Maria’s phone and there’s no good way around it. But as I said, it’s being fixed…because WiFi is just so prevalent in this country, I don’t know of a single WAPI hotspot…An unexpected benefit of this though is that I’m not well versed in flashing Android phones and installing 3rd party ROMS, and I can run 2.2, though it’s not released yet.

2) No wireless on campus:

This one’s gonna be short and to the point. There’s no free wireless internet on Tsinghua’s campus. Anywhere. You can buy “limited” and “domestic” internet access for 5RMB a month, otherwise it’s by the KB for “normal” internet access. At this point, we’re using Maria’s phone as a wireless hotspot.

3) Visa woes, still:

I still don’t have my visa! I’m running out of time and entries. At the moment, I don’t have a single entry left, and so am unable to leave the country without having to go back to the States and getting a brand new visa. I’m not sure what’s so complicated about it all, everyone else has work visas. Right now the holdup is that apparently the Chinese bureaucrat can’t add together the dates of all my previous jobs to see that yes, I’ve had more than 2 years of work experiences. It’s so unreasonable to expect them to understand that having one job from Jan. 2007 to Jan. 2008 then another from Jan. 2008 to Jan. 2009 means TWO years of experience (hypothetically here…sarcasm intended).

So, and to clarify, I, officially, have now never worked at RH and instead was working at VSM from January 2007 to September 2009, and I have a signed verification of past employment to this effect.

Bah.

Hopefully though, we’re over the major hurdles, and I’ll have my visa soon, and I won’t have to keep leaving the country, and I’ll be able to get my drivers license because I really want to take a nice long road trip again.

Related to visas, remember when I turned down a proper job because my father said he could hire me and pay me consistently? The second time I put my faith in family? I’m regretting it…

4) Chinese people’s non-existent sense of personal space:

And this wouldn’t be an issue if not for that fact that the majority of people in this country are men seeing as how “everybody wants a boy” and what not. I mean, I wouldn’t mind people not having a sense of personal space if they were all decently attractive Chinese girls…anywho though…it’s been grating more and more lately, and is just making me very uncomfortable, especially on the subways. Rushhours in this country are insane. There are attendants on the platforms shouting into blow horns to “use all your strength to squeeze into the train,” and they’ll give you a helpful shove as well, and are half a step from literally pushing you on top of the other passengers to occupy the headroom that’s “wasted.” But it’s probably a cultural thing, how these people were raised, but they’re very touchy feely, people of the same sex that is, which is also just weird, but there’s plenty of room on the train even or the platform and for some reason they still have to brush up against me and where I’m standing, though there’s plenty of room for them not to, and it’s getting harder and harder to restrain this seething desire in me to elbow them really, really, really hard, and pretend it was due to the rocking of the train or something. I’ve been cursing a lot lately under my breath as a more reasonable outlet, that’s what’s kind of nice about a country where people don’t really speak the language you’re cursing in. But the point is, they should just stop touching me!

5) Still sick:

Hmmm…I’m kind of tired now. The reason I was awake in the first place was because we’re still sick and Maria had a coughing fit and woke the 2 of us up. We had slept for just about an hour and a half, which unfortunately counts as a nap for me, and so I think messed up my sleeping a bit so I couldn’t fall back asleep. But that was a couple of hours ago now also, and I’m feeling it again, which is good because we have a early day tomorrow, and I think the simple monotony of typing and writing is having a soothing effect on me.

6) Non-complaints:

On a completely non-complaining note, we’ve been in China for 1 whole year! Happy Anniversary to us! We’re going to celebrate this weekend :)

We managed to get through a Mid Autumn Festival (when the Chinese people all eat moon cakes) without eating a single moon cake! (they’re kind of gross, especially the new flavors like Oriole or meat…)

