Thursday Midday

I forgot how bad I am at keeping blogs updated. It is February 11, 2010. I guess that's obvious from the little tag on top of this text. Anyway, so fun things happen. I spilled some delicious Woodchuck Hard Apple Cider on my laptop and fried the keyboard. I'm now using my friend's old spring-loaded keyboard. It's keys are all shifted around, which is fun.

So I guess I didn't write this earlier, but my job has placed me back in San Francisco, so I'll be living there starting sometime between July and hopefully the end of the year. I need to find a roommate and a reasonably-priced place to live. Anyone know anyone? Also, if possible, I would like to find a place that sells Woodchuck in San Francisco. That would be really nice. I think typing on this old keyboard is rougher on my hand muscles than the small laptop keyboard.

I had the best day skiing probably of my life (or up there) the other day. A foot of fresh powder at Jay Peak skiing in some of the sweetest glades in the US. It was great. And that's all I have to say about the last month. Holler.

It's 2010

It's 2010. Life is flying. I think it's time this blog is flying too. By that I mean I think it deserves to be tended to again. There was a brief and short-lived side project (laforcechia.blogspot.com), but now that Perry is dead, I need this blog to satisfy my urges. To blog.

Well, I guess this is primarily a vehicle to distribute information about me to you, so here are the big news I've had recently:

1. I finished my thesis. It went poorly. Very poorly.

2. I got a job! Details to come.

Aside from that, I haven't been skiing as much as I had hoped, for various reasons; found out listening to opera makes me want to listen to more rap; and realized J-term has been less exciting because I am a senior and my friends are too busy. Which is lame.

Anyway, in my normal all-over-the-place style, I'll end with this thought: The Blueprint 3 is really really good.

End of my hiatus

Hi internet! I'm sorry I've been neglecting you for so long. Well, to let you guys know (my huge readership and everything), I've been back in the United States (los Estados Unidos) for just about three weeks now, and it's been nice. However, some of you seem to think that this means I should change the title of my blog.

I'm still not at Middlebury though, so it will still be called Not at Midd for at least another several weeks.

Anyway, just a life update - so after China banned blogspot, I got very lazy/spent my time on other things. Then I got back...and that stayed about the same. Now, however, I feel obligated to my loyal readership (one in particular!) to share a bit more. So here are some random thoughts:

1. I have four followers. When I first saw that, I was ecstatic. Four! Thats four more than zero! I feel very honored that people find my words worthwhile enough to read! Also, I feel kind of popular, which is cool.

Actually, that's the only random thought. Here is a life update though! My family and I took a vacation to Waikiki Beach, which was cool. I'm not a huge fan of writing all about my days and activities, but I thought some stuff was worth mentioning. I tried a lot of new things, including surfing, windsurfing, wakeboarding, jetskiing, parasailing, and some other cool stuff. While I tried windsurfing, my sister's board flew out from under her and owned my ankle, which kind of sucked. Unfortunately, that was not the worst thing that happened to me (by really far). While I was scuba diving, which was loads of fun, I sort of sunk into a sea urchin and it pierced my left knee with several of its spines. That was incredibly painful for about three days. I have a picture, but it's on my father's camera (sidenote: photos may be uploaded shortly). The next day was surfing, and I still had trouble walking or bending my knees. It worked out okay, but I got some rashes/burns from the board, which had nothing to do with urchins. Anyway, all in all, the activities in the vacation were pretty fantastic. My mom, though, like a lot of Asian women (and not incorrectly either I suppose), believes the sun is pure badness for the skin. Although I will refrain from commenting on that belief, I did think it was thusly ironic for our family to vacation in...Hawaii, as opposed to maybe Seattle or something. Odd right?

Anyway, there was one pretty cool and unique thing we did. Somehow, an old elementary school classmate of my dad had organized a reunion for their class from like forty years ago in Shanghai, and there he met one of his old classmates who now lives in Hawaii. Just by luck, it happened that their place was just a mile away from our hotel, and also by luck that the house they lived in/house-sat for was Paul Mitchell's (the hairdresser/mogul). It's weird being in a semi-celebrity/really rich person's beach house. It was super nice though! There were lots of pictures of hair, and oddly enough, young nudity. I thought that was pretty weird. Anyway, we ate at this Chinese restaurant after, and it turns out, the Church of Scientology church in Honolulu is in Chinatown. I don't know how important that is, but I thought it was interesting enough to write down and not forget.

Anyway, I hope this was to some degree satisfying! I promise to write more soon, as soon as I think of interesting and worthwhile things to share with you guys.

Twice in a day!

So this is short, but "Take Five" is a great song that I'm not getting tired of, and in my hotel in Taiwan, the toilet seat is heated. Yes, a heated toilet seat. Can you say awesome? Also, nothing is blocked! Imagine that!

FREE

Hi guys. So a while ago, China started blocking blogspot (adding it to the list that includes youtube, livejournal, and wordpress, among I'm sure a billion others I would never look at anyway), so I haven't been able to update. Right now I'm at the Hong Kong airport sipping on a 芒果沙冰 and, although it is heinously overpriced, it is pretty tasty. Im leaving for Taiwan in about half an hour, and I'm pretty excited, although I'm missing out on a holiday weekend in Shanghai. No big deal right? Anyway, since I'm outside of the mainland, I'm going to super take advantage and just overload my brain with youtube and update my blog every three seconds. Just kidding, but I will update hopefully everyday.