The IFC also had its first ever Gala Evening on September 11th. Inauspicious day I know, but it doesn’t seem to have made much of a difference in this country. It took place at Capital M Beijing, a very lovely restaurant at Qianmen actually. I was surprised by how fancy it was on the inside, and it had a huge patio with wonderful views of the gates and the Forbidden City. Perfect on a warm summer evening actually, very comfortable. The food looked good, though we didn’t actually eat any. I was there as a volunteer for the IFC, helping coordinate the evening, handle registrations, payments, attendee corralling, and singing even. We sang 3 songs between courses, to general appreciation. Either way, this just means that it was a very long and tiring day, but still nice! We’re thinking of heading on back to the restaurant at some point, get a nice, fancy dinner. Or apparently they have a lovely Sunday brunch special on the patio, which sounded like fun also. Another member of the IFC, Amanda, suggested it, because the price is like a quarter of the normal dinner prices, but the food is still good, and there are champagne cocktails.

Otherwise, my father has succeeded in selling off the rest of his shares in the restaurant, 25% of which the sales revenue goes to Maria, at some point, which will be great. I have a job offer jointly from FTC/Matrix, my father and cousin’s, respectively, companies, though they haven’t paid me anything, and have kinda gone silent as far as work for me goes. I was supposed to go on down south a bit to put up some wireless sensor network thingie, work on some remote medicine stuff, etc., but apparently there’s been some miscommunication between the multiple parties and what responsibilities were meant to be delegated, and I kind of feel like I’m left out in the blue with nothing to do, and maybe nothing coming to me. I was supposed to be paid already, and again at the beginning of October. I even turned down yet another job offer from another company because of this, and it’ll actually really piss me off if I don’t get paid. I made this mistake once, turning down a job for the job at the restaurant, and this is the second time I’ve turned down a job for some family opportunity and if it doesn’t work out well, huh, I guess that’ll just suck, short answer, huh?

Either way, it does feel like things are coming together, school, relationship, job, apartments, visa, etc., which is absolutely great actually. It’s taken a bit, but maybe it’ll start working out soon.

I also hadn’t blogged in a while, which is mostly the point of this entry. We’ve been sick, that’s all, and very, very busy. But as I look at the last post date, it hasn’t actually been that long somehow, just like, a little over a week. I wonder if it’s really the fact that being sick, being unable to sleep, being generically uncomfortable, has just made the time drag. Though we had a good time last week, hanging out together, sick, at home, watching movies and TV. I guess this week’s a bit different now, and everything feels more, specific in how they bother me, like the sickness, the lack of commitment from my “job,” because Maria’s started classes and is much busier during the day, and it would be great if I had things to do during the day as well as I had planned on it, but well, I’ve already written about how annoyed I am at my family, and I guess I may get even more annoyed at them…what does it take to have a steady job eh?

i would like to comment a bit on the odd day to day expenses that occur in th is country. now it is very cheap, unreasonably so even, to eat out, buy groceries, cook, find entertainment, see friends, etc., so that in general, one does not actually need to make a lot to live very well. we buy massive bags worth of fresh produce for less than 30rmb, all the groceries we could want for less than 50rmb, plus fruit and freshly prepared cold chinese salads and we’re looking at no more than the equivalent of 20 dollars and we’re set for at least a week. by some estimate, one only needs a quarter of that to live very comfortably in this country. but then, there’s rent.

now maybe i’m unreasonable, but i have a certain standard that i find hard to give up, especially when it concerns the place that i call home, the bathroom that i do my business in, and the kitchen that i prepare meals for the ones i care about in. you can rent a place very cheaply, no more than 30 dollars a month, but it will be underground, is a literal room, have a shared bathroom with no gauranteed hot water, no gaurantee of windows, and definitely okitchen htough you can bring your own electric stove and many people do. that’s the bottom of the pole.

and then there’s the chinese style apartments which are, for most intents and purposes alright, but shoddy, feeling like they’re falling apart, and they are, with no regard for the common spaces of the buildings meaning you can be on the highest floor and all the lights will be out in the hallways so you’ll feel like you’re living in a cave. and the bathrooms, lord save me from the bathrooms. so that’s like, the middle, wh ich, unfortunately, from a standards point of view, i find difficult to accept.

now i realize this might make me seem like a snob or something, but for the same reason that i never understood why people don’t care about the quality of their hotel rooms while on vacation based on the flimsy pretense that they don’t plan to stay in that that often didn’t and doesn’t make sense to me i mean, you need a place to stay right, some place comfortable because what happens if you’re sick or too drunk you don’t want to passout in a trash heap i can’t come to terms with an apartment that i dread the thougt of taking a shower in, which is most chinese apartments. but that makes up the middle tier as far as quality goes.

then there are those places meant for foreigners to stay in, built from the ground up for them, and are of decent quality. noe i say decent only because even they could use a good bit of work. one common complaint is the abundance of mold on the walls of even the most expensive, and i do mean most expensive as these places can run for close to western prices, of places just still feel like they are falling apart, and they are. but, you can find places that will satisfy my standards, but again, they’re expensive.

which brings us to the point that i find myself in an odd employment state. you see, i’m no longer. the foreigner who’s willing to relocate and work in beijing, i’m the foreigner who’s already here and is looking for a job, with the major difference being that while the former has an allure of self sacrifice, and thus the appropriate compensation to go along with what ever jobs may fall under that category, the latter does not, and will pay close to absolutely nothing for work that in any other country will earn me a decent living. bottom line, i can’t make more than 700 dollars a month doing full time programming work in this god forsaken country. now that isn’t actually bad by chinese standards, and were my only goal to pay for our day to day expenses, i’m golden, but i need to pay for rent, and i need a place that i am comfortable taking a shower in, and that’s where the conflict comes into play, namely i for the moment just, can’t.

and the irony of it all, my father just got a new place in beijing and it meets our standards, and is cheaper by far than anything else out there we’ve found, but is in the wrong part of town, and i think that makes all the difference.

but the plan is to continue searching, both for a job and an apartment, and i think we’re going to venture way the far out of town to a place that’s still subway accessible, and easilly accessible might i add, but hopefully very inexpensive by virtue of it being far away, and we might be lucky out there.

let’s see, other problems that plague the sean. he needs to leave again out of the country by july 15 to get on his last entry into the country. and this will be the last one as his visa expires at the end of august, as in proper expires and he will need to go back to the united states to get a new one, which he really does not want to. for reasons beyond his countrol and knowledge and patience to sort through his working visa still hasn’t come through, and neither had maria’s, but she no longer needs to worry because a) she’s going back to the states anyways and b) she will get a student visa through tsinghua. the sean’s plan though is to get on his last entry, as cheaply as possible, then at the last mi nute switch while in country to a 90 day single entry visa, which he knows he can, so he cwn stay in the country until the end of november by which time hopefully some other, better solution would have presented itself. at the moment he doesn’t care which: his father comes throug, he gets employed elsewhere, or he pays somebody 1000 dollars and they give him the visa in that shady, underhanded, sort of grey area kind of way. it really doesn’t matter.

back to i here, i think. i had also planned on joining maria in the states and nyc for her internship this summer, but the feasibility of it is minimal. the expenses unfortunatly just far outweigh the gain, and if i go, i have to plan on staying, which is a decision i’m not yet ready to make. i definitely want to be here when maria starts her school so if i head back to the states it will be after that so no point making the expense now. startup expenses in general back in the states is also just in general prohibitive so even if i wanted to, maybe the best i can do is go back to los angeles which actually doesn’t sound that appealing. i’m kinda holding out that china will still work out in a bit way and we’ll all make our personal fortunes here and change the world for the better.

which at least there’s still a chance of, and having lost most of my steam for blogging, i will end here by saying that no matter what, the sean is trying to be optimistic, and hey, he hadn’t thought of this but maybe he and maria can get married; that’ll solve his visa problems.