For my Middlebury readers, I was just on a Cathaway Air flight and there was some show or movie on in the plane. I woke up from my nap to see Ethan Hawke's smiling facial hair-clad face on it and almost yelled OMG ANDREW MAY! But it wasn't him. The resemblence is disturbing though. Is that spelled right?

Anyway, since my blog is mostly about random thoughts, here is my one that I wanted to mention a long time ago. Chip flavors in China are nuts. Even normal brands like Cheetos and Lays (classif flavors in the US right?) have nuts ones here. So of course there are Shrip Chips. That kind of goes without saying. But for others... well from what I can gather from my poor Chinese, looking at pictures, and reading hilariously translated English, here are some of the more interesting ones. Lays has a mixed seafood flavor, a shrimp flavor, lychee flavor, blueberry flavor, and cucumber flavor, among plenty of others. Personally, I'm too scared to try most of those. Lays still has its original though. I've only seen original Cheetos here in foreign import supermarkets. Instead they have flavors like roast hotdog and Brazilian barbeque. So weird right? Anyway, interesting fact for you. I have to run to catch my flight now, but expect more soon! I was even thinking about taking a survey/query of all the local markets to log all the interesting flavors. Look forward to it!

Cinco de Mayo!

It's that deliciously Mexican day of the year. Unfortunately, Mexican food here isn't readily accessible, and thus, I don't get too much of it. Anyway, I wanted to start with a couple one-liners (not jokes, just punctuated thoughts).

My hair is way too long. I feel like I'm making sacrifices for the promise of my afro.

My mom is here visiting Shanghai to see her mom. My uncle on that side and his son are also going to be here soon, and two days later my cousin and aunt on my dad's side will also be here. It's like my first family reunion, but not really.

My mom, incidentally, hates my hair and its length.

I cleaned my bathtub today. I am quite happy with its cleanliness.

I hope the Rockets beat the Lakers (in six?).

With that aside, I just have two thoughts to share. This one is really overdue (it was meant to be shared before it got warm here). China, or at least southern China, or at least Fudan University in Shanghai and a lot of the surrounding buildings, have yet to embrace the glory that is building insulation. For some reason, buildings here are not insulated, which makes very little sense to me, considering during the winter the temperature can hang out around 5-10 degrees Celsius, and in the summer, get unbearably hot and humid. Apparently the WHO says ideal/manageable health indoor temperature is something like 18 or 15 or something. Anyway, it means during the winter you are freezing in class/inside, and during the summer you are either melting or wasting a ton of energy on air conditioning. Both are kind of annoyingly uncomfortable and inefficient. I don't know how you can build a building that looks like a five star hotel from the outside and neglect to insulate it. Pretty ridiculous.

The second thing is of a more mature nature. So I had heard that a lot of massage parlors in China were actually covers for brothels, and have seen a lot of fishy advertisements in magazines and such. A lot of them say things like "Beautiful girls" or "Two beautiful girls" or "Two beautiful girl happy ending massage". Anyway, not being particularly interested in brothels, I never really thought much about it besides making fun of the ads' grammar and picture choice. However, I recently found out that four places near my friend's apartment are actually those cover-up brothels, I think two or three as massage parlors and the rest as hair salons (just for washing hair I think...although they probably don't do a lot of that). I've passed by a lot of those places before late at night, assuming they were karaoke bars or small hotels, and it's weird thinking back and realizing those girls downstairs just kind of lounging around are probably prostitutes. What a weird thought. Kind of makes me want to go in and ask them both awkward and illumating questions about their profession (as massuesses and professional hair-washers of course). Anyway, those are my two random thoughts. I will write a more people-based post in a couple days.

Accidental Hiatus

Hi guys, I'm back from my accidental hiatus. I've been a little dry on things to write about, which is why I haven't in a while. I know most of my readership comes from college students (and my mom), so I don't feel that bad - I know crunch time is upon you. Anyway, I will (for once) update a little about interesting things that I have seen or done lately.

1. I saw John Legend live. I took some pictures, but of course they aren't that great, so if you are curious as to what he looks like, you can Google image search John Legend. In fact, here is the link: hot right? He also sings really well. If you want to hear his music, go onto YouTube and search John Legend. I can't provide that link though, since unfortunately the wonder that is YouTube is blocked by the censors of China. The concert was pretty great, but the best part was probably when a bunch of girls behind me yelled, "WE LOVE YOU JOHN!", and I, not wanted to be bested, yelled louder, "I LOVE YOU MORE JOHN!" and proceeded to pretend to jump off the balcony to run to the stage. I didn't actually do it of course, but you know, all good fun.

2. I went to 杭州 (HangZhou), which is apparently one of China's most beautiful cities. I would have to agree - it really is beautiful, cleaner than any place in China I've been, and has a pretty legit (man-made) lake, 西湖. While I was there, I biked all the way around, and also saw the Zhang Yimo production 印象西湖. I didn't think it was very good, but you guys can give it a shot if you go.

3. I saw Waiting for Godot, a play by Samuel Beckett. I've read it like six times and I think I've seen it once or twice (or maybe not, my memories play tricks on me). I didn't like the production too much, but it might be because a. it got a little warm in there, b. the actor's didn't mesh that well, c. I think the themes are kind of depressing, d. some of the parts are kind of pretentious, or e. the set is so sparce it makes me think I wasted hella money on the ticket. Maybe I'm a Philistine, but I just don't seem to jive with this play.

Anyway, those are three semi-interesting things I have done recently. Not that interesting, but I'll try to update with more interesting thoughts soon. Please comment and let me know how you are doing!