oh and the restaurant is a complete bust incidentally. to summarize in the quickest way possible, there’s been management issues from the get go, the owners no longer like each other, for some reason one half viewed my desire to no longer be their full time employee as a sign that they should exit the business as well so they gave my dad some time to find someone to buy them out, and since it obviously didn’t happen fast enough they’ve been threatening to close down the business and then wanted to buy us out which, well, hey, seemed like quite a good deal actually because we were done with the stupid thing anyway and didn’t want to have anything to do with it and if you’ll listen to my father about it, he’s convinced the entire thing was a conspiracy to get the entire business by the other half owners at a greatly depreciated value by driving me out, driving the restaurant down, then lording over us the fact that they have more money to convince us to sell out to them, but things really came to a head when, afraid that they might steal our business licenses my father put up fake copies on the walls and, lo and behold, the next day they were stolen from us, and then when maria and i went to go check our mail because we’re using the restaurant as our mailing address because it’s convenient we find that they had changed the locks on us and were no longer able to get in, and that they had fired all the staff and closed the restaurant without telling us! what is wrong with these people? they were just in the middle of negotiating how to buy our half our when all of a sudden, chaos. so now maria and i have no place to get our mail which is a) a shame and b) just inconvenient as far as timing goes because we’re expecting her all important actual enrollment confirmation packet from tsinghua which should also have the confirmation that the chinese government is going to pay for all her tuition and housing and give her a monthly stipend to live on in. that was sarcastic by the way, though it’ll be cool if it happened that way, but we are actually waiting for this packet and it’s being sent to the restaurant and we’re not sure how to get it anymore because these people are insane!

…

so here’s to hoping it all comes together, heh, and that those we’ve wronged or disappointed in the past may forgive and move forward with us towards a brighter and better future.

Either way. I am pleased with Sean’s memory-recording entries; in fact, I think both he and I benefit greatly from his blogging in general. I feel a little guilty taking from him in this way, without giving much back.

I skipped my run yesterday and today; it is raining, and the air is smoggy. Sean and I did a bit of walking (and have been doing so regularly as he’s been available more lately), and when I got home I wanted to do some project organization–and screwing around on the net–and I wanted to drink tea and be warm and dry. We have had a couple of excellent outings lately, seeing Alice in Wonderland at Wangfujing and having our first Chinese sushi experience in the mall there, and I thoroughly enjoyed today’s sushi venture at Sushi Express (we’ll be going back, for sure). I should note that Sean doesn’t eat sushi, and he finds things to eat at these places so I can be happy. Such giving does not run rampant in the general male population, I fear.

Home is still where I get stuff done in China, though. I’m planning a study blog, intended to supplant my diary as a record for my response to things I read, especially about business and about China. I’m also making some effort to organize my study of Chinese and of characters, and to organize information I have about businesses in which I am, however indirectly, involved. I’m also thinking about (and, mostly haphazardly, researching) degrees, schools, and jobs. I’m still throwing around a lot of ideas, and trying not to be too influenced by the opinions of others. In addition, right now I have a lot more information about Tsinghua than BiMBA, and I cannot weigh the programs against each other without correcting the imbalance.

Still, I feel like a lot of effort is reaching its conclusion, and I’m satisfied to be planning for the next segment. Hopefully I’ll hear back from business schools in the next couple of weeks. In an ideal world, I’ll hear something about scholarships, too, but I don’t really expect to until summer (and even then, I need to be really lucky!). These days I need to plan my summer studies, and any business/law projects for the summer as well. I need to buy plane tickets. In April, I’ll go back to the States for a bit. I’m looking forward to executing the next round of plans upon my return to China.

I’m excited about a few different things I’m working on, and I have fantasies about how everything might turn out. I suggested to Sean that we record what we think life might be like a year from today, even in a few different versions. Still, sometimes I feel discouraged. So much is still uncertain, and sometimes I feel like I have little to show for the six months I’ve been in China. I also worry about Sean being happy here. He hasn’t yet secured employment that he likes. I’ve been surprised that not having a steady job hasn’t bothered me lately; I thought it would (admittedly, it did a few months ago, though I really haven’t regretted leaving the firm). Maybe I’ve matured past that point, maybe I worked enough at the firm to make up for a few months of relative idleness, or maybe all this stuff I’ve been messing around with has been an adequate substitute. Possibly the fact that I have a long-term plan has trumped most of my discomfort with lack of a short-term one. I can come up with a dozen more reasons, too, but regardless, my happiness has been much more affected by my worry about Sean.

The other side of town

We are lacking a few near-essentials, and short on others, and I don’t yet know an easy way to get some of this stuff (do I really have to walk for miles to buy toilet paper?) but I have a water-boiling pot, a supply of tea, a shower that has hot water most of the time, a great place to run, long-desired internet, produce in the fridge.

Key to all of this: the running route. It’s a park, but I don’t have to pay admission (unlike my prior route). It gets crowded–I left at 730 this morning, and it was already quite populated–and I don’t think it is reasonable to expect to run there after noon at all, but I got my 6.5 miles (admittedly through multiple looping) quite satisfactorily. Some of the terrain is also hard on the feet/knees. I am going to go out earlier tomorrow and see if I can do some street running, but it’s nice to know that, if I plan appropriately, I can get a good run here.

As most of the essentials are falling into place, I am now steeling my nerves to get on to the real agenda–return emails re work, schedule Chinese class, get my recommendation letter templates out. This is almost real life.

The view from the stairs

We’ve now secured an apartment–well, secured, at least in some sense. The rent is already high and we’ve sort-of been warned that the landlady may increase it. The place is quite nice, however, and I can’t wait to have my own collection of points in the 3-d coordinate plane. Everyone here has been wonderful, and at least Sean’s grandmother will be sad that we won’t be around as much, but I will be happier once I have my own desk, tea paraphernalia, and place to put my stinky running clothes. We will hopefully be moving on Sunday.

I registered for the GMAT and have only a few weeks to study. I am also working on getting the recommendation letter templates out. Chinese schools are *so* not on a schedule–except, apparently, as regards receiving my completed application. One has posted the 2010 app; the other, not so much. As National Holiday draws to a close, however, I’m hoping they’ll be more responsive.

I have also lately learned that the picture on the outside of the package does not necessarily reflect the contents. I bought a package of tasty dried fruits (labeled plums…maybe). Although I am in no way dissatisfied with the contents, I was mildly surprised by them.� These photos are the outside and the inside. I am likely to pursue a new package of these, as I’ve eaten almost all of them.

Package

Contents. Tasty, but not as advertised.

The weather has been intermittently astonishingly beautiful, but it is getting cold. I anticipate that we will need to use a heater soon. I understand that it doesn’t get as cold here as, say, Boston, but that it will approach freezing. I am also becoming impatient to explore more, especially on my own, and am finding my lack of language skills quite limiting. This is not surprising, and I believe that as the National Holiday finishes up–and I have my own apartment — I can get the language-learning show on the road. *Can’t wait to unpack.*

I signed up for my first race in Beijing, or outside it–only a 10k, but since registration for the Beijing Half-Marathon is closed, I’ll take what I can get. I also posted on the Beijinger website, asking for gym recommendations and info on running clubs. I’m not optimistic anyone will have anything useful to say, but let’s see what fish this net ensnares.

One of our primary concerns especially this early on, though we’ve been here for just about ten days now already, is to find an apartment. We would like to be in the North part of town, in the district called Haidian, which is where Maria’s possible MBA schools are. It’s actually where all the universities are, so it makes for a nice pseudo-collegiate atmosphere. Plus, Maria’s friend B., more on him at a later point I’m sure, lives there and would be nice to have friends around.

Our search has taken us onto all the usual internet sites, places like Craigslist, and lesser known expat sites like Beijinger, CityWeekend, etc. (look, I’m using links!) My step mother has been gracious and kind enough to help us with making the all important phone call to follow up on the ads we’ve found.

So the other day, we did a bunch of research online, got a bunch of phone numbers written down, made the necessary calls, then headed out. We ended up seeing four different places that day.

The first one was the most expensive, 4500 RMB for a 2 bd./2 ba. It was on the campus of the Geosciences University, where incidentally B. had lived before and had told us horror stories about frozen winters. It was, “nice,” in a way; a 6th story walk up. It came “furnished,” read into that whatever you’d like, and I think from now on, whenever quotes are employed, feel free to read into them whatever you feel is appropriate. These “furniture,” especially the “bed,” made me realize that hard though my father’s be, there are worse, shudder though I at that realization. It was, otherwise, modest for what it was, and obviously expensive for what it was.

And Maria just read this and said it was in no way “nice,” which, as I pointed out after correcting it, was why it was in quotes.

The next place was a decent walk away, and was next to the Forestry University. It’s entrance can be best characterized as a dungeon, overhanging detritus and all. As a general description, all these places appeared “Soviet” to me, no offense intended. Sort of, winter and/or nuclear wasteland type. This was a 1 bd./ 1 ba. for 3300 RMB. The funniest thing about this one was that it had been occupied previously by English speaking students, and probably a young girl who liked K-Pop stars judging by the stickers on the dresser mirror. This also meant there was a neat little printout guide on “How-to” do this and that, like pay for the water bill, pay the electric bill, etc., with cute-sy type remarks like “Good boy, you just paid your electric bill!” I should point out that I actually liked NONE of these. They all had their flaws, the most specific of which is “I don’t like them.” They’re too, “Chinese,” for lack of a better term, and again, no offense intended.

The third one wasn’t bad. It was in a suburby feeling kind of area, three story tall buildings in rows with vegetation and actual vegetables growing between them, kind of like English row houses actually. It was tiny, but we could’ve gotten it for 1800 RMB. No kitchen, per se, but it had a space where we could set up an electric stove. The bedroom was also up some steep stairs in what I could only imagine was the attic with low enough hanging ceilings that you actually couldn’t use half the available space. But at least it was, clean, less “Chinese” in some ways, almost like a dorm room.

Moving on the fourth one was just bad. It was still a little further away, 1 bd./ 1 ba. for 2200 RMB, very “Chinese,” and so I don’t sound like a broken record, just not right, yet again.

Then we went and looked at guitars for me :) Then we went to my father’s restaurant, Connections Bar and Grill and I actually bought a guitar. This was a whole interesting evening in and of itself but that will have to wait until another post. Back to apartments.

I think what we learned is that our standards are higher than “Chinese.” We’ve said that we want to live here, but we don’t want to become “locals” or “natives” per se. Reading what I just wrote I think that makes me sound like a horrible person, but the facts are that I’ve gotten used to some standard of living in the US and I’m not entirely comfortable shedding it. It’s like the needs we’ve developed in the States; no reason to leave them behind, plus we shouldn’t.

But it was still good to see these because I think it’s given us perspective on what it is we do and do not want in an apartment. Going forward, we should be much better prepared to identify what it is we do or do not like. As it stands, I think I can sum it up a little:

1) It needs to be in a “complex,” one with a guard, for safety reasons.
2) It needs to be a “high rise,” meaning something build relatively recently, probably within the past ten years or so, at most.
3) It needs to be near you want to be, and sometimes that may mean not near any other forms of public transportation. It’s OK to commute and travel a little when you want to go out, but if you’re going to school, save the travel time as best as possible.
4) Do stick to your standards. Just because you’re living in another country, doesn’t mean you need to change who you are. You are neither in that dire of straits or that constrained of time to have to settle for anything less than you are comfortable with.
5) Get an agent, or at least have one show you around, and if you can, get a “seller’s” agent, one that you won’t have to pay a fee to. They know the area, what’s available, have all the required phone numbers, and can get you better deal. We had an agent, a lovely Chinese girl who accompanied us on bicycle.
6) The higher up you are, the less likely it is you’ll have bugs, and the more control you will have on your ambient temperature; during the winter, the heat accumulates up high so you can at least open your windows to regulate instead of freezing down below (Thanks B. for the tip! He lives in quite a nice place by the way, in BLCU).

Whew! I’m exhausted! We’ve had so many late nights, all of them fun, so I’m going to stop now. I think I’ll exercise some form of mental discipline and try to at least update this once a night going forward until we are caught up.

Some things to look forward to:

1) Our time spent with B.
2) National Day (Happy Birthday New China!)
3) Additional business schemes
4) Job hunting news

Good. One immediate issue resolved.

Another pressing concern had been the questionable comfort provided by our hard Chinese mattress. I think I’ve actually gotten used to it. (!!)

Yesterday also marked my first run in Beijing, a late-morning 5 miles around a nearby park. Sal tracked it, and I enjoyed examining its satellite map and record greatly. I walked to Yuyuantan Park, paid the 2 yuan admission price and entered without difficulty (it was also my first solo venture in China!). It was in the upper 60′s, a little humid, and overall very pleasant (and reassuring. I *can* run here!). The park was full of groups–some of them in the hundreds of people–practicing song, dance, and performance. I am guessing this is related to National Day, which is on Oct 1. Or maybe I’m wrong and this is just what people do on Friday mornings in Beijing parks. The park itself is beautiful, with bridges over lotus ponds and plentiful foliage. The run at first reminded me of the City of Angels half-marathon, with entertainment every quarter-mile or so; then it reminded me of Venice Beach, although some parts of the park are so stately and elegant I thought it might be like running in the Huntington in San Marino.

Until near the end of the run, I was prepared to evaluate the commentary as no worse than LA. Maybe as it got later or as I got sweatier it seemed more appropriate to old Chinese guys to talk to me. Sources were old and middle-aged men (incidentally, it appears that a tiny Speedo is considered adequate coverage for a male of any age for any purpose, including swimming, grunting calisthenics, or walking around talking to people…). Some old guys swimming in the lake all called “Hallo!” and waved, and laughed when I waved back. Some men clapped as I ran past and called out some words in Chinese, and I have no idea what they said and didn’t stop to try to find out. Some middle-aged guy followed me a bit as I left the park. I tried to be friendly but to indicate he should get lost. Perhaps he really was just trying to help me cross the street, but I found him creepy and took a detour on my way home so he wouldn’t know where I lived. By the time I made it back he was no longer in sight, so I think I succeeded.

The air seemed fine to me, although it did look hazy, and later when I blew my nose I produced some black dust. I wonder if this is the sort of thing that builds up and gets to you eventually. I am also somewhat self-conscious about my clothing: I wore my gray shorts with pockets (containing my passport, Sean’s cell phone, some money, and a hand-drawn map) and a dark FBI tank top, so more modest outfits could be imagined, but it was hardly indecent for US standards. Still, the only other girl I’ve seen running in Beijing so far wore long pants and a shirt with sleeves. Tank tops do not appear to be popular here. As Sean noted, however, the locals tend to wear far more clothing than we do and do not seem uncomfortable. We are always hot when we’re out and about. Perhaps we walk farther than they do? Perhaps they are just smaller people and therefore have more surface area to volume? Maybe they don’t care about being hot? I wore jeans on yesterday’s walking and subway tour, and by the time we got back they were moist, hot, and uncomfortable. Can I wear running shorts everywhere from now on? :D

I am worried that someone official will call after me, and I won’t understand it, and won’t know when I need to stop and listen to them. Sigh. Is there any answer for this? Better Chinese will help, but even Americans in America get taken in by false officials or merely assertive strangers in unfamiliar environments. My strategy of ignoring strangers who talk to me does have this vulnerability.

Later yesterday, we visited Sean’s mother’s apartment (sans mother, and itself a minor adventure) and his dad’s bar and grill. At the latter, I met another of his cousins, a business partner of his dad’s, and had a draft Beijing beer. I love beer on tap and enjoyed the chance to sit, visit, and chill. These landmarks help me get my sense of direction, if nothing else.

Sean and I had been going to do some tourist stuff today with one of his cousins, but the cousin is sick, so that’s off. My revised agenda for today includes setting up some trades and further researching language programs. I’m finding the idea of an intensive language program with extras appealing. I found one that includes culture and martial arts classes. Neat! Locations are still difficult for me to evaluate, however. This city is very, very big.